To implement something like the bidding you're thinking of (or any finer-grained competition) you might need to have several sub-iterations to each timestep... or each timestep is smaller and not sufficient for completing an "eat" action. Think of pipelined processors, perhaps, as some inspiration. ;)
For an example of sub-iterations within each timestep: you have claims, then resolve conflicting claims, then do all resulting actions. In this case, "losers" of a competition probably wasted their action. If you still want them to be able to at least do a simpler action or start another claim, this is where you might want finer-grained steps (and actions).