Viral Influx

well insects would need to be added for there to be any use of this whole method.

What? A game mechanic that acts as an additional 'sink' to the food system, thefore providing players with another means to dispose of rotten foods instead of through eating or cooking them.
 
Why? Freedom of choice. All skills require time investments and not everyone is a cook/chef.  An additional method of removing non-usable food to free up local space, specifically around bases/homes and food spawning containers (fridges).
 
How?  Once rotten food is left sitting around (on ground and possibly other instances as well) for a server-prescribed amount of time, a couple scenarios could take place:
  1) Outside- rotten food on the ground can attract insects and/or fungi that will work to exhaust the remaining energy stores and then vanish.
  2) Indoors- can attract insects that will again consume the rotting food but can also have a potentially negative drawback: food spawning containers can attract the insects brought indoors originally by the spoiled food and become infested (if in close enough proximity). Once this happens, all newly spawned food in said containers will be tainted by the insects,causing a chance for harmful sickness if ingested by humans. Another consequence could be that infested fridges must be cleaned with bleach/disinfectant in order to rid them of the "infested" property.
 
Recap: In essence, this is a propsal to provide players/NPCs with an additional "space freeing" capability in regards to item management. The downsides would be the negative consequences of rotten food attracting insects/fungi that could possibly spread to fresh food, unbeknownst to the player/NPC.
 
Attached is a simple flow chart just for funsies, chiefly.

I had an idea similar to this a while back. It was a higher degree of simulation in food and the decay thereof, such that fresh food lasts a lot longer (particularly most unblemished fruits and vegetables) but any food that does spoil will quickly spoil all the other food in the container with it. Not only that, but it would attract all sorts of pests such as rats and insects looking to devour your food stocks.
 
Have a look: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/10796-one-bad-apple/\\
 
/shameless plug
 
But yeah, even without that it'd be nice if rotten food just rotted away to nothing after a while. It takes up too much space

this is actually really creative and an amazing idea. the decay idea has been suggested but the insects and infestation (from what i know) has not. +1

What? A game mechanic that acts as an additional 'sink' to the food system, thefore providing players with another means to dispose of rotten foods instead of through eating or cooking them.
 
Why? Freedom of choice. All skills require time investments and not everyone is a cook/chef.  An additional method of removing non-usable food to free up local space, specifically around bases/homes and food spawning containers (fridges).
 
How?  Once rotten food is left sitting around (on ground and possibly other instances as well) for a server-prescribed amount of time, a couple scenarios could take place:
  1) Outside- rotten food on the ground can attract insects and/or fungi that will work to exhaust the remaining energy stores and then vanish.
  2) Indoors- can attract insects that will again consume the rotting food but can also have a potentially negative drawback: food spawning containers can attract the insects brought indoors originally by the spoiled food and become infested (if in close enough proximity). Once this happens, all newly spawned food in said containers will be tainted by the insects,causing a chance for harmful sickness if ingested by humans. Another consequence could be that infested fridges must be cleaned with bleach/disinfectant in order to rid them of the "infested" property.
 
Recap: In essence, this is a propsal to provide players/NPCs with an additional "space freeing" capability in regards to item management. The downsides would be the negative consequences of rotten food attracting insects/fungi that could possibly spread to fresh food, unbeknownst to the player/NPC.
 
Attached is a simple flow chart just for funsies, chiefly.