Villagers 'eat' every six minutes, automatically subtracting food from the total. They seem to eat 2-4 food per 'meal', for an average of 30 food per real-time hour, at normal speed. The trees regenerate 111 food every three hours, and the hive regenerates 2 food per hour.

One will occasionally walk over to the food bin and eat, too.

One way to ensure plenty of food is NOT TO PROCREATE! Why are you having more kids in that food situation? Ten is sustainable until you can get a grove going, but less is better, and I would aim for a sustained population of closer to seven or eight until I have more food.