i do not agree with WesW changes in food constants (see const.txt). I think they are balanced (12 food per pop in central position). Remember that everybody is complaining about how easy it is to reach big cities. If you lower that value to 6 food per pop, you just make the problem bigger.

I suggest to live the values for food just as they are, and instead make the presentation clearer; for this, look at the file named ldl_str.txt, located in the /english/gamedata directory. Almost at the end of the file, you will find the labels for the food sliders; just correct them to show the real values.