Were you raised to believe that eating in front of other people is rude? And where did this idea come from?

Its common courtesy to ask if anyone would like to share their meal , even knowing that most don’t or would not care for it anyways.
The act of asking also if anyone minded if they ate in front of them is also common etiquette.
Where I observed a situation the man had not had time for lunch and brought a quick sandwich, but asked first if anyone minded and or wanted some of his sandwich? Of course no one was offended and allowed him to eat his meal happily. In fact it touched the others that he was aware and polite enough to care about what others thought.

I think it’s gross because some large percentage of the population does not chew with their mouths closed. No problem with eating in front of me, if I don’t need to see you masticating.

^^ That too!
I don’t have a problem with it, either, as long as they are being discrete. But I, myself, would not do it.
I was in a class room the other day. A girl came in with cookies…but only for the teachers. I politely declined. I wasn’t about to accept a cookie that my students couldn’t have, not to mention eating it in front of them.

I’m more concerned about how I feel doing that than other people. I find it awkward and uncomfortable to be the only one eating around people who aren’t.

It really depends on the situation. I wasn’t raised that it’s rude specifically, but I was raised to offer food to someone if they have none and I’m eating, but this mostly applies if you are over my house.

At work, I wouldn’t feel the obligation to share my food, but it’s partly because I’m under the assumption everyone at my work has plenty of food to eat. I almost never would bring food into a meeting though. I wouldn’t want the attention of being the only one eating. I’d have to be really hungry with no opportunity to eat the food at another time. I’d probably apologize, practicallly asking permission, if I needed to eat during a meeting when no one else was eating. It would have to be food that wasn’t noisy, and a meeting that I’m extremely unlikely to be asked to speak.

Funny, my dad always (every time) offers a try of his food to me, even in my own house, and I have asked him to stop a zillion times. I NEVER say yes, trying to discourage him from offering.

At work, we all have our own food and take care of our own needs so I don’t think of it as rude. We have meetings where food is purchased for us (lunch) but we don’t usually eat at the meetings, we take the food home. I could eat there if I wanted to, but I’m more likely to go through the meeting hungry and eat later.

In social situations, if I have food and my friend doesn’t, I would probably offer her food but we all have our own money to purchase what we want, so I wouldn’t think eating in front of a friend is rude. I would offer what I had and my friend would probably decline and purchase what she wanted (if we were in a Starbucks or something).

When I was young, a lot of us seemed to be broke constantly so we’d take care of each other as far as one person having food or beer and giving some to friends and then the friends reciprocate. Now that I’m no longer broke, we all take care of our own needs pretty much.

At the table, yes, you wait until everyone is served except in extenuating circumstances like someone’s food is taking unusually long to cook and they tell everyone at the table to go ahead and eat.

There are so many different circumstances I can think of where food and friends are involved, it’s hard to write a hard and fast rule for each scenario.

I would feel uncomfortable too, eating in front of people who weren’t also eating.

And I take for granted that you wait until everyone is served before you eat, too, @jca2. Most people don’t do that any more, either.