I’m ignorant: do most cultures do three meals a day

[Carn]

Breakfast 8am
Lunch 12pm
Dinner 6pm

I don't snack. Probably why I alternate between being underweight and at the lower end of average.

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I would argue that generally, its pretty much the same here (in The Netherlands). The only extra thing I want to mention is that probably the older generation might actually have a hot meal as lunch, and a cold one as dinner. But I only recall my grandparents doing that.

 

[KillstealWolf]

France I recall having a quite strict timeline, and just had Breakfast and Lunch, for set hours only as well. That was fun trying to find a place to eat there when the opening hours for restaurants were so strict.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

 

[NekoNeko]

Breakfast 6:30AM
Snack 9AM
Lunch 12PM
Snack 4PM
Dinner 7PM

Common schedule.

 

[Homura]

Italy:
Breakfast when you wake up
Lunch 1pm/2pm
Dinner 8pm/9pm

 

[Deleted member 9584]

United States

Breakfast at 730am
Lunch at 11am
Snack (depending on blood sugar) at 2pm
Dinner at 5pm
Snack at 8:30pm (depending on blood sugar)

I obviously follow a very strict schedule for eating.

A lot of people I know don't eat breakfast but eat lunch and snack consistently until dinner. I prefer to spread meals out, which is much healthier for me.

 

[Yerffej]

Is this true?

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[Fuchs]

I only have one meal a day, dinner most of the time.

 

[Mik2121]

Surprisingly high ratio of Spaniards in this thread, but I can see why! Our meal system is... weird.

And yeah, kids here usually have five meals:
- Breakfast (sometime generally between 7:00 and 8:00 on average)
- morning break snack (something generally having some chocolate or slightly sweet bread piece at around 11:00 or whatever — forgot)
- Lunch (at around 14:00)
- Evening snack thing (for many kids, a fairly hefty sandwich or sub), called merienda.
- Dinner (at 21:00~22:00 generally).

Im surprised about how with such a diet we don't have more obesity problems! I kept that meal schedule from when I was a little kid until I came to Japan. Then I shifted to three meals with some random snack, and now I do intermittent fasting:

- 12:00 start drinking my fruit shake that I used to have as breakfast.
- 13:00 have lunch
- 19:00 have dinner

And I barely snack now except for some dry fruits and maybe an extra fruit shake if I'm at home. I like the whole eating within an 8 hour window, but I can see that not working for many people. Do whatever your body asks!
If I was back in Spain, with all the cheese and ham and everything there... yeah... I could see myself eating a bit more!

 

[Relix]

I just do lunch and dinner. Intermittent fasting reasons of course.

 

[mantidor]

If I have to work I do get lunch and dinner, but on the weekends I usually have one big meal and thats it. I do eat some fruit or piece of cheese at random times though.

 

[teruterubozu]

The strict 3 meals thing is pretty much the product of the Industrial Revolution.

 

[Fat4all]

here's my daily meals:

• wake up coffee
• work 'lunch' with energy drink
• cheese and booze 'dinner'
• black out

 

[Ze_Shoopuf]

If you're a powerlifting musclebro, you have 20 meals a day.

Plus 4-5 bowel movements.

 

[Deleted member 1570]

Breakfast
Brunch
Lunch
Linner
Dinner
Dikfast

 

[Fiction]

I only have one meal a day, dinner most of the time.

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This.

 

[captive]

ok i might as well admit i have never seen the lotr series in full lol

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That's in like the first 40 minutes of the movie. Lol. Also straight from the book.

 

[werezompire]

In Taiwan, they have 3 different types of restaurants/foodcarts.

Morning - Burgers, Rice balls, and 蛋餅 (Kind of like breakfast burritos with eggs & sometimes meat) are the order of the day here.
11pm-7pm - Bentos are really popular at this time (rice + meat & vegetables)
Night - Food carts are big for snacking & late dinners, especially at night markets.

 

[Robaperas]

Breakfast
Lunch
Once (The Chilean type of elevenses 👀 )

 

[Ravelle]

Breakfast, lunch and supper.

Or when it's brunch it's usually late supper

 

[Doggg]

I usually have only one (what I would consider) full meal a day (dinner), with something more like a snack in the late afternoon (like some fruit) in the late afternoon. That's just me, though.

A lot of countries I've been to have meals more or less equivalent to breakfast, lunch, dinner, for what it's worth, although some eat a lot less for any one of those than many Americans, and may also have times when they eat more than what we consider a snack and perhaps less than what some of us might consider a meal.

 

[cheebdragonite]

In the Philippines, we have 5.

Breakfast
Merienda (morning snack before lunch or tea time)
Lunch
Merienda cena (evening snack before dinner)
Dinner

I live in the US though and I don't follow this anymore, especially since I've started working out, where I typically eat 6 small meals a day.

 

[MegaRockEXE]

No mention of Hispanic cultures yet? It's probably similar to Spain, but according to my mom, it's:
Breakfast (6-7 am)
Lunch (12 pm)
Second lunch?? (3 pm)
Dinner (8 pm)

And I just have to disagree because no, we're not having dinner at 8 pm. That's what the big afternoon meal was. We live in the USA.

For a typical work weekday, I'd say it comes out like this for me:
Breakfast (8 am, 7 am in pre work from home days)
Lunch (12 pm)
Dinner (5 pm, 6 pm in pre work from home days)
Optional evening snack (8-10 pm, a quick bite to eat like a bowl of cereal or some dessert type food)

And on weekends, since I wake up later, I just skip the mid-day lunch and the dinner is a bit earlier.

 

[Messofanego]

Yeah, heard of that one. I have a friend who visited a family in USA, and when they sat at the table, they kept staring at him after they finished the meal. Then they asked him to leave the place immediately. When you're a guest in USA, you're expected to start the clap. If you don't, it's even worse than taking a dump on the table. Very fascinating culture.

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This is why I left. The indoor shoes was one thing, but this broke me. Very fascinating culture but not for me.

 

[Dineren]

I'm in the United States. I typically eat one meal at 2-3 pm. Occasionally I'll eat snacks, but that's pretty rare. The only time I really feel hungry is late at night and I just ignore that, I'm not generally hungry when I wake up.