Mushroom Stew

Mushroom stew (aka mushroom soup) heals for and is obtained by combining a bowl and two mushrooms - one brown, one red.

Advantages

 * Mushroom stew's components can be stacked to 64, making stew a good candidate for stockpiling.
 * As of Beta 1.6, mushrooms can be farmed. With an adequate farm, this can be faster than gathering wheat or gathering pork.
 * Including the workbench needed to craft mushroom stew, only 4 inventory spaces are needed to yield 320 of healing as needed.
 * Because it is not necessary to have more than 64 bowls, and more than 1 workbench, additional sets of stew will only require 2 inventory spaces.
 * Mushroom stew is the best type of food to be made in the Nether if the player has brought in bowls (even one is enough). This is because mushrooms are far more common in the Nether than the overworld. The second best food to eat in the nether is Cooked Porkchops from Zombie Pigmen.

Disadvantages

 * Mushrooms spread as of Beta 1.6, making them a renewable resource, but without a proper farm, their slow growth makes this less efficient than getting food through farming Wheat or hunting Pigs.
 * Because a single bowl restores half of the full amount of health, the healing potential of mushroom stew can be wasted if the player is already somewhat healthy before eating it.

Trivia

 * In the Minecraft code, Mushroom Stew is called Mushroom Soup.