History Main / InexplicablyPreservedDungeonMeat

* VideoGame/{{Dungeons of Dredmor}} lets the player find steak, aged steak, fresh steak and grilled steak, either lying on the floor, dropped by a monster, or conveniently stashed in a mini fridge or grill. Not to mention the fruits, sandwiches and the wide variety of cheeses available. Oh, and don't forget the danish.

* ''VideoGame/UltimateMarvelVersusCapcom3'': Phoenix Wright can pick up food (and immediately eat it to restore health) while searching for evidence in Investigation Mode, regardless of whatever the stage is.

* Subverted with a bit of RealityEnsues with ''Film/PressStart''. While scouring Count Vile's lair, Zack is injured and in need of healing, so Lin-ku offers him some chicken he finds in the dungeon. It's cold, slimy and tastes nasty, but it does the trick.

* You can find food, drinks, and potions in ancient crypts in the various ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' games, some of which have been explicitly been sealed for years with nothing but withered (and occasionally ambulatory) corpses for company. Even those with no bandit presence to explain away the presence of food will still have consumables in them. Feel free to scarf down the half-dozen decades-old potatoes you find if you're low on health, your character won't know the difference.

* ''VideoGame/ChexQuest'' is a mod of ''VideoGame/Doom''. Among [[LighterAndSofter many other things]], it replaces Doom's healing items with glasses of water, bowls of fruit or vegetables, and "supercharge breakfasts." They all work as intended, whether they're sitting in forgotten caverns or slime-infested sewers.

* {{Kirby}} games use 'Maxim Tomatoes' to completely heal the player character. Energy drinks and, on occasion, other foods are sometimes used for smaller amounts of healing. This can raise questions as to why, for instance, meat, cake, and a sandwich can be found in an underwater cave on planet [[Kirby64TheCrystalShards Ripple Star]] (and somehow fail to dissolve and waft away in the currents).

--> ''"Oh man, unexplained [[UndergroundLevel cave]] [[RareCandy candy]]. This journey just keeps getting better and better."''

* Subverted with a bit of RealityEnsues with ''PressStart''. While scouring Count Vile's lair, Zack is injured and in need of healing, so Lin-ku offers him some chicken he finds in the dungeon. It's cold, slimy and tastes nasty, but it does the trick.

* Subverted with a bit of RealityEnsues with PressStart. While scouring Count Vile's lair, Zack is injured and in need of healing, so Lin-ku offers him some chicken he finds in the dungeon. It's cold, slimy and tastes nasty, but it does the trick.

* The original sidescrolling shooter ''VideoGame/DukeNukemI'' has Duke roaming around eight levels of Doctor Proton's ElaborateUndergroundBase, with an occasional turkey drumstick available to add about 12% health. Interestingly, Duke's handheld WaveMotionGun can be used to "cook" a turkey drumstick into a complete turkey dinner worth 25% health. Averted with the soda, which is sealed in a can.

A fairly common video game trope, especially in older video games. Not only do video game heroes have little problem eating food they find lying around on the floor for longer than the five-second rule allows, but even if that roast chicken had to have been sitting there for hundreds of years in someplace ''very'' unsanitary, it's still as fresh as if it just came out of the oven.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series always has tons of pre-war food (even in the first game, the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Great War]] happened almost 100 years ago) that's still perfectly edible, including the inexplicably popular Nuka-Cola. ''{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'' work to subvert this somewhat, as eating pre-war food will still boost the player's health, but also inflict them with minor doses of radiation (and explicitly irradiated food that deals even more radiation when eaten can be found.)

* A typical world in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has many abandoned dungeons, strongholds and mines where you can find chests containing food like bread, wheat, carrots, potatoes, melon seeds or pumpkin seeds, all fresh and edible (or in case of seeds, plantable). Subverted only with the food found in temples: temples only contain rotten flesh.

A SubTrope of BlatantItemPlacement. Compare InexplicableTreasureChests.

* One survival horror game played on ''LetsPlay/GamingGarbage'' had the player restoring health by drinking cartons of milk and eating whole pizzas found lying around an abandoned insane asylum. [[LampshadeHanging Shmorky is quick to point out how disgusting this is.]]

* The original sidescrolling shooter ''VideoGame/DukeNukem1'' has Duke roaming around eight levels of Doctor Proton's ElaborateUndergroundBase, with an occasional turkey drumstick available to add about 12% health. Interestingly, Duke's handheld WaveMotionGun can be used to "cook" a turkey drumstick into a complete turkey dinner worth 25% health. Averted with the soda, which is sealed in a can.

* The original sidescrolling shooter ''VideoGame/DukeNukem'' has Duke roaming around eight levels of Doctor Proton's ElaborateUndergroundBase, with an occasional turkey drumstick available to add about 12% health. Interestingly, Duke's handheld WaveMotionGun can be used to "cook" a turkey drumstick into a complete turkey dinner worth 25% health. Averted with the soda, which is sealed in a can.

** Justified in that all pre-war food in the Fallout series appears to be preservative-laded, inorganic, sealed junk food like chips or instant noodles, which was also sterilized by radiation.

* Other than first-aid kits, all health-replenishing items in ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' are food, and all of them are just lying around on the floor, sometimes even sitting in hidden passageways (though at least they're left on plates and bowls.)
* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series always has tons of pre-war food (even in the first game, the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt Great War]] happened almost 100 years ago) that's still perfectly edible, including the inexplicably popular Nuka-Cola. ''{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''[[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas New Vegas]]'' work to subvert this somewhat, as eating pre-war food will still boost the player's health, but also inflict them with minor doses of radiation (and explicitly irradiated food that deals even more radiation when eaten can be found.)
** Justified in that all pre-war food in the Fallout series appears to be preservative-laded, inorganic, sealed junk food like chips or instant noodles, which was also sterilized by radiation.
* A staple of the ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'' series. Apparently when [[MemeticMutation Red Warrior needs food badly]] it doesn't matter where it's been.
* In ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim 2'', there's a sandwich pickup called a Chip Butty that restores 200% health...even if it's been buried underground.
* One survival horror game played on ''LetsPlay/GamingGarbage'' had the player restoring health by drinking cartons of milk and eating whole pizzas found lying around an abandoned insane asylum. [[LampshadeHanging Shmorky is quick to point out how disgusting this is.]]

* A typical world in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has many abandoned dungeons, strongholds and mines where you can find chests containing food like bread, wheat, carrots, potatoes, melon seeds or pumpkin seeds, all fresh and edible (or in case of seeds, plantable). Subverted only with the food found in temples: temples only contain rotten flesh.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' series takes place on Earth 250 million years in the future (as confirmed by ''3'') and has a suspicious lack of humans, but some of the treasures in ''2'' include various foodstuffs that still look perfectly fine (and apparently ''taste'' perfectly fine, too, since the crew keep sneaking bites of them.)
* In the ''VideoGame/DuckTales'' game for NES, Scrooge can find cakes and cones of ice cream hidden throughout Transylvania, Amazon Ruins, and the moon.
* Perhaps parodied in ''VideoGame/StarTropics 2''. The protagonist uses TNT to blast a hole in a mine, searching for a gold nugget. Upon finding it, he realizes it's a chicken nugget (keep in mind this was in a cave that was completely sealed off before the TNT blast). The protagonist then eats the chicken nugget and says it's delicious!

* The original sidescrolling shooter ''VideoGame/DukeNukem'' has Duke roaming around eight levels of Doctor Proton's ElaborateUndergroundBase, with an occasional turkey drumstick available to add about 12% health. Interestingly, Duke's handheld WaveMotionGun can be used to "cook" a turkey drumstick into a complete turkey dinner worth 25% health. Averted with the soda, which is sealed in a can.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/FableII'', where you'll find food even in dumps like Wraithmarsh, but the quality will be much lower.
* Zig-zagged in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''. Food left around will decay and spoil, but it will be preserved almost indefinitely if put in a food stockpile -- it can still go bad, but takes years. Played straight in adventure mode, where food you find will be perfectly edible.

* Similar to the ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' example, plates of meat can be found in ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' by smashing open steel drums, phone booths and even found in the wreckage of falling chandeliers.

** Justified in that all pre-war food in Fallout series appears to be preservative-laded, inorganic junk food like chips or instant noodles.

* Used throughout the ''Franchise//{{Castlevania}}'' series. The pre-''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight Symphony of the Night]]'' games typically allowed the player to break open walls to reveal different kinds of meat. Games after ''Symphony'' had food items just sitting on the floor out in the open or dropped by monsters, including cartons of milk that should've gone bad even faster than the meat. However, it also zigzagged this trope by including spoiled food items as well.

* Used throughout the ''VideoGame/{{Castlevania}}'' series. The pre-''VideoGame/SymphonyOfTheNight'' games typically allowed the player to break open walls to reveal different kinds of meat. Games after ''VideoGame/SymphonyOfTheNight'' had food items just sitting on the floor out in the open or dropped by monsters, including cartons of milk that should've gone bad even faster than the meat. However, it also zigzagged this trope by including spoiled food items as well.

* Similar to the ''StreetsOfRage'' example, plates of meat can be found in ''FinalFight'' by smashing open steel drums, phone booths and even found in the wreckage of falling chandeliers.

!!Examples

* A typical world in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has many abandoned dungeons, strongholds and mines where you can find chests containing food like bread, wheat, carrots, potatoes, melon seeds or pumpkin seeds, all fresh and edible (or in case of seeds, plantable).

* ''VideoGame/{{Recettear}}'' lampshades this with many of its item descriptions.

* Non video-game example: The pet cockroach of ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' is given a newly unwrapped Twinkie to eat / play in. This occurs in a setting where humanity hasn't been around for seven hundred years. Yes, Twinkies have preservatives, but c'mon, nothing's ''that'' good.