Anyone who advocates counting meal allowances etc does not understand that they are about expense reimbursement, not additional pay.
Not sure what you are arguing there, all allowances are some form of reimbursement. If it's part of an EBA, it's an entitlement in your pay packet, it's all pay! Some EBA those items are built into your base salary, so it's important to note what EBAs have and which do not. And OT meal claims are not reimbursements they are generally an inconvenience fee for missing a break allowance. So if your company only assigns minimum break periods and you run 1 minute late into that break, you get the meal allowance, it's poorly named I know.
You probably won't have much of a medical if you went through $120-$200 a shift in meals.