I truly think the solution isn't food but to provide story consequences in the form of complications that discourage long rest spamming. You long rest too much and Lae'zel gets mad at you for taking too long to get to the githyanki patrol, thus you lose relationship points with her, or she outright leaves for a time and you don't see her again until you reach the githyanki patrol. Consequences for taking too long. Not permanent, you can't complete a mission, consequences, but something that makes spamming long rest a bit less desirable and that makes sense from a story perspective.
100% on this. Hopefully full-release difficulty settings will address this as well, maybe adding possible random encounters during rest for those who want them.
Your suggestion also address some of the lack of urgency you and others have pointed out. I'm less concerned with this, because once we know we aren't changing right away, and we've got some leeway, urgency feels reduced, but having companions getting frustrated, relationships worsening, leaving, if we get to laissez-faire definitely keeps some of that urgency present.
