Are two hot meals a day better?

[Coldmealsadness]

Two foreign ladies (from different countries) in a month complained to me that British people are depressing because they eat cold lunches. They both like a hot lunch and a hot dinner.

So some boring questions.
Are hot meals better?
I feel that two hot meals a day would be nice but I often don't have time. I'd always be cooking! I do like a hot meal in the evening. I have seen some mothers on here complain that their children aren't getting hot meals at nurseries so obviously it's really important to some people!

Are British people famous for cold food?

Do you eat two hot meals a day?

I like my kids to have a hot breakfast in winter, just porridge or boiled eggs or something. Don't really mind about lunch, just wraps or something usually. I'd never get away with just giving sandwiches for dinner if they had a hot meal at lunchtime, they'd be asking where their dinner is.

It's my preference to have 2 hot meals, even if that's just cheese on toast or an omelette, but what does "better" mean?

Healthier? A better cultural experience to sit down and enjoy a meal together? (in which case a Pret soup al desko probs doesn't count). More delicious and enjoyable? Depends entirely on the dish.

I've never really though about it to be honest

Breakfast can be toast or warm or cold cereal cereal or fruit. Today was a warm croissant so 50/50
Hot cold

Lunch is crudités and protein or soup or sandwich or leftovers fruit etc 75/25
Cold /hot

Dinner is usually hot or in summer a salad with hot meant element to it. 99% hot meal. Mainly DH has a cooked meal-
He does the cooking though and I like being pampered!

Nutrition isn’t based of the temperature the food is served at, so you’re not doing children a disservice giving them cold food. Mine do enjoy beans on toast, which is warm, and not too terrible.

Most days I have salad with cold cooked chicken or hard boiled eggs for lunch, then something hot in the evening. I do enjoy making nice, varied salads though, and have a jacket potato at lunchtime too, sometimes, which is warm of course.

I'm from the Mediterranean region so this is my child's diet every day because I only eat once a day:

Breakfast: Eggs (fried or boiled or scrambled) feta cheese, cucumber, olives, homemade jam, cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes, honey and buttered bread and weekends would be pancakes or toast as we have clubs to attend. He gets served better breakfast during the school days :)

Lunch: school lunch or during the holidays it would be left over dinner such as stew, soup, pasta whatever we ate the previous evening.

Dinner: I would cook fresh every day and have soup in the winter months and mains would be protein such as beef stew, bean stew or veg stew with diced beef. Or chicken in different variations. We have fish and vegs twice a week with roasted potatoes or rice. And the carbs would be rice or pasta.

We will have yogurt and a wholesome salad with the dinner.

So technically, two hot meals a day but lunch would be leftovers.

I don’t like cold food either. If I have a sandwich I like it toasted and the filling warm like a chicken salad sandwich.

I usually just have a bowl of cereal for lunch 😂i never really get hungry at lunchtime unless I get up ridiculously early and am on the go for hours prior. Which is rare. Generally I just wfh and I'm just not hungry by 1. If I had a cooked lunch I wouldn't eat dinner.

This isn't competitive "under eating" before anyone accuses me of it! I do have a big dinner and am actually over weight. I've just always struggled to eat much in the day time. So definitely a cooked meal at lunchtime isn't for me.

Definitely two hot meals.
I normally only have two meals a day and prefer them both hot.
Only exception would be in the middle of
summer to have a salad for one meal.

I usually do, I try to avoid too much processed meat and bread, and instead have a lunch that's more nutritious so I usually have something hot (often soup, sometimes a vegetable-laden omlette, occasionally pasta with vegetables wizzed up as a sauce). The kids usually won't eat anything plant based at all if they're given a sandwich.

Though to be fair, I usually make porridge for breakfast for similar reasons, so I probably eat 3 hot meals in a day pretty regularly!!

I’m from Sweden, and two hot meals are the norm here too. Children get preschool or school lunches, adults bring leftovers to work and heat up or go out. People obviously eat cold lunches but I’d hardly ever see someone bring a sandwich for lunch even if they might run out and buy a sandwich as an emergency lunch. Then we cook hot dinners. Again people might not, but it’s a bit of “do you know, I honestly don’t feel much like cooking in the evenings now there are no kids at home. Sometimes we just have a sandwich or some muesli with sour milk and that’s enough for us!” Those people will then have no leftovers for lunch and risk getting into a bad cycle of no hot meals 😂

Norwegians don’t heat hot lunches and we think they are weird and tut and say “well what sort of food culture do they even have in Norway?”

I'm the same.

@ParadiseLaundry "I prefer my kids to have two hot meals "

Can I ask why?

I'd never really thought about it but looking at what I've eaten this week, 6 out of 7 days had all 3 hot meals. But it's winter! Once the days warm up I'll be having cold meals.

@CurlewKate it's important for kids as they are still growing and developing. Hot meals are good for digestion and tend to keep you full for longer and the nutrients in the food will fuel the brain and body which is important for school children.

I teach international students and they complain about this - they are horrified that sandwiches are considered a meal! My Chinese students in particular would have a cooked meal 3 times a day and didn’t really like cold or raw food. They also have much longer lunch breaks so it’s very different.

for comparison, I lived in china and had a 3 hour lunch break usually with a hot meal out. In the uk my lunch break is one hour but I usually take much less and often have a sandwich at my desk. I was much healthier in china - I Ate so much better!

I detest cold sandwiches or rolls. Only hot food for me.

3 hour lunch break?

How long was the working day?!

@selfishmeow "CurlewKate it's important for kids as they are still growing and developing. Hot meals are good for digestion and tend to keep you full for longer and the nutrients in the food will fuel the brain and body which is important for school"

If you prefer hot food then obviously have hot food. But this really is nonsense. Temperature has no impact on nutritional value.

British people often eat soup, baked potato's etc for lunch, although a sandwich is the winner.

Personally I prefer a cold lunch as I find hot food 'heavy'.

I thought Germany, Finland etc ate a lot of sandwiches too?

Better for what? What do you mean by asking better?

Better in what way?

I don't think hot food is nutritionally any better than cold food, but a hot meal can be psychologically satisfying, even in hot weather.

I’ve had the same conversation with someone who was like “er so the sandwich thing…”. Personally I think they have a point. I’m much less likely to snack if I had a decent hot lunch, it’s more likely to be high in protein, nutritious and filling.

I regularly have leftovers from the night before warmed up as well. I often make extra so I can have a hot lunch.

I think a lot of this is culture.

Factories traditionally had canteens with hot food, often that would be the main meal of the day. Or people would go home for a meal.

Offices / shops traditionally didn't have canteens so you went homme if you had time or brought in a 'pack up'.

I watch a Vietnamese woman who moved to germany on YouTube, she talks about needing three hot meals a day and usually involving rice.

In workplaces in Vietnam after dinner everyone puts their head on the desk like primary school children to have a rest.In some places they have 'sleep mats' under their desks.

I think the hot meal at lunchtime is connected to having an actual break / family meal.

In Britain we tend to want to get things done and then go home at 5pm.

I think the culture in Britain is that lunch is quick, and we don't value food as much as some other cultures generally. People don't tend to put a lot of time/ effort into preparing lunch, it's more of a quick grab and go for a lot of people.

There's nothing inherently more nutritious about a hot meal, but the nature of our lunches in the UK mean that it's often unhealthy/ processed things like a supermarket sandwich, crisps, chocolate bar etc. So in that way I'd say it's usually not as good.

If you're having a delicious homemade salad then it doesn't matter that it's cold.

It's more about the prep time put in and the nutritional value than whether it's cold or hot... and of course a lot of cultures also put more social value on lunch as a time to get together with family/ friends etc.