So I was thinking what if food just gave you a well-fed bonus that was +1 to ability checks or +1 to skill checks. The quality of the food would determine how long the bonus lasts and when you'd need to eat again. No more hp restoration from eating. It makes sense that you'd think clearer and be stronger on a full stomach. It wouldn't be as game breaking as food restoring hp, still keeps food useful, and wouldn't be as intensive as incorporating food into the rest system. If they did try to attach food to resting, I'd imagine food would have different values, like +1 for a apple, +5 for a steak, and you would need X amount of food value to have a short rest or a long rest. Which would be cool and immersive as well. Downsides would be with food being finite in the world, you could potentially lose the ability to rest and it could be annoying being forced to track down potatoes. Not everyone wants a super immersive experience. Another option could be like a picnic table in your camp you keep stocked. If you go to sleep and there wasn't X amount of food value on the table you wake up with a fatigued penalty that would be like -1 to skill checks. A potentially less annoying consequence for not having food. Could even have stricter penalties if you use exhaustion from 5e rules
I'd personally go with the option of food just giving you a bonus, keeps things simple. Maybe too powerful skewing the dice in your favor, but you can choose to not eat food, same as not save scumming. Don't really have a choice if you attach it to resting. Open to hear other people's opinions
Looking at the types of food we currently have I think there may be a cooking option at some point. It is possible that cooked meals may do something like what you have mentioned but I would prefer this to have only slight buffs, maybe a +1 to one stat which would depend on the meal eaten. I do not think food should heal at all and it should also be necessary to eat each day, maybe our characters could give hints about this like they do now about resting. There should also be exhaustion effects. I do not want any effects from basic things like potatoes, it should only be from meals.
