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Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?
British people - and many others across the world - have been brought up on the idea of three square meals a day as a normal eating pattern, but it wasn't always that way.
People are repeatedly told the hallowed family dinner around a table is in decline and the UK is not the only country experiencing such change.
The case for breakfast, missed by many with deleterious effects, is that it makes us more alert, helps keep us trim and improves children's work and behaviour at school.
But when people worry that breaking with the traditional three meals a day is harmful, are they right about the traditional part? Have people always eaten in that pattern? Breakfast as we know it didn't exist for large parts of history. The Romans didn't really eat it, usually consuming only one meal a day around noon, says food historian Caroline Yeldham. In fact, breakfast was actively frowned upon.
"The Romans believed it was healthier to eat only one meal a day," she says. "They were obsessed with digestion and eating more than one meal was considered a form of gluttony. This thinking impacted on the way people ate for a very long time."
In the Middle Ages monastic life largely shaped when people ate, says food historian Ivan Day. Nothing could be eaten before morning Mass and meat could only be eaten for half the days of the year. It's thought the word breakfast entered the English language during this time and literally meant "break the night's fast".
Religious ritual also gave us the full English breakfast. On Collop Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, people had to use up meat before the start of Lent. Much of that meat was pork and bacon as pigs were kept by many people. The meat was often eaten with eggs, which also had to be used up, and the precursor of the full English breakfast was born.
But at the time it probably wasn't eaten in the morning.
In about the 17th Century it is believed that all social classes started eating breakfast, according to chef Clarissa Dickson Wright. After the restoration of Charles II, coffee, tea and dishes like scrambled eggs started to appear on the tables of the wealthy. By the late 1740s, breakfast rooms also started appearing in the homes of the rich.
This morning meal reached new levels of decadence in aristocratic circles in the 19th Century, with the fashion for hunting parties that lasted days, even weeks. Up to 24 dishes would be served for breakfast.
Do you think healthy eating is very important? How many times a day do you eat? Are you sure that your eating is healthy? What do you usually have for lunch?
I think malnutrition is one of the main problem our country.People do not have time to eat healthy foods, because they are busy at work or school.This is terrible.It leads to bad consequences.
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I have no time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I usually eat in the morning and at night I can sometimes eat some hotdog or pizza for day. Maybe when I'm an old I'll balanced feed.
As for me, i eat many times a day although i am busy too. If a person really wants to take his health, he will have time for it!!! We shouln't forget that we should use healthy food. It influences our health too!!!
Yeah it is normal to eat three times a day. But a lot of people for example me eat once a day in the evening. It is really harmful but as for me i have little free time. It is a real problem nowadays not only for me but for many people
I think that people should eat many times a day.It normal for our health.And I'm not agree with Romans.They said that people should eat only one meal a day because eating more than one meal was considered a form of gluttony.
I can sometimes eat some hotdog or pizza for day. Maybe when I'm an old I'll balanced feed.
