The villagers eat automatically without having to go to the food bin. You don't have to tell them to eat and if you see them eating at the food bin, you can pick them up and put them back on task.

It depends on the player for pausing. I like to pause.

You should focus on tech points by putting all available adults on Research so that you can get Level 2 Nature which helps you get an unlimited food supply. Hunting mushrooms constantly helps a lot to prevent starvation. You can pause, drop a kid on a mushroom, unpause, drop another kid, pause and repeat to get more mushrooms. Don't forget the Chief makes magic food once every 24 hours real time. Also, read LadyCFII's post:
http://www.ldwforums.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/149712/page/1#Post149712