This guide is an introduction to thinking about food, aimed at people who would rather be improving on things other than recalling food recipes, locations, and the like.

It's designed to give players quick, single-zone, & upgraded food, ideal for surviving early game brawls (looking at you, Dual Swords Jackie). If you're looking for something a bit more in-depth, hang tight- I'm writing an intermediate and end-game guide soon, and I'll have links for those here shortly.

My recommended foods are listed in bold, if you see me in the lobby though please don't take them.
I'd recommend pulling this guide up with Shift-Tab while in-game and referencing it once you've selected your starting zone.

An early game (+600) regen item will effectively give you a second health bar, letting you walk away from fights and trades, converting enemy all-ins to enemy all-ints.
Staying healthy while farming animals will prevent you from dying to wandering bullies looking for fights.
Late game kiting and extended trades are only possible through endlessly chaining healing items, with the end result coming down to who runs out of food first (or who whiffs less).
Crafting is a reliable source of experience, and with some food items involving multiple moving parts, there's plenty of experience to be gained early game, where reaching level 6 before or after your enemies is a difference of life and death.
Crafting foods will help you gain levels and stay at full health, both of which do wonders at warding off early game fights and let you pick when to engage and walk away.
It all starts with knowing what you can eat.

• Ramen (+200)
  
• Bread (+200)

• Boiling Water => Hot Ramen x 2 (+550)
  
• Heated Oil => Stir Fried Ramen x 2 (+550)

• Meat => Hamburger (+600)
  
• Coffee => Bun (+600)

Dock is a great start for your food-economy if you're able to hang on to a stack of lighters. If you can't spare the inventory slot for your build, a quick lighter => boiling water can get you a stack of Hot Ramen, which might just be able to keep you alive when Jackie jumps you at level 3.

• Oriental Herb (+200)

• Flower => Orchid x 2 (+500)
  
• Turtle Shell => Herbal Medicine (+650)

Crafting Orchids can be a pain as flowers don't stack, but its ingredients are often in abundance. After the starting zone, leftover Orchids + Glass Bottles => Healing Potion x 2 (+700), doubling the quantity and increasing the healing.

• Cod (+ 130)

• Can => Canned Cod Liver (+650)

Truthfully I didn't know this existed, but in all fairness, beach starts are rare for me. I'd say it's worth grabbing any cans along your way and getting cod in proportion to them, (+650) is nothing to scoff at early game.

• Lemon (+100)
  
• Chocolate (+200)
  
• Curry Powder (+200)
  
• *Cod (+130)

• Bread => Citrus Cake x 2 (+360)

• Bread => Chocolate Pie (+600)
  
• Whiskey => Whiskey Bonbon x 3 (+400)

• Meat => Tandoori Chicken (+600)
  
• Bread => Curry Bun x 2 (+360)

You can mix your starting bread with lemon or curry to double the quantity, or go with whiskey bonbons to sustain through early hunts. Pick up curry powder in proportion to meat from hunting for a decent supply of tandoori chicken, and you're set for the early game. While available here, Cod isn't immediately useful and should be foregone until you've got the inventory to haul it around.

• Garlic (+200)
  
• Ramen (+200)
  
• Potato (+130)

• Bread => Garlic Bread x 2 (+500)
  
• Meat => Bacon and Garlic Sticks (+650)
  
• Honey => Honey Garlic Pickle x 3 (+480)
  
• Hot Ramen => Garlic Ramen x 2 (+700)

• Boiling Water => Hot Ramen x 2 (+550)

• Bread => Potato Bread x 2 (+360)
  
• Heated Stone => Baked Potato x 2 (+600)

Alley is probably my favorite food start. Crafting blue recipes twice in the form of hot ramen and garlic ramen not only offers insane healing but a hefty amount of experience. If the lighters have all been taken, honey garlic pickles offer a lot of sustain for a low investment. Alternatively, if you strike out on ramen but grab a lighter, heated stones can make baked potatoes.

• Lemon (+100)

• Bread => Citrus Cake (+360)

While great for SP regen, Hotel isn't the best for HP. Moving along.

• Chocolate (+200)

• Bread => Choco Pie (+600)
  
• Butter => Chocolate Chip Cookies x 2 (+733)

• Milk + Branch => Butter (+450)
  
• Butter + Bread => Pound Cake x 2 (+600)

Avenue is the first entry to have access to milk, an SP item which changes teams when you smack it with a branch. Butter turns a lackluster start into flexible access to high base healing items, making Avenue a solid start for food economics.

• Lemon (+100)
  
• Adhesive Bandages (+200)

• Bread => Citrus Cake x 2 (+360)

• Alcohol => Disinfectant (+600)

• Disinfectant + Bandage => First Aid Kit (+950)
  
• Milk + Branch => Butter (+450)

Welcome to Lumia Island, where bandages are food. Perhaps try them sous vide in rubbing alcohol? Food. Wrap it all up in another bandage? That's some good eats, baby. Jokes aside, hospital gives you all the items you need for first aid kits, an item I thought was only a Wickeline drop until I sat down to make this guide. Oddly enough, access to both a quantity and a quality healing item make hospital food not half bad. If the edible medical supplies have all been taken, butter's on the table too.

• Garlic (+200)
  
• Oriental Herb (+200)
  
• Potato (+130)

• Meat => Bacon and Garlic Sticks (+650)

• Bread => Potato Bread x 2 (+360)

Despite the potato access, Temple is a pretty poor start for fast food. If you're moving to alley you can make using of the Garlic in Garlic Ramen, or if you rotate to Pond you can have herbs stocked up for Orchids. If that kind of routing sounds interesting to you, a guide focused on neighboring food routes is in the works.

• Egg (+200)
  
• Ramen (+200)
  
• Chocolate (+200)

• Bread => Egg Bun x 2 (+400)
  
• Chocolate => Easter Egg (+600)

• Bread => Choco Pie (+600)
  
• Egg => Easter Egg (+600)

Overall, options exist for quality and quantity, but nothing really powerful in either case due to a lack of lighters. Sufficient for surviving the early game but better foods will be needed once players finish their weapons.

• Garlic (+200)
  
• Egg (+200)

• Bread => Garlic Bread x 2 (+500)
  
• Meat => Bacon and Garlic Sticks (+650)

• Coffee + Bread => Bun (+600)

Unfortunately, dead people don't need to eat (apparently downed people can't eat either), so cemetery is pretty weak in the food department. Ice + Coffee yields some great SP regen though.

• Egg (+200)
  
• Oriental Herb (+200)

• Flower => Orchid x 2 (+500)

Definitely eh, but I love me some Orchids. As always, hang on tight to them if you can, healing potions are definitely worth it.

• Curry Powder (+200)

• Heated Oil => Curry Croquette x 2 (+550)
  
• Boiling Water => Curry x 3 (+480)
  
• Bread => Curry Bun x 2 (+360)
  
• Meat => Tandoori Chicken (+600)

Curry is a versatile food item, so when coupled with access to lighters AND oil, factory is a weirdly good place to be for loading your inventory full of food.

• Bread (+200)

• Meat => Hamburger (+600)

• Milk + Branch = Butter (+450)

An abundance of chickens makes grabbing additional bread and adopting the american diet not so difficult. If the hunts are competitive and people are actually taking the meat off, there's always some good old tree butter.

• Bread

• Meat => Hamburger (+600)

There are some chickens at school, but not as many as Chapel and much farther apart, so starting school just isn't all that good for early game food. You do get first pass for lighters though, which is worth it provided you can route to something edible quick.

If I've missed anything, feel free to comment down below. I'll be working on an intermediate and advanced/ mid and end-game food guides in the time being, which I'll link here. If you ask below I can reply when they're done so you have access to them ASAP!

Hope this guide helps, and shows you don't have to be Xiukai to appreciate a good meal.