Confused?

[Pugnacious]

I can change weapons or armor while in combat but cannot eat. What takes longer, shoving a piece of bread into my mouth or unstrapping armor then restrapping it back into place?

[Qeewee]

Shoving a piece of bread into your mouth takes the longest of course!

[Hrar Godcairn]

Illarion works in mysterious ways

[Juliana D'cheyne]

It is all part of digestion

[Llama]

That's because food is stored in vacuum containers which are hard to open with your teeth while you're whacking at an enemy.

Why did you think food stays fresh?

[Pugnacious]

Tupperware, I never would have guessed

[Arvemor]

Why are you eating in the midst of a fight anyhow? I thought this was a role-playing. </elitist, snobby roleplayer comment>
Yeah, it doesn't make sense. I assume worrying about this sort of thing is wasted due to the (yes, I'm bringing it up again) Very Big UPDATE.
Ahem.

[Alexander Knight]

It is mainly for the ability to fight on the engine side of things I think. If you are fishing and a mummy attacks then you need to equip a sword/axe/shield/wand etc

IRL you would drop your rod and get something pointy.

Also IRL you wouldnt want to eat during a fight though will be hungry after as your body instantly digests the food for more energy.

save your time and run away

[H.Banestone]

Ctrl out of combat. Eat. Ctrl back into combat. Not very difficult, not a problem.

[Athian]

Ctrl out of combat. Eat. Ctrl back into combat. Not very difficult, not a problem.

I expect that by the VBU time, eating will be like potions "You start your meal" and "You have finished the food" with any hit in between making you drop whatever you had, in fact technically it could be implemented even before the VBU. Be careful what you draw attention too, the evil Devs are watching us all

[Llama]

Pattern Found!

<?,WillBeGoneWIth,VBU>

If you think that this bad behaviour is a 'bug' or sorts, put it into mantis.

[H.Banestone]

Well, i dunno how many folks here been in a real swordfight, probably a couple. I happen to be a swordsman by hobby, but you don't have to take it on faith from me, look it up or ask people who know: you would never be able to eat during a swordfight.

Switching weapons - sure. A draw is one of the fastest things a human can do, record time for fastest draw is 0.8 seconds, it's almost faster than a full blink of an eye. When it comes to "strapping and unstrapping", there is not much of that going on with weapons. All the holsters are strapped to you in advance, and you make sure your sheath for dagger and sword is a comfortably loose fit. You can easily discard a sword and draw a dagger, or vice versa. In fact, you kind of have to be fast about it, if you wanna live. But that again depends on sheath design. Two handed swords with baldrics behind the back, i.e. claymore or lowlander - you want to have that drawn well in advance before getting into measure. But again, discarding a weapon is easy. You can always drop a weapon on the ground (but preferrably at the opponent's face).

Armor - slipping armor off - easy and quick. The way period knots were tied is that they could be dropped in a second by pulling on the tie strings, in case of injury or needing a quick escape.
Putting armor on - entirely opposite. During a fight? Forget about it. I'll give you helmet, with a stretch. You can slap a helmet on during a fight. That's about it. Putting plate or chain on - not only may require help, but absolutely gonna get you killed. One second of not holding your guard, and you are dead.

That's real life.
How realistic you wanna make the game - that's up to you.
Just don't make it so realistic that it becomes a pain in the arse to actually play.
One Java RP game, called Wurm, very Illarion-like, but 3D first person - made a mistake of over complicating things to such an extent, that it's frustrating to play. So its playerbase currently is pretty much realism nerds, mainly crafting addicts. Played it, didn't wanna play it again.