I'm not sure this is a generational thing. The phrase "breaking bread" (as in, to commune and connect with someone over a meal) goes back as far as the 14th century. :)
Mardi Gras and king cakes!!! You speak my language! I live near NOLA and know the aggravation of weekly office king cakes that nobody needs. At my office, between king cake season and holidays, it's birthday cakes.
I have found some kindred spirits among my work crew that hate the food functions as much as I do. It used to really bother me, but now I just do my own thing and don't worry about what they do or say. I pick and choose what I feel like attending and depending on the event.
I bring birthday cakes and attend the gatherings and serve cake for my staff because I care about my team, but there are other food events I totally avoid like Christmas and Thanksgiving carb fests. Full sit down meals with foods I don't eat I just generally avoid.
If anyone asks, I just tell them it's just easier to dose insulin when I eat foods I'm familiar with. I tell them I could eat it if I wanted to but the fallout and the way it makes me feel isn't worth it. Oh and I don't think this is a generational thing either because I'm a Baby Boomer and I hate the office food thing. I'm not sure I even know where the GenX and Millenial lines are but in my office the age range is 25 to 65. Actually in my office most of the men are anti-food parties, I'm one of the only females. Just shows how we're all different I guess. :) Take care!
I think it goes back a lot further than that… Think it was one of the very first things that separated early humans from other animal species
I worked in an office once where birthday cakes were bought for people. One of my coworkers knew I didn't eat sugar so on my birthday he used the money instead to buy me a necklace. And the necklace was a feminist symbol too - this from a guy known to be a bit of a chauvinist so I felt doubly recognized and "seen". (Nobody seemed to mind being "deprived" of birthday cake that month - between diets and attempts to eat healthy, at least here in California I think many people have milder versions of our negative feelings about office food.) Though I'm lucky that I've always worked with really good cooks so at potlucks I could always find something I wanted to eat.
I think Zoe's comment about being a "foodie" is the main reason these things don't appeal to me very much. I am pretty much the cook at home so, unsurprisingly, I like *everything* we eat! Although I did burn Mrs and junior out on grilled meat this summer so I'm having to improvise a bit here. For work, I make a huge double pan of sick brownies, 2 boxes of Ghirardelli extra chocolaty flavors and then bash up some frozen chocolate bars (we have these on hand as we have a firepit and have s'mores occasionally...) tossed in for good measure. I bring them in but don't eat any. Last time, I had a bunch of people, like people I know because I'm gregarious but don't work with closely come up and say "OMG, did you make those brownies, they were awesome!!" which is also sort of amusing.
It seems as if our company has put the kibosh on whatever cash/ trip/ prizes people used to get for "recognition" back in the good old days and now we get pizza and potluck type of "fun" events. If people ask "why didn't you get a plate?" I tell them "I used to eat carby junk like that when I weighed 275 lbs and don't eat it because I don't want to get back there!