Embarrassingly greedy DH

[Ludicruss]

Today, we had a socially distanced gathering for a handful of people in our garden. It was great, but I'd forgotten about the way DH behaves around food when we're entertaining in our own home.
I was serving the food myself to prevent the risk of any covid contamination, wearing gloves. DH goes to find something to do inside whilst I serve the food for everyone and myself. He reappears when everyone starts eating and serves his own plate. What he then does is finish EVERYTHING off, leaving no possibility for me to return to serve up seconds for anyone. I was mortified. His plate was over flowing and more than doubled everyone elses plate.
I could see him standing at the side of the garden eating away his mountain of food out of the corner of my eye, DM got up to see what was left when she had finished, clearly intending to have some more. But all of it had gone.
I had tipped 3 packets of crisps into one bowl and nobody had asked for any during the first time I was serving, when I looked into the bowl after DHs visit, there were around 8 crisps left in the bottom of it. He had demolished almost all of them.
There was a tiny piece of chicken left and a pitta bread which DM ate as she clearly hadn't finished eating ( she had only wanted a small amount on her plate originally). I was also still hungry.
I had made most of the food and I'm pissed off that my effort was wasted on him stuffing himself with it all.
I was utterly embarrassed.
I made a joke about him eating all the crisps and DH went extremely red in the face. He will no doubt call me out on it later on for embarrassing HIM!
He is very over-weight and embarrassed about it, but nobody is allowed to mention it or his eating habits. And yet he stuffed himself with all the food for the guests.

How do I broach this? I love entertaining, I have really missed it, but he spoilt it for me today.

He doesn't do this when he visits other peoples houses,just at ours.

If there is ever shared food on the table at regular meal times,he always seems to wait until we all have a bit on our plates and then eats everything that's left. Sometimes I find myself filling my own plate with too much before he dives in and eats it all. I rarely serve food this way in th3 evenings because of his greediness. But it can't be helped when entertaining.

What do I say to him?
It's ridiculous.

@ReceptacleForTheRespectable

From the sound of it you are talking about 3 'normal' size bags of crisps too. For 6 people!

This. OP is deliberately not willing to admit ANY part of this though. “Large bowl” is it hard to specify? Clearly it was small bags of crisps!!

Yes, I'd just have made more food to start with if I were you. It sounds like you under catered.

Yep agree with @Sparklfairy, they never think "i'm so hungry, better load up on salad", it's always the big-ticket items that are swiped and scoffed before anyone else can get a look in

Actually if your husband had only taken his exact share of food, there would only be 1.5 chicken breasts and 1.5 pittas left for seconds for the rest of the people. They would have probably felt embarrassed going back for seconds, knowing the food was pretty much gone.

It doesn't sound much of a bbq though it was....

Pretty paltry poultry

You definitely under catered for five adults OP. That sounds like someone who is calorie counting: chicken breast, pita and salad. I wont' eat any lunch if I'm going to a BBQ in the evening as I won't want to spoil my appetite.

When my family cater for guests, we always make sure that there will be enough left for lunch the next day plus whatever the guests want to eat. There will usually be: kebabs, burgers, sausages, chicken, salad, cheese, rolls and maybe cheesecake.

If I was given the equivalent (I'm vegan) of a piece of chicken and some pita, I'd be starving as I won't have eaten since breakfast and that wouldn't be enough. It also sounds as though those packets of crisps were the small size not family size. Two massive sharing packs of crisps is beyond belief to grab and scoff, a couple of handfuls, which is what it sounds like, isn't.

There wasn't enough food.

1.5 pita, 1.5 chicken breast and salad isn’t enough for a lot of people, if someone served me half a pita I wouldn’t be impressed, if a guest went to get a second pita would you have made them cut it in half?

However, even though there wasn’t enough food your husband still should have made sure guests had a chance of seconds first. Now you have clarified the portions your husband had far less on his plate than I would usually eat for dinner (I’m not overweight).

Just for context, I'm a slim woman who exercises a lot and eats fairly average size portions (not as much as my DH who exercises masses and is super skinny).

At a social event lasting a few hours (e.g. all afternoon) I would quite easily eat two pitta breads with my salad, and wouldn't consider that to be anywhere near excessive. If there were any men there, I'd expect them to want a reasonable amount more than that.

He did eat a lot, but your estimates of what portion sizes would be sufficient were just way out. Do you normally give out tiny portions at mealtimes? I HATE it when I visit people and they do that to me. I manage my weight okay eating my preferred portion sizes, and it isn't nice to be starved on someone else's idea of how much I 'should' eat.

Actually if your husband had only taken his exact share of food, there would only be 1.5 chicken breasts and 1.5 pittas left for seconds for the rest of the people. They would have probably felt embarrassed going back for seconds, knowing the food was pretty much gone.

Exactly, people would have gone hungry regardless.

Basically OP - YANBU to want him to address his overeating if this is a regular pattern, and you need to communicate with him about that. (Regardless of how embarrassed he might be).

But YABVU to blame the lack of food at the BBQ on him, as there was insufficient to start with. Even if he'd stuck to the miserly 1.5 chicken breasts he was 'allowed', there would only have been a few slices of chicken breast for all 6 attendees to have seconds.

Yeah so you undercatered

1.5 pittas is not enough!

Most men i know would eat 2 or 3 if theres no other carb.
Id probabably have 2 in that situation.

Why don't you want to hurt just feelings when he was so rude ?

Take the amount of food the greedy fucker had and frame it as his rudeness to guests

Also you say he left 8 crisps, pitta bread and some chicken, thats almost a whole portion of food. I cant see how there would have been much left for seconds regardless.

Yeah you under catered and I don’t think you can call three bags of crisps a “large bowl of crisps” for six people.

Sure he ate more than his fair share but a couple of chicken breasts and three small pitas is not the avalanche of food you described and which got him so roundly abused..

He only ate one more chicken breast and one more pita than he was allowed. Two chicken breasts and three small pitas is not greedy bastard territory. If it is colour me greedy.

Is it a financial issue? Because if it is you’d be better not inviting people for lunch, but if it’s not you need to get your portion sizes sorted. I can’t imagine allocating someone one and a half small pitta breads each and one and a half chicken breasts and telling them to fill up on salad and crisps.

Then shaming my husband because he apparantly ate two of the three small bags of crisps you’d provided and had the temerity to eat two chicken breasts.

Take the amount of food the greedy fucker had and frame it as his rudeness to guests

Yeah because two chicken breasts and three small pittas is proper fat bastard territory. 🙄

God, 8 crisps left. When you're literally doing portion control on the crisps, it's time to reconsider your hosting skills.
Who counts the crisps?

So if he'd have eaten what was expected , there would've been 1 chicken breast plus the two slices, 2 pittas and however many crisps.

And that would be enough for everyone else (4grownups and a child) to have seconds? Really?

Is this how you normally cater?

Op, when you allocated everyone one and a half small pittas each, how did you manage that, did you half them? So they could only take their allocated amount? And half the chicken breasts?

they never think "i'm so hungry, better load up on salad",

Because I don't particularly like salad,and it doesn't actually make me feel full.

I would've eaten some type of potatoes with everything OP's husband had too. But then again, I do admit I'm a fat ,greedy bastard.

So if he'd have eaten what was expected , there would've been 1 chicken breast plus the two slices, 2 pittas and however many crisps

About one and a half small bags to share between the six of them.

It’s mind boggling. The poor bastard is being roundly shamed for eating two chicken breasts and three small pittas.

And who counts the crisps.

Everyone's thinking that they wouldn't want to come to yours for dinner OP! Your guests are probably too polite to say (and from what you say of your DM and SIL it might be that some of them go in for competitive undereating at group meals), but at least one of them will have eyed up what was there and been disappointed even before your DH ate his plateful.

Take it as a lesson learnt, and cater double next time. Anything left over goes in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch.

Actually if your husband had only taken his exact share of food, there would only be 1.5 chicken breasts and 1.5 pittas left for seconds for the rest of the people. They would have probably felt embarrassed going back for seconds, knowing the food was pretty much gone.

THIS!

Of course it’s enough. It’s an informal family thing. Do people really want more than 1.5 chicken breasts for their lunch? It’s polite to take a smaller amount and leave enough for everyone to have a bit more if they wish. That’s the issue here, not the amount of food. Over catering leads to food waste and we don’t want that now do we. A leftover rice salad that’s been sitting outside is going straight in the bin.

No, over-catering leads to leftovers in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch. It does not mean that food gets wasted.

For a family gathering of 6 people I would typically do both a veggie and carnivore protein option (so chicken, plus an alternative), and make enough so that people could have a large portion of either, whether they were veggie or not (meat eaters shouldn't feel obliged to eat the meat option). Plus pasta salad and pretty much unlimited pitta, rolls, green salad, crisps, crudites and dips.

I would consider that normal, and nothing would need to go to waste, whatever people ate.

Of course it’s enough. It’s an informal family thing.
That has no bearing on how much people want to eat at a buffet or bbq, why should it? It clearly wasn't enough for one of the hosts!