Overview
Rotten Flesh restores 4 hunger points and gives you the Hunger effect for 30 seconds about 80% of the time, which drains the bar you just filled — so eating it is close to a net loss unless you are genuinely starving. It is worth carrying anyway, for two reasons that have nothing to do with your own stomach. Wolves eat it with no ill effect at all, so a stack of rotten flesh is the standard way to heal a tamed dog and to breed wolves, and every zombie you kill supplies more. Second, cleric villagers buy it: 32 rotten flesh for an emerald at novice level, which turns the most worthless drop in the game into a reliable early income and is the fastest way to level a cleric towards the bottle o' enchanting trade. Zombies, husks, drowned, zombie villagers and zombified piglins all drop 0 to 2 each, so a simple mob farm produces stacks per hour without any effort at all. Nothing else in the game goes from worthless to genuinely useful with so little effort on your part.
Feeding and healing tamed wolves at no risk, and selling to cleric villagers for early emeralds — not for eating unless there is nothing else at all.
As food, Rotten Flesh is judged on two numbers: hunger restored and saturation. It gives back 4 hunger and 0.8 saturation. It is not simply food, though: eating it also has an 80% chance of Hunger for 30 seconds.
Sixty-four fit in one inventory slot. You get it by killing Drowned, Husk, Zoglin, Zombie and 3 more. It is not used in any crafting recipe.
How to get it
Zombies, husks, drowned and zombified piglins each drop 0 to 2, up to 5 with Looting III. Novice cleric villagers buy 32 rotten flesh for 1 emerald, restocking twice a day.
Tips
- Wolves take no Hunger effect from it, so keep a stack in the kennel rather than feeding them steak.
- Sell 32 at a time to a cleric; it is the cheapest emerald income on a fresh world with a village.
- If you must eat it, drink Milk afterwards to clear the Hunger effect immediately.
- A basic zombie spawner farm produces more rotten flesh than any cleric can buy in a day.
Properties
Eating it restores 4 hunger and 0.8 saturation — a ratio of 0.2, which is what decides how long you stay full rather than how fast the bar refills. has an 80% chance of Hunger for 30 seconds One inventory slot holds 64, so a double chest holds 3,456.
- Renewable
- Yes
- Category
- Food
Dropped by
7 mobs drop Rotten Flesh: Drowned, Husk, Zoglin, Zombie, Zombie Horse, Zombie Villager, and Zombified Piglin. Looting raises the maximum on most of them.
How it compares to other foods
Sorted by saturation ratio, Rotten Flesh is 33 of 41 foods in the game. Ratio is saturation divided by hunger restored: it is what decides how long the hunger bar stays still, not how fast it refills.
Golden Carrot leads the list at a ratio of 2.4, and anything at or above 1.6 is worth carrying on a long trip.
| Item | Hunger restored | Saturation | Saturation ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Potato | 1 | 0.6 | 0.6 |
| Honey Bottle | 6 | 1.2 | 0.2 |
| Rotten Flesh ← | 4 | 0.8 | 0.2 |
| Raw Cod | 2 | 0.4 | 0.2 |
| Raw Salmon | 2 | 0.4 | 0.2 |
| Cookie | 2 | 0.4 | 0.2 |
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Rotten Flesh in Minecraft?
Rotten Flesh has no crafting recipe — it drops from Drowned, Husk, Zoglin, Zombie and 3 more.
What is the stack size of Rotten Flesh?
Rotten Flesh stacks to 64.
Is Rotten Flesh worth eating?
It restores 4 hunger and 0.8 saturation, a ratio of 0.2. Anything above a ratio of 1.6 keeps you full longer per slot, so treat this as a stopgap rather than a staple. has an 80% chance of Hunger for 30 seconds
