Hello Americans
Is dinner the main meal of the day for most Americans? Just curious, since in a lot of places around the world lunch is the big one, and dinner’s usually something lighter, like soup, salad, or something small…
I think early dinner and light lunch make sense, especially on work days, as I am at work at lunchtime.
Comments
Yes, the general perception of meals in the United States is that dinner is usually the main meal of the day. Breakfast and lunch are smaller.
I think for most people it is.
For me and my family it’s usually lunch.
Yes, dinner is more commonly the largest meal of the day here.
Dinner is definitely our big hot meal for the day. Breakfast is small and lunch is more grab and go with things like sandwiches, salads, soup, etc.
Yes. Usually the only meal where the whole family is together as well.
Hard to say for everybody as a whole but generally I think that’s probably correct. I’ve seen people skip lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone skip dinner
Yes absolutely.
My dad is from a culture where lunch is the biggest meal. As a result, that whole side of the family is chubby since we eat big lunches and big dinners.
Yep except on sundays. Sunday lunch is big in my personal experience.
Yes, on weekdays I generally do not have time for lunch or, if I do, it’s a prepacked salad at my desk or something.
Depends where you’re at. In some rural areas the mid day meal is dinner, and then later in the day, supper is a smaller meal.
I think in general, dinner is the bigger meal for most people. However in my family, during the work week, lunches tend to be bigger. You’re either packing a meal that needs to get you through the work day, or you’re going out for lunch with colleagues. Weekday dinners on the other hand are small and quick so that we can get some housework done and not make a huge mess in the kitchen. Weekends, that flips. We eat smaller lunches and treat ourselves to more elaborate dinners when we have more time to cook or go out.
100%. Brunch/lunch are negotiable and may or may not be full sit-down events. Dinner isn’t an option.
Dinner is usually the main meal. It’s usually around 6 PM or so. It’s sometimes called “supper.”
There’s no standard really. Typically yes. A lot people don’t eat breakfast and they eat a sandwich or some meal prepped food for lunch. Most Americans work during the day so they can’t prepare a huge meal for lunch.
The one exception is on the weekends if you’re out and eat lunch at like 2-3 sometimes you don’t make a huge dinner.
Yes. Some people have the big meal earlier in the day on holidays like Thanksgiving, but ordinarily it’s dinner.
Interestingly, “dinner” is a word that I see a lot of confusion with. Especially with older generations here in Kentucky. Many of them think of lunch when you say dinner.
It was explained to me once that dinner referred to the main meal of the day and for rural agrarian societies that was generally the midday meal. They’d come in from the fields at the hottest part of the day and eat a larger meal. Then in the evening it would be a lighter meal.
Dinner. Slow cooker working all day to come home to something that smells incredible! There is not enough time at lunch to eat a lot anyway. I get a half hour so need something fast and something probably small.
Yes 100% in fact a lot of restaurants do a lunch special that’s about half the size of the dinner version
Breakfast is my biggest meal of the day and dinner is typically the lightest.
But for most folks, dinner seems to be the biggest.
Yes. I do not think it is the healthiest way to eat, but it is the most common in the U.S. When the US was primarily agrarian, it was the opposite. Breakfast was the biggest meal, followed by lunch and dinner (or supper).
It is not the healthiest way to eat, but it is the most common in the U.S. In the US, people have to be at work pretty early, so they generally eat something small with coffee. This is a result of the US becoming more industrialized.
Yes. Breakfast is often eaten by yourself during the workweek, and lunch often with coworkers. Dinner is the meal you have with your family, so it’s the main one.
Yes, “dinner” is typically the largest meal. But “dinner” does not always mean the evening meal. In the small, rural midwest town I grew up in “dinner” was still the largest meal but it was the meal you ate around noon. “Supper” was the meal you ate in the evening after work. I was so confused when I moved and everyone around me would use dinner to refer to the evening meal. To this day I usually refer to the three meals as breakfast, lunch, and supper to avoid confusion even though pretty much everyone around me uses dinner to mean the evening meal.
Lunch can be hot, but dinner is most likely hot with more food groups represented.
Dinner is definitely my big meal, if I eat a big lunch I get too sleepy for the second half of the workday
Generally yes. Dinner is usually after everyone is done with work or school, so the whole family is together.
It tends to be as it’s the meal where family is most likely to be together. During lunch, adults tend to be at work and kids at school. So dinner time is when they can spend time together. But anymore as busy as some families are with activities that may be gone as well.
Yes
Dinner (supper) is usually the largest meal of the day, yes. It’s also the meal most common to have all the members of the family together.
Lunch or really call it brunch which we host every Eid is special. All our family and friend come for this.
I just eat once a day basically. If I’m working out or doing manual labor I’ll eat more
Dinner is probably the largest because people have stuff to do
Dinner is my meal. During the week I have yogurt for breakfast, a fruit cup or small salad for lunch, and then a good meal for dinner.
I don’t think there’s a norm anymore
Americans don’t get siestas like much of Europe and are usually lucky to even get time to eat lunch. Dinner is the main meal because that’s when most of us have the only time to sit and enjoy one.
In general, we eat dinner earlier. It’s also the only time we can eat as a family. For me, because of these, it is a larger meal. It will be at least 12 hours before I eat again at breakfast.
Dinner is definitely the main meal of the day for us. But I feel like it’s also worth noting a lot of households (if everyone’s days off of work/school line up) a big breakfast or a brunch is made, stealing dinner’s thunder.
I only eat lunch on my days off, so dinner is really my only actual meal (as opposed to eggs on bread or a quick snack). Usually dinner is just chicken and rice or something, nothing lavish though.
I’d say so. Having a nice lunch is generally reserved for special occasions. Also, depending on your job, you may only get 30 minutes for lunch. In grade school, our lunch period was never more than 45 minutes. In fact, my high school lunch period was only 30 minutes. Most jobs I’ve had after college have allowed for an hour lunch, but I’ve observed most people use that time to take care of personal business and cram in a quick lunch. When I lived overseas, our lunch break was at least 90 minutes, and our cafeteria served meals very similar to something I would eat for dinner as an American.
The biggest meal of the day is happy hour 🤪🤟
Just kidding, it’s dinner.
Yeah. Unfortunately, 30-minute lunch breaks are pretty common here, plus most of us work further away from home, so we do smaller lunches. I, personally, don’t have anything but coffee for breakfast, but that’s just because I have a bad stomach. Dinner, we’re all home and cook something and eat with family members.
Proportionally lunch and dinner are probably similar but dinner is more involved and with family. If it was just me I’d eat a big meal around 3 and that would be my lunch and dinner. We generally eat too much as Americans
Most of our work places are not close to home, at least not close enough to get there and back during a 30-60 minute meal period. Dinner is by far the biggest meal period, though we don’t do really late dinners. Its usually wrapped up by 9pm, and usually 7-8, That gives you a few hours at least to digest before going to sleep.
Americans who work generally can’t return home for lunch, and often only have a half hour, so it would be hard to make it a meaningful meal. Dinner is made and eaten after work, so there’s enough time to make it bigger and fresher, as well as a time to eat with loved ones.
Yes, but I have started gravitating toward lunch being the main meal. It seems more natural to me.
Yes, dinner is the main meal because it’s supposed to be the time for family gathering.
People eat more than once a day?
I skip breakfast almost every day. I skip lunch most days when I’m working. Dinner is usually the only meal I eat. Sometimes I’ll have breakfast or lunch on weekends.
Within the past few years I’ve changed things up a bit. I try to make lunch the bigger meal, then dinner and then a small breakfast. I’m pretty active at work, especially an IT person. At the very least I do 10k steps a day. So ya gotta feed the beast. I’ve also heard eating an earlier dinner is better for you as opposed to eating a late dinner at 9 or 10 o’clock.
‘Dinner’ is literally the word that refers to the main meal of the day. Most people eat it in the evening, but some farming populations had it in the middle of the day. There are still certain situations where people might eat a midday dinner, but it’s not very common. When the evening meal is smaller, it’s called ‘supper’.
Dinner because lunch… you have it at work, alone sometimes. Breakfast a lot of people skip it. But dinner? Yes, that’s the big meal.
I don’t know about others, but for me, it’s lunch. I prefer brunch over a dinner reservation. I don’t like going to bed with a full stomach, it’s wasted calories that will be converted into fat.
Yes, though not to the extent of countries like Italy where dinner is a massive, long, multi course production
People are at work and school all day. Dinner is the only time the whole family is together
Everybody is different.
For me I’ll have a cup of oatmeal for breakfast and then a big dinner after the gym.
Others have many small meals throughout the day. While some have massive breakfast and small dinner
I don’t like eating much in the middle of my work day. So yeah, dinner is the larger meal of the day.
Dinner is usually the big meal, I think this stems from kids being in school and parents at work during lunch, and therefore dinner is the meal where the whole family can eat together.
I prefer having my large meal around lunch time, but then I wouldn’t be hungry for dinner, which would mean not sharing that experience with my wife.
For farmers, the biggest meal of the day is typically in the middle of the day. For city dwellers, it’s in the evening after getting home from the office and from school.
Historically, the biggest meal of the day has been called Dinner, regardless of what time it is eaten.
Meal names based on time of day:
Morning – Breakfast
Mid Day – Lunch
Evening – Supper
(“Brunch” is typically late morning, or breakfast food eaten at midday, usually at a restaurant rather than at home. )
So farmers and rural areas eat dinner midday then supper in the evening, while city people eat lunch midday and dinner in the evening.
Since most of our population has now been raised in cities and eats Dinner in the evening, most Americans use that term for the evening meal and no longer use the term Supper.
Didn’t “dinner” used to be at lunch time?
Something subtle about language, at least in the south. Breakfast is the first meal of the day. Lunch is the second. Supper is the third. Dinner is the biggest meal of the day, regardless of when it happens. Many southerners have Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner in the afternoon, as the second meal of the day. But generally, since the third meal of the day is typically the biggest, that gets called dinner, to the point where the usage of supper is falling out of favor.
I’m told there’s a holdover of this in British schools, where “school dinners” are served at lunch time, but were intended to be the largest meal of the day.
Yes. For many of us it is because that’s when everyone tends to be home. I know our family has at least 6 dinners together a week so we make it the larger meal.
Some days I just do not have the time for a full lunch. I don’t eat breakfast most days because I need to be up 2 or 3 hours before I eat. Food just sounds awful right when I wake up.
No breakfast for me. Then I scarf something down on my short lunch break. Dinner is my only real meal of the day.
Yes, for me anyway.
I rarely eat lunch unless it’s business related.
When my kids were growing up, we ate dinner together as a family every night.
Yes, we plan more for dinner than lunch.
The evening meal is usually the main meal of the day except on holidays where it’s common to have the large meal in the afternoon. Growing up we also had a large meal on Sunday afternoon when extended family got together, usually at my grandparents house.
Dinner is the larger meal. Most Americans get 30 min meal break. Some get an hour. It’s not enough time to go home and cook, or go out and have a big meal. You grab a sandwich or salad or you pack a sandwich or leftovers or a frozen meal. Some places don’t have even microwaves to warm things up.
Yes, I would say the bigger main meal of the day is dinner.
However, my grandparents typically had their hot bigger meal earlier in the day unless it was a special occasion and then later in the evening they’d eat fruit, veggies and nuts as a snack. To me it was not the norm but my grandmother was Canadian so not sure if that’s why.
For young and middle aged people, dinner is the big meal. For me and many other seniors, we’ve shifted to a large lunch then a small snack for dinner, because our digestion is slower and it’s uncomfortable to try to sleep on a full belly.
Yes, definitely so.
In the US, there isn’t a lot of time/structure for people to have a relaxed lunch at work or school, so dinner isn’t just the largest meal, but the largest excuse to socialize with your loved ones at home after a long day.
Breakfast is shoving something down before work/ school. Lunch is shoving something down during your half hour break. Dinner is the no rushed big meal usually eaten together as a family
yes! dinner is usually a warm cooked meal while lunch is a cold sandwich and some chips, lunch is like a short break in the day where dinner is time to really unwind and spend time with family
For me, yes. I don’t eat breakfast unless coffee counts. Lunch is about 50/50, so sometimes dinner is my only meal.
Yes I would say dinner is the largest meal usually
Yes. In fact, growing up, dinner was often the only meal I’d eat.
Yes, and it’s because of our car-centric over-industrialized culture.
Unlike in say, Italy, where the stores close from 1-4, so everyone lives close to work and school, and can go home and take a nap and have a nice meal with the family, different family members often have to commute a long way from home in opposite directions.
As a result, we get home at 6 or later, eat something quickly, and run out the door for whatever kid’s game or concert or practice you have to drive to.
It’s brutal and it’s killing us.
Yes. That is when the family is together so it is the main meal. Many people skip breakfast and scarf down lunch but mist sit down and eat dinner together.
Yeah, though lunch is my largest meal Id say. Only time I ever get to “make” food
Growing up yes. Breakfast was a bowl of cereal before school. Lunch was a quick meal before play. Dinner was a big sit down affair with my whole family.
It is going to vary from family to family and person to person. While dinner is considered the primary “family” meal there are certianly plenty who eat a larger lunch and small dinner.
Me personally I find eating a large lunch is easier than a large dinner.
In general, but I feel physically better with a larger lunch and minimal dinner (perhaps more properly “supper”) so I try to do that.
The problem of course, is meal prep time vs. working hours.
It is for me as I typically skip lunch and work through.
Yes
Yes. Because people are working or in school most of the day, dinner is the big family meal. The only time we deviate from that is for a big holiday meal, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc., and that meal is usually served at lunchtime.
Fun fact, depending on where you’re at, dinner and lunch are the same meal. Where I’m at we have breakfast, lunch/dinner, supper.
As per your question, it depends. It seems like we eat about the same amount for lunch and supper. Though if we’re having a fancier meal, it’s usually supper
When I was married and raising a family, dinner was the biggest meal. Now that I’m single and my kids are adults, my lunch is my biggest, and dinner is more like what I had for lunch while working. Then before bed I have a cup of decaf with dark chocolate, or a protein hot chocolate, maybe sugar free jello with a squirt of whipped cream. I was taught that eating habits should change throughout your life.
Yes, dinner is the main meal. A heavy lunch hurts productivity in the afternoon. In the past, however, before industrialization, the main meal was typically at noon. When the noontime meal was the main meal of the day, it was typically called supper, with the term lunch coming in during the 19th century to describe a light noontime meal that was often eaten away from the home. When I was a child (I’m in my 60s), there were a few older people who used supper to refer to what everyone else called lunch.
For a lot of people their evening meal is their largest meal of the day.
It is for me. Honestly, there are many days I don’t even eat lunch.
Where I live, lunch is a small meal in the middle of the day, and supper is a small meal at the end of the day. Dinner is the large meal of the day, be it in the middle or at the end of the day. Thus, we eat lunch and then dinner, or dinner and then supper.
On Sundays, we have a large dinner in the middle of the day, and a light supper in the evening. Otherwise, we all usually have a light lunch and dinner in the evenings.
Yes, dinner is the big one. I think we’d be better off if it were lunch (or even better, breakfast) but that’s not how it is.
Dinner is usually the only time the whole family can get together to congregate around a table together. School and work schedules never align so the evening meal would be the big one to do that with.
Yes- big dinner and then we sit on the sofa for three hours watching NEtflix getting fatter.