Description
I've always found the categorization for the items in Stardew Valley inconsistent and confusing. Why is a Leek a Forage item when it's actually a vegetable? Why is a Fiddlehead Fern a Vegetable when it can only be found and not grown? Why is a Grape forageable and growable but categorized as a Fruit? Why is a Red Mushroom forageable but it poisons you? Why is Life Elixir a drink but it's crafted, Coffee a drink but it's produced in a Keg, and Cranberry Candy a drink but it's cooked?

Also, why are there so many items without category information visible at all? Some items used exclusively for crafting or building are Resources (like Copper Bar), but others aren't anything at all (like Dragon Tooth). Many cooking ingredients (like Sugar, Oil, and Vinegar) have no equivalent to mark them as a "resource for cooking". Also, they're edible, which is weird - who drinks Vinegar and follows that up with a handful of Wheat Flour? Slime Eggs drop from slimes but aren't Monster Loot, but Slime does and is. Why aren't the Ginger Island Fossils/Artifacts labeled similarly to the Ferngill Fossils/Artifacts?

This doesn't even include inconsistencies in any of the mods I use.

These things have always made inventory organization and management difficult, especially for new players that aren't sure if something should be kept, saved for crafting, saved for cooking, sold, eaten, gifted, etc. 

Better Item Categories aims to fix all of that.

There are largely 2 kinds of changes introduced by this mod - functional changes and cosmetic changes. Functional changes modify the underlying attributes of items, actually changing their behavior in the game. No new mechanics are introduced, it just better categorizes and organizes items into the already-existing classifications in the game. Cosmetic changes (inspired by Cornucopia - More Crops' Vanilla Category Overrides and Category Overrides functionality; I wanted to add to that functionality without overwriting it or replicating it completely, so it's recommended to download that mod and enable those configuration options in addition to the changes made by this mod) add some non-functional classifications to items to help identify or explain sub-classes of items. These are additional text-only descriptions and don't actually affect anything in the game.

Without further ado, here's a detailed explanation of Better Item Categories!

Functional Changes (Vanilla)

• Forage items that are vegetables in real life are now Vegetables. This actually doesn't change much functionally, as with 1.6, many of the interactions with Vegetable items (like Keg or Preserves Jar) also work with Forage items, so there's not much difference. This affects Cave Carrot, Chanterelle, Common Mushroom, Ginger, Leek, Magma Cap, Morel, Purple Mushroom, Red Mushroom, Snow Yam, Spring Onion, Wild Horseradish, and Winter Root. (A possible behavior change here is that Mushroom types can retain their Forage category through a configuration setting.)
• Forage items that are fruits in real life are now Fruits. This does change things slightly, as you'll be able to make Jelly and Wine out of these instead of Pickles and Juice. This affects Hazelnut. (Did you know nuts are botanically Fruits? Learned that while making this mod.)
• Sweet Gem Berry, as an uncategorized item, is now also a Fruit. This means you can make Sweet Gem Berry Jelly and Sweet Gem Berry Wine! I knocked the sell price of this down and added Edibility as well, attempting to balance both values around an end-game crop, to reflect the additional effort and scarcity of this fruit.
• Items produced by artisan machinery are now Artisan Goods. I thought it was odd that Coffee wasn't an artisan good produced in a Keg, but Green Tea was, as well as noticing Oil was produced in an Oil Maker wasn't an Artisan Good but Truffle Oil was. This affects Coffee and Oil. These also now need to be shipped for the shipping achievement and Perfection.
• Items that tend to have magical or mystical properties, especially those with names like Elixir, or Potion, are now Artisan Goods. This includes some crafted items like Life Elixir and Oil of Garlic, but also other items like Muscle Remedy or Energy Tonic.
• Items whose primary use were in crafting, construction, or forging are now Resources. This seems to generally line up with what most Resources are currently used for in the game. This affects Galaxy Soul and Sap. As such, these also need to be shipped for the shipping achievement and Perfection.
• Items that are often dropped from enemies with limited other ways to obtain them are now Monster Loot. This means you need to ship them for the shipping achievement and Perfection. Enjoy slaying all those Tiger Slimes! This affects Dragon Tooth, Green Slime Egg, Blue Slime Egg, Red Slime Egg, Purple Slime Egg, and Tiger Slime Egg.
• Several non-Fruit and non-Vegetable items that are primarily used as ingredients in cooking, or those that one wouldn't usually eat without cooking, have had their edibility removed. Sorry to anyone who relied on drinking Oil in the mines to survive or liked to scarf down raw flour for fun, this mod maybe isn't for you. This affects Oil, Rice, Sap, Sugar, Truffle Oil, Vinegar, and Wheat Flour.
• Items that are generally associated with Fishing or are found on the beach are now Sell at Willy's. The only functional change here is that now these items can be sold to Willy at his shop. This affects Cave/River/Sea Jelly, Green/White Algae, and Seaweed.
  

Cosmetic Changes (Vanilla)

• Items that you eat or drink that will recover health and energy are now decorated with either the Food or Drink category, depending if they're eaten or drank. This also helps determine at a glance which buffs will stack or override one another, as you can stack 1 buff from a Food and 1 buff from a Drink, but Food buffs override each other and Drink buffs override each other. This is the default functionality, and has nothing to do with the cosmetic classification of Food or Drink, it's just that all things you eat are now marked Food and all things you drink are now marked Drink. This includes all cooked items, and also Bug Steak, Energy Tonic, Field Snack, Joja Cola, Life Elixir, Muscle Remedy, and Oil of Garlic. (Note: I couldn't actually classify these items as Cooking items like all the other cooked items, because that would include them in the list of items to cook for Perfection, and since no recipes exist to cook these items, perfection would be impossible to achieve. Unfortunately it doesn't look like there's functionality for mods to be able to exclude items from this list, which is a bummer. So for now, they're cosmetic changes only.)
• Items whose primary use were in cooking are now decorated with the Ingredient category. This includes Qi Seasoning, Rice, Squid Ink, Sugar, Vinegar, and Wheat Flour.
• Magical or mystical potions mentioned above, which are Artisan Goods, are now decorated with the Alchemical Potion category.
• Items that you use once and are gone, but aren't eaten to replenish health or energy, are now decorated with the Consumable category. This includes Cookout Kit, Fairy Dust, Green/Purple/Red Fireworks, Monster Musk, Rain Totem, Tent Kit, and Beach/Desert/Farm/Island/Mountains Warp Totem.
• Items consumed for the care of animals are now decorated with the Animal Consumable category. This includes Golden Animal Cracker and Hay.
• Items that blow stuff up are now decorated with the Explosive category. This includes Bomb, Cherry Bomb, Explosive Ammo, and Mega Bomb.
• Items you plant to grow grass are now decorated with the Grass category. This includes Blue Grass Starter and Grass Starter.
• Items that you find on the beach, or fish up that aren't fish or trash, are now decorated with the Aquatic Debris category. This includes Cave/River/Sea Jelly, Coral, Green/White Algae, Nautilus Shell, Rainbow Shell, Sea Urchin, and Seaweed.
• Geodes are now decorated with the Geode category. This includes Frozen Geode, Geode, Magma Geode, and Omni Geode.
• Items that either act as a kind of currency to exchange for other items, can be opened for other items, or whose primary purpose is to sell for gold are now decorated with the Treasure category. This includes Artifact Trove, Calico Egg, Golden Coconut, Golden Mystery Box, Golden Pumpkin, Mystery Box, Pearl, Prize Ticket, Treasure Chest, and Trout Derby Tag.
• Items used in quests are now decorated with the Quest Item category. This includes Advanced TV Remote, Arctic Shard, Berry Basket, Ectoplasm, Far Away Stone, Golden Bobber, Gourmet Tomato Salt, Lost Axe, Lucky Purple Shorts, Ornate Necklace, Pirate's Locket, Prismatic Jelly, Stardew Valley Rose, War Memento, and Wriggling Worm.
• Items collected for the Ginger Island Field Office are now decorated with the Fossil category. This includes Fossilized Leg/Ribs/Skull/Spine/Tail, Mummified Bat/Frog, and Snake Skull/Vertebrae.
• Items whose primary use were for social interactions and friendship levels are now decorated with the Social category. This includes Bouquet, Mermaid's Pendant, Movie Ticket, Stardrop Tea, Void Ghost Pendant, and Wilted Bouquet.
• Horse Flute is now a Tool.
  

For a list of changes made to supported mods, please see the Compatibility section.

Limitations of this Mod
There are 4 limitations I came across while developing this mod that are worth mentioning.

• I can't change the Category or Type of Big Craftables. From what I could tell, this seems to be a limitation of both Content Patcher and SpaceCore, so I'm assuming this is probably a limitation to what is able to be modded at all in Stardew. I can change Big Craftables Name, Description, etc. but not their Category or Type. Should this functionality ever be available, I'd like to go back and add a few more updates (Staircases becoming a Consumable, and I think I'd like to make what's marked as Crafting more consistent among crafted items.)
• I mentioned it above, but I was disappointed to see that I couldn't omit certain Cooking types from the Cooking collection for Perfection. You can omit Fish from the Fishing collection and items from the Shipping collection, but not the Cooking collection. If this functionality is ever available, I'd like to go back and turn every Food / Drink into a Cooking item, for consistency sake. This would allow a wider array of items to be used in mods like Food Packaging, for example.
• Installing this mod mid-playthrough won't convert existing items to their new Categories. Cosmetic changes will apply, but functional changes won't apply on existing items, only new ones. A workaround exists, that can hopefully help some folks out, but again this isn't something I have control over. The workaround: Stacks of the same item will collapse their metadata, meaning you can basically convert an item of one category to the same item of another category by stacking them on top of one another. For example: You've got a Forage-Leek in a chest from before you installed this mod, and a Vegetable-Leek in your inventory from after you installed this mod. If you put the Vegetable-Leek from your inventory into the chest, it'll stack on the Forage-Leeks in the chest, converting it to a Forage item. However, if you take the Forage-Leeks from your chest and move them into your inventory, they'll stack on the Vegetable-Leek and will convert all of them to Vegetables. This unfortunately only works for items that stack, which means items that only have had their Category changed. Sweet Gem Berries are a good example of a counterexample here - they had Edibility added, so you can't stack Uncategorized-Inedible-Sweet-Gem-Berries on top of Fruit-Edible-Sweet-Gem-Berries because the items don't stack at all.
• Configuration changes won't take effect if changed while a save is loaded, and thus are recommended to be changed before loading your save, or before launching the game altogether. This is due to a limitation in how Content Patcher makes certain changes.
  

Installation

• Install the latest version of SMAPI
• Install the latest version of Content Patcher and SpaceCore
• (Optional, but recommended) Install the latest version of Cornucopia - More Crops and enable the Category Overrides and Vanilla Category Overrides configuration options
• Download and unzip this mod into the Mods folder
• Run the game using SMAPI
  

Configuration
This mod comes with the option to allow some items (Mushrooms) to be able to retain the underlying Forage category. Details for configuration options are listed below:

Mushroom Category: Whether mushrooms should have the Vegetable category or the Forage category.

Compatibility
This mod is compatible with Stardew Valley 1.6.

I wanted to provide automatic support for all mods that I use in my playthroughs. All of the above basic logic applies to all supported mods, and if any new categories or concepts are added, I'll call that out as well. With that, below is a list of mods included with Better Item Categories:

Cornucopia - More Crops
Functional Changes

• I wanted all items with the same types in Cornucopia's Category Overrides to all be the same category. That is, all Mushrooms to be Vegetables, all Nuts to be Fruits, etc. Pretty much all of that made sense except, perhaps, for Vanilla. Cornucopia marks that as a Spice, but the in-game type is a Flower. However, because the description talks more about how it's a flavoring than the flower part of the plant, I opted to keep the Spice designation, but change the underlying type to Vegetable. So, Vanilla is now a Vegetable, cosmetically displays Spice, and maintains consistency that all Spices are functionally Vegetables. (A possible behavior change here is that Mushroom types can retain their Forage category through a configuration setting.)
  
  

Cosmetic Changes

• Grown crops that you can't eat are now decorated with the Inedible Plant category. This includes Cotton Ball. (Note: These items retain their original underlying Forage category, and are the only remaining Forage in the game.)
  
  

Adventurer's Guild Expanded
Alchemistry
Archaeology Skill
Binning Skill
Bonster's Combined Crops and Recipes
Cornucopia - Artisan Machines
Delicious in Stardew
Fresh and Bit - New Recipes
Grains Overhull
Hidden Crop Recipes
Joja Cola Expanded
MMF More Mushrooms as Forage
Ridgeside Village
Stardew Valley Expanded
Sunberry Village
Vanilla Cooking Recipes
Visit Mt Vapius
Weather Totems Expanded
Wildflour's Atelier Goods 
YACS - Yet Another Cooking Skill

Also, a huge shoutout and thank you to the following translation contributors:

• elsiehu - Chinese
• Caranud - French
• Delt1463 - Russian
• Airbench - Turkish
• mileserran2 - Portuguese
• yakioden - Japanese