taking home a crew meal or drink is not stealing my friend... We do it all the time and is normal. It is part of your overall salary package and is thrown away if not consumed and left in the aircraft.
Quite wrong. Anything you take out of the plane is stolen, no matter how worthless it may seem to be. Even if it's otherwise trash, including unused meals (unless you carry them inside your stomach).
Perhaps your airline doesn't mind, but I know of a case where somebody got fired for picking up the left-over chocolate bars from passengers' trays out of the galley.