Summary
Survival: Fountain of Youthdumps players in the middle of an inhospitable island and tasks them with fending for themselves in asurvival sandbox adventure. One of the main tasks in the game is finding enough food not only to survive the wilderness but also to explore the surroundings without succumbing to starvation.
The food and water meters at the bottom of the screen clearly display how sated the player character is at any given moment and provide a heads-up before the lack of nourishment gets into dangerous territory. If food or water depletes all the way, players take continuous damage until they either fix the problem or die on the spot. Here is a list of all the best items to cook in order to prevent that from happening.
7Orange
Restores 4 Food, 13 Water
Oranges offer around +4 Food and +13 Water when consumed. It’s not much, but finding one orange tree can quickly fill up the entire food and water meter because each tree drops up to 7-10 Oranges, ripe for the picking.
Oranges are not used in any recipes and can only be consumed raw. Luckily, eating them carries no risk of indigestion, meaning players can eat their fillwithout worrying about diseases. Orange trees are, unfortunately, not marked on the map through mapping, meaning players can only encounter them by chance.
6Fried Eggs
Restores 21 Food, 5 Water
Fried Eggs restore a good amount of food meter and a little bit of water, giving players a comprehensive solution for staving off both hunger and thirst. Fried Eggs can only be cooked on a Campfire with Stones, but that should be a non-issue for players as it’s relatively easy to find stones in the wilderness.
Eggs are a bit hard to come by in the early game because the only way to get them is either by killing an Eagle Harpy or raiding its nest. Before crafting some decent ranged weapons, fighting off an Eagle Harpy can be a bit daunting, especially in the harder difficulties. However, once players are able to consistently take out these aerial monsters, there are plenty of eggs to go around.
5Roasted Short-Eared Dog
Restores 17 Food, 4 Water
In the super early game, Short-Eared Dogs are the easiest animal to kill because of their frequent spawn rate and low health pool. One good swing of a melee weapon is usually all it takes to bring them down. Cooking a Short-Eared Dog gives players a relatively long-lasting solution to both hunger and thirst, though it does require a campfire to cook.
Once players havemapped the region, they’ll be able to see the spawn points of Short-Eared Dogs on the map (and the respawn timer), giving them a clear direction to follow. Spears are the best melee weapons to use against these animals as they tend to be very quick in close range. A single bite doesn’t hurt all that much, but the damage can quickly worsen and form a lasting wound, so it’s best to be careful from the get-go.
4Dried Mushrooms
Restores 10 Food
The main selling point of dried mushrooms is how long they can be stored before they start to go bad. Once cooked, players can store as many of these mushrooms as they can make in their inventory and forget about food for a few days. Each mushroom only restores 10 food, but since they’re relatively common finds during exploration, getting more is always easy.
Cooking dried mushrooms requires building a Food Dehydrator and putting three mushrooms inside. The process takes a full day, so it’sbest done in a player baserather than out in the open. Once cooked, if players store this food item in the Protected Box, it will even double the time it takes for the Dried Mushrooms to go bad.
3Baked Cakes
Restores 26 Food, 7 Health
Breadfruit can be found growing on Bread Trees, which are found all across the map, though they tend to be rarer than palm or banana trees. This recipe stands out because it is one of the only food items in the early game that can be used to restore health, albeit over about half an hour.
Still, relying only on Baked Cakes to restore health is not ideal as the amount it restores is not a lot. But, it can both serve as a supplement to healing via bandages or as a last-ditch stopgap measure to give the player a chance to reach their base without succumbing to fainting.
2Roasted Meat
Restores 26 Food, 4 Water
There are plenty of things to love about roasted meat. First, it doesn’t require a Campfire with stones to cook, meaning playersdon’t need to lug around stonesin their backpack if they anticipate having to cook it out in the wilderness.
Second, it can be easily obtained by killing Boars, the easiest mammals to take down in the game, because of how slow they are and how easy they are to kill. Not to mention, the islands are filled to the brim with Boars, making them very easy to find. Of course, players can also take Raw Meat from other animals, owing to the recipe’s flexible nature.
1Opened Green Coconut
Restores 30 Water
The Opened Green Coconut is one of the bestearly-game solutions to the problem of water, an issue that’s harder to solve than hunger. An Opened Green Coconut restores anywhere from +10 to +40 of the thirst meter, depending on the difficulty.
Players will be able to make this item from Green Coconuts that grow on large palm trees that can be found all over the islands. Look for the telltale green of the coconut near the treetops to spot them. Cracking open a coconut to get an Opened Green Coconut doesn’t require any secondary tools like an Axe or Cutter; just a single coconut will do.
