My entire career, I got a one-hour lunch, and two, paid, ten-minute breaks.

I know some will say you'd rather not because that's just more time at work, but with a one-hour lunch you can leave work, that's the whole point. It's a real break. One hour is enough time to go to a restaurant, or you can eat at work, and take a short walk. Half-an-hour is barely enough to time to eat and use the bathroom.

I guess what I'm saying is unionize.

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I eat one big dinner each day, so I go around 23 hours between meals. It takes a little acclimation, but I don't get "hangry" anymore and can go much longer without effect if something comes up and I have to delay eating.

That's not a problem at all. I've been intermittent fasting for almost 10 years now. Started with 36 hour fasts 3 times a week. Then eventually started following my shift work schedule. If I was evenings I'd eat breakfast and lunch, if I was days I'd only eat supper. Now I'm days only so I only eat supper.

My parents who are almost in their 70's started doing it a few years back and they lost a ton of weight. The thing I love about fasting is it changes how you deal with hunger. My body being hungry doesn't really phase me, I'm able to ignore it rather easily. I don't get stomach aches or headaches. I can mentally tell myself that this is my fasting window and it makes it really easy to not eat.

It's hard to explain without you actually doing it but it was one of the best choices I've made. I'll never go back.

Not eating lunch and taking a break is bad for your health and potentially undermines your productivity. It's a bad idea all around.

There's also the problem that if your coworkers skip theirs voluntarily, then you feel pressured to do the same and it's no longer voluntary. Breaks and lunch are legally required because otherwise you just don't get them at all because of the legal murkiness you mention.

When I worked at Target about a decade ago, if you missed your break, YOU got written up. They'd been sued so many times for not giving breaks that they FORCED you to take a break or be written up for it. If you were within 10 minutes of working into your lunch break, you can bet your ass someone was on a walkie talkie telling you to get your ass out and stop working. At the time they loved 4h45m shifts because it gave them 15 minutes buffer before you had to take a lunch.

This is literally what I do every day. I intermittent fast, so I don't eat until dinner. I work through lunch, take breaks whenever I need to get up and stretch my legs, and leave at ~4:15.

And that's why lunch should be paid if it's inside the workday.

This is how it is at my current job in Denmark. Never experienced it before working in Denmark.

It's not illegal where I live but it's against my union rules (though it's not a labour job). They have super strict rules about exactly when we should take our breaks. I get it in principle because there are asshole bosses who would try to force people to work through their breaks or shame them into it, but it really sucks for those of us who just don't mind pushing through so we can leave early or like to take late lunches.

I can't because it wouldn't make much sense, we need people working together to do stuff so break times are synchronized

If they let you take lunch at the end of the day to leave sooner that creates a loophole to say they gave you your lunch break without actually doing so

Reminder: the traditional "9 to 5" workday that is considered "full time" includes lunch. If you're not getting paid for it or are working 8 to 5 or whatever, you're getting swindled.

You might say it's "normal" now, but it only becomes normalized because workers fail to hold the line.

I've always noted with a certain cynicism that the old nomenclature for the workday '9-5' adds up to eight hours. Surely these people weren't missing lunch...

In a way it is paid/unpaid either way.

At the end of the day, the time you spend "for" work includes your transit to and from work as well as the breaks that you take without being able to really do your thing.

You have to calculate that time against your pay. This is also why working from home shouldn't be something companies have any doubt about. Taking away the commute time maintains the time you can be productive for the company, while notably shorting your total time spent "for" work.

That's why we use the bathroom before or after lunch.

so then it's not my time because I can't take it when I want. since that's the case, why isn't it paid?

Yeah, that's one thing that sucks about union jobs. On the other hand, I'm no longer at a union job and can break/lunch whenever I want, but my boss can make unrealistic expectations and I have no way to argue if I can't get another manager in the line to back me up. My current workplace is very quickly turning into a shittty place to work since there isn't a union to push back.

Or live in a state that doesn’t screw you over.
1 hr lunch, two 15 minute breaks for 8 hour shift. Or half hour lunch minimum required after 6 hours work.

This is with or without union.

Being on the clock for lunch is a terrible idea. I like my own time thanks.

There's also unpaid lunch in Denmark. This would though mean that you cannot be interrupted in your half-hour lunch break for work. If you get paid lunch time your employer can though legally call you in for work again if they need you, e.g. calling in the doctor for an emergency operation.