Might be controversial, but hear me out...

We already have in-game penalties for being Burdened / Strained / etc. They reduce DV, speed, to hit and can give a chance to fall down the stairs with a funny death message. All of these effects are fairly visible. The hunger rate is not visible and for a lot of players causes huge issues early game. For new players there's nothing worse than starving to death before really getting to experience the game. Especially a problem when they spend too long in the wilderness because they don't know where anything is. I've even seen players with years of experience getting caught out by the burden hunger trap.

But mostly it's just not a fun mechanic. There are times you'll want to stretch to burdened, and you accept there are consequences. But let those consequences come in battle, in worse defence, in slower speed. A slow and inevitable death is not a fitting punishment for taking a risk. Let me have a more glorious and bloody death! There are instances when hunger becomes interesting, but this is not one of them.

And is there a good reason for having double hunger rate because you're carrying that extra sword? It's such a big penalty compared to the other burden effects. Double hunger is a lot! If it were only 20% or so it wouldn't be so bad, but at that stage you might as well say get rid of it.

So I say get rid of it. Remove the link between hunger and burden status. It doesn't make a lot of sense, it stealthily kills a lot of new players, and it isn't a very fun mechanic. Keep the negative effects of burden to combat stats like speed. Hell, double the speed penalty even.