Rotten Flesh

Rotten Flesh is an item from the 1.8 update dropped from zombies (as of the beta 1.9 from zombie pigman too) in place of feathers; eating it restores some of your hunger meter. However, rotten flesh has an 80% chance of causing food poisoning. Food poisoning seems to make your food saturation level decrease faster as well. You can cure your poisoning in 1.9 prerelease with a bucket of Milk.

As of 1.9 pre release, Rotten flesh cannot be cooked or used in any crafting recipes.

Rotten flesh heals Wolves without poisoning or causing damage to them. Zombies drop 0-2 pieces of rotten flesh upon death.

Advantages

 * Rotten Flesh is rather easy to get once one has a sword/bow and armor, as zombies are more common than passive mobs.

Disadvantages

 * Rotten Flesh has a 80% chance to trigger the "Hunger" potion effect, making hunger fast-forwarded for 30 seconds.
 * Rotten Flesh only heals and cannot be cooked.

Trivia

 * The food poisoning effect does not stack, so using multiple rotten flesh from no food points can get you up to 9 food points, since you will only suffer the poisoning of the last piece of flesh consumed.
 * Because of the above, rotten flesh can be a good emergency food when other sources are depleted if used in high dosages, restoring more hunger than the poison can take away.
 * As of the Beta 1.9 Pre-release update, Zombie Pigmen now drop rotten flesh (and Gold Nuggets) instead of cooked porkchops.