Don't smiley face me, pal. I've been playing the beta since the 23rd of March and been following it (lightly, I might add) since 2012, so don't tell me what I don't understand.
What I'm saying is that this game was released as a "here you go" kind of game. It wasn't even meant to come out. It was released solely for the purpose of showing the people who funded what to expect combat-wise when Sui Generis comes out. Exanima is just a vehicle for showing development for Sui Generis without using boring blogs and hands-off videos.
The game is intended to be played a number of ways. The primary way it is played is hacking your way through enemies and enjoying the detail of it all. Exanima is a combat demo, while Sui Generis is going to be an immersive RPG featuring everything from Exanima and more. If you're sitting here trying to tell me that Exanima is supposed to be played passively, where you just walk around in the dark with a torch running away from the enemy, I will tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about and you should just stop playing.
I play cautiously when I play Exanima. It is definitely not the game to be running around at full speed if you're not seasoned or you're not good at fighting. You take it one step at a time. But to completely avoid combat and try to tell me that it's "intended to be played" like that? You're crazy.
There are no other ways to avoid combat other than running away from or avoiding the enemy all together. You can't yield, you can't negotiate, you can't even incapacitate.
We are getting completely off topic here.
To recap: food as a healing object is a no-go.