Europeans who eat late as part of your culture – how do you feel about the advice not to eat dinner late?
March 16, 2025
This is forever a conflicting viewpoint given some cultures have naturally eaten dinner late for centuries e.g. The Mediterranean where they still have one of the best diets in the world
33 comments
What advice? I personally don’t care, I’ll eat when I feel like it, usually around 20 in winter and 21-22 in summers. I live in Paris.
I don’t think much about it, it has never affected me negatively. I know people who have some stomach issues and as long as there is a 2 hour gap between eating and going to bed, they are still fine.
Unless you are talking about gaining weight if you eat late? The number of calories is what affects my weight, not dinner time.
I roll my eyes and attribute that to lack of cultural understanding.
If it works for you, it works for you. If you’re fit and happy eating dinner at 5, do it. If I’m fit and happy eating at 9 or 10, I’ll keep doing it.
If I ever go out for dinner with someone on the other end of the spectrum, I try to agree on a medium, like half past seven.
I always heard its enough to not eat 2-3 hours before sleeping, we eat dinner at around 7-8 (ig later in the summer) so that works fine but im not sure what is considered late
I’m from Portugal but I’ve lived in the NL for many years, I never adapted to eating early. I like to have dinner between 20:00 – 21:30. I don’t go to bed until close to midnight, and I’m not full by the time I go to bed.
If I happen to eat too early (before 20:00) I get too hungry when I go to bed and I dislike that feeling. If I had to choose, I’d choose going to bed a little bit full than hungry.
To answer your question: I definitely think that it’s not good for us to go to bed full, it affects sleep and well being sometimes, so I try to eat a couple hours before bed time.
Growing up in the U.K., a lot of my friends had dinner at 5/6pm. Being Bosnian, my family would have dinner at 8/9pm. Other than my friends finding it strange, there’s no issue and we just shrug it off.
Don’t care. Life is to be lived. Have you lived in very hot places?
I live in the far south of Europe and also often work until pretty late,so it’s natural for me to ‘eat late ‘… though not necessarily at Spanish times!
Honestly I prefer eating around 8pm but quite often eat at 9.30-10pm.
It doesn’t really affect how I sleep.I don’t go to bed immediately after eating.
I’m usually starving by 10 though and so might end up eating too much,if I’m not careful 😉
I eat late, but I also go to bed relatively late, basically not going to bed before midnight. Also, the key is having light dinners
Honestly never care about these “advices”. They change all the time. One day it’s like this but another day it’s suddenly like that. I just live my life and eat whenever I want to. Just like people have done throughout history.
Don’t care. I eat after I am back from the gym, which can range any time from 20.00 to 21.30. I cannot eat before I go to the gym, so I choose to eat later.
I’m a European who eats late.
It’s not part of my culture though, im just a greedy fuck.
Just go to sleep more late. It is the same have the dinner at 7 p.m. to go to sleep at 9 p.m as have the dinner at 9 p.m. to go to sleep at 11.p.m..
I eat late and I go to sleep late. The hour difference is about the same, there’s nothing magical about eating early. Behsides, health advices, specially when it comes to what you eat or not vary a lot. I remember my grandmother saying when she was younger it was advertised vegetable oil was healthier than cooking with olive oil, today is the opposite. Some people say eating eggs is bad for the collesterol, others say it doesn’t have that much of an effect. I stopped caring a long time ago.
TIL this is advised. To be honest I don’t eat that late (at least in my opinion), being that I generally have dinner between 20:00 and 21:00. Before 20:00 I consider it an early dinner, and after 21:30 it’s already quite late for me.
Eating dinner at that time works for me because I usually have lunch in-between 13:00 and 14:00, and the period between 16:00 and 17:00 I have an afternoon snack, so I’m not starving by the time it’s 20:00.
Are you from the USA and eat before we’ve finished work?
I eat whenever I’m hungry no matter how late it is, never had any problems whatsoever. If I’m hungry and awake at 1 or 2am, I’ll eat.
I also eat whatever food I feel like at the time; I cooked a steak for breakfast last week lol. My family are puzzled sometimes but I think it’s perfectly normal.
What advice? I’m Italian: I have lunch at 12:00/12:30 and dinner at 21:00/21:30… never had any problem, I’m 45 and very healthy
I thought “don’t eat dinner late” has already been revealed as not being based on any particular study? AFAIK it’s just something they came up with to stop late night snacking which is one source of obesity. The only thing studies show is that eating a lot shortly before going to bed is going to mess with your sleep.
I’d been eating dinner around 10 pm for long long years and it didn’t cause any issues. I only stopped because due to some changes at work I had to start getting up much earlier in the morning so I had to start going to bed sooner. It never caused any problems. Now I eat around 19-20:00 and no issues whatsoever.
In Portugal is normal to have a snack around 17h or 18h, and dinner at 20h, 21h.
When I lived in Ireland I start eating dinner around 18h, and have my snack at 21h. I prefer it.
But when I moved back to Portugal I’ve started eating late again 🤷 I think it’s also related to the fact that the days are shorter in the north (in winter)
Like my grandfather used to say:; Nothing better in life than going to bed with the stomach full of food 🙂 I make sure to honor that saying.
I don’t care.
If I skip dinner, I wake up early because I’m hungry. So I eat as late as I want.
In spain the most important meal of the day is lunch, so even if we have dinner late compared to other countries(9-10 pm) dinner is usually a light meal, and also we go to sleep latter too. I usually have dinner at 9 but don’t go to sleep until 12-1 am.
> advice not to eat dinner late
Is there any scientific basis for this?
I think it’s important to remember that countries who eat dinner late (19:30-21:00) tend to have lighter dinners and heavier lunches (around 13:30 for me), so we do not stuff ourselves before going to bed and don’t have accompanying issues.
– Dinner is usually light since lunch is the biggest and most important meal of the day, which is the main difference between our meal culture and the more northern ones that lunch is usually a shitty sandwich.
– We are not going to sleep straight after having dinner so it doesn’t really matter either way.
– Mediterranean Diet™️ is a fake artificial diet based on what the poorest people in Greece were eating, yeah they were skinny but because they were poor people eating not enough while doing hard manual labour.
– I’ve never heard that “advice” in my life.
The meal I eat late is not a big meal; it’s more of a snack. My main meal is eaten around 14:00.
If I ate that big meal late I would not sleep well.
(Spain, btw)
I think a lot of the confusion comes from misleading vocabulary. When I hear “dinner” I think about the biggest meal of the day, which in my country is usually eaten in the afternoon. The last meal of the day, usually quite light, is supper. So “dinner at 21” sounds like you eat a big plate of meat and potatoes that’s going to sit heavily in your stomach for half the night.
I am from Spain.
We have dinner late, like maybe depending on when you arrive home 9-11 pm, but we don’t eat much for dinner. Our dinners are usually very light. A yogurt and fruit, an omelette, something like that, so it’s not like we go full to bed.
Our main meal is at lunch, about 2-3 pm, and it’s very large, with first and second course and then dessert… and we also have merienda, which is a snack at 6 or so, which is some coffee or pastries or fruit.
So we do not eat big dinners at all, unless it’s with friends in a restaurant, or in some special circumstances such as X-mas. In which, yeah, omeprazole is your best friend.
So I feel ok, with this system. It’s what I am used to all my life, for me eating a big meal at dinner is very heavy for the stomach, and eating too little during the day makes me snack more and eat more unhealthy.
What advice?
I exit from work around 18 / 18:30, get home at 19+, it is impossible to start eating before 20
From south of France. I eat around 9pm. Idk if that’s considered late, but I wouldn’t be comfortable eating earlier tbh
Here in Spain, dinner is not as big as in other European countries. Our main meal of the day is lunch.
We tend to go to bed later too.
I think that there’s a lot of misconception about the dinning late in some countries, for example in Spain our main meal is at lunch around 14:00/15:00. We have dinner later (21:00/22:00) but usually is a light meal like a sandwich, an omelette or a bowl of soup, we eat bigger dinners sometimes but it’s on special days like holidays or if we go out with friends, during the week we usually dinner pretty light.
33 comments
What advice? I personally don’t care, I’ll eat when I feel like it, usually around 20 in winter and 21-22 in summers. I live in Paris.
I don’t think much about it, it has never affected me negatively. I know people who have some stomach issues and as long as there is a 2 hour gap between eating and going to bed, they are still fine.
Unless you are talking about gaining weight if you eat late? The number of calories is what affects my weight, not dinner time.
I roll my eyes and attribute that to lack of cultural understanding.
If it works for you, it works for you. If you’re fit and happy eating dinner at 5, do it. If I’m fit and happy eating at 9 or 10, I’ll keep doing it.
If I ever go out for dinner with someone on the other end of the spectrum, I try to agree on a medium, like half past seven.
I always heard its enough to not eat 2-3 hours before sleeping, we eat dinner at around 7-8 (ig later in the summer) so that works fine but im not sure what is considered late
I’m from Portugal but I’ve lived in the NL for many years, I never adapted to eating early. I like to have dinner between 20:00 – 21:30. I don’t go to bed until close to midnight, and I’m not full by the time I go to bed.
If I happen to eat too early (before 20:00) I get too hungry when I go to bed and I dislike that feeling. If I had to choose, I’d choose going to bed a little bit full than hungry.
To answer your question: I definitely think that it’s not good for us to go to bed full, it affects sleep and well being sometimes, so I try to eat a couple hours before bed time.
Growing up in the U.K., a lot of my friends had dinner at 5/6pm. Being Bosnian, my family would have dinner at 8/9pm. Other than my friends finding it strange, there’s no issue and we just shrug it off.
Don’t care. Life is to be lived. Have you lived in very hot places?
I live in the far south of Europe and also often work until pretty late,so it’s natural for me to ‘eat late ‘… though not necessarily at Spanish times!
Honestly I prefer eating around 8pm but quite often eat at 9.30-10pm.
It doesn’t really affect how I sleep.I don’t go to bed immediately after eating.
I’m usually starving by 10 though and so might end up eating too much,if I’m not careful 😉
I eat late, but I also go to bed relatively late, basically not going to bed before midnight. Also, the key is having light dinners
Honestly never care about these “advices”. They change all the time. One day it’s like this but another day it’s suddenly like that. I just live my life and eat whenever I want to. Just like people have done throughout history.
Don’t care. I eat after I am back from the gym, which can range any time from 20.00 to 21.30. I cannot eat before I go to the gym, so I choose to eat later.
I’m a European who eats late.
It’s not part of my culture though, im just a greedy fuck.
Just go to sleep more late. It is the same have the dinner at 7 p.m. to go to sleep at 9 p.m as have the dinner at 9 p.m. to go to sleep at 11.p.m..
I eat late and I go to sleep late. The hour difference is about the same, there’s nothing magical about eating early. Behsides, health advices, specially when it comes to what you eat or not vary a lot. I remember my grandmother saying when she was younger it was advertised vegetable oil was healthier than cooking with olive oil, today is the opposite. Some people say eating eggs is bad for the collesterol, others say it doesn’t have that much of an effect. I stopped caring a long time ago.
TIL this is advised. To be honest I don’t eat that late (at least in my opinion), being that I generally have dinner between 20:00 and 21:00. Before 20:00 I consider it an early dinner, and after 21:30 it’s already quite late for me.
Eating dinner at that time works for me because I usually have lunch in-between 13:00 and 14:00, and the period between 16:00 and 17:00 I have an afternoon snack, so I’m not starving by the time it’s 20:00.
Are you from the USA and eat before we’ve finished work?
I eat whenever I’m hungry no matter how late it is, never had any problems whatsoever. If I’m hungry and awake at 1 or 2am, I’ll eat.
I also eat whatever food I feel like at the time; I cooked a steak for breakfast last week lol. My family are puzzled sometimes but I think it’s perfectly normal.
What advice? I’m Italian: I have lunch at 12:00/12:30 and dinner at 21:00/21:30… never had any problem, I’m 45 and very healthy
I thought “don’t eat dinner late” has already been revealed as not being based on any particular study? AFAIK it’s just something they came up with to stop late night snacking which is one source of obesity. The only thing studies show is that eating a lot shortly before going to bed is going to mess with your sleep.
I’d been eating dinner around 10 pm for long long years and it didn’t cause any issues. I only stopped because due to some changes at work I had to start getting up much earlier in the morning so I had to start going to bed sooner. It never caused any problems. Now I eat around 19-20:00 and no issues whatsoever.
In Portugal is normal to have a snack around 17h or 18h, and dinner at 20h, 21h.
When I lived in Ireland I start eating dinner around 18h, and have my snack at 21h. I prefer it.
But when I moved back to Portugal I’ve started eating late again 🤷 I think it’s also related to the fact that the days are shorter in the north (in winter)
Like my grandfather used to say:; Nothing better in life than going to bed with the stomach full of food 🙂 I make sure to honor that saying.
I don’t care.
If I skip dinner, I wake up early because I’m hungry. So I eat as late as I want.
In spain the most important meal of the day is lunch, so even if we have dinner late compared to other countries(9-10 pm) dinner is usually a light meal, and also we go to sleep latter too. I usually have dinner at 9 but don’t go to sleep until 12-1 am.
> advice not to eat dinner late
Is there any scientific basis for this?
I think it’s important to remember that countries who eat dinner late (19:30-21:00) tend to have lighter dinners and heavier lunches (around 13:30 for me), so we do not stuff ourselves before going to bed and don’t have accompanying issues.
– Dinner is usually light since lunch is the biggest and most important meal of the day, which is the main difference between our meal culture and the more northern ones that lunch is usually a shitty sandwich.
– We are not going to sleep straight after having dinner so it doesn’t really matter either way.
– Mediterranean Diet™️ is a fake artificial diet based on what the poorest people in Greece were eating, yeah they were skinny but because they were poor people eating not enough while doing hard manual labour.
– I’ve never heard that “advice” in my life.
The meal I eat late is not a big meal; it’s more of a snack. My main meal is eaten around 14:00.
If I ate that big meal late I would not sleep well.
(Spain, btw)
I think a lot of the confusion comes from misleading vocabulary. When I hear “dinner” I think about the biggest meal of the day, which in my country is usually eaten in the afternoon. The last meal of the day, usually quite light, is supper. So “dinner at 21” sounds like you eat a big plate of meat and potatoes that’s going to sit heavily in your stomach for half the night.
I am from Spain.
We have dinner late, like maybe depending on when you arrive home 9-11 pm, but we don’t eat much for dinner. Our dinners are usually very light. A yogurt and fruit, an omelette, something like that, so it’s not like we go full to bed.
Our main meal is at lunch, about 2-3 pm, and it’s very large, with first and second course and then dessert… and we also have merienda, which is a snack at 6 or so, which is some coffee or pastries or fruit.
So we do not eat big dinners at all, unless it’s with friends in a restaurant, or in some special circumstances such as X-mas. In which, yeah, omeprazole is your best friend.
So I feel ok, with this system. It’s what I am used to all my life, for me eating a big meal at dinner is very heavy for the stomach, and eating too little during the day makes me snack more and eat more unhealthy.
What advice?
I exit from work around 18 / 18:30, get home at 19+, it is impossible to start eating before 20
From south of France. I eat around 9pm. Idk if that’s considered late, but I wouldn’t be comfortable eating earlier tbh
Here in Spain, dinner is not as big as in other European countries. Our main meal of the day is lunch.
We tend to go to bed later too.
I think that there’s a lot of misconception about the dinning late in some countries, for example in Spain our main meal is at lunch around 14:00/15:00. We have dinner later (21:00/22:00) but usually is a light meal like a sandwich, an omelette or a bowl of soup, we eat bigger dinners sometimes but it’s on special days like holidays or if we go out with friends, during the week we usually dinner pretty light.