Can breakfast be soup?

Think about your morning table. Can you smell toast? Can you hear crunchy cereal pour into a bowl? Is there a cold glass of milk beside it?

Those are foods lots of children eat in the morning. But what about a bowl of soup? Maybe that sounds a little funny. Can breakfast be soup?

Let's start with the night. Your supper is the last food you eat each day. While you sleep, you eat nothing for many hours. Those hours are called a fast, which means a long time without eating.

All night long, your body keeps working. Your heart beats, and you breathe slow and soft. That work slowly uses up the food from your supper. By the time the sun comes up, that supper is all used up.

When you wake up, your tummy is empty after the fast. Your body needs food now, so you can run and play. You eat to break your fast. That is how breakfast got its name!

So breakfast is the first meal you eat after you wake up. It can be warm toast with butter, or scrambled eggs, or a yellow banana. Now picture a bowl of hot soup on your morning table. Could that soup break your fast too?

Yes, it could! Warm soup fills your empty tummy with good food, just like toast or cereal does. Breakfast is about when you eat, not which food is in your bowl. So a morning bowl of soup breaks your fast just fine.

One word to remember: fast. Yes, soup can be breakfast, because any food that ends your night fast is breakfast.

Sleep tight, and may your next breakfast warm your tummy, whatever is in your bowl.