5 best Minecraft food items for villagers

Not all Minecraft players may know this, but villagers retain a hidden willingness stat that dictates whether they want to breed. This stat is partially predicated on how much food a villager has in their inventory.

In addition to breeding, some food items can be traded to villagers for emeralds and other items in Minecraft. Regardless of whether players are hoping to trade with or breed villagers, certain foods are much more beneficial than others. Villagers such as farmers and fishermen are particular about the food items they'll take, and villager breeding centers on four specific food types as well.

In this article, we look at some of the most crucial food items for villagers in Minecraft.

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Minecraft: Most vital food items for villager interaction

#5) Melon Blocks

Melon blocks make good trade currency to obtain emeralds (Image via Mojang)

Although they aren't required for villager breeding, melon blocks make for a solid means to obtain emeralds by trading with farmer villagers. For the standard cost of four melon blocks, players can obtain one emerald.

Though it may not seem like a great trade, growing melons in Minecraft is quite easy. They can be harvested with a Silk Touch-enchanted tool to pick up the melon block itself instead of breaking it into melon slices. With an efficient melon farm in place, players can rack up a considerable amount of emeralds without much effort.

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#4) Beetroots

Beetroots can be tricky to get a hold of, but they can help increase villager breeding willingness (Image via Mojang)g

Typically only spawned in Minecraft villages on farmers' crop plots, beetroots are nonetheless useful both for breeding villagers and for trading. For 15 beetroots, farmer villagers will offer players an emerald.

This isn't the best trade to facilitate, but beetroots perform better when increasing breeding willingness for villagers. With 12 beetroots in their inventory, villagers will become more willing to breed. Since beetroot can already be found growing in villages, borrowing a few and creating a farm of your own can lead to easy villager breeding in the future.

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#3) Potatoes

The various stages of potato crop growth (Image via Mojang)

Much like beetroots in Minecraft, potatoes are capable of making a villager willing to breed by having 12 of them in their inventory. Potatoes also possess a higher chance of appearing in farm plots in villages than beetroots (20% compared to beetroot's 10%).

Since multiple potatoes can be harvested from a single crop block, racking up at least 12 potatoes for a villager to activate breeding willingness shouldn't be difficult at all. Farmer villagers tend to break nearby crop blocks and distribute the food to fellow villagers when they have an excess of food, so giving farmers plenty of potatoes to distribute should lead to an uptick in breeding villagers.

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#2) Carrots

Carrots to the right of a basic farm plot (Image via Mojang)

Another breeding-friendly Minecraft crop for villagers, carrots appear in farmers' crop plots at the same frequency as potatoes. Likewise, 12 carrots in a villager's inventory will make them more willing to breed.

However, note that carrots also possess other upsides when it comes to villager interactions. Though 22 of them can be traded to a farmer for an emerald, this deal isn't really worth pursuing. But carrots can be used to breed rabbits. By breeding and killing rabbits, players can trade four pieces of raw rabbit with butchers for an emerald - a much more economic trade when attempting to acquire emeralds.

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#1) Bread

Bread is easily made, and less bread is required to breed villagers (Image via Mojang)

Wheat is by far one of the easiest crops to grow in Minecraft, requiring little set-up and potentially allowing for easy mass-production. Three pieces of wheat can be crafted into bread, which is the best item villagers can use to become willing breeding participants.

Compared to other food items, villagers only need three pieces of bread to become willing to breed. Considering how easy it is to craft bread from a quick-growing and bountiful crop like wheat, it is far and above the best item for villagers with regards to breeding, even if farmer villagers won't purchase it with emeralds.