When did people in China start eating three meals a day?

After the Han Dynasty, two meals a day gradually became three or four meals.

Before Qin and Han Dynasties, people only ate two meals a day. Because agriculture is underdeveloped and food is limited, even two meals should be treated as people.

Before the Song Dynasty, ordinary people only ate two meals a day, the royal family only ate four meals, and the princes only ate three meals. In the Western Han Dynasty, the imperial edict to the exiled king of Huainan specifically pointed out that "three meals a day should be reduced to two meals".

This is due to the economic prosperity of the Song Dynasty, but restaurants are no longer confined to the middle of the market as in the Tang Dynasty, and the night market does not impose a curfew at night, so we added a New Year's Eve dinner.

Mozi Miscellaneous Harvest says that soldiers have two meals a day, and their food intake is divided into five categories. The first meal is called "Chao Shi" or "Li" and is eaten when the sun reaches the southeast (corner). The second meal is called "Nian" or "Shi" and is eaten around 4 pm.

Extended data:

How much food to eat a day, all kinds of customs are different. Greeks and Romans used to eat two meals a day, a light meal at noon and a dinner at night. In medieval England, they ate four meals a day, including dinner at 8 pm.

The content and procedure of a meal can explain what kind of custom it belongs to. For example, Malaysia distinguishes between dinner and snacks according to whether there is rice or not.

Different customs have different eating habits, such as siesta in Spain and Latin America, lunch break after dinner, and bathing before dinner in Greece and Rome.

Baidu encyclopedia-three meals