I don't know. If he was stockpiling food, I'd have assumed the MC did at least a basic introductory read of, at the minimum, salt preservation. So he'd have stockpiled salt for meats and stuff. Plus preserving fruits and vegetables, etc. I'd have learned how to do other types of preservation too like smoking too. Granted, that's me.
Regardless, even before the power gave out and the threat of power going out someday, should still have been forcing himself and Carol, then eventually Naomi, to be rationing their food. Granted, I don't blame the dev for not considering it too much. Usually people think of rationing in wartime efforts, less so in apocalyptic settings which are two different things. As in wartime situations, people are still producing food/meat and shipping it out, where as in an apocalyptic setting, all that becomes nonexistent. So shelves won't be restocked when going on scavenging runs. They would eventually run out of supplies to scavenge. So rationing until they could become self-reliant would be necessary, even if it hits morale.