Show Doctor Doctorin in the I Kitchen itchen c 4 by Laurence M. M Hursh MD M.D. t Consultant National Dairy Council CALORIES PER MEAL What proportion of the dally caloric need should be consumed with each meal That question appears In a n book edited by a friend of mine Pr pro Philip rhilip L L. L White Director of the Department of Foods and Nutrition Nutrition tion of the American Medical Association It is a compilation of material that has appeared in his Today's Health magazine column Lets Talk About Food But it contains other material on nutrition nutrition tion too The book also titled Lets Talk About Food is now in its second revised edition NO N General Agreement What does docs Dr White say about how many calorIes per meal There is no general agreement lie he Ie says on the proportion of calories that should be consumed at the three conventional meals The usual pattern for most people is a light breakfast moderate lunch followed by a heavy evening evening eve eve- ning meal Custom work sched ule and nd personal preference seem to dictate meal patterns One school of thought suggests that the evening meal should not be a heavy high-fat high dinner if ItIs it itis itis is to be followed by hours of sedentary relaxation before sleep Another recommendation has been that frequent small meals meats say six are better than three larger ones These latter two re recommendations reCommendations re- re Commendations re reflect concern for elevated blood fat concentrations concentrations which occur several hours after eating We all know of overweight persons persons per per- sons vi who ho eat little or nothing du dur during durIng ing the day and then stuff stud them selves silly in the evening I 1 cannot can not recommend this unless you arc are striving to be one of the fattest fat test persons in the world and have a circus job in the Ule offing Dont Don't Stuff Staff At Night Most doctors would agree that tha stuffing yourself at of eating three or four lighter meals daily dally is risky It places too top much responsibility on the ono meal to give you the nutrients you need It is probable that such sucha a daily dally eating pattern would not provide you with al all an the nutrients you need and particularly not when you need them The body has that cannot be met by a feast feast famine famine or-famine routine Dr White puts it this way Perhaps the best adv advice c is to space nourishing meals at appropriate intervals so that neither a gnawing hunger nor nor a drowsy overfed feeling results |