Something of note: ALL food will increase vitality, in essence raising survivability. Your choice of secondary stat determines what food category you go after (note: the food in the market boards are organized by category). Mushroom dishes are determination (overall damage), egg dishes are crit, sweets are spell speed, and juices are Piety (For max MP). Once you decide on category (Determination is likely best, followed by crit, then piety, then spell speed. But feel free to try any of them, the less useful ones will be cheaper) you'll want to figure out precisely which one you want. Take a look at the percentages and caps. Higher level food has lower percentages but higher caps, meaning they CAN be better than low level food, but only if you have the stats for it. For example, one food may say it gives 10% determination with a cap of 12. If you have 100 determination, you'll get +10 determination. If you have 120, you'll get +12. If you have 200, still +12. A higher level food may have +8%, but with a cap of 20. In this case, the 200 determination player gets +16, better than the previous food, but the 100 determination player would only get 8, LESS than the old food. You can calculate how much you'll get by taking your stat (after any armor), multiplying by the percentage, diving by 100, and if it's over the cap set it to the cap. Start with the lowest level food in your category and go up until the amount you get starts going down, in order to see what gives the highest.