The Pizza Dilemma

Homer Simpson: “I like pizza. I like bagels. I like hot dogs with mustard and beer. I’ll eat eggplant. I could even eat a baby deer. La la la la la la la la la la. Who’s that baby deer on the lawn“

As some C4 attendees are complaining on Twitter, ordering the right kinds of pizza for a group of people presents challenges. There are people who like meat. There are people who like veggies. Some of the meat eaters won’t eat veggie pizza. Some of the veggie eaters won’t eat meat pizza.

In this particular case there was apparently an abundance of veggie pizza and not enough meat. That’s unfortunate for some. On the flip side, I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I’ve eaten pizza in a group who has ordered all meat pizzas, except for one cheese, and everybody goes straight for the cheese… leaving a hungry vegetarian and a bunch of uneaten meat pizza. This has happened to me literally dozens of times in the past 10 years (mostly in college).

The solution to the pizza dilemma is obvious, yet people often get it wrong. Order fewer meat pizzas and fewer veggie pizzas, while adding a boat load of plain cheese pizza. Sure, cheese may not be the favorite of some meat eaters or some veggie eaters, but they will eat it. Some may argue they won’t… but those people are wrong.

So instead of running out of meat pizzas and having meat eaters go away hungry, or (as is more often the case) running out of veggie pizzas and having the veggie eaters go away hungry, everyone will be able to eat cheese when their favorites run out and nobody goes away hungry.