How to prevent food shortage?

I haven't read the guide, but it is definitely worth while to have a dedicated chef that ONLY produces food. A dedicated chef with a single microbe musher is capable of producing enough food for 5 to 6 dupes I think. Supplement this with farms and you can keep a population of 10 to 13 with just two chefs and have good reserves when combined with refrigerators.

So pick a dupe with your highest cooking skill and disable all his other jobs / set the cooking stations to high priority.

Playing the game since several months now, I would like to add the following informations:

If you start a new game, change the skills from one of your Dupes to a high as possible "Cooking" Value. This will reduce the time to get food from the Microbe Musher dramatically.

Set the "Pitcher Pump" (Liquid Bottler) as near as possible to your Microbe Musher or vice versa.

Set the Planter Boxes in the best possible environment (temperature, pressure) to decrease the time until you can harvest the plants or even get new seeds.

Don't forget to build additional Ration Boxes in ice cold bioms. This way you don't need power for refrigerators. And if you can redirect some CO2 to this area, your Ration Boxes can hold your precious food "forever", because of the "sterile (and cooler then 4°) atmosphere".