Would you/could you cook after 8pm

[Fuwari]

Sorry, saw it on the DM website! (I admit I go there but see it as a trashy mag!) Apparently one of the measures for avoiding blackouts over winter is asking people to either cook their evening meal after 8pm or to eat cold food. For me personally this wouldn’t work. I eat early, around 6. I’m usually in bed by 9. So there’s no way I’m going to be cooking my evening meal at 8. I’m quite happy to take any other measures, they mention also not using dishwashers/washing machines between 2pm and 8pm. But I don’t see how I could shift my dinner time to fit in with this. Just wondering what other people think?

No way. I have my tea no later than 5:30pm.

I do, but that's only because I don't make it back downstairs before 8pm after putting the kids to bed

If I leave it to cook that late, which happens only occasionally, I’ve lost my appetite by then and would just snack on cheese and crackers or similar. But yes, I guess I could cook earlier and then just reheat. I also use my slow cooker a lot. Plus eat a lot of quick cook foods, like pasta, various Asian dishes etc. I don’t really like cooking anything that takes more than 15 minutes.

Genuin question-how does cooking later in the evening effect energy use?

I always cook at 5 am! I have small kids. 6.5/4.5/1.5 and after work and school, I don’t want to spend the time cooking. We get home by 5ish and eat by 5.30/5.45 and in bed by 7. It works for us.

As a previous poster said on the holidays and fri/sat is okay. School night far too late for us.
I know this might sound really thick.
But could someone tell me the difference it would make to cook later. Not being sarcastic or cheeky I've heard this twice now and feel a bit silly not knowing the reason.

8 is an absolutely normal time for me to cook. It's hardly the middle of the night. But I do have Italian family where anything before 10pm is considered an early meal especially if eating out.
When I worked retail I'd get home at 8 and it was rare to eat before 9pm. When I worked shifts I would sometimes finish at 10 and pick up food on the way home and eat at 11.
I couldn't eat at 5 o'clock as I'd just want another dinner a few hours later, plus I often only eat lunch at 2.

I'd be absolutely ravenous by then!

I'd get terrible reflux if I ate that late

Myself and DH would eat later no problem but it would be pointless because I'd be cooking twice as I have to feed DD earlier anyway so no it wouldn't work, I can imagine a lot of families of younger children would be the same.

Genuin question-how does cooking later in the evening effect energy use

it’s a good question, to which I don’t have the answer! I suppose maybe it’s something to do with surge usage during those times, but I am only guessing. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me has the answer!

It smooths out usage.

If you imagine the electricity grid - the wind turbines etc don't know what time if day it is, so you either have to use that electricity to pump water or something up a hydroelectric dam to be released at peak times, or you have to smooth out the usage. We don't have enough things like electric mountain to do all the smoothing - so we have an excess of electricity at night and only just enough in the day.

If in winter we will be short in the day we can solve that by shifting as much as possible of the eelctricity usage to low use times.

We usually eat 6.30-7.30 so it’s a little later, but doable.

If they want the peak usage reduced around 4-8pm usually cooking time, we could easily cook mornings or or weekends and then just quickly microwave at a suitable time. Eating main hot meal at lunch could also work for us as work from home.

I don’t get home from work until 8pm. I normally cook and sit down to eat at 9.30/10pm, so yes I would and it would be early for me! I eat earlier at weekends when we eat as a family.

We pretty much never cook before 8:30 pm, normally closer to nine, so no problem at all here.

After the children are in bed, and we’ve sorted out the house it’s a rare night that we’d be finished earlier, and if we were we’d probably have a drink before starting dinner.

I’ve just put the oven on to start cooking dinner and it’s gone 8pm, fairly regular for us on a Friday/weekend but I wouldn’t want to be doing this in the week.

No, I have severe reflux due to a fucked stomach. I eat no later than 5, if I haven't eaten by then then I do not eat.

I'd prefer to eat later - 8:30pm would be ideal - but the DC need feeding long before then.

We regularly EAT after 8, but I couldn't wait until after 8 to start cooking.
Cooking after 8 means eating at 8.30 or, more realistically, nearer to 9. That's too late on a daily basis.

We've got an Everhot. So our cooker is always on. So eating after 8 wouldn't make any difference..

No way, we cook between 5.30-6.30, child goes to bed at 7pm. Happy to delay dishwasher, washing machine and car charging after 8pm but cooking dinner is a basic necessity.

Yes we eat between 8 and 9 when son goes to bed

By spreading it out - so not everyone could cook after 8 or it wouldn't work.

In the 70s there were timed power cuts in different areas so you knew when you had to cook .

Fine for us, we often eat after 8 (DCs are teens) - we all go out quite a bit for various sports and activities in the early evenings. None of us go to bed before around 11.

Eating that late gives me indigestion and an uncomfortable night.