By Denise Winterman
BBC News Magazine
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British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way.
People are repeatedly told the hallowed family dinner around a table is in decline and the UK is not the only country experiencing such change.
The case for breakfast, missed by many with deleterious effects, is that it makes us more alert, helps keep us trim and improves children's work and behaviour at school.
But when people worry that breaking with the traditional three meals a day is harmful, are they right about the traditional part? Have people always eaten in that pattern?
Breakfast
Breakfast as we know it didn't exist for large parts of history. The Romans didn't really eat it, usually consuming only one meal a day around noon, says food historian Caroline Yeldham. In fact, breakfast was actively frowned upon.
"The Romans believed it was healthier to eat only one meal a day," she says. "They were obsessed with digestion and eating more than one meal was considered a form of gluttony. This thinking impacted on the way people ate for a very long time."
In the Middle Ages monastic life largely shaped when people ate, says food historian Ivan Day. Nothing could be eaten before morning Mass and meat could only be eaten for half the days of the year. It's thought the word breakfast entered the English language during this time and literally meant "break the night's fast".
Religious ritual also gave us the full English breakfast. On Collop Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, people had to use up meat before the start of Lent. Much of that meat was pork and bacon as pigs were kept by many people. The meat was often eaten with eggs, which also had to be used up, and the precursor of the full English breakfast was born.
But at the time it probably wasn't eaten in the morning.
In about the 17th Century it is believed that all social classes started eating breakfast, according to chef Clarissa Dickson Wright. After the restoration of Charles II, coffee, tea and dishes like scrambled eggs started to appear on the tables of the wealthy. By the late 1740s, breakfast rooms also started appearing in the homes of the rich.
This morning meal reached new levels of decadence in aristocratic circles in the 19th Century, with the fashion for hunting parties that lasted days, even weeks. Up to 24 dishes would be served for breakfast.
The Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th Century regularised working hours, with labourers needing an early meal to sustain them at work. All classes started to eat a meal before going to work, even the bosses.
At the turn of the 20th Century, breakfast was revolutionised once again by American John Harvey Kellogg. He accidentally left some boiled maize out and it went stale. He passed it through some rollers and baked it, creating the world's first cornflake. He sparked a multi-billion pound industry.
By the 1920s and 1930s the government was promoting breakfast as the most important meal of the day, but then World War II made the usual breakfast fare hard to get. But as Britain emerged from the post-war years into the economically liberated 1950s, things like American toasters, sliced bread, instant coffee and pre-sugared cereals invaded the home. Breakfast as we now know it.
Lunch
The terminology around eating in the UK is still confusing. For some "lunch" is "dinner" and vice versa. From the Roman times to the Middle Ages everyone ate in the middle of the day, but it was called dinner and was the main meal of the day. Lunch as we know it didn't exist - not even the word.
During the Middle Ages daylight shaped mealtimes, says Day. With no electricity, people got up earlier to make use of daylight. Workers had often toiled in the fields from daybreak, so by midday they were hungry.
"The whole day was structured differently than it is today," says Day. "People got up much earlier and went to bed much earlier."
By midday workers had often worked for up to six hours. They would take a quick break and eat what was known as a "beever" or "noonshine", usually bread and cheese. As artificial light developed, dinner started to shift later in the day for the wealthier, as a result a light meal during the day was needed.
The origins of the word "lunch" are mysterious and complicated, says Day. "Lunch was a very rare word up until the 19th Century," he says.
One theory is that it's derived from the word "nuncheon", an old Anglo-Saxon word which meant a quick snack between meals that you can hold in your hands. It was used around the late 17th Century, says Yeldham. Others theorise that it comes from the word "nuch" which was used around in the 16th and 17th Century and means a big piece of bread.
But it's the French custom of "souper" in the 17th Century that helped shaped what most of us eat for lunch today. It became fashionable among the British aristocracy to copy the French and eat a light meal in the evening. It was a more private meal while they gamed and womanised, says Day.
It's the Earl of Sandwich's famous late-night snack from the 1750s that has come to dominate the modern lunchtime menu. One evening he ordered his valet to bring him cold meats between some bread. He could eat the snack with just one hand and wouldn't get grease on anything.
Whether he was wrapped up in an all-night card game or working at his desk is not clear, both have been suggested. But whatever he was doing, the sandwich was born.
At the time lunch, however, was still known "as an accidental happening between meals", says food historian Monica Askay.
Again, it was the Industrial Revolution that helped shape lunch as we know it today. Middle and lower class eating patterns were defined by working hours. Many were working long hours in factories and to sustain them a noon-time meal was essential.
Pies were sold on stalls outside factories. People also started to rely on mass-produced food as there was no room in towns and cities for gardens to keep a pig pen or grow their own food. Many didn't even have a kitchen.
"Britain was the first country in the world to feed people with industrialised food," says Day.
The ritual of taking lunch became ingrained in the daily routine. In the 19th Century chop houses opened in cities and office workers were given one hour for lunch. But as war broke out in 1939 and rationing took hold, the lunch was forced to evolve. Work-based canteens became the most economical way to feed the masses. It was this model that was adopted by schools after the war.
The 1950s brought a post-War world of cafes and luncheon vouchers. The Chorleywood Process, a new way of producing bread, also meant the basic loaf could be produced more cheaply and quickly than ever. The takeaway sandwich quickly began to fill the niche as a fast, cheap lunch choice.
Today the average time taken to eat lunch - usually in front of the computer - is roughly 15 minutes, according to researchers at the University of Westminster. The original meaning of lunch or "nuncheon" as a small, quick snack between proper meals is just as apt now as it ever was.
Dinner
Dinner was the one meal the Romans did eat, even if it was at a different time of day.
In the UK the heyday of dinner was in the Middle Ages. It was known as "cena", Latin for dinner. The aristocracy ate formal, outrageously lavish dinners around noon. Despite their reputation for being unruly affairs, they were actually very sophisticated, with strict table manners.
They were an ostentatious display of wealth and power, with cooks working in the kitchen from dawn to get things ready, says Yeldham. With no electricity cooking dinner in the evening was not an option. Peasants ate dinner around midday too, although it was a much more modest affair.
As artificial lighting spread, dinner started to be eaten later and later in the day. It was in the 17th Century that the working lunch started, where men with aspirations would network.
The middle and lower classes eating patterns were also defined by their working hours. By the late 18th Century most people were eating three meals a day in towns and cities, says Day.
By the early 19th Century dinner for most people had been pushed into the evenings, after work when they returned home for a full meal. Many people, however, retained the traditional "dinner hour" on a Sunday.
The hallowed family dinner we are so familiar with became accessible to all in the glorious consumer spending spree of the 1950s. New white goods arrived from America and the dream of the wife at home baking became a reality. Then the TV arrived.
TV cook Fanny Cradock brought the 1970s Cordon Bleu dinner to life. Many middle-class women were bored at home and found self-expression by competing with each other over who could hold the best dinner party.
The death knell for the family dinner supposedly sounded in 1986, when the first microwave meal came on to the market. But while a formal family dinner may be eaten by fewer people nowadays, the dinner party certainly isn't over - fuelled by the phenomenal sales of recipe books by celebrity chefs.
The last episode of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner with Clarissa Dickson Wright is broadcast on BBC Four on Wednesday, 21 November at 21:00 GMT. You can watch episodes via iPlayer.
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FAQs
Why do we have breakfast lunch and dinner? ›
Industrialisation created the need for regular, coordinated breaks for meals and sleep. Apart from breakfast, work decided meal times. In the middle ages, dinner was between noon and two and supper was a quick snack before the lights (the sun) went out.
Which is more important breakfast lunch or dinner? ›Breakfast is often described as the most important meal of the day, providing as it does sustenance and energy (i.e., calories) for whatever activities lay ahead. As nutritionist Adelle Davis famously put it back in the 1960s: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.” (Sifferlin, 2013).
How many meals we have in a day answer? ›According to many experts, eating breakfast jump starts fat burning and 5–6 small meals per day prevent your metabolism from slowing down.
Who said we have to eat 3 meals a day? ›British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way. People are repeatedly told the hallowed family dinner around a table is in decline and the UK is not the only country experiencing such change.
What is breakfast lunch and dinner called? ›linner is a combination of lunch and dinner - like brunch is a combination of breakfast and lunch!
Why is it important to eat three meals a day? ›Improved Satiety. Studies show that eating three meals a day may improve satiety and reduce hunger cues compared with higher meal frequency diets (5). Doing so will help you eat fewer calories and stay on top of your nutritional needs without overeating or eating recklessly.
What is the 2 most important meal of the day? ›One of the more popular topics of conversation lately has been the importance of 2 meals that should be in your diet EVERY day: Breakfast and Post-Workout.
Which meal is more important to you lunch or dinner and why? ›In addition to taking a lunch break, eating a full meal on your break will lead you to have a smaller dinner. Eating late at night can lead to digestive and weight problems. In contrast, eating a full meal earlier in the day can help you maintain a healthier weight.
Why is dinner the most important meal? ›Eating a healthy and light dinner will help your body maintain its levels and functions. This will also clear your bowels. Also, dinner is important because after a long day full of activities and exertion, your body needs to fuel up. It is unhealthy if you skip your dinner or consume way too much for dinner.
What are the three meals we have in a day answer? ›- Breakfast – eaten within an hour or two after a person wakes in the morning. (Index) ...
- Lunch – eaten around mid-day, usually between 11 am and 3 pm. In some areas, the name for this meal depends on its content. ...
- Dinner – eaten in the evening.
Do you have to eat everyday? ›
Eating one meal a day is unlikely to give you the calories and nutrients your body needs to thrive unless carefully planned. Choosing to eat within a longer time period may help you increase your nutrient intake. If you do choose to try out eating one meal a day, you probably shouldn't do it 7 days a week.
How many meals do people eat a day? ›Researchers asked 2,000 people about their eating habits and found the average person eats only two meals a day, along with three snacks. The most commonly replaced meal of the day was lunch with 49% of people opting to eat a snack instead.
How many meals did early humans eat? ›For the majority of human history, people ate one or two meals per day. The current time-restricted eating patterns like the 16:8 or one meal a day diet (OMAD) mimic this ancient phenomenon.
How much food should I eat a day? ›For an average adult woman, the FDA recommends a daily intake of about 2,000 calories. Men are higher at about 2400 calories. See the US Dietary Guidelines 2015-2020 – the Estimated Calorie Needs per Day, by Age, Sex, and Physical Activity Level.
Why do we call it dinner? ›Oddly enough, the word dinner comes from the 11th century Old French word disner, which meant “to eat breakfast.” As the word was absorbed into English as dinner, it came to refer to the “main” meal of the day, the timing of which changed over the centuries.
What do you eat between lunch and dinner? ›linner Definitions and Synonyms
“Linner” or “dunch” is served between 3-5 p.m., often a time for restaurants to close and prepare for dinner rush.
You should eat dinner approximately four to five hours after eating lunch. If that falls in the 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. window, you hit the last hour of your body's heightened metabolic rate before it starts to slow. Keep in mind that the longer you give your body between your last meal and your bedtime, the better.
What are the 4 meals of the day? ›- Breakfast is the first meal of the day.
- Lunch is the midday meal. This is the one you eat during lunch break – not in the morning and not in the evening. ...
- Dinner is the main meal of the day. ...
- Supper is the last meal of the day.
energy you need to keep active throughout the day. nutrients you need for growth and repair, helping you to stay strong and healthy and help to prevent diet-related illness, such as some cancers.
Is it important to eat breakfast? ›Breakfast is often called 'the most important meal of the day', and for good reason. As the name suggests, breakfast breaks the overnight fasting period. It replenishes your supply of glucose to boost your energy levels and alertness, while also providing other essential nutrients required for good health.
What are the benefits of breakfast? ›
Eating breakfast may help your heart, digestion, bones and more to meet dietary guidelines! A healthier heart. Adults and kids who skip breakfast tend to have higher blood cholesterol levels—a risk factor for heart disease—than do breakfast eaters.
What are 10 benefits of breakfast? ›- Improves Concentration and Focus. ...
- Helps Lift Your Mood. ...
- Helps Manage Your Appetite. ...
- Helps Your Heart. ...
- Improves Academic Performance. ...
- Aids in Weight Management. ...
- Helps Pregnant Moms Meet Nutritional Needs. ...
- Boosts Your Immune System.
Lunch is an important meal for everyone. It provides energy and nutrients to keep the body and brain working efficiently through the afternoon. A packed lunch made at home can be a healthy and delicious choice and gives you control over the foods and ingredients included.
Which meal is least important? ›...
Quick Dinner Tips:
- Try to eat dinner early. ...
- Eat half as much dinner as you think is a normal portion. ...
- Be willing to simply not eat dinner if you're not hungry.
Because breakfast gives us the opportunity to fuel our body with nutrients, it is an important meal. However, according to recent studies, it may not be the most important meal of the day. Eating breakfast and listening to your hunger cues is very important if you wake up hungry in the morning.
Which time is best for eating food? ›Plan to eat breakfast within an hour of waking. This way, your breakfast doesn't blend into a mid-morning snack or grazing followed closely by lunch. Lunch should be about four to five hours after breakfast. For example, if you ate breakfast at 7 am, eat lunch between 11 am and noon.
What are the benefits of eating dinner? ›Experts suggest that dinner should be eaten within 7 pm. Eating an early and light dinner helps to improve sleep, improves digestion, boosts metabolism and also reduces blood pressure, keeping you healthy.
Why dinner is important to a family? ›When a family sits down together, it helps them handle the stresses of daily life and the hassles of day-to-day existence. Eating together tends to promote more sensible eating habits, which in turn helps family members manage their weight more easily.
Why is lunch important for students? ›School lunch is critical to student health and well-being, especially for low-income students—and ensures that students have nutrition they need throughout the day to learn. Research shows that receiving free or reduced-price school lunches reduces food insecurity, obesity rates, and poor health.
Why is lunch such an important meal of the day? ›Lunch is an important meal of a day. -Food is what gives you energy. Lunch raises your blood sugar level in the middle of the day, making you be able to focus for the rest of the afternoon.
How many meals do we have in a day for Class 1? ›
There are three meals a day. Breakfast is the meal we eat early in the morning. It is the most important meal of the day. Lunch is the meal we eat in the afternoon.
What is dinner short answer? ›Dinner is the main meal of the day, usually served in the early part of the evening.
What type of food should we eat? ›Using Harvard's Healthy Eating Plate as a guide, we recommend eating mostly vegetables, fruit, and whole grains, healthy fats, and healthy proteins. We suggest drinking water instead of sugary beverages, and we also address common dietary concerns such as salt and sodium, vitamins, and alcohol.
Why do you eat everyday? ›To provide energy needed to keep the body breathing and alive, for movement and warmth, and for growth and repair of tissues.
How many times should you eat? ›So how often should you be eating? The Theory: Nutrition experts tend to recommend eating 3 balanced meals (350 to 600 calories each) and 1 to 3 snacks per day (between 150 and 200 calories each).
Do we really need food? ›Your body needs food to obtain energy, to get building blocks for your body, and to get substances that help control body processes. Nutrients, chemicals in food that your body needs, include carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, vitamins, and minerals.
Is one meal a day enough? ›For most people, there are no serious dangers involved in eating one meal a day, other than the discomforts of feeling hungry. That said, there are some risks for people with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Eating one meal a day can increase your blood pressure and cholesterol.
Do most people eat lunch? ›Lunch, with 49 percent of Americans. Whether at home or work, respondents of all ages showed their “peak snacking hours” to be between 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
How much do normal people eat? ›A variety of fruits and vegetables, proteins, and carbohydrates. The typical adult male should consume around 2,500 calories a day and the typical adult female should consume around 2,000 calories a day.
What were the food eaten by early humans answer? ›The diet of the earliest hominins was probably somewhat similar to the diet of modern chimpanzees: omnivorous, including large quantities of fruit, leaves, flowers, bark, insects and meat (e.g., Andrews & Martin 1991; Milton 1999; Watts 2008).
Who invented eating 3 times a day? ›
They ate when they were hungry. The three meals per day concept originated with Englanders who achieved financial prosperity. European settlers brought their eating habits with them to America. Unfortunately, practicing antiquated, meal etiquette often causes you to consume calories when you're not hungry.
What time of day did early humans eat? ›These meals consisted of breakfast at a very early hour to allow for dinner at about 9 a.m., or not later than 10.00 a.m., and supper probably before it got dark, perhas at 3.00 p.m. in the winter. The times and number of meals were originally derived from the hours of devotions of the Church.
What is normal eating? ›Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good.
Is tea a dinner? ›Some people in Britain and Australia refer to their main evening meal as "tea" rather than "dinner" or "supper", but generally, with the exception of Scotland and Northern England, "tea" refers to a light meal or a snack.
What actually is dinner? ›Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the largest and most formal meal of the day, which is eaten in the evening. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, it gradually migrated to later in the day over the 16th to 19th centuries.
How old is the word lunch? ›The word lunch with the meaning of "mid-day repast, small meal between breakfast and dinner" first appeared in 1786. Old English used nonmete meaning “noon meal.”
Where did the concept of three meals a day come from? ›They ate when they were hungry. The three meals per day concept originated with Englanders who achieved financial prosperity. European settlers brought their eating habits with them to America. Unfortunately, practicing antiquated, meal etiquette often causes you to consume calories when you're not hungry.
Why do we call it dinner? ›Oddly enough, the word dinner comes from the 11th century Old French word disner, which meant “to eat breakfast.” As the word was absorbed into English as dinner, it came to refer to the “main” meal of the day, the timing of which changed over the centuries.
What are the 7 meals of the day? ›- breakfast. The first meal of the day. ...
- brunch. A meal eaten in the late morning, instead of BReakfast and lUNCH. ( ...
- elevenses. A snack (for example, biscuits and coffee). ...
- lunch. A meal in the middle of the day. ...
- tea. A light afternoon meal of sandwiches, cakes etc, with a drink of tea. ...
- supper. ...
- dinner.
Dinner derives via Middle English from the Anglo-French verb disner, meaning “to dine.” The comparable etymon for supper is the Anglo-French super, meaning “to sup,” related to supe, the noun for “soup.” The typical meal prepared for supper was something of a light repast akin to soup—perhaps something that could be ...
How many meals did early humans eat? ›
For the majority of human history, people ate one or two meals per day. The current time-restricted eating patterns like the 16:8 or one meal a day diet (OMAD) mimic this ancient phenomenon.
Are humans meant to eat three meals a day? ›Instead, she says, two to three meals a day is best – with most of your calories consumed earlier in the day. This is because eating late at night is associated with cardio-metabolic disease, including diabetes and heart disease.
What are the 3 meals of the day called? ›- Breakfast – eaten within an hour or two after a person wakes in the morning. (Index) ...
- Lunch – eaten around mid-day, usually between 11 am and 3 pm. In some areas, the name for this meal depends on its content. ...
- Dinner – eaten in the evening.
You should eat dinner approximately four to five hours after eating lunch. If that falls in the 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. window, you hit the last hour of your body's heightened metabolic rate before it starts to slow. Keep in mind that the longer you give your body between your last meal and your bedtime, the better.
Is tea a dinner? ›Some people in Britain and Australia refer to their main evening meal as "tea" rather than "dinner" or "supper", but generally, with the exception of Scotland and Northern England, "tea" refers to a light meal or a snack.
What actually is dinner? ›Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the largest and most formal meal of the day, which is eaten in the evening. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, it gradually migrated to later in the day over the 16th to 19th centuries.
What are the 3 types of breakfast? ›3 types of the most popular breakfast are Continental breakfast, English Breakfast, and American breakfast.
What is early dinner called? ›Early bird dinner is a dinner served earlier than traditional dinner hours, particularly at a restaurant. Many establishments offer a seating prior to their main dinner seating with a reduced price menu, often more limited in selection than the standard dinner menu.
How many meals a day is best? ›So how often should you be eating? The Theory: Nutrition experts tend to recommend eating 3 balanced meals (350 to 600 calories each) and 1 to 3 snacks per day (between 150 and 200 calories each).
Why is breakfast so important? ›Breakfast is often called 'the most important meal of the day', and for good reason. As the name suggests, breakfast breaks the overnight fasting period. It replenishes your supply of glucose to boost your energy levels and alertness, while also providing other essential nutrients required for good health.
Why is lunch important? ›
Lunch is an important meal for everyone. It provides energy and nutrients to keep the body and brain working efficiently through the afternoon. A packed lunch made at home can be a healthy and delicious choice and gives you control over the foods and ingredients included.
What time is tea time UK? ›Traditionally, and for some people still, the meals are called: Breakfast - between 7:00 and 9:00, Dinner (The main meal) - between 12:00 and 1:30 p.m. Tea - anywhere from 5:30 at night to 6:30 p.m.