ways i would "fix" hunger in games:

- instead of being a simple countdown timer to a task, it would be a gradual decrease in other max stats. more hungry = lowered max hp, lowered max stamina, etc. starvation would basically be when all of these maxes are lowered to 0, but you'd probably die way before that from other hazards.

- different foods would have different correction values, but also provide temporary alterations in the ways that the hunger meter moves (speed of decrease, amount per tick, etc.).

- an example scenario: your character is hungry and as a result, currently has a -30% debuff to their maximum hp and stamina. eating one meat (+20) and one bread (+10) corrects this completely to 100%, resulting in a "full" status (which has some effect), and the meat offers a 50% slowdown to hunger meter changes for x amount of time.

- depending on the game, this could offer needless complexity or an enrichment in the way this system behaves. At the very least, the reduction in total stats is a very welcome change to simply having a task to perform every few minutes, breaking game immersion.