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I actually thought about this. If your health regenerated at a slower rate when active, then faster when you rested (but still slower then most MMOs) and when you eat/ drink it regenerated quickly. That might be more acceptable to some.
It's an option to consider.
I don't like the idea of forcing a buff/debuff mechanic on people if it would cause such a divide, but I think that it's resulting in a denial of the many merits of food as a resource and necessity (and the complexity it adds to the game.).
When at war, the option to burn crops, destroy food stores, disrupt supply lines suddenly becomes a very important thing.
I'd rather hunt the rabbit, skin it, and roast the meat over a fire. Keep a handful of salt in your kit. Everyone should have basic cooking skills. Forage up some wild garlic or onion. Uncover some volunteer potatoes in an abanoned farmyard. Roasting our game on a spit over a fire would surely bring an inquisative bugbear or two who smelled the roasting pheasent.
- It provides another form of input to the WEIGHT/INVENTORY MGMT game. That's an important aspect of play and of planning expiditions. The Designers have already stated that everything in the game (except coin) will have WEIGHT and characters will be limited in how much they can carry. They've also stated that weapons, armor and spells will ALL have some consumable components in order for the character to use them at peak efficiency and those components will all figure into your carried weight. Food/Drink will just be another type of input into that system which has game-play consequence.
- It's a character development game-play decision because it makes training in Survival or Cooking or learning spells to create Food and Water have some signifigance as a character development decision. Because that character can actualy reduce thier own (and thier parties) encumberances by not needing to pack as much food and therefore allowing more room for other gear. So instead of a training decision always being an obvious +1 to bonk with sword or magic blast variety #22. It's an actual more interesting game-play decision as in what to train in.
- It provides an interesting/important reason for characters to go visit INNS or spend a little downtime in camps, which can lead to greater human interaction.
- It makes the location of Inns somewhat important from a logistics standpoint.
- It also brings into gameplay (in the Mass Battles/Strategic perspective) the importance of food in Logistics in running extended millitary campaigns for players, and of course interdiction to counter those logistics. Again that'll already exist due to Weapon/Armor & Spell consumables being part of the mechanics of play. Food just adds another variety of item into that mix.
Basically I'm now looking for ways that food would be acceptable.
Also one of the arguments against food is that other things can serve its purpose better. I disagree - ; stuff like sharpening stones or armour repair kits only apply to specific people that use that equipment. Food would apply to everyone. Utility spells like summoning a bottle of water would have impact. In addition just having something that provides the purpose doesn't mean variety doesn't improve it. In this form potions wouldn't make food a pointless item. That's like saying "They have Goblins, guess there's no point in putting in Skeletons."
Rant over ^^.