To not understand the unwritten rule of not having 2 hot meals a day?

[Justanothernamechange2]

Seeing it more and more that people cant have hot food twice a day.. cant possibly have spag bol for dinner because they had soup for lunch etc. It was a recent debate in my workplace so wondered how the jury of MN feel.

Surely its more about portions than temperature?

Id happily eat hot food for every meal - lunch is just typically smaller than my evening meal or vice versa sometimes at weekends...

I usually have yesterday’s leftovers for lunch and then cook again that night. Alternatively, I might not feel like cooking and have a sandwich instead. I have no rules!

All of you saying that school meals are small... I’m quite shocked. I think the meals at my school are quite big.

I often have a school dinner and pay the adult price of £3.80 but ask our cook to give me a child portion as an adult portion is far too big. Even the child portion is often bigger than I would serve myself at home and I hardly ever have room for the pudding.... (although I force myself when it’s jam sponge and custard).

Maybe varies between schools then! I doubt my 9th centile 4 year old is eating more than an adult could manage, and still being hungry when she gets home.

I have a Singaporean SiL who doesn't consider a meal a 'proper' one if it's not cooked.

I've also known old people who thought the same - 'You've got to have a proper dinner!' - i.e. cooked and hot - exactly the same nutrition cold just wouldn't count.

I've never heard anyone say you can't have two hot meals a day.

My family think you can only have one hot meal a day. I usually have three!

I have a friend in her late 30s (so fairly young!) who has this rule. She often says if we go out for lunch that she will just do her children sandwiches that evening.

Isn't it just as easy to stick on pasta or beans on toast?

I don't really get these food "rules"

I wouldn't have two large meals in a day but the temperature has nothing to do with it!

News to me!

I've only heard of this on MN, never IRL. I really don't understand what difference the temperature of the meal(hot or cold) makes.

That said, I don't have children yet, but if I've gone out, and had a substantial lunch out in a restaurant then I'd probably just have sandwiches or cereal in the evening. That isn't because I don't believe in having two hot meals but I'm unlikely to want to eat two substantial meals. (I don't eat breakfast so I don't have to consider the temperature of that.)

If I did have children I'd feed them a dinner as normal, be that hot or cold, as the portion sizes are small in my area, and they need the energy.

It must be the idea that a hot meal must have been cooked from scratch and is hence a lot of work for the one person in the house who can possibly cook - mum/wife.

I live in Germany and I've had mums express surprise/horror at the idea we have a hot meal in the evening. One of them basically said she felt sorry for me because she couldn't possibly imagine having the energy to cook in the evening

If I'm too tired to cook I make something easy or DH cooks... it's not that difficult

I think it's just a hangover from a time before convenience foods and gadgets - those food history programmes for example show people used to have to slave away and no fridge/freezer to store leftovers, so they'd have had to have been cooked into something else.

From time immemorial we older teachers in the staffroom had sandwiches, salads and cold lunches and were shocked when the new younger staff started having hot meals, often microwaved and very noticeable in an olefactory way. We were all slim and they were all, with a couple of exceptions ( who were slim), overweight.

Interesting. Incidentally, my DD and nearly all of her friends, who eat out constantly, are all overweight.

I think that two hot meals in themselves are neutral as the same food has the same mumber of calories hot or cold. However, there is something a little indulgent about making a fuss of lunch.

Apart from last Friday *, I can’t remember the last time I had two hot meals in a single day (apart from a bacon sarnie on a Sunday with a roast 6 hours later maybe). That’s not through choice though as working ft I only have a sandwich at lunchtime and on Saturdays we usually have the same.

• last Friday we went to the chippy across the road from the office and had fish and chips for lunch. For my evening meal I had a tuna/coleslaw baguette as I’d already had my ‘hot meal’.

I’ve never really given it much though but it’s probably because two hot/main meals a day would seem extravagant to me although that’s probably me just being silly.

Thinking about it, if I have a big cooked breakfast I usually don't have lunch, and if I have a big cooked lunch I usually don't have dinner, or have it a couple of hours later, when I'm hungry.

Reading through these (I admit I’ve not read the whole thread though, don’t shoot me!) I realise I must be in the minority, but I wouldn’t have a hot meal for lunch. Maybe if I went out with a friend to a restaurant I would. But something quite light, not a full on “dinner” type meal. My husband and my ILs often cook food (pasta, home made soup and bread, meat and veg) for lunch and I’ve always found it really strange! We come from different parts of the country and I just always put it down to that. It’s salad or a sandwich for me, never a hot meal. So yes, I think I must be one of the people the OP is talking about!

My parents would certainly not have got the hang of this rule. To them, economy meant making the most of leftovers, which would usually be heated up. Also meals centered around boiled spuds/fried-up left-over spuds were usually a lot cheaper than sandwich-based meals. Also remember rice-pudding or semolina pudding as a regular lunch dish. It certainly wasn't expensive and I suppose there was nutrition in the milk.

Never heard this. For calorie reasons I don't have two full meals but soup or a half portion of leftovers makes a good lunch. If I make a sandwich I normally toast it!

Should add through the hot summer we often only had cold food eg salads.

Eat whatever you want as long as you don't put on weight and you can afford it, donate to the food bank if you can.

I had soup today and a roast. I must be weird

Oh dear! I had a bacon sandwich for breakfast, a roast chicken and veg for lunch, and a snack pasta pot for dinner! I am so reckless with my 3 hot meals today

I heard this once from an octegenarian, and never b gore or since.

Like PP i normally have two or three hot meals a day , breakfast (esp in the colder months ) would be cheese on toast / porridge , lunch will be left overs from last nights tea with something different for tonight's tea .
I do not like sandwiches much.
I agree it is about the content of the meal not the temperature of it.

If I've been out for a meal, that's my main meal that day & I'll eat much lighter lunch or have a very tiny snack later.

@Teacher22- if I have a main big (often hot) meal for lunch then I make sure I have a light, cooler supper 9/10 times now. It's eating as you described younger staff doing that buggered my weight. I'm hungriest in the afternoons so I now eat my main meal for lunch and work around that. With a sensible sized breakfast, I usually don't need much in the evening. I can & do eat cold for lunch & hot for supper but I just find the other way round is better for me.

How bizarre, I've never heard this.

Now I want to know what area OP lives where this is a thing.