present continuous form - have vs having?

Question

German doesn't differentiate between present tense and present continuous tense as English language does. For instance, Ich esse Brot means, "I eat/am eating bread". The same applies to the verb "habe". Wir haben Essen This can mean, "We have/are having food". However, in English, one generally* uses We are having food - meaning I am consuming the food or We have food - Just literal meaning of 'have' So, if someone says Wir haben Essen How does German differentiate whether the person is "consuming" or just "possessing"? [*] Some readers can disagree and say, "One can even use the present continuous even for possession". But the common interpretation if someone says "having food", means, "consuming".

Answer 1

First of all, I need to disagree with your translation. "Wir haben Essen." does NOT mean "We are having food."!!! It ONLY means "We have food". Moreover, the sentence is a bit weird. Most people would probably say "Wir haben etwas zu essen." meaning "We have something to eat". The reason why "Wir haben Essen." does not mean "We are having food." is that "haben" cannot be used to say "consume food" in German. When you are having food, you can only say "Wir essen gerade.". The word "gerade" is often used to express something you are doing right now.

As for the other example, I don't think it's a good example either. It mainly lacks context, and that's why it's probably so hard to understand. Moreover, German likes adding in filler words to clarify meaning. So If I wanted to ask "Do you eat bread?", I would say "Ißt du eigentlich Brot?", and if I wanted to ask "Are you eating bread?", I would say: "Ißt du gerade Brot?".

Hence the idea that "Ich esse Brot" could be misunderstood is strictly hypothetical and limited to what they say in grammar books. In reality, German has so many extra little filler words to clarify meaning that native speakers rarely misunderstand each other.

Answer 2

Since there is no grammatical way to distinguish, it's all in the context:

Wir haben etwas zu essen. ==> Totally ambiguous.

Wir haben Fisch heute abend. ==> "heute abend" as time reference indicates a meal ==> we're eating

Wir haben Brot und Butter zu Hause. ==> "zu Hause" as location indicates storage ==> we have available

However, in real life the magic words are "es gibt" (there is, there is to be had). As most Germans will advertise meals with "there will be Pizza tonight", instead of "we are having Pizza". ==> "Es gibt heute abend Pizza".

HTH