If each person's mind creates "reality" then why do we need to eat?

My teacher has been talking about how each person's reality (including the body) is in fact an illusion generated by the mind in each moment. As an extension of this, she teaches that there are no "good" or "bad" people, things or circumstances - the way things appear and the qualities they have are all coming from my own mind. I think I kind of understand this as a metaphor, but I don't understand how she can seem to literally believe this: for example, during the teaching session I was very hungry. I thought, "I can meditate and come to ignore how hungry I am- but if I did that every time, one day I would die of starvation, whether I was aware of that in my mind or not. So surely hunger is actually "real" and not just in my mind - because it will lead to me dying unnecessarily unless I react to it?" Another example I thought of was murder. I can believe everyone is neither good nor bad, and via compassion, everyone will seem good. But surely it doesn't matter how I imagine a situation is going in my mind - if I meet someone who tries to murder me, for example, they will kill me, regardless of how loving I believe them to be. My death would occur regardless of my mind (but if I had listened to my mind, I might have been able to avoid the death that would result from interacting with that person). I understand that death isn't "good" or "bad" either - but how does the dharma explain the division between "mind reality" and actual physical reality that can kill me no matter what my mind does? Another quick example: medication for mental illness. I had a teacher once who endorsed mentally ill people stopping all medication, because it was only a placebo - but if that's true then why is it that an unmedicated schizophrenic (for example) would be physically unable to meditate (and cure themselves, as my teacher suggested) most of the time, as they would be too ill to concentrate? Isnt that an example of physical chemicals (drugs) being "stronger" than the mind (calming the mind so that it can begin to meditate)? Apologies if I'm being ignorant, or if I sound critical. I feel like I'm missing some vocabulary that would help me explain better. Thanks for reading :) (Edit: I also have a very similar question/example: why does it result in good karma when you feed starving people, if the food, the pain of starvation, and even your good deed is just an illusion in the minds of you and the starving person? Obviously if I had a sandwich, and I saw a child who was hungry, I'd give them all of the sandwich. But then isnt the child receiving negative karma for causing ME to go hungry, even though it was my choice? And why bother at all if only karma is real - the child's hunger isn't "real", so why end it?)