I would assume this is widely known by now but I never intentionally tested it. Yes, you can wrap the tongue to the other side and it will be effective to eat/attack.

Unfortunately on the final foot, even though you can wrap the tongue from the left side to the right side, the foot doesn't take damage until it's engaged.

In stage 8 it could help a little bit in some of the pools (I tested a few positions for eating) but nothing consistent or extremely useful.

So far I haven't found any major timesaves but I figured I'd put it out there in case anyone has ideas for stages outside of Any%.