What are the best sources for food in The Long Dark?

[AHostileFish]

Just wondering what people thought was the best sources of food, like weight\calories ratio. I have found that:
Energy Bars,
Candy\Granola Bars,
Condensed Milk,
Cat Tail Stalks
Cooked Bear Meat

Those were in order, best being on top. Anybody else have good food sources?

[reggiedunbar]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=354669408

[iwasa]

MREs are equivalent to Granola bars I think in terms of density (MRE 1,750 calories per 0.5 kg, vs 350 calories per 0.10 kg). Granola bars have more versatility because you can eat them one at a time while eating an MRE requires interupting the consumption in mid-meal.

The issue is not necessarily which has the best calorie density but, given the circumstances, which would serve best for the situation.

Packaged foods (my term for modern foods) can have good density but they are generally irreplaceable. There are only so much in the sandbox.

If one uses replaceability as an additional criteria then the order, from highest to lowest calorie density, runs bear, deer, wolf, rabbit/fish.

Meat left outside (raw and cooked) will degrade slower than inside. I have found with packaged foods that sometimes the degradation is uneven and can vary between different foods. For instance, inside the Quonset garage, I find a can of rusty condensed milk degrading faster than cans of soda and energy bars that I put next to it (this was a test). The decay was not super fast, but it was startling fast in comparison to pretty much the other packaged food I had. I don't know what is going on.

[Cobretti]

Wildlife is terrible weight / calorie.

Best weight / calorie is that MRE bar followed by salty crackers. Condensed milk is good too. Im sure there are more.

I am doing the nomad challenge right now and have had crackers in my pack since the beginning for emergencies. Killed wildlife for furs but wouldn't bother cooking them unless I was playing a long game, which I'm not.

[Blacklight]

In terms of reliability and low effort in getting it, fish is arguably the best source right now.Especially if you do it for a prolonged period of time, so youll level your fishing skill to be even more efficient.
I find bears are a really good source for food too.You need to be confident in your ability to kill one tho.But when you do it, it surely pays off.
You can manage to kill a bear in one bullet.That means roughly thirty pounds of meat, which translates to whopping 30000 calories, a bear skin and 9 guts.Even if the initial shot doesnt kill him, usually you can wait a bit till he drops dead from the blood loss.One bullet is still a very costly thing so I prefer to go fishing until I run out of hooks.

[iwasa]

I would agree that, despite requiring one to stay put while fishing, spending a day fishing at a fishing hut can result in plentiful food and (gods) a heavy load too. :)

For staying at a static base, fish is great if it is available. It cooks faster than meat. For puttering around the base/area it packs a lot of calories into one item but that item will be heavy.

[Blacklight]

Originally posted by iwasa:

I would agree that, despite requiring one to stay put while fishing, spending a day fishing at a fishing hut can result in plentiful food and (gods) a heavy load too. :)

For staying at a static base, fish is great if it is available. It cooks faster than meat. For puttering around the base/area it packs a lot of calories into one item but that item will be heavy.

I can only recommend crafting a full set of clothing out of hides and pelts as soon as possible.It will assure that you can spend most of the day and even most of the night in the fishing hut without needing to light a fire for the purpose of warming up.If you catch a lot of fish and the weight becomes a problem, which will be most likely be the case, you should place them in the fishing that you caught them.It ensures that they dont get eaten by those pesky wolves but also keeps them from degrading very fast.
But I assume you already know about that, since you spend 540 hours in-game :)

[Cobretti]

Wolves eat meat left outside? Never noticed and I have a heap of fish sitting outside my fishing hut, outside on the ice

[iwasa]

Wolves do not eat meat, raw or cooked, that is just dropped on the ground. Even if dropped where they regularly path, they won't touch it.

Now drop a meat using the decoy key and they can see that and will eat it.

I play Pilgrim so I don't need to use decoys, but I tried it out on a wolf on Mystery Lake. Since wolves run away in Pilgrim, I dropped a couple of rabbit meat using the decoy key and went on my way. Coming back with a load of deer meat, I watched as the wolf walked up to the rabbit decoy and ate it. I wasn't sure which decoy it ate so I went closer which drove it away, but definitely it had eaten one of the decoys.

A caveat may be that if a wolf killed a deer and was driven away then pathed back to the deer (either with meat on the carcass or left laying on the ground) it may still be able to detect the meat and eat it. It may be a rare occurence but it seems possible.

[Blacklight]

They dont eat meat if its not left as a decoy?That seems rather unintentional.Using common sense in this game is a major component, so I just assumed they would eat the meat if they happen to stray past it.I honestly think this shouldnt be a thing

[Blacklight]

Originally posted by Cézanne:

Condensed milk, MREs, wolf meat, cattail stalks.

I only eat bear meat when I'm crafting big projects, the dehydration it causes + the weight doesn't make it valuable enough to carry on trips. MREs offer the same amount of calories & don't drain your thirst, but they're so much rarer.

Fish are great but they're so heavy you should only eat them if you're staying in for a night; no use carrying a 5lb filet with you through the mountains.

Yes, I am aware that fish are heavy, but I was talking about the reliability and low cost of catching fish as I said in my original comment.Now, obviously MREs and granola bars have a low weight, but they wont last you long.Sure it is advisable to take MREs with you rather than fish if you go on a long trip, but one MRE will last you one day, not including the starvation technique, since im not a big fan of putting myself at risk through intentionally dropping down health.
About the dehydration: Water is an Unlimited resource that you wont run low of unless you dont have the tools to start a fire.You dont even need to chop wood for it, that means no need for a hatchet as well.Just grab a bundle of sticks near you and start a fire,cook the water and youll be fine, even with the additional water needed because of dehydration

[AHostileFish]

Thank you all for your amazing input! I agree with the packaged food and the fish, but i tend to find fish is too heavy and packaged food is rare to find the good stuff. But much appreciated!

[maureeze]

I see this topic come up a lot in different discussion threads. The Fandom Wiki about different food items is very helpful. I have not double checked whether the numbers indicated there are correct, but I think it is solid to assume so.
https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Food_and_drink#Types_of_food

I have put all these stats into Excel in a X/Y point graph. What you end up with is an overview of Calorie Density (Kcal/kg) VS Hydration. I.e. Salty Crackers are by far the best in regards of Calorie Density (6000 Kcal/kg), but they come at the "cost" of dehydrating you with -20%.
Unfortunately I cannot paste the graph here. But I recommend you check out the Fandom Page to get a better overview of the different stats

IMO the question "what is the best food item" depends heavily on context and your play style. If you want to hunker down in one location and you have good gear and equipment, go hunting/fishing. If you want to travel light and in an efficient way, Salty Crackers are superb, maybe even topped by MRE and Energy bars, which both have lower Calorie Density, but don't dehydrate you (MRE acutally give 5% hydration).

The issue of food items being renewable/non-renewable is OFC also very important. That again comes down to your goals in the game and your play style. Long-term you need to focus on renewable food sources, but short-term you can munch through all the goodies you find.

[Animalman]

Rabbits are pretty bad food sources. However you can pick up and move the carcass unlike all other meat, harvest the skin and guts, and leave the meat intact. Then you can leave it to freeze. This IMO is quite valuable.

[wilky]

Originally posted by Animalman:

Rabbits are pretty bad food sources. However you can pick up and move the carcass unlike all other meat, harvest the skin and guts, and leave the meat intact. Then you can leave it to freeze. This IMO is quite valuable.

Why is that valuable? Doesn't the quality of the meat degrade much faster when it's left inside the rabbit vs. harvested from the rabbit?

Originally posted by maureeze:

IMO the question "what is the best food item" depends heavily on context and your play style. If you want to hunker down in one location and you have good gear and equipment, go hunting/fishing. If you want to travel light and in an efficient way, Salty Crackers are superb, maybe even topped by MRE and Energy bars, which both have lower Calorie Density, but don't dehydrate you (MRE acutally give 5% hydration).

Interesting points you raise. When I'm traveling, I also like to take a can of food, eat about 90% of it, and then cancel right before the end. In this way, you're able to carry the "recycled can" around for less weight than it normally weighs.

[HermitMushroom]

Originally posted by maureeze:

IMO the question "what is the best food item" depends heavily on context and your play style. If you want to hunker down in one location and you have good gear and equipment, go hunting/fishing. If you want to travel light and in an efficient way, Salty Crackers are superb, maybe even topped by MRE and Energy bars, which both have lower Calorie Density, but don't dehydrate you (MRE acutally give 5% hydration).

The issue of food items being renewable/non-renewable is OFC also very important. That again comes down to your goals in the game and your play style. Long-term you need to focus on renewable food sources, but short-term you can munch through all the goodies you find.

Agreed with Wilky that this is the point. Is all depends on where you are putting your footsteps.

But, in all cases, Cattails are the best one in my opinion since it can be used in strong support of sedentary stances (stuck inside cause a snowblind is raging) as they are indispensable in nomadic playstyles. They are renewable, lightweight, don't decay and don't thirst you out.

Graphin' them mask these qualities and rule them off, cause they are only valuable in stacks - which is a common strategy not only for foods in this game, after all. Top tip for this game is harvest them at all times and map their locations.