Google tells employees they can’t expense food when working from home

The recent tax law changes completely disallow the expensing of on site meals provided to employees. It has already started phasing out and might be fully phased out by 2021 if I remember correctly. So the IRS doesn't have to fight that anymore.

So they can still provide it to employees, but if they want the tax deduction, they will have to itemize it on employee compensation, which will cause them to pay taxes on it as income.

I'm fairly certain you can at least get a tax write off of your home office if its dedicated to work

I'd think this is for a subset of employees who confused free cafeteria food with an entitlement to never pay for food during work hours.