When I get home from work, I'm starving. The first half hour home is a flurry of activity. Make a salad, turn on the stove, defrost, heat up, set the table, and eat.
But then it's over. After that, it's the bowls of ice cream, but I could really use another meal a few hours later. The important thing is that I don't give in, but I sure want to.
Dan Turek isn't like you or me.
He collects handwritten signs for his Handwritten Sign Museum (Web site homepage.mac.com/danielturek/PhotoAlbum1.html), talks about seminal punk rockers GBH and Broadway chanteuse Linda Eder with equal conviction, and wants the world to eat twice as many meals a day.
OK, I'm in. What's the story? Turek suggests that folks follow his regimen of Linner (a meal sandwiched between lunch and dinner) and Night Meal (another dinner following, well, dinner) on a daily basis.
As a child, Turek found the hours between breakfast and lunch to be excrutiating. 'When you think about the number of hours between lunch and dinner, the number is unfathomable.'
To me, it's a nightmare and a dream come true all at the same time. All those extra calories are a drag, but eating all day long? I'm sold.
He points out that his added meals go in line with the move to bigger sizes. 'I remember when the Big Gulp came out,' he explains. 'It was the hugest thing I'd ever seen.' He goes on to explain that his entire family used to share a bucket of chicken and two Big Gulps, when he was a kid. 'Now, you can get 64 ouncers and those trucker coffee mugs,' he says. Especially alarming, Turek asks, 'What size will my kids be drinking 10 years from now? Is Barrel sized next?'
As crazy as Turek's suggestions sound (remember, he collects cruddy handwritten signs from lamp posts, gutters, and garbage cans), his completely unscientific ideas are surprisingly not without merit. There is a growing consensus among nutritionists and medical professionals that eating all day really isn't such a bad thing.
The caveat, however, is that the meals you eat all day need to be of smaller portion sizes. In other words, if you have a slab of ribs for dinner, then Night Meal better be pretty light. Actually, even at dinner, that slab of ribs is a big no-no.
Even worse, Turek says, 'My wife, who has always described herself as a hearty eater, started eating Pressert, the dessert before the meal, which was fine, but then she started eating dessert after the meal too. What is that—Midsert?'
Turek's latest invention? Appeteasers. Though I point out that it sounds like a heading that must already exist at a Chili's or an Applebee's, Turek insists that the name is his. What are they exactly? Appetizers before, well, the appetizers. 'A perfect way to whet your appetite before eating more,' explains Turek.
At the opposite end of the dinner spectrum, Turek is really hot on Fifth Meal. 'Wake up at 4 a.m. to a full-on country breakfast—sausage links, country ham, grits, definitely biscuits—and then go back to bed for a few hours.' Yes, he lives in the South, and can meals six, seven, and eight, be far behind?
Maya plays by the new rules. She eats a couple smaller meals each day (yogurt and blueberries for breakfast or a cup of soup for lunch), but mixes in snacks all along the way (though she has yet to add Fifth Meal). A banana, a bagel, some carrots—and, yes, the occasional candy bar. She doesn't like that too-full feeling, and tries to avoid overeating.
Nutritionists examined the eating habits of other cultures to determine what benefits were in the diets of those in other lands, and found that there are often very different eating patterns in other countries.
In some countries, like the United States, dinner is the big meal of the day, while in others, it's breakfast (for the record, the nutritionists recommend your biggest meal should be at mid-day). Some of these differences can be attributed to culture, and some to climate. After all, it's probably best to get most of the day's cooking over with before the hottest part of the day in many African nations.
The idea of a fourth meal is not so ludicrous, considering the British regularly partake of high tea, and Filipinos enjoy the merienda. Even animals, in their natural state, will break up their food consumption into a series of more and smaller meals. When animals in zoos are fed specific meals, rather than allowed to nibble, they gain weight. This will happen even when the total amount of food consumed by the animals remains the same.
When these animals are forced to eat meals, a change occurs in their metabolisms. Their bodies quickly learn to remember that the period of eating will be followed by a period of fasting, and, therefore, fat is stored, to ensure that there will be enough energy in the system until the next meal.
As an added bonus, humans who spread their intake of food throughout the day experience less constipation and a reduced risk of colon cancer. Remember, however, that calorie intake should remain constant. If you're eating more frequently, but don't decrease portion sizes at these various mealtimes, you're probably better off just sticking to the three meals a day regimen.
Or, order a ' Smedium.' Turek describes it as a choice for 'when small is too small and medium too big.'
