Originally Posted By: Jsunshine
Be careful when harvesting... Your food is taken from the resource as soon as your person leaves the resource, unlike in previous games when it was deducted when the food was placed in the food bin... Just a warning!
I believe the food is also added to the bin the moment they leave the tree, as well; you can't 'lose' food if the villager doesn't make it.

This is more of a blessing than a curse, as you can manually speed up harvesting by bringing them back to harvest before they make it to the bin. I can't think of any real down sides. The honey works the opposite way - food is both deducted, and added to your bin, when they finish putting it in the bin.