I'm looking for information as well. In an attempt to maximize Craftsmanship, I recently started serious research on the subject of food effects, and i have to admit I feel a bit sorry for not doing it earlier. Here's some stuff to examine:

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?foru...158455763&h=50
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...thkey=CNDhlbAB

Thanks to the respective authors.

When it comes to FFXIV, i try to keep a cool head as much as possible, but I have to admit this whole matter makes me frown a bit.
First, I always thought the "divine", "disagreeable", etc... messages were based on things such as discipline or race (probably out of XI veterancy, I know, baaad...) and it appears that I wasn't completely wrong, but I was shocked to see that food types had favored stats, with what i have to call an odd formula involving, for each type, one "base" stat and one "elemental" stat to receive maximum bonus (oh, so these messages were actually different bonus levels heh?).
I'm sad to discover that I have been using food the wrong way for a whole year (since I never got any particular message at all, just thought my char didn't really like anything ), but I'm fine with admitting that I maybe should have paid more attention. But, since I never got any message it didn't occur to me there could be different effects with the same food.
I can't shake the feeling it's overly complicated. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some mystery, superstition and untold game mechanics the community has to figure out (that's what made me love XI), and I'm even fine with the idea of adding some depth to the foodbuff system, but this feels nowhere near convenient, nor logical. I was discussing this with a friend who asked me "But then, I can either love or hate a food item just by changing class?" Yes, it looks that way...

Second, the problem I have now is even though I understand (a bit late) how it all works, the stats we have now seem to have been greatly altered in recent patches, and that's only numerically-speaking. Simple example: the big numbers I see as a Level 50 whatever don't compare at all to the required ones for say, high-level food I see on the chart I gave earlier. I'm just wondering how it all works now, and simply IF it still does. I can't seem to find recent information on the subject, and yes, that scares me a bit. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.