Food: Agree but I'd still use it regardless. Just out of habit for me.

Crafting for you: this doesn't preclude you from making items. The tactic behind this is to level everything quickly. If you don't want the grind and/or don't have money to waste on crafts IE NQing stuff routinely due to lack of cross class skills. I used this method to level every crafter to 50. Once I got there, I learned how to craft 1* items. You can make so many mistakes and still be fine. On another note, it is a good idea to craft various items of various levels. I say this because the more you understand your abilities the better you will be at crafting. Someone can post a rotation but I can assure you RNG will insert itself at the worse times. This is where your knowledge comes in; what abilities do you have and how much CP. What can you do to work around RNG. Sure you can reclaim but you risk losing your mats and if you want crafting to be interesting then challenge yourself to work around RNG.