Office Mac 16 - Disable recent items list

All Office applications offer a Open Recent... submenu (under File menu) that lists recent opened files.

Is there a way to disable Open Recent... or set to zero the number of listed files?

Why I want to disable Open Recent...:

The mentioned submenu is usefull. However the application attempts to access all listed recent files when File menu is selected (don't ask my why...)

If a recent file is stored on a unmounted disk image or network share the finder attempts to mount the volume.

Setting to zero Finder's menu recent items count (via System Preferences > General) also sets to zero all Office applications' Open Recent... items count.

Not a definitive solution but a viable workaround until Microsoft fixes the issue (assuming that is a bug that Office apps "touch" all files listed in Open Recent... when File menu is clicked)