Why Filipinos Eat Five Times a Day
Breakfast.
Morning snack.
Lunch.
Afternoon snack.
Dinner.
Anyone who’s lived or visited the Philippines knows that it’s considered quite normal to eat five times a day. I wondered why, and here’s what I came up with:
* Obviously, we eat for nourishment. Three of these chow-times are ordinary mealtimes. The other two times are needed to tide us over until the next main meal. Why not just 3 big(ger) meals a day? Read on.
* The hot climate makes eating large meals difficult. I can’t eat much when I’m feeling too hot. Isn’t it a scientific fact that eating makes the body burn energy in order to digest the food? Couple that with a hot day, and you have a recipe for heat-induced dieting. But we still need nourishment, so the solution is 5 smaller meals a day rather than 3 big ones.
* We eat for companionship. We’re a friendly bunch. A chat is friendlier over banana cue or a slice of Goldilocks’ mocha roll.
* Coffee tastes better with food. Ditto with softdrinks. I don’t know of any Filipino who takes coffee breaks with just coffee. It’s seems kulang (insufficient), right?
I must admit that I no longer eat 5 times a day. I blame it on a slower metabolism. But I still miss my merienda (snack) times.
Creative Commons image by Darren Hester on Flickr
4 Comments
Isn’t that what we’ve been told forever – to eat 5 small meals a day?
My doctors say that my metabolism is 4x faster than that of the average person of my age which explains why I eat a lot during the three regular meals plus I have three other meals in between. Despite all this, I’m still very thin!
Besides, with all the great Filipino food, I cannot be helped but eat more frequently in a day.
Filipinos, at least in the old tradition and still in the rural farms, also eat breakfast before the sun is even up. The day is began very early, and the first breakfast is just coffee and bread.So the next “meal” would be an hour or two after with rice and an entree. Lunch would be next, and then an afternoon snack when the day is hottest, or right after siesta. Dinner would be the heaviest just after the sun sets – at 7pm or so.
i eat when i’m depressed.
dinner should never be heavy – remember bangungot!