I spend a lot more time dealing with food now (cooking, cleanup, groceries) than I spent on my commute. I could go to a restaurant, but if I don't want to eat the same thing every day, getting there and back and waiting for the food is going to take more time than my commute, especially if I do it for more than lunch.
Even purely from a time perspective, free-lunch-for-unpaid-commute is an EXCELLENT deal in my case. I can totally see that being different if your commute is longer than 30 minutes.
Even still, I've been working later (7pm approx) as I've started with a company based out of California (I'm in Ireland), which sucks for eating food.
Slow cookers/crockpots are kinda ace, you can dump all the ingredients into it in the morning, and have a meal when you finish work. As a bonus, the smell of the food is nice in the afternoons.