I read something last week while researching patch notes that claimed during the era, eating helped replenish hit points more quickly, so I jumped on Test to try it out.
First I made sure my character was extremely hungry, and then I cast fireball twice, measuring the time and damage to get an approximate rate back to full hit points.
Then I repeated the same test after eating one fish steak each time before casting, and the result was that eating sped up hit point regeneration by about 2 seconds per hit point for each level of hunger that was alleviated.
Eating also replenishes stamina, so carrying fish steaks is not a complete waste of time!
Eating helps regenerate hit points
Re: Eating helps regenerate hit points
Derrick patched this in several months back but forget when exactly. 
