how do i set recipes or do i just rely on computer to make recipes have not messed with menu yet always says minimal

Let it be known that it's a slow start, but 3 Wheat and 3 Vitromeat (all on the same meat) do really well. Particularly because 1 Wheat and (for example) 1 Beef make 2 Burger meals.

i do 3 wheat 1 tomato it works really well. plus there stuck eating pasta for the rest of there lives...MAHAHAHAH

I always do.. 3 Wheat + 2 tomato plants. Usually 2 Bios can run this

3 Wheat plants can produce 6 wheats and 3 starchs (if all at same time) while tomato plants produce 6 tomatoes at same time. If you start the wheat first and wait about half way before adding the two tomato plants your timing might get you 12 pastas and no basics.

One idea I wish the devs would do.. is hide the "basic" label by replacing it with whatever was made. i.e wheat = bread, tomatoes = tomato soup, etc.

I also wished that the Bar would do the same.. Wheat = beer, corn = whiskey,.....
Too bad there aren't other crops otherwise we could have ale or wine (from grapes).

Surprised there were no carrots, grapes, or fruit trees like apples, oranges, pears...etc
Maybe someone could mod this..

See having certain items for drinks would mean you HAVE to have those items to go into the machine. So this would cause the player to actually make those crops.

I didn't use shrooms when going for Express achievements, since obviously I had tons of biologists but I will carry the flag for shroom-wheat pasta if you are playing more slowly with fewer colonists. You don't have to have an exact ratio, it's roughly 1:1. This will keep people fed and avoid the massive starch and veg surplus. If you're playing with few colonists, you don't need a big surplus and you want to avoid everyone carrying veg (tomato, I'm looking at you) and starch. Similarly, there are starch-free options for later in the game. I call this the salad bar: 2 tomato, 2 lettuce, 4 onion, 4 radish (exact ratio). Some of the challenges do have a lot less colonists, so the slow plant options actually be efficient.

Colonists need to eat a proper meal. Pasta qualifies, tomato+wheat=pasta. If they don't eat a proper meal a few times in a row then issues will arise.

Unless they changed the game completely you have nothing to worry about. In fact I was able to complete all achievements with this strategy, including both speed achievements.

What you miss is if you aim just sense your colonist performance and morale will reduce. tomato wheat make sense for starting. but you have to use different candidates in mid-game if you want your colony grow faster

A lot of things could be wrong. You should investigate your bottlenecks. For example if you have no ores then you either need more mines, more wokers or you have a bad base design (travel distance). If you have a lot of unprocessed ore then you need more processing plants, etc.

i for somereason have a surplus of food and lack of any thing else why is this ?

Interesting strategy!