Lunch

March 10, 2020 11:22 AM

Some people eat the same thing for lunch every day. Whats wrong with that? says Vern Loomis of West Bloomfield. While This lentil soup is so good one nurse has eaten it for lunch every workday for 17 years. Devotees say it boosts productivity, reduces stress, and helps them eat healthy.

It is difficult to believe Dominic Raab could be right about anything. He is a man to ruin rather than capture the public mood. But, in 2018, when it was revealed our foreign secretary eats the same lunch every day – a Pret chicken caesar baguette – many will have nodded in knowing approval. In repeated surveys, as many as one in eight of us have confessed (is this anything to feel guilty about?) to eating the same lunch every day. For years and years.

posted by mumimor (78 comments total)

I haven't eaten the same lunch everyday but I could.
posted by bz at 11:25 AM on March 10, 2020

She sticks with a meal for a few months, and then switches it up and sticks with that one for the next several months.

This is not eating the same thing for lunch everyday!
posted by chavenet at 11:28 AM on March 10, 2020 [27 favorites]

Some people wanna fill the world with Silly Lunch Memes
What's wrong with that?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:33 AM on March 10, 2020 [12 favorites]

I'm betting the "boosts productivity, reduces stress" claim is only going to be true for people who can tune out the sensory aspects of their meal. Whether it's because they aren't all that highly attuned to flavors and textures, or because they don't get proper work breaks so not having to shift focus from their job is a benefit, or they're able to set aside their feelings about lunch as long as they get rewarded with a delicious meal outside of work.
posted by ardgedee at 11:38 AM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm betting the "boosts productivity, reduces stress" claim is only going to be true for people who can tune out the sensory aspects of their meal.

Could also be humble autistics like myself, who find the comforting sameness of eating the same thing for months on end to be a predictable and comforting break from sensory unpredictability elsewhere.

Like, I know a lot of people who could easily do this without breaking a sweat. Come to think of it, I went for at least two years in high school without changing my lunch once.
posted by sciatrix at 11:42 AM on March 10, 2020 [41 favorites]

It certainly simplifies shopping, and I imagine it would also cut down on waste. Those two things alone make this commendable.
posted by sjswitzer at 11:44 AM on March 10, 2020 [12 favorites]

I could eat a pastrami sandwich everyday until I die, which probably wouldn't take long if I ate a pastrami sandwich everyday.
posted by Beholder at 11:44 AM on March 10, 2020 [41 favorites]

I eat the same thing for breakfast "every day" (if "every day" is defined as "every day for several months then I switch to something else"). My husband eats pretty much the same lunch every day (two granola bars and a banana). I feel like this is only weird in a context where people go out and buy lunch vs. brown bagging it.
posted by muddgirl at 11:49 AM on March 10, 2020 [11 favorites]

Eh. I work at home, and my lunches (and breakfasts) have pretty much settled into a rotation of about three different things. It's just easier than thinking about it.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:50 AM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

Why is it OK to eat the same breakfast every day, but not the same lunch? I am a total foodie. I experiment with food almost every day for breakfast and dinner. But during long periods of my life I have found lunch stressfull to deal with and preferred just eating the same. When both my kids were small and my weight was dangerously low I had a huge chicken mayo sandwich and a chocolate dessert every day for five years. Sometimes two desserts.
Later, when my problem became overweight because of stress and long hours in front of a computer, I had the same frugal lunch of tiny wholegrain rye sandwiches with no fat and vegetable or fish fillings for ten years.
It's weird, because my kids say I make the best bagged lunches (and their school-mates confirm it), but I'm really bad at making one for myself, and I also hate cafeteria food. So lunch is my not-happy meal. When I find something I like, I stick to it.
posted by mumimor at 11:55 AM on March 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

I always wished I could do this, eat the same thing everyday, I just don't seem to be wired for it. Not sure why I am like this but I either get tired of the lunch item and stop eating lunch altogether (so I end up throwing it away) or I get so sick of whatever the daily lunch was that it physically sickens me. It is completely irrational. I tried this in high school but it got to a point where I couldn't even look at a sandwich without gagging regardless of toppings. I was in my mid20s before I could eat sandwiches again and not until my 40s before I could eat even marginally dampened bread.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:58 AM on March 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

What people eat is their business. I'm not going to butt in and say: YOU'RE EATING WRONG!!!
posted by Pendragon at 12:00 PM on March 10, 2020 [8 favorites]

I ate the same dinner nearly every night for the better part of two years. Folk kept wondering how I could possibly do that. Between food intolerances, way too much stuff happening at work and at home, and a general resentment of having to eat food in the first place, same dinner every day was a blessing. Autistic spectrum ftw, I suppose?

(Since I wasn't forcing this down other people's throats, I didn't particularly care about those who wondered how I could do that.)
posted by XtinaS at 12:01 PM on March 10, 2020 [9 favorites]

A few years ago, I ate the same everything every day for a few months. I found myself making terrible dietary choices, so I sat down, figured out a menu that was basically nutritionally complete, convenient enough that I could eat it all the time, and which contained enough foods I basically liked that I would eat it all the time, and I just ate that for a few months.

I called it the "no choices diet". It was surprisingly nice and stress free to just never have to think about what I was going to buy when I went shopping or what I was going to eat for any given meal in a day. I just bought the same things I bought the week before and ate the same things I ate the day before and just didn't think about food, at all. The only exceptions were when I was going out to eat with friends, making food a social thing.

That seems weird, given that I am a serious foodie -- so much so that I used to be the community manager for Chowhound.com -- but the things I love about food are not the daily stresses of feeding myself amidst my work schedule. The things I love about food are finding a perfect sfogiatelle or creating a meal to feed my friends or enjoying an evening in a restaurant trying the whole menu with the other 'hounds. So I just gave up the daily stress part and that made it a lot easier to really love the food at times when it was special.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:07 PM on March 10, 2020 [36 favorites]

I totally get it. Weekends are for fancy and elaborate breakfasts and lunches. I can't be bothered changing things up for workday lunches and workday breakfasts

I take a sandwich and a couple pieces of fruit for lunch every day. The sandwiches vary, usually one of peanut butter and jelly, salami and mustard, or egg salad, but they never have more than 3 ingredients and I often go for a few weeks eating the same type of sandwich. So not the exact same thing every day, but very little variation.

It really boils down to being really lazy about making lunches -- I slap it together just before running out the door in the morning, I hate waiting for the microwave at work to re-heat leftovers, and clean-up is minimal with a basic sandwich -- and not being picky about what I eat.

Workday breakfast is always 1 double espresso, 1 tiny bowl of half vanilla and half plain yogurt, every day almost without exception, for the past 15 years.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:07 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've been thinking about doing this because spending money gives me massive anxiety and stomach pains almost every time I have to do it now. It's really stressful unless it's an expected and consistent charge. So if I can do this with groceries and eliminate the unpredictability of buying lunch and all the side effects of it that'd be pretty cool. I'd also save even more money and have less chances to eat every day.
posted by Freeze Peach at 12:14 PM on March 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm betting the "boosts productivity, reduces stress" claim is only going to be true for people who can tune out the sensory aspects of their meal.

I actually agree with this, as eating the same thing every day certainly has downsides. But I'm sure most who eat the same lunch make up for it by eating an exciting dinner, if they are able to equally care about the various extraneous sensory aspects. I say this as some one who generally eats the same lunch everyday for health, shopping, and other 'reactions to the paradox of choice' type reasons vs economic ones and thus sensory aspects of food are important.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:16 PM on March 10, 2020

A good meal at lunch messes me up because it makes me sleepy. I need to calibrate caffeine consumption so that I'm not drinking too much of it, so I need a filling lunch that doesn't ask a lot of me. Cheese or peanut butter, pita bread or crackers, Clif bars, yogurt--that kind of thing. It gets depressing sometimes, yes.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:18 PM on March 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I totally see how this could work for folks and applaud those who can manage it. Alas, despite the many benefits, I will never be counted among them; it's better for all concerned if I vary my food. I'll just watch wistfully from the sidelines!
posted by skye.dancer at 12:28 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's easier for your insides to have predictable foods to digest so this makes a lot of sense to me as both a time savings and a health strategy. I tend to stick to roughly the same foods over and over and I bet so do most people, barring maybe food critics or people who travel for a living.
posted by fshgrl at 12:33 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I ate the same lunch for almost two years at one job - a grilled chicken sandwich from the diner at the ground floor of the building where I worked - until ownership changed. The new managers, which I gather were nephews or grandchildren or something of the original owners, could not competently make a sandwich.

The diner was mostly Korean and Chinese food, with a few American standards. New owners did not understand how the American foods worked.

I mean, the bread was on the outside, and it had chicken, but those were the only things I could rely on. Order of parts, which ingredients were included, how much of what... all changed around. I couldn't tell if they were trying to decide on what goes where or just didn't care and threw a handful of veggies and condiments in the general direction of the sandwich, but after my fourth botched one, I gave up.

I would HAPPILY eat exactly the same food at lunch every day if I could find one I liked. Most of the diners-near-work I've dealt with have rotating schedules for the foods I like best.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:33 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

A foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but it's not necessarily foolish to stick with a winner if it works for you. I used to eat a chunky peanut butter and honey sandwich on whole grain bread every weekday for lunch, accompanied by a banana, and it was filling, nutritious, and super-easy-and-quick to make in the morning, which was good because I'm not a morning person. Nowadays, I'm a fan of prepping meals in advance and don't mind eating the same thing five or six days in a row.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:34 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Huh, I've eaten the same breakfast/lunch during the work week for at least the last five years, and still find it tasty and satisfying. I may switch up lunch one day every couple weeks for a takeout sandwich or some such. Never even considered that it might be odd or difficult seeming to other folks.
posted by calamari kid at 12:34 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

a menu that was basically nutritionally complete, convenient enough that I could eat it all the time, and which contained enough foods I basically liked that I would eat it all the time

I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter
posted by Flannery Culp at 12:38 PM on March 10, 2020 [12 favorites]

I'm entirely the other way. The day before, sometimes days before, my partner and I discuss what we are going to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes getting into discussions about flavor combinations, ranging across different cuisines. Rarely do we repeat a meal over the course of weeks. Of course we both work from home.
posted by vacapinta at 12:48 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

Oooooh I’ve been looking for a lentil soup recipe to eat every day (for real).
posted by obfuscation at 12:56 PM on March 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

"I've eaten a river or liver and an ocean of fish!"
posted by valkane at 12:58 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

How nice to have the choice to eat the same thing for lunch every day.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:00 PM on March 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

Eating the same thing too many times in a row eventually make that thing repulsive no matter how much I used to love it.

I want to try that lentil soup though, I usually don't like lentils but they make it sound good.
posted by bleep at 1:05 PM on March 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

It's not every day, but I eat the same thing every Wednesday (Panera Thai Chicken Salad). My work schedule is weird on Wednesdays and the Panera is the only thing consistently open for lunch foods at 10:30. I've been doing it so long, I couldn't change if I wanted to. I don't even have to speak to order. I just walk up to the counter and the cashier gets me my drink cup, hands me my buzzer, and I swipe my card. Why would I ruin that bliss just because they changed the salad's peanuts to almonds?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 1:16 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I had a (large) slice of cheese pizza every school day for lunch one year in summer school (so like 9 weeks). By the end of it, I'd had enough pizza to turn me off of it for a whole weekend.

(That's the only time I've ever turned down pizza.)
posted by oddman at 1:18 PM on March 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

President Obama left routine day-to-day decisions to others to preserve mental space for decisions that mattered. I prepare basically the same lunch every work day, precisely so that I don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about it. Consequently, I can easily plan what to pick up at the grocery store every week for lunches, set aside just enough time every day to prepare the next day's lunch, and feel confident that I have a nutritious lunch ready. It also cuts down on impulsive eating, which is generally not healthy.
posted by SPrintF at 1:18 PM on March 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

Counterpoint: Scott Walker eats the same lunch almost every day, and he sucks shit.
posted by saladin at 1:19 PM on March 10, 2020 [6 favorites]

I can eat the same thing every day for a while, but I could never make soup exactly the same way for years. Though I did make essentially the same muffins for 3-4 years. Then one day, I just couldn't, so I had to find a new recipe that met the same nutritional needs. Also, I never understand about not liking leftovers. If it was tasty the 1st time, having it again is a pleasure, and I didn't have to cook.
posted by theora55 at 1:27 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

theora55: "If it was tasty the 1st time, having it again is a pleasure, and I didn't have to cook."

You can tell when food is good, because it's even better the next day.
posted by chavenet at 1:36 PM on March 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

Eating the same thing daily can be a pleasing sensory experience, if the food is fresh and good! However, making a big batch of lunch at the start of the week doesn't work for me as most foods get mushy and taste of disappointment by Thursday.

I have had the same weekday breakfast for the past year: homemade extra crispy granola* over Greek yogurt. It changes a little: the yogurt varies by brand and may be plain, vanilla, or fruit flavored, and I use almonds, pistachios, or cashews in the granola, depending what is on hand. I never swap out the tart cherries, though. Tart cherries or nothing.

For lunch I usually build a salad in the cafeteria at my office. It varies depending on the protein options (beans or tofu or BBQ tempeh I bring from home) but not much. My inner thrifty person wails at the markup over grocery store prices for the same components, but I crush internal dissent under a heap of greens and crisp veggies that I didn't have to slice myself and carefully cart to work in my bicycle panniers (aka lunch mashers). This month I am doing mandatory work from home due to COVID19 and while I have a refrigerator full of flavorful dinner leftovers, I already miss my nice cool salads.

I did work at a Pita Pit for 3 months and after eating a pita for dinner every night I needed a 3 year break. I think that was more due to memories of slicing the compressed loaves of sandwich meat, though.

*Recipe from Megan Gordon: Mix 3 cups old fashioned oats, 1 cup raw sunflower seeds, 1 cup raw pepitas, 1 cup other raw nuts, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp cardamom, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup maple syrup. Press into baking sheet. Bake at 300F for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Let cool completely in the pan. Add dried fruit if you like.
posted by esoterrica at 1:52 PM on March 10, 2020 [9 favorites]

That soup recipe sounds great except for the part about cooking the spinach for 15-20 minutes. Toss it in with 2-3 minutes left in the cooking time and you'll be much better off.
posted by mediareport at 2:03 PM on March 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

I genuinely look forward to my standard breakfast (biiig cup of tea made from my homemade masala chai, scrambled egg with .5 oz of sharp cheddar cheese, 2 pieces of Morningstar Farms fake bacon) and my standard lunch (some permutation of miso soup wtih tofu and a bowl of sushi rice with Shiso Furikake--though lately I've been mixing it up and making onigiri instead). I am a supertaster and my food being pleasing is very important to me! It just so happens I just really like both those meals, they give me the requisite calories and nutrition and I don't have to think about them.
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:03 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

Previously: Matpakke - Most Boring Lunch in the world - Ever?
posted by mikelieman at 2:08 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm betting the "boosts productivity, reduces stress" claim is only going to be true for people who can tune out the sensory aspects of their meal.

Thinking about it, I'm quite happy eating the same thing at the same time for months (years) on end and I'm quite fussy about the sensory aspects of my meals and would rather not eat than have a sandwich made with margarine or substandard bread. Where I've been in institutional settings with a canteen I've usually settled on a consistent menu item and stuck to it. I mean, I chose it in the first place because it's delicious and I like it.

Since I stopped having young people at home I'm gradually less and less into spending effort preparing food so it's lucky Spousal Unit tends to cook these days. Which means I don't get to eat pepper soup, egusi stew, that kind of thing, I'd have to go out for it, and then find the restaurants don't make it as well as I could. For xmas this year I gifted the offspring portions of Hot Peppery Nigerian Stew - takes a day to make and another day to source the ingredients - which went down well with them.

Very much agree with 'boosts productivity, reduces stress' once you've found the magical satisfying Thing that answers your luncheon desires.
posted by glasseyes at 2:14 PM on March 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I've no problem with this. If you find something good, keep eating it.
But then I also listen to the same music tracks over and over at work.
Now if it was McD's every day, I might have problems with it.
But this is comfortable.
posted by mdoar at 2:19 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

I gotta say I read the post blurb about "boosts productivity and reduces stress" to mean it was a magic soup recipe with its own devotees.
posted by bleep at 2:19 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

It looks like a nice soup and I have downloaded the recipe.
posted by glasseyes at 2:25 PM on March 10, 2020

soren_lorenson, I envy people that can eat a nice breakfast at breakfast time
posted by glasseyes at 2:27 PM on March 10, 2020

I liked the part where the soup nurse started responding to WaPo comments.
posted by box at 2:28 PM on March 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

I try not to think about what I'm going to eat next until I am currently hungry. I kind of eat the same sorta shit all the time, but I wouldn't ever make the effort required for a consistent diet of any kind.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:09 PM on March 10, 2020

Could also be humble autistics like myself, who find the comforting sameness of eating the same thing for months on end to be a predictable and comforting break from sensory unpredictability elsewhere.

Non-autistic here, definitely feel this comfort. Food novelty feels to me like a noisy hassle.

But people differ and that's ok. So much food judging! I'm pretty sure our ancestors didn't have a lot of choice in this matter, and survived to reproduce anyways.
posted by ead at 3:39 PM on March 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

I try not to think about what I'm going to eat next until I am currently hungry.

By contrast, if I have to think about what I'm going to eat, oftentimes I won't eat at all or I will just graze and end up eating like a block of cheese and a cold tortilla. Having a set thing that I Eat At Breakfast means I don't have to think, just do.
posted by muddgirl at 3:39 PM on March 10, 2020 [8 favorites]

Years ago, I would go out to eat for lunch all the time and have something different every day, but at a pretty standard set of places local to my work. After a while, I realized how much money I was wasting doing that and that the luxury of it wasn't worth the stress of figuring out where to go or having nice lunches like that, and I've been bringing a pretty basic sandwich and an apple almost every day since then. It works just fine for me, but I can easily understand how it wouldn't for a lot of people.
posted by LionIndex at 3:42 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Diana Vreeland ate the same lunch every day. A whole-wheat peanut-butter-and-marmalade sandwich, washed down with scotch.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:59 PM on March 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

I've had soups I'd eat every day for years, but the availability for many different reasons is not going to be there.
posted by sammyo at 4:01 PM on March 10, 2020

ctrl/f "seasonal" = zero hits.

you're all doing it wrong. The definition of good, nutritious food changes with what's available and where it's coming from.
posted by philip-random at 4:07 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

There was a sad time in my life where I ate "bean salad" (re: cooked beans smothered in home-made, simple vinaigrette), as I called it, for lunch, and then oatmeal mixed with peanut butter for dinner. This persisted for nearly 6 months. Never, ever again.
posted by constantinescharity at 4:26 PM on March 10, 2020

If you call it ‘eating your favourite lunch every day’ it sounds a lot better.
posted by Segundus at 4:31 PM on March 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

Another autistic person weighing in here: I actually eat the same thing for both breakfast *and* lunch every day. I mix it up (comparatively) for dinner.

I’ll echo the benefits noted above: less choice stress, reliable and familiar, nutritionally balanced, easy and specific shopping missions.
posted by Construction Concern at 4:58 PM on March 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'll chime in as an,"I'll have the usual," lunch person. Honestly, come to think of it, I do the same thing with most places I order food from, whether dine-in or delivery. If I find something I like, that's what I'll always get, e.g., for any Mexican restaurant following the M.R.M.P. , I get the No. 4. (No. 11 under the alternate M.R.M.P.)
posted by ob1quixote at 5:19 PM on March 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Counterpoint: Scott Walker eats the same lunch almost every day

I was gonna bring up Scott Walker too. The thing about his lunch is -- everything else about him was so fake and engineered in the GOP lab, but that one particular aspect of him was truly authentic and relatable. You felt you were getting a tiny glimpse of the human being playing the part. I think that goddamn sandwich was his secret electoral weapon.
posted by escabeche at 5:26 PM on March 10, 2020

It is impossible to say the name Crescent Dragonwagon without feeling delighted.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:45 PM on March 10, 2020 [7 favorites]

I eat the same breakfast every weekday, and will eat the same lunch every weekday for months at a time. I do this for the same reason I wear essentially the exact same clothes every day: I just don't want to spend time thinking about it. I usually have the same thing for dinner for three to four nights in a row, depending on what I bought at the store or had in the freezer.

I also don't feel like judging people for how they want to eat either, or telling them that they're doing it wrong because they aren't eating seasonally, because having a lot of seasonal variety in your diet implies you have the time, money, and the availability of goods to eat that way. Or maybe you just can't be bothered and like having a peanut butter sandwich and an apple for lunch every day.
posted by ralan at 6:22 PM on March 10, 2020 [10 favorites]

I don't have the slightest idea what seasonal means, thanks to big supermarkets and global agriculture.
posted by meowzilla at 7:43 PM on March 10, 2020

No longer every day, but still in the diet: Lentils and veggies, every work day, raisin bran with a banana for breakfast. I don't always eat a regular lunch now, but when I do that's still the main choice. Raisin bran is still the work day breakfast of choice. Weekends I mix it up, oatmeal or eggs with bacon & veggies. I want healthy food that tastes good and isn't a lot of work, either to think about or prepare. Dinner depends on what's happening.
posted by evilDoug at 8:48 PM on March 10, 2020

I couldn't eat the same thing for lunch every day.

I mean, you can't always even *get* a McRib.
posted by webmutant at 11:40 PM on March 10, 2020 [3 favorites]

PB&J every day. Sometimes with an apple, or cheese, or (weirdly) a good dill pickle. On rare days when I'm out or go to a lunch meeting, I will often have one for dinner. Other than a two-week trip to Italy and another to the UK, and an annual business conference, I've been doing it for 30+ years running, ever since I no longer had access to bagels with cream cheese for lunch. I need my PB&J. Am neurotypical, a terrible and unenthusiastic cook, frugal, and diabetic. PB keeps my blood glucose in range, satisfies my hunger, and can be eaten quickly so I can back to business.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 12:27 AM on March 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

I eat the same thing for breakfast "every day" (if "every day" is defined as "every day for several months then I switch to something else")

My dad is this, but swap out “years” for “months.” When I was growing up, it was the Pancake Epoch, which eventually gave way to the Age of French Toast. In my late twenties, he was going though his second expensive divorce around the time I got home from a long stretch abroad, so I moved in with him for a year or two to stabilize his finances with my rent; by that point we had moved into the Porridge Years.

The odd thing is that growing up I never ever ate an omelette, and it wasn’t until I was living with a young woman at age 22 that she introduced me to these. They changed my breakfast game considerably and to this day, I would say three-quarters of the time I eat breakfast in a restaurant, I will order an omelette. I have remarked on this to my mom and various aunts and uncles over the years and they have universally responded, “Oh, you know your dad makes GREAT omelettes.” Tragically that era ended before my time.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:01 AM on March 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

I invariably have the same breakfast every day (a specific brand/flavor of protein bar).

I occasionally change my lunch--once a year or so--but it is almost always the same: a bowl of cereal (same brand/flavor every time), with 30-calorie almond milk and a tiny quantity of crushed pecans.

My dinners rotate among several options, but I've been known to eat the same dinner for many nights in a row if no event comes up that breaks my pattern.

I value routine far, far more than flavor.
posted by Annabelle74 at 6:18 AM on March 11, 2020

The Mexican Restaurant Menu Protocol?
posted by box at 7:00 AM on March 11, 2020

I'm glad we're no longer Soylent-shaming people.
posted by fragmede at 7:07 AM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I can't even eat the same meal for two or three days in a row without getting bored with it. Apparently I am at the other end of the spectrum of requiring novelty in my menu. I haven't had any dinner repeats for over a month. I do tend to eat leftovers for lunch but usually not from the meal the night before, I need at least 24 hours before I can eat more of the same thing.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 7:25 AM on March 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

Variety, variety, variety! Give me variety.

Reading about all these people eating the same thing for efficiency and productivity is so boring, so workaday, so American -- sacrificing one of the pleasures of being alive to be able to do more work!
posted by Borborygmus at 8:09 AM on March 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

box: “The Mexican Restaurant Menu Protocol?”

Many of the Mexican restaurants that I've been to in several different cities have had extremely similar menus, with the same combos numbered the same way. My friends and I started talking about the M.R.M.P. after we noticed that a Number 4 was the same even in different restaurants that were not obviously related to each other.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:26 AM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I mean, you can't always even *get* a McRib.

speaking of seasonal ... ?
posted by philip-random at 8:51 AM on March 11, 2020

Reading about all these people eating the same thing for efficiency and productivity is so boring, so workaday, so American -- sacrificing one of the pleasures of being alive to be able to do more work!

Nah, I eat simple and routine lunches so I have more time to sleep and read the newspaper while sipping my espresso in the morning. Also I'm really really lazy about making lunch. And you can't make sandwiches the night before and expect them to not be gross the next day as that would necessitate putting them in the fridge which is a CAPITAL CRIME AGAINST BREAD. Plus see the thing about being lazy. Who wants to think about lunch tomorrow? Pah.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:10 AM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Totally making this tonight. Not that I needed it since the recipe is posted in the article, but I have her book open right in front of me! I think I learned of it here.
posted by kitcat at 11:22 AM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I shift, but I'll go months eating exactly the same breakfast or lunch. Right now, I've had the same breakfast nearly every day since before Christmas -- a certain brand of oatmeal, 2 pieces of toast, three turkey sausage links, coffee. It's easy and fast, and I like it.

Before that, I made the same breakfast tacos nearly every day for several months. I'm sure I'll get back to that but right now I'm very satisfied with the oatmeal plan.

Oh, and I'm ABSOLUTELY into the flavor of this. I really like it. I'm a big flavor person. I've even been called picky. But I also enjoy that my breakfast requires no cognitive load -- I know what I'm going to have, and I like it.
posted by uberchet at 12:36 PM on March 11, 2020

Related: The Guardian interviewed seven people who frequent the same restaurant multiple times a week. Two of them eat at their chosen haunt every single day.
posted by chrominance at 1:06 PM on March 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

I might have the same thing for breakfast a couple of days in a row, like if I got some new cereal, but otherwise every meal is different. I'll even try to space out leftovers so that I'm not eating them the next day too. But on reflection, working out a healthy meal for breakfast and lunch and then just sticking to it would probably be good for my health and be a time saver.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:44 PM on March 11, 2020

For me, eating the same relatively boring, healthy lunch everyday was a gateway drug to 20:4 intermittent fasting.
posted by clark at 5:13 PM on March 11, 2020

Deciding what to eat seems akin to socializing in that some people find it fun and exciting and others dread it. I would never find it a distraction to pick out a lunch for myself, but add just one more person and it can quickly become tiresome.
posted by soelo at 11:50 AM on March 12, 2020 [1 favorite]