// Is this what hunger is to a machine, at its basest level? An int and a while loop? Is that really what it means to understand hunger? This and a text description?
In what language? In all that I know, assignment evaluates to the value that was assigned (that is, if it evaluates to anything at all). Also in most languages that look like C, 0 evaluates to false. Therefore it will never seek food.
edit: s/created/developed over time/