Valheim Rotten Meat: Full Item Stats, the Feeling Sick Effect, and Where It Drops

Rotten Meat is a Food-type consumable in Valheim, and its own in-game description doesn't sugarcoat it: "There are maggots crawling in the meat. It smells awful." Eating it applies the Feeling Sick effect rather than any positive food buff, which sounds like a pure downside — until you look at the item's own Usage field, which lists a specific, deliberate purpose: "Clearing active Food Buffs." This guide covers exactly what the sourced data says about Rotten Meat's stats, its effect, and where it drops — and flags plainly the one field the source leaves unlabeled.
What Rotten Meat Is: Type, Weight, and Handling

Per the sourced infobox, Rotten Meat's own item fields are:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Food |
| Weight | 0.5 |
| Max stack | 20 |
| Teleportable | Yes |
| Item ID | RottenMeat |
Rotten Meat can be carried through a portal — that's its own teleport flag, listed as "Yes" in the sourced infobox.
Stacked to the maximum, a full stack of Rotten Meat weighs 0.5 × 20 = 10 — that's this item's own weight field multiplied by its own stack field, computed rather than estimated, and it's the number to plan around if you're hauling a full stack rather than a few units.
The Feeling Sick Effect, Stat by Stat

Eating Rotten Meat applies Feeling Sick, described in the source as: "You don't feel so well and can't hold your food down." The sourced effect breakdown is:
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Health regen | -100% |
| Stamina regen | -100% |
| Movement speed | -50% |
| Duration | 15 |
That last row is worth flagging directly: the sourced infobox lists the duration field as 15, but doesn't attach a unit (minutes, seconds, or otherwise) to that number anywhere in the pulled data. That's undocumented here — treat "15" as the figure on record, not as "15 minutes" until a source that states the unit turns up.
Given a -100%/-100%/-50% debuff, why eat it on purpose? The item's own Usage field answers that directly: "Clearing active Food Buffs." The source explains the mechanism in its own words: "It is useful to switch to different Foods." In other words, Rotten Meat's role isn't nutrition — it's a reset button for whatever food buffs are currently active, at the cost of running Feeling Sick until those 15 units of duration run out.
Where Rotten Meat Comes From

The infobox's own source field names a single location: Putrid Hole. The sourced Availability list breaks that down into two specific drop entries, quoted directly:
- "Drops from mounds of flesh in Putrid Holes."
- "Drops from Vile."
That's the complete Availability list as sourced — two entries, no drop-rate percentage attached to either one in the pulled data, so treat both as confirmed drop sources of undocumented frequency. Whether flesh mounds or Vile drop Rotten Meat more often isn't stated in the source, so don't repeat a specific rate for either without a source that lists one.
Rotten Meat, quick reference
- Type Food, weight 0.5, stack 20, teleportable.
- A full stack weighs 0.5 × 20 = 10.
- Causes Feeling Sick: -100% health regen, -100% stamina regen, -50% movement speed, duration 15 (unit undocumented).
- Usage per its own field: clearing active Food Buffs.
- Drops from mounds of flesh in Putrid Holes and from Vile — no drop rates listed for either.
Running your own Valheim server
Working out whether a Feeling Sick reset is worth it mid-run, or just testing how Rotten Meat behaves in your own inventory before relying on it, is easier on a world you fully control rather than a public server with someone else's rules. A gamever Valheim server keeps your save persistent for up to 10 players, with one-click backups so testing an item like this never risks the world you actually care about.
Conclusion
As sourced, Rotten Meat is a Food-type item weighing 0.5 with a 20-unit max stack (a full stack weighs 0.5 × 20 = 10) that can be teleported through portals. Eating it applies Feeling Sick — -100% health regen, -100% stamina regen, -50% movement speed — for a duration listed as 15 with no unit specified in the source, which is undocumented here. Its own Usage field frames that trade-off as deliberate: "Clearing active Food Buffs." It's sourced from Putrid Hole, specifically mounds of flesh inside them and from Vile, though neither drop's rate is stated.
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