I love porridge, ever since I was a child.
It was the early 1980s, when I was three or four years old. My parents were busy with work, so my grandmother looked after me. Back then, living conditions in the village weren't great. Matches were still called "foreign fire," and meat was a rare treat. Grandma cooked porridge for me at every meal—cornmeal porridge. Later, when cornmeal ran out, she thickened it with starch for me to drink.
When my dad came home and saw me, he was shocked—I was dark, skinny, and short, looking like a refugee. Later, our family moved to the provincial capital, and life gradually improved. Because I loved porridge, it remained a staple at every meal. Besides cornmeal porridge, we had sweet potato porridge, yam porridge, eight-treasure porridge, vegetable porridge, rice porridge, preserved egg and lean meat porridge... the list goes on.
By my senior year of high school, I was overweight. Why did porridge leave me malnourished as a child yet make me fat as an adult?
The answer is simple: as a child, I couldn't afford milk or bread—having porridge was a luxury. Later, as living conditions improved, my diet diversified. I started eating meat, eggs, and dairy regularly, no longer relying solely on porridge.
Therefore, setting aside changes in dietary structure and focusing solely on congee is metaphysical, not a scientific approach. The recent debate over whether congee is suitable for breakfast exemplifies this very point.
Opponents argued that during the COVID-19 pandemic, children should have nutritious breakfasts rich in protein—like milk and eggs—instead of porridge. Supporters countered that porridge is a traditional breakfast staple in many Chinese households, questioning why it should be banned. Some even claimed that banning morning porridge was a form of Western worship and a lack of patriotism.
This debate is entirely unnecessary. First, how many households today rely solely on porridge for breakfast? Most families likely serve three to five items at breakfast.
Second, whether to drink porridge is a matter of personal preference—much like some dislike cilantro while others love it. How can this be linked to Westernization? As for claims that avoiding porridge opposes traditional culture, that's utter nonsense.
Yuan Mei's Ming Dynasty treatise, The Suyuan Manual of Food, catalogs over 300 dishes popular in China from the 14th to mid-18th centuries. Roughly categorized, it includes 170 meat dishes and 130 vegetarian dishes, covering all common grains, vegetables, fruits, poultry, and aquatic products.White congee constitutes merely 1/300th of these dishes—can it truly represent traditional dietary culture?
The argument against congee for breakfast isn't about opposing congee itself—it's impossible to oppose it—but rather emphasizing that breakfast should be nutritionally rich and balanced. White congee alone lacks sufficient nutrients. This is the crux. Nutritional balance emerged as a public health concern only after societal progress, yet some remain constrained by dietary preferences, such as a fondness for high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt foods.
Therefore, rather than debating whether to have porridge for breakfast, we should focus on how to correct unhealthy, unbalanced eating habits and incorporate more nutritionally balanced ingredients into our diets. At the very least, don't skip breakfast.