The BA flight from Edinburgh to London used to include a full meal, and in the morning it was a hot breakfast
I can beat that. I fly to the Isle of Man from Liverpool or Manchester a few times each year and while they don't do free food and drink or even a routine trolley service these days (you have to press the button and they'll come to you but otherwise they don't bother) and the plane is level at full altitude for about 15 minutes and the first few times in the days of free refreshments, the plane would level, there would be a bing and the cabin crew would virtually run down the aisles going Breakfast? and almost throwing a bag of sandwiches, cereal bars, yogurt and fruit at you, followed by the other one dispensing the hot drinks.
When they got to the back, they'd go back to the front of the plane and try and collect rubbish etc from people still trying to eat their breakfast. Just as they got to the back of the plane, there would be the 'cabin crew seats for landing' announcement. 
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The thing is though the budget ones aren’t always much cheaper overall
But it's pretty much the only choice for a lot of us. Just about all the flights from outside London (even Manchester) to European holiday destinations, and probably a lot of other places, are either Jet2, Ryanair or Easyjet.
BA etc fly to London, and other European capital cities, sometimes holiday flights, but also business destinations, but not most holiday places (there are a very limited number of Manchester to Mallorca flights but not much else). The idea of free food and drink is a rare novelty to a lot of us, even on longer flights to the Canaries, Egypt, Cyprus etc - we expect to pay, so suck it up, or take our own food.
But I do have to do an indirect KLM flight on occasion, with 4 flights within 24 hours. I might take the first sandwich each day, and any free alcohol on offer, but even I reject that weird tiny unidenfiable cheese? sandwich the 4th time I have been offered it.