From my understanding, food that is in a container in a room and food that is just in a room will degrade in 3 RL days if just left in the room. Food that is on a PC in a container or inventory will degrade in 3 RL days per when the PC is logged in, when logged out the timer stops. Food that is in an NPC inventory will not age at all. I hope this clears things up for you all.
Preservation Methods and Preservation Containers I think are going to be one of the first things you guys will see. For those of you that are in clans and need to store food for an IC event, I suggest getting with your clan staff, they can make a decision on that. If you're just looking to store it for no real reason, that's all on you.
Nothing has changed, yet, on how to gather food. A newb can still gather food however they would normally, and if they keep it in their inventory, it will last for them. Gameplay wise, a newb isn't going to have an apartment and storing large quantities of food, so this really shouldn't affect them.
The major change I see for this is long term storage of large amounts of food. Personally, I'm glad to see this come as it leads to a bit more realism and will have an affect on the gameplay of hunting and cooking, along with an affect on the economy. I see a lot of people keeping more food on their person. I'm not sure how I like that, but keeping a ton of food on yourself will just make it so you can't carry more, so that may just balance itself out. Now I love the prospective of the food seller/cook PC, this is much more viable now.
I love that you guys are giving constructive feedback on this, I love the positive and the negative. Thank you for this, I can promise you it is being read.