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. Despite 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. It is, however recommended that you do not make these unless you find dungeons or abandoned mineshafts a lot.

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)

The easiest way to obtain a Golden Apple is to take 8 Golden Nuggets and an Apple and make a Golden Apple. The more irrelevant way is to find a Dungeon. Dungeons have Chests with various items, and if you get extremely lucky, there may just be a golden apple in it. A Golden Apple will accelerate your health regeneration for four seconds regardless of whether or not your 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, wheat farming is slow at the beginning. 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, requiring three milk buckets. Cake 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 2.5 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. However, fishing large amounts of fish is slow.

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 ingredients in any slot of the 2x2 inventory crafting. 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, a Melon Slice is a fairly practicle food source. Each slice heals 1 unit, and you should get a lot of them through Melon Farming. A Melon Slice is stackable. Each meon can drop from 3-5 melon slices.

= Other Food =

There is more food in Minecraft, but it is not recommended to eat.

Poisonous Food
DO NOT EAT THE FOLLOWING UNLESS YOU HAVE TO:

Rotten Flesh
Rotten Flesh is not meant to be eaten, even on Peaceful Difficulty. You can, however, feed Rotten Flesh to a Wolf. Rotten Flesh poisons the player 80% of the time. However, note that if multiple are eaten after each other, the poison effect does not stack, leaving you with just under eight full drumsticks when the effect wears off. These are easy to acquire if one has found a dungeon with a zombie spawner. They are also useful when one is underground and has no food, but many zombies.

Raw Chicken
Raw Chicken will poison you 30% of the time, meaning it is usually a good idea to cook it before you eat it.

Spider Eye
Spider Eye will automatically hurt you 100% of the time. Deals two hearts of damage to yourself.