Oops! Posted too slow. Repeated a lot of what was posted above.

Play the game on Easy under Options.

You can still play without food for a while. Just keep moving your "worried" villagers back to the research table. Search for mushrooms all over & have the children pick them while you wait for the fruit trees to ripen.

*SPOILERS*




Make a health potion using Lotus-Lotus-Cactus or Cactus 3x to feed the villagers to get their health back up while you wait for food.

If you're low on food, go for the Nature faction when you have enough Tech points and after you get level 2 Nature, you'll be able to *SPOILERS*



make a potion to chase away the sharks so you can fish.