After navigating through a long digital office cubicle, American labor is returning to reclaim physical desks and long-forgotten drinking fountains. The expectation of resuming daily life is obvious, but the reality is that our new "normal" will no longer be a routine. The most obvious change in our daily lives can be said to revolve around food—the way, where, and the food we eat during the workday.

In order to better understand what the new lunch will look like and help us re-adapt to eating out time, we must first understand the evolution of lunch breaks over the past ten years and understand how the pandemic has changed our lives. Eating habits in the past year.

The evolution of the lunch break
In 2012, the New York Library held an exhibition about the history and importance of lunchtime in our culture, tracing the early definition of “how much food can be held in your hand” back to the concept later called “energy lunch”. The 1970s. However, although the characteristics of lunch have been redefined due to changes in industries and regions, lunch is always closely related to the working day.

In the past decade, entrepreneurial culture has left a similar mark on lunch breaks: communal kitchens have emerged as office puddles with snacks, microwaves, and refrigerators. In addition to its functional use, the welfare of the office kitchen as a workplace is often seen as a sign of a progressive culture.

Lunch — including what, when, where, and how we eat — reveals a lot about the values and priorities of our society and the factors that shape them. This became especially evident at the beginning of the pandemic, when workforces all over the world abandoned offices and adopted remote work as the new norm.

Focus on health and convenience
The reality of the pandemic has brought different priorities to lunchtime, the most important of which is a renewed focus on health and nutrition. My company recently released a survey of 2,000 people and found that 43% of Americans tried to cook healthier meals or "prepared meals," but the results were mixed.

Although people's interest in healthy eating will increase in 2020, people also realize that eating better is easier said than done. Of the respondents who tried healthier cooking at the beginning of the pandemic, 14% gave up the habit after a month. In fact, 64% of people admit that when they work from home, their nutrition is of secondary importance. This reflects many aspects of our society. Although we all hope to protect our health together by developing better eating habits, the reality of the pandemic is that when we try to balance work, school, and family life, our bodies become extremely thin.

Not surprisingly, in addition to health and nutrition, convenience has also become one of our top priorities. In other words, most people want to eat healthier, but they don’t want to put every lunch in a container every night.

Pandemic considerations still exist
According to data from the American Psychological Association, 46% of adults said they are uncomfortable returning to their pre-pandemic life. This shows that the COVID-19 safety protocol will change the morning coffee habits, Monday bagels and shared office snacks. Some benefits may disappear altogether, but they are more costly and may spread bacteria in the future.

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With the departure of bulk snacks and family-style dining, sustainable development efforts will now take a back seat. Although many companies have made great progress in this area in the past few years, for now, they need to revert to pre-packaged personal meals, disposable cups, plates, cutlery, straws, etc.

The settings of the kitchen and lounge area also need to be redesigned, and limit how many employees can be convened at a time. From spacing microwaves and seats to adding sanitary stations, the social use of these places may decrease. The cooking procedures and operations need to be redesigned to comply with enhanced health and safety measures.

New "lunch time"
As a group, we must prepare for earthquake repairs for simple things such as mealtimes on weekdays. Lunch breaks have many uses in our daily work lives, from connecting with colleagues outside the office to a much-needed mental health break away from the computer screen.

In recent years, lunch and food have also represented many workplace allowances and benefits designed to attract and retain talent. However, after the pandemic, the familiar lunch ecosystem will not be able to continue in the work world. The restaurants designed around the five-day lunch peak and the catering companies that serve technology employees are not very relevant to the newly defined work-life balance needs. Just as companies have adjusted their recruitment, hiring and retention practices to meet the demands of an increasingly flexible and mixed workplace, so will traditional lunchtimes