No, those life essentials are not required _before_ getting the right to freedom-of-speech. Indeed, freedom of speech may be essential to discussing how to arrange a society to enable the procurement of those things. Holding off freedom of speech until "basic needs" are met is, to me, a way to guarantee that a tyrant in a poor country stays in power.

Ultimately, those life necessities must be provided by oneself or by someone else, or some combination. Freedom of speech can allow for the best ways of providing these things to be selected. The alternative is that only the prevailing view is considered or approved, often leading to much worse provision of these necessities, including starvation (feudal systems, communism, warlords, etc.).