Savoury breakfast: what to eat at home, on the go, in a hotel.

Eight o'clock, the coffee shop by the station: a flat white and a croissant, standing up. A savoury breakfast sounds like a hotel thing, or something for people with time. By eleven, mid-meeting, you're hungry and your head has slowed down.

Then you travel for work and, facing the hotel buffet, you can't think what else to take. Breakfast is nearly always the first meal I change with the people I work with. Here are healthy savoury breakfast ideas.

The morning after a sweet breakfast

You feel it mid-morning, and rarely link it to breakfast.

• Hungry by eleven. You ate at eight and you're already eyeing the biscuit tin.
• A slower head. You reread the same email and lose the thread.
• Another coffee. With another sugar.
• Too hungry at lunch. You order the first thing you see.

Why you're hungry again by eleven

In the morning, sugar moves fast. You've been fasting all night. Think of a sink with no plug: whatever you pour in goes straight down. Sugar and flour tend to reach your blood fast, and your blood sugar rises with them.

Then it can drop below where it started. Your brain is then likely to ask for more sugar, and you're hungry again.

Under pressure, you start uphill. Your stress hormone is already high when you wake, and on tightly packed days it can keep your blood sugar high before you've eaten. An all-sugar breakfast lands on top of that.

Protein and fat act as the plug. Your stomach empties more slowly, so the sugar eaten with them reaches your blood gradually.

What is a healthy savoury breakfast?

Protein, a good fat and, if you like, proper bread. In practice that means eggs, Greek yoghurt and nuts. In a comparison of two groups, people who had a sweet breakfast were hungry within two hours; with a savoury one, after five.

At home, in five minutes. Two eggs, scrambled or boiled the night before, and a plain Greek yoghurt with a handful of walnuts. If you're hungrier, a slice of wholemeal toast with olive oil or half an avocado. How much protein per meal is in my article on protein after 40.

On the go. Eggs on toast or an egg pot, and a plain yoghurt if they have one. Skip the sugar in your coffee. Dissolved in the cup, it reaches your blood with nothing to slow it.

At the hotel buffet. Your first trip is for the eggs. Then the things you always walk past: grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, smoked salmon. Fruit yoghurt is often as sweet as a pudding. Take the plain one and add nuts.

The bread stays. Savoury means no sugar. Wholemeal bread goes next to the protein, never on its own. So does plain porridge with yoghurt and nuts, minus the honey. How much depends on you. Some people handle carbs well in the morning, some less so.

The croissant, now and then. After the eggs or the yoghurt it usually raises your blood sugar less than it does alone on an empty stomach. If you fancy one, have it last.

Start with one morning. Keep the coffee, and put two eggs or a plain Greek yoghurt next to it.