When I heard that the oldest woman in the world died yesterday, the first thing I wanted to know was what did she eat. It didn’t take long to find out. First I heard it on the radio, then I read in usatoday.com that Susannah Mushatt Jones ate eggs, bacon, and grits.
Did that bit of information sink in yet? E-G-G-S! If you’ve followed my blog at any length, you surely know by now that I love eggs. This morning I ate two eggs and a half of a pan pork sausage. It filled me up for hours. I still am amazed at how eggs are so filling.
Why do you think that food is a popular thing to blog about? Food satisfies, nourishes, and we can’t live without it. Simply put, it just tastes good.
I am convinced that good ol’ southern breakfast like eggs, bacon or sausage, and grits is a healthy way to start the day. That type of breakfast helps to get rid of snacking cravings.
So let’s break down the protein in Susannah’s daily breakfast. Since the report says she ate eggs, I assume she ate more than one. Let’s say she ate two pieces of bacon and one serving of grits. The protein would equal to the following:
- 2 large eggs – 12 g protein
- 2 slice bacon – 6 g protein
- 1 cup grits – 3.4 g protein
That breakfast totals to 21.4 g protein. I don’t know about you, but that excites me. I’ve heard so much about reasons you shouldn’t eat eggs or that it’s best to only eat the whites. If I’m going to eat eggs, I’m not leaving out the yolk. Lately, more people have been expressing their opinions about the benefits of eggs, that they aren’t so bad after all.
I’m planning to continue eating my southern breakfast – including adding the grits. Grits are good, especially with salt, pepper, and butter (the real kind). I’m a southern gal from Texas and happen to have had a grandmother who was born the same year as Susannah Jones, 1899.
My grandmother ate breakfast, and she handed down the old-fashioned tradition to my mother. My grandmother truly was a strong woman. She and my grandfather had ten children. He died at an early age, and she continued to raise the kids.
She wasn’t one to go to the doctor even though her own grandfather was one. But she cooked and ate nutritious food from the garden. Her exercise was gardening. As she grew older, she worked hard in her garden without help.
My grandmother was a praying woman and was a Sunday school teacher for many years. I guess every one of us grandchildren got to go with her to Sunday school. It always made her so happy when we stayed overnight with her on a Saturday night and got up early the next morning to be her guest at church. She made sure we were up early to have breakfast before we would go.
Nutrition and health, like eating a hearty early meal with eggs, can be learned from such people as Susannah. For instance, her secret to living a long life was sleep and bacon. In fact, I think she would have liked this sign I saw in a Texas restaurant:
I’m with you. I love eating eggs. Egg whites alone don’t work for me. We also use real butter. Have you read about the health benefits of using butter from grass fed cows?