Food - Hunger and Saturation

Minecraft Food Guide: Hunger and Saturation Explained

Minecraft's food system has two layers: the visible hunger bar (20 points, 10 drumsticks) and a hidden saturation value that depletes first. The best foods restore high amounts of both. Golden Carrots lead with 14.4 saturation, while Steak and Cooked Porkchop top the hunger charts at 8 points each.

The Minecraft food reference above lists every edible item with its hunger points, saturation value, and any status effects. Sort by hunger or saturation to compare foods side by side, and find the most efficient food for your playstyle.

Understanding the difference between hunger and saturation is the key to efficient food management. A food that restores less hunger but more saturation (like Golden Carrots) actually keeps you fed longer than one with high hunger but low saturation.

How to Use This Tool

• --Sort by hunger or saturation to rank foods by their primary stat. Saturation is usually more important for long-term efficiency.
• --Check for status effects. Some foods like Pufferfish and Spider Eyes have negative effects that make them impractical despite restoring hunger.
• --Compare raw vs cooked versions to see the cooking bonus. Cooking typically doubles or triples both hunger and saturation values.
• --Search for specific items to quickly look up a food's stats when planning farms or expedition supplies.

Hunger and Saturation Mechanics

The hunger system works in two phases. When you eat, both your visible hunger bar and your hidden saturation are restored. As you perform actions (sprinting, jumping, attacking, mining), saturation depletes first. Only after saturation reaches 0 does your visible hunger bar start dropping.

Health regeneration occurs when your hunger bar is at 18+ points (9+ drumsticks) and you have saturation remaining. The game consumes saturation to regenerate health at a rate that depends on your difficulty setting. This is why high-saturation foods are so valuable: they keep health regeneration active longer.

Exhaustion is the third hidden value. Every action adds exhaustion points: sprinting adds 0.1 per meter, jumping adds 0.05, mining a block adds 0.005. When exhaustion reaches 4.0, it resets to 0 and removes 1 saturation point (or 1 hunger point if saturation is at 0).

Tips and Use Cases

Early game: Bread (5 hunger, 6.0 saturation) is the best early-game food because wheat farms are simple to set up. Cooked Mutton and Cooked Porkchop are excellent if you find sheep or pigs nearby.

Mid to late game: Set up an automated cow farm for Cooked Steak (8 hunger, 12.8 saturation) or trade with farmer villagers for Golden Carrots (6 hunger, 14.4 saturation). Golden Carrots are technically superior due to their saturation-to-hunger ratio.

Combat food: Golden Apples provide Absorption II (4 extra hearts) and Regeneration II for 5 seconds. Enchanted Golden Apples add Fire Resistance and Resistance, but they cannot be crafted, only found as loot in dungeons, bastion remnants, and other structures.

Suspicious Stew: Crafted with different flowers, Suspicious Stew can give a variety of effects including Saturation (Dandelion or Blue Orchid), Regeneration (Oxeye Daisy), or Blindness (Azure Bluet). The Saturation variant is technically the most efficient food item per bite because it fills the hidden saturation meter massively.