Jonty's strange eating habits!

Jonty goes to his bowl with the dried food in it, appears to be eating but - wait a moment, where's he going?
Off he goes with a mouthful of food, drops it onto the carpet on the landing, and then eats it! Why! 
Some bits are left of course so that if anyone walks along barefoot they stand on it, or he uses my rug late at night and I stand on the dried balls of food when I get up in the middle of the night.
Never figured out why he does that, why not just eat it out of the bowl?