Minecraft's 5 most underrated food items (2022)

As a core gameplay mechanic, food in Minecraft has an interesting history. It began as a way for players to directly replenish health, similar to many retro games. This would eventually be changed to the hunger bar system, which allows players to regenerate health and sprint naturally.

There are also dozens of different food items available in the game. This large spread of options inevitably means that some foods are going to be used more than others, even if these lesser-used foods are just as good.

Detailed below are the five most underrated foods found in Minecraft. These foods might be harder to get than others or don’t replenish the most hunger points, but they make up for these traits through utility.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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Minecraft’s five most underrated food items as of 1.19

5) Chorus Fruit

Chorus fruit is an interesting food item in Minecraft. This is the only food item that naturally spawns in the End dimension, outside of the food loot items that can be found in End cities. These food items are not particularly great for sustenance, only restoring two hunger icons and giving 2.4 saturation.

However, chorus fruit's ability to cause the player to teleport short distances is where its value lies. Players can use this teleportation to phase through walls or go around ocean monuments with the mining fatigue debuff applied.

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4) Dried Kelp

Dried kelp is statistically not a great food source. Dried kelp only gives players half a hunger icon back and only restores 0.6 saturation on Java edition or 0.2 saturation on Bedrock edition. This makes dried kelp one of the worst foods in the game.

However, what makes dried kelp a good food source is how easy it is to get in mass amounts and its utility as fuel. Kelp can grow incredibly quickly in underwater farms and can be obtained in large quantities by breaking the bottom kelp.

Dried kelp is also useful outside of consumption as it can be made into dried kelp blocks that double as a fuel source.

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3) Cake

A cake on top of a blast furnace (Image via Minecraft)

Cakes get a bad rap due to how difficult they are to craft compared to the game’s other foods. However, this reputation is not especially deserved, as cakes are decent options for players looking to avoid eating any meat.

Eating an entire cake will restore a total of seven hunger icons. This makes cake the single best food in the game for restoring hunger. This is balanced by a very low saturation of only 2.8. However, if the player eats a high saturation food right after a cake, the only downside of the food is removed.

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2) Mushroom Stew

The recipe for mushroom stew (Image via Minecraft)

Mushroom stew is a long-forgotten food item in Minecraft and one of the game's oldest foods. However, it was never really utilized because it requires wooden bowls and mushrooms, which can be hard to get in large numbers. The dish's popularity diminished further once regular food was made stackable up to 64 units.

What makes mushroom stew underrated is that it is one of the only foods that players can get in the Nether. If the player keeps the ingredients in their inventory rather than crafting the food, they can keep up to 64 stews at the ready.

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1) Suspicious Stew

What makes Suspicious Stew interesting is that it isn't just the single best food item in the game. It is also the most underrated. A suspicious stew that gives players the saturation effect will restore a total of 21.2 saturation, the most of any single food item in Minecraft. Additionally, suspicious stew restores a total of 6.5 hunger icons, making it one of the best in the game for restoring hunger.

However, other suspicious stews are not as revered as saturation stews. These versions of the stew only restore three hunger icons and only grant 7.2 saturation, but some of the effects they grant can be quite useful. These effects include health regeneration or fire resistance to help players survive an accidental dip in lava.