A Soy-Free Breakfast

Hello! Welcome to Beyond Soy!

Breakfast can be a tricky meal to eat soy-free, even it doesn't seem that way initially. The traditional breakfast foods of eggs, bacon (mmm tasty, tasty bacon), sausage, hash browns, toast, etc. are all easy to make soy-free. Even waffles and pancakes are fairly easy to make without using soy (you just need to make homemade batter and not use a mix). Even fake maple syrup is soy-free. 

image via pixabay

Still, we've found that breakfast can be a surprisingly challenging meal. It can be difficult to find something that we want to make/eat in the morning that is still soy-free. We want breakfast to be easy! (After just getting out of bed, you shouldn't need to do a lot of thinking to ensure your breakfast is soy-free) Most of the breakfast food listed above are not grab-and-go. I rarely want to spend the time or effort to make a highly involved breakfast. And, if I'm honest, sometimes even making toast is too much effort for me in the morning. Even if frying a couple of eggs isn't actually that hard, it can easily feel like too much work having just gotten out of bed. To solve this problem, we've identified a couple of quick and easy breakfast options that we like to eat that don't have soy in them.  

A couple of easy food options that work for us: toast, English muffins, yogurt, oatmeal, fruit, and cereal.

• Toast and English muffins are some of our favorites. They are easy to throw in the toaster without much work. After toasting, we throw on some butter or jam and can eat them on go if necessary. When eating toast or English muffins, make sure that the bread is soy-free!
• Yogurt is a great soy-free option. We haven't come across regular yogurt that has soy, so it seems to be pretty safe. We buy the single serve yogurt cups and Ashley has one of them for breakfast just about every morning.
• Oatmeal is a little more involved (you'll need to boil water or use a microwave), but it can be a good option for a soy-free breakfast. Oatmeal is Tom's go-to breakfast. Like yogurt, oatmeal packets are pretty much guaranteed to be soy-free, so they can offer some peace of mind when your mind hasn't fully woken up yet. Oatmeal is also a good choice at breakfast buffets or hotel continental breakfasts.
• Fresh Fruit is great option for breakfast on the go--especially if you prep it ahead of time. We like to pre-slice apples (use an apple slicer; it is so easy!) or oranges to make them easy to snack on. Grabbing some apple slices or a banana in the mornings is usually enough food to get us going.
• Cereal can also be soy-free. You will need to read the ingredient list when you purchase it, but many breakfast cereals are soy-free. Our favorite is Honey Nut Cheerios, but there are plenty of soy-free options to choose from. A bowl of cereal with almond milk (don't use soy milk!) is an easy option for an soy-free breakfast. 

image via pixabay

What about breakfast bars or pop tarts? Unfortunately, most pre-packaged breakfast foods contain soy. You can always check the ingredient list of your favorite on-the-go breakfast, but most will have soybean oil. If you need to have something in a wrapper in the mornings, consider Pro Bars. They can be soy-free (depending on the flavor) and provide plenty of energy to get your day going.

One quick note: If you like bagels, Pepperidge Farm bagels are soy free! It took us awhile to find them, but now we have bagels we can eat! Yay!

Being smart about your breakfast food choices can make it easy to have a safe, soy-free breakfast with minimal effort or even on-the-go. Eating a soy-free meal doesn't need to be labor-intensive. Choose your foods wisely, read the ingredient labels, and eat away!