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Minecraft is primarily a survival game, even though it was an immersive creative mode as well that lets players build whatever they want with unlimited resources. Its survival sandbox environment, however, is often seen as its main game mode and the primary way in which players enjoy the game. This mode drops players in the middle of a random world, where they need to gather resources to survive and thrive.
Something that every Minecraft player needs to worry about is their Hunger. The Hunger bar is located just above the XP bar in the middle of the screen and must be frequently replenished by eating various food items available in the game. How does Hunger actually work? What happens when the bar gets completely depleted? And what exactly does the jittering effect of the Hunger bar mean? This Minecraft Hunger guide should answer all these questions.
How The Hunger Bar Works In Minecraft
The Hunger bar consists of drumsticks. There's a total of ten of them, and as players perform various activities in the game, they will begin to slowly deplete. The most important thing to remember is that one hunger point equals one-half of a drumstick. This will come in handy when players start choosing the types of foods they want to eat.
There are tons of different foods in the game, some bad and some good. Some will fill up more drumsticks, while others might give the player food poisoning, which drains the Hunger bar instead. To find out which foods are the best, check out this guide on the best Minecraft foods.
So why is the Hunger bar so important? A full bar of Hunger allows players to regenerate health in the game, which is key to staying alive. Only one drumstick at most must be missing for players to still continue regenerating health. If this bar depletes fully, players will start to starve and lose their hearts, but can only fully die to this if they're playing on Hard difficulty. Moreover, at around 3 drumsticks or 6 hunger points, they will be unable to sprint.
Two Stats: Hunger And Saturation
The Hunger bar may not seem like it, but it shows two stats instead of just hunger points in the form of drumsticks:
- Hunger Points: The number of drumsticks is still visible on the bar. Each food type fills a certain number of points.
- Hunger Saturation: The wavy, jittery animation of the Hunger bar. The more it moves, the lower the saturation. Saturation is what keeps the bar from depleting and allows the player to be full longer. Each food type has different types of saturation values.
The Minecraft Wiki defines the common value between Hunter Points and Hunger Saturation as Nourishment. Foods that provide a high number of hunger points and tons of saturation rank high on this Nourishment scale, and vice versa.
This means that players need to tend to both of these stats when eating foods. The common mistake players make is to simply eat the best food (high Nourishment value) at hand immediately to fill up the drumsticks, but this is actually a slight waste. Players can eat food with lower hunger points and saturation (low Nourishment value), and at the last drumstick, they can switch to a better food type with good hunger saturation.
For example, to fill up the hunger bar with hunger points, they can consume a bunch of apples, carrots, glow berries, and other foods with fairly low Nourishment value. Then, at the top of the bar, they can fill up the last drumstick with steak or even a golden apple, which will give players a high saturation as well.
Some Activities Drain The Hunger Bar More Than Others
Most of Minecraft's activities will have an effect on the hunger bar by exhausting the player's character. These activities will lower the saturation level and create that wavy or jittery effect that's on the hunger bar. This means hunger will start to deplete sooner. The higher an activity's exhaustion value is, the more it drains saturation.
The good news is, that the most common activities won't punish the player very hard at all, and mining is actually one of the best activities to do due to how little it exhausts the player (only 0.005 per mined block). Sprinting, jumping, swimming, and fighting mobs will bump this value up to 0.1, with jumping actually costing 0.2.
The Hunger status effect will also drain saturation, depending on its severity. Food poisoning from rotten flesh will bump this exhaustion to 3.0 while consuming pufferfish will penalize the players with a whopping 4.5. That said, the most tiring activity is actually regenerating health, which at around nine hunger points will exhaust the player by 6.0.
Minecraft is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, and many other platforms.