To ask what time you eat your meals?

[Cherchezlaspice]

Inspired by another thread, what time do you eat your meals every day? Posters were talking about having dinner at 5pm and I thought that was really interesting! It’s not something I’d previously come across.

Also interested in whether this varies by age or region, so it would great if you could say. I’ll start.

DH and I are in our 30’s, have no kids and live and work in Central London

Breakfast (well, a smoothie): 8.30am

Lunch: Half 1ish

Dinner: circa 8pm

Breakfast anytime before 11, lunch usually at 1, dinner at 6

Breakfast: 5.45am

Lunch: between 12 - 12.30

Dinner: 5pm ish

I live in Surrey but grew up in the north where it’s pretty common to eat at 5ish. I’d be the size of a house if I ate at 8 or later as I would snack mid afternoon and it’s late to digest food as I go to sleep early

Breakfast: 8am
Coffee: 10.30am
Lunch: 1pm
Dinner: 7.30pm

DC tend to have breakfast later that DH and I but we all have dinner together.

I usually have lunch circa 12.30-1pm and dinner 7.30-8.pm In the SE and don’t have DC but I was brought up this way so ate around 7-8pm as a child as well. My dad wouldn’t have been home from work otherwise! It blows my mind that anyone other than a toddler (or shift worker) would want dinner at 5pm. Even pre-theatre I wouldn’t eat that early!

Work/school days
breakfast - 7:40
lunch 1pm
dinner 6pm

weekends
breakfast - 8am ish
lunch - between 12 and 1
dinner 6pm

snacks usually about 10:30 and 3

South west /midlands border

I eat my evening meal around 5 and I don't care
I'm hungry by then . So i eat

We live in Spain. DS finishes high school at 230 pm (starts at 8 am) and DD comes out of primary at 2pm. So we have breakfast at 7 or 8, lunch at 3 when both kids are back and dinner some time after 8 usually. The kids both take a filled roll or something to have in their break at about 12.
DH it depends on his schedule at work.
At weekends and holidays we get up late and have breakfast at about 10, lunch after 2 and dinner some time after 8 or 9.
We have our main meal at lunch and in the evening it's usually a sandwich or something, we quite often all eat different things in the evening.

Me - Depends what day of the week it is. First time I have something to eat during a working day is somewhere between 3pm and 4pm. Before 2pm is rare, usually close to 4pm. I suppose that would be breakfast? It’s not usually a meal exactly, more whatever I’ve got available. An apple, a pastry, a chocolate bar, a hard boiled egg or a handful of almonds if I’ve been feeling organised, anything fast/instant really.

I do get a meal later, don’t know if it’s lunch or dinner but it’s usually a proper meal with a knife and fork and I eat it anywhere between 8-11pm.

@AppleBottomRats I’m impressed that you could go from lunch at school until 8pm without food! I would have passed out!

I'm not going to give times for now because I'm not working so they're allmessed up. I generally only eat when hungry (but overeat, hence my weight!).

On a normal working day, I don't have breakfast. Dinner is at dinner time so between 12-1. After work snack at 4-5 ish and then tea, if I'm hungry, is 8p.m. onwards.

Well you know what time I have dinner but for a complete picture ;)

Breakfast - 8:00
Lunch - 12
Dinner - 17:00
Pudding - 20:00/21:00

Single in 50s. Living in Yorkshire but from SE.

Weekdays
10am- Apple/Pear
12-1pm - Lunch
5pm - Snack if hungry
7-8.30pm - Dinner (depending on activity)

Weekends more variable.

On holiday in Spain this year
breakfast 9ish
lunch 3ish
dinner 10ish

We’ve been off work but at home this week and have done
breakfast 11am
light lunch 3ish
dinner 9ish

Usually when we are at work we do
breakfast when convenient in work day between 9.30-11
lunch upto 4pm
dinner 8.15pm

It’s just what I was used to I suppose! Didn’t snack either. But I usually had after-school activities so wasn’t getting boredom hunger.

What’s more fascinating about this thread than the times people eat is what they call
their evening meal.

When I was a kid it was dinner in the middle of the day and tea in the evening. Now we both work and it’s dinner in the evening (me), but DH persistently calls it supper (pronounced suppah 🙄). He’s much posher than me so maybe that’s it….

Breakfast for dc - when they wake depending on the day
11am - breakfast for me
1-2pm - lunch
8pm - dinner as a family (dc will snack in the afternoon)

Even with tiny babies, I don’t think we had dinner at 5pm.

Breakfast on a school day around 7am, otherwise during the holidays any time between them and a noon brunch! The children are 14 and 12 so whenever they surface, really!

Breakfast about 7.30
Lunch 1.00
Dinner 6/6.30

Lunch any time from noon to 1.30 if we're not out for the day somewhere. We're quite relaxed about lunch but always eat supper around 6pm ;used to be later but 14 yr old likes to go for a run later so don't want to make it too late).

Breakfast around 9ish
Ljnch normally around 1 or 2
Dinner anytime between 7 and 10, tends to be later on weekends, just finished dinner now today.

9 to 5 are stereotypical standard working hours. There’s even songs about it. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with working other hours.

Some people have also said they are astonished some people eat so late. Do you have a problem with that, as well? Or just the other way round?

People are intrigued by things that differ from their norm. That is all.

I never get why there is inference that eating the evening meal ‘later’ is superior to eating at 5-6pm.

Have* a read of Scoff: a history of food and class in *Britain. Basically it comes down to the fact that manual workers needed to eat early as they were really hungry after a hard days work in the field / mine / factory, so they would have their ‘tea’ early. The upper classes wanted to distinguish themselves from the lower classes, so they gradually ate later and later - to show that they weren’t starving hungry from working during the day, and also to demonstrate that they didn’t have to get up early to return to work in the morning.

That’s why dining later in the evening is considered to be superior to eating your ‘tea’ at 5pm.

www.amazon.co.uk/Scoff-History-Food-Class-Britain/dp/178649647X/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=26219354-730a-4450-ad37-731bece039ed

Explains all the lunch/dinner and dinner/supper variations too.

Me, 53 & DP, 65. SE England.
Breakfast 7am (later at weekends)
Snack 11am
Lunch 1pm
Dinner 6.30 pm

DP is quite regimented about meal times so I fit in with him.