Welcome to My Morning Routine , where we take a look at how people kick-start their days. In the first few installations, we focused on Bon Appetit staffers. Now we move into the wide world of everyone else (and by that we mean celebrities)
Photograph by Matt Duckor
Today's creature of habit is pro-surfer Kelly Slater, who likes his smoothies vegan and his fruits digestively compatible:
I'm not really an early riser. I like to get my eight hours and I like to stay up late at night. If I want to get up and surf, maybe I'll get up at like 7 or 8 and look around for surf.
I generally start my day off with hot water and lemon--to cleanse the body out after sleeping. I read about it and it seemed like a good idea.
I make a lot of smoothies with fresh fruit that I've frozen--I generally stick with fruit in the morning. Last month here in Hawaii, a big banana tree fell across the street and I grabbed a bushel of 50 mini apple bananas off the street and froze them up for smoothies. I do vegan smoothies--it's just fruit and almond milk or a coconut milk. Sometimes it's just the fruit. I do quite a lot of green smoothies and mix in sprouts. Greens will digest with fruits pretty readily.
I wouldn't eat a grapefruit and an apple together. When it comes to fruit, I try not to mix citrus and non-acidic fruits because they won't digest properly. If you get into reading about food combining and how your stomach processes different foods, you see it's important not to mix certain foods together. You try not to mix protein and carbs because they're digested with different acids and alcalines in your stomach. This isn't something I strictly adhere to! But if I am in that really serious contest mode or health mode, this is what I'll do.
Sometimes I wake up and need a giant breakfast of two eggs and pancakes. It's enjoyable. But, in the long run, I try and think about health and what I'm going to feel like when I'm 50, 70, 80 years old. If you don't want to get old and have your kids taking care of you, you should probably be thinking about that right now.
I'm not in the water as much as you would think--maybe half the days. Sometimes I just jump in the water and don't eat first. If the waves are really good, I have trouble even bothering putting food in my mouth unless I know I'm going to be surfing for a long time and have to eat something. Surfing is the best way to wake up. --Interview by Mickey Rapkin
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