They are giving feedback which is good, but it may not have been written in the perfect way nor are my pieces.
Food maintenance is quite a task at the start yes. Rats and earthcrawlers luckily have particles that regen some of your health and mana when you kill them making food not needed for the first few levels (I haven't tried mage yet) and rats drop plenty of food. After rats it becomes harder yes and I mainly use potions then and just eat what I loot (wasn't till level 13 or 14 that I started buying food).
I have no experience with cooking since I only cooked when I had to do it for quests, but it seems pretty useless less. Glad to see that it will change, although it probably doesn't and should have high priority. Cooking will only add real value if it provides perks other than increased regeneration I think. Having something with for example 50 Vitoa A and B which beats every kind of food just equals 2 potions (especially since it replaces the food you would use otherwise), but is much harder to obtain.