There is an ambiguity in this country when it comes to food. On the one hand, the models in the advertisements and the fashion magazines are telling us that you can never be too thin. On the other hand we read that we are the most overweight nation in the world. Articles on obesity in children abound and recently the mayor of Philadelphia embarked on an educational campaign after hearing that his city had the most overweight people in the country. Diet books are proliferating. We bring up this issue because last week we attended two luncheons. They were both elegant affairs, one at a country club and one at a fine restaurant. At both, in our opinion, the guests were served too much food. We saw plate after plate returned to the kitchen with nearly half the food uneaten. Some people asked to take the extra food home but a great deal was discarded. It is unconscionable that in a world where people are starving, food is wasted on a grand scale. At the luncheon the restaurant guests were served salmon steaks that could have fed three people easily. How to deal with this is a puzzle. If restaurants scaled back the quantity of food they serve, diners would probably expect a price reduction and it's the labor that is the greatest cost in meal production. This editorial offers no solution to the problem but we do think that it is a problem. We'd love to hear from our readers on the subject.

E.F.B.