Is lunch the dullest meal of the day? As we progress through Lunch Week I've been giving this question some thought. While lunch is a necessary part of nourishing yourself, is it the most exciting or enjoyable meal? It lacks some of the aspects that make breakfast, supper, and even afternoon tea more exciting. Read on and tell me if no, lunch is really the best meal of the day.
Here are a few thoughts on why lunch tends to be, well, boring.
• Lunch lacks the pleasure of breakfast foods: Pancakes, omelets, and even egg sandwiches make me excited to get out of bed in the morning. Coffee is a pleasure all its own. Breakfast has its distinct pleasures and excitements — a sort of pleasant morning ritual.
• Lunch lacks the slow unwinding of dinner: Dinner has a ritual of its own as well, one that proceeds from its place at the end of the day. Dinner can be leisurely and slow, an unwinding towards relaxation. You can start with a cocktail, finish with dessert, and feel like you've left the day behind. Not so with lunch, as it's squeezed between morning and evening, with work bookending it.
• Lunch often consists of leftovers and repeats: Lunch is rarely a meal cooked specifically for lunch, unless you work at home or eat out. It's usually leftovers of a meal or random bits thrown together in a lunchbox. Not as special as a real meal! Lunch is also the meal where you often eat the same thing day after day — a salad, a sandwich, a scoop of leftover pasta.
• Lunch is often eaten on the go: No cloth napkin, no real cutlery, maybe even a desk or dashboard instead of a table. Lunch often lacks the niceties of other meals, diminishing its significance as a daily event.
• Lunch is often eaten alone: Lunch is a solitary meal, grabbed at your desk, or eaten on a park bench. Away from the convivial enjoyments of eating with your partner or dinner companions, it's all about fueling up — not so much really enjoying your food.
Well, those are the negatives — all the reasons why lunch can be a mere pit-stop for fuel in the middle of the day, not something to be looked forward for its culinary enjoyments.
And yet, I am sure that lunch is not the most boring meal for all of us. Maybe you look forward to that break from work or an outing with your coworkers. Perhaps this is the time you most enjoy with your toddler. Or maybe you love lunch foods — are you a bento master or a make-ahead queen?
Tell us how you feel about lunch — is it the most boring meal of the day, or something a little more exciting for you?
Related: Can You Eat the Same Meal Day After Day?
(Image: ER_09 via Shutterstock)
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I make my own lunch and it's pretty darn good. I also stop for lunch almost every day with various co-workers, get out of my windowless office, catch up. Once a week my best friends and I go out to lunch for a bit of a change.
When I was a small child my grandmother & grandfather had their big meal in the middle of the day. My grandmother cooked in the a.m., and my g'father would head home from his main street shop, eat a big meal with all of us, have a little nap, and go back to work about 2 p.m. until 7 or so. This was in the South long before ubiquitous a.c., so meals got cooked in the cooler part of the day and everyone accepted after-lunch sleepiness. I wouldn't mind giving up American world domination to go back to that way of life!
No way! Lunch is awesome. I love to plan out my lunches at the beginning of the week - the post on frozen burritos changed my life. I like to think of creative ways to use leftovers, make salads, dress up pasta, etc. And for my money, the fact that it's often eaten alone is one of the perks - how often do you just get to sit there and luxuriate in the satisfaction of delicious, nourishing food you made yourself (often coupled with a MacGyver-like creativity for leftovers) without having to bother to entertain someone else? Dinner and conversation has its place, but sometimes you need a break with just yourself in the middle of the day.
I love lunch - ESPECIALLY when it's delicious leftovers. What better way is there to break up the workday (or home day) than with a tasty meal - even if it's something simple like PB & J?!
I wake up every morning (work days) and think to myself, "What am I going to do for lunch today?" I don't like to eat right when I wake up so I usually have a snackmid way through morning to take the edge off, but my first real meal of the day is lunch.
Lunch is that time when you get away from work, hang out with the co-workers you want (or none at all). Lunch fare is also nothing to sneeze at. Nothing quite like going to your favorite lunch spot, getting your favorite soup/sandwich combo and not thinking about work for an hour.
Lunch is the most boring meal of the day for me, but that doesn't mean it <is> boring. My boyfriend and I cook every night and make leftovers for lunch, so I rarely cook specifically for lunch. At least, usually dinner was awesome, so lunch is pretty good all the time as well :)
I am on a diet that allows me to eat 1200 calories a day (more when I exercise). Interestingly enough, this has forced me to make EVERY meal something I love. I used to grab just anything, but now I plan my meals carefully and make sure they are delicious. My favorite lunch is soup and I make a big pot of it on the weekend and divide it into mason jars. Yes, I am eating the same thing every day for one week, but it is something I love and, anyway, I'm hungry! Also, it's solitary, and at my desk at work, but I get to catch up on blogs. Also, lunch is the only meal I eat without my kids, and while I love them dearly, it's nice to have one meal with no screaming, crying, or having to get up a 100 times to refill milk or replace dropped spoons!
Generally speaking, I really enjoy lunch. If for no reason than it gets me out of my desk for a few minutes. I think leftovers get a bad name--I love em! It gives me a chance to really appreciate what I made the night before--sometimes I'm so frazzled after cooking that I don't really pay attention to what I've just cooked. It doesn't help, of course, that I'm not much of a breakfast foods person ...I look forward to putting savory, filling foods in my stomach.
I'm lucky to be at home all day, and more often than not lunch is a meal prepared for it's own sake, and it is BY FAR my favorite meal of the day. For one thing, I get to eat whatever I want without having to consider if any other people like this particular combination or find it filling, etc. If I want to have a handful of dried fruits and nuts and a piece of toast for lunch, no one is around to stop me. But I also love lunch because it's my test kitchen for dinner. I try all sorts of things for lunch that I would never feed to other people, but every now and then I hit upon a winner.
And in response to the list of lunch's disadvantages, I LOVE eating alone. If you take the time to do it right (set the table, etc.) it's such a relaxing and meditative ritual– with food!
I make a big pot of pasta, soup or salad every Sunday for my lunches throughout the week. So even though I eat the same thing for lunch every day, it's still a meal that isn't leftovers, and I make sure it's something that I enjoy eating. Also, I eat with my coworkers whenever I can.
I look forward to lunch as being a way to break up the montony of the workday and a time to nourish myself to make it through the remainder of the day.
I don't think that lunch is an inherently boring meal but I do think the lack of time we have for it (whether making it or even eating it) does often make it boring.
I love classic lunch dishes such as quiche, many soups, substantial salads, cold meats, dips, a well-made sandwich, pork pies, ploughmans lunch...
But usually end up with the same cheese sandwich - nice bread, nice cheese, a piece of lettuce and some homemade chutney - its a good sandwich, but everyday does get rather boring. If I had the spare cash and a nice cafe around the corner I'd love to do lunch that way.
I agree with the people who say it breaks up the day though, that's a nice feeling!
I find lunch way more exciting than breakfast - breakfast is the meal that turns into monotony FAR more than lunch.
I LOVE lunch! Today I ate lunch, at work, on the patio outside, with some of my favorite coworkers to a real, freshly cooked lunch from our awesome kitchen. I get that most people don't have the luxury or a cheap, mostly organic kitchen that I do but I love it. I often skip breakfast and/or dinner because I'm so busy, but I always take time for lunch.
I agree with the post, mainly because of eating on the run and eating alone. Lunch is a meal I rarely have time to actually enjoy, and it's usually solitary in a depressing way (if I'm alone, can I do any work while I'm eating?) as opposed to a nice way like breakfast (why yes, I enjoy taking it slowly and not having to talk to anyone as soon as I wake up). Bah humbug to lunch.
I have never liked breakfast because I find it to be soooo boring. I like dinner a lot because I bond with the family, the husband or friends, but lunch is always my favorite meal. It's when I am my most creative with the meals I make, whether they are left overs or not, eaten alone or with company.
Lunch usually consists of 3 different snacks between a bigger breakfast and dinner. I work from home which means I work through lunch (I know, I know) and I just grab something like fruit or a quick salad here and there when I am hungry. I do love breakfast though. I wake up craving a nice, big breakfast, but always settle on a quick smoothie since my husband has no love for breakfast nor does he typically eat it until it's almost time for lunch. I'm hungry as soon as I get up in the morning so..... I just can't wait for him to be ready.
I agree with most of the 'cons' you mentioned - lunch really doesn't get a lot of respect. But, when I'm working I like lunch because it's the halfway point of the day and because by then I'm absolutely starving (I have a stupid high metabolism and can't snack at work). And now that I'm on maternity leave, I like lunch because it's often a continuation of breakfast, and I love breakfast food! If I'm actually having a real lunch, it's because the baby is napping, and that's also a very good thing.