52% Of People Consider This Their Favorite Meal Of The Day

Traditionally, we think of meals as something that occur (or are supposed to occur) 3 times per day and are separated into 3 categories: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That's the way it's always been (well, as long as any of us can remember, at any rate), and that's...not necessarily the way it's always going to be. In fact, for many of us, particularly if we're living on our own, meals are often a kind of catch-as-catch-can affair, eaten whenever we find the time and consisting of whatever happens to be on hand or can easily be picked up or delivered.

Still, taking as the basic premise the fact that actual sit-down meals are a thing and not another abandoned childhood relic, what would you say is your favorite meal of the Big 3? Mashed thought that such a big question deserved a big survey, so we took this one worldwide and posted our question on YouTube. In total, we received about 34,000 answers from folks all over the world (although admittedly, either the English-speaking world or those parts where the native language lends itself well to Google Translate). The results...were somewhat less than earth-shaking. It seems as if more than half of us (52 percent of respondents) think dinner is the best meal of the day, but then, why wouldn't they? It seems more likely to be the one meal we tend not to eat on the run, in the car, or at our desks, after all.

As one dinner fan explained, "You get to sit down and take your time. While in the morning, it's very chaotic and rushed." Another commenter, who sounds like they may be very busy, went so far as to say, "The only full meal i eat is dinner so I don't really have a choice here." Still, another enjoys their end-of-day meal so much that they said, "I love dinner! I love it so much that I skip breakfast and lunch just so I can eat a bigger dinner without going over my daily caloric limits."

Others meanwhile reminded us of the etymological differences around the world, allowing that while they favored the end-of-day meal, it went by a different name. As Project Britain points out, in some parts of the UK "dinner" may refer to a midday meal, while the evening meal goes by the names of either "tea" or "supper." One commenter seemed to adhere to this nomenclature, noting that "dinner breaks are too short at work to eat much of anything and l like it when I can relax and take my time yeah y'all supper." Another said, "I call it supper. And it's my favorite," while a third seemed to want to quibble on religious/etymological grounds, saying supper was best because "Christ didn't have the last breakfast, lunch or dinner, he had the last supper."

Lunch drew 17 percent of the votes. One lunch fan said, "I like lunch more cause when the dinner comes I'm tired and sleepy as heck," while another mentioned the joys of "going out to lunch in a big city, sitting at the cafe on the water" (not even mentioning the additional benefit that lunch restaurant menus frequently feature much lower prices than they do at dinner).

Breakfast is the meal favored by 28 percent, several of whom cited the old saw that it is, after all, the most important meal of the day. Quite a few mentioned that they enjoyed eating breakfast foods at nighttime, however, favoring a sort of breakfast/dinner combo meal. One person shared their love for "Breakfast for dinner" and called it "something else y'all," before going on to ask others if they'd "ever been to Ihop at 10pm." Another said their meal of choice was a "Bowl of cereal at 3 am, though we're not quite sure whether that's breakfast as (late) dinner or just a really, really early breakfast...

One meal that's becoming so mainstream as to make a case for being included in the main lineup is brunch, although it's typically only something people have time to enjoy on weekends. Still, among the 3 percent of poll respondents who opted to answer "Other," quite a few commented that this was their favorite meal of the week, if not the day.

A surprising pick, however, was one that owes its existence to literature (or movies), specifically works of or inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien. As one of our poll's top comments read, "'Other' .....you mean, second breakfast?" Still another person gave credit where credit was due, saying "Pippin had my heart when he said 'what about second breakfast?'" One hungry, hungry hobbit even voted for "Third breffist!," explaining that "We Hobbits have a high intake need and if we skip third breffist we become unbearable to be around! Not even a snickers bar will make us better!"

Other poll respondents were unable to choose sides. One said "I'm poor so I eat when I get food," while another said their preferred time to eat was "Whenever I get to eat." Still, others admitted such sentiments as "All 3 are my favorite.... " and "all of them. :)" In fact, we're going to go ahead and award "comment of the day" status to that last one since not only does it express a relatable sentiment, but it's so nice to see a text emoticon again!