To not understand the obsession with ‘hot meals’?

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As in “kids need to have a hot meal”, “They haven’t had a hot meal today” etc

Is it just short-hand for a more substantial meal or do people think there is some magic about food being hot that makes it more nutritious?

Is, for instance, a tuna pasta bake superior to a tuna sandwich? Or sausage and mash better than ham salad?

Hasn't it been said that learning to cook food made humans more intelligent?
Here's an article on the British Heart Foundation site which suggests cooked food makes more nutrients available to be absorbed

Forgot the link

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/nutrition/ask-the-expert/raw-food[hmm]

I was once pulled to o e side by a teacher when my child didn't enjoy the lunches who asked if I cooked on an eve and when I said yes, mostly, she couldn't get her head around the fact that they had two hot meals some days. Bonkers!

When I was very young, the evening 'meal' would be bread and jam, every night. Every single night. This was because I had a 'hot meal' at school for lunch. So basically a decent meal (wasn't really the 'liver and onions' were so bitter they should jail whoever said it was OK to eat).

I think a lot of people mean it as a filling meal

So a protein carb and veg for example

A ham salad is nutritious but when it’s cold out and you’re burning more calories, something that involves a protein and starchy carb in higher quantities will be more filling

I spend hours a day on construction sites. At this time of year I absolutely need a hot meal when I get home.

@KayKayWat

I spend hours a day on construction sites. At this time of year I absolutely need a hot meal when I get home.

Could that be soup and bread or by 'hot meal' do you mean big meal?

I would find a cheese and ham toasty more satisfying than the same ingredients in a cold sandwich.

You're immediately adding heat into the core temperature rather than the body using its existing energy to raise the food to body temperature.
After a cold water swim, a hot drink makes a massive difference at boosting core temperature and is safer than applying external heat because of the way the body directs blood around the extremities and organs to conserve heat.

I'll often have 3 hot meals a day, porridge or eggs/ beans and toast for breakfast, stirfry and chicken or fish for lunch and dinner in the evening.

I may have spoilt DS1 though, last week he had a meltdown at not having a hot lunch... it was a sausage cob!

I like salads in the summer, but it's this point of the year that I need to accept that it's too blooming cold to actually want cold salads until April.

If we were living in miami maybe cold food all the time would be fine but in a cold climate we need hot food especially when we are tired in the evening - not rocket science is it

My daughter would eat 3 hot meals a day, she doesn't like a cold lunch which is a bit of a pain! She will eat sandwiches but would much rather pasta instead. She finds them more filling 🤷🏼‍♀️

Where I live (obvs not UK), a cold meal is considered almost neglectful and cruel! People get up early and cook a hot breakfast, then provide a hot lunch and hot dinner too. I miss sandwiches!

Also, it's not at all cold here - most of the year it's boiling!

Agree.... my OH looks at me as if I'm mad when I say I'll get myself a sandwich...
no not laziness, I can think of other things I'd just often would prefer a sarny..... then again if I answered soup I get the same look. 🤡

You can provide more variety by cooking food, which means improved nutrition. But that only works if you provide a variety of cooked meal too. Yes some of these can be eaten cold the next day, but you've taken a hot meal and you're just eating it cold.

I wouldn't want to be giving DD toast and sandwiches of an evening. I want her to understand about food, nutrition and for her to know how to prepare food. Its a bit limited if I'm assembling food. To me a ham sandwich is just processed food. As are crumpets, crackers etc. And as another poster said, there are less micro nutrients in a Tuna sandwich as oppressed to a Tuna bake which will have more ingredients, and can be served with a wide variety of sides.

Well here we're into game season so rabbit, pheasant, duck, partridge , deer is plentiful. Game oie is eaten cold but most game is served hot

@Vynalbob

Agree.... my OH looks at me as if I'm mad when I say I'll get myself a sandwich... no not laziness, I can think of other things I'd just often would prefer a sarny..... then again if I answered soup I get the same look. 🤡

My dh gives me serious side eye if I say I want soup for dinner!

It depends on the time of year. Hot meals are a necessity in cold weather and winter.

I don't understand this either.
As part of a neighbourhood grant to support families who are on low incomes we had to draw up and submit a plan on how we were going to reach 150 families in our community and give family a meal kit for number of people in the family for a week plus make sure every child had a 'hot meal' 5 days a week for one month.....in August.
I know we had some cool days but we had plenty of hot one in my area and we were turning up to people's houses with casseroles and stews!

I wouldn't have fancied it!

I wouldn't have fancied it!

But you have the luxury of choosing and access to food throughout the day.

wouldn't have fancied it!

But you have the luxury of choosing and access to food throughout the day
I know what you are saying. I felt like a lot if food was wasted ( many families told us they did eat it, gave it to the dog etc when we dud an evaluation.
My personal thoughts were we should have been more in tune to our surroundings.
Most of the people on our register weren't necessarily struggling for food but one or more of their children accessed a service they were entitled to 20 hot meals.
It would have been nice to mix it up a bit rather than having waste was my point.

many families told us they didn't *eat it, gave it to the dog etc when we dulid an evaluation.
Also it was mainly one choice meal with haal being an alternative.
So everyone got chili, everyone got spaghetti bol etc.

You all know that the effects of a hot meal or hot drink in warming you up, are pretty much psychological, not physical, right?

I mean holding a hot mug of something will warm your fingers a bit, but overall, it doesn't raise your core body temp, hot food does even less as you aren't typically holding the hot bowl/plate.

It is the calories within the meal that warm you up, not the temperature of the food.

@WiddlinDiddlin

You all know that the effects of a hot meal or hot drink in warming you up, are pretty much psychological, not physical, right?

I mean holding a hot mug of something will warm your fingers a bit, but overall, it doesn't raise your core body temp, hot food does even less as you aren't typically holding the hot bowl/plate.

It is the calories within the meal that warm you up, not the temperature of the food.

Then why do charities like Help the Aged encourage old people to eat hot food in the winter?

Probably because they are more likely to eat more if they do, because as has been discussed througout, a hot meal does tend to be a bigger meal.

The psychological effects are not to be dismissed though, I do feel warmer and cosier and happier for a hot drink on a cold day or a big bowl of stew when it's freezing outside..

Keeping people mentally fufilled will be an important part of a charity like Help the Aged's work.

"Probably because they are more likely to eat more if they do, because as has been discussed througout, a hot meal does tend to be a bigger meal."

That doesn't ring true. If Help the Aged wanted people to eat a big meal, surely they'd say that.