Potions are better, but vegetable stew and beef stew are worth having a few on you for the stamina buff. Since they give you a constant stream of stamina that gets around the 'if you are at 0 stamima you have to wait before it starts to regen' they allow you to power attack constantly, and sprint a lot more as well.
I guess I should look into that, as I have a giant pile of untouched edibles. I was looking at my stats the other day:
Days passed: 220
Days as a werewolf: 215 (odd, didn't think I did that so quickly--and I've only changed into werewolf once)
Hours slept: 22
Hours spent waiting: 200something. (rofl at those 2 numbers)
Food consumed: 8 lbs (don't remember how this is calculated, but I know I haven't eaten anything since ~those first days, heh)
The big difference is that early game, I pretty much walked everywhere, then realized I could take that cart to a new hold that I haven't explored (I avoided this, as I preferred that they open up as I approached--but places like Winterhold and Dawnstar were just too freaking far at the time)
So, much more fast travel from place to place and hours sat spent waiting for the proper time as I got further along.