We grew up believing in three meals a day.
When we skip meals, eat extra meals or subvert paradigms -- spaghetti breakfasts, pancake suppers -- we feel naughty, edgy and criminal. "Three meals a day" resonates like a Bible phrase.
But it's a cultural construct.
People around the world, even in the West, have not always eaten three squares. The three-meals model is a fairly recent convention, which is now being eclipsed as, like everything else, eating becomes a highly personalized matter of choice. What and when and how frequently we eat is driven less and less by the choices of our families, coworkers and others, and more and more by impulse, personal taste and favorite nutrition memes, and marketing schemes such as Taco Bell's promotion of late-night eating known as "Fourthmeal: the Meal Between Dinner & Breakfast." Selecting how and when we eat is like loading our iPods.
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