I didn't even know food would heal you on my first playthrough, so I never used it. I also never used a healing spell, despite having a Cleric on the team. The EA has so much unavoidable damage from ground effects/thrown items/bad pathing that 7 health at the cost of a spell slot is pointless. You mitigate more damage than you heal by just killing the target faster using an offensive skill. I just watched a firebolt miss a character, but they took 4 points of damage from the ground, 3 points on the next turn, and 1 point of burning after stepping off it. Clerics are essentially useless right now, doubly so when the cleric companion has a bad stat spread. Food doesn't even matter anyway, because you'll have 20 potions in your inventory by level 4. I didn't even abuse the long rest system on my first run, because I though it would have story consequences, and I STILL had a dozen unused potions after clearly everything I could find. Having food on top of all that is insane, but you need it to counter all the unnecessary damage.
My solution: 1) Cut back on the unavoidable damage so we can reasonably make it through a few encounters without needing an insane amount of healing. Right now healing spells are useless even without all the food and potions anyway.
2) Leave food in the game, but limit it to 1 or 2 uses per long rest. This is more realistic, and it gives an incentive to still use the food. Maybe even give additional buffs to foods like an MMO.
3) Place some type of limitation on long rest so there is a reason to use healing items at all, and so points 1 and 2 are actually limiting. Doesn't have to be a hard limit, but maybe require a consumable like camping equipment.
4) Reduce the abundance of healing potions, or at least make them more difficult to obtain.
