Spice of Life: Carrot Edition Mod Guide: Milestone System, Food Book & Configuration
Spice of Life: Carrot Edition rewards dietary variety by granting permanent bonus hearts for eating different foods. With a milestone system that tracks unique foods eaten and a handy Food Book to monitor your progress, this mod transforms every food item in Minecraft into a meaningful resource worth trying.
Overview
Spice of Life: Carrot Edition (often abbreviated SOL: Carrot) takes a refreshingly positive approach to food diversity in Minecraft. Instead of punishing you for eating the same food repeatedly, it rewards you with permanent bonus health for trying new things. The core loop is simple: eat a food you've never tried before, and you make progress toward the next milestone. Reach a milestone, and you gain bonus hearts that stick with you for the rest of your playthrough.
The mod adds just one new item, the 
Food Book, and a milestone-based progression system built on top of vanilla (and modded) food items. There are no new crops, no new cooking stations, and no new recipes to learn beyond the Food Book itself. The beauty of the mod is in how it makes you appreciate every food source already in the game. You can browse the Food Book recipe and the mod's single item in the tabs above.
Getting Started
- 1
Craft Your Food Book
Your first step is crafting a
Food Book. Combine a Book and a Carrot in any crafting grid (the recipe is shapeless, so placement doesn't matter). The Food Book is your central tracking tool and you'll be referencing it constantly throughout your playthrough. - 2
Check Your Current Progress
Right-click the
Food Book to open the tracking interface. You'll see a stats page showing how many unique foods you've eaten, how many hearts you've gained, and a progress graph toward the next milestone. The book also lists all foods you haven't tried yet, making it easy to plan your next meal. - 3
Start Eating Unique Foods
Begin eating every different food you can get your hands on. When you eat a food for the first time, you'll see shimmering End Rod particles confirming it counted. Hover over any food item in your inventory to see a tooltip indicating whether you've already eaten it or not. Your first milestone is at 5 unique foods, so start with easy pickings: an Apple, Bread, a Carrot, Cooked Beef, and Baked Potato.
- 4
Reach Your First Milestone
Once you've eaten 5 unique foods, you'll hit your first milestone. A ding sound plays, Heart particles burst around you, and you permanently gain 2 bonus hearts (4 HP). A message appears above your hotbar confirming the achievement. Open your
Food Book to see your updated stats and find out what to eat next.
Food Book Recipe
The Milestone System
The milestone system is the heart of Spice of Life: Carrot Edition. By default, there are 5 milestones set at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 unique foods eaten. Each milestone you reach grants 2 bonus hearts (4 HP), meaning the maximum bonus is 10 hearts (20 HP) on top of your standard 10 hearts. A fully completed food journey gives you 20 total hearts, doubling your base health pool.
Only foods with a hunger value of at least 1 half-drumstick count toward milestones by default. This means extremely low-value foods won't contribute unless the server operator changes the minimum food value in the config. Each food only counts once; eating 50 Steaks still only registers as one unique food.
When you eat a new food that counts toward progress, shimmering End Rod particles appear around your character. When you hit a milestone, Heart particles burst around you and a celebratory ding plays. If you complete all milestones and reach the maximum, you'll also see Happy Villager particles and a special congratulatory message.
Default Milestone Thresholds
| Milestone 1 | 5 unique foods → +2 hearts |
| Milestone 2 | 10 unique foods → +4 hearts total |
| Milestone 3 | 15 unique foods → +6 hearts total |
| Milestone 4 | 20 unique foods → +8 hearts total |
| Milestone 5 | 25 unique foods → +10 hearts total |
| Max Total Health | 20 hearts (40 HP) |
This mod shines in modpacks that include food mods like Pam's HarvestCraft, Farmer's Delight, or Croptopia. These mods add dozens or even hundreds of food items, making it much easier to hit all 25 milestones and giving you a real reason to explore all those extra recipes.
The Food Book
The Food Book is the only item the mod adds, and it serves as your complete dietary tracker. Right-clicking it opens a multi-page GUI styled like a book with several sections.
Stats Page
The stats page shows a visual progress graph displaying how close you are to the next milestone. Below the graph, you'll see the number of unique foods you've tasted (shown as a fraction of total available foods if the config allows) and the number of bonus hearts you've earned out of the maximum possible.
Food Lists
The book contains pages listing foods you've already eaten and, by default, foods you haven't tried yet. The uneaten foods list is incredibly useful for identifying what to eat next. Foods are displayed as item icons, so you can quickly scan through and plan which ones to farm, cook, or hunt for.
Config Info Page
The book also has a config info page that shows the current minimum food value required for a food to count, the number of "cheap" foods (foods below the threshold), and whether a blacklist or whitelist is active. This page helps you understand exactly which foods will and won't contribute to your progress on the current server.
Food Tooltips
Every food item in your inventory displays a tooltip line added by the mod. The tooltip system uses color coding to communicate status at a glance. Foods you haven't eaten yet that count toward milestones show an aqua-colored "not yet eaten" message. Foods you've already eaten and that counted display a green confirmation. Foods that are below the minimum hunger value threshold appear in dark gray, marked as too "cheap" to count. Blacklisted or non-whitelisted foods show a dark red disabled message explaining why they won't contribute.
This tooltip system means you never have to open the Food Book just to check whether a food in your hand is worth eating for progress. A quick hover tells you everything you need to know.
Vanilla Minecraft has around 40 unique food items (counting raw and cooked variants separately). This is more than enough to hit all 5 default milestones without any food mods installed. Don't overlook easily forgotten foods like Dried Kelp, Beetroot Soup, Suspicious Stew, Pumpkin Pie, and Rabbit Stew.
Commands
The mod provides the /foodlist command with three subcommands for managing food tracking data. These are useful for server administrators and debugging.
Available Commands
| /foodlist size [player] | Shows how many unique foods the player has eaten and how many more are needed for the next milestone |
| /foodlist clear [player] | Resets the player's food list completely, removing all bonus hearts (requires operator permission level 2) |
| /foodlist sync [player] | Forces a sync of the food list data between server and client, useful if the display seems out of date |
Configuration
The mod's configuration file offers extensive control over the milestone system. Server operators and modpack makers can tune the experience to be more challenging, more rewarding, or more restrictive depending on the intended playstyle.
Core Settings
The baseHearts setting (default: 10) controls how many hearts you start with. Lowering this below 10 creates a "start weak, grow strong" experience where you begin with fewer hearts than normal and must eat diverse foods just to reach standard health. The heartsPerMilestone setting (default: 2) determines how many hearts each milestone grants. The milestones array (default: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25) defines exactly how many unique foods trigger each reward. You can add more milestones, space them further apart, or require fewer foods per step.
Food Filtering
The minimumFoodValue setting (default: 1, measured in half-drumsticks) filters out foods that restore very little hunger. At the default value of 1, virtually all foods count. Raising this to 2 or 4 forces players to seek out more substantial meals. The foodBlacklist and foodWhitelist accept item IDs with wildcard support (e.g., "minecraft:*" or "pamhc:*cookie*"). When the whitelist contains any entries, the blacklist is ignored and only whitelisted foods count.
Visual and Audio Settings
Several toggles control the feedback you receive. You can disable food tooltips, milestone sounds, milestone particles, intermediate particles (the ones shown when trying a new food), and choose whether milestone notifications appear above the hotbar or in chat. The shouldShowUneatenFoods toggle controls whether the Food Book shows foods you haven't eaten yet; disabling this creates a more exploratory experience.
Death Penalty
The shouldResetOnDeath setting (default: false) determines whether dying clears your food list and removes all bonus hearts. When enabled, this adds a significant risk/reward element to the mod; death becomes much more punishing since you lose all dietary progress. This is popular in hardcore-style modpacks.
If your server or modpack has enabled the "Reset on Death" config option, dying will wipe your entire food history and all bonus hearts. Check the config info page in your Food Book to see if this is active before taking risks with your full health pool.
Strategy Guide: Reaching All Milestones
In vanilla Minecraft, you need 25 unique foods to complete all milestones. Here's a practical approach broken down by game phase.
Early Game (Milestone 1: 5 Foods)
Start with whatever you can easily find on day one. Apples drop from Oak and Dark Oak Leaves. Bread requires three Wheat, which you can often find in Village Chests or start farming immediately. Carrots and Potatoes are available in Villages or as rare Zombie drops. A Baked Potato only needs a Furnace. Reaching 5 unique foods is achievable within the first in-game day.
Mid Game (Milestones 2-3: 10-15 Foods)
Once you have a farm and a Furnace, branch out into cooked meats: Cooked Beef, Cooked Porkchop, Cooked Chicken, and Cooked Mutton each count separately from their raw versions. Add Mushroom Stew (two Mushrooms and a Bowl), Beetroot Soup, and Pumpkin Pie (Pumpkin, Sugar, Egg). Dried Kelp is easy to mass-produce if you're near an Ocean. Sweet Berries are abundant in Taiga biomes.
Late Game (Milestones 4-5: 20-25 Foods)
The final milestones require seeking out less common foods. Golden Carrots and Golden Apples cost Gold but count as unique entries. Rabbit Stew requires Cooked Rabbit, Carrot, Baked Potato, a Mushroom, and a Bowl. Suspicious Stew can be crafted with any small Flower for different effects, and each variant counts separately. Cooked Cod and Cooked Salmon from fishing add two more. Honey Bottles and Chorus Fruit round out the more exotic options.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do raw and cooked versions of the same food count separately?
Yes. Raw Beef and Cooked Beef are two different items, so they count as two separate unique foods. This applies to all cookable meats and fish. Eating both versions is a quick way to double your food count from animal farming.
Does Spice of Life: Carrot Edition work with food mods like Pam's HarvestCraft or Farmer's Delight?
Absolutely. Any item registered as a food in Minecraft will be tracked by the mod. Food mods that add dozens or hundreds of new recipes make reaching milestones much easier and give you more options. The mod uses the AppleCore API to detect food items, so compatibility is very broad.
What happens if I eat a food that's below the minimum food value?
Foods below the minimum food value threshold (default: 1 half-drumstick) are marked as "cheap" foods. Eating them still restores hunger normally, but they won't count toward your milestone progress and won't appear in your Food Book's progress tracking. You'll see a gray tooltip indicating the food doesn't meet the minimum value.
Do I lose my bonus hearts when I die?
By default, no. Your food list and all bonus hearts persist through death. However, there is a config option called "Reset on Death" (shouldResetOnDeath) that some modpacks and servers enable. When active, dying wipes your entire food history and you start from zero. Check your Food Book's config info page to see if this is enabled.
Can I see which foods I haven't eaten yet without the Food Book?
You can check individual foods by hovering over them in your inventory. Uneaten foods that count toward milestones display an aqua-colored tooltip. However, only the Food Book gives you a complete list of all uneaten foods in one place. You can also use the /foodlist size command to quickly check your count without opening the book.
How do the blacklist and whitelist work?
The blacklist prevents specific foods from counting toward milestones. The whitelist is the opposite: when it contains any entries, ONLY those foods count and the blacklist is completely ignored. Both lists accept item IDs with wildcard patterns (e.g., "minecraft:*" to match all vanilla foods, or "pamhc:*cookie*" to match all cookies from a mod). Blacklisted or non-whitelisted foods show a dark red tooltip explaining they're disabled.