Raw vs. Cooked


StringEpsilon

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Hi,

my current playthrough is the longest with 14 days and I noticed something: The amount of calories I've lost to cooking my meat is probably enough to feed me for two more days. I wondered why the developers choose to reduce the calories on cooking. My guesses: Either it's a risk-reward thing regarding raw meat (get more calories but risk getting ill) or they wanted to balance the cooking (which preserves the meat for longer) - maybe both.

Losing those calories is not only counter-intuitive, it's punishing me twice: I have to spend energy getting wood and tinder and I have to spend a match or two. Then I have to spend time cooking the meat. I have not tried it, but I think the best strategy at the moment would be to just eat raw meat and have antibiotics ready and only cook the meat that already went under 50% (or something).

I would do it the other way around. Reward the player for spending resources and time for food-preparation. If you really want to counterbalance the gain in condition, make the player thirstier after eating grilled meat.

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I see calories as a shortcut for nutrition value, that includes vitamines, minerals and the likes plus energy. When you cook meat it looses alot of that, hence the reduced calorie value. But you have it right with the risk/reward thing, I think you just don't see yet how dangerous food poisoning can become. For 10 hours you don't regenerate your condition, good luck if you're out in a blizzard starving and get poisoning (check the survival stories/scariest moment thread, where exactly that happend to me).

And even if you get it at home, you're bound to the bed for 10 hours that you could've spent otherwise. I personally try to avoid eating raw stuff, the exception being fresh fish because I never got poisoning from it. Would I get it once I'd stop that habit too.

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Raw meat typically contains more calories than cooked because of fat dripping out of it during cooking. Condition isn't always a good warning indicator of food poisoning. I've had my characters eat poor condition (20 - 30%) dry foods like MREs and granola with no ill effects, but they've gotten food poisoning from canned peaches and sardines at 65%. My guess is that raw meat needs a wider margin of safety than peaches.

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I personally try to avoid eating raw stuff, the exception being fresh fish because I never got poisoning from it. Would I get it once I'd stop that habit too.

I ate all fish raw until I got food poisoning from 90 - 95% condition fish.

Before V192 update I never got a food poisoning from eating raw fish.

I mentioned this on some other thread already, but thought I post it here also, because the title of this thread might caught attention of some new player who's wondering what can be safely eaten and what not.

On a side note, I still eat fish raw time to time. The chance of getting a food poisoning from just cought, still fresh and over 90% condition fish is very rare. But it is possible to get it from raw fish after V192 update :|

-Hyssch-

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my current playthrough is the longest with 14 days and I noticed something: The amount of calories I've lost to cooking my meat is probably enough to feed me for two more days. I wondered why the developers choose to reduce the calories on cooking. My guesses: Either it's a risk-reward thing regarding raw meat (get more calories but risk getting ill) or they wanted to balance the cooking (which preserves the meat for longer) - maybe both.

The way they do it is realistic and well balanced. Raw meat has more nutrients, more vitamins, more good things -- but also more bacteria.

If you cook it, you burn off good things as well as the bacteria. This is how it works in nature and I think the game has it perfect.

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The Vitamin-thing makes sense - cooking destroys some of them. But the way you eat in TLD would get you several deficiencies anyway, at least after a while. But in that kind of enviroment, you're more likely to die because a lack of energy.

And cooking is the best way to get more energy out of your steak: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2 ... ng-counts/

Edit: Apart from the realism-debate (which could go on and on and on): I still think the cooking-debuff is punishing me for no good reason.

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After they drastically lowered the chance of food poisoning in one of the updates a few weeks ago (v.193?) i don't think it is a good idea to cook fresh venice or especially fish anymore, unless it is in really bad condition. Fish already has a really low energy / weight coef in this game, that it is really not worth cooking it anymore. (Isn't alaska salmon supposed to have lots of fat and like 1800 kcal / kg?)

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Seems to me they increased the chance of food poisoning after eating raw fish again.

I never ate raw fish before V.192, but tried it today as most people considered it to be rather safe. Didn't turn out well for me.

While playing today, I went fishing twice and ate three raw fish altogether (all of them 95%+). Two of them gave me a food poisoning and I had to waste two days staying in bed. x-x

Might be I was just unlucky, but I'll continue to cook my fish and stay away from Sushi for the time being. ;)

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I found two things funny...When you harvest wolf or deer or bear,and its meat is frozen,still you can eat it right away,no mattter if meat is frozen,lol.And eating frozen raw meat consume same amount of time like eating nonfrozen fresh meat. :)

Other thing...we can get food poisoning also if meat is frozen.It happened to me today,in pilgrim mode. :D That"s why I started to think about realism arround meat consuming. :) At -15 to -30°Celsius there is no such bacteria,which can survive those extreme conditions.We should never get poisining,if we eat fresh harvested frozen meat.In fact,we should not be able to eat frozen meat at all. :D We can lose all our teeth,if we eat frozen meat. :lol:

Ok,it is game and some non realism it can be afforded.Just,that food poisoning with fresh harvested meat should not happen.Only,if condition of meat is realy critical,then it is ok,but not at 78% condition.

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Interestingly the human body get MORE usable calories out of cooked vs raw meats. We have for millennia adapted to eating cooked food. Eating also requires a MUCH larger intake of water as water is needed to break down food. Eating will actually make you dehydrate faster, and being dehydrated will mean you get a LOT less out of your food.

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happen.Only,if condition of meat is realy critical,then it is ok,but not at 78% condition.

well this means that 22% is already foul and full of bacteria. Besides, freezing meat does not kill the bacteria, it only freezes it and prevents it from replicating. The instant you eat it with your uber-frozenbite-teeth it get's warmed up by your body and bacteria comes back to life.

And that's only bacteria, the far worse danger you're facing when eating raw meat are worms and parasites. If the bacteria doesn't kill you, the bugs will. Eating raw meat should therefor always be a risk in my opinion and should only be taken into consideration in small amounts to pump up vitamine levels (like some Eskimo groups do). No one in their right mind would go on and eat 1-2KG of raw meat, no matter how freshly killed the biest is. As Hawk pointed out, due to millenia of cooking meat our stomachs are not equipped to handle all the bugs that are in it and illness is a very likely outcome.

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happen.Only,if condition of meat is realy critical,then it is ok,but not at 78% condition.

well this means that 22% is already foul and full of bacteria. Besides, freezing meat does not kill the bacteria, it only freezes it and prevents it from replicating. The instant you eat it with your uber-frozenbite-teeth it get's warmed up by your body and bacteria comes back to life.

And that's only bacteria, the far worse danger you're facing when eating raw meat are worms and parasites. If the bacteria doesn't kill you, the bugs will. Eating raw meat should therefor always be a risk in my opinion and should only be taken into consideration in small amounts to pump up vitamine levels (like some Eskimo groups do). No one in their right mind would go on and eat 1-2KG of raw meat, no matter how freshly killed the biest is. As Hawk pointed out, due to millenia of cooking meat our stomachs are not equipped to handle all the bugs that are in it and illness is a very likely outcome.

Hmm...yeah,you"re rite. :) I didn"t consider all the facts.I guess i was sleepy,when I wrote my post,so my brains didn"t work 100%. :lol:

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Interestingly the human body get MORE usable calories out of cooked vs raw meats. We have for millennia adapted to eating cooked food. Eating also requires a MUCH larger intake of water as water is needed to break down food. Eating will actually make you dehydrate faster, and being dehydrated will mean you get a LOT less out of your food.

Completely correct! The way it is at the moment is backwards... I watched a documentary that attributed the increased rate of growth of the human brain (which needs a lot of nutrition) to the fact that we started cooking food; they discovered fossil fires at the exact same time as brain development sky-rocketed. :geek:

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I found two things funny...When you harvest wolf or deer or bear,and its meat is frozen,still you can eat it right away,no mattter if meat is frozen,lol.And eating frozen raw meat consume same amount of time like eating nonfrozen fresh meat. :)

Other thing...we can get food poisoning also if meat is frozen.It happened to me today,in pilgrim mode. :D That"s why I started to think about realism arround meat consuming. :) At -15 to -30°Celsius there is no such bacteria,which can survive those extreme conditions.We should never get poisining,if we eat fresh harvested frozen meat.In fact,we should not be able to eat frozen meat at all. :D We can lose all our teeth,if we eat frozen meat. :lol:

Ok,it is game and some non realism it can be afforded.Just,that food poisoning with fresh harvested meat should not happen.Only,if condition of meat is realy critical,then it is ok,but not at 78% condition.

Bacteria can create an endospore and survive low temps even liquid nitrogen low temps. You can also get sick from the byproducts which isn't an infection but an intoxicification so even if the meat is frozen you can get sick from when it was in the temperature danger zone where bacteria grow and repo of 40F-140F

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This is something I don't really understand.

Food loses caloric content mainly due to fat cooking out. So, in order to avoid this caloric loss in real life, I don't roast my meat. I make soups, or stews. The nutrients leach out into the water (forming broth), which you then drink

Being limited to eating roasted food is limiting our survival. Take deer meat, fat, and some bones, cut it all into chunks (expect for the bone). Throw it all into some boiling (or, just off the boil) water. Let it simmer for a minute, then add some cut-up cattail stalk, smashed cattail root (available in winter, believe me or not), and maybe some beans. Stir it all together, then eat up: a nice, stick-to-your-ribs meal that will keep you full, keep you warm (due to the metabolizing of fat), and keep you healthy.

Speaking along those lines, why can't we access/use bones or marrow of animals. The marrow of bone tissue is probably the most important part of the animal to eat!

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