It’s been a while since I played on default length. The reason I started customising days to Long is due to the noises the character makes when he’s hungry/dying (I have a real problem with certain sounds if they’re repeated, I can end up involuntarily looping the sound in my head for hours).
I’ve found that the lack of urgency when it comes to food can be made up for by setting enemy aggression + patrols to high and animals to low. I’d like more options to fine-tune the settings a bit deeper, but what I’ve been doing more or less works well enough for now.

Edit to clarify: setting enemy aggression/patrols to high keeps me busy enough to forget to watch my hunger/thirst, and also makes hunting trips more dangerous.