There is a big difference between mistakenly eating someone else's lunch and being a thief. It's conceivable that someone could have a visually identical conta

There is a big difference between mistakenly eating someone else's lunch and being a thief. It's conceivable that someone could have a visually identical container (brown paper bag) and a visually identical lunch (sandwich and apple), in which case yes - that would be a mistake. I'd bet that that is the case for much less than 5% of the lunches misappropriated. Calling deliberate theft a "mistake" is fundamentally dishonest - it pollutes the meaning of the word mistake.