Minecraft has a ton of food. All of it contributes to the game’s hunger bars, which were introduced in the Adventure Update long ago. Since then, players have had to focus on a food source more than ever before. Of course, this naturally leads us to wonder about the best food source Minecraft has to offer.
This guide will cover everything you need to know about food in Minecraft, including how to manage your food points, understand your hunger bars, and the best food sources this game offers.
What Makes Food In Minecraft Good?
The best food in Minecraft comes down to how well it restores your hunger bar.
Hunger Bar (Food Bar)
The hunger bar in Minecraft dictates how hungry your character is. It drains over time as you explore and engage in other actions. You don’t want it to drain too much, though, as your hunger bar also affects how you heal.
If your hearts are damaged, they will not heal unless your hunger bar exceeds a certain threshold.
Your hunger bar is measured in hunger points, with each food item replenishing a certain amount of points. The more a food item increases your hunger points, the higher we rank it.
However, there’s a second factor to consider, which is saturation. While you cannot see your saturation points in game, this is what actually affects your hunger bar draining over time. The more actions you commit, the faster your saturation points drop. Your hunger bar will start to drain once your saturation points are empty.
A food item restores hunger and saturation points, though the amount of each varies based on the food. Some items might restore many hunger points but not many saturation points, and vice versa. Therefore, it is recommended that you eat food with a high saturation value when your food bar is mostly full and food with a high hunger points value when your food bar is low.
The combination of a food item’s hunger and saturation point restoration is called its nourishment.
The 6 Best Foods In Minecraft
Let’s break down the best food items in Minecraft based on their nourishment value.
Suspicious Stew
The Suspicious Stew is one of the more interesting Minecraft food items and is the only food item not listed in the game’s recipe book.
That said, it’s pretty easy to craft. Bring a Bowl, a Brown Mushroom, a Red Mushroom, and a Flower to a Crafting Table and organize the materials as follows:
What’s neat is that this is just the Mushroom Stew crafting recipe with a Flower lumped in.
A Suspicious Stew restores 13 hunger points and 21.2 saturation points alongside applying the Saturation status effect.
Golden Carrot
The Golden Carrot is a metal-clad version of the classic vegetable, used to restore hunger points or to brew potions.
You can find Golden Carrots out in the wild or craft them by putting eight Gold Nuggets and a normal Carrot in a Crafting Table like this:
A Golden Carrot restores six food points and 14.4 saturation points.
Enchanted Golden Apple
It only makes sense that one of the best food items in Minecraft is an enchanted golden item, right? In this case, it’s the Enchanted Golden Apple — an amplified version of the regular Golden Apple.
You cannot craft Enchanted Golden Apples, and must instead find them while exploring an Ancient City, Woodland Mansion, or other pre-built structure.
An Enchanted Golden Apple restores four food points and 9.6 saturation points and applies a ton of enchantments to your characters, such as Regeneration IV, Resistance, and more.
Rabbit Stew
From here, we’ve got Rabbit Stew.
Rabbit Stew is actually a pretty intensive recipe, but it’s worth the effort. It requires cooked Rabbit, a Carrot, a Baked Potato, a Mushroom, and a Bowl. Once you’ve gathered all of these items, organize them as follows in a Crafting Table:
This Stew restores ten hunger points and 12 saturation points.
Cooked Porkchop
Cooked Porkchops are one of the more common Minecraft food sources, as you can make them with raw meat acquired by defeating Pigs.
Defeating a Pig will drop you a raw Porkchop. Simply cook it in a Furnace to receive a Cooked Porkchop. To save time on cooking a Porkchop, defeat a Pig with a fire-enchanted sword to automatically cook it.
Cooked Porkchops restore eight hunger points and 22.8 saturation points.
All of these details apply to Steak as well. You can make Steak by defeating a Cow and cooking the raw Beef that it drops.
These are some of the best food items the early game has to offer. Just make sure not to eat them raw, or else you suffer from food poisoning.
Cooked Mutton
Sticking with the game’s meat options, raw Mutton drops from Sheep.
Cooking it results in cooked Mutton, which restores six hunger points alongside its 9.6 saturation points.
These same stats apply to cooked Salmon. You can get raw Salmon from fishing with the game’s Fishing Rod. Both hunger bar restoration options are a great choice.
Empowered by your newfound knowledge of Minecraft food sources, why not log on and start some food source farms with your friends?
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Max is a freelance writer with a love for gaming and technology. He’s always looking for the next big game to play and tinkers with tech in his remaining free time.
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