Eating food is one of the main mechanics in Minecraft. But a player may quickly lose food when they're out of their base and start starving. This tutorial focuses on some of the fastest ways to get some food.
Methods
Killing animals which drop meat with fire
When a cow, mooshroom, pig, hoglin, chicken, sheep, rabbit, cod, salmon, guardian, elder guardian or dolphin are killed by fire, they drop the cooked variant of their meat. This list shows mobs, food from them when they are killed without fire and food from them when they are killed by fire:
| Mob | Food when they are
killed without fire |
Food when they are
killed with fire |
|---|---|---|
| Cow | 1-3 Raw Beef | 1-3 Steak |
| Mooshroom[1] | 1-3 Raw Beef | 1-3 Steak |
| Pig | 1-3 Raw Porkchop | 1-3 Cooked Porkchop |
| Hoglin | 2-4 Raw Porkchop | 2-4 Cooked Porkchop |
| Chicken | 1 Raw Chicken | 1 Cooked Chicken |
| Sheep | 1-2 Raw Mutton | 1-2 Cooked Mutton |
| Rabbit | 0-1 Raw Rabbit | 0-1 Cooked Rabbit |
| Salmon | 1 Raw Salmon | 1 Cooked Salmon |
| Cod | 1 Raw Cod | 1 Cooked Cod |
| Guardian | 0-1 Raw Cod | 0-1 Cooked Cod |
| Elder Guardian | 0-1 Raw Cod | 0-1 Cooked Cod |
| Dolphin | 0-1 Raw Cod | 0-1 Cooked Cod |
Cooked food have better saturation and restore more hunger than raw meat. Player can kill mobs with fire using Fire Aspect or Flame enchantments, flint and steel, fire charges, lava (although this may burn the items that are dropped from the mob) or some naturally generated fire in the nether. Most fish can be tricky to set alight, after all living underwater.
Looting a Village
Villages are filled with crops in farms, in piles of hay bales lying around, and other food, like bread or apples in their chests. These food items can be found in the village chests:
| Item | Stack Size | Chance | Place | Restored Hunger
After Eating Food |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rotten Flesh | 1-4 | 89.3% | Village Temple Chest | 4 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 89.3% | Village Temple Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 80.6% | Desert House Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 80.6% | Armorer Chest | 5 ( |
| Potato | 1-7 | 74.2% | Plains Village Chest | 1 ( |
| Apple | 1-5 | 74.2% | Plains Village Chest | 4 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 74.2% | Plains Village Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 71.7% | Savana House Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread[Bedrock Edition only] | 1-7 | 69.3% | Taiga House Chest | 5 ( |
| Potato[Bedrock Edition only] | 1-7 | 69.3% | Taiga House Chest | 1 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 66.3% | Snowy House Chest | 5 ( |
| Potato | 1-7 | 66.3% | Snowy House Chest | 1 ( |
| Potato[Java Edition only] | 1-7 | 65.6% | Taiga House Chest | 1 ( |
| Bread[Java Edition only] | 1-4 | 65.6% | Taiga House Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 62.8% | Tannery Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 62.2% | Mason Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread | 1-4 | 61.2% | Cartographer Chest | 5 ( |
| Bread | 1-3 | 59.8% | Weaponsmith Chest | 5 ( |
| Apple | 1-3 | 59.8% | Weaponsmith Chest | 4 ( |
| Raw Beef | 1-4 | 48.6% | Butcher Chest | 3 ( |
| Raw Porkchop | 1-4 | 48.6% | Butcher Chest | 3 ( |
| Raw Mutton | 1-4 | 48.6% | Butcher Chest | 2 ( |
| Raw Cod | 1-3 | 43.0% | Fisherman Chest | 2 ( |
| Sweet Berries[Java Edition only] | 1-7 | 40.6% | Taiga House Chest | 2 ( |
| Raw Salmon | 1-3 | 24.2% | Fisherman Chest | 2 ( |
| Pumpkin Pie[Bedrock Edition only] | 1 | 10.7 | Taiga House Chest | 8 ( |
| Beetroot Soup | 1 | 9.9% | Snowy House Chest | 6 ( |
| Pumpkin Pie[Java Edition only] | 1 | 9.7 | Taiga House Chest | 8 ( |
You can also mine up some of the Hay Bales lying around, and craft them into wheat, into bread. This can take a bit longer than other methods, but can provide lots of food:
1 Hay Bale = 9 Wheat = 3 Bread = 15 Food Points!
Mushroom Stew
Mushroom stew is a food item, that can be very easily crafted. Mushroom stew can be crafted from bowl, brown mushroom and red mushroom. Bowl can be crafted from 3 planks and all types of mushroom can be found in the Nether (this means that when player has no food in the nether, mushroom stew is very good way to refill the food bar). Mushroom stew can be also crafted through inventory crafting. The Player can also get mushroom stew by "milking" a mooshroom.
Rotten Flesh
Rotten flesh is one of the most common items in the game. It can be obtained from chest loot, zombies and other zombie-type mobs like zombified piglins. When is rotten flesh eaten, it has an 80% chance to give the player Hunger for 30 seconds. The best way to eat rotten flesh with the shortest to no duration of hunger is drinking milk right after eating rotten flesh.
Dried Kelp
Kelp very common if the player is near an ocean. When kelp is broken, it can be smelted into dried kelp. A player can consume dried kelp about twice as fast as any other food item in the game. The biggest disadvantage is that dried kelp restores only 1 (
) hunger and 0.6 saturation. Additionally, this method can take longer, because cooking even one kelp will take 10 seconds with a regular furnace, and taking only five with a Smoker.
Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin Pie is a relatively cheap and filling food item. It's crafted with only one Pumpkin, Sugar, and Egg. All of these are renewable in mass quantities, and can set you up for life. One pumpkin pie can give back 8 Food Points, which is a lot considering the ingredients. One thing troublesome is finding the pumpkins in the first place, but once that's done, there are no real challenges. They can also be crafted without a Crafting Table, requiring only three ingredients.
In the Nether
The nether may be challenging to find readily available food in, but there are still some (if not somewhat unreliable) available food sources within the "bowels of hell."
Mushroom Stew
Both mushrooms can be used to craft mushroom stew, a quite filling dish. The player can use Nether Planks to craft reusable bowls in which to craft Mushroom Stew in. See above for more details on stew. You can also bring a Mooshroom into the Nether, "stew-ing" it whenever the situation calls for.
Hoglins
Like in the Overworld, Hoglins can be killed for their meat. When killed, a Hoglin will drop 2-4 Raw Porkchops, which is a lot when compared to the normal pig, dropping only 1-3 per kill. However, Hoglins can be harder to kill, having much more health than the standard pig, and being hostile. But you're in the Nether, and you have to kill them to survive. Meat is a lot more filling than mushroom soup. A raw Porkchop restores three food points, and cooking it (or killing the Hoglin with fire) restores eight. The combat is definitely worth it when you're starving in a hell biome.
Looting a Bastion Remnant
This method is basically the same as looting a village, but yields usually higher-quality loot. A Bastion Remnant is a fairly rare structure, but loaded with chests if you do happen to find one. The food items concealed within the chests include pork and (golden) fruits and vegetables. If you don't want approximately 1,000 Piglins and Brutes on your trail, use a hopper instead of grabbing the items with your hands to prevent a riot.
List of food items that can be founded in Bastion remnant
Hoglin Stable
| Item | Stack Size | Chance | Restored Hunger
After Eating Food |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooked Porkchop [Bedrock Edition only] | 2-5 | 26,2% | 8 ( |
| Raw Porkchop [Bedrock Edition only] | 2-5 | 26,2% | 3 ( |
| Cooked Porkchop [Java Edition only] | 2-5 | 22,8% | 8 ( |
| Raw Porkchop [Java Edition only] | 2-5 | 22,8% | 3 ( |
| Golden Carrot [Java Edition only] | 8-17 | 11,4% | 6 ( |
| Golden Apple [Java Edition only] | 1 | 11,4% | 4 ( |
Generic
| Item | Stack Size | Chance | Restored Hunger
After Eating Food |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooked Porkchop [Java Edition only] | 1 | 24,4% | 8 ( |
| Golden Carrot [Java Edition only] | 6-7 | 13,5% | 6 ( |
| Golden Apple [Java Edition only] | 1 | 10,1% | 4 ( |
Treasure
| Item | Stack Size | Chance | Restored Hunger
After Eating Food |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enchanted Golden Apple [Java Edition only] | 1 | 6,5% | 4 ( |
In the End
The End is a very hostile place, and is extremely hard to find food in. You should bring plenty of food with you whenever venturing into the third dimension, but then what's the purpose of this tutorial?
Chorus Plants
They only grow on the Outer End Islands, so you'll need to kill the Ender Dragon first to get them. They restore four food points, but can teleport you to a random location. This can either be a great convenience or annoyance. You can get a lot really fast, and they're good for eating. You can also convert any spare fruits into extra blocks. And since there is TONS of chourus fruit in the end, and it all breaks like a cactus, you can set up a farm of this stuff pretty fast. All you need is end stone, a chorus fruit, and some space.This is also pretty much the only good way to find sustenance in the End, as End Cities don't yield food in their chests.
Beetroots
End city chests can contain beetroot seeds, so when player have hoe, dirt and good amount of bone meal, player can use hoe and dirt to make farmland, plant beetroot seeds and use bone meal to speed up growth of beetroots.