Yeah. No. The more I think about food spoiling, the more I think it is contrary to Larian's plan to make food limit long rest.
If I have 300 camp supplies between the beach and the grove, and I know that 150 of that will spoil in 2 day, 75 will spoil in 4 days and 75 in 6 days, even if short rest cost camping supplies, I'd just use the heck out of the food. In other words, instead of discouraging me from long rest, I'd use it more because I'd think, "Well, don't want to waste all that food I found. Best rest a lot cause it's just gonna go bad anyway.". Defeats the purpose.
If Larian is going to continue with food limiting Long Rest, and they aren't going to use Hit Dice to govern Short, I then think the best solution is to make Short Rest cost camping supplies and increase the long rest cost.
Short Rest = 5 camp supplies per character in party. So about 20-30 (if they eventually allow party of 6). Then lift the 2 Short rest limit. With camp supplies costing 20-30 a pop, out of 300, that's like 10ish short rests by the time you reach the Grove if you don't long rest once. If you can just use short rest and make it, yay you.
Long Rest = 10 per character at camp. So 60 with MC and origins or 90 with party of 4 and origins. That means if you don't short rest, you could get 3-5 long rests in between the beach and the grove.
What's that really look like? Most people would probably Short Rest 2-4 times between the beach and the grove for maybe 80 camping supplies and long rest 1-2 times for roughly 120, leaving about 100 camping supplies by the time they get to the grove and could buy more if needed.
This creates some limit while allowing players to play the way they like without too much restraint. Want to short rest more because you're a Warlock? You can do so more than 2 times a day. Your class is better with this system and really benefits from using short rest more. Playing a wizard and want to long rest more? 205 long rests by the time you reach the Grove should be more than enough.
