# Food system broken?

**URL:** <https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/food-system-broken/19912>\
**Category:** The Garage\
**Created:** [May 1, 2019, 8:42am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/food-system-broken/19912 "2019-05-01T08:42:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![TheMurderUnicorn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/themurderunicorn/32/5706_2.png) [@TheMurderUnicorn](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/TheMurderUnicorn)\
**Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 9:03am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/food-system-broken/19912/2 "2019-05-01T09:03:51Z")

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Did you happen to search the forum before you posted this? There have been multiple threads of this exact thing.

It’s a work in progress and definitely is still buggy.

Ultimately, this is the best comment we’ve seen about it on the forum, though I’ll point out that this was before the ‘peckish’ status was implemented:

> [@Getting very hungery with over 60,000 calories](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/getting-very-hungery-with-over-60-000-calories/19704/8):
>
> How this system works:
> 
> - Currently, your survivor needs about 2500 kcals every day.
> - Hunger is different from your physical caloric needs, and is instead based on the volume of food in your stomach - and the time since you last ate
> - If you are hungry, but don’t really need to eat - your hunger display will show `hungry`
> - If you are hungry, but need to eat - your hunger display will show `very hungry`
> - If you are hungry, and have a kcal deficit - your hunger display will show `famished` , and with a severe deficit `starving`
> - Your kcal count is internally measured out of 77000 kcals, and you can see how much in deficit/surplus you are by turning on debug mode.  
> Quoting the person who made it:
> 
> KorGgenT:
> 
> > now that’s done: food goes into your stomach volume-per-volume. water gets separated out, but still takes up volume in the stomach. next, water and food get moved through the stomach at different rates. water moves much, much quicker than food (so if you drink water and see that you get the full status, that’s why it goes away quickly)  
> > how the hunger string on the sidebar _currently_ works, and how i want it to work is that mostly it’s a combination of how full your stomach physically is (water counts! it takes up space too) combined with how long it’s been since you ate, with another variable being if you’re running a calorie deficit (simply put – starving)  
> > all this together is a little complex, but only really behind the scenes. front-facing, it’s just this: you get hungry over time. when you eat food, try to eat a reasonable meal. a reasonable meal being something you’d eat IR in terms of calories. if your character is _still_ hungry after you ate, you either didn’t wait long enough (remember eating in game is currently a little broken, since you can eat in seconds) or just didn’t eat enough volume. the calories are important to hunger, but still actually secondary. there’s a lot more that can be done with this, but it must be incremental.
> 
> ![](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/cataclysmdda/original/2X/d/d71b6d97e30a8c0c14110caf9035a1788d8e7a84.jpeg) Luce\_of\_fire:
> 
> > with over 60,000 excess calories
> 
> This is probably you mis-understanding the display - if it’s 60,000/77,000 you are in a severe kcal deficit. If it’s 137,000, then yes, you have found a bug, and please report it on [GitHub](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/new?template=bug_report.md) with an attached save.
> 
> These descriptions are getting [tweaked to be more helpful](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/29543).  
> But you don’t need to know how the system works - what you need to do is eat when you’re hungry, and get enough kcals to not have a deficit.

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/food-system-broken/19912)._