As I was sitting in the Living Rock Caverns the other day I got to thinking about different types of foods and why we choose one over the other. There’s many reasons someone may choose one food over the other but which are the most common reasons and the hands down most popular foods?

Considerations

Cost
For many cost is inconsequential when they think of food. They don’t care what it costs, give them the best. For others, especially lower leveled players, the cost plays a significant role in the choice of food.

Space
Space is another factor. Though all items in Runescape only ever take one space, some items stack which means you can hold more than one (or sometimes an infinite amount) of an item in one space. In the case of food this means that you can get more health per inventory space using certain stackable foods rather than a non-stackable item.

Bites
Though some items may take a mega bite we’re not talking about computer bytes here. Most foods only take one bite to consume, however there are some foods which take two or more bites to consume. Each time a bite of these kinds of foods is taken a part of the foods total hitpoints is healed. This plays a fairly large part in deciding which foods to use also as each bite requires additional time to consume.

Healing amount
The whole point of healing foods is to get the highest healing amount you can in each inventory.

Example

First we must figure out the considering points for each food. The cost for items is always depending on availability. I make or catch all of my food so there’s hardly any cost for me. However many people don’t want to spend the time to do it themselves so we’ll use the current Grand Exchange price to estimate the cost.

Chocolate cake
Cost: 425
Space: 1
Bites: 3
Healing amount: 150

The Chocolate cake requires 3 bites. Because of this its healing amount is split evenly between the three bites. Thus each piece heals 50 points. This is about 2.8gp per hitpoint and requires 3 eating actions.

Tuna
Cost: 119
Space: 1
Bites: 1
Healing amount: 100

Tuna is significantly cheaper than Chocolate cake and only requires 1 bite. However it doesn’t have as much total healing amount. It costs about 1.1gp per hitpoint and only requires one eating action.

This is where you take into consideration what your target is. If you’re just doing casual combat which doesn’t inflict lots of damage quickly then you can afford to take the extra time to eat the 3 bites of chocolate cake since over all you’ll get more healing out of it.
However, if you’re doing something intense such as player killing or fighting high level creatures that can do lots of damage quickly then you’ll want the tuna which heals twice as much per bite as the chocolate cake. The downside is that the tuna only heals 2/3 the total amount of the chocolate cake so overall you have more healing per inventory with the cake than with the tuna.

Another factor for choosing which food to bring is your relativity to a bank. How close is the nearest bank?
If you’re close to a bank then you can afford to go with a cheaper lower healing food since it won’t take as along to return to the bank to restock.
But if you’re not near a bank you’ll want to be able to last a longtime on one inventory of food.

Of course you’re defense level and equipment plays a large role in how long your food lasts, but that’s another article 😉

Common foods

Now we’ll look at some of the most commonly used foods. You probably won’t see me talking about many underused foods because most of the best foods are already commonly used.

Name: Rocktail
Cost: 2,225
Bites: 1
Healing amount: 230(+100)

The great thing about Rocktails is that if eating one would normally top you up and waste some points it will give you those ‘wasted’ healing points as temporary hitpoints. So if you have 870 max hitpoints and are down to 650 then you’d be healed to 870 and get an extra 10 and have 880 current hitpoints. They give this over buff only up to 100 points though so that it can’t be abused. Rocktails cost about 9.6gpper health point.

Name: Shark
Cost: 1,199
Bites: 1
Healing amount: 200

Sharks are a fair bit cheaper than Rocktails, costing only about 5.9gp per hitpoint. They take up they same space and require the same bites as Rocktails but heal 30 less and don’t give a special overbuff.

Between the two I usually use sharks, simply because I can fish them easily and quickly. However in extremely dangerous situations Rocktails are well worth the price.

Name: Monkfish
Cost: 428
Bites: 1
Healing amount: 160

Monkfish are much cheaper than either Rocktails or Sharks at only about 2.6gp per hitpoint. The great thing about them is that they’re cheap, heal a decent amount, and can be fished and cooked by yourself fairly easily(they only require 62 fishing and cooking and the completion of Swan Song).

Name: Lobster
Cost: 220
Bites: 1
Healing amount: 120

Lobsters lost much of their use when Monkfish were released over 4 years ago. Surprisingly they’ve retained their reasonable price of 220, making them cost about 1.8gp per health point.

Name: Basket of Strawberries(5)
Cost: 250 (or 40 per Strawberry)
Bites: 5
Healing amount: 35% of max Life points(7% per berry)

A somewhat overlooked aspect of farming, Baskets of strawberries can heal a significant amount of health for just one space. Because the amount they heal is based off the consumer’s max lifepoints the cost per point healed will vary. A player with level 70 Constitution would get 49 health per berry for a total of 245 per basket at a cost of about 1gpper health point. A player with level 99 would get 69 health per berry for a total of 345 per basket at a cost of about 0.7gp per hitpoint.

The bad thing about baskets of strawberries is that they require an additional inventory space whenever you want to take a berry out of the basket. This doesn’t cause too much trouble though since you can just drop another item for a few seconds. Since the basket holds 5 berries you must do this 5 times which requires 5 eating actions and the drop action. Due to this they aren’t very good for hard combat, but do well over prolonged periods of light combat.

Name: Summer Pie
Cost: 1,920
Bites: 2
Healing amount: 220

Summer pies cost quite a bit, at about 8.7 per hitpoint. The reason for this is because they require 95 cooking and boost your agility by up to 5 levels per bite and restores 20% run energy each bite. Eating both pieces in quick succession does not give up to 10 agility boost, the max is 5. Another good thing about Summer pies is that they’re weightless, which when combined with the agility boosting effects makes them very useful for agility training.

Name: Purple Sweets
Cost: 2,212
Space: 1 (Infinitely stackable)
Bites: 1 per sweet
Healing amount: 10-30

These are a rare type of food which is usually reserved for agility training or long periods of running. They cost about 73.7 gp per hitpoint which is by far the most expensive. Th upside is that they’re weightless and restore 20% run energy per sweet eaten. Since they’re stackable you can carry as many as you want.

Last but certainly not least I’m going to talk about the Unicorn Stallion’s special ability. Now I know you can’t eat the scrolls but I feel it’s worth mentioning.

Name: Healing aura Scroll
Cost: 355
Space: 1 (Infinitely stackable)
Bites: N/A but 1 use is required per scroll, each use requires 20 special points from the Unicorn
Healing amount: 15% of max life points per scroll

Since most people with level 70 Constitution won’t have the required level 88 Summoning to make the Unicorn Stallion I’ll only give you the price of someone with level 99 Constitution. It costs about 2.3gp per health point restored when using the scroll. The good thing about this method of healing is that you can stay in one place almost indefinitely (only based on the Stallion’s timer) and can heal 148 hitpoints each use. Since you can have an unlimited amount stacked in your inventory you can have an unlimited amount of healing.

Conclusion

Let’s recap a few things before we end…

Rocktails heal the most per bite and give a nice overbuff effect when eaten too quickly, but cost the most out of any of the efficient healing foods.

Rocktails and Sharks are the most efficient highest healing one bite foods and are worth the cost for dangerous situations.

Sharks and Monkfish are always a trusty and efficient source of health and aren’t too hard to acquire if you’re willing to spend some time skilling.

Baskets of Strawberries heal the most per spot of any limited stackable item. They don’t weigh much and are good for long periods of light combat.

Summer pies are expensive, but useful for agility training.

Unicorn Stallions, though not edible, are a good means of replenishing lots of hitpoints over time.

Always remember that to prepare most efficiently you must know what you’re fighting. Just because something works well for one type of combat doesn’t mean it will be the best way for another.

Now go pig-out on all this food ;P