Barbecue(dis)stress

Do you know that feeling?
That guilty feeling of throwing away that mountain of food after that great barbecue.
If not, don’t bother reading on!

Why do we always have so much food left over at such a party?
It is relatively easy to explain.
The insight into this mechanism will later give us the opportunity to find the answer to the question of how to feed the world.

Imagine: you want to have a bbq for 10 friends.

Make it easy on yourself and offer chicken to everyone!
You count on 1 breast and cheek per person and make sure the beer fills the holes.

But you don’t want to be that lazy host. And you go for 3 pieces of meat: a chicken breast, two kinds of sausages and a thick piece of steak.
Ok, but how many pieces of meat do you have to buy now?
10 of each, assuming that everyone eats 4 pieces of meat?
What if 3 pieces will suffice, which piece will you drop in number?

This uncomfortable balance between a good host and an economic householder is precisely the stress of choice that can be felt in all areas of the food industry. It benefits the foodcompanies. Consumers buy too much anyway, precisely because there is so much choice. In this way, the company has a bigger turnover. They don’t have to worry about the surpluses anyway!

It is one of those questions that came to mind when I was formulating solutions to feed 8 billion mouths in the near future.