Is pre-cooking cooking materials beneficial?

[H4xX]

Hey, does anybody know whether for example cooking raw fish, then putting it into a pan with other stuff, gives it food bonuses twice?

[Gary Goodspeed]

it doesnt but i think you can get more exp from it.
Or atleast it was like that a few months ago, it changed from cooked to raw when put in pan.

[H4xX]

Edit: ^ this answer was wrong, precooking increases hunger reduction twice

[denton91]

It gives a bit more "fullness" if you cook it before adding it to a dish. You only get bonus calories once, when "chopping" the ingredients.

[H4xX]

So +calories when chopping, -hunger when cooking and chopping doesn't appear if cooking raw meat/fish?

[Animalman]

Its beneficial yeah. But not in the way you think.

Meat is the most toxic part of the meal. So cooking the meat means you can go on to make safe to eat uncooked meals that you don't need to cook again.

There are pro's and cons.

For example; Using Soup, and Stew if the meat was cooked the uncooked soup or stew is non toxic for as long as the water used was also safe. Also with some meat if the meat is cooked then you can make edible meal instantly with some loot items.

The only real saving you make from not cooking the meat is saving on matches or lighter fluid.

IF you are cooking your meal you can add ingredients to it while its under heat. To add extra cooking time. Not sure about exp for this.

Be careful with this advice because cooking all meat you see is not advisable. Since some meat can be prepared into different meat products. Like Mince Meat for example, a cooked Mince Meat is hard to use. You were suppose to make burgers from it when it was raw. if you didn't its difficult to avoid eating it stand-alone and getting some unhappiness from it.

[H4xX]

Well thanks. Making burgers is actually quite rare on my difficulty at minimum food drops due to salt and yeast. I think I made one throughout looting all of Muldraugh.

Afterwards, I made a self built lake villa with a huge wall fence around the gathering and trapping area, made of 70 nail packages, so I live off gather, fish, trap meat and farm potatos now, using both a grill for 50 space and an electronic stove. Guess I'll restart after trying the 2nd winter in the villa, though. Even at the lowest food settings and 2x game time passing, these food sources are OP.
Early on, half the food I ate was rotten, so for findable items it's very balanced.

[denton91]

Originally posted by H4xX:

So +calories when chopping, -hunger when cooking and chopping doesn't appear if cooking raw meat/fish?

You can chop either raw or cooked (the "add to" option"), but if you cook + chop + cook again, the food has more "-hunger" than chop + cook, but same calories (which is more than just cook + eat).

The only actual cons that I can think of when cooking is that it takes time and needs a heat source.

The animalman seems to have made some weird ritual of adding food but zomboid doesn't treat food that way, just pile everything into a pot/pan etc. and cook it, doesn't matter when you do it as long as its before the food is "cooked".

Btw, the ground beef - patty conversion is maybe the only item in the game that cannot be further processed after you cook it. You don't have to worry about that nonsense, it is barely relevant.

[H4xX]

Thanks, confirmed:
raw fish with carrot: 4+2 -> 7
cooked fish with carrot: 4->6+2-> 10

So the answer is: yes, precooking improves hunger twice (and if i understood right, calories only 1x).