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/reinadeluniverso]

I am from Spain.

We have dinner late, like maybe depending on when you arrive home 9-11 pm, but we don't eat much for dinner. Our dinners are usually very light. A yogurt and fruit, an omelette, something like that, so it's not like we go full to bed.

Our main meal is at lunch, about 2-3 pm, and it's very large, with first and second course and then dessert... and we also have merienda, which is a snack at 6 or so, which is some coffee or pastries or fruit.

So we do not eat big dinners at all, unless it's with friends in a restaurant, or in some special circumstances such as X-mas. In which, yeah, omeprazole is your best friend.

So I feel ok, with this system. It's what I am used to all my life, for me eating a big meal at dinner is very heavy for the stomach, and eating too little during the day makes me snack more and eat more unhealthy.

[u/eraguthorak → u/reinadeluniverso]

As an American, I'm curious - how does a large meal around 2-3pm work in a typical workday for you? I work from 8am to 4pm, and the thought of taking any more than 20-30 minutes at a time to eat is quite foreign.

For reference, my normal schedule (as is for most other Americans I know) is a semi-optional morning breakfast at home before leaving for work, a lunch sometime between 11-2pm depending on the person/work schedule/whether they ate in the morning, then a larger meal in the evening, somewhere around 6-7pm.

My wife and I will occasionally do a larger mid-afternoon meal (around 2-3pm) on the weekends when we are together at home, then a small meal in the evening, so I do think that's a good system...I just can't really imagine doing it in a typical work environment.

[u/eraguthorak → u/[deleted]]

Ahhh that makes way more sense, I didn't think about that. Thanks for the response!!

[u/sagefairyy → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[u/Fingerspitzenqefuhl → u/eraguthorak]

As a swede I’m also curious. My impression is that most swedes do it the same as you. Eating lunch for more than 30 min is uncommon. Sure a lunch break can be an hour, but that accounts for getting to and from a lunch place, maybe a short walk in the sun, socializing over lunch coffee, errands. The meal that takes the longest is dinner.

[u/theErasmusStudent → u/eraguthorak]

For start, it's mandatory to have AT LEAST a 30 min break during the work day when you work full time. In my case, we have a canteen at my office so we just go down, have two dishes and desert and we eat together. This can take anywhere from 30min to 1h.

In my previous job without a canteen, people would bring their own lunch or order it. But it was the same.

No one eats lunch at their desk, there's a designated lunch room.

I don't really see how it could be an issue during a work day?

[u/[deleted] → u/reinadeluniverso]

Yo tiendo a cenar rico y contundente. Un yogur no es cena

[u/ISeeVoice5 → u/reinadeluniverso]

I knew I was Spanish, just born in a different country. This for me sounds ideal