Preferably, I would choose none of them in the second game. If it wasn't for boss battles requiring me to fight back with the hammer provided, I'd ignore everything except the food. I still own my copy of AI2 and I have the Wonder Boy collection that lets me play the first one because... well, you know. I really do need to sit down and tackle the third game at some point, or play AI2 again and actually use the dinosaurs for a change. *shrugs* AI2 is a favorite of mine on the NES alongside Karnov and Zelda 2. I even bought a white hat with Hachisuke on it so that I can replay it in style.
Small correction - Adventure Island now belongs to Konami. They COULD release a collection of the games at some point in the future, but I won't get my hopes up.