We're in the ideas forum here, and the topic at hand is "Making food more useful"
So: don't focus on hunger, time, whatever, but bring out some ideas guys!
I'll try one: use mushrooms in future potions (Lodar?), apples and pears in brews to create cider (with intoxicated actor condition when you drink too much of it)
Still playing this game at level 5, collected all extraordinaries, now some precious ring would be useful...
Believe the " hunger " and " time " part was mentioned in the OP, however your idea falls in the lines of crafting ...
+1 though, I am a fan of that sort of thing too, and woul add more purpose to our food...
Anyways, enjoy the forums guys....