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Yeah, starving sounds awesome, hate that so many people will miss out on it.

Pre-agricultural peoples didn't generally do much starving, and it's not like people now don't starve.

Most of their babies died, too.

One of the more notable features of the economy of agricultural Europe before the introduction of New World crops was regular mass starvation.

Only took about 10,000 years to reach the average height of hunter gatherers through agriculture.

It beats starvation. The Nuer had three modes in this order of preference:

1. Cattle grazing when all was good (migration = transhumant)

2. Fishing when possible, but more work and hard to synch with migrations of cattle

3. Farming only when really necessary

See: E. E. Evans-Pritchard classics

Agricultural societies outcompeted hunter-gatherers pretty much everywhere.