Bad buffet behaviour is out of control. So should we be fined for our food waste? | Emma Beddington

I have unbridled lust when faced with a buffet - as do many others. But penalties for overfilling our plates are only one possible answer ...

Should you be penalised for having eyes bigger than your belly? A Cornish pub is trying it out: Mark Graham, the landlord of the Star Inn, now charges 2.40 a person for buffet excess leftovers". A few spuds is obviously no problem," Graham told a customer who complained, but said that buffet behaviour was out of control, citing a plate piled so high you could put a ladder and a flag on top of it".

I can believe it. I lose my mind faced with a buffet, although I usually clean my plate (gravely regretting my choices in the hours that follow). Are we our best selves as we take up tongs in the glow of the heating lamps? That depends which side of the chafing dish you are standing on. Our hunter-gatherer instincts are capable of making any food and beverage professional quake; call it Homo Harvester.