I actually lean towards food being a pre-buff, not a quick fix. If you know you are going to be running to Oja, then you eat a good meal, thereby slowing your stamina drain for the next hour. Water could be a quick fix on the road, increasing the restore rate. Nothing should give you instant stamina back.
However, for this to work, the current stamina gain would have to be reduced. Would this be much of a problem? I don't think it would. For one thing, it would give cooks an actual purpose. For another, a meal could last a few hours. Third, you would never actually -have- to eat, as it is only a buff.
Another use for food I would like to see is training buffs. depending on the type of food you eat, the faster you could learn certain skills. High energy (sugars) foods would give you a fast boost for learning how to do fighting skills, or intelligece related skills (ask college folks about this), but would wear off rather fast. Good solid protein (meats and such) foods would give you long lasting, but slower training buffs, and would increase physical growth.
Again, you would never actually -have- to eat, but it would add an iteresting aspect to training and stamina in the way of buffs, and finding out what foods do the best for what tasks. Being a good cook would become quite profitable. By the way, Beer + running.... now that is an anti-buff.
