Tutorials/Hunger management

= Hunger =

Hunger is now a new feature in Minecraft which can get many people confused, and more likely to die from hunger (directly on Hard difficulty, indirectly on Normal and Easy difficulty) than from creepers. This is a tutorial to manage your hunger slightly carefully.

Food
Food is part of what you will need to survive. Food does not heal you directly, it only fills your hunger bar, which, when full, will heal you over time. However, you will start taking damage if you allow your hunger bar to be completely depleted. Different food items sate your hunger more or less effectively.

Cookies
Restores 

These are a very hard to craft (requiring very rare Cocoa Beans), food item. With 8 cookies created per crafting, these are not a very efficient food item. Filling up only half a bar on the hunger bar for each cookie consumed, a single craftings worth heals as much as a Cooked Porkchop. It is not recommended you use these, only keep them as little mementos.

Beef/Porkchop
Restores (raw) and  (cooked)

Delicious and nutritious meat, this food item should be easy to get right off the bat, as Cows and Pigs roam everywhere. When cooked, the meat heals 4 units on the hunger bar. However, in already-generated chunks, animals spawn only rarely. Thus, meat should be used as food only occasionally. It is suggested that you start farming after the first few days.

Chicken
Restores (raw) and  (cooked)

Another type of meat that can be obtained by killing chickens. When raw there is a chance that it can cause food poisoning, so it is recommended to cook it unless you really have no choice. It is fairly easy to get because chickens aren't rare animals and can easily be farmed with eggs.

Apple
Restores (red)

Apples are a fairly rare food item which appears in chests and oak tree leaves rarely when they are destroyed or decay. Apples are easy to harvest if you have a tree farm (chop down trees, then replant with a sapling) and are stackable, making them an easy food to carry around. Apples are fairly reliable source of wood in the first few days of adventure when farms aren't established yet as it is a by-product of harvesting wood.

Golden Apple
Restores (golden)

Golden Apples technically can be found in chests, but are highly irrelevant and can actually be crafted using a red apple and eight golden nuggets. They also will accelerate your health regeneration for four seconds regardless of your whether or not hunger bar is full.

Bread
Restores 

Bread is one of the most commonly used foods, and is also one of the most renewable. Easy to make, it is crafted from farmable wheat, four bread will fill one's hunger bar completely. Tall Grass needs to be harvested in order to obtain the seeds necessary for farming wheat. One downside to farming wheat: wheat looks kinda dorky. Another downside: it's hard to see creepers in wheat that is not fully grown. Without bone meal, it takes a few days to establish a wheat farm.

Cake
Restores (per slice eaten, 6 slices total)

Cake is the only food that must be placed before eating. However, cake is harder to craft than most food items, requires three milk buckets and is not stackable in your inventory. It is recommended that you keep cakes in a place that you travel a lot for quick healing.

Fish
Restores (raw) and  (cooked)

If you have access to water, fishing is a great way to gather food, and after it is cooked it heals 3 units on the hunger bar. After creating a fishing rod, a 4 block deep patch of water will provide an endless supply of food. Fish also has the benefit of being able to be harvested inside of your shelter by digging a hole and using a bucket to fill it with water.

Mushroom Stew
Restores 

Fairly hard to get at first but easy to farm food, Mushroom Stew is quite affordable and hunger staving meal. It heals 4 units, like Steak, but it is quicker and less brutal to obtain. Mushroom Farms should be made in order to harvest mushrooms wisely. Mushroom stew is one of the two non-stackable foods (along with cake) so it does take up a fair amount of inventory space. Contrary to popular belief, one does not need a crafting table to craft mushroom stew; it can be created in the inventory by placing the bowl in a bottom slot, one mushroom on top of the bowl, and the other mushroom to the side of the first. Mushroom stew is also obtained by 'milking' a Mooshroom with a bowl.

Melon
Restores 

Melon Seeds are hard to obtain, as they are only generated in chests found in Abandoned Mineshafts, but once you plant them and have a farm going, Melon Slices are a fairly practicle food source. Each slice heals 1 unit, and you should get a lot of them through Melon Farming. Melons and Melon Slices are stackable (not in the same stack) so they are a good source of food as Melons do grow rather fast.