STATUS EFFECT HARMFUL NO POTION Present since 1.14 or earlier

Hunger effect in Minecraft

Hunger makes your food bar drain faster, and its icons turn green while it lasts. You mostly get it from bad food, such as Rotten Flesh, Raw Chicken and Pufferfish, and from the hits of a Husk.

At a glance

Type: Harmful
Sources: Raw Chicken, Pufferfish, Rotten Flesh
Removed by: Milk, dying

How to get Hunger

UseRaw Chicken

1 · 30 s · 30%

UsePufferfish

3 · 15 s

UseRotten Flesh

1 · 30 s · 80%

Applied byHusk

How to get rid of Hunger

Removed byMilk Bucket

Drink a Milk Bucket: it clears every effect. Dying also removes it.

Command

Give Hunger for 60 seconds/effect →

/effect give @s minecraft:hunger 60 0

Remove Hunger/effect →

/effect clear @s minecraft:hunger

Where Hunger comes from

Food. Rotten Flesh gives it most of the time, Raw Chicken now and then, and a Pufferfish every time, at a high level and together with Poison and Nausea. Cooked chicken is safe.
Husks. These desert zombies inflict Hunger when they hit you.

Is Hunger dangerous?

Not directly. It speeds up exhaustion, so your saturation runs out sooner and the food bar empties faster. The real cost shows in a fight: natural regeneration needs a well-filled bar, so you heal less. In Hard difficulty, an empty bar can starve you to death.

How to deal with it

A Milk Bucket clears it at once. Without one, wait it out and then eat something with a lot of saturation, like Steak or a Golden Carrot, so the food is not wasted. Keep Rotten Flesh for real emergencies. It also has better uses: tamed wolves eat it, and cleric villagers buy it for emeralds.

✓ Checked in Java Edition 26.3 · updated 1 November 2026