While one should always prepare a question in such situation, the proposed standby questions are definitely worse than not asking a question. "What did you have for lunch" or "what did you do yesterday" are highly personal, and irrelevant to the interview.
It is a worse way of saying "I don't have a real question for you".
Work environment, atmosphere, infrastructures... There are endless relevant topics that an interviewee could ask about. Anything would be better than "what did you do yesterday".
For what it's worth I (OP) have been asking this question for a decade now and have gotten a good response, as well as fodder for follow ups. At least when I look back at the (few) times I have been rejected there were obvious other reasons that were _not_ this.
When you ask people what they value they talk in generalities like "good team communication is important to us," when you ask what they did yesterday you learn that feature development has stalled because everything is being rewritten in Clojure, or whatever, then you can follow up and ask about that.
It is a worse way of saying "I don't have a real question for you".
Work environment, atmosphere, infrastructures... There are endless relevant topics that an interviewee could ask about. Anything would be better than "what did you do yesterday".