The best early food sources in Sons of the Forest

In a survival situation, food is a kind of a big deal, and Sons of the Forest naturally emulates this notion. Though getting food isn’t as immediately pressing as finding water is, you still need to get a pantry going, and this guide will help you do just that.

Now that the 1.0 version of Sons of the Forest is out, many of us are jumping back into the game to relearn the basics. If you enjoyed its Early Access stint in the early days, then you may recall tidbits of good advice, but the game is way more content-rich than it’s ever been before. With that in mind, there are very many different ways to forage for food in Sons of the Forest, ranging from actual, honest-to-goodness hunting all the way to processing dead cannibals into… well, long pork. The world is your oyster, as it were!

Getting food early in Sons of the Forest

Immediately after getting your bearings upon spawning in, it’s important that you pick up all the MREs and packaged goods that fell out of the helicopter after the crash. It may take a few in-game days before you fully understand all of the game’s mechanics, and you could use prepared meals to stay alive during this time and set up a base of operations.

MREs run out, though, and it won’t take long before you need to start relying on the island to provide foodstuffs. The obvious suspects are the fruit and mushrooms that grow all around you, of course, so we recommend always keeping a healthy stock of, say, blueberries and salmonberries at all times. Not only do berries feed you, but they will also sate your thirst a bit, making them doubly more useful in a pinch.

Berries alone won’t be enough to feed you in the long run, though, which makes hunting and trapping important skills in Sons of the Forest. Finding animals to hunt is easy enough, too, especially if you’re on the beach, which is brimming with slow and silly seagulls that are eager to get axed.

Now, we do not recommend eating raw meat in Sons of the Forest. Cooking it is an option in a pinch, but the drying rack is the superior option in our book. You don’t need to keep an eye on your meat as it dries, and you can set up to six pieces of meat on a single rack simultaneously. It’ll take a while until your meat is cured, mind.

Eating cannibals in Sons of the Forest

In an absolute pinch, one of the options you may (or may not) wish to explore is to eat the cannibal body parts in Sons of the Forest. This will feed your avatar, for sure, but we don’t recommend it unless you absolutely want to channel your inner Hannibal Lecter.

Outside of the ick factor, granted, it doesn’t seem like eating human flesh is necessarily a problem in Sons of the Forest. The first game had a dedicated ‘Sanity’ meter that depleted if you yourself committed cannibalism, but it’s not a thing in the sequel. So, if you really cannot find anything but a cannibal leg to sink your teeth into, you can. It’s just that the island is brimming with food, and you don’t actually need to eat long pork at all.

But hey! You do you!