it wouldn't be very hard to make food a part of everyday play, by insituting either a hunger penalty or a fed bonus (smallish in either case) which would encourage people to buy a little food and nibble at it at regular intervals.

It doesn't make a great deal of intuitive sense that the only people who are interested in food are the recently fallen.

Normally, it's the living that are interested in food, and the dead that are not...