There is something almost sacred about the morning routine in most Indian homes. The pressure cooker starts hissing, someone argues over the remote, and amid that beautiful, chaotic noise, a cup of chai quietly becomes breakfast. And that, says celebrity dietitian and wellness coach Dt. Simrat Kathuria, is where the trouble begins.
The Chai Ritual: A Hidden Problem
Ask almost anyone in urban India what they consume first thing in the morning, and the answer is some version of chai. Sometimes coffee. Sometimes both, in that order, before a single proper bite of food has been eaten. It feels like fuel. For many, it is genuinely the only thing that makes waking up at 6 a.m. bearable.
However, Kathuria is clear about what this habit can quietly do to the body over time. "Starting with tea or coffee on an empty stomach, many people begin their day with a cup of chai or coffee prior to their morning meal, somewhat like a ritual," she notes. "For some, this can push acidity higher and bring digestive discomfort along with it, then later it may cause swings in energy levels, firstly up then down."
Missing Protein: The Nutritional Gap
Even people who do eat breakfast often consume the wrong kind, leaving the body underprepared for the next several hours. Most standard Indian breakfasts lean heavily on refined carbohydrates: white bread with butter, plain poha, idli with a small amount of sambar, or cornflakes with milk. Kathuria explains, "A breakfast that is mostly refined carbohydrates can leave you feeling hungerish pretty soon. If you mix in eggs, paneer, curd, sprouts, or dal, it tends to raise satiety levels a bit, plus it supports muscle health in a more sturdy manner."
That word "hungerish" describes a creeping, restless feeling around 10:30 or 11 in the morning, when lunch is still hours away and you start eyeing the biscuit tin.
Convenience Shapes Breakfast Decisions
Mornings are not slow, meditative affairs for most people. They are fifteen-minute sprints involving misplaced socks and a hunt for car keys. The convenience most people reach for—packaged biscuits, tetra-packed fruit juices, sweetened cereals—creates a specific kind of problem. Kathuria states, "Biscuits, packaged juices and sweet breakfast stuff give quick energy but then it often leads to a blood sugar dip, and that somehow ramps up cravings later in the day."
The blood sugar spike and crash cycle is insidious. You eat something sweet, glucose rises quickly, the body responds with insulin, glucose drops, and suddenly you crave sugar again by mid-morning. Packaged juices are a particular trap. They feel healthy because the word "fruit" is on the label, but most commercial fruit juices contain concentrated sugars with very little fiber.
Water: The Obvious Thing Everyone Ignores
When you sleep, your body continues working—breathing, regulating temperature, processing, repairing. All of that uses water. By the time the alarm goes off, the body is already running with less fluid than it needs. "Our body loses fluids during the night while we sleep," Dt. Simrat Kathuria explains. "Well, once you wake up, water appears to aid in rehydration, the digestion and overall metabolism work."
But the first thing most people reach for in the morning is not water. It is the phone. Then chai. Water, if it happens at all, tends to come around mid-morning when someone is already thirsty—a sign that dehydration has already begun. Starting the day with a glass or two of water before anything else costs nothing and gives the digestive system something to work with when food arrives.
The Problem with Eating Too Late
There is a growing trend, partly driven by intermittent fasting culture and partly by busy schedules, of pushing the first meal later into the morning. While fasting protocols work for some under the right conditions, what Kathuria sees in practice is more complicated. "Waiting a few hours to eat can sometimes make you end up snacking more and it may mess with concentration and overall productivity in some people," she says. "It is not for everyone, but that delay, even just a small one, can have an effect."
There is no universal breakfast rule. Plenty of people thrive on an earlier first meal; others do well with a longer fasting window. The trouble comes when people delay breakfast not because it works for their body, but because they did not plan ahead, did not feel like eating, or got absorbed in their phone.
What a Better Morning Actually Looks Like
Kathuria's approach to the morning is practical and unglamorous. "A healthy morning should start with water, hydration also, and a balanced breakfast that has protein, fibre, and food that is wholesome and clean," she says. "In the early part of the day, even small adjustments during the first hour can make a lasting difference on your long term health."
The practical version looks like this: water first, before the phone and before the chai. Then a breakfast built around something with protein—even a small bowl of curd with fruit, two eggs on toast, or last night's dal with a paratha. Fibre can come from sabzi, fruit, or whole grains. It does not need to be elaborate. It just needs to be real food.
The morning is short. What you do in that first hour is a habit, and habits compound. The cumulative weight of having a decent breakfast every day for years adds up in ways that are hard to trace but easy to feel. That is reason enough to take it seriously—starting, perhaps, with tomorrow morning.
