Family life

This is what kids' breakfasts look like around the world

From noodle soup to Spam, there are so many ways to start your kid's day off right! Get inspired by these dishes from across the globe.

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Sick of serving Cheerios every morning? Up your breakfast game by checking out these inspiring images of kids breakfast from across the globe. And once you’ve mastered breakfast, scroll a little further to see beautiful images of kids’ diets from photographer Gregg Segal’s new book Daily Bread: What Kids Eat Around the World.

girl eating noodles for breakfast

Vietnam

This two-year-old eats rice noodle soup cooked in a pork and sour fruit (called, qủa sấu) broth with pork and mushroom meatballs. Fun fact: the Vietnamese wake up early to enjoy a full breakfast before school and work. They also eat freshly cooked meals and tend to shy away from highly processed or frozen foods and ready meals.

young girl eating omelette

Hawaii, United States

This young girl in Hawaii starts her morning with a Spam bowl: rice, teriyaki spam, and scrambled eggs.

young boy eating breakfast

The Maldives

This is a simple Maldivian breakfast. Kids eat roti with mashuni (pronounced mas-huni) and black or milk tea. Mashuni is a mix of tuna with desiccated coconut with onions and some chilli to taste. Bananas are easily available so they make a great side for breakfast, too.

two kids eating breakfast

Scotland

Tucking into some traditional Scott’s porridge (Scottish milled oats warmed up with milk or water and a pinch of salt or sugar) with raspberries and banana before heading off to school.

kids eating breakfast

Australia

Breakfast in this Aussie household is quite simple as the boys prefer extra sleep to a fussy meal. Weet-bix with banana, sultans and milk and toast with Vegemite are a staple or sometimes a good crumpet with plenty of butter and honey!

kids sitting around a table eating breakfast

Botswana

Kids in Botswana often have a soft porridge called bogobe for breakfast. It’s typically made with sorghum or millet flour that is cooked into a soft paste.

child eating traditional Dutch breakfast

The Netherlands

On weekends, Dutch kids will have a special treat of boterham met hagelslag, Dutch for a sandwich with chocolate sprinkles. Yum!

Looking for more inspiration? In his new photography book, Daily Bread: What Kids Eat Around the World, Gregg Segal asked kids in different countries to keep a detailed journal of what they ate in a week as part of his “Daily Bread” challenge. Once the journal was completed, Segal would set up a shoot where the dishes were recreated and placed around the kid who ate them. These stunning portraits are the result. Take a look:

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Can you guess what percent of our calories come from vegetables in the US? Less than 1%! Looking at all of the kids’ food I photographed, not just in the US, but all over the world, greens were consistently absent. Parents often say, “My kid won’t eat vegetables.” They throw up their hands. “I put healthy food in front of them, but they only like pizza.” You can’t force kids to eat healthy foods, but if you give them the choice, they’ll choose salt, fat, and sugar over leafy greens because salt, fat, and sugar appeal to our deepest, primal cravings stretching back to our caveman days! If you don’t introduce whipped cream Frappuccinos, sautéed spinach with a little butter and salt isn’t bad. #dailybread #eatyourgreens #whatkidseat #parenting #primalcravings #diet #powerhousebooks

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Thayla, Brasilia, 2018. Most poor kids in Brasil attend school to be able to eat, but the government has failed to provide adequate school lunches, offering little more than milk and crackers or canned beans. Thayla wishes she had more flavors in her diet and could afford to eat feijoada. If she had enough money, she’d buy clothes for the street kids who are worse off than her. Someday, she’d like to be a teacher. In Brazil, corporate food is finding ways to profit from the poorest consumers, reaching ever more remote places. Nestle hires micro-entrepreneurs, mom and pops who trundle thru villages with carts selling cheap processed snacks. A generation ago, Brazil’s poor were underfed. Today, 50% of the population is overweight. The UN should be focused not only at calorie intake but nutrient. #dailybread #powerhousebooks #whatkidseat #diet #nutrition #kids #brazil #schoollunch

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One more from Brazil. Ayme has been raised on a mostly indigenous diet. Her dad is a forest engineer and nutritionist and her mom @anaboquadi researches the culinary and medicinal uses of foods from the Cerrado – and has a great little vegan restaurant, Buriti Zen in Brasilia (for all you locals). Try the walnut cassava moqueca and cauliflower soufflé with cupuaçu cream. Ayme’s earliest memory of food is her mama’s milk. Thinking of this makes her want to return to that time and nurse again. Açaí is Ayme’s favorite food and part of her heritage; her great grandmother was an açaí merchant who sold her berries at Ver-o-peso Market in Belém. From working on Daily Bread, Ayme realized that she eats many things that other kids don’t – like lots of fresh veggies. #dailybread #powerhousebooks #plantprotein #whatkidseat #culture #kids #eatyourgreens #diet #indigenous #buriti #buritizen

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Congratulations to @greggsegal 👏🏽 His book Daily Bread: What Kids Eat Around the World is officially on sale today! 🌏 . . . As globalization alters our relationship to food, photographer Gregg Segal has embarked on a global project asking kids from around the world to take his “Daily Bread” challenge. Each child keeps a detailed journal of everything they eat in a week, and then Segal stages an elaborate portrait of them surrounded by the foods they consumed. The colorful and hyper-detailed results tell a unique story of multiculturalism and how we nourish ourselves at the dawn of the 21st century. From Los Angeles to Sao Paulo, Dakar to Hamburg, Dubai to Mumbai we come to understand that regardless of how small and interconnected the world seems to become each year, diverse pockets of traditional cultures still exist on each continent, eating largely the same way they have been for hundreds of years. It is this rich tapestry that Segal captures with care and appreciation, showcasing the page-after-page charm of Daily Bread. Contrasted with the packaged and processed foods consumed primarily in developed nations, questions about health and sustainability are raised and the book serves as a catalyst for consideration of our status quo. There’s an old adage, “The hand that stirs the pot rules the world.” Big Food is stirring the pot for children all over the world. Nonetheless, there are regions and communities where slow food will never be displaced by junk food, where home-cooked meals are the bedrock of family and culture, and where love and pride are expressed in the aromas of stews and curries. . . . #foodforthought #childrensdiets #foodculture #photography #foodjournal #children #photobooks #powerhousebooks #greggsegal #dailybread #dailybreadchallenge

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Jesus, photographed in 2016 for Daily Bread. Jesus was raised by his mom, who was a teenager when she left her family and home in Michoacán, Mexico and made her way to Los Angeles. Jesus, his mom and his 2 older sisters shared a one-bedroom apartment south of downtown infested with roaches and rodents. Jesus saw little of his dad whom they discovered had another family. The only meal Jesus ate most days was dinner. His 1 hour commute to school didn’t leave time for breakfast and the school lunch was so unappetizing, a piece of fruit was all he could stomach. Mom made chicken and rice most nights. On special occasions she’d make Jesus’ favorite: tamales with red chile sauce. Growing up, Jesus was aware there were people worse off than him. He joined a student organization to feed the homeless and volunteered with @peaceoverviolence a non-profit helping victims of domestic abuse. Jesus just finished his sophomore year @harvard, with a double major of applied mathematics and psychology. Jesus has had more opportunities than he could ever have imagined, though knows there are obstacles ahead. @Erin cc2la thank you. #dailybread #whatkidseat #schoollunch #mom #successstory #proud #humbling

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Feeling inspired, yet?

Read more:
5 easy make-ahead breakfasts to speed up your morning routine
12 quick and easy on-the-go breakfast recipes

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