Food

Foods (or Foodstuffs as considered by the Creative inventory) are consumable items that when eaten restore hunger points, and sometimes cause status effects. They are essential to The Player's survival. Most foods are eaten by holding Use Item. Cake must instead be placed, like other blocks, on a surface before being eaten. A Survival Mode player must eat food items regularly, or they will begin losing health and die soon after. Food makes a burp noise after it is eaten.

With the exception of Golden Apples and milk, food may not be eaten when the hunger bar is completely full. Except for milk, cake, and mushroom stew, food items and ingredients can be stacked in inventory slots.

Hunger vs. Saturation


Players have two different food statistics, only one of which is visible: The hunger level (visible), and the saturation level (invisible).

The saturation level is a primarily invisible statistic. 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, you can tell that your saturation level is completely depleted if the visible hunger meter begins displaying a jittering effect.

Eating food restores both hunger and saturation points in varying ratios, depending on the food item eaten.

A player's current saturation level can never exceed their current hunger level. A player at a hunger level of 5, for example, can only be at a maximum of 5 saturation. This is important to remember when choosing which foods to eat for the most efficient use of food: Highly saturating foods/low hunger-restoring foods should be eaten when the hunger bar is more full, especially when the bar has begun jittering. If you eat highly saturating foods when the bar is low, saturation points are likely wasted, since saturation level can never exceed hunger level.

The "nourishment" table below can help by categorizing foods by their saturation-to-hunger restoration ratios. See the more detailed Foods table for the exact hunger and saturation statistics of each food.

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.

Ingredients
The following items cannot be eaten on their own. Instead, they are used to craft consumable food items.

Trivia

 * A belch noise is heard after food is consumed.
 * There is no hunger bar in Pocket Edition. Instead, food restores health, like Beta 1.7.3 and earlier.
 * Each and every type of food is fully renewable (including gold food since Zombie Pigmen drop nuggets and ingots of gold).
 * You can eat while you are going to sleep, breaking blocks, and climbing vines/ladders.
 * It is impossible to damage another entity while eating.
 * When you eat stew, the brown particles of the bowl spray out as well, making it seem like you are eating the bowl. Also, it makes a "chewing" sound effect rather than "slurping" (as milk and potions do) further suggesting you are actually eating the bowl. Despite all this, the bowl is retrieved with no damage whatsoever.
 * The player cannot consume anything in Creative mode except milk and potions.