Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr baffled some when she admitted to having dinner at 4.30pm. Even her billionaire husband Evan Spiegel joins the seemingly bizarre ritual on weekends.
But a dietician told Yahoo Lifestyle the mum-of-four may be on to something and she’s not the only one. When she made the admission on a recent podcast, some described it as “crazy” but others people pointed out that in Scandinavia “it is culture to have early dinner”.
“Modern times have pushed it a bit later, but 3pm to 4.30pm is a perfectly normal time there,” one person said.
“Then have something small later before going to bed.”
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Miranda said it helped her blended family — her eldest Flynn from her marriage to Orlando Bloom and Myles, Hart and Pierre with Evan — feel less “rushed” before bath-time and an early bedtime.
“I want to sit down and have a beautiful meal together, and try to talk about their day,” the model told The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show.
Sports dietitian Simone Austin told Yahoo Lifestyle that an early dinner can be beneficial for parents.
She said that 4:30pm is often when children are hungry — and if they don’t eat dinner they are likely to fill up on slacks, making a later meal time a “battle”.
Sports dietician Simone Austin told Yahoo Lifestyle that she agrees with this concept of eating early. Photo: Instagram/simone_austin
“The good thing about eating early for children is they’re not so tired,” she said.
“They’re tired by the end of the day, school is exhausting – they have to behave, they have to be good, and then we’re expecting them to do it late in the evening too.
“Eating early means you can discuss the days events before everyone is tired and ‘hangry’.”
Some may be reading and thinking: “How on earth will I have time to get dinner sorted at 4.30pm with everything else going on?”
But Simone said 4.30pm isn’t a hard and fast rule.
The same can work up to 5.30pm.
She suggested that parents taking children to activities after school could try to give them half their dinner before and the rest when they get home.
This reduces snacking and helps again with resistance to eating when they are home tired later in the evening.
How can I get dinner on the table closer to 4:30pm?
Simone has a suggestion to help busy families: work a day in advance, prepping a meal so you can easily serve it up the following night, nice and early.
“So for instance, tonight you get home, and you will have prepared [the food] yesterday, you eat it at 4:30, have dinner, clean up, and then maybe you prep dinner for the next night, so it’s nearly in reverse,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle.
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“So, you feed everyone while they’re hungry, you can relax a bit, then you might start preparing dinner for the next day.”
The other option, she suggested, was to do some preparation on the weekend to make things nice and easy for the week.
Simone also added that dinner doesn’t have to be complicated, you can use things like frozen vegetables to make a stir fry quicker or maybe one night it could be scrambled eggs on toast with salad.
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