where are you and what time do you eat at?

Edit: so for those of you who eat at around 6pm, when the hell do you exercise? I use this time to exercise before dinner

49 comments

  1. Europe is not a homogeneous area and even within countries dinner times can vary wildly. A lot of families already serve dinner at 5pm although I think the mean is somewhere between 6pm and 7pm. Anything after 8pm I’d consider really late.

  2. The fact we eat later is mostly a case of leaving enough of a time gap between our meals. In France we often have a snack around 4pm, so we wait a few hours until having dinner so we have time to digest, and it’s usually around 8pm we do.

    Leaving about 4 hours in between meals seems to be perceived as the ideal one here I think. 8am : breakfast, 12pm : lunch, 4pm : snack, 8pm : dinner.

  3. Is that really a stereotype? I’m from the U.K. and eating dinner between 5-6pm is very normal. I only really eat later in the peak of summer, when the sun is out until around 9:30pm.

    And on Sunday it’s normal for people to eat from 3-4pm.

  4. We are notorious for having our meals later than most of the countries and no not really. My digestion is fine and I have no problem sleeping. For me it’s something like this:

    – Breakfast: 7:00
    – Lunch: 14:30 -15:30
    – Dinner: 21:30 – 22:30

  6. Well that is not really true for my family, iI cant speak for all of Norway, but we usually eat right after work/school. Except for when we are having something good like pizza or taco.

  7. I tend not to eat very late:
    Breakfast: 7:00, lunch: 14:00 (I have to eat at that time because I can only get home at that moment), dinner: 19:00.
    So, usually by the time I go to sleep I have already digested.

  8. Eating late is not a European thing, though. In the Netherlands for example most people eat around 6 in the evening.

  9. Flanders Belgium, I eat dinner at 18:00, I know people who eat at as early as 17:00 and people who eat as late as 20:00

  10. This changes a lot between countries in Europe, and there are a lot of countries in the continent which I would consider have dinner _very_ early. Spain is probably one of the ones that has dinner the latest, though some of it is due to the country better fitting in GMT 0 rather than GMT+1. Usually my friends have dinner at about 21:00h, some people eat even later, at 22:00h.

    When we go out to eat with friends we usually meet up at 20:30h or so. That’s also the time I usually have dinner at home, and it’s considered quite early here.

  12. Dinner before 20 seems very early to me. Between 20 and 21, is the most common time I see people eating dinner. As for the effects, i don’t see any. By the time i hit bed, at 23ish I’m fine do sleep.

  13. Hey, just finished my dinner 🙂

    Well eating late it’s defenitely something affected by the amount of sunlight you get during the day, same thing for all your other daily activities, therefore more common in the south.
    As someone who always have had dinner later then other fellow europeans I’d say it doesn’t really affect what comes after, digestion and sleep proceed pretty normally and regularly.

  15. I usually eat around 20:30 ish, but that’s usually because that’s how long it takes to get back from work and then make dinner. When I’m with my parents I usually eat around 18:30-19:30. I would consider that a pretty typical time to eat dinner in England. In France I think anything before about 19:30 is considered very early, but they don’t eat as late as the Spanish either.

    The whole stereotype about people eating late is more a Mediterranean thing, traditionally it would have been very hot during the afternoon and so everything was shifted into the night instead, but obviously in Northern Europe you wouldn’t need to do that as it doesn’t usually get hot enough even in summer. Spain is particularly notorious for it, and that’s as much to do with the crazy timezone Franco decided to put them on as it is about tradition.

  17. I am in quite far southern Europe… Sicily.

    I usually eat around 9.30pm.Most people here probably eat a little earlier though (I finish work quite late).

    No problems with sleeping after, though obviously I don’t go to bed at 10pm 😉

  18. I eat dinner between 21 and 23, sometimes even later. I don’t feel it affects my sleep or my digestion. In fact, if I eat too early like 20 or earlier I might get hungry but the time I go to bed.

  19. Anywhere between 7-9pm is normal for me, after 10pm a big, hearty meal would affect my sleep pattern a little bit but not a huge amount (provided I hadn’t stuffed my face in). If the meal is light, then the effects are negligible.

    Someone I used to live with ate their dinner at 5pm, that’s far too early IMO and I always thought they were a bit strange.

    I’ve had occasional dinners as early as 5-30, but those days I’ve had not much of a lunch and it doesn’t happen very often.

  20. I go to bed at like 10-10:30pm at night, that’s when some people sit and have dinner. Meaning I need to have dinner about 6-7pm. Any later I will absolutely be up in the middle of the night for heartburn tablets.

  21. Personally I do not eat dinner. I eat breakfast at around 8, lunch between 12-14, and later only occasional snacks if lunch was too small.

  22. Europe is long and wide, even in Italy we eat at different times, I really doubt someone in northern Europe eats at the same time as us.

    Anyway no, but I also go to sleep late

  23. Depends a lot on the person. The general rule is between 7pm and 9h30pm. At my household during winter it’s normally around 8/8h30pm and during summer time it’s 9pm/10h30pm.

  25. No because as a norm the dinner is not the main meal. In Greece the main meal is lunch and extravagant dinners are a treat for special occasions like birthdays, celebrations or holidays. We also generally sleep later than people who eat early.

  26. Reasons to eat late:

    * Long lunch hours. Traditionally Spaniards would get 3 hours for lunch to go home and be able to prepare it. So, 9:00-12:00 15:00-20:00 working times were not unusual until recently.
    * After the war many people had two jobs, so it was not a matter of long lunch but long working hours. You would eat when you get home after your second job.
    * Hot summers and late sunset. Sun in August sets past 21:00. Waiting after sunset to go for dinner can be life saving as your stomach does not need to fight the heat.
    * Wrong time zone.
    * People goes to sleep also later.

    So, in summer it may be healthier to wait for dinner instead to eat in the hottest hours of the day. And many people will go to sleep later than other parts of Europe, anyway.

    This is changing, thou. And, at least, office work is adapting to European time routines.

  27. Do you usually have a family dinner? In my home dinner is not something we do as a group, everyone eats when they’re hungry and its usually at different times each day depending on a lot of variables.

  29. I moved to Ireland in 2014, during my first six months I lived with an Irish family. I remember how I’d be coming home from work and entering the kitchen to find the entire family having roast beef at 6pm.

    I’d normally be starving, but I would just have a quick snack like a piece of toast with a slice of cheese, or a cup of coffee and fruit. I’d then go back downstairs to make my dinner around 9 pm, and they’d be staring at me like I was an alien for having dinner so late… All the while they’d be having ice cream or chocolate or something else of high caloric value.

    8 years later I still haven’t adapted to their timing and have my dinner around 8 or 9 at the earliest. I can’t fathom eating dinner at 6.

  30. I don’t know if there are other countries that do this but in Finland we eat breakfast after we wake up, lunch somewhere around 11-13, dinner somewhere around 16-18 and finally “iltapala” which roughly translates to “evening snack” at around 20-22. Evening snack is usually just bread/sandwich and some additions like yoghurt or whatever.

  32. Just out of curiosity as a family.

    Breakfast 07.00 – 08.00

    Lunch 12.00 – 13.00

    Dinner 17.30 – 18.30 (The exquisite Dutch 20 minutes tops of pure love cooking, with the cooker on max power in the hope for early results. )

    Then follows bed time for young children at 20.00. That’s 1.5 hours to let the kids relax after dinner.

    How do countries that dine past 21.00 do that with their young children, say aged below ten? What’s their sleeping schedule when you dine that late?

  34. We usually eat dinner when we come home from work 16:00-18:00 and often have a snack before we go to bed. Eating late is mostly a Mediterranean thing as far as I know.

  35. I’m in Canada. Husband is from eastern Europe. We eat anywhere between 20:30 and 22:00 most days, and everyone thinks it’s bizarre. I like it actually

  36. There is no European dinner time, it’s different in various regions. In Holland most people probably eat dinner somewhere between 18h00 and 20h00.

  38. Depends on where in europe.. here in northern europe early dinner is much the standard.. often about 16.00-17.00 on week days. The older you get the earlier you eat dinner. That’s one thing that contrast the nordic countries with the others.. starting the day early, hence also eating dinner early… at 6am there would be a lot of people travelling to work etc.. while in other places in europe the city is a “ghost town” at 6am.

  40. >later than other countries

    you do realise that we arent a single country nor a single culture?

  41. In Poland dinner is not that important and usually it’s a small meal, like few sandwiches or something light. Here lunch is meal of the day and can consist of few various dishes. So sleep is fine.

    Breakfast is eaten somewhere around 7-10;
    Lunch between 13-15;
    Dinner 19-21.

    Always depends on the family tho

  42. I eat when I remember, lately I have eaten dinner around 18.00 – 22.00.

    It don’t affect my sleep much and Im used to eating late.

  43. AFAIK this isn’t an “European thing” it’s more of a Mediterranean thing.

    At least Portugal and Spain eat later, especially Spain.

    We have dinner at 20h.

    The more interesting question for Portugal is: what came first? Dinner at 20h or the news on TV being at 20h 😂

  44. Ideally I eat dinner between 20:00 and 21:00. I find this works best because I don’t have to cook as soon as I get home from work, and also because it guarantees I won’t be hungry for the rest of the day until I go to sleep. I’m not a fan of having a snack after dinner, instead I’d rather have one between lunch and the former. Doesn’t affect my sleep at all.

    When I was studying in the UK I always felt anxious trying to get dinner sorted before heading out for drinks at like 19h. I mean we’d usually grab some junk food later on in the night, but I had to force myself to eat a filling meal before heading out just so that I wouldn’t get pissed.

  46. I eat dinner between 21 and 23. But if I was hungry earlier, I eat one dinner around 18, and then another around midnight or later. I go to sleep at 2-3 and wake up at 9 on my own. Lunch is around 14. I don’t eat breakfast, only coffee.

  47. Idk man as dutch we used to have 1700 for dinner which for me is really early.

    When living in France/Portugal it was more common to eat around 1930/2100

    And now I live in Germany which most is around 18/19.

    Eating later was best for me in terms of sleeping also weight gain was least with eating later, as I wouldn’t feel as urged to snack as I knew dinner was in half an hour or so. I also wouldn’t get awake with such a huge hungry feeling during the night.

  48. Well in Greece you could eat dinner at 21:00-22:00 but sometimes it can go as late as 23:30 . Keep in mind however that most people go to bed after midnight.

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