Buying Enough Snacks

One thing that annoys me is when parties and other such events fail to provide enough snacks for their guests. I imagine the hosts of these events worrying about wasting food and money and thus trying to purchase an amount of food that will all be eaten. In my world, if more than 90% of the food you have for your party is eaten, then you have failed to adequately account for possible worlds in which your guests ate more than you expected. I often have to consider bringing my own food to parties to deal with possible situations in which there are insufficient snacks. Ideally, I would not have to do this.

If you are planning on hosting an event or party, I recommend you solve this issue by shutting up and multiplying. I tend to aim for around $5-$15 of snacks per person, then multiply by the number of people. Given uncertainty in the different snack preferences of different guests, you should expect a moderately large fraction (say 1/3rd) of your snacks to go uneaten. This is desireble and merely indicates you have provided enough food for your guests. The remaining food can be thrown away, given to others, saved for the next party, consumed by yourself, etc.

Other factors that deserve consideration are the distribution between crunchy versus not-crunchy, sweet vs salty vs savory, the ratio of various chips to dips, the total amount of calories you want to provide, etc. These considerations can, of course, be ignored if one is willing to purchase an abundance of all types.

Don’t let your party guests be sad because they don’t have food to eat. Shut up and multiply!