8 articlesKenshi is no doubt an immersive yet hardcore game. Not only does it have the elements of a sandbox, but it also features elements of a survival game. In particular, the game has a Hunger system in which your character has a Hunger meter that depletes over time.
As with most survival games, one way to mitigate this is to consume food. However, due to Kenshi’s complex mechanics, even the simple act of eating food can be rather confusing.
Don’t worry though, as I’m here to help you with that. Let’s find out how to eat food in the game.
How to Eat Food in Kenshi
By default, your character has a maximum capacity of 400. Once it drops below 200, your character will suffer from malnutrition and their stats will be negatively affected.
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To prevent this, you need to feed your character every now and then. And to be honest, it’s actually laughably simple.
All you have to do is make sure that your character has food in their inventory. They will then automatically eat whatever food you have to replenish their Hunger meter. Not only that, but they will also eat food in their squad members’ inventories.
So as long as all of the members in your squad have food, you really shouldn’t worry about them getting hungry.
It’s worth noting that a character will only eat a maximum of 50 nutrition at a time. Each food item has its own Nutrition value, and any excess won’t get added to their Hunger meter.
For example, the Ration Pack has a Nutrition value of 125. Since a character will only eat a maximum of 50 nutrition, the remaining 75 Nutrition value won’t be added to his Hunger meter. That doesn’t mean the extra Nutrition is wasted, though.
In this case, the remaining food is stored in your inventory, and the Ration Pack will now only have a Nutrition Value of 75.
Food Sharing and Hunger Depletion
It’s worth noting that the rate at which the Hunger meter depletes varies from one race to another.
Skeletons, for example, don’t really need to eat, so you shouldn’t bother feeding them, not to mention their Hunger rate is 0.
Meanwhile, a human Greelander has a Hunger rate of 1, while a human Scorchlander has a Hunger rate of 0.9. This means the Scorchlander takes slightly longer to get hungry compared to the Greenlander. As for the Hive, both the Prince and Worker have a Hunger rate of 0.5, while the Soldier has a Hunger rate of 0.6
Lastly, the Shek has a Hunger rate of 1.25.
In terms of food sharing, adding food to the inventories of all members in your squad can be tedious. Fortunately, you can solve this by buying a stacking Backpack then filling it with food that you can purchase from bars in towns.
This will allow any character in your squad to automatically feed themselves as long as they’re near the one wearing the backpack. And that’s the basics of how to eat food in Kenshi. With this knowledge, you should now be able to keep your character and entire squad properly fed during your journeys in the game’s vast world.
That said, if you’re completely new to Kenshi, you might want to check out our complete beginner’s guide.
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