I think it should be optional, I don't want to sit there and have to watch my character eat a whole loaf of bread slowly everytime I eat (assuming it would be the same length as the NPCs eating time in OB).
well you dont have to sit there, you could have a sword in one hand and an apple in the other, and youre fighting while your eating apples, cool as a fool in a swimming pool . . . orr you dont even have to eat the apple, you could have a cool finishing move where you stick the apple in the enemy's mouth and you pierce him with your sword like a pig on a spitroast, accompanied by a very cool line 'how do you like them apples?!'