Yea, just make the bag/gift drops not salvageable and make the crafted food "Grandma's whatever food name" and it can be salvageable. That to me sounds like the easiest solution.
I agree with the others, right now I log in do the dailies and log back off. Before I was constantly doing event things to get more bags/gifts. Now its just a waste of time. All you get is stupid tonics...hell make them salvageable instead of the food....at least that way they would then be useful...