I am not really a breakfast eater, weekdays are too early for me to really eat anything. On weekends I normally eat a non sugary breakfast, or sometimes bread with honey. However, if on holidays I am staying at a hotel where breakfast is included (not really often) I always look forward to Nutella! Its like my special holiday treat.

Inviting!!

If by chocolate you mean cocoa solids + cocoa butter + sugar, then I abstain.

If you mean cocoa products, then I will be the first to admit that cocoa powder has made its way into a ton of breakfast dishes for me. From smoothies, to raosted nuts, to dusting bananas and almond butter.

I spent a lot of my growing-up years in Holland, which meant Nutella and hagelslag before school. (Followed up by conniving my mother into getting me "convenient" Pop-Tarts for breakfast once we got back to the States.) I love something sweet to start my day, and can't get enough chocolate!

Chocolate for breakfast be it in a croissant or spread over a piece of bread is very indulgent for me. I guess its all those years of catholic guilt that has been pounded in my head.

totally agreeing with scotchncoffee. I might be an adult now, but I still have my chocolate milk in the morning! :)

I'll have nutella on bread in the morning if I'm desperate. It doesn't keep me full long enough. I think once in awhile is ok. Decadent to me is my favorite apple raisin cake for breakfast. ;D

On my workout days I always eat something substanial for breakfast, typically eggs. But on my off days, if I have some brownies laying around, leftover cake, cookies... they are all fair game for breakfast with a good cup of strong coffee! I have a major sweet tooth and sweets for breakfast with some coffee always sounds good to me!

I love Nutella. We might not have it everyday but some Nutella spread on a piece of whole wheat bread or even a bagel is so good for breakfast. I always have at least one jar of it at home. :)

Ugh! I couldn't eat anything sweet early in the morning; it just sounds nauseating. I usually have eggs and toast for breakfast.

When I was backpacking around Europe, this is what you ate in your hostel. A roll (sometimes quite stale) and nutella. Honestly, it set me up perfectly for the day!

I know the prevailing wisdom is that you're supposed to eat a mostly protein-y breakfast, but for me a small serving of simple carbs (as long as we're talking toast and homemade jam OR nutella) does the trick and keeps me going until lunch. I prefer it to eggs, which seem to weigh me down. Maybe it's not technically nutritionally correct, but it works for me!

I didn't even realize this was a concern. Surely my piece of toast with some nutella is better than a grease laden McMuffin. I don't really like calling people on the internet idiots but... the women that sued nutella is an idiot.

Don't get me wrong, I love Nutella, but just because it's better for you than junk food doesn't mean that it's GOOD for you! There are tons of healthy breakfast options out there, and while we grown-ups can suffer through the morning after a sugary start to the day, it's just not nice to start your kids off that way. Save the Nutella for special treats!

It's amusing to hear about cultural morays in terms of eating breakfast. Especially if you eat alone. Have whatever you want, but the idea that Nutella is healthy is absurd. One article criticizing the Fruit Loop's made up certifcation label joked that the cereal is definetly healthier than crack. So long as one can feel okay that day, I think Nutella is wonderful. But if I ate that on an empty stomach instead of the usual protein and fruit, I'd be exhausted all day!

yes...a chocolate croissant or chocolate chip pancakes are indulgent...so what?!?! As long as you don't Indulge daily, it should be acceptable for us to have a treat every once in a while. And I can't believe that lady sued the Nutella company...does she not read nutrition labels?!?!?! That stuff is a wonder food, lower in calories and sugar than regulat peanut butter or jelly, and has fiber and protein...morons...

I have my jar of nutella but I rarely if ever eat it with breakfast actually. Chocolate chip pancakes and the like are weekend breakfasts in my family or vacation breakfasts. Sweet stuff like that (basically candy) is best reserved for special occasion breakfast.

I will say though the label on Nutella cracks me up. It tries SO hard to make it look healthy. It even says so all over the label and is like "feed it to your kids! It has milk in it! Whoohoo! " Yes its delicious, but healthy? Not so much. It has like 200 calories per spoonful.

I enjoy many of the similar products (cocoa added almond butter is great) with veggies all day. Nothing better with bacon and eggs then nice crisp vegetables with a bit of nutty cocoa goodness. But usually Nutella is too sweet for me. But I'd take it over most peanut butters any day because it's made with real ingredients not fake fats and oils (Yugh!).

@NicodemusBC And you think palm oil is less "fake" than soybean oil? please.

I missed the lawsuit part. I think we've all gone insane with personal lawsuits. That said, it galls me that they conducted false advertising, and plus there's palm oil in the product which destroys rainforests. Which means only one thing - soon they'll be claiming the product is "green" as well.

I admit that I introduced chocolate Special K to my kids to get them to eat non-totally sugared cereal. I have since been adding dark chocolate to Kashi cereal, and its a reliable way to make sure they get enough fiber in their diet.

This morning for breakfast we had the most amazing pain au chocolat at a new French bakery in our neighborhood. And we also LOVE the Trader Joe's frozen raw ones that you let rise overnight and then bake. Mmmm. So I would say I have chocolate in the form of pain au chocolate at least once a week. And I feel great about it--physically and mentally. :D

I almost never eat nutella for breakfast because, as many people point out, it's just not filling. Every now and then, though, I'll put it on a toasted English muffin with some butter. Honestly, I'm not pretending it's healthy, but it's really not any worse than butter and jam (and to me, it's ever so slightly more filling as it has more protein than jam).

Are you kidding? Do you have kids? Have you dealt with kids in large numbers? Have you dealt with them high on sugar? Yes, lots of people feed their children garbage or nothing for breakfast. It's called poverty, and it's not somewhere you want to go. People reading this blog are well able to provide actual food with more than a gram or two of protein for their children's breakfast.

Now, if you're all grown up and decide you want to eat Nutella on toast, go to it. I love Nutella and I have had mornings that scream for the comfort of chocolate. But lord don't deliver your Nutella'ed child to her teacher and walk out before the hungry/cranky hits. That's just wrong.

Asa chocolate fiend I think the occasional indulgence is fine but not the processed food part. Smitten Kitchen and other sites have recipes for nutella-like spreads with purer ingredients - chocoalte and hazlenuts sans the whole extra sugar, corn syrup, or querstionable oils. My kids eat waffles or toast with acouple drops of honey and I love to indulge once in awhile (ok, more!) but let it be natural, good quality ingredients like dark chocolate and you're both enjoying and not consuming total crap.

one day I'll have time to type without massive typos again! embarassing...

I just did a pretty big research project about Nutella for school. I think it's something like 55g of sugar per serving. I think it's delicious and I'll have a scoop for after dinner but I don't think it's suitable for breakfast. However, I don't think a lot of "breakfast" foods are suitable for breakfast these days!

I had a brief babysitting stint with a child who every morning screamed for chocolate bread. The first day I was like, "Excuse me?" and - red-faced and geared up for a proper tantrum she'd yell, "CHOCOLATE BREAD! I WANT CHOCOLATE BREAD!" I looked around for a dark loaf cake, babka - anything that made sense until her mother stormed into the kitchen, opened up the cabinet and slammed down a jar of Nutella. And glared at me. Like I was an idiot. Perhaps this makes me a bit biased, but I'm saying "no" to Nutella as breakfast. I reserve it for a dessert substitute - spooned straight from the jar like a criminal or smeared on each bite of a banana.

When I first moved to France I remember the kid in me having a field day when I saw how many chocolatey things were available here for breakfast. Now it just seems normal to me. I love some dark chocolate chopped and sprinkled on a good bowl of oat meal, but just a tiny bit - a little goes a long way.

id rather just eat it by the spoonful than pretend it's something of a meal.

I think as long as you eat a well-balanced breakfast with adequate amounts of carbs and protein, a little something indulgent won't hurt.

@karelise Well said, I think there is more to this than just a product - the resources used plus the artificial sugars are less healthy than honey or even dark chocolate if done correctly.

I spent several summers as an exchange student living with a French family and they always had Nutella with baguette as an option for le petit-dejeuner.

We love Nutella in our house. My little girl loves it but we only let her have it about 1-2 times a month. There is nothing wrong with it once in awhile and if you pair it some fruits, whole wheat toast and milk, it is a balanced meal. Plus, there are many people who start their days with a very large mocha. Just saying.

I rarely eat breakfast, so if I do have an English muffin with Nutella in the mornings, I figure it's better than nothing. And better than eating it off a spoon later.

Protein for breakfast should be a staple. Do you know what your required nutritional daily value for grains/carbs is? 0.

@happycamper2168: exactly. Pushing Nutella as a breakfast item for kids is a very, very bad idea and painful for any adult that has to deal with that child after breakfast. It's being heavily advertised in parenting mags as an alternative to peanut butter, which will hold a child together a lot longer and with less fuss than this jar of crack. So, question: is this a sponsored post? Because the lede specifically suggests it as a good breakfast for kiddos. What y'all over 18 eat for breakfast is 100% on you, but the crap shoveled into kids is another story.

This reminds me of those funny commercials for sugary cereals, saying that the cereal can be "part of a healthy breakfast" that includes toast, juice, etc. So basically it is not the healthy part of the breakfast! That being said, I do let my picky-eater daughter have nutella and peanut butter together on a 100% whole wheat bagel or english muffin for breakfast sometimes. She never has any behavior problems whatsoever, (even after eating that)! I think it's fairly balanced with the fiber and protein, even with the nutella. At least better than the sugary cereals or frozen waffles with syrup that she would otherwise be eating.

Chocolate for breakfast? Absolutely.

Cocoa-flavored sugar and palm oil for breakfast? No way.

My husband has a multigrain English muffin from Trader Joe's, toasted with a thick slab of nutella every morning. I have mine with pb&j and always secretly judged him for being so indulgent in the morning but maybe he was onto somethign after all!

The argument in the Slate article appears to be that it's not bad since Americans eat a lot of things that are worse. So how exactly does it make it not bad? All this does is illustrate how bad the American diet is. Nutella is mostly sugar and palm oil; eat it if you must, but don't kid yourself that it's some kind of health food just because it's slightly less sugary than Froot Loops.

I recently tried a Nutella, banana, and raspberry jelly sandwich for breakfast. Highly recommended.

Great posts! I would love to send ALL OF YOU a sample of our Pain au Chocolat commonly known as Chocolate croissants! I love making them!! I have made over 12,000 of them and worn out 5 rolling pins! lol Tell you what if you are in the LA area or attend one of the Farmer's Markets we are at I will give you one of our croissants and you be the judge. If you are living out of town and have a Fed Ex account I'll send you one :)

This is what we do...
http://patch.com/A-jNVp
Cheers everyone!

Geez, so many high and mighty people. As minuet42 pointed out, and as I have experienced, eating Nutella and hagelslaag is practically a tradition in Holland for CHILDREN. Yes, oh my god, these people feed their children chocolate for breakfast and send them to school afterwards. And nothing bad happens. So stop condemning people who dare to feed their kids Nutella and not some organic, gluten free, fat free, everything free breakfast.

And cminnyc- the Dutch, and the French for that matter (also fond of chocolatey breakfasts) are not all poverty stricken.

If I'm going to have silly bread with chocolate you can bet your last pair of shoes it's going to be a quality croissant with some dark chocolate ooze all up in the middle and on top of it. And yes, I do have that every morning...when I'm on vacation. Hubs can drag me out to the sights at ungodly morning hours after I've had my chocolate breakfast.

What we do, almost daily though not always for breakfast, is have chocolate milk. Nesquik (which is probably the devil, yes) now make a version with only 3g of sugar per 2Tbsp. That's probably way too much for some folks, but it's way less than the regular Quik (which is more like 30), and it tastes nasty when you eat it right out of the box, so that's something I don't have to worry about the kids doing. I love it. And I don't feel worried or guilty about it one bit. It's our one vice in a home full of produce, lean meat, whole grains, and homemade inconvenient snacks.

Heh. What grabbed me about that article wasn't whether Nutella is healthy or not for breakfast, and it wasn't whether Americans eat too much sugar for breakfast (although I have definitely been guilty of grabbing a pop tart on the way out - if I eat breakfast at all. I know, I know...).

It's that some idiot actually sued the company because she didn't bother reading the nutrition information, relying solely on advertising that - surprise, surprise! - is designed to SELL THE PRODUCT.

This is what we've come to?

Ingredients: sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey, lecithin, vanillin (artificial flavor).
Healthy compared to a pop tart? sure!
If you have want to eat it everytday go ahead, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's healthy.

I dont think it's high and mighty to suggest eating real food instead of fake crap. And I dont think anyone even mentioned gluten-free or organic in this case. Just high quality versus prepackaged ingredients you can't recognize or pronounce. Have you seen the obesity in this country? It's not like people are eating just a smidgen of nutella and then healthy homemade meals the reast of the day which is the difference between this country and many others ( generalization but still there is truth to this). Yes they eat chocolate in France and beautiful pastries - but they are more often balanced by high quality ingredients and balanced by appropriately portioned, more or less made from scratch meals.

I love chocolate and indulge often - but I dont feed my kids too much processed foods - I want them to understand that food is something you can make and comes from real, accesible ingredients.