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[NinjaBoot]

Prepared foods because they are the easiest to make.

Although honestly it comes down to what materials/skilled labor you have that will let you make the best possible goods. 

This usually comes down to the first two seasons because after that you generally have enough man-power and skill to only use caravans to supplement what you already have at your fort. 

Even if they are vital and provide you needed trade goods, by that time you usually have a stock of items to toss their way. 

[Maklak]

I no longer encrust trade goods with gems, just furniture for the nobles.

For me the biggest problem in selling prepared meals was that I couldn't find them in trade menu. I has to figure out searching for them 'S roast S'.

[Yaotzin]

I no longer encrust trade goods with gems, just furniture for the nobles.

For me the biggest problem in selling prepared meals was that I couldn't find them in trade menu. I has to figure out searching for them 'S roast S'.

If your broker has any appraisal skill, you can press d to sort by value. Prepared foods are generally around the top. Usually with other stuff you probably want to sell like large gems.

[mattyb3]

A single steel serrated disk is like 31k

[blue sam3]

The optimal trade good is one which:
1) Can be produced entirely automatically on both a long and short term basis
2) Can be started up early in a young fortress
3) Is made entirely from renewable materials, or at least non-scare resources.
4) Has a low enough value to weight ratio to buy out any possible set of trade goods from a caravan of any size that can bring that set of trade goods without the weight limit of said caravan being exceeded, preferably significantly below this limit to allow for making traders happy
5) Has no possible negative impacts on your fortress from its sale
6) Can be used to provide some form of benefit whilst it's sitting in your fortress waiting to be sold

[rex mortis]

I have shied away from selling meals lately, if only to sell other stuff. Sadly, it seems that only way to slow down food stockpile growth is to sell some. There is not enough stuff to buy, even if i was into all that high maintenance melting stuff. I guess I should go for higher militarisation to limit the number of dwarves with nothing better to do than farming.

[Satarus]

Prepared meals are easy and profitable.  You can just cook with the raw plants and animal products (eggs/meat) with little effort.  It only takes 3 labors: cooking, butchering, and farming (fields).  Plus it is 100% renewable.  As you get more mature you can throw in various threshing and milling labors to add in refined plants like quarry bush leaves and flour.

[zzedar]

A single steel serrated disk is like 31k

By my math, the value of a no-quality steel disc is (1000/50+1)*3*2*30 = 3780. I still say dwarven syrup roasts are the way to go.

[jellsprout]

Green Glass Large, Serrated Disks take a bit of dwarfpower to collect the necessary sand and set up the magma forges, but it requires no resources and has a very high return. It only requires a few dwarves working non-stop to fully buy out every caravan. Something like Steel or Silver Disks are far more valuable but use up resources that are better spend elsewhere. If you manage to get magma to the surface or sand to the magma sea, Glass Disks are without a doubt the best trading good and remain a great trading good otherwise. If you start overproducing, you can always line up your entrance with traps. Glass Serrated Disks are surprisingly effective when they are of high quality.

Prepared Meals have been mentioned before and are great. But the farming/hunting and processing tends to take up a lot of dwarfpower. Food also have the disadvantage of actually being useful. I personally only trade away lower quality food if I have too much of it or don't have another industry set up yet.

[Bouchart]

Rock crafts and mechanisms.

[PotatoOverdose]

Green Glass Large, Serrated Disks take a bit of dwarfpower to collect the necessary sand and set up the magma forges, but it requires no resources and has a very high return. It only requires a few dwarves working non-stop to fully buy out every caravan. Something like Steel or Silver Disks are far more valuable but use up resources that are better spend elsewhere. If you manage to get magma to the surface or sand to the magma sea, Glass Disks are without a doubt the best trading good and remain a great trading good otherwise. If you start overproducing, you can always line up your entrance with traps. Glass Serrated Disks are surprisingly effective when they are of high quality.

Prepared Meals have been mentioned before and are great. But the farming/hunting and processing tends to take up a lot of dwarfpower. Food also have the disadvantage of actually being useful. I personally only trade away lower quality food if I have too much of it or don't have another industry set up yet.

This is only true if you have an easy source of magma available though. Without an easy volcano embark, glass costs fuel (or time to dig down to magma sea and haul sand down or pump magma up). Prepared meals, on the other hand require 2-3 dwarfs doing one of the following: farming/fishing/hunting/plant gathering and 1 cook, and you can buyout every single caravan in the game forever.

[FuzzyZergling]

Sugar, flour and quarry leaf roasts.
You're going to be needing food anyway, and they're completely renewable if you don't run out of seeds.

[darkflagrance]

Let us assume that the new economy to be implemented will track individual goods.

If that is the case, overproducing any one good might be bad for long term profit.

However, the cloth industry can easily switch production to many, many kinds of goods.

In contrast, the prepared meal industry is so valuable that just four or so stacks of roasts can buy all you need from the caravan, which is not likely to sour demand unless the tracker is bugged and the game remembers you sold it that food and deducts it from demand for all time.

A glass industry could probably switch between trap components to work around demand as well.

[jellsprout]

This is only true if you have an easy source of magma available though. Without an easy volcano embark, glass costs fuel (or time to dig down to magma sea and haul sand down or pump magma up). Prepared meals, on the other hand require 2-3 dwarfs doing one of the following: farming/fishing/hunting/plant gathering and 1 cook, and you can buyout every single caravan in the game forever.

I mentioned the magma sea in my post as the one limiting factor of Glass goods. Though you are severely overstating how difficult it is to reach. Digging down to the magma sea is usually the first thing I do. With two miners and the other five dwarves sealing up any openings to the caverns I might have made, I usually have my magma forges and stockpiles dug out within one season after breaking through the aquifer.
The only problem is the long haul from sand on the surface to the forges at the bottom. Even if you simply carry the sandbags down instead of using shafts or something, you will still only need three or so dwarves total to fully buy out every caravan. You could also have a large sand collectors crew with one glass maker, but this requires more careful micromanaging.

It has its disadvantages, but its advantages make it a viable alternative to prepared meals.

[werechicken]

One steel weapon, no really effort as you're going to be making them anyway and if you encrusted it with any gem you can buy the entire caravan, the animals and the guards (well not really, but you should)