Free Food?
Over the last few years, every company I have worked for has supplied some kind of food. Most commonly free fruit for all employees on a weekly, but usually a daily basis.
Most companies have also supplied unlimited free soft drinks (i.e. cans of coke and other fizzy drinks) and a few offices have even offered free breakfasts in every kitchen. Free breakfast usually consists of a huge range of different types of bread, “healthy” margarines, spreads and jam. There is also typically a wide choice of breakfast cereals and of course, skim milk to pour over the cereal.
Paleo Food?
Whilst it’s nice to have things provided for free, unfortunately, on a Paleo Diet, nothing typically provided in an office environment is “proper food!” The fruit tends to be the fruit highest in fructose (and also cheapest), such as apples and bananas – never berries, which would be a good on occasion.
The breakfast foods on offer are all very high in refined carbohydrates, which cause a big spike in blood sugar levels – and then a crash soon after eating; making a rapid return to the refined carbs very likely. On top of the effect on blood sugars, bread and cereals are all grain based. This means an inflammatory reaction in the gut as well as having an acidic effect on the body. Not an ideal choice.
Unfortunately the typical office food on offer needs to be easy to store and prepare; bread and cereals couldn't be any easier to store – and are ready to eat as they are. These types of foods are also very cheap for a company to provide and popular with the low-fat-healthy-whole-grains conventional wisdom crowd.
Paleo food would be a lot harder for a company to provide in a work place environment. Most of the Paleo options would need to be freshly made and made with good quality ingredients; not very realistic in an office setting.
Until beef jerky, kombucha and bacon are common place in the office, I’d rather go without the free food and bring in my own.
Does your employer supply any food or drinks? What do they provide – is anything Paleo?
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We have a lot of meetings during lunchtime and food is provided all the stuff that is just so tempting snack food, sausage rolls, cakes, sandwiches. I wish I had a say in more good choices.
Hi
Yeo we get fruit boxes at work too – no berries there however just mostly apples and bananas … which it has to be said when I ate them were pretty tasteless and made me wonder about where they came from and if they had been frozen or chilled to keep them ‘fresh’ for longer.
We often have celebrations too which seems to mean cake. It would be nice to see a fruit platter once in a while.
Funny though I was at the hospital last week and the visitors kitchen had free single serve Arnotts biscuits … I guess just because its a hospital doesn’t mean its going to be healthy
Rachael
When I was working in a corporate environment we were often shouted free lunches for meetings etc. There was always a call out for vegetarians, but the standard fare would always be white or wholegrain baguettes usually filled with salad and processed meat, or hot food like sausage rolls and pies, followed by a fruit platter. Ant the office supply of milk was always skim or low fat. It’s going to be a very steep up hill battle to get any workplace to change what they serve, especially if they are already serving what they regard as ‘healthy’.
Actually I just came from a morning tea for a work colleague leaving. Until recently all the food provided for these occasions was sweets until they brought in a gourment platter with olives, stuffed capsicum, cheeses and salmon. It is great to have the alternative, i usually fold and have one sweet, which leads to maybe two. Sweets are where I have little self control so I usually prefer to have none there in the first place. I think the gourmet platter shows that our office is starting to change. The thing is, i know alot of the people in the office are health conscious but these occasions usually mean sweets because that is what they think everyone wants.
I used to partake in office food offerings just to be part of the team and not seem high maintenance. But now that I have been at my job for five years and everyone knows I would not normally eat the bagels, doughnuts, pizza,etc., I just skip it and focus on the chatting.
What if your “office” turns out to be a hotel/motel with one of those “continental breakfasts”? On WHAT continent do people actually eat this junk for breakfast?