
Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them? - gadders
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20243692
======
jandrewrogers
One of the things that has always fascinated me is how much of our culture is
a modern affectation rather than being some deep pattern of human behavior.
You don't even have to go back a few hundred years; there are things Americans
perceive as having been that way forever that did not exist at the beginning
of the 20th century. Most of our eating and sleeping habits have been shaped
by the Industrial Revolution.

Regarding the article, I've experimented with a lot of different eating
schedules and structures over the years, largely out of idle curiosity to see
if it makes a difference. To be perfectly honest, I can't eat three meals a
day. My typical day is eating something very light in the late morning, though
I skip it a few days a week, and an early-ish dinner. I've kind of arrived
there randomly but it suits me. I don't have time in the middle of the day for
a Roman-style big lunch even if I wanted to have one.

A big difference between historical eating patterns and now was the lack of
massive quantities of refined carbohydrates and sugars in the diet a couple
centuries ago. The insulin response to many foods common in modern diets
encourages repeated meals. The fact that my diet is typically quite low in
refined carbohydrates probably makes it easier for me to eat only one
significant meal per day.

~~~
yummyfajitas
At least as far back as we have data (1909) the diet in the US was primarily
carbs, in proportions considerably greater than today.

[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usd...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usda.gov%2Fpublications%2Ffoodsupply%2Ffoodsupply1909-2004report.pdf)

The vast majority of humanity has, historically, eaten a diet comprised
primarily of grain, potato and yam. Areas which supported such crops could
support a lot of humans, while grazing areas had far lower populations.

It's historical nonsense to claim that a diet comprised primarily of refined
carbs is some modern invention.

~~~
Dirlewanger
Carbs, no. Refined carbs, yes. I'm pretty sure the Romans didn't have HFCS.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The normal definition of refining grains includes milling and sifting, both of
which are ancient. They extend the shelf life of grains, among other benefits.

You are correct by your narrower (and unconventional) definition. Sugar has
only been common for a few hundred years.

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fingerprinter
I've seen more and more research on the benefits of fasting and skipping
breakfast. I've actually not eaten breakfast in over 3 years and I have to
say, I actually prefer not eating it. It took some time to adapt, but once I
did, I actually felt better.

I've found it easier to maintain my weight, actually put on muscle (combined
with other dietary changes needed to add muscle) and also increased my
concentration and focus.

What do I do? I have a couple big glasses of water, a cup of coffee or two
with heavy cream or butter and that is it until lunch. If I'm not trying to
put on muscle I generally eat very low carb and that further gives me more
focus and concentration.

Basically, my n=1 experience is quite good and I recommend others experiment
with it.

~~~
w0utert
[quote]I've seen more and more research on the benefits of fasting and
skipping breakfast[/quote]

Interestingly, even research into eating habits (or at least the way the media
picks up and reports on it) appears to be culturally biased, because where I
live (Western Europe), there's an almost unrelenting stream of experts telling
me how bad skipping breakfeast is. Supposedly it will make you fat, tired,
weak and eventually even sick.

It's pretty annoying. I haven't been eating breakfast for almost 20 years
without any perceived negative health effects, but every time I tell someone
about it I get this lecture about how bad it is to not eat breakfast. This
point of view is purely based on conjecture repeated from something people
have heard before, never out of personal experience. When it comes to food &
health, people really are like sheep, nobody really knows anything about it,
but everyone has on opinion, and almost all these opinions are the same, based
on 'common sense' and lore, not on scientific facts.

Only 10 years ago common sense said 5 glasses of milk a day were healthy, or
bread and cheese for lunch. 1/5th of your diet should consist of dairy
products. Today everybody thinks differently. Now counting calories is all the
hype, but slowly research is starting to tell us that not all calories are the
same in the sense that the kinds of food that contain them are digested
differently.

tl;dr: I always get a little frustrated when people start telling me what is
or isn't 'healthy' because most people are basically mindlessly repeating what
someone else told them. Eating breakfast 'because it's healthy' is one of
these things.

~~~
gurkendoktor
> not on scientific facts

But yes - all these guesses _are_ the scientific facts as far as we know them.
You can complain about nutritional science being absolutely immature and
probably highly corrupt, but it's still the best we have, and people who
follow it aren't sheep anymore than I am for believing that there are atoms
just because I was told so.

~~~
graeme
If a science is corrupt, it can be worse than useless. Scientific 'authority'
is potentially as dangerous as other types of authority, if it isn't based on
the scientific method.

Many authors (Nassim Taleb, Michael Pollan) talk about using other measures as
heuristics. Pollan says 'would your great-grandmother have recognized it as
food?'.

Adopting that one rule beats most modern nutrition advice.

We don't have evidence physics is corrupt. That's why your belief about atoms
is reasonable.

~~~
yummyfajitas
What evidence do you have that nutrition science is corrupt and not based on
the scientific method?

~~~
w0utert
>> What evidence do you have that nutrition science is corrupt and not based
on the scientific method?

The fact that conclusions resulting from 'nutrition science' often seem to
contradict, or are found to be completely wrong every few years should be an
indication. Today drinking coffee is bad, tomorrow it reduces your risk of
getting cancer. Yesterday nuts were bad and will make you fat, today thay
aren't that bad after all because the calories they contain mostly leave your
body undigested. At one point in time eating eggs more than twice a week was
considered bad for you because of the cholesterol they contain, but according
to the latest studies they are a 'superfood', and the cholesterol they contain
appears to have no relation to blood cholesterol.

The problem with 'nutrition science' (I have to put it between quotes it
because I consider it more like religion than science) is that health effects
resulting from diet almost exclusively manifest themselves after many many
years. This makes it very hard to reliably measure them, not only because it
involves tracking large groups of people over a long period of time, who need
to stay on a consistent diet, should not move around to much because otherwise
other factors around them could affect their health etc.

Research into nutrition health benefits suffers from the same limitations many
other epidemiology research suffers. As it turns out, health is correlated to
so many other things it is almost impossible to reliably relate health effects
to causes. The difference between epidemiologists and 'nutrition scientists'
is that the former group directly acknowledges the limitations of their
population studies, while 'facts' about nutrition are usually presented as
truth, and nobody seems to care to challenge them.

------
ok_craig
This reminds me of a similar BBC article, The myth of the eight-hour sleep.
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783>

------
shimon_e
Jews have codified three meals a day as part of the celebration of religious
days (e.g. the sabbath) since the beginning of their religion. Going to the
extreme of staying someone who does not prepare for three meals has no portion
in the afterlife. At the same time they were critical of gluttony.

It amazes me how people can selectively present facts to appear intelligent.
There was more to the ancient world than just the Romans and Greeks. So even
if they didn't eat 3 meals a day I'm pretty sure there were plenty of ancient
civilisations that did.

~~~
lutze
Calm down there Hulkomania, this article is very clearly written from the
perspective of the British Isles, and the Romans were kinda a big deal there.

Before you start implying people are trying to "seem clever", maybe check that
your indignation hasn't blinded you to the patently bloody obvious.

~~~
jgrahamc
Sure, but (a) the Romans were quite a big deal to the Jews as "Judea" was part
of the Roman Empire and (b) it's reasonable of the parent to bring up the Jews
because it's an interesting counterpoint to using the Romans as
representatives of what people did back then.

The original article could have mentioned this but does not.

~~~
lutze
You're missing the point.

This article is about BRITONS, i.e. the inhabitants of the British Isles. It's
not using Romans as representatives of what PEOPLE did back then, it's using
Romans as representatives of what BRITONS did back then.

Historically the Romans had a huge cultural impact on Britain... whereas
ancient Jews had none. So why then should this article randomly mention
ancient Jewish traditions?

You're complaining about a complete non-issue.

------
ghshephard
General McChrystal, was a big proponent of a single meal a day.
[http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/09/25/mcchrystal-...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/09/25/mcchrystal-
s-war.html)

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oboizt
After seeing a friend do the one-meal-a-day routine, I'm pretty convinced to
try it out myself. He's very healthy, active and alert. He gets sufficient
calories and nutrition and he can pretty much eat whatever he wants (within
reason) for his one meal. I've heard him explain several times about how he
feels his brain actually functions better this way when his body isn't trying
to constantly digest food all day long.

------
enqk
Well my farmer grand father, born in Europe in 1914 would eat four meals.

First a light breakfast very early, with a soup. Then around 10 a meat-based
light meal after some hard work. Then at 13 lunch, and finally a dinner.

~~~
huffman
when was the dinner?

------
cmdswitch
Air: Have we always breathed it? News at 11.

~~~
mlchild
Considering that the answer to the article's question is essentially "no,"
this is a weak putdown.

~~~
anonymous
That's the same answer as "have we always breathed air?" - no. For a long time
our ancestor breathed water. Going even further back, we had neither gills nor
lungs and didn't breathe at all.

