Preserving Meat and Fish?

[issabeepboop]

If I leave meat and fish uncooked will it keep longer than if I had cooked it?

[UpUpAway95]

Yes, in a way.  If you let it degrade raw until it hits 51%, it will return to 100% condition when you cook it...effectively starting the decay timer over again.

[issabeepboop]

28 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Yes, in a way.  If you let it degrade raw until it hits 51%, it will return to 100% condition when you cook it...effectively starting the decay timer over again.

Thank you sososo much!

[Serenity]

Weirdly you can even cook up 0% raw meat to being edible. So it can't ever go truly bad. Just leave it outside in the snow so it doesn't despawn like in a container

Cooked meat does decay a lot slower, but it will get ruined eventually. So it's best to not cook everything if you don't eat all of it

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Serenity said:

Weirdly you can even cook up 0% raw meat to being edible. So it can't ever go truly bad. Just leave it outside in the snow so it doesn't despawn like in a container

Cooked meat does decay a lot slower, but it will get ruined eventually. So it's best to not cook everything if you don't eat all of it

However, unless you've attained Level 5 cooking skill, 50% meat (which is what 0% meat winds up at when cooked) can give you food poisoning.  After you get to Level 5 cooking, that's not an issue... and only cooking what you need to eat, of course, delays the acquisition of Level 5 cooking.

[Andy_K]

I've always felt a bit conflicted about this. Cooking 0% meat up to 50 and eating it feels like an exploit to me. But then again, there's no other meaningful way to freeze/dry meat for long term storage, which shouldn't really be too difficult given that the game world is more or less a giant freezer.

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Andy_K said:

I've always felt a bit conflicted about this. Cooking 0% meat up to 50 and eating it feels like an exploit to me. But then again, there's no other meaningful way to freeze/dry meat for long term storage, which shouldn't really be too difficult given that the game world is more or less a giant freezer.

It still can cause food poisoning though (a 30% chance); whereas, cooking it when it's above 25% condition brings it above 75% condition and it will not cause food poisoning at that level.  I don't feel it is an exploit at all since it is kept essentially frozen and frozen raw meats keep for at least 6 months and around here, we regularly keep raw meat in our deep freezer from cattle season to the next cattle season (i.e. one year).   TLD degrades raw meat at a much faster rate than that even when it's left outside in the snow (i.e. is constantly frozen since you can never pick it up out of the snow and find it "thawed" unless you keep it by your fire).

I feel the exploit occurs with Cooking Level 5, when you can eat ruined cooked food without worry... without even thawing it out or reheating it... but it is a game, so it doesn't have to reflect any sort of reality.  If you don't want to cook your ruined meat up to 50% becuase you feel it makes your game too easy, then simply store it in a container and it will disappear once it hits 0%.  On a pshychological level, Hinterland could easily fix this whole issue by setting the lowest condition raw meat can reach when it is stored outdoors outside of a container at 1% instead of 0% and then setting it so any food stored indoors, regardless of whether it's in a container or not, despawns when it hits 0%... just the same as any food stored in a container despawns now.

Edited December 15, 2020 by UpUpAway95

[jerry]

I think there are three ways to preserve fish: one is to cook, one is to dry, and the last is to smoke and dry. These three methods can kill the spoilage in fish meat and obtain a longer shelf life

[panda_gamer87]

I would say it depends. A fresh piece of raw venison will cook and become fresh cooked venison. However, a rancid or mouldy piece of raw venison will cook and become gamey venison. The fresh cooked will last longer than the gamey cooked. However, for purposes of having food to travel with, you want to cook the meat to reduce the scent indicator.