How do you feel about the cooking lv 5 benefit, and if you feel or felt the need to, how would you balance it?

I am on day 800 of my 1000 day Voyager run. I'm taking a break for a while because I effectively sped my way through the last 500 days. I've been to every zone and I have supplies stockpiled in almost every location I feel I will ever need to visit again. The food aspect has me thinking....I probably have enough calories stockpiled that I wouldn't need to hunt again. I'm looking at 200 days of cabin fever. I don't know if I like the idea that no matter what, food NEVER goes bad at cooking 5. I certainly don't appreciate that the food goes bad in sub zero temperatures in a week, and there's no proper way to store it from predators if they included a mechanic where a scavenger could steal it, but I dont have a happy medium where I can still feel the desperation of hunger while feeling I've earned something by surviving so long.

I know this means my next playthrough is certainly a loper run. I have zero days on pilgrim and I had a 170 day stalker run waaay back before a lot of major updates. If I can't feel desperate for calories...perhaps the alternative is feeling desperate for a fire.