What do you like to snack on?
Brits feel the hungriest at 5.41pm, over any other time of the day, new research reveals.
A survey of 1,000 respondents revealed that 88 per cent per cent of us are so ravenous at this point of the day that we turn to snacking to satisfy our hunger before dinner.
The study by Spanish wine producer, Tio Pepe Fino, found that 43 per cent of Brits eat dinner between 6-7pm, with 7 out of ten of us taking between 15–45 minutes to cook our evening meal, a statistic that drives us to pre-dinner snacking to curb our hunger.
The 5.41pm ‘Hungry Moment’ can be defined as that time in the evening when lunch is well and truly digested but dinner seems a long way off. Even with it taking us as little as 15 minutes to cook dinner, a third of us say that the time of day they are most likely to snack is between arriving home from work and eating dinner. Coining the phrase ‘Fridge Tapas’, Tio Pepe found that the most popular pre-dinner snack was cheese with over half of us eating it while we wait for dinner. A further 14 per cent admitting to nibbling cheese directly from the block. 26 per cent of us opt to eat cooked or cured meats such as ham when we raid the fridge, and a quarter of us say we often polish off the last slice of meat in a packet.
Tio Pepe also found that we enjoy grazing so much, a third of us snack at least three times daily. 37 per cent of us think about food at least once an hour, with 2 per cent of us stating that we think about food more than once in every ten minutes.
Jeremy Rockett, Marketing Director at Gonzalez Byass, comments: “We’ve always known Brits are obsessed with food, but our new research pinpoints the precise moment in the day when we’re the most ravenous and can’t stop ourselves from snacking. Our ‘Hungry Moment’ research has also highlighted some interesting trends, which we believe are starting to show the Spanish influence on our eating habits. Nibbling on ‘Fridge Tapas’ such as cheese, meats, breads and olives is becoming embedded in our daily snacking routines.”