I've had a question posed to me by TheArtsyEclectic at Otherwise Quite Good. It's one of those questions I've heard debated time after time. Is it healthier to eat three square meals each day or to graze throughout the day? This concept has been highly debated over time.
This subject seems to have a lot of information no matter how you cut it. There's plenty of information supporting three round meals each day, but the more I talk to doctors and experts, the more I'm finding that may not be held as true as it once was. It seems that humans, by nature, are more inclined to graze.
Think about it, in ancient times we didn't have time to sit down for three meals each day. Our kind started as hunter and gatherer cultures. It is thought that some of our eating habits were that of scavengers as well. In other words, you eat what you can when you can. As a result, one would think we would benefit more from eating when we're hungry, not at scheduled times each day, and eating until we're satiated, not until we're full.
When you're really full, think of how you feel. Most people are more sluggish and tired when they're full. They "eat too much" and then don't feel like doing much of anything. How would that work in a world where you have to fear predators. Well, it wouldn't. I don't think I've ever heard of a single kind of animal that eats until they're full and handles it really well.
Three meals each day is very practical if you look at our society in, say, colonial times, or in the middle ages. When you spend each day working hard in the fields, you don't really have time to graze all day long. Eating really filling meals allows you to continue working for longer through the day without suffering the effects of hunger. It really turned into a practical thing, but was it healthy? I'm not entirely sure it was unhealthy. If you think about it, when you're doing hard work all day long you're far less prone to snacking. Also, with the hard work you do all day long, you're not terribly at risk of things like obesity.
Looking at the way we live today, it's not surprising that we're going back to that grazing mentality. We spend much of our days sitting down and have plenty of time to snack while we're sitting. I honestly believe humans are wired for grazing rather than binging on large meals. If we were, or if that about our nature had somehow changed, we would clearly not have that instinct with us now. If we didn't have that instinct, I think we would have a lot easier of a time with the whole obesity issue. That's not to say that overweight people eat too much and/or don't get enough exercise. I'm sure that's part of the problem in some cases, however, I think the emphasis on filling ourselves at every meal with our natural drive to graze throughout the day makes any genetic predispositions to being overweight or any other situations that may play into it that much more of a challenge.
Personally, I find my energy levels stay higher and I'm in a much better mood if I snack throughout the day along with three "meals". I've found that if I eat only until I'm sated and not until I'm full, I eat much less at each meal. Three small meals with a couple of snacks during the day, usually about two, just like most children, seems to be a great recipe for success for me.
It also doesn't help that we're training ourselves to eat large meals and still find ourselves hungry for snacking not long after we're done. As I mentioned before with fast food, these meals are often large and seem to be filling, but in truth, they seem to be a lot of empty calories leaving us craving some serious nutritious sustenance. When we grab snacks to graze on, again, they're empty calories that don't fill our need for nutrition. We're left wanting something that will really sustain us. This leads us to a sad situation where we're prone to both grazing and binge eating.
As a result, the classic American diet combined with lifestyle and our natural inclination to graze is a recipe for some serious unhealthy behaviors. Sadly, I'm known to follow many of these. However, with my current opinion on the matter, I think my goal will be to eat three small meals and a couple snacks when I'm hungry, healthy ones, of course! Meals that fulfill my natural need for nutrients!
(Sorry if this seems scattered. It's been a scattered kind of day!)
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