Everyone seems to be hating this food system, but I will give you my honest feedback.
Me and the husband started a game from scratch just like you recommended.
It's just us two VS the world.
For Context on how far we are - We just started going into the swamp.

The Good
I have to plan what I eat depending on where I go or what kind of weapons I use.
The timer on the food is a massive help. It lets us decide better on when to eat the next meal instead of wasting food.
I appreciate that the health/stamina slowly ticks down - and isn't just a sudden drop off when your food buff is gone. However, I do think it should start going down at half-time or when the image starts to -blink-, not when my character still feels full.
The multiple new food items makes cooking far more fun.
I love the new cooking stations and now I can set the table with food? I LOVE that.


The Bad
I have only found 1 food item that gives a stamina buff. Queens Jam.
As someone who is trying a dagger/stealth build, I need Stamina. I am constantly running out of stamina from just swinging my dagger and dodge rolling. I often get killed quickly because I must choose to either take a hit, swing my dagger, or run away.

My husband wanted to use two handed weapons, but since we can only make meals with large HP boost - he has gone tank with a shield. However, he runs out of stamina quickly from blocking/swinging. Eventually leading him to get hit to much and killed.

We got a bit of Iron and I was able to make an iron cooking rack. We thought this would provide more stamina items... but it didn't.


The Ugly
I think the issue lies in that the food items simple do not give enough Heath and Stamina on a base level. Especially Stamina. Something required to do absolutely anything in this game.
Wood Cutting/Mining/Running/Exploring/Swinging/Blocking
/Dodging/Hoe/Cultivator/Building/Repairing/Etc.
Absolutely everything you do in this game requires stamina and after this update, my character is always exhausted. So much of my time is now spent waiting for my stamina to recover instead of playing the game.

On the subject of cultivating. Farming is a bit of a nightmare.
Planting carrot seeds and only getting 1 carrot is understandable. It makes sense in a real world situation, but game-mechanic wise - especially when you have more foods that need more vegetables - it becomes a time consuming mess.
Not to mention if your feeding up to 10 people.
Farming needs to feel rewarding. Taking the time to make a cultivator, create some farmland, plant a good 10-20 seeds and waiting several in game days should feel rewarding.
If I plant 10 seeds and got back 30 carrots [3 per seed] I would be thrilled. That makes cooking far more easy, and I can set 10 carrots to the side to get 30 seeds back, and continue growing.
Tamed animals should be the same. If I have taken the time to capture an animal, use resources taming them, take time breeding them, I should feed rewarded.
Boars you have tamed only dropping 1 meat [or just leather if unlucky] makes taming creatures simple not worth the time or effort.
Yes you can tame 2 star Boars, but it comes back to the question of - is it worth it?

This all ties back to the new food system. Which makes you need more of everything for meals that do not feel like they provide you with enough HP or Stamina.


My Final Thoughts.
I think the stats of all food should be changed to give more stamina.
Add more meals that give huge stamina boost.
You could add Mead and Wines to the Fermenter that are not potions, but instead drinks that give large stamina boost. Or add in Coffee Beans and let people brew their own coffee for a massive stamina boost.

The meals that take more time, more work to prepare need to give more HP as well. Such as the meals you can cook in a cauldron.
You don't want to make this game to difficult, you want everything to feel rewarding. You want to feel like you've EARNED this and it feels good.
I want to know that 3 days of waiting on my farm to give me carrots and turnips is going to be worth the wait.

I think the food timers should also be increased. I don't know about other players, but when me and my husband go dungeon diving, we tend to be gone a good hour or more.
I think cauldron cooked meal timers should be doubled. Let 30 minute meals last an hour.
This will free up a lot of players inventory as well. You could eat up all the food at the base and run out to adventure without needing to carry extra food.

Not gonna lie, an item that increased my bag space would be heaven.

I want to thank you all for the time to read this, and I hope my ideas are good. I want to see ideas that others have besides my own so feel free to comment.
Let's try to keep it civil and not lash out at these game creators.
They have an excellent concept laid out before us, it just needs a bit of adjustments to work like they envisioned it.

Adding a Note |
My husband noticed a massive issue with cooking.
Take a look at the ingredients VS the food you cook.

Deer Stew gives 40 Health and 13 Stamina.
If you ate the 3 ingredients instead of cooking them [Carrot, Blueberry, Deer Meat] you would get 53 Health and 69 Stamina.

That's an insane imbalance. I could understand maybe the cooked food gives only 50 health and 60 stamina. But to reduce the stamina it gives you by 90% is insane.

And that's all the cooked food. Look through the list. I didn't realize how bad it was until he pointed it out.