I'd venture to guess that if the food was not destroyed, it ended up on another flight...

I have issues with this. The FAs preboard at like T-40 or so. It is their responsibility to make sure that everything is ok before the passengers board. If there was an issue like that they could have caught it early and have it fixed with no delays to the passengers

But, of course, that meant that they would work and not chit-chat...