Food

in third-person view. Animation is available in Bedrock Edition only, does not appear in Java Edition.]] (first-person view)]] Food refers to consumable items that, when eaten, restore hunger and saturation points, sometimes giving status effects.

Eating

Eating is the process of consuming food items. Eating a food item requires holding , and takes an amount of time dependent on the food's consumption time value.

Consumption time

Eating (or drinking) a consumable takes , with exceptions: Dried kelp takes half the time (), and honey bottles take 25% longer (). Cake is a block and thus cannot be eaten in the hand, requiring the player to place it down and then it.

Eating while at full hunger

In Survival, food cannot be eaten while already at full hunger, with the exception of chorus fruit, golden apples, enchanted golden apples, honey bottles, and suspicious stew. This also applies to potions, water bottles, and milk buckets. In Creative mode and Peaceful difficulty, any food can be consumed at any time.

Hunger

Hunger is a value that determines healing, whether or not the player can sprint, and whether or not the player is starving. Hunger is restored by eating food items. Hunger is lost by healing or by performing energy-intensive actions that exhaust the player, and is the second value to be consumed by it, after saturation. The player's current hunger value is represented by the hunger bar (), which displays above the hotbar on the right side, opposite of the health bar. Each hunger point is represented by half a hunger icon (), and the maximum hunger value is 20. Hunger points can also be restored by applying the Saturation status effect. The hunger value does not drain on Peaceful difficulty, and always remains at the maximum value of 20.

Natural regeneration

If the hunger value is at 18 () or above, or the saturation value is non-zero, the player's health naturally regenerates every 4 seconds (80 ticks). Saturation is used first, and then once fully drained, hunger is used instead. When the hunger value drops to 17 () or below, natural regeneration stops.

Sprinting

If the hunger value is at 6 () or below, the player loses the ability to sprint.