Is there a "snack culture" forming?
I keep to my three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Meanwhile, I am constantly seeing people munching away on dehydrated fruit bits, protein this or that, fiber supplemented cookies, etc, to the point they overlook proper meals.
Did I miss a memo?
There's been a snack culture for a while in some places. For a while the generalized "healthy eating" suggestion was to snack throughout the day so you don't consume 1,000 calories at once in a single meal before bed. Not sure if that's really the case still, or what.
At least here in Finland, officials recommend a snack between breakfast and lunch, and between lunch and dinner. We also have an "evening-snack" which is like breakfast but eaten an hour or two before going to sleep. Some officials, mostly dental-related, do think snacking is bad for your teeth or something, but we Finns do use xylitol quite often so I don't think that consern is too important. When it comes to snack, its often fruit, maybe coffee and a bun. But definitely not chips or candy bars
there's really no "right" way to eat other than daily / weekly balances of carbs / fat / protein / vitamins / minerals / water.
3 square meals is more like a pre-osha workplace safety thing for people doing manual labor since the meals need to be packed into a neat little meal break so they can get back to work, but the calorie requirements are so extreme that they need to get packed in during that meal break. Basically if you were a self respecting foreman of an old timey construction site you made sure the workers were eating "three square meals a day" to make sure they'd be working at peak productivity.
if you're not building a railroad or stonework or skyscraper or carrying a roof up a ladder then grazing or intermittent fasting are fine as long as you're getting the right balance of micros and macros. and when it comes to weight loss, gain, and maintenance, different people have different relationships with food that are often managed better with one strategy vs another, in ways that vary a lot from person to person.
Intermittent fasting? Grazing?
Please elaborate.
Grazing is like snacking throughout the day or many smaller meals
Intermittent fasting is better explained here, but it comes down to "fasting for part(s)" of the day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting
Grazing sounds like a sure way to gain weight and fast. By not putting in on one sitting a full meal, capable of sustaining for a given amount of time, we'll constantly adding to our mouth this and that. It makes harder to tally how much is eaten in one day.
And not eating between meals can not be considered intermitent fasting? We have a meal and abstain from eating until the next. It is quite intuitive, as far as I understand the notion.
Hasn't this been a thing for a long time? Personally I don't eat more than one "proper" meal a day unless I'm being physically active.
I think it's fine. I don't like cooking that much and it's less effort.
It's about stopping and making a proper break from the whatever we might be doing. Stop to read a book, when at work, talk a bit with my family. Just stop to exist, I think.
We often overlook this when tinkering with our own lives. I work from home and I still take three meals, mostly for the comfort and peace. I have had trouble shedding the last couple stone of fat left on me though. I could never imagine getting rid of family dinner, but I could probably stand to skip a few lunches and just take a reading break instead.
You're describing people who do sports at work during lunch. Are you sure it's not restricted to this type of people? I have seen them for a very long time.
Mid morning, mid afternoon... I resembles pica or just boredom eating.
no
Yes, it lets the food companies sell you more.
Those darn farmers, making me addicted to food.