Lunch at the office used to be a simple affair. You took lunch to the office, and you ate it. On a good day, maybe you’d even share a sandwich with a special friend. But in these days of nutritional fads and dietary revolutions, lunch at the office has become a food fight of epic portions. Dave Luis reports from the battlezone.
It was only a couple of years ago that opening my lunch box in my office’s dining area would draw a collective sigh of unmasked food envy from my colleagues.
Nobody made lunch like I used to. From tangy prego rolls and ‘slap tjips’ to duck breasts in plum sauce with potatoes roasted in duck fat, the decadence spilling onto my plate was unsurpassed. There are Michelin star restaurants whose fare is positively pedestrian and uninspiring compared to the lunches I made for myself. Even when I bought take-aways, my combinations were indulgent and drew gasps of envy from my teammates.
And then paleo happened. And Banting. And LCHF – and suddenly my lunchbox and I were pariah. Gone were the fair-weather friendships exchanged for “just a taste of your double bacon and cheese sarnie, Dave”. Gone were the requests to share recipes. Me and my carb-heavy, duck-fat encrusted, sweet boxes of comfort and indulgence were scorned like the plague.
“Is that really healthy?” they’d say with their mouths, while their eyes screamed “No wonder you’re such a fat, disgusting troll! How are you not dead?”
Yeah. Rough. But I love my food, and I wasn’t going down without a good bun fight. For every sermon I was given about cutting carbs and submerging everything in coconut oil, I countered with an article claiming the lack of evidence. For every Tim Noakes worshipper, I brought 10 specialists denouncing him as a fraud.
Factions and counter-revolutionaries soon meant that lunch at work happened in shifts. While I and the fast food cronies shopped for our lunches, the Banters nibbled at their over-priced, free range, grain-fed, hormone-free micro portions, clearing away from the lunch table before we returned from McD’s or Burger King with our greasy fare.
We stopped talking to each other about food and sat in silent judgment of each other while one group got thinner, and the other wasn’t bothered with their shape or size.
In the first week of my new job, I arrived at the lunch table with a huge, greasy cheeseburger, to the horror of my new team, health and fitness fanatics each one of them. That burger went down like a garlic milkshake spiked with bits of glass.
If you can’t change the world, why not change yourself, I thought. “What’s that purple and orange thing you’re eating?” I asked one colleague. “Butternut and beetroot, with feta cheese, on rocket” she replied. Hang on a minute. Just repeat that, please. Butternut. Beetroot. Feta cheese. And some green stuff I can ignore. This sounds…a lot like an indulgent mix I can easily fall in epicurean love with!
The next day, my teammate with the amazing salad took me to the source of the divine concoction – Food Lover’s Market. She also revealed the local Woolies’ deli counter. And the sushi bar. And she took me on a tour of what combinations worked for that stupendous comfort factor I demand from every meal.
Grilled calamari and sweet potato. Chicken livers on rye. Roast chicken mayo on butter lettuce, with tomato, onion and goats’ cheese…the list was endless and divine. I immediately took one of everything, and ate myself to a standstill (yes, portion control is next lifetime’s project.)
I’m no convert to the evangelical eating regime that many of my colleagues subscribe to. I’ll never be a Banter, a paleomonger or a LCHF-protagonist. Carbs are just too important to me, as is a good dose of sugar now and then. But I’ve seen some new options, that aren’t quite so steeped in the cardiac-arresting factors, and the new menu works for me.
I still eat the occasional greasy burger, just not at the office. And the change means I can break bread with the office food police, and enjoy my lunch like I always used to.
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