Have your meal habits changed over the years? For instance, I often eat vegetables at every meal but grew up on hot cereal and a glass of milk for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and a main protein for dinner.
Today, I often have more traditional breakfast foods for an early dinner, skipping lunch altogether or heat up dinner leftovers for breakfast. At this point, I prepare whatever I feel like eating and that runs the gamut…except when company is coming.
Do you blur the lines when it comes to traditional meal planning? Do you crave vegetables and less sweets? Do you notice a shift in your habits?
Curious minds,
Rooster
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
2
I’m very much a traditionalist towards the structure of the “three meals a day”. Of course, the content of those meals has shifted for me, as it’s shifted generally in our society. I eat more vegetarian dinners than when I was a young man, for example. And more “foreign” dishes. And fewer desserts.
I used to have the traditional structure of 3 meals. Maybe even 4, when I was younger, as I had to eat around midnight before sleeping in my 20’s as I slept late. Nowadays, with husband not eating breakfast, I tend to have a small breakfast (like a fruit and yogurt) or skip it. Lunch is relative simple since I work at home, I don’t want to spend too much time cooking for myself, sometimes leftover dinner or just a one plate meal, like pasta or cheese and bread. The only meal that is “more serious” and I really cook is dinner. We usually don’t have desserts after meal, except when we try out some pastry stores in Paris, then we probably would skip dinner if we have 2 small cakes.
As for food pattern, I like carbs: rice, pasta, bread, this hasn’t change a lot, I need them for having good mood and energy. As for vegetables, I think I eat them more or less like in the past.
My of-a-certain-age body has recently decided to keep this calorie-burning thing to a minimum and instead try to hang on to as much fat as possible. I’ve responded by eating my breakfast “courses” (ice coffee, V8, fruit & yogurt, egg & toast) one at a time, spacing them out across the entire day and thus eliminating lunch. Take that, rebellious hips.
My activity levels have changed a bit since retirement and I can alreay see I need to be more careful. But my weight and muscle mass has changed to a lighter frame and it kinda freaks me out.
These days the French cakes has less sugar than in the traditional sweets. Anyway, they are tiny in size, about 100g / 3.5 oz in total weight per cake. But I am also talking about very good cakes, as for normal stuff, I am not that crazy either.
When we both started incorporating IF and wellness into our overall health plan, our meal choices made a dramatic change and our programs are diff btwn us. The running joke is the excitement we feel when our meals actually meet in the middle.
Yes, its entirely about eating to your strengths.
2 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
17
Great thread, @Rooster! ! I think there’s been a significant shift (at least in the US) in what’s “normal“ for breakfast these days…Just look at things like avocado toast and the many places serving “bowls” and “weird hash” at all hours of the day.
That said, I’m with you – i’ve never had a big sweet tooth, so I never went for the breakfast desserts as I call them – stuffed French toast, whipped cream and powdered sugar on everything, etc. I get veggies in every meal! For me, that means an egg white omelette with whatever veggies are in my fridge at the moment (and sometimes that means a handful of arugula) or a couple of Dr. Praeger spinach cakes with a runny egg on top.
Lunch is usually a large salad with some lean protein, mid afternoon snack is a piece of fruit, and for dinner it’s lean protein +3-4 kinds of vegetables.
As we (ahem) reach a certain age, I suspect we all tend to become more of who we were before…
My wife really likes those cakes too. I can def get behind your meal choices.
Today I had a lettuce wrap for breakfast stuffed with chicken salad. Lunch, red quinoa salad with a handful of steamed shrimp, dinner was chicken skewers brushed with maple bbq sauce and steamed garden peas. That is a light day of meals. I wasnt super hungry and preoccupied with other things but I also prep’d a bunch of food for the coming week which often makes me feel less hungry. I try not to eat after 7 pm. My gal wont eat past 5pm unless someone else is doing the cooking…restaurant or party invite.
My meals have changed dramatically and what I crave even more so. Some of the gigs I worked the tour chef would make these amazing fresh meals and that in part began to change the way I shopped when I got home. Losing weight, my wife doing the same meant looking at meals in a diff way. Now that Im home f/t, Im really getting into the whole shebang. In short order HO members are helping me become a well rounded cook. Pretty cool.
In retirement, my natural Transylvanian biorrhytms have taken over. I am up until 2-3 a.m. and don’t get up until at least 10:30 a.m., often noon. I have decaf right away, but have no interest in food until late afternoon at least. So no breakfast, and lunch can be after 6p.m. If I snack later, there may be no dinner at all. Otherwise, dinner is anywhere from 8-11 p.m. I have less interest in sweet things so a few bites of something desserty are enough. I have a small amount of dark chocolate daily for its purported health benefits. Chocolate has never been a favorite sweet for me, but I commonly have 1 o r 2 pieces of fruit daily.
