Make people need to eat and drink once in a while to have proper stamina regen

[Frank_Stein]

maybe not to ensure that you'll have proper stamina regen, why not just have it serve to enhance it

Yeah, I don't think this line of thinking is bad

Keep the regen at 100% as the baseline. Give each food a regen bonus percent per bite. Cap regen at a point, say 300% and give it a steady degrade down back down to 100%

Shitty snacks can add like 2% per bite
More involved foods that the chef makes can add 10-50% per bite