Food

Food is any edible item. If you do not eat, you will starve! Make sure you eat everyday to avoid starvation. A cooked cut of meat, flat rye bread, or a large fish will decrease your hunger by about half the bar, whereas eating a small fish, blanched mushrooms, or berries will only relieve a little bit of hunger. Food will spoil over time. Eating spoiled food will cause you to become sick, and may even cause death if you eat enough of it.

Food could be broadly divided into four categories: Meat, fish, flour based and plants.

Meat
One of the best sources of nutrition in the game, meat always comes from animals. Unless you're into ...strange meat. Different meat sources have different nutrition values; a roast elk cut will restore more hunger than, say, a squirrel cut would. Bear is the most nutritious, balancing out the danger of actually hunting them in the first place.

Popular methods of getting meat are through trapping or active hunting, often with a ranged weapon such as a bow or javelin. Meat can be preserved by salting, drying or smoking.

Fish
Another good source of food, fishing for food is an easy way to provide for beginning characters (provided that your fishing skill is high enough). While small fish restore barely any nutrition, large fish, particularly salmon or trout will easily restore the entire bar. Fishing can be done passively or actively, using nets or a fishing rod, spear or club, respectively. Fishing stores often sell, in addition to these tools, different forms of watercraft. They can be used to reach deeper water where more fish reside.

Flour Based foods
There are only a few foods like this. The only examples of this are breads and porridge. These can be obtained by trade or by cooking. To cook, the player will require flour. Sometimes the user might start with Wheat Breads, which do not seem to appear at any other point in the game, apart from very rare offers in shops. All bread after this point is Flat Rye Bread.

Plants
While not as filling as the other types of food, plants are plentiful in the right seasons and much less risky to get. Plants are usually either berries or crops, ready in summer and autumn. Mushroom are another source of food, but it is risky to eat them raw as the majority are poisonous unless cooked. Plants can be farmed for a steady food source using the agriculture skill. Some food plants, such as cabbages, can be obtained - often by trading in villages. Also there are herbs that can be used as seasoning in different meals and for healing.

Milking
Sheep and Cows can be bought from villages and milked every day using a container like a pot or bowl. [Q]uaffing the Milk when the character is not thirsty reduces hunger and is nutritious.

See also Acquiring Food