Food

Food is very important in Minecraft! If you don’t eat, you will starve to death, and that’s not good.

Hunger

How hungry you are is shown in the Food Bar, just above your Hotbar. As you move around and do stuff, your Food Bar will be depleted, and if you eat, it will be refilled.

Hunger Bar

If your Food gets down below 3 full icons, you will not be able to run. If it gets down to zero, you will start to take damage and if you don’t eat soon, you will die.

If your Food bar is full or nearly full, your Health will regenerate. For this reason, it is best never to be hungry.

How to Eat

Select a food item in the Hotbar, then hold down the right button to eat. Om nom nom nom nom!

What to Eat

There are lots of types of food. The first food you will find is most likely apples, which will drop when you are cutting down trees for wood.

Then you will want to grow wheat and make bread. Since you will probably want a chicken farm for experience and feathers, chicken might be the main thing you eat in Minecraft.

The best easily-obtained foods are Steak and Cooked Porkchop. If you are a vegetarian, Baked Potato is your best bet.

Meat & Fish

Meat comes from the animals that live in the Minecraft world: Cows, Pigs, Sheep, Chickens and Rabbits. You can get meat just by hunting animals you see in the wild, but it is best to set up a farm instead of killing them all! Fish is obtained by fishing.

Food Food Points Restored
Steak Cooked Porkchop Cooked Steak or Porkchop Food Point Food Point Food Point Food Point
Cooked Mutton Cooked Mutton Food Point Food Point Food Point
Cooked Rabbit Cooked Rabbit Food Point Food Point Food Point
Cooked Chicken Cooked Chicken Food Point Food Point Food Point
Cooked Salmon Cooked Salmon Food Point Food Point Food Point
Cooked Fish Cooked Fish Food Point Food Point Food Point
Raw beef Raw Porkchop Raw Beef, Raw Porkchop Food Point Food Point
Raw Chicken Raw Chicken Food Point 30% chance of food poisoning
Raw Mutton Raw Rabbit
Raw Fish Raw Salmon
Other raw meat and fish Food Point

Meat and fish can be eaten raw in an emergency, but really it ought to be cooked. To cook your food, use a furnace.

If you eat Raw Chicken, you have a chance of getting food poisoning. This can be cured by drinking Milk.

Fruit & Vegetables

One of the first foods you will find is Apples, which drop when you break the leaves of Oak and Dark Oak trees.

Later in the game you may find Carrots, Potatoes, Beetroot and Melons, and you may want to farm these.

If you bake Potatoes in a Furnace, they become an excellent food; other fruit and veg don’t restore as many food points and are more useful for feeding to animals or making potions. Some vegetables can be crafted into better foods.

Food Food Points Restored
Baked potato Baked Potato Food Point Food Point Food Point
Apple Apple Food Point Food Point
Chorus Fruit Chorus Fruit Food Point Food Point
Carrot Carrot Food Point Food Point
Melon Melon Slice Food Point
Potato Raw Potato Food Point
Beetroot Beetroot Food Point

Crafted Foods

These are foods you can make with a crafting table.

Bread is useful as soon as you have managed to grow some Wheat (or if you have found some in a Village), and Rabbit Stew is the most nutritious food in the game.

Food Food Points Restored
Cake Cake (6 slices) Food Point each slice.
Rabbit Stew Rabbit Stew Food Point Food Point Food Point Food Point Food Point
Pumpkin Pie Pumpkin Pie Food Point Food Point Food Point Food Point
Mushroom Stew Mushroom Stew Food Point Food Point Food Point
Beetroot Soup Beetroot Soup Food Point Food Point Food Point
Golden Carrot Golden Carrot Food Point Food Point Food Point
Bread Bread Food Point Food Point Food Point
Cookie Cookie Food Point

Cake is a block that must be placed; after that you can eat it one slice at a time (there are 6 slices).

Enchanted Golden Apple

Golden apples

There are two types of golden apples! Normal golden apples have a green tooltip label, whereas enchanted apples have a purple label, and an animated glow effect as shown.

Golden apples are food, but they also have special effects like potions.

Normal golden apples

These are crafted from a red apple plus 8 gold ingots. Golden apples have these effects:

  • restore 2 food points.
  • give you two points of Absorption (like extra bonus health) that last for 2 minutes.
  • increase your rate of health regeneration for 5 seconds.

Enchanted golden apples

These super-foods can not be crafted, but may be found in treasure chests. An enchanted golden apple will:

  • restore 2 food points.
  • give you eight points of Absorption (like extra bonus health) that last for 2 minutes.
  • give you really powerful health regeneration for 30 seconds.
  • give you resistance to fire damage and other damage for 5 minutes.

Golden apples are expensive, but really useful if you eat them just before a big fight!