Eat

**Eat** or **Eating** is an action performed by pressing and holding the corresponding buttons.

Eating is a required function to keep your Hominid alive. If you do not consume food for long enough, you will begin to starve and encounter the  Hunger negative status effect.

## Mechanics

Many consumable items can be found around the world and food sources can be found easily by smelling. Consuming these items usually aids in filling your food requirements. However, some items are medicines only and will not refill your food requirements. There are many positive status effects and negative status effects that can potentially be received from eating foods.

Keep in mind that some food items count as both food and water. While not reducing  thirst as much, this might be enough to help you until you can get to a water source to completely quench your thirst.

Some items require you to modify them before they can be consumed. For example - you have to open aCocos before you can drink from it.

As long as  panic hasn’t been triggered by high fear, you can refill the dopamine gauge by eating.

## Non-Omnivore

Meat, eggs, and mushrooms will initially cause the   Non-Omnivore negative status effect. Non-omnivore can only be overcome by learning Omnivore neurons. Until you are able to digest the food correctly, the food will act as a negative status effect.

Omnivore neurons come in two versions. The first neuron reduces the severity of non-omnivore for a specific food group and the second neuron removes non-omnivore for a specific food group.

To mature an omnivore neuron, it is important to understand the following mechanics:

* You only begin to adapt to food by getting non-omnivore from eating the food and then making non-omnivore go away. It is the act of curing or your body eliminating non-omnivore on its own that matures the neuron.
* You can eat as much of a food as you want, and you can get severe non-omnivore, but it does nothing for you. You have to cure or wait out the negative status effect to count towards the neuron maturing.

An example would be eating some African Agaric Fungus. You haven't done anything yet to mature the first mushroom neuron Eumycota Food Acclimatization (OM 01). As you eat the mushrooms, you are afflicted with non-omnivore. The severity of your non-omnivore from the mushrooms depends upon how much you eat. You decide to eat a whole bunch of African Agaric Fungus and get severe non-omnivore. You walk over to a  Fresh Water Source and begin  scooping the fresh water. As you drink the water, the non-omnivore begins to be removed because of the medicinal nature of the water. At a certain point, there will be an onscreen flash as the non-omnivore is eliminated. When the non-omnivore is removed through curing or waiting, that is when the action of eating the mushrooms counts towards maturing the neuron.

## Food Poisoning

When eaten, some foods will cause   Food Poisoning. This food poisoning is usually from eating rotten or unripe fruits. The ripeness can be easily determined by the color; rotten fruits will be discolored, usually grey, green, brown, or black. Certain foods such as the  Banded Mottlegill Mushroom cause immediate and severe food poisoning no matter what. If you are unsure of the safety of a food, you can inspect any held food item and the reaction of your hominid will tell you if it is or isn't okay to consume.

It is possible to use certain foods and medicines to gain  Food Poisoning Protection.