You are also older, and maybe realize the free food, stupid chairs, and on site laundry are gimmicks intended to keep you at work as long as possible. It really boils down to salary and tangible benefits such has vacation and healthcare. That free lunch only costs the company $5/day, $1250/year. I'd rather take that in pay.
The free lunch might only cost the company $5 a day, but if I were to buy my own lunch I would be spending much more than $5 a day. And I would be with post tax money.
Before I worked at Google, I would frequently spend $10 - 15 a day in lunch costs. Add in dinner and snacks, and it could easily rack up to $40+. In pre tax terms that more like $55. Across an entire year that's close to $15k in benefit.
I work in NYC, so costs are inflated, and I realize this might not be true for people working in some less central location.
To be fair: free (healthier than fast) food is practically an investment. Healthier people work better, live longer, etc. It's probably worth $1250/year/person just on those grounds, which could be reflected in better pay. (given the wage fixing and other things: it probably isn't. but in principle it's not a pure loss to your paycheck.)
And I'd LOVE to have on-site laundry and/or a shower - then I could bike much harder/further to get to work and not smell like it all day. Not having that means pretty strict pacing / length restrictions, which basically means I lose a large chunk of time that I could be using for exercise.
Bring baby wipes and wipe down when you change from bike clothes to work clothes. (If you bike to work in work clothes a shower certainly won't help that)
But to your first point: if all you're doing is reducing a part of a third of their caloric intake (one of three meals per day), you probably are not making a significant change in the person's health. It would be more practical to invest in company sports programs or fund things like bicycle purchases. The food is a psychological trick as well as keeping people planted at their desk throughout the day.
Psychological trick: absolutely. And I'll bet it works fantastically well. I don't mean to negate that side of things.
As to food: personally, lunch is my big meal, it comes out to almost half. Plus that's assuming all calories are equal, but meh. The main thing I would argue here is that investing in sports programs or bicycle purchases will probably impact a small fraction of the people that free lunch impacts. In addition, it'll have less effect on the people who could most benefit from better health - just having a soccer team or cheaper bikes isn't usually enough to convince overweight + sedentary to exercise more. It's pretty easy to get people to eat better if that's the easiest option.
If one meal is half of your calories, I hope your highest carb intake is at breakfast... I can't imagine what your blood sugar levels look like at 2pm if you have one giant meal once a day (unless you're specifically eating low-GI foods). Diabetes onset later in life can be related to these things.
This is also why I don't find a healthy lunch to contribute to greater overall health: people are different, and they usually need custom diet plans. Granted, lunch for everyone will impact the greatest number of people, but also in the smallest way. I submit that removing free sodas and adding tastier low-cal or zero-cal drinks would have an even greater effect on overall health than a free lunch, no matter how healthy the lunch is.
What we're talking about is trying to use convenience to covertly get people to be healthier, and that's really hard. If you really optimized you could make it so people biked or walked to work [vouchers on housing closer to work], place resources farther in the office so people have to walk around more often, a rewards system for taking breaks and walking around outside the campus [trackable by gadgets; also helps with vitamin d deficiency], allow people to bring home a healthy dinner, build a gym+shower into the property, and a rewards system for getting more sleep and regular exercise [trackable by gadgets]. The rewards could be tuned to the user's personal motivators.
That's all if you want to improve everyone's health. On the other hand, if you want people to think their job is cool because they get free lunch, you don't need to do those things.
But if it's an investment, it shouldn't be a point to be bragged about to employee candidates -- it's being done to make money, not because it's so great for me. Don't brag to me about that just like you shouldn't brag about how the CFO has done some sweet accounting jiujitsu or whatever.
It's not zero-sum. It can be a sound investment for the company and also beneficial to the employee. The company shouldn't tout its good working environment if it positively impacts the bottom line? That's an odd stance.
I had actually only evaluated the tangibles before I joined Google. But I wouldn't exchange the food for its cost for Google. There is the huge added value of getting it hassle-free and not having remember to order/prepare/go out for lunch. Obviously I still do all of the above from time to time but the key here is: when I want to.
Other than vacation for new hires (15 days), Google has an incredibly generous policy towards pretty much everything. Your comp is top-notch, your health insurance literally makes doctors drool, and you'll be discovering new perks and benefits long into your tenure there.
