Hey, Maine-What Time Does Your Family Eat Dinner?

From Shawshank Redemption

You eat when we tell you to eat.

Remember as a kid and you had a dinner time, and that’s what time you ate dinner. Bet it is more flexible now then it was then.

Also remember realizing that some people ate dinner around the time that you were going to bed. Wow. They must be rich. No idea why, but we associated those that ate later in the evening with being rich.

I remember visiting Italy, and nobody started to eat dinner until at least 8 p.m. Except us tourists.

Life has certainly changed with both parents working in so many more families than a generation or two ago, and obviously that has an effect on what time dinner is served.

And today kids have many more activities that might alter dinner times too.

Just like rural families might eat at a different time than city or town folk.

Across the U.S.A., the most popular Peak dinner time is 6:19 p.m. Most begin no earlier than 5:07 p.m. and most finish by 8:19 p.m.

Think Mainers line up with those statistics?

Actually no.

Maine’s peak is nearly 40 minutes earlier. The peak time to be eating in Maine is 5:40 p.m. The second earliest time in all of America.

The latest eaters are in the District of Columbia. Most are eating at 7:10 p.m.

Maybe we as a state eat earlier because of the age of so many Mainers.  Meaning older people tend to eat earlier rather than later.

Maybe it is because the food is so good, why wait? Let’s get at it.

The data came from the American Time Use Survey conducted by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.  I know. I want that job too.

Did this make you hungry? Be on the lookout for ‘what are we eating’. That might do it.