Who’s Hogging All of the Roast Beef Sandwiches?

Imagine if you will: a buffet table piled high with roast beef sandwiches. Around the table are ten dinner guests. Eight of them are very hungry. They haven’t had anything to eat for several days. Their mouths are watery. The roast beef sandwiches look like manna from heaven.

Of the other two guests, one is a bit rumbly in the tummy. He had a supersized lunch combo a couple of hours ago, but the sandwiches look good. He could eat.

The one remaining guest already has already had dinner, lunch, and a breakfast of champions, plus a few snacks in between. He knows he shouldn’t eat so much; his wife is threatening to put him on the South Beach diet. But he does like roast beef.

I am sure that by now you have guessed where this was going. The dinner guest with the rumbly tummy was first in line. He helped himself to three sandwiches. They were a bit small, after all. He ate two of them, took a bite of the third. That took care of the rumbly tummy. He tossed the rest of the third sandwich in the trash.

The second guest in line was the one with the nagging wife. Since she wasn’t at this banquet, this was his chance to pig out a little. He could start the diet tomorrow. He does like roast beef. He helped himself to the remaining seven sandwiches. He is used to supersized meals. He can only eat four of them; apparently his eyes were bigger than his stomach, as usual. He tosses the other three sandwiches in the trash. He gets out a packet of Tums; he has a bit of indigestion. He really shouldn’t eat so much.
The other eight guests go to bed with empty tummies. Again.

I live in Canada. We have plenty of food. Lots of it ends up in the trash. Especially at restaurants. Most of them serve overly generous meals and they think nothing of tossing the leftovers. It means that the customer was satisfied.

Is there anything we can do to balance out the food situation? I know we can’t just mail our extra roast beef sandwiches out to China along with our broccoli and asparagus. Yes, my kids thought of that too. Our leftovers would spoil by the time they got there. So tell your kids to eat their broccoli.

I’ve given the matter a lot of thought, and I’ve come up with a rather outlandish proposition. I know that the logistics would be next to impossible. Just humour me if you will.

We could take turns. Once every five or ten years, we all switch places. All of the hungry people can come here and enjoy the abundance for a while. The people who now spend billions of dollars on diet products and liposuction can get a break, since they will be living in the land of famine. No diet pills or plastic surgeons needed here.
I know – it’s a crazy idea. Just something to think about.