What is your rationing strategy?

[Forsaken]

Do you guys have any go-to recipes which provide the longest storage time?

I cook what I come across during my explorations, which provides me with constant food supply, but the process also becomes somewhat unpredictable. It gets harder to keep track of what is going to spoil when.

[jshepler]

I like egg fried rice. Rice grain doesn't spoil and eggs last a long time, especially in a clay pot cooler. They also don't weigh very much - great for stocking up on the raft.

If you don't mind using mods, the detailed card progress mod[www.nexusmods.com] includes time remaining for various things so you could better plan your food rotations.

[Neomare]

Originally posted by Forsaken:

Do you guys have any go-to recipes which provide the longest storage time?

I cook what I come across during my explorations, which provides me with constant food supply, but the process also becomes somewhat unpredictable. It gets harder to keep track of what is going to spoil when.

I like to go for foods like Yum Curry.

You can make it from Coconuts, Yams and Chillies. You can grow these and just grab them out of your garden where they do not spoil. Coconut oil takes a while to spoil as well.

It is a perfect activity in the evening and part of night if you do not plan to sleep for full 8 hours.


Of course always eat and cook first whatever you find in your explorations but if you plant enough yams chilies and coconuts you will not have to worry about having food when you need it. It is also not a big deal if some of the exploratory food spoils.


So basically my advice is do not worry about it just have a plan B for proper food.


You can also do similar with animal farming if you prefere the meat dishes. I prefer plants because they do not die if you leave them unatended for to long. Once they are grown anyway.


Cheers!

[Cris]

I was quite interested in the possibility of using salted meat. That possibility is quite hidden and it took me a long time to discover this method of preservation. It fills up a lot and doesn't spoil. But there is a risk of overeating with meat, so I guess that you can't eat dried meat all the time (has anyone found out? are we at risk of overeating??)

But it is strange that you cannot dry any meat. (For example, you can salt macaque meat, but you can't salt bird and monitor lizard meat. And you can't even dry it in a dryer :( Too bad, because I won't have time to eat all the meat, because it will spoil first.

[LightningGod]

My go-to is the Hearty Feast as soon as I have a couple partridges, usually with macaque meat as the base, or the Fish Omelette, but you do have to watch out for egg saturation. I am always drowning in eggs once I get an enclosure set up, so I try to use as many as I can. After I have a 3-4 laying birds, I stop storing eggs in the cooler and just put them in a container until I can get a cellar going as they spoil very slowly already. I do the same with fat.

Stock up on dry goods when the opportunity presents itself. Dry herbs in the drought, grind Sago in the rain, harvest every patch of rice you find in the Secret Valley, etc. Salt whatever mammal or fish meat you can't consume after a big catch.

For Lizard Meat, I cook it as it spoils, then smoke it around 25-30% to reset the freshness.

I try to keep a few prepped meals on hand too. Storing uncooked meals is a great way to stretch their spoilage until you need them.

As Neomare says, Yams are great. Store them whole, and if they get close to spoiling before you have a need for more, slice them up to reset their spoilage. Boiling them resets it again, so a single yam harvest can last a while if you take care.

[Philtre]

Originally posted by Cris:

But there is a risk of overeating with meat, so I guess that you can't eat dried meat all the time (has anyone found out? are we at risk of overeating??)

All types of food lead to oversaturation and nausea if you eat too much of it at once. In addition, salted meat causes excess salt, which also makes you sick. So while salted meat makes good emergency food, you need to balance it with other foods for regular consumption.

You can stockpile anything that is in a shell, since they don't rot until you take them out of the shell (coconuts, almonds, nipa nuts, conch, urchins). Rice and sago flour don't rot, snakegrass counts as garnish/salad greens for most recipes that require it, and most recipes that take chilies accept dried chilies (which don't rot). Oil and fat last a long time (keep fat in a cooler and keep oil in a sealed container). So you if you keep a selection of all the non-rotting items, you can usually whip up a batch of something or other if you get any meat/fish, or if you don't have any meat/fish, you can harvest some yams.

Mangos, jujubes, and almonds will regrow on the plant after harvesting, which makes them good easy snack foods to have in your garden since you only need to get the plant to grow once (coconuts also regrow, but they have more downsides).

[DungeonRyu]

Originally posted by Philtre:

All types of food lead to oversaturation and nausea if you eat too much of it at once. In addition, salted meat causes excess salt, which also makes you sick. So while salted meat makes good emergency food, you need to balance it with other foods for regular consumption.

Depends on the satiety of the meat. You can't do it with salted fish, since it does not satiate you much.
However I survived 30+ days eating salted pork 90% of the time. If you don't eat more than 2 pieces at a time you'll be okay. WIth pork you can eat 1 piece at a time, since it gives a lot of satiation. You can always eat some greens, nuts etc. in between.
And it's not like I needed to, since if you have enough weapon skill you can bait sea guls and cook Island Chicken. But It is difficult to control breading right now, so I had like 80+ pieces of pork lying around, so I had to salt it.