How to Find Food in Minecraft - For Dummies

If you’re starting a new game in Minecraft, strive for the foods near the top of the following list, because they are easiest to find and make. The list also explains how to obtain several useful foods.

On the Hunger bar, each drumstick represents 2 food units.

• Raw porkchop or beef — Killing a pig or cow grants you from 1 to 3 units of this food. However, the food is more effective when cooked in a furnace.

  

• Cooked porkchop or steak — Cook raw meat in a furnace to obtain an item worth 4 units of food.

  

• Raw chicken — Avoid eating raw chicken unless you have to. Every item you eat gives you a 30 percent chance of getting food poisoning, draining the Hunger bar.

  

• Cooked chicken — It has the same effect as cooked pork or beef, but, at 3 units of food, is less powerful.

  

• Mushroom stew — This item restores 3 units of food, and each inventory space holds only one bowl of stew.

  

• Bread — Bread isn’t quite as satiating as meat, but after you obtain a wheat farm, you can craft a reliable food source, 2-1/2 units in strength.

  

• Cookie — Cookies are crafted from wheat, but you also need cocoa beans. Cookies restore only 1 unit of food apiece, so they aren’t quite restorative, though you can mass-produce them.

  

• Carrot — Carrots are found incidentally when you kill zombies or explore villages. A carrot provides 2 units of food.

  

• Potato — Potatoes are also found incidentally. Raw potatoes aren’t useful, though they can be cooked into baked potatoes.

  

• Baked potato — Cook potatoes in a furnace to get this item, worth 3 units of food.

  

• Melon slice — Despite the meager effect of a single slice, or 1 unit, this item can be mass-produced effectively.

  

• Red apple — This fruit falls from destroyed trees and provides 2 units of food.

  

• Golden apple — Both types of golden apple yield 2 units of food. The first, crafted with gold nuggets, boosts health and reduces hunger. The second, crafted with gold blocks, gives you 30 seconds of rapid regeneration and 5 minutes of resistance and fire resistance.

  

• Raw fish — Restores a tiny segment of the Hunger bar. A basic food item that isn’t effective unless you cook it.

  

• Cooked fish — Cook fish in a furnace to get this item, worth 2-1/2 units of food; it makes a good food source if you have time on your hands.

  

• Pumpkin pie — Collect eggs (littered by chickens), sugar (from lakeside reeds), and pumpkins to make a pie worth 4 units of food.

  

• Cake — Making a cake requires 3 buckets of milk, 2 lumps of sugar, 3 units of wheat, and 1 egg. Cake has to be placed on the ground before you can eat it; right-click it to restore 1 unit of food. Cake disappears after six uses.

  

• Rotten flesh — Eating rotten flesh — obtained from zombies — gives you an 80 percent chance of food poisoning.

  

• Spider eye — Eating a spider eye — obtained from spiders — has the side effect of poisoning you. The eye is used primarily for brewing potions.

  

• Salmon — Obtain this item from fishing; it’s good for eating and for taming ocelots.

  

• Cooked salmon — Simply cook salmon in a furnace to triple your hunger points.

  

• Poison potato — Restores 2 hunger points but has a 60 percent chance of poisoning a character for 4 seconds; unlike a regular potato, it cannot be planted or baked.

  

• Mutton — Killing sheep drops 1 or 2 units of mutton, providing 2 hunger units when eaten raw.

  

• Cooked mutton — Mutton cooked in a furnace offers 6 hunger points — more than chicken but less than pig or beef.

  

• Rabbit — When a rabbit (or bunny) is killed, it drops 0-1 units of raw food, which can be eaten for 3 hunger points (more than most other types of raw meat); when cooked, it increases the hunger points to 5, just slightly less than cooked mutton.

  

• Rabbit stew — This complicated recipe involves a bowl, a carrot, a baked potato, a mushroom, and a cooked rabbit; but when crafted and then eaten, it restores an incredible 10 hunger points.

Note that cooked meat provides 2 to 3 times more food points than raw but requires a furnace or killing the animal via fire such as lava.

Eating a poisonous food can significantly impact the Health bar and Hunger bar. Except in Hard mode, you won’t die directly from poison, though you’re extremely vulnerable to any type of damage and your ability to complete activities decreases. Drinking milk negates the effects of poisonous food. However, obtaining milk isn’t possible until you’re further into the game, when you have the resources to craft a bucket.