Taking Inventory: Rotten Flesh

If you’re a committed zombie-slayer, then you’ll eventually start building up a backlog of rotten flesh in your chests and might start to wonder what you should do with it. 

For starters, you might consider eating it – but this is probably a bad idea. While it does restore two chunks of hunger, it has a large chance of giving you the hunger debuff which causes the hunger bar to drop rapidly. On the other hand, you can only get the hunger debuff once, so if you repeatedly cram rotten flesh into your mouth then you can sometimes outpace the hunger drain. Don’t try this at home, kids.

Wolves have much stronger stomachs than humans do, so they can eat rotten flesh just fine. In fact they love it so much that it can be used to breed tamed wolves, heal their wounds, and even make baby wolves grow up faster.

Finally, if all else fails then novice-level cleric villagers will sometimes buy 32 rotten flesh for one emerald. It’s not entirely clear why they want it. Maybe they have a pack of wolves to feed? Or maybe something more sinister is going on...

Alright, let’s talk about rotten flesh in the real world – and specifically zombies. The first and most important thing you need to know is that zombies don’t exist in the real world. The word comes from Haitian folklore that was most likely imported from Western Africa – probably a combination of the Kongo words nzambi (meaning god) and zumbi (meaning an object imbued with supernatural powers). 

The last decade or two has seen zombies appear in films, movies and games that are portrayed as more human – retaining characteristics of the living and even in some cases becoming friends with humans.

Minecraft’s zombies are more the classic kind – a groaning slob who never helps out with the dishes. You probably wouldn’t consider one your friend, would you? But a golden apple later and who knows?