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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand the point of 'snacking'

172 replies

Phillipaaa · 31/05/2017 16:55

I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have never aten between or after meals. The reason for this is because I wasn't brought up with it.

I'm not hungry inbetween meals but then I do have decent sized portions for each meal.

I'd never be someone to sit down after evening meal with a packet of crisps.

Is this really unusual? when I go to my friends houses they seem to be constantly eating.

OP posts:
SusannahL · 31/05/2017 17:15

I don't think it's so much the Joshuas or Sebastians, more like the Jaydens and Chelseas!!

elQuintoConyo · 31/05/2017 17:16

You have dinner at 5.30? That's hilarious! Do you go to bed at 8 like a good little 3yo?

Let's see, i have:
8.00 porridge (with ds)
2.00 lunch
7.30/8.00 dinner.

At around 10 am i'll have fruit/yoghurt/handful unsalted pistachios. 5-ish i'll have another piece of fruit.

DS has lunch at school at 1 (today: paella with rice, baked hake with potatoes and carrots followed by fruit of the season), then a sandwich when I collect him at 5. He'll polish off all his dinner later, too.

If i do pinch some of DS' biscuits it's because i'm bored/tired/they're mocking me from the cupboard.

We could spend all day on MN laughing at each others' habits!

sparechange · 31/05/2017 17:16

Eating little and often is far better for your metabolism, digestion and blood sugar than 3 big meals

Obviously that doesn't mean scoffing a bar of dairy milk at 11am every morning, but breaking your daily food intake into 5 meals instead of 3 will do wonders for most people

BeachyKeen · 31/05/2017 17:16

I can't physically eat a full sized meal, so I snack. Not a big deal.

dotandstripe · 31/05/2017 17:17

You are lucky to have been brought up that way.

My mother was obsessed with snacks, even one before bed... I've tried my best to get out of the habit completely because most snack foods aren't that healthy and it's better to have a mini "fast" between meals.

kaitlinktm · 31/05/2017 17:17

Good for you for not snacking. I wish I didn't. I wish I could explain to you why I do.

AmysTiara · 31/05/2017 17:18

People don't eat burgers as a snack Susannah.

A snack is a handful of nuts, a pierce of fruit or a packet of crisps.

Nice comment about Jayden and Chelsea you bore.

elQuintoConyo · 31/05/2017 17:18

Some graduates from Snobbs University here Hmm

TheExuberant1 · 31/05/2017 17:21

Congratulations, you deserve an award of some sort.

Lules · 31/05/2017 17:22

I get hungry. I don't like eating big meals. I don't understand how that's complicated.

I've never been anywhere near overweight and neither has my mother who has always snacked. My father never snacks and is overweight. It depends how much food you eat overall.

HarrietKettleWasHere · 31/05/2017 17:22

We never, ever had snacks when I was a kid.

I used to fantasise about Wagon Wheels and Viscount biscuits Grin

SmileEachDay · 31/05/2017 17:23

I eat breakfast at 7 then prepare then teach for 3 hours straight until 11.30. I'm flipping starving by then - I've usually done about 5km.

Then lunch is at 2. I usually have something at the "end" of the school day too because I've done another 5km by then.

Then I have dinner after DC in bed.

Does that explain it, OP? Or, you know, you could stop being such a judgey pants.

ThatItBe · 31/05/2017 17:23

Ooh I love a snack now and then. I might snack instead of having a proper lunch, just because I feel like it.
Then there's nibbles mmmmmmm

Amethistle · 31/05/2017 17:24

Grazing is actually healthier than the way we eat usually - eating lots of very small meals as opposed to 3 fairly big ones.

If someone has breakfast at 6 a.m., lunch at 1 p.m., and dinner at 7-8p.m., and they don't eat huge meals and are fairly active physically/mentally throughout the day, then it's perfectly reasonable to snack.

I don't see how 5.30 p.m. is early for dinner though. I grew up having dinner any time between 5-6 p.m. Any later would be horrible for digestion, but I guess that would depend on when you went to sleep.

YABU. It's pretty simple - hunger, boredom, cravings, emotive eating...

maddiemookins16mum · 31/05/2017 17:25

Everyones different. I left home at 6.15 today (had a yoghurt at 6am). By 10.30 I could have eaten my own hand so had some grapes. Ate my sandwich at 2pm ish. Am on the train now and will eat dinner at about 9pm. I've a cereal bar in my bag that I'm about to devour.

You can't really generalise until you know all the facts.

AnnieAnoniMouse · 31/05/2017 17:26

YABU or, rather, very shit stirring dim.

It's not exactly the Vasiliev Theory is it?

Perhaphs you should spend more time working on your understanding of the world around you or your grammar & spelling than starting threads that are just a thinly veiled excuse for yet another 'obesity crisis' thread for you to point out how everyone could be slim if only they ate like you. It's tedious.

Amethistle · 31/05/2017 17:27

I have dinner now around 6 p.m., sometimes a bit earlier... Not in bed until around midnight though. Sometimes I have some yoghurt or fruit inbetween.

MacarenaFerreiro · 31/05/2017 17:28

Here's your "I'm a good person because I have three meals a day and NEVER snack" award.

BuckinghamLass · 31/05/2017 17:28

It's not quantum physics, OP. You get a little hungry in between meals, you have a small amount of food to tide you over to the next.

Can't believe I just explained that.

HarrietKettleWasHere · 31/05/2017 17:28

OP I want to know if you eat the canapés at a wedding reception or do you wave then on by airily declaring you will wait for your main meal?

I'd be doing a stretch for murder if I'd done that at the last wedding I was at. We had to wait till 10pm for the meal.

OllyBJolly · 31/05/2017 17:28

I don't think it's all about fast metabolisms. A lot of it is that no one allows themselves (or their kids) to feel hungry any more. So as soon as lunch is down, it's biscuits or crisps. I do think it's a cause of the obesity crisis. We are now using food to keep our kids quiet. You never used to see kids in super markets with packets of biscuits or crisps (or rice cakes in Waitrose!). Now you hardly ever see kids not eating.

blackheartsgirl · 31/05/2017 17:28

What's wrong with having dinner at 5.30 Confused we often do. We all eat together even the little kids,can't imagine them waiting till 8pm for their dinner and I'm not cooking twice. We eat early often as we have things on in the evening. Most people I know eat around half five sixish as well.

As for snacks I wasnt brought up with snacks. It was banned but that didnt stop me from snacking with glee whrn i left home because I could

Fruitcocktail6 · 31/05/2017 17:28

I thought many small meals was actually considered healthier than three big meals a day?

I don't want to stuff myself at lunch or i will feel sleepy all afternoon. I'd rather have a light lunch then a snack at 3 or 4pm.

Eating big meals makes me feel bloated and tired.

kaitlinktm · 31/05/2017 17:29

Am feeling a bit better after reading some of these replies. :)

bigtapdancingpimp · 31/05/2017 17:29

My grandmother used to eat her dinner at 5pm but she's dead now Sad

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