To expect a snack when visiting someone's home for a few hours?

[Playdoughy]

Context matters clearly, so I will give some background.
We've been invited to friends' place who live outside of London (90mins car ride) and we agreed to come by over the weekend for a few hours in the early afternoon. The invite was not for an overnight stay but more of a housewarming situation - as in come and see how the place looks like (not for a group of people but just us visiting). They have been living in the flat for 5 months now, I am pregnant so couldn't take a trip during first semester due to sickness - now more up for it.
Anyway we had an early light lunch (luckily) and took off today to arrive after almost a 2 hour drive due to traffic. We had a lovely time chatting and stayed for around 2 hours (I literally had to leave and gave signal to my husband as I was starving to the point of being nauseous).
We got offered a tea upon arrival (drink, not a meal - to avoid any confusion) so I had a cup of tea -no biscuits involved.
I have to admit that on my way to the loo I literally stole a couple of crackers from an open bag sitting on a sideboard near the kitchen and I ate that in the bathroom (yeah...).
After we said goodbyes and went into the car my husband started googling for any nearby pub to have dinner - I advocated against in case they go out later, it would be super awkward if we stumbled upon them. So we grabbed some snacks in an off licence for the car and were on our way.
I mean surely as a host you have some concept of your guests travelling to see you and need to travel back - for us this would be almost 6 hours without a meal and I am pregnant.
I just don't get it. Even a box of digestives would have helped.
Maybe it's a cultural difference thingy, she is american he is scandinavian. Anyway aibu?

Im not a snacker so would not have offered cake/ biscuits after lunch. If preparing a meal than yes, I would offer something. You had just had lunch though so not exactly starving.

Weird they didn't offer anything.

Weird you didn't ask politely.

Absolutely ridiculous you didn't go to the pub in case they also went to the pub independently.

Are these people actually real friends or just acquaintances?

I wouldn’t have expected anything for only 2 hours but I would’ve made sure I had eaten properly before I left.

My central European self can't fathom it either

When you are pregnant you make sure you have what you need with you. Pack snacks, use your words.

Even if my neighbour pops in for a cuppa, I provide cakes or biscuits.

How odd. I would have definitely but snacks out. Olives, nibbles, cake etc… but them I’m a feeder!

It is odd not to offer. However, if you can't go without snacking, you need to carry your own. Or ask.

They probably didn’t take travel time into consideration. Also do they know you’re pregnant? I think I would have asked for something and told them you have pregnancy related nausea. They are friends after all!

The pub thing afterwards, I do not get why it would be a problem in the unlikely event they walked in while you you were having dinner at dinner time?

It wouldn’t have been awkward to go into a pub nearby and eat…

I agree they should have offered snacks but equally you could have said “ooh any biscuits to go with this?”

This all seems a bit dramatic to me. Yes, I completely agree it was odd of them not to offer you refreshments like biscuits or a snack with your drink and I would have done if I was them.

However, when I was pregnant and feeling sick every hour or so, I would bring snacks with me- its not on other people to automatically know how pregnancy was affecting me and to avoid all this drama I would bring crackers/fruit etc Literally noone is going to shout at you for eating if you are pregnant and feeling sick FGS.

Secondly, the drama about we cant go to a pub in case we bump into them- I dont get this at all? they didnt give you dinner so why on earth would they be "offended" to see you eating in a pub? You are really overthinking all this and its completely unnecessary

I guess she’d said come after lunch so had assumed you’d have eaten already. I think it’s hugely varied how often people eat snacks, if your friend doesn’t really eat between meals it might just not be something that occurred to her. I’m sure if you’d said ‘I couldn’t have a bit of toast or a cracker or something could I?’ she’d have sorted it. The pub thing is so weird to me- if I had friends round for a few hours in the afternoon and they said they were going to the pub nearby for tea, I’d just think they were finding somewhere for tea nearby, why would it matter if they saw you there?

You were just popping there for 2 hours. We don’t have biscuits at my house. You should have eaten a bigger lunch, I wouldn’t expect my friends to feed me if it wasn’t over a meal time.

Completely disagree here! I don't think it's normal at all to expect food post lunch-pre dinner! I'd probably get some biscuits, but I find the expectation of food really strange. Of course, I'd have a range of drinks.

If you have a special requirement, it's always best to bring them yourself. I don't remember needing to constantly snack during pregnancy, but I might be forgetting. Why on earth did you have a 'light lunch' and not something substantial?

You turned up empty handed? Didn't you bring anything with you?

I think they should have put something out given the travel time. However, when local friends pop in for a cuppa for an hour or two I don’t put anything out so maybe they just had it in their head as a ‘chat and a cuppa’ thing and not a hosting thing. I can’t believe you drove 4 hours for this honestly!

I always, always had snacks in my bag when I was pregnant. Always seemed to be hungry at the wrong times and would get very sick if I didn’t eat right away. So I think you could have also done a better job at taking care of yourself. I had no idea about that part before having a baby so they probably had no idea either.

And of course you're at liberty to go for dinner afterwards - how ridiculous.

No guesses why there's an obesity crisis in this country though looking at some of these replies.

The OP is already out of the first trimester when nausea is particularly a thing, so I wouldn't assume that she was still struggling with sickness unless she directly said so. But if someone needed to eat very frequently to avoid feeling sick, I would kind of expect them to bring their preferred snacks with them - in the early days of pregnancy when I was struggling with nausea, I don't remember it being triggered so much by an empty stomach but rather by specific foods or sometimes smells that I wasn't able to cope with at the time. I guess it's different for everyone.

I think it’s normal in most cultures to offer guests food, and I will grab a pack of biscuits if I know my brother is popping in for a cuppa but it’s theirs first home, maybe they just aren’t all that familiar with these sorts of “customs”. But I’d also bring something like that if I was popping round to see someone.

Invite them round to yours and Stuff them full of cake and crisps. And next time you go there, you know to bring something just in case.

The fact you’re pregnant is totally irrelevant and you are being a bit dramatic about not eating for a whole 4 hours.

To be fair, if I had a friend pop round for a couple of hours I would be unlikely to offer biscuits, cake or processed snacks. I don't have them in the house. Lots of people don't eat in between meals, only fruit or similar. If you arrived just after lunch they probably thought you had just eaten.

You must realise it's unusual when not pregnant to eat every 3-4 hours. If I'm at work I'll have lunch (somewhere between 12 and 2 depending on the day) I will have had breakfast around 7:30am and then dinner will either be around 5:30/6 if eating with D's or 7:30/8 if not. I'm not really hungry for dinner at 5:30 I just eat then so we eat with ds, I prefer to eat after 7, which means in some days it will have been 7+ hours between meals. I occasionally smack but not really through hunger, but if someone has brought cake or biscuits into work I might have something

Again, a British person would think to offer snacks for an afternoon tea, but an American probably won't. I do think that an an American living in Britain should learn the social norms but it may have just slipped her mind. Tea culture isn't a thing for us.

Meh. Not rude. Oversights happen, people miss things. A bit remiss, perhaps, but not rude. Not even inconsiderate.
I tend to offer some sort of snack, and often try to schedule visits so they coincide with an actual meal -culturally, I'm from a place (and a generation) where three meals a day, and very little snacking in between, is the norm.
What I don't get is people having a little ponder with themselves about whether other people are rude for minor percieved infringements or transgressions like this. It's like this stingy, tight energy which is never a good look -we ought to be able to communicate our needs freely between friends. If they're your friends, how could it ever be awkward bumping into them in the pub? Or indeed to ask them for something as basic as a snack? You didn't feel rude rummaging in a bag of crackers on your friend's counter top (you weren't) but felt you couldn't ask? Mind blown. I'd have a look at this reticence to communicate openly and advocate for your own needs before your baby arrives, OP.

I wouldn’t say it was rude, just different customs. Some friends of mine barely seem to think about food, it seems a very low priority to them whereas others seem to think it is the most important part of a visit. If you haven’t been pregnant before you might not realise you need to eat often to keep the sickness at bay, I do remember that from my first trimester. Maybe make sure you pack snacks next time you visit them now you know!

I don't snack between meals and don't eat biscuits, cake or crisps etc so wouldn't have anything like that in the house. What time did you arrive and leave OP?