This was the conclusion of police in Frankfurt who discovered a bite-size chunk missing from a meatball after a night-time raid on a sandwich shop.
Forensic scientists ran a DNA test on saliva traces recovered from the meatball and pinpointed the culprit - "an old friend", as one officer put it.
Police did not have to spend long hunting down the 43-year-old suspect after the theft in January, because he was already in prison for burglary.
It is not the first time hunger has got the better of a light-fingered villain.
Last year a Scottish burglar was undone by a custard slice he had found too tempting, prompting predictable jokes about being taken into "custardy" and not being able to have your cake and eat it.
Its people like this that remind me just how clever I am
