Should we eat 3 meals a day?

You probably eat three times a day. Modern life is designed around this way of eating. We are told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we are given lunch breaks at work, and then our social and family life revolves around dinner. But is this the healthiest way to eat?

Before considering how often we should eat, scientists ask us to consider when we shouldn’t.

Intermittent fasting, when you restrict your food intake for eight hours or another duration, is becoming a huge area of ​​research.

Giving our body at least 12 hours a day without eating allows our digestive system to restaccording to Emily Manoogian, a clinical researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (California, United States) and author of a scientific article published in 2019 entitled “When to eat”.

Rozalyn Anderson, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, has studied the benefits of calorie restriction, which is associated with lower levels of inflammation in the body.

“Having a fasting period every day may offer some of these benefits. This fits with the idea that fasting makes the body in a different state, which is smarter to repair the damage and monitor; and to eliminate misfolded proteins, “he says.

Misfolded proteins are defective versions of ordinary proteins, which are molecules that perform a wide variety of important functions in the body.

Misfolded proteins have been associated with a number of diseases.

intermittent fasting

Anderson argues that intermittent fasting is more in tune with the way our bodies have evolved.

He points out that it gives our body a break so that it is able to store food and take energy where it needs to be, while triggering the mechanism to release energy from the body’s reserves.

Antonio Paoli, Professor of Exercise and Sports Sciences at the University of Padua (Italy), indicates that fasting could also improve our glycemic response, which occurs when our blood glucose increases after eating.

Add that having smaller blood glucose spikes allows you to store less fat in your body.

“Our data suggests that eating early and increasing the time of your fasting window enhances some positive effects on the body, such as better glycemic control,” says Paoli.

The expert adds that it is better for all cells to have lower sugar levels in them due to a process called glycation.

This occurs when glucose binds to proteins and compound forms known as “advanced glycation end products,” which can cause inflammation in the body and increase the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.

psychological hunger

But if intermittent fasting is a healthy way to eat, how many meals can we eat?

Some experts argue that it is better to eat only one meal a day. One of them is David Levitsky, professor of Human Ecology at Cornell University College in New York, who practices this habit.

“There’s a lot of data showing that if I show you pictures of food you’re likely to eat. And, the more frequently food comes your way, the more you will eat that day,” she states.

This is because, before we had refrigerators and supermarkets, we ate when food was available.

Throughout history, we ate one meal a day, including the ancient Romans who ate a meal around noon, according to food historian Seren Charrington-Hollins.

Wouldn’t one meal a day leave us hungry? Not necessarily, Levitsky argues, because Hunger is often a psychological feeling.

“When the clock shows 12 pm, we may feel like eating, or you may be conditioned to eat breakfast in the morning, but it doesn’t make sense. The data shows that if you skip breakfast, you’re going to eat fewer calories throughout the day.

“Our physiology is built for feasting and fasting”says Levitsky, who does not recommend this practice for people with diabetes.

Keep blood sugar under control

But Manoogan doesn’t recommend eating just one meal a day, because this can raise our blood glucose levels when we’re not eating, a phenomenon called fasting blood glucose.

High fasting blood glucose levels over an extended period of time is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Manoogan points out that keeping glucose levels low requires eating regularly more than once a day, as this prevents the body from thinking it’s starving and responding by releasing more glucose when you finally eat something.

Instead, the expert points out that two or three meals a day is best, especially when most of the calories are consumed early during the day.

This is so because eating late at night is associated with cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

“If you eat most of your food early, your body can use that energy to fuel you throughout the day, rather than storing it in your system as fat,” says Manoogan.

But eating very early in the morning should also be avoided, as he explains, this would not give your body enough time to fast.

Besides, eating too soon shortly after waking up works against our circadian system -known as biological clock-, which according to researchers establishes how the body processes food differently throughout the day.

Our bodies release melatonin at night to help us sleep, but melatonin also stops the creation of insulin, which stores glucose in the body.

Manoogan says that because melatonin is released during sleep, the body uses it to make sure we don’t take in too much glucose while we sleep and don’t eat.

“If you eat calories when your melatonin is high, you get really high glucose levels. Consuming a lot of calories at night represents a significant challenge for the body because, if insulin is suppressed, your body can’t store glucose properly,” he says.

And, as is known, high glucose levels for long periods can increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

That’s not to say we should skip breakfast, but there is evidence to suggest we should wait an hour or two after getting up before eating this meal.

It’s also worth remembering that breakfast as we know and love it today is a relatively new concept.

“The ancient Greeks were the first to introduce the concept of breakfast, they would eat bread dipped in wine, then have a light lunch and then a nice evening meal,” says Charrington-Hollins.

He explains that, initially, breakfast was exclusive to the aristocratic classes. It was first popularized in the 17th century, when it became the luxury of those who could afford food and have time for a leisurely morning meal.

“The current concept that breakfast is the norm came about during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and its introduction of working hours,” says Charrington-Hollins.

Such a routine favors three meals a day. “The first meal would be something quite simple for the working classes: it could be street food from a vendor or bread.”

But after the war, when the availability of food decreased, the idea of ​​eating a full breakfast was not possible and many people skipped it.

“The idea of ​​three meals a day went out the window. In the 1950s, breakfast became what we know today: cereal and toast. Before that, we liked to eat a piece of bread with jam, “says Charrington-Hollins.

Most favorable habits

So the science seems to say that the healthiest way to eat during the day is to eat two or three meals, with an extended fasting window overnight, not eat too early or too late in the day, and consume more calories earlier in the day. on day. Is this realistic?

Manoogan believes it’s best not to specify the best times to eat, as this can be difficult for people with irregular responsibilities and time commitments, such as those who work night shifts.

“Telling people to stop eating at 7:00 pm is not helpful because people have different schedules. If you try to give your body regular overnight fasts, try not to eat too late or too early, and try not to have large meals at the end of the day, this can usually help. People can at least adopt parts of this,” she says.

“You could see a dramatic change with just a little delay in your first meal and bringing your last meal forward. Doing this on a regular basis without changing anything else could have a huge impact,” she adds.

But no matter what changes you make, the researchers agree that consistency is crucial.

“The body works in patterns. We respond to the expectation of being fed. One thing intermittent fasting does is it imposes a pattern, and our biological systems work well with a pattern.says Anderson.

She claims that the body picks up signals to anticipate our eating-related behaviors so that we can better deal with food when we eat it.

When it comes to how many meals we consider normal, Charrington-Hollins says she’s seeing changes on the horizon.

“Along the centuries, we have conditioned ourselves to three meals a day, but this is now being questioned and people’s attitude towards food is changing. We have more sedate lifestyles, we’re not doing the level of work we did in the 19th century, so we need fewer calories. (I)

“I think in the long term, we will go back to sticking to a light meal and then a main meal, depending on what happens at work. Our working hours will be the driving force.”

“When we came out of rationing, we embraced the three meals a day because suddenly there was a lot of food. But time passes, now the food is everywhere, “she says.

*This post was originally published on English. (I)