Look, it is not so bad. I was playing Poland and they have zero Luxury resources in Eastern Europe. I literally was using avoid growth after first UHV because all my taxes would go to pacify population that was breeding like rabbits. At the same time all the wars Poland gets involved in require constant stream of units. That extra food during Golden Ages could go into unit production instead of being wasted. Same goes for low production Paris. You need to levy people for your military, I even proposed universal rule -- X food for ever X strength.
I would say that most Europeans suffer from a low happy cap compared to their Asian counterparts and will find a good use for the food mechanic. Even then, for Asian civs it's really not that bad. Excessive use of Despotism can easily cause you to need to use the food as production ability. I'd say it's a mechanic that's overall somewhat awkward to play around but is generally a buff. I cut out your one because it oddly irritated me and I presumed it to be a typing error. My apologies if it was supposed to be of some significance.
Guess I should play more European Civs then. I've been playing France by building a 2 workers in all starting cities, then a settler in the capital, work boat in both western coastal cities, a catapult in the southern coastal city, harbors in the western coastal cities, and a catapult in capital and southern coastal city. This gives me enough workers to improve the entirety of my core in time for my acquisition of Italy, enough catapults to easily take Rome, and a fourth core city on the northwest peninsula.
With a constant stream of Crossbowmen I can just barely keep my cities constantly happy while my starting units march through and vassalize Holy Rome, then Poland, and finally Russia. By the time my cities hit the point where Monarchy alone can't support them, I should have got enough to support my cities with a single unit due to Notre Dame and a bunch of other factors I don't understand. This means I can upgrade all of my Crossbowmen into arquebusier and march into and conquer Spain and Portugal at the same time as the invasion of Russia.
After that all I need to do is take out Italy should they have flipped Naples, and then conquer the Ottomans and Iranians. Then I march back up and take the Dutch and finally the Prussians.
That's as far as I've gotten in my French games, I keep underestimating the natives.
So I've never found myself using the avoid growth command in my games as France, despite the fact my cities are constantly growing. If the effect is useful for other civs then I guess it should be in the game. I've just never played a civ that needed it. (I've played the Ottomans, France, and Carthage ever since getting good at the game)
The 1 was because I put in !!!, but I didn't want to do the cliche !!1, so I did
!!!
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