Why men aren’t getting their (breakfast) oats

REAL men don’t eat quiche, so the saying goes – and now science seems to have proved it.

A study has found major differences between the eating habits of the sexes, with women preferring eggs, vegetables and men favouring red meat.

How and when we eat also varies. Men are more likely to skip breakfast, for example, as only 4.4 per cent of males are hungry when they wake up, compared to twice that number of females.

Women were more inclined to snack in the afternoon – 34 per cent compared to 26 per cent of men – and eat more frequently, with 35 per cent eating five times a day, compared to 26 per cent of men.

Blokes are more likely to be fast eaters – 80 per cent versus 64 per cent – and more likely to eat alone, and outside the home.

Men prefer salty and bitter tastes, while women prefer sweet flavours – a legacy from evolution, suggest researchers, thanks to millennia of men hunting for meat while women harvested fruit. Researchers believe hormonal variations between the sexes also explain many of the differences.

Around 2,200 men and women aged 30 to 45 were quizzed about their eating habits and preferences for the study, published in the journal Frontiers In Nutrition. Nine out of ten men in the study regularly ate red meat, compared to threequarters of women, who had a greater fondness for chocolate.

Dr Mauro Lombardo, professor of human nutrition at Italy’s San Raffaele Roma Open University, who led the study, said: ‘Women have a much more anarchic approach to food. They tend to eat a lot more between meals, skip meals and be messy.

‘At the same time, they are much more aware of food choices than men. Women know much more about the properties of different foods and of what foods can harm them or be good for their health.

‘I think these differences can also explain why low-calorie diets are often more effective for men than for women. Our study shows nuanced differences between male and female dietary patterns.’