Why You’ll Recognize The Breakfast Kamala Harris Eats Every Day (And How To Make It Healthier) – Health Digest

Vice President Kamala Harris has been wrapping up her presidential campaign by visiting several battleground states and appearing in a cameo on “Saturday Night Live.” Harris’ campaign schedule might seem exhausting for anyone, but she makes sure every day starts with a solid workout and healthy breakfast.

On Pro Football Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe’s “Club Shay Shay” podcast, Harris says she powers her 15-hour days with a spinach omelet with a side of chicken apple sausage and toast. Harris’ breakfast provides a whopping 28 grams of protein to keep her full through her various appearances in several cities in a day.

The American Society for Nutrition suggests balancing your protein intake between all three meals rather than loading up on protein at dinner. High-protein breakfasts also support your muscles and increase the number of calories you burn every day. Protein also keeps your blood sugar in balance, even if your breakfast includes white toast. Although Harris’ breakfast is high in sodium, it’s very nutrient-dense if you look at the vitamins and minerals.

When analyzing the nutrition of Kamala Harris’ breakfast, we assumed that she chose two slices of wheat bread, a cup of raw spinach in her omelet, two large eggs, and a 56-gram serving of Aidells chicken and apple breakfast sausage. Those foods total 429 calories with 4 grams of fiber and fewer than 8 grams of sugar. The fiber will keep her digestive system healthy, and the relatively low sugar will reduce her risk of diabetes.

Harris’ breakfast is a good source of minerals such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and selenium. It also provides at least 10% of most of the necessary vitamins. This breakfast is particularly high in vitamin A, vitamin K, and folate. Harris also supports her cognitive health with 56% of the daily value of choline in this breakfast. Because this breakfast is high in protein, Harris gets at least 40% of the recommended amount of essential amino acids plus other amino acids such as cystine and tyrosine.

Harris’s breakfast has 900 milligrams of sodium, which is 39% of the recommended sodium limit of 2,300 milligrams per day. A high sodium diet can elevate your blood pressure, so it might be a good idea to add some potassium to her breakfast to counterbalance the sodium. Her current breakfast has 387 milligrams of potassium, which is about 15% of her daily needs. Adding a small banana to her breakfast will boost her potassium to almost 750 milligrams. Because women over 50 need 1,200 milligrams of calcium per day, Harris’ breakfast only has 15% of her daily needs. Adding a glass of unsweetened almond milk adds only 30 calories but provides 482 milligrams of calcium.

Although Harris told Sharpe how much she likes chicken apple sausage, it’s high in fat. A 56-gram serving of chicken and apple breakfast sausage has 8 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, and 55 milligrams of cholesterol. The two eggs from the omelet also add 3 grams of saturated fat and 372 milligrams of cholesterol. The American Heart Association suggests keeping your dietary cholesterol as low as possible as part of a healthy diet while limiting your saturated fat to 6% of your daily calories. That’s about 13 grams of saturated fat for a 2,000-calorie diet. Harris could swap out her eggs for egg whites, but she’ll be missing out on the necessary choline found in the yolk.