How did Jesus feed the crowds?

There are multiple stories in the Gospels about Jesus feeding crowds.  He fed the 5,000 in Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6.  He fed the 4,000 in Matthew 15 and Mark 8.  We look at these feedings as a miracle, which they certainly are.  However, I'd like to look at these stories in a slightly different light.

For backstory: in the story of the 5,000, Jesus wants to feed the crowd.  The disciples are trying to figure out how to purchase enough bread for everyone.  Jesus asks them how much bread they have, and they have five loaves and two fish (in John, these come from a boy).  In the story of the 4,000, Jesus expresses concern for the crowd as they have been following him for 3 days and have nothing to eat, and he doesn't want to send them away hungry.  The disciples have 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish.

Here's how the four passages describe the ensuing events for the 5,000:

Matthew 14:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

Mark 6:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.

Luke 9:
And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces. 

John 6:
 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.

And for the 4,000:

Matthew 15:
he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

Mark 8:
he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

Turning 5 loaves of bread into enough to feed 5,000 people and turning 7 loaves into enough to feed 4,000 people is indeed miraculous.  What always interests me is the mechanism of it.  Did the bread regrow every time he pulled off a piece?  Did he finish one loaf and another one suddenly appeared in the basket?  Did the broken pieces grow into full loaves themselves?  After the meal, they gathered up the remains and they were more than they began with.  What happened to the pieces that remained?  Why didn't they keep growing?  Nothing in the above passages gives any indication as to that.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he breaks the bread and fish and gives them to the disciples to give to the crowd. That's the extent of the explanation.  Nowhere is the regeneration of bread actually described. 

When Jesus goes into new cities or sees new crowds, he heals their sick and drives out demons.  He tells his disciples to do the same thing.  The gospels don't appear to say he goes to feed their hungry. As far as I can tell outside of these two stories, there is not another example in the Gospels of Jesus feeding anyone (at least not physically).  I would think the miracle of self-reproducing food would be just as useful of a tool as miraculous cures in Jesus ministry, yet that's not a regular occurrence.  That leads me to believe that there is something different with this miracle of feeding of the crowds.

Thus, I like to imagine these stories a little differently.  There were people of all walks of life following Jesus.  I'd imagine some of the wealthier followers probably still had enough food to keep them going or at least had the money to buy more food.  In Mark 6, he orders the crowd to sit in groups of hundreds and of fifties.  In Luke 9, he asks them to sit down in groups of about fifty.  Maybe he did that as an opportunity to turn the mass crowds into small enough groups to become personal.  Now imagine if this crowd watches the man they are following offer all the food he has to them, even if the amount of the food was laughably small.

When watching their leader offer all of what he had to try to feed the crowd, think of what the followers that still had food or had money for food may have been thinking.  What if they used that example to give their food freely to the others in their groups? What if they used their money buy food to bring back to share?  Imagine how every group could have people so generous that they not only fed their entire group, but offered so much that there was food left over.

What if this was a lesson of feeding the hungry and taking care of the poor?  What if the actual miracle was Jesus' followers following his example?

Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food