Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, eating isn't just about consuming food. On the average day I probably spend more time talking face-to-face with people while I'm eating than I do for the entire rest of the day. And I doubt that that's unusual these days.
That is a consequence of needing to eat, not that of needing to interact with others, and you do that because 'more important things' such as work prevents you from taking the time to talk. You could talk to those people face to face without eating as well. Nobody would prevent anyone from eating, but for those who would rather do something else it would be a very welcome invention.
That isn't really the point though. Whenever there is progress the majority of people stop doing the 'old' thing in favour of the 'new' thing. Hardly anyone in the first world makes their own clothes these days as our standard of living/price of clothing makes it easy not to, most young people wouldn't even consider making their own furniture, people don't hand-write letters. I'm not saying that these things are necessarily bad, just using them as examples of things 'nobody would prevent anyone from [doing]' which people don't (generally) do.
My team at work tends to go out and get our lunch together then sit in the kitchen and eat together. We probably talk more in that half an hour than we do the entire rest of the day. If we all took our magic food pill in the morning then that just wouldn't happen. No one would be stopping us doing it but we still wouldn't do it; it'd be far too easy to tell yourself that you're too busy to take that half hour break.