dessert is a course of a meal

if consumed outside a meal, its a snack.

its all about context.

I'll never forget the my second grade teacher, Mrs Tilley, taught us the mnemonic "you only want one desert and two desserts."

Thanks, ma'am. It serves me still.

It's a course, part of a meal but not a whole meal by itself.

My advice is not let the corporate media divide you on superficial concepts between snacks and meals. Reclaim your freedoms. Feed cats more

Its a course served at the end of a meal, typically sweet. If you're eating outside of that context it's a snack or a meal depending on how large it is and your specific eating schedule. I think she is probably right that its hers but also maybe wrong if she won't share a small taste of it with you. Or I would feel wrong not letting my wife at least taste my dessert if she wanted some but I was unwilling to share.

Does this look like a mere mortal snack to you?

This thing has the might to send you to sleep for days.

Why are snacks shared but meals are not?

It is apart of a larger meal or can be a snack

It's neither. It's the last dish of a meal

Quantity, exclusivity, and order of consumption are the determining factors.

A piece of candy after a meal is a treat.

Eating an entire chocolate cake and nothing else is a meal.

Eating a handful of candy is a snack, but could be part of a meal if consumed during, or dessert if consumed after a meal.

Eating a slice of cake and a steak, going back and forth, is a meal that has cake as a portion which could be considered dessert and may indicate mental health issues.

Eating a slice of cake after steak and potatoes is dessert.

Partners have no entitlement to one another's food being consumed, unless there is no more of it available after. If food is offered in advance and declined, they have no entitlement to it when the food is later present.

A drug.

Whether it's an important medicine for health and wellbeing or a hard recreational drug can depend greatly on the context.

meal component

It’s a secret third thing

I agree with others in that it's a course and part of a meal.

But when eaten alone, snacks are snacks or meals according to size. If it's something small that won't even fill a third of your appetite, in my books, that's a snack. And in my books, precisely because of scarcity reasons you have less leveraging power to demand tax on a snack.

it's both, a smaller tax applies.

Are salmon technically dogs or cats? You decide!

But to answer the question, I recommend your wife start an IRA to be able to make tax deferred investments

Depends on nutritional value. Snack if empty calories, meal if reasonably nutritious. Cake? Snack. Fruit salad? Meal.

Dessert is a meal. Snack is a meal.

Why is this a question, are you guys not having plate fulls of candy, cake and ice cream at 2:30 and 7 everyday?

I say snack. The liminal space between dinner and bed can be a digestif or coffee or tiramisu. But it’s not a proper meal.

Phantom tax

If you both have food in front of you at the same time, it's a meal. If only one of you has food, it's a snack