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...

Isn't the rule that lunch is something like a sandwich/bowl of soup and the evening meal a bigger (and possibly hot!)affair?
OR if I went out for lunch and had a big, hot meal e.g. carvery then obvs I wouldn't want more than a sandwich for tea.
Technically you could eat a hot fry up for breakfast, a hot bowl of soup for lunch and hot bangers and mash for tea. Although, that would be a lot of food for most people, irrespective of heat of the meals! I think it's more meal size related.
For my dd, in the winter I like to think she's had a hot meal each day because it's chilly. In summer I'm not fussed if she has a cold sandwich for lunch and a cold salmon salad for her tea.

I've only heard of this from my grandmother. I think it might be an old person thing.

But Verroblemom, surely a BLT sandwich or a salad with salad cream/croutons etc is far more calories-heavy than say a bowl of vegetable stew and rice, or a boiled spud and a piece of fish? And shoving those bangers in a sandwich won't automatically make it less heavy just because it's cold.

Never heard of this in my life.

Good point, corythatwas! I think somehow hot food just seems more of a big deal somehow. And for me , if I did eat a sausage butty for lunch I probably wouldn't want much for tea. Not so much about calories but about being still full up from a big previous meal iyswim....?

Have just been visiting some drama students- so people who really can't afford either to put on weight or to work on a full stomach (with the kind of work dd does you'd bring it straight up)- and what they all seem to be doing is cook veggie meals and bring a lunchbox because it's lighter than sandwiches.

Bollocks to that, I've declared it winter and i am having hot porridge for breakfast, hot toastie for lunch and hot whateverthefuckiwant for tea - SHOOT ME NOW IM A GREEDY FAT HOT MEAL BASTARDDDDDDDD...

Of all the things to give a crap about.

My dc will have porridge with warm milk for breakfast
Sandwich/bread roll with fruit for lunch in school.
Then when they get home from school at 2.30/3 they'll have omelette or boiled egg with toast.
They will then have a hot meal at 6
A beef dish, Spag bol, chilli or cottage pie, curry or fish
When I was a child we didn't have lunch at the weekends. We had breakfast, no snacks not even fruit and then dinner at 5
My dc have more meals in a day than I ever had but they are small portions.
I've been surprised at the portion sizes their friends are given. I couldn't eat half of what their friends are given!

I've never heard that. But then again I only have one meal a day.

Hubby is training to be a surgeon and he gets THREE hot meals a day when he’s doing night shifts! I make him a hot breakfast of some description when he gets up in the evening (fry up, pancakes, French toast etc... is usually my dinner too), and he takes a container of stew/casserole/pasta from the freezer for “lunch” in the middle of the night and another for “dinner” when he gets home in the morning.

Whereas when he works days he has Weetbix for breakfast, usually doesn’t get to eat lunch and his only hot meal of the day is dinner... maybe I should show him this thread and tell him he’s living too well on night shifts

There does seem to be a consensus in Bolton that if you've had a hot dinner you don't need a hot tea.

My hubby should be glad he doesn’t live in Bolton!!! :D

I have never heard this.

However, I have heard.....Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper.

www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/07/21/breakfast-like-king-lunch-like-prince-dine-like-pauper-lose/

Test post as I've another written but it seems to not be letting me post it!

Ime this is a peculiarly English concept.

My family are all scots so having 3 hot meals a day completely normal especially in winter (and actually arguably saves money - getting warmth from the food rather than paying to hear the whole home). I rather suspect certain more austere types would have a fit at a typical diet my grandparents ate!

Eg something like:
Glasgow fry (bacon, eggs, tattie scones, black pudding, white pudding, fried mushrooms fried bread AND toast - oh the carbs!

Lunch - leftover stew of some description with bread and butter, large portion of cake or a large pastry and large mugs of (full fat) milky sweet builders tea

Dinner - sausages, mash, cabbage, gravy always bread and butter and large mugs of builders tea as before.

Supper - thick slabs of heavily buttered malt loaf, either with tea or hot chocolate

Seems it's too long brace yourselves...

The weird thing is they were all slim! Until middle age/retirement. Admittedly both grandfathers had very much manual jobs (which I'll bet used more calories than the supposed manual jobs of today! And one granpa had 2 such jobs - 1 full time and then another part time one on top!) and the grandmothers were kept busy on top of having full time jobs running around after kids (catholic families LOTS of kids!), husbands and elderly relatives who they "popped in to see to" daily. Without mod cons - both had twin tubs and wringers until the 80's - they didn't trust automatic washers to get things clean enough as they were "too gentle" only getting automatics when their twin tubs gave up the ghost and nowhere was selling twin tubs any more, although apparently they're making a comeback!

When as a result of dad being army we moved down south when me and bro were primary school age my mother (who probably tells this anecdote better than me) blew her neighbours minds - they couldn't get their heads round the contradictory attitudes they had toward the fact that even though we'd had a hot two course meal at school, she'd also provide a hot two course meal at home for dinner time (profligate in their view) but that many days that two course meal would include home made soup (apparently miserly not to have tinned soup! - apparently one actually said in a rather haughty voice 'but poor people make their own soup' ) 😂😂

Equally she though their kids were "deprived" because they 'only' have them a sandwich or at most beans or eggs on toast for dinner, if we brought friends round to play they were pressed into having 'just a wee bowl' of (rib stickingly thick lentil probably) soup - plus of course you need a roll with that (spread thickly with butter and quite possibly a few slices of ham or cheese in it too, or 'just a wee sliver' of a doorstep of sponge cake, or a diabetic coma inducing slice of fly cemetery! 😂

My ex in laws were quite like this, if they'd been out for dinner they wouldn't have anything more than half a sandwich each and a little side salad come dinner time - regardless of if they were hungry for more! Then end up snacking more because they were hungry.

There was a thread recently where an mner was simultaneously reluctant to give their child a hot meal at dinner time as they were having a hot school lunch (which they thought generously portioned) and also not really giving the child enough in cold food as the child was clearly demonstrating they were still hungry after iirc being given at 6pm (school lunch having been around midday) basically half a sandwich, a few crudités and dip and a yogurt! Poor kid was probably bloody starving!

As per pps hot or cold is irrelevant, portion size and nutritional content is what matters.

Atthebottomofthe... Be warned, if you ever visit Scotland high tea and afternoon tea are not the same thing. I made the mistake once of visiting one relative for lunch and willingly being 'fed to the gunnels' with soup, pasta, bread, cakes etc thinking the high tea I was having with another relative later that day would be like the English afternoon tea - it's not! It's basically a main meal PLUS an afternoon tea! I felt like bloody Violet Beauregarde on the way home, mum nearly wet herself laughing when I explained!

"and have a hot roll at work" I suspect you're also scots - and will need to explain exactly what a "hot roll" is!

Andro & pinkprincess - during the recent heatwave my mother was STILL cooking normal hot dinners - and complaining about it! Ffs woman have a salad or a quiche it won't kill you!

"My mum and dad panic if I don't have a hot meal every day. If I go to the airport with a salad wrap in my bag they fret" omg this triggered a memory! Being sent away after visiting granny with basically a hand luggage size hold-all full of food for the journey home (how the fuck far they thought England was I don't know!) basically a full pan loaf made into doorstep ham & mustard or cheese (scottish cheddar of course) & pickle sandwiches, 3-4 flasks of soup, crisps, fruit, equivalent of 3 sponge cakes in the form of maybe 1 sponge cake, large batch of scones and pastries, tablet, macaroon bars, and several bottles of irn bru to wash it down! There were often only 4 of us, mum and 3 kids! Utterly bonkers! Mum always seemed to find a family who were not so well prepared and unwilling or unable to pay British rails extortionate prices for sandwiches etc and share freely.

"A sandwich for lunch is for crazy Brits who don't eat properly." I have several friends who are at least half non-Brit heritage and sometimes more, their non-Brit parents definitely have the same attitude! Seems to me particularly prevalent in the ones of French & Italian heritage who definitely live to eat rather than eat to live! Although you might struggle with scots soup, which tends really to be more of a light stew! Very thick and hearty. With as has been said the exception of Germany, lived there several years myself, big breakfast tends to be the case, lunchtime they have what we'd have at dinner time then at dinner time (usually with lots of potatoes done in any 2 of 1000 ways - seriously they're fab at potatoes!), bread, cheese, pickles, cold meats for omnivores, sometimes at the slightest excuse cake!

Sorry not sorry I bloody wrote it so I was posting it

I don’t know if this helps the conversation but I’ve never been slimmer than since I started having “dinner” aka main meal for lunch. Frequently don’t eat anything more than a salad or some
Fruit for dinner. I also have a nap in the afternoon whenever I can too! I so should have been French.

Same here Neville

I'm far hungrier earlier in the day so usually have a fairly substantial cooked breakfast a couple of hours after I get up if I have the time but if not I make something like cream cheese on toast at work or a make a breakfast wrap (thin omelette, toaster cooked potato waffle and quorn sausage pattie) to eat during my commute.

I then have a decent hot lunch and probably a snack and then will have a small portion of dinner. If eating out and everyone is having two courses I'll eat my starter, which usually fills me up and pick at my main and take well over half of it for lunch the next day.

The 'normal' eating pattern of eating hardly anything in the daytime and then a big dinner just doesn't work for me at all, I spend the entire day feeling hungry and faint. Since I realised this, my weight is much easier to control and I feel much better.

Here is Spain it’s standard for people to cook 2 hot meals a day! My DC’s have a sandwich etc for lunch but most of the Spanish parents I know get up at 6am and prepare their DC a hot lunch to take to school with them and will then cook again in the evening. I personally think it’s mad to get up at 6am to cook a hot lunch but in Spain, lunch is the main meal of the day where as British people have a main meal in the evening. I wouldn’t care if I had 3 hot meals tbh i would quite like it but I never have a big lunch so it would probably be something very unexciting like soup!