What animal eats potatoes in Minecraft?

It’s the holiday season, and as this most wonderful time of the year, it’s only natural that your thoughts should turn to Minecraft’s most festive item. I’m not talking about the spruce sapling, or the campfire, or the bucket of milk. I’m talking about everyone’s favourite gift of all – the potato.

What do you mean potatoes aren’t festive? They’re the greatest gift anyone can receive! They’re edible, farmable, smeltable, tradable, compostable, and you can even use them to breed pigs. Pigs! What more could anyone want than a lot of pigs? The answer: a lot of potatoes.

Potatoes were added to Minecraft in the Pretty Scary update in October 2012, alongside witches, anvils, pumpkins, and flowerpots. To obtain one you’ve got a few options – you can go raid a village farm, hunt down a shipwreck or pillager outpost, or just slay a bunch of zombies until one drops the potato it was carrying. Why do zombies carry potatoes? The real question is why would anyone NOT carry a potato at ALL TIMES?

Once you’ve got a potato, the first thing you’ll want to do is turn it into many, many more potatoes. You can do this by planting it in some farmland near water and waiting a while. Eventually, you’ll be able to harvest it for 1-4 new potatoes. Plant those, harvest those, repeat, and before long you’ll have a whole chest full of potatoes, ready to gift to your nearest and dearest.

In the rare circumstance that your nearest and dearest don’t want the potatoes, the first thing to do is find a new family who appreciates potatoes as much as you do. But if that’s not possible then you can eat them yourself (either raw or baked in a smelter or campfire for extra tastiness), use them to breed an enormous herd of pigs, trade them to villagers for emeralds, or compost them so you can grow MORE POTATOES.

In the real world, everyone loves potatoes too. They originated in what is now Peru, were domesticated by Native Americans about 10,000 years ago, and are now the world’s fourth-largest food crop after corn, wheat, and rice – eaten in almost every culture around the globe.

Potato plants can either be grown from seeds or from other potatoes. They grow about 60cm tall, and produce lovely white, pink, red, blue, or purple flowers, depending on the variety. After they’ve flowered, they produce fruits that look a bit like cherry tomatoes, each of which contains about 300 seeds. But these fruits are poisonous and so instead we eat the tuber – a part of the root where the plant stores nutrients for the winter.

Today, the biggest potato-producing countries in the world are China, India, and Russia, but the countries of northern and eastern Europe actually produce more potatoes per person than anywhere else on the planet. We northern Europeans eat them fried, deep-fried, baked, mashed, roasted, scalloped, diced, sliced, boiled, grated, microwaved, steamed, and even in salads. They’re amazing!

That’s why potatoes, in my humble opinion, are the greatest gift anyone could give to anyone this festive season. Happy holidays!

Pigs are the only livestock that eat potatoes, but they will also take carrots and beetroots. To breed pigs: Get two adult pigs close to each other. Feed them both a potato (or carrot or beetroot).

How to plant potatoes in minecraft

Breeding[]

Pigs follow and can be bred by a player holding a potato.

Villagers can pick up potato items to become willing, which allow them to breed. Villagers require 12 potatoes to become willing.

Advancements[]

Java Edition
1.4.2	12w34a	Potatoes have an extra, unobtainable item form corresponding to its block ID. It can be obtained via the `/give` command or inventory editors with numeric item ID 142.
1.4.2	12w34a	Unlike the proper potato item, it had a placement sound, and was capable of directly replacing replaceable blocks such as grass provided it would result in a valid placement.
1.8	14w25a	The direct item form of potatoes has been removed from the game. It can no longer exist as an item in any way, only as a placed block.
Pocket Edition Alpha
?		Potatoes exist as an item.

Java Edition
1.4.2		12w34a			The potatoes item uses this texture in inventories, when held in first or third person view, as a dropped item or when in an item frame.

Sounds[]

↑ a b

↑ Unlike all other block placement sound events, these are listed under items. Confirmed to be intentional by Mojang, see

FAQ

Is there any use for poisonous potatoes in Minecraft?

The only use for the poisonous potato is to eat one to gain the A Balanced Diet advancement, and even then you only need a single one.

What are potatoes for in Minecraft?

The mobs that have a chance to drop potatoes upon death include Zombies, Zombie Villagers, and Husks. They each have a 2.5 percent chance to drop potatoes, but only if they die to a player or tamed wolf.

Which mobs drop potatoes?

You can also throw food to villagers. Villagers become willing to breed when they have either 3 bread, 12 carrots, or 12 potatoes in their inventory.

Do villagers take baked potatoes?