I'm a Norwegian, and where I work I have the option of eating a big warm lunch, but I very rarely do. I've noticed that eating a big lunch makes the following hour extremely unproductive, so for the last year I have made a matpakke with 3 slices of bread. Normal _pålegg_ is liver paste, cheese or peanut butter. I can easily go through my lunch in just few minutes, and even while working at the same time.
My thought process is that I'd rather be more productive during working hours and go home early, than waste 2 hours in the middle of the day on a heavy calorie lunch.
There are two solutions to this: Eating less for lunch is one, taking an afternoon nap is another.
I'm taking the latter one. I eat lunch at 1pm in normal days, and my sleepiness usually kicks in around 2pm. Then I take a 15-min power nap, and I become fully energized again.
The process I take a nap is 1) open up a terminal and press the enter, so the current time is shown in a prompt. 2) literally headdesk. 3) wake up and hit the enter again, then you'll know how long you've slept. You can even set up a small script to measure your sleep time.
It turned out that my nap time is almost constant between 15 to 20 mins. Technically I can argue that I'm splitting my lunch break into two parts and using it for different purposes (45 min for lunch and 15 min for nap), so I'm not that much slacking.
> I've noticed that eating a big lunch makes the following hour extremely unproductive
I used to work with investment company boards and so I spent a lot of time in all-day meetings with a bunch of old men. I called the hour after lunch "nap time" because at least one of them would always fall asleep.
You were right about the matpakke, except for the peanut butter.
And also it is not customary to eat the lunch in front of the computer. Even in the blandest of work environments, there is a welld defined lunch room and time, and expectation, where people have their lunches.
IMHO the drowsiness has nothing to do with calories, it's the carbs and the related blood insulin spike causing drowsiness.
My hint: Experiment with a meal without or with very minimal amount of carbs (for example eat a salad with meat or something like that) - that keeps you full of energy and doesn't drive your productivity down or that is at least how it works for me.
I suffered from this until I cut out simple carbs at lunch. Bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice all send me to sleep if I have them. Salads and meat I can pig out on without problems.
Pretty much everyone in my office (in central Oslo) eats a hot meal in the canteen every day, I think there are maybe 5 people out of over 100 that have opted out of hot meals.
I'm also curious about you using peanut butter, in my experience, even though it's readily available in stores (well, one brand), it doesn't seem like many Norwegians actually eat it regularly.
No offense, but honestly your lunch sounds depressing as hell.
I never understood this nordic lifestyle I saw in Scandinavia, Benelux and Northern Germany where people refuse to take a proper lunch break and just eat some random cold food in front of their computer for the sake of productivity for their employer. It's just depressing to see and unhealthy in the long term.
In southern Europe(Austria) having a walk to the bistro for a warm lunch with freshly cooked quality food, away form my desk is not only healthy but also gives me a refreshing physical, mental and morale boost.
Sitting glued to my chair in front of the computer for 8 hours straight is not only unhealthy but would just burn me out quickly.
It is lovely that you have that option. For many American workers, if you work through your lunch, you do not then get to leave early. You've just donated your lunch hour as extra work time to the company, and you will often not get it back. It does vary, of course.
my thought process is that I enjoy work and my co-workers and that spending an hour a day eating and socializing together makes work and my life more enjoyable.
If feel that tech companies' free lunchs work against this since lunch ends up only taking 20-30 mins instead of an hour. And no they don't get more work out of me, I just leave 30 mins earlier. That great if you want to get home as quick as possible. I'd prefer a balance of making work more enjoyable and feel the lunch socializing contributes to that.
Screw productivity, think about your health. Your flawed thought process went to either eating a bad but fast meal or a heavy calorie lunch for 2 hours?
First, nobody 'wastes' 2 hours, just 30-45min in a regular lunch.
Second, a healhty lunch means, adequate calories and nutrients. And that does not mean it will kill your productivity.
As a Spaniard, I'm very offended by your opinion. Also, I would like to know what your ancestors ate before all these ultraprocessed food existed, pretty sure it was more nutritious. Also, pretty sure they invested more than 10 minutes.
Their lunch traditions are definitely basic, as they were not a wealthy country for hundreds of years before striking oil in the 60s.
The point to remember is that while the fare is basic, the quality is typically very good. Their cheese is extra creamy and nutritious, as is the bread. The same goes for the milk.
Many Europeans won’t drink the milk here in the States because the quality tends to be much lower, due to feed/living conditions for livestock. Garbage in = garbage out.
Absolutely. The quality of typical supermarket bread, bologna, cheese, butter in US is pretty low, so while it may look similar the taste and afterall feeling is really different.
A very typical and widespread cousin of the Norwegian sandwich from USSR/Russia - "buterbrod" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterbrot . Bread + butter topped with cheese or bologna or hard salami and chased down with black tea (hot, or at least warm, to make sure that the high fat content of the butter and the topping blooms into great taste, and it probably also helps digestion considering how good it feels :). Topped with cold smoked fatty fish (typically a red like salmon) or red or black caviar - great "zakuska" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakuski) to chase down vodka or cognac.
> Many Europeans won’t drink the milk here in the States because the quality tends to be much lower, due to feed/living conditions for livestock. Garbage in = garbage out.
If you have the time and money, I found the opposite to be true.
The average quality of products like bread and meat is much lower in the US than in Europe, but in the US I have the option of going to some high end shop or bakery and get stuff that is much better than I can get here in Europe. In Europe things are extremely uniform. (Yes, I realize that Europe is a big place and I am generalizing somewhat.)
Good cheese is very hard to find in the US though. Speciality shops are rare and even there you have much less options.
When I go to the US, on the first day I am very saddened by the "bread" and milk I can find, it's just awful, but quickly I go to the good shops and get the good stuff.
When I come back to Europe I am saddened again because now I can't get the good stuff anymore, no matter how much time and effort I put into it. That's why now I bake my own bread here in Europe.
I spend a large proportion of my time in the US, and I found that this phenomenon generalizes to many products. For many products the US average is worse than the European equivalent, but in the US there's a much broader distribution of quality, and the high end tail of the quality spectrum is usually in the US. Of course this quality comes at a cost.
Comparing the cheese to what you get in the States, it might look extra creamy.
Being a Swedish born living in Norway, I'd say most of the cheese is boring and tasteless! The typical cheap cheese in Sweden (Hushållsost) is much more creamy and tastes a lot more than the cheapest alternatives in Norway (Norvegia). You have to go up about 40-50% in price to get the most equivalent (something like Novergia Fyldig). The milk though, tastes much better in Norway.
The milk quality in the US is fine, it's just different. Each carton has been pasteurized differently, then homogenized, fortified, and contains milk from thousands of cows. There are lots of other differences that affect flavor, mouthfeel, aroma. We may also use different cows, environment, etc.
I grew up with matpakke and the 1/4 of milk every day and I hated it. It was depressing. Only good side was you got more time to play outside at school since you just wolfed down the food to get it over with.
My kids go to a school in Spain and they get a 3 course meal every day for about 5 EUR a day. As a parent its great because you know they've had a full complete meal every day and you can just make a small evening meal.
I also grew up with a madpakke (I'm in Denmark) and also hated it. Was pretty jealous of Swedish kids since I knew they got a hot school lunch and didn't have to eat boring, open-faced sandwiches and room temperature milk. I guess Norwegians have it just as bad as Danish kids.
I feel like this article somewhat undersells brødskriver. They can be delicious.
Most important is good bread, which is super common here, despite it being totally unavailable in most other countries. All ordinary grocery stores get freshly baked bread every day, whole in paper bags of course.
For example - with a thick slice of butter, then some oven-baked liver paste and two slices of gherkin on top and boom - you have something delicious in a single minute.
It seems there are three types of people based on what they deem most important regarding the meals they consume. There are people who primarily eat for sustanance, there are people who eat for pleasure and there are Americans.
I'm solidly in the sustance camp, I tend to go for quick, easy and nutritious. Occasionally I will splurge and eat out at a good restaurant and enjoy it a lot. My wife is in the pleasure camp and doesn't want to waste any opportunity to have a delicious meal and even hates to have a simple breakfast or lunch. My three year old son might be an American, he just wants to eat McDondalds three times per day.
Smugness aside, there are big cultural issues regarding meal pleasure importance.
One of my biggest shocks from moving from a Latin American country to Britain was when I realised that taking 1 hour lunches, which I consider the bare minimum, was seen as a terrible time splurge only reserved for the most important events.
Another Norwegian here. If you don't find the matpakke boring enough, I am happy to tell you that we have an even more boring culinary tradition for breakfast, namely oatmeal. Preferably water boiled with a dab of butter. Crazy Norwegians might use milk instead of water, and sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar on top. On the weekend, it is allowed to use a little cinnamon as well, but only sparingly.
In Chile, eating this kind of sandwich is also very common. Not so much for lunch but for dinner. Sometimes even just bread and butter. I feel in the US people are obsessed with eating "nice and flavorful" stuff instead of eating something because you actually need to eat.
This is just like Dutch lunch. Indeed, I'm not sure what's special about it. Definitely not limited to Norway.
My previous girlfriend was also Dutch and used to this kind of lunch. Her employer sent her to London for a month, and she got used to expensive lunches. Spending a couple of pounds everyday on lunch, hoo boy, that adds up.
Preferring flavorful food is definitely not a US thing, it's probably a human thing. Humans in general prefer more flavorful food to less flavorful food.
If the economics were such that a slice of bread with cheese cost the exact same as a quick Michelin-star meal at a restaurant, I think you would see a shift of people changing their bread and cheese diet.
The worst part isn't really that they eat poor sandwiches for lunch all their life, the worst part I'd say is that they often think it's the most healthy way to eat, and have no idea about good nutrition!
(I'm Swedish born and raised, moved to Norway at age 20 and have lived here for 10 years.)
I have had some arguments with colleagues about food during my years here. I have mostly worked at places with a canteen, with the option of eating a real, hot lunch for the same price as the bread.
The most common thing is that many Norwegians think that their simple bread (almost never wholegrain) with a slice of cheese is a healthy lunch. People argue and think that eating two hot meals a day makes you fat. They think they gain weight because they eat a hot meal for lunch, and that the solution is switching back to bread again. To no-ones surprise, they don't lose any weight by doing the switch.
It's kind of a bummer to see so many comments going straight for the judgmental angle. I think you will be happier as a person if you try to take on a more curiosity driven mindset. There are a bunch of pros to eating like this, and there are a bunch of cons.
It would be equally silly to have a thread about long Spanish lunches, socializing, and siestas being filled with comments about how it's a "waste of time".
Australian here: Cheese and Vegemite (yeast extract) sandwiches are what a lot of people grew up having for their school lunches. My kids like it because it's quick to eat.
For the Norwegians, is Jarlsberg your typical cheese in a matpakke? Probably my favourite sandwich cheese!
This is not unique to Norway. In the Netherlands I was basically raised on a "Norwegian" sandwich lunch, although peanut butter could be used as a topping as well.
There are people who eat to work, and other who work to eat.
I can totally see the need for simple, sandwich lunch, especially in rush periods. But sandwiches can be SO GOOD with the right bread and the right ingredients. Why waste an opportunity for a nice lunch, even if you cannot take a long lunch break ?
3rd generation American, 100% Norwegian decent. This looks like my school cold lunch in the 80’s. I’ve eaten the brown cheese, braunschweiger, head cheese, and venison summer sausage. Some toppings were better than others.
This is almost exactly like in Belgium. We do have similar word for på leg which is ‘beleg’ or ‘toespijs’. And we also pack it in the morning, 3 or 4 slices. It is not as beautifully wrapped in paper with in-between papers, though.
Moreover, we have decent bread in Belgium. And it doesn’t come in a plastic bag. It’s more similar to the bread described in the article about bread in the UK seen on HN frontpage some days ago.
I’ve seen people stating in the comments that this is heavy on calories. But that’s entirely not true. The butter is probably soja based, the cheese and meat are thinly spread.
[+] [-] opdahl|6 years ago|reply
My thought process is that I'd rather be more productive during working hours and go home early, than waste 2 hours in the middle of the day on a heavy calorie lunch.
[+] [-] camillomiller|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] euske|6 years ago|reply
I'm taking the latter one. I eat lunch at 1pm in normal days, and my sleepiness usually kicks in around 2pm. Then I take a 15-min power nap, and I become fully energized again.
The process I take a nap is 1) open up a terminal and press the enter, so the current time is shown in a prompt. 2) literally headdesk. 3) wake up and hit the enter again, then you'll know how long you've slept. You can even set up a small script to measure your sleep time.
It turned out that my nap time is almost constant between 15 to 20 mins. Technically I can argue that I'm splitting my lunch break into two parts and using it for different purposes (45 min for lunch and 15 min for nap), so I'm not that much slacking.
[+] [-] elliekelly|6 years ago|reply
I used to work with investment company boards and so I spent a lot of time in all-day meetings with a bunch of old men. I called the hour after lunch "nap time" because at least one of them would always fall asleep.
[+] [-] unixhero|6 years ago|reply
And also it is not customary to eat the lunch in front of the computer. Even in the blandest of work environments, there is a welld defined lunch room and time, and expectation, where people have their lunches.
[+] [-] mikkom|6 years ago|reply
My hint: Experiment with a meal without or with very minimal amount of carbs (for example eat a salad with meat or something like that) - that keeps you full of energy and doesn't drive your productivity down or that is at least how it works for me.
[+] [-] regularfry|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tallanvor|6 years ago|reply
I'm also curious about you using peanut butter, in my experience, even though it's readily available in stores (well, one brand), it doesn't seem like many Norwegians actually eat it regularly.
[+] [-] ChuckNorris89|6 years ago|reply
I never understood this nordic lifestyle I saw in Scandinavia, Benelux and Northern Germany where people refuse to take a proper lunch break and just eat some random cold food in front of their computer for the sake of productivity for their employer. It's just depressing to see and unhealthy in the long term.
In southern Europe(Austria) having a walk to the bistro for a warm lunch with freshly cooked quality food, away form my desk is not only healthy but also gives me a refreshing physical, mental and morale boost.
Sitting glued to my chair in front of the computer for 8 hours straight is not only unhealthy but would just burn me out quickly.
[+] [-] Vrondi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greggman2|6 years ago|reply
If feel that tech companies' free lunchs work against this since lunch ends up only taking 20-30 mins instead of an hour. And no they don't get more work out of me, I just leave 30 mins earlier. That great if you want to get home as quick as possible. I'd prefer a balance of making work more enjoyable and feel the lunch socializing contributes to that.
[+] [-] chrisseaton|6 years ago|reply
How many calories are in your sandwich though?! Sounds extremely calorie dense!
[+] [-] mikorym|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wildduck|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thendrill|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sock-puppet|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _vrmm|6 years ago|reply
First, nobody 'wastes' 2 hours, just 30-45min in a regular lunch. Second, a healhty lunch means, adequate calories and nutrients. And that does not mean it will kill your productivity.
As a Spaniard, I'm very offended by your opinion. Also, I would like to know what your ancestors ate before all these ultraprocessed food existed, pretty sure it was more nutritious. Also, pretty sure they invested more than 10 minutes.
[+] [-] mogadsheu|6 years ago|reply
Their lunch traditions are definitely basic, as they were not a wealthy country for hundreds of years before striking oil in the 60s.
The point to remember is that while the fare is basic, the quality is typically very good. Their cheese is extra creamy and nutritious, as is the bread. The same goes for the milk.
Many Europeans won’t drink the milk here in the States because the quality tends to be much lower, due to feed/living conditions for livestock. Garbage in = garbage out.
[+] [-] umeshunni|6 years ago|reply
I was surprised by that statement and had to look it up and it was, of course, false. Norway was a wealthy country back to the 1800s: sources: https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/no-norway-was-not-a-poor-count... and https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-history-of-norway/
[+] [-] trhway|6 years ago|reply
A very typical and widespread cousin of the Norwegian sandwich from USSR/Russia - "buterbrod" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterbrot . Bread + butter topped with cheese or bologna or hard salami and chased down with black tea (hot, or at least warm, to make sure that the high fat content of the butter and the topping blooms into great taste, and it probably also helps digestion considering how good it feels :). Topped with cold smoked fatty fish (typically a red like salmon) or red or black caviar - great "zakuska" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakuski) to chase down vodka or cognac.
[+] [-] 4ad|6 years ago|reply
If you have the time and money, I found the opposite to be true.
The average quality of products like bread and meat is much lower in the US than in Europe, but in the US I have the option of going to some high end shop or bakery and get stuff that is much better than I can get here in Europe. In Europe things are extremely uniform. (Yes, I realize that Europe is a big place and I am generalizing somewhat.)
Good cheese is very hard to find in the US though. Speciality shops are rare and even there you have much less options.
When I go to the US, on the first day I am very saddened by the "bread" and milk I can find, it's just awful, but quickly I go to the good shops and get the good stuff.
When I come back to Europe I am saddened again because now I can't get the good stuff anymore, no matter how much time and effort I put into it. That's why now I bake my own bread here in Europe.
I spend a large proportion of my time in the US, and I found that this phenomenon generalizes to many products. For many products the US average is worse than the European equivalent, but in the US there's a much broader distribution of quality, and the high end tail of the quality spectrum is usually in the US. Of course this quality comes at a cost.
[+] [-] colanderman|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisWreck|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j7ake|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjplatte|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterwwillis|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christkv|6 years ago|reply
My kids go to a school in Spain and they get a 3 course meal every day for about 5 EUR a day. As a parent its great because you know they've had a full complete meal every day and you can just make a small evening meal.
[+] [-] simongray|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kristofferR|6 years ago|reply
Most important is good bread, which is super common here, despite it being totally unavailable in most other countries. All ordinary grocery stores get freshly baked bread every day, whole in paper bags of course.
For example - with a thick slice of butter, then some oven-baked liver paste and two slices of gherkin on top and boom - you have something delicious in a single minute.
[+] [-] rejschaap|6 years ago|reply
I'm solidly in the sustance camp, I tend to go for quick, easy and nutritious. Occasionally I will splurge and eat out at a good restaurant and enjoy it a lot. My wife is in the pleasure camp and doesn't want to waste any opportunity to have a delicious meal and even hates to have a simple breakfast or lunch. My three year old son might be an American, he just wants to eat McDondalds three times per day.
[+] [-] yoz-y|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mFixman|6 years ago|reply
One of my biggest shocks from moving from a Latin American country to Britain was when I realised that taking 1 hour lunches, which I consider the bare minimum, was seen as a terrible time splurge only reserved for the most important events.
[+] [-] tambarskjelve|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marvin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diehunde|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cerberusss|6 years ago|reply
My previous girlfriend was also Dutch and used to this kind of lunch. Her employer sent her to London for a month, and she got used to expensive lunches. Spending a couple of pounds everyday on lunch, hoo boy, that adds up.
[+] [-] j7ake|6 years ago|reply
If the economics were such that a slice of bread with cheese cost the exact same as a quick Michelin-star meal at a restaurant, I think you would see a shift of people changing their bread and cheese diet.
[+] [-] Nisse3|6 years ago|reply
(I'm Swedish born and raised, moved to Norway at age 20 and have lived here for 10 years.)
I have had some arguments with colleagues about food during my years here. I have mostly worked at places with a canteen, with the option of eating a real, hot lunch for the same price as the bread.
The most common thing is that many Norwegians think that their simple bread (almost never wholegrain) with a slice of cheese is a healthy lunch. People argue and think that eating two hot meals a day makes you fat. They think they gain weight because they eat a hot meal for lunch, and that the solution is switching back to bread again. To no-ones surprise, they don't lose any weight by doing the switch.
[+] [-] librish|6 years ago|reply
It would be equally silly to have a thread about long Spanish lunches, socializing, and siestas being filled with comments about how it's a "waste of time".
[+] [-] dwd|6 years ago|reply
For the Norwegians, is Jarlsberg your typical cheese in a matpakke? Probably my favourite sandwich cheese!
[+] [-] oxfordmale|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorgoiler|6 years ago|reply
I would love for my own culture to adopt such a convenience! So much better than cling film or foil.
[+] [-] Animats|6 years ago|reply
The Japanese version is Calorie Mate Balanced Food Block, from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company. Available in convenience stores and vending machines.
[+] [-] reaperducer|6 years ago|reply
Because life is short.
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koffiekop|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donmatito|6 years ago|reply
I can totally see the need for simple, sandwich lunch, especially in rush periods. But sandwiches can be SO GOOD with the right bread and the right ingredients. Why waste an opportunity for a nice lunch, even if you cannot take a long lunch break ?
[+] [-] request_id|6 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18830186
[+] [-] BooneJS|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pierot|6 years ago|reply
Moreover, we have decent bread in Belgium. And it doesn’t come in a plastic bag. It’s more similar to the bread described in the article about bread in the UK seen on HN frontpage some days ago.
I’ve seen people stating in the comments that this is heavy on calories. But that’s entirely not true. The butter is probably soja based, the cheese and meat are thinly spread.