Is It Really Time for Dinner?

This evening I was frustrated because my husband and I arrived home from a weekend trip, and I had nothing planned for supper.

I immediately reached for one of my cookbooks for using fresh produce, but I was coming up with nothing that appealed to me. Why was that? I'm telling everyone to eat whole foods as much as possible, and I was flaking out on them!

Then I realized something. I wasn't that hungry.

That was a pivotal moment. I remembered that I had a large breakfast (eggs benedict with spinach) as we traveled back from Colorado Springs to Grand Junction; and then we each had an avocado, tomato and cheese sandwich, along with with apple slices and almonds, mid-afternoon. No wonder I had no appetite for a full dinner meal.

So I drove to the store and picked up some prepared chicken noodle soup from the deli area, and a few small squares of jalapeno corn bread. I heated the soup, cut a couple of slices of  the cornbread for the side, and we were set.

The soup portions weren't large; about a cup and a half for each of us, but it was plenty.

Here's the take-away.

We are so conditioned to eating full meals in the evening that it may feel strange not to do it.

True enough, the soup wasn't prepared in my kitchen, and neither was the corn bread. Had I prepared a meal of fresh, whole foods, I probably would have served up larger portions, along with some pasta.

But quite often, "less is more," and ideally we're better off putting less food into our stomachs in the evening; and eating more earlier in the day.

Think about it. We probably spend more on stocking up for dinner in the evening than for any other meal.

Less food at night could mean a lot more savings on your grocery bill!