I'm trying to go for the wellness achievements but it's proving difficult. I'm currently at 157 wellness, and need to reach 175 and 200 for two achievements.

When I go to eat let's say bacon and eggs, the stats for bacon and eggs shows that it gives a wellness gain of +1. However, after eating the food, it refuses to go up. It usually takes about 3-4 bacon and eggs just to get it up one. This goes with anything that provides wellness.

How exactly does wellness work then?

2 Answers

Eating some food and drinking some beverages increases your wellness score. How many points you earn decreases as your wellness goes up.

The quickest way to level your wellness score is to find food/drinks that grants you a lot of wellness per point of fullness or hydration it grants. Some foods will fill you up fast without giving you a lot of wellness, which will make the wellness grind longer.

Once you are over 100 wellness, food/drink grants 50% of the points it would normally grant. Once you are over 150 wellness, food/drink only grants 25% of the points it would normally grant.

I've found that the following foods/drinks are great for wellness grinding:

• Boiled/Charred/Grilled Meat
  • Stats: +10 fullness, +0.8 wellness (0.08 wellness per fullness), +9 health (0.9 health per fullness)
  • Ingredients: Raw meat, bottled water (boiled meat only)
  • Notes: Boiled meat smells the least in your pack, but does emit a smell. It also has no impact to your hydration score. Charred meat is the best for making you thirsty, which is useful for grinding wellness (see below).
• Red Tea/Goldenrod Tea
  • Stats: +20 hydration, +0.2 wellness (0.1 wellness per hydration)
  • Ingredients: Bottled water, chrysanthemum/goldenrod
  • Notes: The fastest way to grind wellness is to eat something that makes you thirsty, drink something that grants wellness until you are not thirsty, and repeat. This is wasteful from the drinking perspective as you will drink a +20 hydration drink to refill just a few points of hydration.

Some other noteworthy foods:

• Corn Bread
  • Stats: +5 fullness, +0.4 wellness (0.08 wellness per fullness), +3 health (0.6 health per fullness)
  • Ingredients: Corn meal, bottled water. The bottle will be consumed when you cook it, but you can forge bottles pretty easily if you collect a lot of sand.
  • Notes: Corn bread doesn't attract zombies when you carry it, so it's a good "on the go" food. It heals for less than meat.
• Meat Stew
  • Stats: +20 fullness, +1.6 wellness (0.08 wellness per fullness), +26 health (1.3 health per fullness)
  • Ingredients: Bottled Water, Ear of Corn, Potato, Raw Meat
  • Notes: While great for healing and wellness, stew doesn't make you thirsty. This will make the wellness grind slower.

1

Here is an article explaining wellness. The most efficient way to increase your wellness is to maintain hydration and fullness and by using specific medical supplies.