Talk:Decay/@comment-212.59.37.193-20170412110929/@comment-70.78.105.25-20170429233826

I got food poisoning once from a banged up can of pork'n'beans during my first week of survival on one play through not long ago. The point is that it can happen, even if and although the chances are much lower than eating, for example, spoiled meat.

I was still pretty new to the game at the time and was shacked up in the Forestry Lookout (not smart as it turns out, btw). The combination of poor access to resources, being sick, and the FL being constantly near or below freezing, in addition to my bad misfortune of also having a blizzard roll through the next day meant that my severely depleted condition lead to my death when I was finally forced to venture out in search of food, fuel, and a better place to shelter.

The moral of the story is this: eating processed or even "preserved" foods that have aged past a certain point should only be undertaken as an option of last resort. That is, eat it if you're starving and have absolutely no other choice; it may save your life, or it may speed your untimely death; there's no sense in needlessly gambling your life on it (or, for that matter, your supply of antibiotics).

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TL;DR --- If you're eating spoiled food while you have ample supplies of safe foods to eat, you're either doing it wrong or playing on the lowest possible difficulty.