Food

Food (, Food) is an item that, when used, recovers a small amount of the user's damage. Although they often spawn in groups from Party Balls, the items can spawn on their own, and some items of food are unique to specific stages.

Origin
The use of food as an item in video games is not uncommon, and some Nintendo games also featured the use of food in such a way. In , for example, a variety of vegetables appear in each level. If a player collects all the vegetables, they are awarded a bonus.  required Yoshi to eat thirty fruits within a level to complete it; in these cases, the fruit also recovered some of his health. The series also featured the use of both everyday and esoteric foods as recovery items. In the series, there are often food items placed throughout Dracula's Castle to replenish or deplete the health depending on the food item.

Food that restored the player's health also appeared in Kirby Super Star as well as many other Kirby series games, acting as a common, yet low-powered method to recover Kirby's health. The use of food in the series is especially relevant to the item's appearance in the Super Smash Bros. series, as items featured in Super Smash Bros. Melee would later reappear in Kirby Air Ride as a common, low-health recovery food. In addition, several food sprites from the Kirby franchise have been reused and modified to accommodate the sprites for the Super Smash Bros. series.

As an item
Food commonly spawns on stages in the games, and large bundles of food are frequently dispensed from the Party Ball. As a relatively common item, food generally does not recover significant amounts of damage. The strongest food items recover only 9-12% of the player's health, with a majority often recovering below 6%.

In Brawl, there is a special "gulp" sound effect for when characters consume food that happens to be a liquid, like the tea or orange juice items.

As a stage feature
Three stages in the series, Green Greens, the Summit, and Tortimer Island, dispense unique foods: Green Greens features Apples, the Summit features from the original Ice Climber game (complete with unique sound effects from the game when consumed), and Tortimer Island features some tropical fruits like s. In the case of Green Greens, some of the apples dropped by Whispy Woods will instead take the form of items that can be thrown at opponents; if items are turned off via the Item Switch, these apples will always be the type that can be thrown. If items are disabled on Summit, the Vegetables will never spawn; it is unknown if this is the case for Tortimer Island.

Yoshi's Story has Shy Guys flying around that carry normal food, which repeatedly shifts between different types of food as they hold onto it unless they drop it when attacked. If items are turned off, the food will disappear but the Shy Guys will remain.

As a Pokémon item
The Pokémon Chansey in Melee can potentially drop Eggs as a part of Softboiled. These Eggs can potentially heal any players that pick up the items though, like the food items on stages, this does not happen if food is disabled; they will either explode or drop other items.

In individual attacks
Five characters (Peach, Daisy, Diddy Kong, Villager, and Mr. Game & Watch) can spawn Food themselves. Peach can summon a variety of peaches as part of Peach Blossom. Daisy can summon daisies with Daisy Blossom. In Brawl, Diddy Kong's Peanut Popgun and Rocketbarrel Barrage can potentially spawn shelled peanuts. Mr. Game & Watch summons food with Judge hammer #7 (1 random food item in Melee, 1 apple in Brawl and Smash 4, 3 apples in Ultimate). Villager's Timber has a very small chance of dropping a cherry, orange, pear, apple, or peach.

"Eating While Reclining"
Brawl added a technique called Eating While Reclining (, Eating items while downed or DownEatU and DownEatD internally in Brawl files, depending on which side the character is lying). If a character lands hard by some food, the player can press the attack button to grab and eat the food without needing to get up first. This technique, however, has no practical use, and it can even be detrimental; knocked-down players will be unable to use their getup attack if they land near food, removing a getup option, and since the action leaves players vulnerable, it may even get players unaware of this obscure mechanic's existence punished for trying to use a getup attack near food.

List of food
Food comes in many varieties, some of which only appear in certain games. Ultimate has 36 types of food that are not character-exclusive, while previous games have 28. As a general rule, the more mass a piece of food has, the more damage it heals.

Trophies
The Food item appears as a trophy in Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4. The Ice Climber vegetables also appear as a trophy in Brawl.

Spirit
The Eggplant appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a Novice-class support spirit. It can only be purchased at Timmy and Tommy's.

Trivia

 * The eggplant is used as the symbol for the Ice Climbers in Super Smash Bros. Melee and all subsequent games, even though vegetables themselves do not appear in Melee.
 * Throughout the series, the food items have always been rendered as 2D cut-out photographs made to always face the player when turning the camera; the food that appears on specific stages, on the other hand, has always been done in 3D.
 * Many said photographs have been found in their original resolution, the images were found in various stock image CDs by the company Sozaijiten.
 * While attempting to eat food, there is a small window in which fighter's are carrying the food before eating it. If they flinch during that time, an item drop will occur. This will not occur with the Heart Container.
 * Snake and Steve are the only characters who make unique sounds whenever they consume food or similar items, such as the Maxim Tomato, Superspicy Curry and healing items generated by characters such as Power Pellets. In Snake's case, this references what Naked Snake would do upon consuming food in Metal Gear Solid 3; in Steve's case, this references Steve's unique munching sound in Minecraft.
 * The milk in Brawl, Smash 4 and Ultimate says "Smash Milk" on its sides.
 * In 's and Ultimate's Training Mode, all food initially appears to be a cherry when time does not advance. The food type will change as normal time is advanced.
 * In Ultimate's Training Mode, if the speed is sped up or slowed down, food that is spawned in will appear and sometimes change to a cherry a few frames later. The food item will recover the amount of what initially appeared, giving the appearance of cherries healing random amounts or having varying sizes.