This wasn't about avoiding contamination at all, but more about avoiding unnecessary exposure.
By all means if you have tons of resources and willing to use them - why not indeed.

Besides, on max difficulty big guys and pre-martians can one-shot you with full hp, so avoiding being hit is mandatory. And since the safe food is abundant there is little point in exposing yourself anyway.

ya but you get a ton of contamination when you take a hit.

Around year ago or something replayed and completed this game on max difficulty.
Still was enough food to avoid eating contaminated things and making pills for treatment.
Game gives you way too much food than needed.

And one more thing - DO NOT eat contaminated food. There are enough sealed food cans around to waste your precious (and costly) Decontamination Pills.
> once you power up Biosphere you`ll be able to craft as much pills as you need.

There is a small error regarding the lvl 2 research chip: The chip and the log are actually on different floors (though in similar looking rooms). Don't know if this was changed in a patch, but this might cause people confusion.

Well, as I stated above - it's just my opinion, not a definite truth :)
If you think that it's better and more optimal way to play, why actually not - it's a game, its supposed to be fun for you at the first place, good luck with that hardcore playthrough.

Going thru hardcore hardest difficulty, with permadeath, your guide, super helpful brother!
Just one thing, i have just obtained lvl 3 engineering chip blueprint and i was able to research it with research chips of only vll 2 installed, so my advice for the order of obtaining is to go for engeneering lvl3, it will let you get better gear and most importantly it will let you craft those sweet tier 3 oxy and thermal filters so you can actually suppress the infection, ofc next chip youll definately need bio lvl3 cause you will need to break the plants for resources to craft the filters

Basically you will be okay with even Lvl2 gear and ore from jewelry will be more than enough to get a couple of SMGs to clear even late-game enemies without much problems. After that its all a matter of some skill and patience, to get top-tier chips, gear and finish the game.

He skipped Mining 3 Chip since the ore you get from jewelry is enough to make decent level 3 gears.

Just a note, you seem to have forgotten to add When to get the Mining 3 chip. I'm guessing it should be between step 6. and 7. Cheers and thanks for the guide!