Why eat a sugary meal right before going to bed?
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Food high in sugar is nutritionally good for short burst energy, and if not used up, that energy is stored as fat. Since people generally go to sleep after meals are they not wasting this potential short-release energy yield?
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Let’s consider instead that we eat dessert specifically to put on fat. Well, this may have been desirable as an outcome historically, but for a long time - maybe 200 years or so - humans have NOT wanted to build fat. Also - it doesn’t work. We burn fat during sleep, so those ‘dessert gains’ disappear.
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Now let us visit the simplest answer of “it tastes good” - well in that case, why do we eat dessert when we do? We could eat sugary snack at any point of the day - a dessert-lunch might make a lot of sense! So let me repeat myself:
Why eat a sugary meal right before going to bed?
well in that case, why do we eat dessert when we do?
because that’s when you are home and maybe not in a hurry. says a lot.
How late is your dinner that dessert would be “right before bed”?
There’s some logic in putting it last. First make sure you get nutritious food. Once you have, you can safely enjoy some indulgence. Number one, it won’t displace actual nutrition, because you took care of that first. And second, you’re more likely to indulge moderately because you filled up on real food first.
So if there is any method here, I think it’s to put dessert last, not to put dessert before bed.
However none of this explains why, after a meal, I immediately get sugar cravings.
Because it’s nice, and if you ate it first you wouldn’t want to have as much of the healthy stuff that came before. Not everything has to have an objective purpose. Nice things are nice.
why do we eat dessert when we do?
speak for yourself?
In some cultures, such as mine (Austria, but also in Germany) it’s most common for the main (hot) meal to be eaten around the middle of the day, and if dessert is eaten, it’s with that meal. In the evening we usually just eat a relatively small amount of cold food (ham sandwiches or similar) and no dessert.
That’s so surprising to me. German efficiency at play
It’s just the normal way of doing things I grew up with, only much later in life did I find out that this isn’t normal in all cultures.
No one is forcing you to eat sweets right before bed, and that’s not what dessert is anyway. Dessert follows the entree, it’s part of the meal. If you decide to eat dinner right before bed, that’s on you.
yummy
Then perish.
We’re all dying. Might as well enjoy the ride.
i had just woken up when i posted this comment so I apologise for being flippant.
actually reading the post, point 3 is perfect. i actually do have “lunch-dessert” and ive had it all my life, never really having “dinner-desert”
so honestly, i like the question. “how did a sweet snack before bed become a cultural norm in the western world, and why/how did it beat out another, more optimal, point in the day?”
Gonna happen anyway.
If you don’t like dessert, don’t eat dessert. I don’t. I also eat at 6.30 and go to bed at 11.
If food were just about cold, hard, logical choices based on nutrition alone, we’d all just eat Soylent Red and Yellow.
People trade long-term detriment for short-term enjoyment all the time.
What is soylent red and yellow?
Years ago youtube had videos of people making a product called soylent to replace food. From what I remember it didnt make people healthy and failed. Now searching for it apparently soylent word came from a movie about eating people? Wtf is the color part (green, red, yellow)?If food were just about cold, hard, logical choices based on nutrition alone, we’d all just eat Soylent Red and Yellow.
False.
Yes your principle is right though. I just wonder how the society evolved to like eating sugar as the last meal of the day. Is it rooted more in hunter-gatherer lifestyle or in, say, rennaissance onwards lifestyle from after the Old World discovered sugarcane in the caribbean? I know there was an insane effort to use sugar in as many foods as possible, so as to make good on the investments into the expeditions and colonisation projects there.
If you come in asking a question and then tell everyone who disagrees with your expected answer that they’re wrong, you’re acting in bad faith.
Honestly not that deep
Sugary parts of the meal are digested more slowly when combined with other stuff (proteins, fats). And we eat dessert at the end because rapid surge of glucose in your bloodstream blocks hunger. You’re losing appetite for main course if you start from dessert.
Interesting, i always thought sweet food “ruins appetite” just by raising your digestive system’s expectations
i think sugar and coffee at the end of a meal helps with digestion and gives your brain a little energy boost while your body is busy processing the meal
Where are you from, OP? Not only do we not eat dessert right before bedtime (where did you get that silly idea?), but where we live, dessert is commonly either milk-based, fruit based or both.
milk-based Has it’s own natural sugars and usually comes in the form of custard (Added sugar) or ice cream (added sugar) or cream (extra fatty)
fruit based Has it’s own natural sugars and usually comes with added sugar in the form of a pie, ice cream, jelly, jam, sugared fruit, canned fruit, et cetera
Not only do we not eat dessert right before bedtime
I do 😉 busy life i guess.
Why are you on social media when studies have shown it’s bad for your mental health?
This isn’t an argument byt a ponderance, and people can engage in one unhealthy thing but not another, without compromising their morals/belief system.
right before going to bed?
Nobody really should do that part of it.
It starts with libations and food offerings.
Sweets were fed to the gods in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient India[7] and other ancient civilizations.[8] Herodotus mentions that Persian meals featured many desserts, and were more varied in their sweet offerings than the main dishes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dessert#History
The Romans continued the practice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_cuisine#Desserts
back to the main dessert article:
Europeans began to manufacture sugar in the Middle Ages, and more sweet desserts became available.[14] Even then sugar was so expensive usually only the wealthy could indulge on special occasions. The first apple pie recipe was published in 1381;[15] The earliest documentation of the term cupcake was in “Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats” in 1828 in Eliza Leslie’s Receipts cookbook.[16]
And then there’s this guy:
Evidence for the domestication of the cacao tree exists as early as 5300 BP in South America, in present-day southeast Ecuador by the Mayo-Chinchipe culture, before it was introduced to Mesoamerica.[8] It is unknown when chocolate was first consumed as opposed to other cacao-based drinks, and there is evidence the Olmecs, the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization, fermented the sweet pulp surrounding the cacao beans into an alcoholic beverage.[9][10]
Chocolate was extremely important to several Mesoamerican societies,[11] and cacao was considered a gift from the gods by the Mayans and the Aztecs.[12][13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate#History
Now as to “why before bed”? It’s become a practice. But here’s the thing: nobody is making you eat a sweet nor at a particular time of day.
In the 80s it was rare to see people drinking water, except for “health food nuts”. It was far more common to see soft drinks/sodas. Over the years, society has become more accepting of drinking water. You didn’t have “hydrohomies” in the 80s. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Thank you so much for the detailed answer which considers the entire scope of human history. Much insight into different cultures.
In the 80s it was rare to see people drinking water, except for “health food nuts”. It was far more common to see soft drinks/sodas. Over the years, society has become more accepting of drinking water.
This is very interesting to think about
