Minecraft wiki entry for Combat, associated text: All of these foods, except for cake, have an effective quality score above 20. Cake, with a score of 14.4, is useful because the player can place and eat it without being forced into the speed of crouching. If the player are on a server with plugins that keep players from placing blocks in certain areas, then cake might not be the best choice. Always be sure to keep the sword as set as their most easily accessible item in their hotbar, depending on how their controls are set up. If the player are using the default controls, it is recommended that the player set their sword as the leftmost item on their hotbar. Also, be sure to keep other important items such as food or potions to the left of their hotbar.