Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that Minecraft is a survival game. This is especially the case in the late game when you mostly focus on building some great-looking megabases. The eating mechanic is not only exclusive to Minecraft, but it has helped to shape the game into what it is today. Because of how important this feature is, we dedicate a guide to what the best food sources in Minecraft are. So, let’s start with the list going from the 10th place to the 1st place food item.
10. Bread
Bread opens our list for today, and well, this is quite an average food source in Minecraft. Eating one bread will replenish 2.5 drumstick hunger points and 6 saturation points.
The reason we even included bread in our list is because it’s extremely easy to get early-game. Full hay bale blocks are generated in villages, which you can break down into hay. Now, using only three pieces of hay, you can craft a piece of bread on the crafting table.
Alternatively, you can also plant wheat seeds and grow the hay yourself. All in all, it’s a pretty good option for you in the beginning.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 2.5
- Saturation Points: 6
9. Cooked Salmon
Cooked salmon is one of the numerous meat sources in the game. Eating one of these will replenish 3 drumsticks and 9.6 saturation points, which makes it already quite a bit better than bread.
To obtain cooked salmon, you will first need to get raw salmon. You can do this either by fishing or by directly attacking and killing salmon in the water. The latter method is faster, so we recommend it rather than the former one.
Cod also spawns in the water similarly to salmon, but red fish (tropical fish) replenishes a bit more points in general. Next, you will need to cook the raw salmon in the furnace or smoker in Minecraft, which will require a bit of fuel. After the salmon is cooked, you are free to take and eat it by right-clicking.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 3
- Saturation Points: 9.6
8. Cooked Mutton
Cooked mutton is the same as the cooked salmon points-wise. But we ranked it higher than salmon because of the fact you’re much more likely to obtain it rather than the salmon. Cooked mutton is a result of cooking raw mutton in a furnace or a smoker. The raw version of this meat is a drop from the sheep mob in Minecraft.
Sheep not only gives you mutton but also wool, a useful block used in building and crafting. One of the first tasks Minecraft players accomplish is killing sheep so they can make a bed. Also, creating a sheep pen in the early game is pretty common. Therefore, cooked mutton is surely easier to come by than cooked salmon.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 3
- Saturation Points: 9.6
7. Cooked Chicken
Cooked chicken is the next entry on our list. If you take a look at the points this food item gives you in Minecraft, you may feel confused as to why it’s better than mutton and salmon. Chickens are just another ordinary passive mob, just like sheep, and drop raw chicken when you kill them. Similarly to other raw meat, you can then cook it and use it as food.
Moreover, other than the meat, chicken drops are less useful than sheep’s drops. But we still think cooked chicken is better since you can easily create a chicken farm that’s going to automatically produce cooked chicken for you.
You can also make a sheep farm, with the help of Johnny vindicators, but it’s definitely more useful to use them to make a wool farm.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 3
- Saturation Points: 7.2
6. Cooked Porkchop
Cooked porkchop is an excellent food source, restoring 4 drumsticks and 12.8 saturation points in-game. You can obtain this food item by cooking raw porkchops, drops from pigs, and hoglins. Its hunger-to-saturation points ratio is pretty good, keeping you full for a while.
When you reach the late phase of your world, it’s even possible to make an OP hoglin farm in the Nether dimension, and it will collect cooked porkchops as well as leather for you.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 4
- Saturation Points: 12.8
5. Steak
Steak is our last cooked meat entry on this list. It refills hunger and saturation points identical to the cooked porkchops. However, the reason it’s better is because this item is a result of cooking raw beef (a drop from cows).
Cows are the most important early-game passive mobs, which give you leather as well as meat. Also, with a few resources and perhaps one Johnny vindicator, you can make a functional cow farm that will produce these drops automatically.
However, we did state above that a hoglin farm does the same thing. Unlike cows, hoglins are very powerful Nether hostile mobs, whose farm requires a lot of preparation in advance. So, it’s better to stick to steak in the early game, and you could then use porkchops in the late game. However, there are other even better food sources in Minecraft, so keep reading to find out which one is the best.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 4
- Saturation Points: 12.8
4. Suspicious Stew with Saturation Effect
Suspicious stew with saturation effect is the best saturation-restoring and the 2nd best hunger-restoring food item in the whole game. Eating only one of these will refill a massive 21.2 saturation points and 6.5 drumsticks. So, why isn’t it the best food item in the game?
Well, the answer is simple really. Suspicious stews don’t stack in Minecraft. You can only have one stew per inventory slot, which is not at all ideal when you go exploring and expect to get a ton of new items and blocks.
Yeah, you can fill a shulker box with them and carry it around, but that’s still not practical. You can make this item yourself with one brown and one red mushroom, as well as a bowl and a blue orchid or a dandelion. If you’re lucky, you can also buy it from farmer villagers.
The most difficult method would be to feed the brown mooshroom one of the two flowers and then milk it using a bowl.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 6.5
- Saturation Points: 21.2
3. Golden Apple
Golden apple is admittedly not the greatest when it comes to the points it provides. Eating one will replenish only 2 drumsticks and 9.6 saturation points. However, what makes it an extraordinarily amazing food source is the two effects it gives you.
One of them is regeneration II for 5 seconds and the other is absorption for 2 minutes. Consuming a golden apple at the right time could save you from dying. Thus, if you are playing on hardcore mode, it could save your entire world as well.
Golden apple appears in loot chests of several structures, but you can also craft it by surrounding an apple with 8 gold ingots in the 3×3 crafting grid. Follow our dedicated guide to make a golden apple in Minecraft.
Because of all the mentioned facts, it’s also not advised to use only golden apples as your main food source but having a few in the ender chest will come in handy for sure.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 2
- Saturation Points: 9.6
2. Enchanted Golden Apple
Golden Apple is good, but let us take it a step further. Enchanted golden apple (also known as the notch apple) restores hunger and saturation points equal to the regular golden apple. It’s the most powerful food item in the game due to the effects it provides.
By eating one, you will get regeneration II (Java edition) or regeneration IV (Bedrock edition), absorption IV, resistance, and fire resistance. Enchanted golden apple is the only food item in the game that’s not at all renewable.
It rarely generates only in some structures’ loot chests and cannot be crafted. To be fair, this item is more of a treasure item that players keep in their ender chest for the duration of the world. Though technically, it’s arguably the best food source in the game, you will probably never find that many of them to use as a consistent food source.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 2
- Saturation Points: 9.6
1. Golden Carrot
The last food source on our list at the top spot is the golden carrot. This item restores 3 drumsticks, which is less than some of the food items mentioned above. However, its primary advantage is that it replenishes a total of 14.4 saturation points. That’s the 2nd best saturation-restoring item in the game, right behind the suspicious stew. Unlike the stew though, golden carrots are stackable to 64 items, which makes them already a lot better.
Thanks to the high saturation restoration, golden carrots will keep you nice and full for longer and therefore minimize the number of times you have to eat in-game. Furthermore, this food item is not difficult to get either. You can buy them from farmer villagers or craft them with 8 gold nuggets and one carrot. All in all, the saturation value golden carrots grant makes them the most frequently used food item in the late game.
- Hunger Points (drumsticks): 3
- Saturation Points: 14.4
What are Hunger and Saturation Points?
Hunger and saturation points are the primary benefits of consuming food. Hunger is indicated to the player by a drumstick bar at the bottom right of the HUD. These points directly affect your ability to sprint and regenerate health. If the hunger bar is full and you have taken damage, a couple of your hearts will refill while the hunger bar gets drained slightly.
Meanwhile, if the hunger bar reaches 3 or fewer drumsticks, you won’t be able to sprint in the game anymore. Also, if the hunger reaches 0 points, your health will start to deplete quickly. This isn’t the case in the peaceful mode, where the health regenerates automatically.
On the other hand, saturation is a hidden value that determines how fast you’re going to get hungry. As soon as the saturation depletes fully, the hunger bar will slowly start to deplete as well. This is a fairly important stat that affects your hunger bar and your in-game experience.
Every food item gives both hunger and saturation points. Some of them even provide the player with quite a bad ratio of these two values, which makes them instantly not a very great option. In this list, we focus on the hunger and saturation points of food items, as well as how easy or hard they are to obtain.
That’s it. We have tried to include all the relevant information related to each of the food items and rank them based on how likely you are to use them in your survival world. So, that’s why you won’t find food sources such as cake or rabbit stew on the list, even though eating them will restore a lot of hunger points. It’s simply not practical to carry them around, so you wouldn’t even use them all that much.
With that said, did you like our list of best food sources? Which is your favorite item to use? Tell us in the comments below!
You can eat by simply having the food item selected on your hotbar and holding the right-click or the secondary action button.
No, milk does not restore any hunger or saturation points.
Unlike the more realistic and much harder Don’t Starve game, food in Minecraft does not spoil.
