"Ich esse nicht am Mittag."
Translation:I do not eat at noon.
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1208
"am" means "at the". It is a contraction of "an dem". Without it, you would essentially be saying "I do not eat noon."
It may be a bit confusing because in German, one uses the definite article "dem" with Mittag, but in English one uses only "noon". That's just a matter of custom and practice. I'm surec that to native speakers of German "an Mittag" sounds just as awkward as "at the noon" sounds to native English speakers. To those here for whom neither English nor German is native (or fluent), it's probably just a subtlety that you might not notice.
2781
Yes, "lunchtime" can at times be referred to as just "lunch" like that. But the sentence wasn't about "lunchtime", it was about "midday/noon". My lunchtime (or, my lunch) at work is 11, so I don't eat at noon. Ich esse nicht am Mittag.
791
The "I do not eat at noon." translation comes across as a dogmatic statement by a person who categorically does not eat at noon. How, then, would you say , "I am not eating at noon," referring to what's going on in the present time?