Guide to Food

Nutrition
As you walk, run, and spend time on the station, your character's nutrition level will drop. Eating food that contains nutriment, protein, or certain other reagents (see below) will replenish this value. It isn't good to go without food for too long, or to overeat! Keep in mind how much you've eaten and how long it has been since you last ate, and try to stay comfortably full.

Note that nutriment and other reagents need to be metabolized by your body after you've eaten, so if you don't fill up immediately after a meal, you may after a few moments.

Several reagents will increase your nutrition:
 * Very effective: Corn oil, peanut oil, Fat, Nutriment (found in most foods), Animal Protein (found in meat), K'ois (if you are a Vaurca), and Egg Yolk.
 * Somewhat effective: Honey, Ketchup, coco powder, Peanut Butter/Roasted peanuts, Hot Ramen, Hell Ramen, Barbecue Sauce, Garlic Sauce, Mayonnaise, Sugar, Synthetic Nutriment.
 * Minor increase: Soy Sauce, Hot Coco, Potato Juice, Bilk, Sprinkles, Dry Ramen, Flour, Rice, Moss, Cherry Jelly, Coffee/Tea grounds, Various Bar Drinks. There may be others!

Alien species have special dietary needs:
 * Vaurca are only nourished by k'ois paste, which is found in the k'ois products on station. These foods also contain phoron, which the species needs to survive. Consuming any other food reagent will poison them.
 * Unathi are only nourished by animal products: meat, eggs, dairy, and so forth. While they can eat other foods, these will not provide an Unathi with nourishment. Unathi are sensitive to foods that lower body temperature.
 * Skrell do not have special dietary needs and are not allergic to animal protein. However, they do not have teeth and prefer soft foods.
 * Tajara do not have special dietary needs, but are sensitive to foods that raise body temperature.
 * IPCs do not eat food. They require power from cyborg recharge stations or station APCs.

Fullness/Starvation


These icons may appear on your screen when your nutrition level needs attention:
 * A burger with a grey marker means you are too full and will move around more slowly.
 * The yellow marker means your character is getting hungry.
 * If you see the icon of a burger with a red marker on your screen, you will start to move very slowly due to starvation. This effect can be severe and will continue until you eat some food, so head to the chef for a wholesome snack!
 * IPCs that run out of nutrition due to a lack of power will be temporarily immobilized.
 * Vaurca are affected by nutrition like other species, but will also begin to suffocate if they do not replenish their internal phoron supply by consuming k'ois or finding an external source of phoron.

Some things will decrease your nutrition quickly:
 * Sprinting by toggling 'Walk' to 'Run'
 * Vomiting
 * Being cold (by exposure to cold environments or because you were in a cryo tube)
 * Recovering from blood loss
 * Taking Lipozine
 * Some viruses

Food Recipes

 * Liquids, condiments, ground fruits and vegetables, and eggs that have been cracked into a container are all measured in reagent units rather than their own items. They can be poured directly into the oven or pan (whole eggs can be added directly to a container and are considered a separate ingredient, so be careful!)


 * Sliceable foods can be divided into smaller portions by slicing them with a sharp object. Their reagents are divided equally into the slices. The slices noted here are the maximum number of slices, which you can get by using a precise cutting tool like a kitchen knife, cleaver, or scalpel; crude cutting tools, like axes, shovels, and saws will result in fewer slices.


 * Condiments and reagents can be added to food, possibly increasing their nutrition value or adding some fun extras. A chef can create condiments by grinding up things that contain them and isolating them in the CondiMaster. Condiments let you put ketchup on your fries, salt in your soup, dylovene on your fish fingers, or psilocybin on your ghost burger--the possibilities are endless. Foods hold a maximum of fifty units of reagents.


 * Some poisonous foods can be prepared safely if the poisonous reagent is neutralized or removed somehow (try using syringes!). Experienced chefs only!


 * Poisonous reagents are marked in red text . Reagents which have other, non-deadly effects--like intoxication, sleepiness, or the effects of hot or cold sauce--are marked in blue text.


 * Cooking was revamped in late 2020. Microwaves have been removed, with most of their function relegated to plates, bowls, and stoves instead. To create most foods, you need a container to mix ingredients. Containers include skillets, saucepans, pots, serving bowls and plates, oven dishes, and deep-fryer baskets.


 * Some recipes must be baked, boiled, fried, or cooked. For these, pick up a container from its appliance, insert the various ingredients, and then put the container back. If the appliance isn't turned on, your food won't cook; turn it on with a ctrl-click on the appliance, then select the desired temperature.


 * Food is done when it reaches a set temperature; your appliance will sound a helpful ping to notify you. If left too long after it is cooked, it burns; but there is plenty of time to reach the appliance and retrieve the food between cooked and burnt, so don't be afraid to set your fryer, stove, and oven to their max temperatures.


 * Traitor chefs can make some sneaky substitutions:
 * Psychedelic or poisonous mushrooms can be substituted for mushrooms in most mushroom dishes. If your victim gets medical treatment in a reasonable amount of time, they should survive.
 * Poisonous apples can be used in all apple dishes, and the final dish will be poisoned. Unlike poisonous mushrooms, cyanide apples can easily kill, since cyanide causes paralysis and heart failure.
 * Slime jelly can be substituted for cherry jelly, and will poison the resulting food. Slime jelly is highly toxic; your victim will require intensive medical care to survive.
 * Anything made with meat can be made with human meat. (It's still necessary to emag the gibber before butchering one's murder victims.)
 * Anything made with fish can be made with carp. This will poison your victim with carpotoxin. It will also upset the pharmacist, since carpotoxin can be made into rare chemicals.

Mixed Recipes
Some recipes do not need to be heated, just mixed together. A few recipes can be created by clicking on one ingredient with the other; most require a mixing bowl or other container. Simply stuff the ingredients into your container of choice, drag the container's sprite onto your character's, and watch the delicious goodies appear in the container. If you can fit multiples of the same recipe into your container, you can even speed up the process: for example, combining six cabbages, three tomatoes, three carrots, and three apples in a bowl before dragging it to yourself will net you three tossed salads.

Stove
To cook on a stove, the stove must be preheated (ctrl+left click to choose temperature), and the right container must be used. Some recipes, like meatballs, can be mass produced. If reagents are not used in the recipe, they will be left over in the pan. Remove the container from the stove, add all the reagents to it, and put it back on the stove. The stove will "ping" when the food is finished.

Oven

 * Before you can use the oven, it must be preheated. Ctrl+click and select your preferred temperature to turn it on. Preheating takes several minutes, but after a short while it can be used to cook even if not fully preheated. The food will cook more slowly until preheating is complete. Examine the oven while next to it to see how hot it is.
 * You can alt+click the oven to open and close the oven door.
 * If the oven door is left open, heat will escape. Make sure it's closed, especially when cooking and preheating.


 * To add a single food item to the oven, use the food directly on the oven, which will place it into an empty oven tray. If you want to cook a recipe that requires multiple ingredients, remove one of the oven trays, put all recipe ingredients into it, and then put the tray back in the oven.


 * The oven can cook any variety and quantity of recipes simultaneously, as long as you have all the ingredients in a single tray.
 * Any leftover reagents will be absorbed into the cooked foods.
 * When not making a recipe, the oven can also be used to just bake any food, which will cook it, giving it a nice brown color.


 * The oven can also be used for Combination Cooking, which allows you to make custom bread, pies, cakes, and pizzas with whatever fillings/toppings you want. To do this, right click and Choose Output, select the combine target, and then insert an oven tray full of ingredients.
 * The quantity of stuff used to make an item will determine the size of the result.
 * Combination Cooking can only make one item at a time - whatever output is set will only work for the next item cooked.

Deep Fryer

 * Before you can use the fryer, it must be preheated. Right-click and select Toggle Power to turn it on. Heating up takes a while, so be sure to do it early. Prepare other ingredients while it warms up!
 * The deep fryer has an oil level that you should keep an eye on - cooking efficiency will fall as it drops, and it starts off at a randomized level. For optimal cooking, keep the oil topped up to the maximum.
 * You can find a spare tank of cooking oil in the cold room behind the kitchen. If you need more, you can order one from cargo.


 * To add a single food item to the fryer, use the food directly on it, which will place that item into an empty fryer basket. If you want to cook a recipe that requires multiple ingredients, remove one of the fryer baskets by clicking the fryer with an empty hand and put all your ingredients into the basket. Once everything for the recipe is inside, put the basket back in the fryer.


 * The fryer can cook any variety and quantity of recipes simultaneously, as long as you have all the ingredients in a single basket.
 * Many fryer recipes require an ingredient to be coated in batter or beer-batter for the recipe to work. To coat an item in batter, hold the item and click on the batter.
 * Any leftover reagents will be absorbed into the cooked foods.
 * The fryer can also be used to just "deep fry" any food, which will cook it, give it a nice brown color, and add some extra nutrition to it.
 * Food fried in the deep fryer will usually have a small, random amount of corn oil added to the final product.
 * Food that is battered before being fried will usually have a small, random amount of the appropriate batter in the final product.

Batter
You can coat food in batter before putting it in the deepfryer!
 * Nearly everything you can fry can be coated in batter.
 * Put all of the ingredients of the batter in a container to create the batter, then use a food item on the container to cover it in batter.
 * The ingredients for the batter can be mixed in any kind of container.

Intermediate Ingredients
Some ingredients need special preparation. Animals need to be butchered, items need to be cut up into smaller pieces, and dough needs to be flattened with a rolling pin.

Butchery
Butchering turns animals into ingredients. You have three ways to butcher animals:
 * The gibber. This large machine, located in the kitchen cold room, will turn any animal into its component parts. Click and drag the animal to the gibber to put it in; click on the gibber to turn it on. If the animal in question is a human, monkey, or similar creature, the gibber produces organs and limbs as well as meat. These organs and limbs can be eaten or ground up for animal protein, but often contain toxins. There is a safety guard that must be disabled before humans can be put into the gibber.
 * The meat spike. Smaller animals can be put on the meat spike by grabbing them (Grab intent) and clicking on the meat spike. Then they can be butchered by clicking on the meat spike.
 * Cleaver and table. Animals can be put on a table and butchered with a cleaver. Be aware that humans, monkeys, and similar creatures cannot be butchered this way, and butchering other animals with a cleaver is inefficient.
 * Clams, Barnacles, Molluscs and Ras'Val clams are grown in hydroponics trays, and are butchered by hitting them with a hatchet or knife.

Reagents/Condiments/Recipes from Blending or Mixing
To mix reagents, put them in the same container. You will hear a bubbling sound if mixing is successful.
 * To see exactly what you've mixed, use a beaker and then add it to a nearby All-In-One Grinder or ChemMaster machine.
 * Grinding a completed food item in the grinder reduces it to the reagents inside.

Junk Food
When there's no chef, the chef is serving toxic glop, or the chef is trying to murder you and your friends, most people resort to one of two things: grazing on produce, or the vending machines.

Junk food requires no chef or machinery, but it's generally not as filling or as interesting.

Advanced Cooking
Some reagents in finished recipes are poisonous or have undesirable effects. If you're a traitor that may be the point, but if you're just feeling fancy you may want to try and serve these items safely. A little creative chemistry or careful preparation can help get rid of the dangerous reagents in your food.

Any piece of food can contain up to 50 units of reagents, including those that are created with it.


 * When using medicines, be careful not to add too much to avoid triggering an overdose.
 * Reagents that react inside the food to neutralize a poison may be dangerous themselves until they react. Using too much will leave poisonous leftovers.
 * Reagents can be removed from food with a syringe, and separated using the CondiMaster in the kitchen. Get that Carpotoxin outta there!