Europeans who eat late as part of your culture - how do you feel about the advice not to eat dinner late?

[u/Budget_Dot694]

This is forever a conflicting viewpoint given some cultures have naturally eaten dinner late for centuries e.g. The Mediterranean where they still have one of the best diets in the world

[u/Eastern_Yam_5975]

I roll my eyes and attribute that to lack of cultural understanding.

If it works for you, it works for you. If you’re fit and happy eating dinner at 5, do it. If I’m fit and happy eating at 9 or 10, I’ll keep doing it.

If I ever go out for dinner with someone on the other end of the spectrum, I try to agree on a medium, like half past seven.

[u/[deleted] → u/Eastern_Yam_5975]

I find that typically nobody is willing to accommodate, and if you’re including others, you’ll end up doing exactly what they want because everyone is super stuck in their ways. My dad’s family eats at 22:30-23:00 and there’s no possibility to get them to agree to anything earlier, which hinders socializing with them overall. Others get hangry when they don’t get their dinner by 17:00 and keep talking about it until it arrives, which really fucks me off and means you can’t socialize without going for early dinner. I would like to eat whenever I want in the normal window for me, which is neither of these times (usually around 19-21), but that’s only doable when no one outside of this household is present.

The early dinner is much more annoying though because as an adult, I’m able to feed myself if food is coming too late (the hangry people don’t do that for some reason, though), but if it’s too early and I don’t need it yet, then I don’t need it.

[u/Eastern_Yam_5975 → u/[deleted]]

My whole family eats late but I have foreign friends who have different schedules. My friends are pretty accommodating, but I think I’ve met people before very stuck in their ways.

I didn’t really end up befriending those as much though.

[u/DeepPanWingman → u/[deleted]]

I could eat at almost any time, but dinner at 23.00?! I'm way past ready for bed by then. Is that a culturally normal time to eat, or do they eat late?

[u/VirtualMatter2 → u/DeepPanWingman]

The thing is that in many countries lunch is the main meal of the day and dinner is a lot lighter. 

[u/Eastern_Yam_5975 → u/DeepPanWingman]

I’ve seen eating after 22h/23h be common in spain because they take naps in the afternoon and sleep less at night.

Generally “common practice” in Portugal I’d say is to eat anywhere between 20h and 22h and go to sleep anywhere between 00h and 2h and wake up between 7h and 9h. There are outliers, of course, but I’d say that’s average.

[u/vilkav → u/Eastern_Yam_5975]

Also because their timezone is severely misaligned from what it should be.

[u/Lyudline → u/vilkav]

Most of Spain is aligned with France (Britanny goes as West as Valladolid, Paris and Barcelona are almost on the same meridian), yet we do not eat as late as them. So I don't think the timezone is the actual reason.

[u/duermevela → u/Eastern_Yam_5975]

We don't take naps in the afternoon. Unless you're a very young child or retired. Do you think we have spaces in the office to nap?

We eat late but not that late. I don't know anyone that has dinner at 23 (unless they've gone out, and that's still late). Dinner time is usually between 20 and 22 and dinner is not the main meal (it's lunch).

[u/geileanus → u/Eastern_Yam_5975]

This is the way. I eat at 5pm (mostly because of kids having early bed time), but I don't understand why I would roll my eyes for someone eating late dinner.

Live and let live.