Bite-for-bite, our Health-e-Recipe for Breakfast Burritos with Refried Black Beans is packed with more cancer-fighting nutrients than most breakfasts. It’s like a mini-convention of healthy foods:
- for grains, whole-wheat tortillas with plenty of fiber
- for legumes, black beans rich in folate, a B vitamin that plays a role in health protection when digested in reasonable amounts from healthful beans of all kinds
- for protein, the beans contribute some and so do the egg’s 6 grams of protein (plus vitamin E in the yolk)
- for a vegetable, spinach — a leafy green that supplies the phytochemical lutein and other compounds to protect your health.
Adding more vegetables into all your meals can help you eat more servings every day of these naturally low-calorie, high-fiber plant foods. If you’re feeling adventurous, you could even substitute the spinach with a half-cup of chopped broccoli florets (steamed 1-2 minutes in the microwave with a little water, then drained before adding) in each burrito. Not to mention diced green, red, orange or yellow bell peppers. Mix up your choice of beans as well, and try pinto, red kidney or navy.
The main thing is to enjoy this excellent breakfast recipe as part of a mostly plant-based diet, which AICR recommends for lower cancer risk. For more tasty breakfast recipes that keep you going til lunch, visit AICR’s Test Kitchen. Click here to subscribe to our weekly Health-e-Recipes.