Comestible

Item classes
" Amulets	[ Armor
% Comestibles	$ Coins
* Gems	! Potions
= Rings	? Scrolls
+ Spellbooks	` Statues
( Tools	` Boulders
) Weapons	/ Wands

In NetHack, a comestible refers to any food or other edible items, %, that you can eat with the e command. Regular eating is required to keep up your nutrition levels and avoid starvation, though it is possible to ascend without eating at all. Corpses from dead monsters are among the most common type of comestible - most non-corpse comestibles do not rot away, and are generally called "permafood".

While some monsters can also eat food, only pet monsters are required to eat at all, and they must do so regularly in the same manner as you; intelligent monsters may still pick up and carry around non-corpse food items. Certain monsters can also eat items besides comestibles (e.g., metallivores eat metal items), and you can as well by polymorphing into such monsters.

Generation

Most roles start with some amount of comestibles in their initial inventory, and the specific starting food for applicable roles also depends on the starting race of that particular character - orcish non-Wizards also start with two random food items, each of which may come in a stack of two. Roles that do not start with food are Cavemen, human Rogues, Samurai, and Wizards.

Comestibles comprise 20% of all randomly-generated items in the main dungeon, 15% in containers, 22% on the Rogue level, and 16% in Gehennom. Sokoban is a branch that always contains a large amount of food. Some monsters are also generated carrying food, such as soldiers, and many of them have a chance of leaving a corpse behind when killed - additionally, various special rooms may either contain several food items (e.g., antholes and beehives), or else have several monsters that generate with food (e.g. barracks) and can themselves be eaten for food.

All non-tin comestibles except are normally generated uncursed, with the exception of those in a player's bones. Non-corpse comestibles have a chance of being generated in stacks of two: the chance is ¹⁄₂ for kelp frondsand ¹⁄₆ for other food.

Description

Eating any comestible other than a tainted corpse or a tin of rotten monster gives you its nutrition value; the nutrition is provided uniformly during eating, e. g. if an item takes 5 turns to eat, then after 2 turns of eating eat you receive 40% of its nutrition value. See that article and its section on hunger for more information regarding nutrition - for the effects of eating a specific type of comestible, consult the articles linked in the list of comestibles below.

List of comestibles

Item	Cost	Wgt	Prob	Nutr	Nutr/Wgt	Time	Nutr/Time	Conduct	Other Effects
food ration	45	20	380	800	40	5	160	vegan
cram ration	35	15	20	600	40	3	200	vegan
C-ration	20	10	0	300	30	1	300	vegan
K-ration	25	10	0	400	40	1	400	vegan
tripe ration	15	10	140	200	20	2	100	none
lembas wafer	45	5	20	800	160	2	400	vegan
cream pie	10	10	25	100	10	1	100	vegetarian
pancake	15	2	25	200	100	2	100	vegetarian
candy bar	10	2	13	100	50	1	100	vegetarian
fortune cookie	7	1	55	40	40	1	40	vegetarian
tin (homemade)	5	10	—*	50	5	varies	varies	varies
tin of spinach (blessed)	5	10	0.625*	600	60	1–2	450	vegan
tin of spinach (uncursed)	5	10	11.25*	401–600	50.05	varies	varies	vegan
tin of spinach (cursed)	5	10	0.625*	201–600	40.05	varies	varies	vegan
tin (other)	5	10	62.5*	varies	varies	varies	varies	varies
apple	7	2	15	50	25	1	50	vegan
orange	9	2	10	80	40	1	80	vegan
banana	9	2	10	80	40	1	80	vegan
sprig of wolfsbane	7	1	7	40	40	1	40	vegan
pear	7	2	10	50	25	1	50	vegan
slime mold	17	5	75	250	50	1	250	vegan
clove of garlic	7	1	7	40	40	1	40	vegan
melon	10	5	10	100	20	1	100	vegan
carrot	7	2	15	50	25	1	50	vegan
eucalyptus leaf	6	1	3	30	30	1	30	vegan
kelp frond	6	1	0	30	30	1	30	vegan
meatball	5	1	0	5	5	1	5	none
meat ring	5	1	0	5	5	1	5	none
meat stick	5	1	0	5	5	1	5	none
huge chunk of meat	105	400	0	2000	5	20	100	none
egg	9	1	85	80	80	1	80	vegetarian
lump of royal jelly	15	2	0	200	100	1	200	vegetarian
corpse (lichen)	5	20	0	200	10	3	66	vegan
corpse (lizard)	5	10	0	40	4	3	13	none
corpse (other)	5	varies	0	varies	varies	varies	varies	varies

* For details on the probability of randomly generated tins, see the tin article.

Eating corpses

Corpses can give you useful intrinsic properties or improve your attributes, though others can be hazardous or even poisonous to eat. Corpses also age and eventually rot, and eating an old enough one can damage you or even cause lethal food poisoning.

Eating tins

Tins either contain meat or other parts from monsters (called "tin of foo meat", or "tin of foo" if it is vegetable), or are tins of spinach. Eating a tin takes only 1 turn, but opening the tin may take more than 1 turn - this depends on if you are wielding a tin opener or other suitable sharp object, and whether or not the tin is blessed. You can use a tinning kit on an intact corpse to make a tin of it, regardless of that corpse's age. Before you eat a tin, you are notified of its contents; if you chose not to eat it, you "discard the open tin" and it is used up.

Tins of a monster generally have the same effects as eating that monster's corpse, though without any adverse effects from poison or acid; their nutrition value depends on the preparation method, which is determined randomly when you open the tin; tins made from tinning kits are always either homemade or rotten, depending on the kit's beatitude. Tins of fried monster will give you slippery fingers; a tin of rotten monster has no nutritional value and will make you nauseous, which causes you to vomit and lose nutrition unless it is cured. Cursed tins are always rotten, and ¹⁄₈ of them are booby-trapped to explode upon opening.

Eating eggs

Eggs provide 80 nutrition and do not rot away - rather, they become stale after 400 turns, and eating a stale egg makes you nauseated for 10d4 (more) turns, which eventually causes you to vomit unless cured. ¹⁄₃ of all generated eggs are of a random non-aquatic, oviparous monster and will eventually hatch if fresh; the rest are simply plain eggs; eating a cockatrice egg induces delayed stoning unless you have stoning resistance. The primary method to learn the type of a given egg is usually to identify it.

Rotten food

Most comestibles have a chance to end up being rotten when first eaten; this is different from being tainted, which only affects corpses that are left to rot long enough. Comestibles that are uncursed and older than 30 turns, or blessed and older than 50 turns, have a ¹⁄₇ chance to be rotten - lembas wafers, cram rations and fortune cookies are never rotten.

Corpses that are "old", tainted or poisonous are never rotten in this sense; acidic corpses cannot end up rotten unless you have acid resistance. Lizard and lichen corpses do not become tainted from age or rot away, and are always safe to eat; acid blob corpses cannot become tainted from age, though they eventually rot away like other corpses. Wraith corpses that are eaten have a ¹⁄₇ chance of immediately rotting away without giving you an experience level, regardless of beatitude.

Upon eating rotten food, you only receive ¹⁄₂ of its nutrition value and are subjected to one of the negative effects listed below. The chances of each outcome and the message accompanying it vary depending on various factors, including whether you are blind, hallucinating or otherwise:

Outcome	Odds		Message	Notes
	Not blind	Blind
Nothing	3⁄8	1⁄2	"Blecch! Rotten <food>!"
Confusion for 2d4 (more) turns.	1⁄4	1⁄4	"You feel rather light-headed." "You feel rather trippy." (if hallucinating)
Blinded for 2d10 turns	3⁄16	0	"Everything suddenly goes dark."	Cannot occur if already blind
Pass out for d10 turns	3⁄16	1⁄4	"The world spins and goes dark." "The world spins and you slap against the <ground/saddle/...>" "The world spins and you lose control of yourself. "

Food strategy

One of the early goals for any player is to secure an adequate food supply; as discussed above, some roles enter the dungeon with a mostly non-perishable food supply. Most players starting their dungeon exploration will eat the corpses of slain hostiles, or else leave them for their pet (who may just as often get to the corpse first). As indicated by one of the many rumors available, beginners to NetHack can use their pet as a very general guide on whether or not a given corpse is safe to eat or better avoided (e.g. kobold corpses and green and yellow mold); they will eventually learn what early corpses to prioritize for obtaining intrinsics as they obtain more game experience.

The first consideration in most food-related strategy is typically whether or not you are attempting a conduct - vegetarian players will know to avoid anything containing meat, while vegan players have an even stricter requirement to avoid anything made with animal products, including eggs or dairy. Fortunately, the standard food rations and nameable fruit are always vegan-friendly - the challenge lies in obtaining intrinsics and other properties from the lower variety of diet-compliant corpses available.

The next consideration is finding a supply of food: Sokoban is a common target branch that has several guaranteed food items alongside other loot, and it is usually worth completing one or two floors in order to stockpile permafood. The Gnomish Mines is another common branch chosen for the abundance of gnomes and/or dwarves that can be eaten, though this is very dependent on your race and alignment; the branch also contains Minetown, which is likely to have a store or two that sells food (unless you happen upon Orctown).

As you progress through the dungeon, it can be worth keep an eye out for antholes and beehives as well as barracks - generally, you will encounter monsters with more nutritious corpses more frequently as you progress, and they will usually have higher odds to leave corpses as well. This makes food a less pressing issue, especially as giants and eventually dragons become more frequent; a tinning kit can be used to preserve these and other large corpses, both in order to avoid rapid satiation and to stockpile for other purposes like intrinsics and strength increases.

Fort Ludios and the Castle have several barracks containing food-carrying soldiers, and containers for stashing the spare food in - even with a bag of holding on hand, it is better not to carry more food than needed, and both locations also work as general-purpose stashes. Be aware that using the drawbridge to crush monsters at the Castle will destroy any food and other items those monsters were carrying.

Food priority

Since different foods pack differing amounts of nutrition into a given size, it makes the most sense to eat "non-efficient" foods first and minimize the amount of your carrying capacity used for food. In order of increasing nutrition per unit weight:

1. Lizard corpses
2. Non-homemade tins
3. Known homemade tins, and stone to flesh products (i.e. meatballs, meat rings, meat stick, and huge chunk of meat)
4. Cream pies and lichen corpses
5. Tripe rations
6. Fruits and vegetables
7. C-rations
8. Food rations, cram rations (slightly better for dwarves), K-rations, fortune cookies
9. Nameable fruit and candy bar
10. Pancakes and lumps of royal jelly
11. Lembas wafers

If using this list as a guide, items closer to the bottom of the list should usually be saved for last; other factors beyond carrying capacity - such as intrinsics, healing and available inventory slots - will also affect which food you elect to consume first. When eating in combat situations (especially when confronting Famine in the Astral Plane), food that can be eaten quickly is generally best.

Situational food effects

Eating some other foods also produces special effects:

• Tripe rations sometimes give you
• Garlic makes you nauseous if you are undead.
• A sprig of wolfsbane, even a cursed one, cures lycanthropy.
• Carrots, even cursed ones, cure blindness, except blindness caused by throwing a cream pie into your face.
• A fortune cookie "has a scrap of paper inside." Unless blind, eating it will cause you to read a rumor, which is true/random/false for blessed/uncursed/cursed fortune cookies. (If blind, you instead get the message "What a pity that you cannot read it!")
• A non-cursed Lump of royal jelly:
  • increases your strength by one
  • delivers 1-20 hit points. If your hp is now higher than your current maximum, it has a 1/17 chance of increasing your maximum hit points by one, and then sets your hit points to to the new maximum
  • cures wounded legs
• A cursed Lump of royal jelly increases your strength by one but decreases your hit points by 1-20, and does not cure wounded legs.
• A non-cursed eucalyptus leaf cures sickness and nausea.
• Cursed apples send you to sleep for 20-30 moves, unless you are sleep resistant. ("You hear sinister laughter as you fall asleep...", or "You fall asleep" if deaf, or "Heigh-ho, ho-hum, I think I'll skip work today." for hallucinating dwarves.) This is a reference to Snow White.

Foodless conduct

It is possible to ascend without eating food at all - this conduct may require the use of a ring of slow digestion, though it is also possible to even ascend without ever gaining nutrition if you are fast (and lucky) enough. There are several alternate methods of procuring nutrition elsewhere, detailed in the article linked just above - below are some of the more common ones:

• Praying to your god when weak or fainting from hunger may make your stomach content, setting your nutrition to 900 - this level of hunger is considered a major trouble. This is not possible in Gehennom, where your prayers are never answered positively.
• Polymorphing resets your hunger if you polymorph into your own race. Polymorphing into a metallivore to eat metallic items violates the foodless conduct, but preserves the vegan conduct unless you eat a tin.
• An amulet of life saving revives you with at least 900 nutrition if you died.
• A liquid diet does not violate foodless conduct - Potions of fruit juice, potions of water, potions of booze (preferably blessed) and sipping from fountains each give a small amount of nutrition. While it is possible to live off of this, the math works out so that only Tourists can generate enough potions to last the entire game (with the blessed Platinum Yendorian Express Card, a horn of plenty, and a ring of slow digestion).

Variants

SLASH'EM

Some new food stuff in SLASH'EM.

The pill and the mushroom have random effects.

	Symbol	COST	WGT	PROB	NUTR	NUTR/WGT	TIME	NUTR/TIME	Notes
tortilla	%	9	2	?	80	40	1?	80	Vegetarian.
holy wafer	%	12	1	?	150	150	1	150	Vegetarian. Cures sickness or lycanthropy (unless your starting race is lycanthrope, in which case it damages you and reduces your strength and constitution). Restores HP if you're lawful, and does non-fatal damage if you're chaotic
Asian pear	%	8	2	?	75	37.5	1	75	Vegan.
Sandwich	%	10	10	?	100	10	1	100
mushroom	%	9	5	?	90	18	1	90	Vegan. Can cause poisoning, stunning, hallucination, or increase strength by 1.
cheese	%	17	2	?	250	125	2	125	Vegetarian.
pill	%			?					Vegetarian. Can grant a wish, make you very fast, increase your nutrition, put you to sleep, poison you, stun you, or cause hallucination.
food ration		45	20	380	800	40	5	160	Normal food rations, For reference

References

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.