In expert mode and above, food increases your health regeneration by a really large margin, so if the question is just 'should I use food?' the answer is yes.
There are no longer any means to reliably get large amounts of food, but many can still be crafted and farmed, you just can not use a generic garden to grow them. Here are some ways to get food:
- Whack trees, once per day refreshing at 4:30AM every tree can drop random items, usually it will be wood, acorns or some copper coins, sometimes you will get a squirrel and sometimes you will get a fruit. Fruits all give 5 minutes of well fed, the lowest boost of the three tiers, but can be cooked into better food items if you have the materials. If you have a lot of trees growing around your base make sure to hit them once every in-game day to stock up.
Also note that fruit from pearlwood trees actually gives the tier 2 buff instead.
- Fish, at a cooking pot, every fish you catch can be somehow turned into a meal. Every bass can be turned into cooked fish for 8 minutes of well fed, for a fish you can catch in seconds out of most bodies of water that is very good, if you catch a lot you can keep a stockpile of up to 100 of them at a time since food doesn't go off. Rarer fish such as the specular fish, armored cavefish, and most other potion related fish can be turned into seafood dinner for 14 minutes of plenty satisfied, the second best tier of food buff, but they are crafted at a rate of 2 fish for 1 meal so you can not stockpile them as much, best saved for bosses or events where you need more of an edge.
- The third and final food buff, exquisitely stuffed is now reserved for only the game's rarest kinds of dishes dropped by enemies at a low rate, if you want the best buff type in abundance you will want an AFK enemy farm, items to try going for include grapes for grape juice, apple pie, burger, milkshake, pizza, spaghetti and steak. Going for a large amount of any of these foods is really not worth the hassle though, if you want the best of the best you will need the next and final one on the list...
- Pigronatas, each one is bought from the party girl during a party for 1 gold each but can be lowered to 75 silver by living in a hallow with the zoologist and wizard. Each pigronata has slightly more than a 1/40 chance of dropping arguably the best food in the game, bacon. Bacon gives 24 minutes of tier 3 exquisitely stuffed and if you have a fortune to spare on hundreds of pigronatas you can pretty much buy the best food item in the game, but the rate that you actually get them is so miserable I would only recommend this to someone with way too much platinum and a borderline titanic hunger for food.
And that's what I know about food, always remember to eat up before any fights, if you are not fed on expert mode it halves your health regen.
