I need advice on something: Should I be attentive to my diet, or should i not really care? Its VERY annoying to keep trying to balance my stats through my diet, but I'm afraid that not being careful would make it too hard for me later on to increase my stats...
I've always been attentive to my diet, so I can't say from experience what the hazards of
not doing so are. The numbers work such that basically your highest stat is the number of FEP required to increase any one stat. So, efficiency and well-roundedness would demand a balanced diet.
Of course, if you have no use for one of these stats - why bother? The only real problem is that it's an alpha, so that may change at any time... But it's still there. Some stats are also more difficult in general to raise, so you may want to focus on them first, decide you don't want them, or hope they implement a new way to get it. I'll break down what each stat does and the best methods to increase it in the following spoilers.
To put it more concisely; you should decide which stats you value and focus on them. The ease of acquiring them basically breaks down to CON, PER, and CHA being fairly easy for bakers/farmers, AGI being fairly easy for hunters in civilized areas, STR being difficult but paying off a ton for a single unit, and INT being a chore no matter what you do.
The easiest way to get it is bear meat. 15 FEP for cooked bear, and 50 FEP for a Bear Banger (2 bear + 2 boar sausage). The only other way is boar, which is 3 FEP for piglet wursts. Obviously, you need to be a good hunter or trade for it. The massive amount of FEP from Bear Bangers, however, means that as long as no one stat climbs above 50, you really won't have a crapton of trouble raising it.
(You want STR for melee damage and destroying things. If neither of these are on the list of things you want, you can ignore it freely. It also adds a little HP; basically half as much as CON)
Hunt for deer, or mix fox and rabbits together (11 AGI FEP + 2 each of PER/CHA/INT and 2 AGI/1 INT respectively). This is probably the highest payoff you can get in civilized areas. One deer only gives you one sausage, but they tend to come in groups. Obviously you run a slight risk of increasing a non-AGI stat, but that's usually not a horrible thing.
(AGI is apparently related to combat in some way. I don't think it's ever been expanded on, though.)
Cow chorizo, bread, apple pie... This is relatively easy to raise in just about every respect. Only requires baking or cow strangling.
(Adds to your max HP. Doesn't do much else yet.)
Malicus probably disagrees (I think it was Malicus? I could be wrong), but this is probably the most irritating one to raise. Fox meat gives 1 INT, fish gives 2 INT, and nothing else gives a sizable amount of INT. Fishing is easy, but dead boring. It'll be a bitch no matter what you do, so you may just decide to ignore it altogether, or wait for something better to worry about it.
(Currently only affects thievery-related stuff, as far as I know. Not a terribly valuable stat.)
Carrot cakes and lamb sausages give 5 and 7 FEP respectively. Both are moderately easy to get - similar to CON, though a bit harder as carrot cake requires more ingredients (take a guess what they are) and lamb sausages require a little boar meat.
(Currently affects Ranging ability. Devs say it's going to affect marksmanship damage, and that's likely to occur in the very near future as they implement pathfinding.)
Raisin butter cakes are the king - 5 CHA FEP. There's also bear salami that gives 20 STR / 15 CHA FEP, which may be preferable if you're going for both, but I personally don't like it. It's also worth noting that, if you don't want wine or vinegar, grapes are very useful here too. You have to eat them or press them to get the seeds out of them. They're only 1 FEP per, but they can really, really help as you tend to get them in mass quantities. They aren't terribly efficient on the hunger-to-FEP ratio, but that's not a big deal unless you want lots of CHA fast.
(Currently affects nothing? I think. Supposedly going to affect party-based skills in the far-off future. I think Chieftains require a minimum CHA, but there are few if any other game effects I know of. I could be very wrong here.)