If Gabe Newell would quit spending the Ep3 budget on the snack bar, Ep3 would have came out sooner...
This is what's going on:
Gabe newell is so devoted to having Ep3 be perfect that he wants to program it all by himself.
However, during his time programming he cannot eat, and goes into a trance while his metabolism slows to a crawl.
Due to the time it takes to program an entire game by yourself, Gabe must load up on fat and proteins for his programming hibernation.