But this, you see, is where the flexibility ends. Early meals can be substituted for all later meals, but no later meals can be eaten earlier in the day.
Now, rules are made to be broken, and people do break the culinary ones. Even I have, on occasion, eaten dinner for lunch, nearly always due to circumstance or peer pressure. I have attended lunchtime barbecues, or fancy long lunches at restaurants, or formal daytime weddings, and eaten dinner food in the early afternoon. I do it when necessary, but there are consequences to these infractions, and I am utterly ruined for the rest of the day.
Loading
When lunch is a sandwich, I bounce through the afternoon. When lunch is steak and baked potato, or a burger and fries, or roast chicken and a dinner roll followed by cake and truffles, I need to go immediately to sleep. And then I wake up and drag myself through the rest of the day, and then evening comes and I am not hungry, because I ate a huge lunch, but itβs mealtime, so I feel like I want to eat, so I have a bit of fruit, which is unsatisfying, and then I canβt sleep at night, because Iβve slept for two hours, and then itβs 11pm and Iβm starving because I havenβt eaten dinner.
You can see the problem. Itβs a gastronomic disaster.
Now, I know there are people who will beg to differ, people who will down enormous carnivore breakfasts and power through their days. βEat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper!β they will proclaim, in between mouthfuls of pot roast or slabs of beef.
But I am not a king! Kings are free to take afternoon naps on the couches in their quarters, and if they are too tired to pick up the kids from school their valet can do so for them. I am but a commoner, who needs to stay awake and alert, and make dinner for my kids, who only ate sandwiches for lunch.
If you want to meet me for lunch, please just choose a nice cafΓ©. And if youβre having a noontime barbecue, thank you, but Iβll just have the salad.
Kerri Sackville is an author, columnist and mother of three.