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I'd suggest looking at it the other way around - you want to create a working economy system, therefore you want food to serve a purpose so that it becomes a valuable resource within that economy.
That doesn't add anything to the gameplay though - it just gives players additional upkeep (and money-drain) to worry about. It also doesn't give any incentive to the crafters to make anything other than the cheapest foodstuff possible, so even from an economic point of view all you're really gaining is one extra resource, and at the expense of annoying the playerbase.
If you want to introduce something like food then why not have it add something useful for the players? You could still leave it as optional (assume 'normal' eating is done in downtime), but allow crafters to create a range of edible products each with different bonuses and drawbacks. This would then create a demand for a range of different food types, and because it would be optional (and have drawbacks as well as bonuses) it wouldn't bother players who weren't interested in eating.
Whether or not a mud is "childish" or "serious grown up" has nothing to do with whether or not the numbers are displayed - and the value of such information really depends on the sort of mud you're developing and the style of gameplay you're trying to promote. Revealing numbers rewards player intelligence and encourages strategic thinking, while concealing those numbers discourages such activity. If you're trying to design a game where combat is discouraged and playing skill is more associated with the character than the player, then hiding such information from the player may be useful, but it won't make your mud any more 'grown up' - any more than making someone play a chess game in which they couldn't see which piece was which.
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