I know that sims will waste a lot of time if you don't have a queue set up for them so I generally have at least 3 items in line. when they are so starved they can just barely make it to the fridge I thought it would be safe to expect them to eat food right in front of their faces but they just don't seem to grasp the concept of putting something into an empty stomach so that it is no longer empty.
When I destroy the entire queue and click on the plate they will generally eat it.
I should explain that efficiency is really important to me (my shrink doesn't agree however -JK) and it drives me crazy when everything has to be put on hold so an ID10T does not starve. You have to stop whatever they are doing and go back to square one because the
RED bar has to be fixed before they can do any other thing.
Some programmer put it into the game that a starving sim will not eat food. talk about shrinks eh!