Top 5 food items to have while fighting mobs in Minecraft

Minecraft may have a straightforward combat system, but that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. Players will want to keep certain food items on-hand to keep their natural healing ability working.

Although there are a ton of food items to choose from, not all are created equal. While some restore more hunger points per consumption, others provide more saturation allowing the hunger meter to last longer before it begins to deplete.

Other foods provide even better benefits than satisfying hunger and satiety, and they're definitely worth keeping in mind when fighting hostile mobs.

Note: This article reflects the opinions of the writer

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Minecraft: Best foods for healing during mob battles

5) Cooked Porkchops

Cooked porkchops are a reliable and accessible food item (Image via Mojang)

Pigs are a common animal mob to find in Minecraft, making cooked porkchops an easy food item to make in bulk and consume.

Players can kill pigs and place their raw porkchops inside a furnace, smoker or on a campfire. However, they can also burn a pig, killing it outright and making it drop a cooked porkchop without the need for further cooking.

Regardless of how players obtain them, cooked porkchops are useful food items in general. They restore eight total hunger points and come with a hunger saturation number of 12.8. This makes them one of the best foods when it comes to the hunger-to-saturation ratio.

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4) Cooked Mutton

Mutton provides less hunger quality but is more plentiful on average (Image via Mojang)

Mutton in Minecraft is admittedly not as wholesome as cooked porkchops when it comes to hunger and saturation. However, players can collect a little more each time they kill an animal mob.

Raw mutton can drop in amounts of one or two each time a sheep is killed. The same applies when a player burns a sheep much like other animal mobs. Players can receive up to two cooked mutton pieces per kill when using fire directly.

Mutton can also be obtained from butcher villagers in trades in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition. The same villagers will throw cooked mutton to Java Edition players if they have the Hero of the Village status effect.

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3) Golden Carrots

Golden carrots are incredibly helpful in hunger saturation (Image via Mojang)

Golden carrots are spectacular food items to keep Minecraft players' healing active. They can be looted from bastion remnants and ruined Nether portals. They can also be crafted using carrots and golden nuggets.

Golden carrots have the second-highest food saturation value in the game with 14.4 saturation points. The only food item that beats it is suspicious stew created with dandelions or blue orchids.

Golden carrots also have applications in brewing, making them incredibly versatile both in battle and during a player's off-time.

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2) Golden Apples

Golden apples yield extra benefits than ordinary foods (Image via Mojang)

Considered the gold standard for foods in Minecraft, golden apples not only improve a player's hunger and saturation but also provide the Absorption I and Regeneration II status effects.

Absorption increases the player's maximum health cap, while Regeneration restores the player's missing health over time (like natural healing but faster).

Golden apples are also more accessible compared to enchanted golden apples, which are superior in quality but are much more difficult to obtain.

Golden apples can be crafted using gold ingots and apples. They can also be looted from many Minecraft structures, including dungeons, abandoned mineshafts, desert temples, and strongholds.

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1) Enchanted Golden Apples

They're rare, but enchanted golden apples are a superfood (Image via RajCraft/YouTube)

An uncraftable food item in vanilla Minecraft, enchanted golden apples are incredibly beneficial to players from both a hunger and status effect standpoint. They provide four points of hunger restoration and 9.6 points of hunger saturation.

Enchanted golden apples may not have the highest hunger or saturation values, but the benefits they provide to the player well outweigh that shortcoming. In addition, the status effect benefits they offer are huge compared to standard golden apples.

Enchanted golden apples confer Absorption IV, Regeneration II in Java Edition (or Regeneration V in Bedrock Edition), Fire Resistance I, and Resistance I.

Not only do players heal quickly with increased max health, but they also receive reduced damage from nearly all sources. This makes enchanted golden apples ideal for battle.