One great problem with breakfast is that it drives up our intake of calories. The myth is that breakfast is filling, so we’ll eat less at lunchtime. But this myth (the so-called satiety myth, after satis, the Latin for “enough”) has been exposed repeatedly. Careful experiments show that a light breakfast of, say, 350 calories, will leave unchanged the amount people eat at lunchtime; while a heavy breakfast of, say, 625 calories, will reduce lunchtime consumption by only about 150 calories. Breakfast piles on the calories.

And breakfast not only fails to induce satiety; it can even do the opposite and stimulate hunger. Breakfast induces peaks in blood glucose levels, which ar...