I like the idea of consumables, just as long as you dont have to wrangle through menus to use the item. Many games make you pause the game, navigate to the restore item, use the item, then unpause the game. This always felt wrong to me. A quick button for healing/using a potion/using an elixer for some effect, but also one that hampers your movement or action, that would be pretty cool.

In general, for 3rd person action games, Id rather not be in the menus. The Last of Us on the playstation, let you look into your backpack for your items and consumables, but the world didnt pause. Using your first aid kit played an animation while the world and its enemies were still moving around.

Consumables that do things like permanently increase your strength by 1, dont really need to be handled in combat with a quick button, so you should be safe to make the player use these items within the menus.