First off, you shouldn't eat it (right click I assume).
To get the stat effect the food or drink must be the first one it will next consume in your inventory. Your inventory is determined by main slots first if any are directly there (see chart). If not, then it goes by the bag, and inside the bag order (see chart).
Main Inventory:
1 5
2 6
3 7
4 8
Bag Inventory:
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
You can have one Food and one Drink stat by having each one first. The stat will last till next time you are hungry, then it will eat it. There is way to avoid that.
Food and Drink have different length of time. The base time is 72min (1 Game day) for a "Meal" or a "Drink" on a Human with no AA ability. Other decriptions last longer "Hearty Meal" or shorter "Snack". The zone you are in effects how long it lasts. Such as Ro Deserts or Ocean of Tears consumes faster. Also your race, large races comsume faster, small races slower. Then you have AA ability. I've seen no site with concrete measurements on these things. Sadly, you are at a loss there.
The best advice to save your stat food is to buy "Meal" and "Drink" items and right click to force feed and drink about every 30min. This is the worst (fastest) I've ever seen my food consumed at and I usualy use Bread and Water.
Hope this helps you enjoy that Hero Sandwich and Qeynos Tea or whatever as long as you like.
PS: I haven't bothered to have stat food in awhile. Best advise is to he a RL buzzing timer of some sort, like an Egg Timer you can quickly set.
Edited, Fri Jan 30 07:53:29 2004 by TincMetals