It can be a slighly touchy subject on the DIS, how much food folks take from the lounge. As in, some folks get upset if the CL lounge ran out of the their favorite dish- while sitting beside them is a family with ten helpings of said item. (especially if family #2 doesn't eat all of said item.) It alos matters if youa re a big eater or a small eater, and how picky of an eater you are. One day you may not like any of the options, another day the lounge could be empty and the offerings fantastic.
Taking advantage of CL, means for us, a pretty big shift in how we tour. In short, to get food from the lounge, you have to BE in the lounge, and more specifically in the lounge during SPECIFIC hours. That sounds very simple, but for me personally, it's a dramatic shift. Non-CL, we tend to go all day in the parks.
If you are goiing to be hanging at the Poly those days, then you most certainly can get breakfast, afternoon snacks, beverages, appetizers, and desserts. You are also allowed, by the way, to stow food in your fridge. Cold dumplings may not be your thing, but an apple or mini-cheesecake will keep just fine. Remember also that you are allowed to arrive as early as 7am, and re-enter the lounge until 10pm the day you check out - so it can bea considerably helpful supplement on arrival and departure days.
Keep in mind that the appetizers are often something like greasy fried dumplings and cheese. Pretty rich foods. I can eat a few, but too many and I start to feel ill. Same thing goes for some of the afternoon snacks- like gummy bears. You can't really make a 'lunch' of gummy bears, kettle style potato chips, and goldfish crackers. You can almost always get an apple from the lounge, but it's just a basic apple. So how much you can use the lounge to replace other meals is a bit variable. That may be especially true if you have kids.
Then again, some days at WDW, I'm happy to have an ice cream for lunch. For me, some days I'll be happpy eating mostly form the lounge, other days I need two 'real' meals. Almost always breakfast in the lounge is plenty, most our beverages (they have soft drinks in cans, coffee, teas, and paper cups), many/most snacks/desserts but we need at least ONE good, full meal outside the lounge- and one meal supplement( half a QS entree, a cup of soup, yogurt, etc.)
miracle latte machine. 
. Question for you all... How much do you tip the turn down service as well as if you are in the parks all day and want to leave something for turn down and daily mousekeeping how do you differentiate? Envelope system??? TIA we are surprising our DDs with CL so we are soooooo excited
My hubby can just look at me crazy when I take pics of food 
