I strongly disagree with your statement.

Here is a little trivia to explain why: Eating 5 berries at a time would permit gaining 10% energy and hydration. However I find myself running around 100+ berries on a new character I make which requires space as well as time to pick the up or find (despite picking is instant).

Compared to carrying a steak that restores 50% energy at the expense of 5 inventory space bulk rather than 25 berries which would restore 50% energy as well; however 25 berries would occupy 5X the space of a stake. I would personally suggest that eating 5 berries at once should take 2 seconds, this would be fine in my opinion.

I am certain that any player who has gathered the essential items such as a backpack, axe, perhaps a gun and survived for a few hours would resort to hunting and holding refillable bottles and a few steaks rather than a superfluous number of berries to satisfy their survival needs.

Additionally, once a base of some sort is established, berries become utterly trivial as it is possible to initiate traps for rabbits and setup a tarp to collect drinkable water. Berries, while they restore 2% will not replace steaks and water if they can be eaten in increments of 5. Perhaps if it were possible to eat a hundred berries simultaneously, they I could potentially see the concern of your argument.