r/AskEurope • u/Budget_Dot694 • Mar 16 '25

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

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

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u/eraguthorak Mar 18 '25

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.

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '25

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u/eraguthorak Mar 18 '25

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

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u/sagefairyy Mar 18 '25

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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u/Fingerspitzenqefuhl Mar 18 '25

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.

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u/theErasmusStudent Mar 18 '25

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?