Definition
Meal: A "meal" is composed of one or more readily eatable (generally cooked) items of food, the usually major constituent of which is cereals. The meals consumed by a person twice or thrice a day provide him/ her the required energy (calorie) and other nutrients for living and for pursuing his/ her normal avocations. A "meal", as opposed to "snacks", "nashta" or "high tea", contains larger quantum and variety of food. In rare cases, a full meal may contain larger quantity of non-cereal food. Even then, if the quantum of food in a plate is heavy as a meal, the contents of the food plate will also be considered as a "meal". Sometimes the contents of a "nashta" may not be very different from the contents of a "meal". The difference in quantity will therefore be the guiding factor for deciding whether the plate is to be labelled as a "meal" or a "nashta".