Food

Food refers to any consumable items that, when eaten, restore hunger points and hunger saturation points, and sometimes cause status effects. They are essential to survival, as going without them eventually causes the player to starve, causing damage until reaching 10 hearts in Easy difficulty, and 1 heart on Normal. Starvation damage kills the player in Hard and Hardcore Mode. Drinks fall under the category of Food, but obviously restore Thirst instead of Hunger.

Food is eaten by holding use while having the food item selected in the hot bar or in the off-hand.

Cake cannot be eaten this way, and must instead be placed on a surface before being eaten.

With the exception of chorus fruit, golden apples, honey bottles, milk, and suspicious stew‌, food cannot be eaten when the hunger bar is completely full. In Creative Mode, any food can be consumed at any time.

All food items and ingredients can be stacked in the inventory slots, except for milk, rabbit stew, mushroom stew, beetroot soup, suspicious stew, and cake.‌

This page covers food items for players; blocks and items that can be eaten by other mobs are not included here.

## Hunger and saturation

Players have two different food statistics, one of which is visible: The hunger level is visible, and the saturation level is not.

Saturation is the first statistic to decrease when a player performs energy-intensive actions, and it must be completely depleted before the visible hunger meter begins decreasing. Although the current saturation level is generally hidden, the player can tell that their saturation level is completely depleted if the visible hunger meter begins displaying a jittering effect.

Eating a food item replenishes a fixed number of hunger points and saturation points, based on the item. Some foods have a better ratio of saturation to hunger points replenished than others. Overeating the hunger bar does not overflow to saturation.

A player's current saturation level can never exceed their current hunger level. A player at a hunger level of 5, for example, can be at a maximum of 5 saturation. Food always restores hunger (raising the saturation limit) *before* supplying saturation. The most efficient use of food is to eat low-nourishment food (see below) to fill the hunger bar, followed by a highly nourishing food to fill saturation. While a few hunger points may be wasted when eating nourishing food when nearly full, eating nourishing foods on a low hunger bar wastes even more points of saturation. Maximizing saturation increases the length of time (and/or the amount of damage healed) before the player needs to eat again.

The Stamina stat effects how quickly your hunger drains, is varies between classes.

### Usage

Most foods can be eaten by holding down the right-click button with a food item in hand. It takes 1.61 seconds to eat most foods; dried kelp takes 0.865 seconds to eat. Additionally, a player can hold food in their offhand.

While eating, food particles form from the player's mouth correlated with their respective food item, and produces a munching noise. Eating also slows the user significantly.

Unlike other foods, cake has to be eaten by placing it, then right-clicking on its block form. Eating cake is instant and it has 7 edible slices, each giving 2 () hunger and 0.4 hunger saturation.

### Nourishment value

Nourishment is defined as the ratio of saturation to hunger points restored. Foods with higher nourishment values should be eaten when the hunger bar is more full.

## Drinks and Thirst

Thirst is essentially another hunger bar, acting nearly identically. The Thirst bar goes down at a slower rate than hunger, but the player's internal temperature may impact this. The hotter you get, the thirstier you get. It is always a good idea to keep plenty of drinks on you in your inventory.

Potions count as drinks, but do not restore Thirst.