Why is it okay to take food from barrels in a city? Why is it not considered stealing? I know techically no npc's own the food, but someone must have put it there? I never take any items from barrels in a city because I think it makes the game too easy and it feels like cheating to me. Anyone else think the same?

It seems a bit weird, what with the number of beggars around, huh.

I don' t steal from barrels. Not because of moral objections. But because there is never anything useful or valuable in them.

How dare you! Cabbages have feelings too, you know!

I need salt, a lot of it.

Was the same in oblivion. LOTS o' stuff in crates/bags in the market district, that respawned..... that you could take and sell. Wait a few days, repeat...... etc.

I figure nobody cares enough about a couple of carrots to set the gaurds on me.

But then you steal a single cabbage in an npc's house and the gaurds will hammer you... but in those cases obviously the cabbage had some sentimental value.

I love the arbitrary npc disposition.

"Oh please help yourself to all that gold and those potions... BUT DON'T TOUCH MY [censored] CABBAGE!!!!"

It gets even sillier once you get in good with one of the Jarls: you can take thousands of septims' worth of stuff from their castles, but divines help you if you get hungry and lift a honey snack...

One of the old ladies in Whiterun made a comment about me digging through the trash while looting the barrels

They're trash cans. Sometimes NPCs will make comments about you going through the thrash when you're taking stuff out of barrels.
Real question is why would people throw away perfectly good food?

Barrels are full of crap anyway. In Morrowind at the start of the game I would go on a clutter collecting mission and sell it to merchants. Thankfully its not needed in this game. I really do think that there is no need at all to put ANYTHING in the barrels. Its just a waste of programming resources.

the food in the barrels in the street is garbage, so you are doing them a favor by eating it

No, what's weird is the beggars I've given THOUSANDS of gold to in pickpocket training are still beggars.

You can use the food you find in there to cook. It's a great substitute for health potions at the early levels. Eventually though you have to wonder why they spent so much time on it. You can get meat from a wide variety of sources, but the usefulness of the food you can make tapers off quickly. The weight of food will also add up, and eventually it's not worth carrying it when you can get better potions.

My guess is that they planned a more involved cooking system and gave it up due to time and resource constraints.

Some barrels will have alchemy ingredients, so you'll want to check them all if you're running low.

When your starting out, you can stash your stuff in those barrels

Check out the fishery and the boat in riften too. I make it a point to go there whenever I'm in that part of the world. You can easily collect over 500 gp worth of alchemy ingredients in fish and salt.

Because npcs don't care about three carrots in the bottom of a stinking barrel.

Why can you sneak up on someone like you're freaking invisible? You not!!! You can't!!! Impossible. Doesn't make sense.

Why think so much. Just go with it.