What do you have for breakfast?

December 2nd, 2024 — read all survey responses — download as CSV

In my friend network

This all started because a friend mentioned they cook breakfast every morning and I thought that was INSANE. I asked 2 more friends and they said the same thing. I mostly only drink coffee in the mornings, so I needed to know: was I the weird one, or were they?

So I sent this survey to friends, and I now had empirical proof: I am the weird one.

I still didn't really believe these results though. I don't feel like only having coffee in the morning is that weird. I was so sure it was more common. So I started wondering, what if it's not me, but them? What if I just have a weird group of friends??

In my wider Ithaca network

I posted it on r/ithaca and got over 200 responses! I also sent it to friends/family around the country.

I was right. In the bigger sample, it's way more common to just drink coffee/not eat anything for breakfast:

• 🍌 (eat something minimal) 104
• 🍳 (cook breakfast) 101
• ☕️ (just coffee / nothing) 72
• 💰 (buy it) 6

So, correction to the empirical proof: I am not (that) weird after all!!

What did people say about their breakfast?

There was a free form "anything else you'd like to add?" section that 154 people filled out, writing a total of 3,553 words. I did some preprocessing to extract just the breakfast items from each response, and made a word cloud:

The top 5 breakfast items mentioned were:

• egg (78)
• toast (46)
• oatmeal (44)
• yogurt (25)
  • (exactly two people spelled it "yoghurt")
• cheese (21)
  • (cream (4), cottage (3), shredded (2))

You can read all 154 survey responses here. One of the themes that stuck out to me was how many responses were "aspirational", talking about what they WOULD love to do if they had time & energy:

Best version of myself drinks an espresso w an unflavored seltzer. Two eggs over easy and a protein shake. Maybe a handful of blueberries. I usually end up with just the espresso and eggs, but I very rarely skip.

If I’m being honest- most days are coffee. But I intend to eat breakfast every morning

If I was prepared/motivated, I'd have avocado slices on a just egg patty with cholula hot sauce and slice of sourdough toast. But I usually never eat :)

Another theme I totally didn't expect was seasonal breakfast routines:

oatmeal or quick poached egg with toast in winter, granola & yogurt & berries in summer

We used to alternate between oatmeal in the winter and smoothie in the summer but for the past year and a half it’s been smoothie szn

Microwave oatmeal in the winter, cereal in the summer

Yogurt w/fruit and nuts OR smoothie for warm weather. Oatmeal or toast for cold weather. Eggs/pancakes for weekends (this is not seasonal weirdly)

Perhaps my favorite category is the people who not only treat themselves to a nice breakfast every morning, but also enjoy the process:

Changes every few weeks---right now it's eggs & rice & kimchi! Cooking is often the most relaxing part of my day, so it's nice to spend time in the morning making something that tastes & feels good.

It's been over a year since my last phase of consistently making myself a nice breakfast. I work from home, I don't really have an excuse. I think I lost something when I let that habit go. Do I really have more important things to do, or do I feel like effort spent on myself is "not worth it"?

I had a phase where I was really obsessed with Joe Pera. He had one episode called Joe Pera Takes You To Breakfast that I must've watched a dozen times. I used to watch it after making myself a really nice bowl of oatmeal with all the berries & maple syrup. Not much really happens in this episode, other than Joe trying to decide what to have for breakfast, and asking the same question to his friends & loved ones.

After running this survey I felt inspired to take that habit up again. It was nice to spend a few minutes in the kitchen before jumping straight to my laptop. I thought about how many of my friends are early morning people, perhaps preparing their breakfast right now as I did mine. It made me feel a little closer, knowing I was joining them in this routine.

And just then I got a text from my neighbor, who I guess was having the exact same thought that I was having, at the same time. There were no words, just a picture:

It made me smile wide. Thank you for making my day, Liv.

And thank you for reading & filling out my silly little survey 💜

— Omar