This is a good resource to see what the food does and what values your stats need to be at to get the optimal effect.

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...entry?e=144489

Right now, there is way too much ignorance regarding food. Not many people know how it works or what it is good for. Food effects should be listed on the item description. The stat boosts should clearly be visible on your stats menu as well. This is how equipment works, food should be the same. When no one knows what food does or how it is used, no one wants to buy it, and the Culinarian class gets shafted.


The devs also need to change the conditions for food to have an effect. As it is now, you need a certain value for your stats and elemental attributes for you to get the "divine" message. This is a bad system. I like to rank up multiple classes. I have a melee class, so I set my attributes to 71 str and 55 fire to get the optimal boost from Shephard's Pie. However, next I want to play my Thaumaturge, but I can't reset my stats due to the cooldown. It is ridiculous that at phys level 50 I have to wait 2 hours in between stat reassignments.

So, #1, I can't set my stats to get optimal food buffs from Tomato Pie (mage food), and #2, I can't set my stats to go from meleee spec to mage spec.

Okay, so now what? Craft? Well, if I change to Goldsmith, I want to increase my DEX to help with synthing on main hand. I also want to get set stats for apple juice (MND 53 water 42), but uh oh, I had my MND set to 80 the last time since I was playing mage, and my water was at 80 as well. In one click of "reassign", my MND and water only go back down to 50 something, so I can't get the divine message from juice.

This system is totally stupid and needs fixing.

Just base the food buff on the rank of the food, that's all.