Coffee Breakfast

A traditional full English breakfast can contain nearly your entire day's allotment of saturated fat. (Photo: Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty Images )

According to The English Breakfast Society, the full English breakfast is the quintessential national dish of Great Britain. It's a nostalgic reminder of the Victorian glory days, but it can be a nightmare of calories and fat for many modern eaters - a traditional full English breakfast serving may contain as much as 63 grams of fat, 18 grams of saturated fat and over 800 calories. Fried eggs, fried bread, mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon, sausage, baked beans and black pudding - sausage prepared from congealed blood - are all part of the ideal English breakfast. You can choose to include only some of these ingredients or swap high-calorie items and cooking methods for more nutritious choices to make a healthy full English breakfast.

Eggs

Instead of the fried eggs usually included in a full English breakfast, BBC food expert Angela Nilsen suggests serving poached eggs instead. For even more nutrition, choose free-range eggs that have been enriched with omega-3 fatty acids, or opt for duck eggs which have more vitamin D and B vitamins than chicken eggs. If you want to fry the eggs, skip the butter and use as little vegetable oil as possible.

Bread

Authentic full English breakfast recipes call for the bread that accompanies the meal to be fried crisp in the grease leftover after cooking the sausage and bacon. You can significantly lower the fat calories in a healthy version of the meal by toasting the bread under the broiler, in a toaster or frying it separately in a vegetable oil such as sunflower oil. Choose whole grain or whole wheat bread for the most nutritional value.

Mushrooms and Tomatoes

Maximize the benefit you get from the mushrooms and tomatoes that are traditionally included in a full English breakfast by grilling or broiling them instead of frying them in oil or meat drippings. Use antioxidant-rich dark-brown mushrooms such as portobello mushrooms instead of white mushrooms. Mail Online's Angela Dowden recommends drizzling the vegetables with olive oil before grilling since the oil can help you absorb the lycopene from the tomatoes.

Bacon and Sausage

While it isn't wise to include bacon and sausage too often in your diet - eating red meat frequently is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, high blood cholesterol and diabetes - if you want a healthy version of a full English breakfast that incorporates these meats, choose fresh, free-range, low-sodium bacon and sausage and grill or broil them instead of frying. Instead of the two sausages and three pieces of bacon served in the traditional version of the meal, consume just one, or only one of each.

Baked Beans

If you'd prefer not to prepare your own baked beans from dried beans, pick a brand that is low in salt and that has as little sugar as possible. The English Breakfast Society notes that a classic full English breakfast contains Heinz baked beans. Heinz offers baked beans packed in tomato sauce that contain 25 percent less sodium and 30 percent less sugar than their traditional baked beans.