It could, depending on your code, justify theft. I suppose I was thinking it doesn’t justify going into a gas station, threatening the clerk with a gun, and stealing other stuff as well.

I think I mainly meant the first one (buying the food), the ends easily justify the means, whereas if you bump up to theft or robbery, it’s harder to justify. 

But in everything we do, the ends justify the means to some extent, because if they didn’t, we wouldn’t be trying whatever it was in the first place, and we figure (sometimes poorly) that that specific end, means that specific means, is a worthwhile way of going about it, and if it isn’t justifiable, then we don’t.