This guide will teach you all there is to know about food, and the different effects it has. I have broken this guide up into sections to make it easier to navigate.
Moodle Basics
There are different levels of how hungry your character is or isn’t, each with their own benefits. Yes, there are benefits to starving yourself. I have given each moodle a rating, based on how many -10 hunger items it takes to get to that point from starving. The carry rating is based on strength and shows the maximum amount you can carry. If you reach your max carry level (i.e. 330 weight out of 330 weight) you will take damage every step you take. Quite a lot of damage actually. Your movement speed is also greatly reduced with each level of encumbrance.
Very Well Fed: 100-120, Carry: 330
This is the highest positive level hunger moodle. It gives you increased strength and greatly increased healing. If you are severely injured and there are zombies at the door and you need to heal quickly to increase your chance of survival, then this moodle is for you.
Well Fed: 90-99, Carry: 330
Second highest. Gives great healing and the strength boost.
Fed: 80-89, Carry: 330
Your standard bonus strength and a slight healing boost.
Slightly Fed: 70-79, Carry: 330
Not Hungry: Carry: 300
Only shows up from going from slightly fed down, does not go from peckish to not hungry
Peckish: 50-69, Carry: 300
First indicator that you are starting down the road to starvation.
Hungry: 11-49, Carry: 275
Reduced Strength and healing. Can sleep.
Very Hungry: 1-10, Carry: 250
Very reduced strength and healing. Cannot sleep.
Starving: 0, Carry: 225
Taking damage and severely reduced strength.
These numbers scale differently. Basically the hungrier you are the longer it takes to drop to the next level of hunger.
Here are the numbers I have for dropping from most fed to starving. They will be tweaked in the future as I make them more accurate.
Very Well Fed: 1:20
Well Fed: 1:30
Fed: 1:10
Slightly Fed: 1:20
Not Hungry: 7:00
Peckish: 5:10
Hungry: 17:00
Very Hungry: 19:30
These are numbers based on staying awake from VWF to starving. What little research I have found is that your hunger increases a lot slower if you are sleeping as much as possible.
Another thing to note is that when you aren’t hungry, it doesn’t matter if you eat a -40 hunger item or a -10 hunger item. It will only bring you up to the next level of fed. I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended. Regardless, it is better to eat 3 cans of pop then three loaves of bread if you are going for longevity.
Food
Cupcake:
-15 Hunger
Does not go bad
Not yet implemented
Pop
-10 Hunger
Does not go bad
Crisps
-20 Hunger
Does not go bad
Pot of Soup
-40 Hunger (-80 when cooked, -13 if burnt)
50 Minutes to cook
100 Minutes to burn
Steak
-40 Hunger (-80 when cooked, -13 if burnt, -20 if rotten)
Can make you sick if eaten raw
100 Minutes to cook
150 Minutes to burn
4 Days til rotten (10 in fridge)
Chicken
-40 Hunger (-80 when cooked, -13 if burnt, -20 if rotten)
Can make you sick if eaten raw
30 Minutes to cook
60 Minutes to burn
4 Days til rotten (10 in fridge)
Salmon
-40 Hunger (-80 when cooked, -13 if burnt, -20 if rotten)
Can make you sick if eaten raw
80 Minutes to cook
130 Minutes to burn
4 Days til rotten (10 in fridge)
Apple
-30 Hunger (-15 if rotten)
9 Days til rotten (22-23 in fridge)
Banana
-30 Hunger (-15 if rotten)
7 Days til rotten (17-18 in fridge)
Not yet implemented
Tinned Soup
-30 Hunger (-15 if rotten)
Does not go bad
Required tin opener in hand or inventory
Not yet implemented
Bread
-40 Hunger (-20 if rotten)
6 Days til rotten (15 in fridge)
Carrots
-40 Hunger (-20 if rotten)
7 Days til rotten (17-18 in fridge)
How does food go bad?
The game checks a few things at 00:00 every day to make food go bad. Food does not go bad any other time, only at midnight. Here is a simple list to help explain it better:
- How old is food? The food is over it’s rot date (4 days for most meats for example) then go to the next step.
- Is the food in a fridge? If not, the food becomes rotten. If it is in a fridge go to the next step.
- Is the food over it’s rot date*2.5? If it is, then the food becomes rotten.
That’s all you need to know. Basically you can run around with food out of the fridge for as long as you want as long as you have it in the fridge by midnight. It doesn’t check anything else. Individual foods do not have timers that count down slower if it is in a fridge. The only thing that matters is how old the food is and where it is when midnight rolls around.
When should I eat?
It depends what you are going for. If you are trying to heal, as long as you aren’t taking damage from any sources, staying at very hungry will allow you to heal up completely over the course of a couple of days. If you are healing from a scratch or something, you may want to become less hungry. A good key is to eat until you are healing. If you have many injuries your health will drop, so just eat food items until you are healing slightly, then stay at that hunger level. Being hungry is the key to longevity.
If you are going for longevity then when you should eat depends on what type of food you have available.
-80 Food:
This food is the rarest and the most powerful. This is cooked food and except for soup it all goes bad quickly, becoming -20 food. To get the most efficiency out of your -80 food you should eat it when you are starving and at “moderate damage.” After eating it go directly to sleep. When you wake up take 5 sleeping pills then go back to sleep as soon as you become exhausted. Repeat until you have slept 6 times and used up 25 doses of sleeping pills. If you don’t eat again until moderate damage from starvation you will have earned about 97 hours.
-40 Food:
Allow yourself to starve until you reach “Moderate Damage” then quickly eat your -40 food item and then go to sleep. Upon waking take a pain killer and 5 doses of sleeping pills. Wait til you are exhausted. Go to sleep. Wake up, take a dose of painkillers and 5 more doses of sleeping pills. Go to sleep when you are exhausted. If you time it right you should become exhausted the second time just before you become very hungry. This will allow you to squeeze three sleeps in and net about 54 hours and 40 minutes before you need to sleep again.
Alternative method: Starve til you are at “Moderate Damage” then eat your food and go to sleep. When you wake up take three sleeping pills, wait until you get the “Tired” moodle and go right back to bed. When you wake up, take 3 more pills, go to sleep as soon as your moodle hits exhausted. This will net you about 53 hours before you start to starve. It uses less sleeping pills and is easier to accomplish. If you miss that third sleep in the method above because you get too hungry your hours will drop to less than 50.
-30 Food:
-30 Food is to be eaten at the “minor damage” of starvation, it will earn you about 37 hours.
-20 Food:
At -20 you should eat and then sleep at “Minor Damage” this will earn you an extra 30 hours and 20 minutes, approximately.
-15 Food:
Eat two of these and count it as a -30.
-10 Food:
This one is exactly the same as the one above, but you need to eat two doses of food. If you don’t have two doses, just eat when you are “starving” as it doesn’t make a big difference.
All of the above require the use of painkillers whenever you are experiencing the level 2 pain moodle “Pain”. If you do not have painkillers, do NOT starve yourself. Eat as soon as you go from very hungry to starving, otherwise you will be in too much pain to sleep and will reduce your overall longevity substantially.
Sleeping vs Staying Awake
Sleeping when you can will make you starve much slower. For example, if you stay awake the entire time after eating a -40 food, you will go from staving to starving in about 33 hours. However if you sleep three times during that period it will take you over 50 hours to go from starving to starving… and that’s on the same amount of food. Sleeping pills are very useful in this case.
A -20 food item will go from around 22 hours while awake to 28 hours with sleep. More if you eat at the correct “starving point” as listed above.
Encumbrance
“What does encumbrance have to do with food?” you ask. Well, says I, quite a lot actually. The more you are encumbered the slower you move. Therefore the less items you can grab while out foraging.
Quite Heavy Load:
This is the lowest form of encumbrance. It occurs at 50% of your max weight plus 1. It comes with movement speed penalties and you become exhausted faster.
Heavy Load:
At 80% of your max plus 1 you get to the next level. This greatly reduces your movement speed and does not allow you to run anymore. Shift will now give you a slightly faster walk. You become exhausted faster than Quite Heavy Load.
Very Heavy Load:
At 95% plus 1 your encumbrance becomes Very Heavy Load. You can barely move at all. Shift barely increases your speed and you become exhausted after less than 20 minutes of game time walking. Shift will make you become exhausted much faster.
Extremely Heavy Load:
This moodle shows up at any weight greater than your max. Your movement speed is severely hampered and every step you take causes you a large amount of damage, resulting in injury very quickly. Note that there is currently a bug where this moodle is in effect at your max (ie. 300/300) but the moodle does not show up until you are over your max. (ie. 301/300) Please note that you cannot actually DIE from carrying too much. You will be reduced to critical damage levels and then your health will not drop any further (assuming you aren’t taking damage from other sources.)
Final Word
The latest edit was adding an easier way to eat -40 food and still get the best number of hours for your buck. The new way gives slightly less hours, but is easier to do, and uses up 40% less sleeping pills.
Oh. And for the record the reduced strength from being hungry does not make it more difficult to kill zombies, it just means you can carry less.
Hope this helps everyone. I will next update this when I learn more things, or when the new patch comes out and I can include recipes and stuff.
I’ve made a calculator for anyone to use. You can just punch in how much food you have left and it will tell you approximately how long you will be able to live off that food using the above methods.