The earliest known occurrence of the full phrase, in the form “There ain’t no such thing as free lunch”, appears as the punchline of a joke related in an article in the El Paso Herald-Post of June 27, 1938, entitled “Economics in Eight Words”.[9] In 1945, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” appeared in the Columbia Law Review, and “there is no free lunch” appeared in a 1942 article in the Oelwein Daily Register (in a quote attributed to economist Harley L. Lutz) and in a 1947 column by economist Merryle S. Rukeyser.[2][10] In 1949, the phrase appeared in an article by Walter Morrow in the San Francisco News (published on 1 June) and in Pierre Dos Utt’s monograph TANSTAAFL: A Plan for a New Economic World Order,[11] which describes an oligarchic political system based on his conclusions from “no free lunch” principles.
That’s quite the history - that must come under the heading of Solomon’s old saying: “nothing new under the sun.”