Does anyone have any experience with playing through the game using only food and found potions for healing, rather than either resoration or alchemy?

I have a real soft spot for cooking systems in RPGs, and Skyrim adds the fun of hunting for your meat, but my primary character is a crafter, so his alchemy skill has completely eclipsed the value of chasing down elk and then lugging venison around.

Food will always be a poor stepchild to alchemy and restoration, but its benefit if used exclusively would be that you would be levelling two fewer skills. Is this enough of a plus that a food-only character would be viable?

Anyone tried it?

Food is most useful for stamina regen.

Soups and stews are arguably some of the most powerful buffs in the game.

NOM NOM on some Fondue. Most useful food in game

Yes, for much of the first half of my current game I was carrying venison and beef stews around for the longer fights. But at this point there really aren't any long fights, and I have stamina potions galore anyway, so regeneration is a bit beside the point. I forgot to use my last few stews and kept making more until they were weighing me down. Eventually I just dumped them, with regret since I find the hunting and cooking process fun.

i really want beth to expand upon the cooking side of things on skyrim... there are so many ingrediants out there and yet there are only a select few that are used for cooking, a salmon steak only restores 5 HP but weighs more than a potion... it just seems silly.

a cooked steak restoring around 40 sounds more like it

I don't use food as much, but i never use restoration. I tend to rely one health potions that i scavenge, as my main character isn't the sharpest arrow in the quiver, and can't make them himself.

Food is very useful early on, but as your health increases it becomes more of a weight burden than anything else. If you have a Restore Healh potion that gives you back 50 health and 5 foods that restore 10 health each, it's pretty clear that food loses big time. But if you never add to your health when you level up (going the extra-pure mage route) then food is as viable as Restore Health potions.

WIth one character I did a lot of cooking, just as a novelty, but at level 40 it just got tedious.

I cook and eat lots, often when full health, but not as healing b/c resoration/potion/just letting health bar restore is more practical.

Yeah, as I consider it, I think the downfall of the plan will be leveled loot. You don't need to have improved your alchemy to find better and better potions in chests as the game goes on - so I think that food will become irrelevant even if you don't level your own alchemy at all.

Ingredients seem to be few and far in between, while potions give much stronger and upfront effects whom also weight less. U hear some people find food's stamina regeneration properties pretty good, but to be honest it's never been enough to convince me to carry food for anything other than RP stuff. :3

You're now my favorite person on the forums.

I've been saying that for a long time. The Weight-Heal ratio isn't worth it for a lot of the foods (Soups and Stews aside), there's also the fact that most food is much more rare than potions, to say nothing of the ingredients with "Restore Health" such as Blue Mountain Flowers.