Minecraft wiki entry for Combat, associated text: The reason for this is that these items have a very low effective quality and will make the hunger go down very quickly, especially while in combat. In combat, the player will be sprinting, jumping, attacking, and taking damage. These all affect the player's hunger saturation, or the amount of time each hunger point will last, so they are going to want as much saturation as possible. The following foods are the best choice for pre-combat preparation and are recommended to have while in combat.