Massa wrote:
my argument is that it's arbitrary and annoying and doesn't serve as an interesting or beneficial mechanic
what betterment does this system offer?
It's arbitrariness is a flaw. That one is true.
I would suggest that satiation resets happen like once per 12 hours to make it unavoidable.
The (intended by developers) benefit from this mechanic is
1) balancing power-eaters and casual
2) Enforcing the variety of food produced. Which makes people to do different sequences of actions to make food. Which reduces boredom and tiredness form the game.
Power players are just made like that - if they can find an optiomal algorithm to gain max stats per hour - they will follow it. If this algorithm consists of making 3-4 types of food than it will be short. Short repetitive sequence of actions makes people lose interest much faster than long and variable sequence.
So in the end, mostly subconciously, sations makes people get more fun from the game and stay in game for longer.