There are three main stats that all players will need to keep up in order to survive in Rust: Health, Hydration, and Hunger.
Though Hydration is easy to fill up, as all you need to do is find a river or a lake, you will need to put more effort into Hunger. Not only will you have to find food all over the place, but you will also need to learn how to eat it.
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Luckily, eating in Rust is a relatively simple task that you should master in an instant after reading this guide. You just need to learn some of the game’s basic mechanics.
To eat in Rust, all you need to do is either select the food item in the inventory and press to eat it or place a food item in the hotbar and press the button associated with its position.
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How to Eat in Rust
There are two simple ways to eat food in Rust:
- Select the food in the inventory and press the Eat button
- Place the food in the hotbar and press the associated button out of the inventory
Depending on the circumstances, both options are really good. Usually, the easiest way to eat in Rust is to open the inventory (press Tab) and then click on the food you collected.
You should see in the upper part of the screen some “Actions” that you can perform with the food. You can either “Eat” or “Drop.” Press the Eat option, and you will eat that piece of food.
Another way to quickly eat while you are exploring and fighting enemies is to place some food items in the hotbar. The hotbar is the 6 slots that you see down even when you aren’t on the inventory screen.
Drag one of the food items in one of the lower slots and then exit the inventory (press Tab again). Each slot has an associated number on your keyboard, from 1 to 6. If you press 1, you will select the first item on the hotbar, which will usually be a rock at the start of the game.
Press the button associated with the food you placed in the hotbar and the character will instantly eat that piece of nourishment.
You can use this even when you are fighting and have a different weapon equipped, as you are not really equipping the food when you select it in the hotbar.
Each food item will have a positive Calories stat increase. You can have a total of 500 Calories, so eat as much as possible to fill up the Hunger meter.
How to Get Food in Rust
Now that you know how to eat, you should also know where to find food in Rust. There are two ways you can get food in Rust:
- Loot Tier 1 Monuments
- Look around rivers
There are two monuments (named locations on the map) that will always have food and will never have enemy NPCs patrolling them: Oxum’s Gas Station and the Abandoned Supermarket.
In these locations, you will find small blue crates on the shelves that hold food and other types of items inside. The only thing you should worry about in these locations is other players looking for easy loot or recycling.
If you want to find raw food, such as Pumpkins or Corn, in the wild, then look on the map for rivers and go to one. There will be a lot of food crops all around any river in Rust.
That’s everything you need to know about how to eat in Rust!
Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
