Listen to your stomach and not the ticking of the clock, because it’s past time humans evolved from our ancestral eating habits. Meal times are scheduled around the typical 9-to-5 workday, and first dates, family meeting times, and events like weddings all revolve around them. Humans may actually follow this routine more than any other in existence, but appetite doesn’t chime on the hour. In fact, it’s utterly unnatural to eat when we’re told.
As it turns out, eating three meals a day stemmed from European settlers, with whom it grew into the normal routine, eventually becoming the eating pattern of the New World. Native Americans were actually eating whenever they felt the urge to, rather than whenever the clock said morning, noon, or night. After the industrial revolution, people began to turn a midday meal into a lunchtime staple, and the after-work meal turned into dinner, a placeholder for the next meal.
