Hunger



Hunger is a player-specific feature of Minecraft that regulates player's certain abilities (health regeneration and the ability to sprint) the value of which is managed by the player's activity.

Description
The player's hunger value is shown on the heads-up display in the form of a hunger bar (also called food bar), which is similar to health bar (located above the hotbar), located opposite to it and represented by ten drumsticks. One half of a drumstick represents one hunger point or half-unit of hunger, thus the full bar consists of twenty hunger points. It is replenished by eating food, and decreased by player's actions such as sprinting, digging or attacking.

Various levels of player's hunger control health regeneration (or depletion) and the ability to sprint. When hunger is at a high enough value, the player's health regenerates. If it falls to 6, the player loses the ability to sprint. If the hunger bar is at zero, the player's health depletes. The specific effects are described in the Effects of hunger section. The hunger value does not drain on Peaceful difficulty and regenerates if it is not at the maximum value.

An important aspect of hunger not shown on the hunger bar is called food saturation and controls the decreasing of the hunger value. It depends on what the player has eaten last. There is also a food exhaustion value that controls the decreasing of the food saturation level. How exactly they control the overall hunger value is described in more depth in the Mechanics section.

Certain foods have a chance of inflicting Hunger effect on the player upon consumption, causing the player's food bar to deplete faster and turn a yellow-green color. These foods are pufferfish, raw chicken (30% chance), and rotten flesh (80% chance). A husk can also give you hunger upon being attacked by one.

Mechanics
The hunger system utilizes four variables to control players' abilities, the values of which are stored in the player.dat format:
 * foodLevel: The player's current hunger level, shown on the hunger bar. Its initial value on world creation or respawn is 20 (full bar).
 * foodSaturationLevel: The player's current saturation level, which determines how fast the hunger level depletes and is controlled by the kinds of food the player has eaten. Its maximum value always equals foodLevel's value and decreases with the hunger level. Its initial value on world creation or respawn is 5.
 * foodTickTimer: This variable is used when the hunger value either exceeds 17, or is at zero. It increases on every tick, and whenever it reaches 80 (4 seconds), it resets to zero and is added or deducted, depending on whether the player is saturated or starving. If the player has a full , $1/6$ of  times the player's saturation level is restored, up to a maximum of , when foodTickTimer reaches 10 ($1/2$ second), and foodTickTimer is reset to zero.
 * foodExhaustionLevel: The player's current exhaustion level, which determines how fast the saturation level depletes. Its value is increased by the player's actions (see Exhaustion level increase for specific values). The initial value is zero. When it reaches the maximum value of 4, it resets to zero and one point is subtracted from foodSaturationLevel.

As a visible sign that the saturation is used up, the hunger bar starts to shake or jitter periodically. When the saturation level is at zero, once the exhaustion value reaches 4, the total hunger value is decreased by one hunger point. Eating food replenishes both hunger and saturation levels (see Food level and saturation level restoration for specific values), with the hunger level being replenished first, which also increases the maximum allowed saturation level. For example, if a golden carrot (giving and 14.4 saturation points) is eaten by a player whose hunger bar is at  and saturation is below 1, its value increases to 15, and the golden carrot's saturation potential is fully used. However, if the hunger level is, its value increases to 14 and only 14 saturation points are used.

Effects of hunger
Various hunger levels lead to various effects on the player:
 * When the hunger bar is at 20 and there is any saturation left, health regenerates  every $1/2$ second.
 * When the hunger bar is at 18 or more, health slowly regenerates  every 4 seconds.
 * When the player is damaged with or more, health regenerates  for one time.
 * When the hunger bar is at 17 points or below, the player does not naturally regenerate health.
 * If the hunger bar is at points or below, then the player cannot sprint.
 * When the hunger bar is at, the player's health depletes at a rate of every 4 seconds (this makes sleeping impossible). On Easy difficulty, the player's health stops dropping at , on Normal, it stops at , and on Hard, it keeps draining until either the player eats something or starves to death. Resistance and armor do not reduce starvation damage.

Switching to Peaceful difficulty eliminates all penalties above, and rapidly restores the player's hunger bar and health.

Exhaustion level increase
''Any action not listed here does not increase exhaustion level. For example, normal walking doesn't increase exhaustion, and therefore does not decrease saturation or the food bar.''

Trivia

 * One carrot, one Baked Potato, and a Cooked Rabbit is just enough to go from 0 hunger to full hunger