Net weight before cooking. Kind of like a Quarter Pounder
A whole backpack devoted to rations and milk seems a bit extreme. Especially at low levels when you tend to stay close to town to sell your rusty longswords and train your new skills. I'd just try to keep a stack of each and remember to buy some whenever you hit town.
I think they've tweaked food prices so it no longer applies as much but, if you're money conscious, look at the "type" of food and compare prices. You want food that at least says "this is a meal", so don't buy any muffins, cookies, etc that say they're a snack. Snacks only last 15min, I believe meals last a half hour and so on. Anyway, it used to be where a loaf of bread ("a meal") cost less than rations did. Since scurvy isn't an issue in Everquest, you can keep your poor paladin eating nothing but bread for months. Likewise, milk is (was?) cheaper than water which makes
no sense, but there you have it. Don't ask where the milk comes from -- there's no answer that'll make you feel better about drinking it. Heck, for that matter, try not to think about the condition of your milk when you dig it out of the bottom your backpack after spending a week in the Desert of Ro and use it to wash down your month old bread
Back to food types, they go snack, meal, hearty meal, banquet, feast and miraclous if my memory serves me correct. If you have money to burn you can buy hearty meals which will last longer so you'll make less trips to the store. Or sometimes you luck out around baking vendors and find someone who unloaded a bunch of food cheap (patty melts come up often). The other side of the coin is that you'll still need to buy drink and if you're buying one you might as well buy the other at the same time. There's not much for extended duration drinks; the standard is Fizzcutter Formula sold in Freeport (which is actually a hairtonic.. this is worse than the milk situation). It's kinda pricey though. A lesser known middle ground is Jumjum Juice sold in Rivervale. Lasts longer than water or moo juice, though less time than the Rogaine. Plus you won't have to say that you should have had a V-8.