Actually, I traded crappy loot for potions when checking merchants or selling stuff, etc, and managed to build up a supply much larger than I needed (had to stash some periodically at my base, to keep their weight down). At the start of the game I used meat / bread for healing and chicken for mana, in order to conserve health and mana potions. Eventually carrying extra food around was more trouble than it was worth, and restoration potions became more effective than health and mana potions.