Think about it. Egyptian villagers gather 10% slower. However they have a pharoah which makes them actually gather 10% faster (15% as ra although since hunting dogs affects them less on hunting maps the bonus is more like 7% and 10% as ra). So they gather the food faster. This is only part of the importance of early classical food.
Pharoahs also basically create food out of the sky. So you are going to get 180 food from a 150 food elk. This is hugely important because a lot of the time you will have to walk all the way to a different food source just to get like 20 more food. As eggy the chances of this happening are much lower.
Also villagers gathering slower works for you early on. This means that the resources are being consumed slower. This gives you 10% longer to scout and find another decent food source. This reduces the risk of not knowing where any food is when you need it.
These are 3 huge bonuses IMO. They gather the food 10% faster. They get more food from the same amount of actual food and they get more time to scout and find food.
The only thing they have against them is the time to make the gathering sites. However with a pharoah empowering the building of it, it frankly doesnt take too long.
Lets see what other civs have.
Norse: They have ox carts which are good in three ways.
1. You dont have to take the time to make new gathering sites although except early on this doesnt really matter since greek sites are built really quickly and so are eggy ones when pharoahs are empowering.
2. You can get hunting dogs like 15 seconds earlier since you dont have to wait until your gathering site is built.
3. The ox carts can be slightly more efficient because you can move them closer to the villagers all the time.
However most of this is evened out because norse has to use food, wood and tc time to make the ox carts.
Greek: They have one big early bonus; they start with 3 villagers.
This isnt as good as its cracked up to be. Sure that extra villager will gain about 150-200 extra food during the first 5 minutes. He will also allow the first gathering site to be built faster (or allow for one more vill to be gathering while he makes it himself). However early on as greek you need a lot of wood for granaries. So you have to put a load of vills on wood. These vills on wood arent gathering food so you lose about the same amount. Think about it. Granaries cost 40 wood. Wood is gathered about as fast as food. Normally before 5 minutes youll have had to make 2 or 3 of them just for food. Thats 80-120 wood and the vill seconds to get it (during that time youd have been able to get 80-120 food instead). So best case scenario youre only gaining 40 food from this extra villager.
Sorry but i cant reliably compare atlanteans to the rest of them.