How to make buffet breakfasts less wasteful

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31918985/

And if what you’re really trying to say is that you like intermittent fasting (which can have eating windows at any part of the day even if the meme is to start eating at traditional lunch hours) the first meal, that meal which breaks your fast, is, by definition, breakfast. This could be your only meal if taking intermittent fasting to its extreme - further evidence for it being most important.

The other way in which breakfast is most important, IMO, is that it sets the tone for the rest of the day. To be more specific, the first meal that gets you onto the blood sugar/insulin rollercoaster will keep you on the rollercoaster all day until you fast again - so the quality of your meals (aka not starting your day with sugar bombs) is highly important.

Regardless, “important” is purely an opinion/values statement; the only error is claiming that a sincerely held opinion is an “error”.

Edit: after some recent travel experiences, I found that starting my day with a high quality salad (little dressing, whole fish, variety of vegetables, small portion) was transformative in keeping my blood sugar under control, maintaining stable energy level, and promoting healthy digestion.

Horses for courses though. I know plenty of people who don't eat breakfast but personally I found it much easier to not eat dinner.

It's incredible how this stuff even made its way into the Obama administration.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjArvN9cfgE, or on Spotify or Apple podcasts

Honestly I'm very confused why this is even a problem. If people in general had even a modicum of rationality buffets would be the least wasteful way of serving food, compared to fixed-size portions.

Good. I'm cheap. I'm attracted to freebies. And I like being able to get up, get around to start my day, grab some food on my way out the door, and then get on with whatever it is that to me staying in a hotel to begin with.

I don't want to be at a hotel. That's not my destination; it's a means to an end that is necessary because hygiene and food are necessary even if I have to be away from home.

The buffet is fast. Fast is important to me.

> Rather than a buffet, they could give out a meal ticket. If you want extras, you can pay a small fee for those, meant to cover the cost of the food more than any profit motive.

A meal ticket? Like, for a restaurant with a menu?

The hotels I stay at don't have the facilities to do that. The free breakfast buffets I'm familiar with have stuff that is purchased in bulk, and served in bulk. It's meant to use as little labor as possible at every stage.

> Or is it really more profitable to just throw away the food?

Compared to keeping track of people, and their orders, and delivering that food? Yes, it is more profitable. People don't work for free.

With a meal ticket, when someone orders scrambled eggs or whatever and finds that they don't suit their taste, then they're still throwing them away. Similarly: If they get more food than they can eat? It still goes into the trash.

But now there's a customer service problem, too: When the person who didn't like the eggs is still hungry but their meal ticket is expended, they're going to be complaining about it. That's yet more labor.

Adding this complexity doesn't solve the food waste "problem" (it may actually make it worse), and it adds labor and facilities expense.

It's almost as if these things have all been tried before, and buffets came out on top in profitability.

And since it's a competitive market, customers have options. Fast is important to me so I don't want to wait around for food when there are alternatives that don't require me to do that. I'll just stay at the other cheap place across the road, instead.

It's more profitable for them when I give them my money than it is when I give their competitor my money instead.

(Breakfast buffets didn't appear from thin air. They evolved to be how they are because they're more profitable than other things that were tried before.)

There exist hotels where breakfast is still very cheap (but the rooms are accordingly more expensive). The reason is that business travelers, the budgets for meals are really tight (you have to pay anything above by yourself), but the maximum allowed costs for hotel rooms are typically much less tight.

To accommodate such business travelers (though these are not the only guests), the hotel makes the breakfast really cheap, but the room accordingly more expensive (but still within the typical budget of business travelers), so that such customers can deduct more travel expenses to the employer.

Which is unfortunately more common