Solid food protein such as beef, lamb etc takes a long time to digest. Add fat and it will take even longer. Our body's are breaking down and utilising the amino acids from this food for 4 or 5 hours.

This means it would be possible to eat three meals over a space of 12 to 15 hours and still receive a steady flow of amino acids and the other necessary nutrients needed to build muscles.

I'm not suggesting that optimising our diets, so that we eat fast acting whey pre workout, slow digesting casein pre bedtime etc etc as well as manipulating our carbohydrate timing and consumption wouldn't be beneficial. It almost certainly would. And to be the absolute best it probably is vital.

But to answer the question of whether we can build muscles on three meals a day, then in my opinion we definitely can! We just need to eat the necessary nutrients. Ice cream, doughnuts and biscuits will only build bulging bellies and arses!