Free Food on Runescape... WITHOUT Begging!

On a game with thousands of players on at any one time, beggars are so commonplace that after a short while you might choose to immediately put them on your "ignore" list, but while you're still new, let's just worry about you NOT becoming one of those annoying beggars.

Food is easy to get for free, without asking.

Cows, other people's unwanted kill loot

Close to Lumbridge, west across the river and then north along the roadway, past the level 2 goblins, there is a fenced-in area with cows in it. If you're playing on the free servers during peak hours there will likely be a bunch of other players in that area, hacking on cows.

Not only hacking on cows, however, but leaving behind the loot from the kills, including slabs of "raw beef". I personally zipped around within the fenced-in area and picked up about 25 raw beef slabs in a 2 minute period, and no players got mad at me for doing it. In fact, if you can see the loot from someone else's kill, that means they've left that loot laying around for about 30 seconds or more, and eventually it'll just disappear if nobody picks it up anyway...

Free food! 25 raw beef slabs! But I couldn't eat them, since they're raw...

But hey, going through Tutorial Island I came out with a bronze axe and a tinder box, and I can use those to chop down a tree and turn it into a bonfire upon which the raw slabs of beef can be cooked. I gained 3-4 cooking levels just cooking up those 25 raw beef slabs. Note, I was only successful at cooking 10 of the slabs. The other 15 burned.

Fishing on your own

You also started out with a small net, so keep an eye out for where you can fish with it. The food you get initially doesn't heal much, but as you gain fishing levels and can build your stocks of bigger fish that'll get better.

Hanging around fishing areas

Sometimes other people who are fishing will drop their raw fish on the ground because they're interested in gaining the fishing experience but do not want to deal with running back to the bank to store their catches. Snatch those up and cook them up and save them for your battles!

Every time you go by a fishing location, check to see if players have dropped raw fish on the ground where they're standing. If you MUST ask those fishing at the time, here's a good way to ask for free food without begging as much:

"anyone fishing for exp, I'll take care of what u catch..."

Then stick around for a minute, repeating that message two times more with gaps of 20-30 seconds in between, and then say "msg me" (message me) and walk away and go on about your business. If someone wants to take you up on their offer, they'll add you to their friends list and send you a private message.

Chickens!

Chickens are just north of the area the cows are fenced into, it's on the opposite side of the path you're walking on. This is another place you can get free food - players kill chickens for feathers for fly fishing or making arrows, but often leave the raw chickens behind. Pick them up, cook them up, you're on your way!

I hope this article has been helpful. If there are other areas on Runescape that you'd recommend I add to this article for newbies, leave a message!

Valdesta