How many meals do you eat a day? According to new research, we Brits are ditching breakfast, lunch and tea for all-day grazing instead.
Goodbye, breakfast
The study of 2,000 adults conducted by Tibits vegetarian restaurant found that 40% of people don’t eat three meals a day. Breakfast is the most skipped meal, with many kicking the morning off with just a cup of coffee.
With the decline in meal times comes a rise in snacking – a huge percentage of us require a steady stream of chocolate and crisps throughout the day, with more than half of those polled admitting to eating too many fatty and sugary foods instead of healthy options.
And as many as one fifth reluctantly confessed to living on a ‘liquid diet’ at the weekends, thanks to boozy nights out on Friday and Saturday. A quarter of these people will then have fry-ups or other stodgy food to soak up the hangover.
Hectic lifestyles and small plates
While the majority of respondents wanted to eat more fruit and vegetables (a third said that they thought vegetarians are healthier than omnivores), two thirds of people said that they found fitting in five portions a day quite hard.
Personally, I can’t survive without three proper meals a day. And the very thought of skipping breakfast makes me queasy – how is one supposed to get up in the morning if they don’t have breakfast to look forward to? But that doesn’t stop me grazing all day on tasty delights sent to lovefood HQ.
The Food Programme recently investigated ‘The Death of Three Square Meals’, reporting that hectic lifestyles and working shifts both play big parts in the decline of meal times. Food retailers have highlighted quality ‘food on the go’ as the main area of growth in their market and, as we also found, eating ‘al desko’ is becoming more and more popular. The rise of ‘small plate’ restaurants such as Polpo, a Venetian restaurant in London, has apparently encouraged our snacking culture, too. Have a listen to the programme here.
We want to know what your eating habits are. Are you a three meals a day kind of person, or do you prefer to graze like a sheep? Answer our poll below…
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