Originally posted by stvlepore:

I have two signs on my portals. Did you fix everything?
And
Did you eat?

Not a bad idea. I may steal it.

The optimum time is probably when your buff starts to flash, unfortunately I'm forgetful and if I'm going to die it usually involves my food running out and I've not noticed.

Originally posted by stvlepore:

I have two signs on my portals. Did you fix everything?
And
Did you eat?

Before you leave the house -- make sure that you've got, your... 'phone, wallet, keys'. If you don't know, google that ♥♥♥♥. Adam Sandler is hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2uwkRrv9b8&ab_channel=AdamSandler-Topic

I have two signs on my portals. Did you fix everything?
And
Did you eat?

This discourse leads to believe I have been tempting fate, with eating new meals within the last 60 seconds of a meals duration.

I imagine it's bound to catch up with me sooner or later; I've had multiple run-ins with starred mobs as my food is about to expire, leading me to frantically re-up the expiring meals so I can avoid getting savaged too badly.

Depends (as always in life)

If i'm fighting a mob that is barely in range of my abilities, say a blucker parry vs lox, having those extra 5-10 hp might make a big impact on amount of stagger recieved. So eat as soon as possible.
Same with climbing mountains without cold resistance, or doing very stamina intensive work like digging/farming - the more max stamina you have further you go and the quicker the regen.

But otherwise if you remember to actually eat before it gets too low, its not bad letting it go down. HP/s is another very important stat that does not change with time. So when i know i wont get staggered or be pressed with stamina usage, i wait til last minutes to eat.


Other considerations: 1) food juggling, eating early allows you to pick different food flexibly, while if you refresh last minute and then suddenly need different food, its wait time, or difficult fight.
And 2) rest time, eat hp food when resting (camping) to get full regen out (useful in caves ie)

Thats the need part of the equation... As for supply i always swim in sausages so the main reason to delay refreshing them is only to be on the same timer as wolf jerky.
And then honey, gets eaten on cooldown.

With a rested bonus of 22 minutes I tend to eat as I am leaving the base first thing in the morning so that travel to where ever I'm going fills my health bar and I'm at max for the day (which lasts 21 minutes). When about 2/3rds of my rested bonus is gone I head back to safer biomes or a portal to the main base and then do house keeping stuff in the last bits of the food (put away loot, repair, make arrows, cook if needed, fill/empty fermenters, run the obliterator if needed, etc.) if that takes me all the way through night time that's OK. If not I sleep and then start the next day which is when I refresh food again.

The optimal situation is shaped up by circumstances which vary wildly.

The only rule of thumb I'd give is that if your max HP is 25, you need to eat. Period.

Whenever I happen to think about it. Usually right before I portal out of my secure base to go explore dangerous areas. If I'm still in a dangerous area when it starts flashing I eat again. If I'm on my way back home, I don't bother. If it's gardening or tree chopping day I'll still eat but maybe only one or two of the three.

I don't spend all my time in dangerous zones so I don't worry about it that much.

The optimal time would be as soon as you can eat again, which is at 1/2 the food timer when it starts to blink.
Obviously, you will go through food faster staying as full as possible, but for optimal health/stamina stats, that is it.
The drawback is that you will go though your food stores faster and you will need to carry more food with you.
If you are in a multiplayer setting,and you are drawing from communal food stores, etiquette will vary depending on the other player's eating habits and available shared food supplies.

While at base and building/farming/chilling, some like to run hungry and have health/stamina pots on them to drink fast in case of an event/attack. (same with sailing)
I don't like to die from fall damage while building so I keep pretty well fed even at home. that said, I don't usually eat to stay as full as possible in those settings. Just while out in the harsh wilderness exploration/ boss fight/ dungeon situations.

Depends on if you're going for efficiency or effectiveness.

For Resource efficiency, you'll want to eat at like the last 25% of the timer (So on 30minute food, around 5-7 minutes remaining. For 25minute food, 5minutes).

For effectiveness, eat as soon as you can (50% through food duration).

I rarely let it get below 5 minutes.. if you have food to waste and aren't low then like others said 50% of the duration is best.

I usually don't think of it until it's almost used up. Around 5 minutes or less left, and all too often not until I get the message that I could eat another bite (i.e. it's duration is gone completely).
I have food to waste too....like way too much food. I like farming and grinding so I tend to over-gather everything, especially food. So, I'd prefer if I thought of it when it was somewhere between 50% and 20% duration left. But I simply don't.

it’s honestly completely situational. If I’m about to get into a dangerous fight, I’d eat if I’m able to. Otherwise, there’s really no reason to refresh all that often. Since salad runs out before my other food, I typically end up re-eating all 3 once my salad runs out, which is every 25min

10 minutes if there is the chance of an encounter in the Plains, Mountains, Swamp or Mistlands. 2 minutes or less if in Meadows, Blackforest or at my base puttering about. Always keep my foodstuff in the rightside, horizontally with big health on bottom then sta. sta above that. I have had it there and in that order since I started so refeeding is very fast.