Comestible

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

A comestible % is anything edible; it is food. There are several types of comestibles in NetHack. While it is possible to ascend without eating, having a sufficient supply of food is important because without it, you will usually die from hunger. You must eat food to survive, though less frequently when you wear a ring of slow digestion.

Note that the word edible does not imply that you should eat it. Some food is bad to eat. For example, some corpses are poisonous.

If you want to read about corpses specifically, see the corpse page.

List of comestibles

• prepared foods
  • rations
    • food rations
    • cram rations
    • C-rations
    • K-rations
    • tripe rations
    • lembas wafers
  • cream pies
  • fortune cookies
  • tins (see tinning kit, tin opener, spinach)
• produce
  • apples
  • oranges
  • bananas
  • sprigs of wolfsbane
  • pears
  • slime molds (the customizable fruit)
  • cloves of garlic
  • melons
  • carrots
  • eucalyptus leaves
• artificially created meat (by stone to flesh spell)
  • huge chunks of meat
  • meatballs
  • meat sticks
  • meat rings
• corpses
• eggs
• kelp fronds

Meat	COST	WGT	PROB	NUTR	NUTR/WGT	TIME	NUTR/TIME
meatball	$ 5	1	0	5	5	1	5
meat ring	5	1	0	5	5	1	5
meat stick	5	1	0	5	5	1	5
egg	9	1	85	80	80	1	80
tripe ration	15	10	140	200	20	2	100
huge chunk of meat	105	400	0	2000	5	20	100
corpse	5	vary	0	vary	vary	vary	vary
Fruits and Vegetables	COST	WGT	PROB	NUTR	NUTR/WGT	TIME	NUTR/TIME
kelp frond	6	1	0	30	30	1	30
eucalyptus leaf	6	1	3	30	30	1	30
clove of garlic	7	1	7	40	40	1	40
sprig of wolfsbane	7	1	7	40	40	1	40
apple	7	2	15	50	25	1	50
carrot	7	2	15	50	25	1	50
pear	7	2	10	50	25	1	50
banana	9	2	10	80	40	1	80
orange	9	2	10	80	40	1	80
melon	10	5	10	100	20	1	100
slime mold	17	5	75	250	50	1	250
People food	COST	WGT	PROB	NUTR	NUTR/WGT	TIME	NUTR/TIME
fortune cookie	7	1	55	40	40	1	40
candy bar	10	2	13	100	50	1	100
cream pie	10	10	25	100	10	1	100
lump of royal jelly	15	2	0	200	100	1	200
pancake	15	2	25	200	100	2	100
C-ration	20	10	0	300	30	1	300
K-ration	25	10	0	400	40	1	400
cram ration	35	15	20	600	40	3	200
food ration (gunyoki)	45	20	380	800	40	5	160
lembas wafer	45	5	20	800	160	2	400
tin	5	10	75	vary	vary	vary	vary

Sources of food

• Some monsters have a chance of dropping a corpse.
• Sokoban always contains a large amount of food, though whether it is all fit for normal consumption is a question to be answered when you get there.
• Antholes and beehives sometimes contain food.
• Ice boxes may contain up to 20 fresh corpses.
• A Horn of plenty dispenses a random food item or potion when applied
• Soldiers often carry C- or K-Rations, so places with a large concentration of soldiers (such as Fort Ludios) are a good place to find these rations.

Food strategy

Some adventurers don't carry enough food to the dungeon entrance. Recall from the Guidebook:

"In the morning you awake, collect your belongings, and set off for the dungeon. After several days of uneventful travel, you see the ancient ruins that mark the entrance to the Mazes of Menace. It is late at night, so you make camp at the entrance and spend the night sleeping under the open skies. In the morning, you gather your gear, eat what may be your last meal outside, and enter the dungeon..."

While you packed enough food for "several days" of journey, by the time you actually get inside, you don't have much food with you. Some roles start the game with a small pile of 2 food rations, but some roles didn't think ahead, and start with no food at all. In any case, one of the early goals of the game is to secure an adequate food supply.

To stay alive, many players at the start of their dungeon exploration will eat the corpses of their slain enemies. It is common to find adventurers eating the remains of anything that their pet does not reach first. Care must be taken, of course, as some corpses are poisonous or may cause other problems (e.g., hallucination). Even harmless corpses "taste terrible." Those concerned with keeping the vegan or vegetarian conduct will also be more discerning in eating the corpses of their vanquished foes.

Early on, easy to find sources for food include the corpses of gnomes and dwarves in the Gnomish Mines, and the guarenteed food in Sokoban. If you are a gnome or dwarf, then feasting the in Mines may be problematic, unless you are a cave(wo)man. Also, gnome corpses only give 100 nutrition - not very much. The stores in Minetown may also have food. Sokoban, with its food and wands, is a sensible early target, even if one doesn't finish the whole area.

Lower in the main dungeon, one can sometimes find beehives and Antholes. Beehives contain royal jelly, and Antholes will contain one food item per square, which should yield a reasonable stack of food rations.

Even then, the supply is finite, so some players continue to eat monster corpses. Random Number God helpfully continues to provide them. Monster corpses may be stored for later use in tins using the tinning kit, or in ice boxes.

Should I eat dessert first?

When an adventurer is able to obtain several different types of comestibles in their inventory, the next question is:

"What should I eat first?"

Since different foods pack differing amounts of nutrition into a given size, it makes the most sense to eat non-efficient foods first. This way, you minimize the amount of your carrying-capacity used for food. Using the NUTR/WGT column in the table above, we see that lembas wafers are the most weight-efficient forms of nutrition in NetHack (excepting prayer, of course!), with royal jelly, pancakes and candy bars closely following the Elven treats. Therefore, the adventurer is generally advised to eat other foodstuffs first.

Cream pies and meatballs are particularly inefficient for travel, but they have other uses that may out-weigh (heh-heh) their low NUTR/WGT factor.

Tins weigh 10 and vary in nutrition, but only pureed monsters and spinach equal or exceed the NUTR/WGT of rations. So any unidentified tin should probably be eaten before any other food. (Plus you'd hope to get the benefits of spinach or floating eye corpses sooner than later.)

In order of increasing nutrition per unit weight:

1. Tins
2. Meatballs, huge chunks of meat
3. Cream pies
4. Tripe (may make you sick!)
5. Fruits and Vegetables
6. Food rations, fortune cookies,
7. Candy bar
8. Pancakes and royal jelly
9. Lembas wafers

Of course, other factors in deciding the menu for today's meal can include the benefits conferred by eating each food (e.g. intrinsics, healing), the dietary needs of pets, and if your inventory slots are constrained because you don't have a container. You may wish to leave lembas until the Ascention run, so you can carry more loot for score.

When forced to eat in combat situations (especially when confronting famine in the astral plane), eating the food that has the most time-efficient (has the best NUTR/TIME factor) first could prove a better option. K-Rations are the usual choice here, as they contain a fair bit of nutrition, but are consumed in only 1 turn.

Alternatives to Eating

It is possible to ascend without eating food. There are several techniques available for this, but most require the use of a ring of slow digestion. Alternatives include:

• Praying - when "weak" or worse, your God will make your stomach content. Note this is not possible in Gehennom.
• Polymorphing - your hunger is reset when you polymorph. Also, if you polymorph into a Xorn or other metallivore, you can eat metallic items to sate your hunger.
• Life Saving - an Amulet of Life Saving will reset your hunger. While you will die from starvation, you may still ascend.
• Liquid Diet - Potions of fruit juice, potions of water and sipping from fountains each give a small amount of nutrition. It is possible to live off of this.