Flapjacks at dinner? Omelets for lunch? You may be a breakfastarian

Way back in the late 1970s, Florida Orange Growers launched an orange juice marketing campaign with the slogan, “It isn’t just for breakfast anymore.”

These days, not even breakfast is just for breakfast anymore.

Sure, folks for years have occasionally or frequently been eating traditional breakfast foods – eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes, waffles – at times other than morning. But now, those biggest fans have united for a social-media movement and dubbed themselves “breakfastarians.”

They have a website, gobreakfastarian.org, are on Twitter, distribute “Go Breakfastarian” buttons, even have a slogan that – though not quite as simple and catchy as “got milk? – rivals the old orange one: “See the light. Eat breakfast at night.”

And why not? We watch our “Game of Thrones” and “Modern Family” whenever we please, thanks to DVRs and “on demand” services. And cold pizza for breakfast has been a staple of college students’ diet for generations now. Turnabout is fair play.

At the Perko’s Cafe on Oakdale Road on Tuesday evening, servers Tristina Chipponeri and Thomas Hunt said that at lunchtime and dinnertime, at least a quarter of their customers order breakfast, which is served all day.

What do they order? “It’s all over the board,” Chipponeri said – pancakes, omelets, skillet meals, steak and eggs.

“At almost every table, at least one person, one out of four, has breakfast,” Hunt added.

Phanary Oun, working the counter at the Jack in the Box at Tully Road and Standiford Avenue on Tuesday night, had to her left a prominent lighted menu of breakfast foods served at all hours: the Loaded Breakfast Sandwich, the Jumbo Breakfast Platter and more. “It’s really popular – that’s why we do serve it all day,” she said. “There’s always those people who want breakfast at midnight or 1 a.m.” when they’re coming off a swing shift or going to work a graveyard shift.

But even beyond those late hours, “we get it every 15 to 20 minutes, somebody orders breakfast,” she said.

And at IHOP, the granddaddy of anytime-is-breakfasttime eateries, more than half the meals served, around the clock, are breakfast foods, said server Jessica Chavez at the Orangeburg Avenue restaurant. Most of those orders, she said Wednesday morning, are the classic breakfast: eggs, hash browns, bacon or sausage – and a few pancakes, of course.

The king of the fast-food world, McDonald’s seems to have taken notice of the breakfast boom, as last month it began testing all-day breakfast at 94 restaurants in the San Diego area.

But for all their apparent numbers, local restaurants hardly were bursting with breakfastarians Wednesday morning.

Coming out of a Toastmasters meeting at the Denny’s on McHenry Avenue north of Orangeburg, Abram Murguia said, “Myself, not very often, but my wife does find it fun now and then to go out to dinner and order from the breakfast menu. ... I love breakfast at breakfast.”

Nancy Salmeron, also coming from the meeting, agreed. “I’m a breakfast eater at breakfast. I like my oatmeal in the morning, and coffee and fruit.” Breakfast for dinner “does it for my kids, but not for me. The kids can have the pancakes for dinner.”

And Rosa Hurtado said about the only time she eats breakfast outside the early-morning hours is if she’s out very late at night or eating a brunch late in the morning. Other than that, “I’m more of a light breakfast eater – fruit and toast.”

But, oh, the breakfastarians are out there, as The Bee learned when we put out a call for comment.

“It’s definitely a 60/40 mix of me eating breakfast foods for meals other than breakfast,” Turlock resident Sergio Alvarado told us via email. “Sometimes I’ll have a bowl or two of cereal for dinner!”

Beyond cereal, his favorites are croissant sandwiches from Jack in the Box and Burger King, country potatoes, omelets and “my mom’s killer breakfast quiche,” he said.

Alvarado works a post office shift that starts at 6:30 a.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m., “so I don’t get to enjoy a home-cooked breakfast as often as I’d like. When I have meetings after work for clubs I’m involved in, I always order breakfast.”

A lot of readers weighed in on Facebook, too.

“There are so many choices: eggs, pancakes, waffles, French toast, ham, sausage, bacon. You see where I’m going? Bring it now – I’m a hungry girl,” said Cathy Perry.

Don Bratcher is all about the frying: “Fried spam, over-medium fried eggs, fried country potatoes with onions, peppers and chorizo, big fat buttermilk biscuits with white country gravy made from linguica fat, put the chunks in the gravy, and a big glass of milk. Then call 911 for the heart attack wagon.”

At the other end of the healthy-eating spectrum, apparently, is Steve Millanes. “I try to keep it healthy, that’s why I usually drink Shakeology for breakfast,” he said. “Or I will make egg whites, spinach, black beans and wheat toast with peanut butter!”

It’s true that most restaurant breakfasts aren’t nutritional powerhouses, but they still can be better than some other menu items. For instance, at Jack in the Box, the Jumbo Breakfast Platter with sausage weighs in at 620 calories. A lot, sure, but far less than the 910 calories the Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger packs.

And at Denny’s, the 840-calorie Original Grand Slam breakfast comes in far lighter than the 1,390-calorie Chicken Bacon Classic sandwich with fries.

On the other hand, you won’t find anything on the dinner menu at IHOP that comes even close to the belt-busting skillet meal with “Chicken/Country Fried Steak w/Sausage Gravy” – 2,380 calories.

A health educator with Sutter Gould Medical Foundation said breakfast foods, for any meal, can be part of healthy, well-balanced eating.

But you must “choose a variety of healthy foods such as whole grains (whole-grain toast/pancakes/waffles/cereals), fruits (on cereal or in smoothies) or vegetables (sautéed vegetables and salsa are great on eggs), low-fat milk or healthy proteins such as egg whites, nut butters and nuts,” said Marla McGregor.

“The concern occurs when there is an abundance of white, processed foods, whole milk and high-fat meats such as bacon and sausage eaten on a frequent basis. An unhealthy diet can lead to health problems such as heart disease and diabetes. The key is to eat a variety of healthy foods so that nutritional needs are met.”

This story was originally published May 21, 2015 at 4:44 PM with the headline "Flapjacks at dinner? Omelets for lunch? You may be a breakfastarian."