What is the historical significance of why we eat 3 meals a day? Are there any historical references for this?

Question

-is it because 3 meals were a sign of wealth, if so where can one learn more about this.

Answer 1

This is a really great, intriguing question that is way too complex to really do justice here.

But I'll try anyway.

The amount of food that human beings eat each day and the timing and importance of meals and when they are consumed varies from culture-to-culture and era-to-era. How we eat today in the United States is very different from how our great grandparents ate, which was very different from how people ate when they were hunters and gatherers.

Prior to the domestication of plants and animals, most people were on subsistance diets. This meant that they might literally go days without food, since they relied on what they could gather from nature or hunt. Also, because they couldn't preserve food (no refrigeration or methods of preservation), they basically had to eat as much as they could when the food was available. Excess calories would be stored as fat which could then be tapped by the body when the hunting party returned empty-handed.

Once humans domesticated animals and could plant crops, people could start to control the timing of their diets better. Excess grain could be stored for later, and people could actually start to develop meals by mixing different ingredients. Bread, for instance, is not only a way of making grain more digestable, but it also allows you to consume the food over a period of a few days, if necessary. It's a very basic method of preserving food. Domesticated animals and fowl (chickens, pigs, cows, etc.) also allowed people to control the availability of food. If they needed to eat, they could slaughter a chicken. Or they could trade their excess meat or grain for other foodstuffs.

Eventually marketplaces developed and people started to have much more control over their diets. However, it's important to understand that for most of human history, people have not had sizeable surpluses of food that allowed them to eat frequently. Indeed, until the 19th Century, many people might only eat once or twice a day, depending on the availability of their food and their socio-economic position. The idea of "three square" meals is really a fairly recent concept and it was shaped in large part by industrialization and the standardization of work hours. Eating "three meals a day" is partly a product of an eight hour work day, which was segmented by a lunch at the four hour mark. It also was reinforced in the US during the 20th Century by government nutrition guidelines that recommended "three squares" a day. Arguably, this idea of three meals a day has waned some in the past few decades because of the proliferation of "convenience" food, which encourges a lot of snacking (unfortunately, not always on healthy foods.)

Outside of developed countries and Europe, eating habits to this day vary a great deal from culture-to-culture. Even the modern eating habits of Americans are different from current eating habits among contemporary Europeans.

For example, the Europeans still tend to eat very light breakfasts, and larger lunches and dinners, which are really opportunities for socializing. In the US, because of the mobile nature of our society, eating has become a much more solitary activity, fueled by the amount of time people spend eating at their desks or on the run in the car. Unfortunately, this trend, like so many American culture exports, is becoming more common-place globally -- and people's health is generally not the better for it.

The other point you made was around eating as a sign of wealth. For most of human history, only the wealthy could afford to eat frequently. So being "fat" was a sign of wealth and socio-economic status. To be thin meant that you weren't eating as often, which was usually the case for farmers and peasants. Ironically, thiness is now associated with health and affluence, and being fat has become associated with lower economic status or poverty. This is in large part do to the fact that although for most people, regardless of income, there is plenty of food to eat. Eating is no longer a problem, but eating healthy is. Eating healthy can be more costly, both in food and time, and thus it is less of an option for people with lower incomes who may not have the luxury of being able to prepare meals. Indeed, metabolic syndromes are more prevalent among the poor than other, more affluent groups. This is likely caused by excessive consumption of highly-processed, but cheap - foods and fast food. For a great examination of this phenomenon, I would recommend the book "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser.

For a more detailed and scholarly look at how food and our concept of meals has evolved through time, I would recommend "Near a Thousand Tables" by Filipe Ferdandez-Armesto. I've included a look below.

Best of luck!

Answer 2

Yeah, when did we start eating 3 meals a day. Well, once upon a time, there was no concept of breakfast lunch and dinner. It was more common to eat once a day...maybe even once every 2-3 days. Work was much harder and physical also back in the day.

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq7.html

Answer 3

The body rests at night and consumes and stores your energy eaten that night before.
When you wake up your stomach is empty and the body is ready to store energy again for the day ahead that you will burn.
We are machines and every ounce of energy used from walking to thinking and working requires energy (food) if you stop eating or miss a meal your body will take that from storage. If you hardly eat you will eventually slow down and begin to lose pace, energy and mental ability of alertness and if you do drugs on top of that your doomed.

Crack girls walk the streets living on cocaine and eat nothing. They look like toothpics. Brains washed out where if they wanted to return to the norm their body maynot ever be the same.

As long as you work and get up in the morning, you will need to eat three balance meals a day to stay alert and healthy along with exercise.

Answer 4

I eat about 5 small meals a day...depends on the size of your stomach

Answer 5

I think it's from the scientists' researches.
The healthy diet pyramid things, I don't know.
Basically, the researchers already organised our daily meal for our energy to do some activities.

Answer 6

I think it started when Humans stopped hunting for food and started growing their own crops and animals.