Players who engage in exploration and combat only will still be able to progress in the game. But Players in their 3rd playthrough who just want to try a different party and roleplay a different character, to see how the story changes, or generally players who want to focus on roleplay and combat, will be forced to engage in the food search. If Larian keeps their over-abundant containers, it will be harder to memorise where the food items are (in the same way that people may remember where the essential magic items are, and bypass the trash container-searching on later playthroughs).
Don't know if this was already mentioned but you can purchase food from vendors, at least what I remember off the top of my head. Haven't sat down and continued passed the beach yet for this patch.
