Have you got the stomach for a 16-minute lunch?
Apologies to any colleagues who I ignored yesterday between 12.20pm and 12.36pm. I was trying to achieve a personal best — making it from my desk to Pret and back in 16 minutes.
The 16-minute lunchbreak is on the rise, according to a recent study. But what is possible in that time? Can you fit in a meal or even a proper conversation? Crucially, can you finish what’s on your plate? NHS guidelines recommend chewing each mouthful at least 30 times before swallowing, so you’d have to masticate at record speed to make it through a whole sandwich, or just eat a very small portion. Perhaps you’d lose weight — if a break this short becomes the norm it will spell the end of the boozy many course working lunch. Here’s how I coped with the 16-minute challenge.
The meal plan
The clock starts when you leave your desk, anything else is cheating. That meant mentally locating my wallet beforehand so as not to waste precious seconds, and ensuring no one stopped me on the way for “a quick word”. I ducked out, avoiding eye contact. A conversation was a luxury I couldn’t afford on this hunter-gatherer mission. Chatting is for those organised enough to bring a packed lunch.
The same goes for spontaneity. Normally I entertain at least three lunch options, and it may sound sad but I enjoy weighing up what I may have. But if you’re in the 16-minute club you have to be decisive. This is leading to a rise in mono-lunching, eating the same food every day to save the mental energy of decision-making. I picked up the cheddar baguette that I’d already decided on and inwardly cheered that there was no queue to pay. The mango pot caught my eye but I felt a twinge of start-of-the-week financial guilt.
A time check: I’d made it to Pret and paid in four minutes so I had time to risk a trip to Marks & Spencer for fruit. Woohoo! If I carried on like this I could actually eat away from my desk — now that is living.
The focus
If you still think lunch is an allotted break for you to catch up with your real life, you won’t do well here. The moment I committed to the 16 minute dash I had to park my ideas of going to the bank, calling my mum and picking up toothpaste. This is a one-goal situation.
The result
I managed to make it to two shops and back to my desk in a record 14 minutes. Which left me with two minutes in which to eat. I think this means I failed. But I see it as a stealth win. I am capable of wolfing down a meal in two minutes but the consequences are not worth it — on the sad occasions when I’ve done it, I end up wasting more time: reading the internet instead of focusing.
It’s far better to take your time. Nutritionist Kim Pearson agrees: “Eating too fast compromises our gut’s ability to effectively digest food. If you must eat in a hurry, soup is a better option than tougher to digest foods.” Neill David Watson, author of The Lean Exec adds that rushed meals can trigger overeating. He recommends stretches to ease speed eat-induced tension.
As the late restaurant critic A A Gill observed: “We are the only animals that can make eye contact over dinner: that’s because we invented manners. They aren’t just middle-class snobbery, they are the surest way to eat with pleasure and remain fit and slim.” Some of the best ideas have been hatched at lunch. Anyway, if your lunch is gone in 16 minutes you may wonder if it ever happened. In the end that is less effective than if you’d just taken a proper break.
