Food
Food is a type of consumable item that can be eaten, either by a player character or by a hunter pet. There are several types of food, and hundreds of different foods. Food is mainly consumed to restore health, although it may also be used to restore mana or grant buffs. Food may be bought, created by cooks, fished by fishers or conjured by mages, and is frequently found as loot.
Background
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During the First, Second and Third Wars, getting enough food to feed their soldiers was a priority for the various participating commanders. Without an adequate supply of farms, new soldiers couldn't be deployed.
[Kor'kron Meat] was a cornerstone of the conflict between Kor'kron loyalists and the Darkspear Rebellion.
Use of food
Eating
The main use of food is for player characters to consume it, restoring health over a period of time. Some foods may also restore mana, and/or grant various temporary buffs if enough time is spent eating.
Characters consume food by 'using' it - right-clicking on it. This will cause the character to sit down to grant the player the 'eating' buff. This buff will restore health over a specified time period. Moving, standing up, or using abilities will remove the buff, ending the consumption of the food.
Characters can eat and drink at the same time (drinks are similar to food, but restore mana rather than health).
Some foods (usually made by players that know Cooking) also provide the 
[Well Fed] buff, which increases stats by a certain amount. In order to receive the buff, the character must eat the food for a certain duration.
Players frequently use food to restore health and/or mana between encounters, especially if their class is unable to self-heal. Food is also used before encounters (especially in end-game raiding) to gain useful buffs. Eating is generally unnecessary at lower levels, as low level players and their pets recover health and mana quickly without eating.
Feeding your pet
Hunters can use 
[Feed Pet] to feed their pet an item from their bags, restoring its health. Using 
[Beast Lore] will tell them what types of food the pet eats.
While feeding a hunter pet and managing its Happiness was previously integral to playing the class, these systems were removed in Cataclysm.
- Treats
Hunter pets and battle pets can be fed treats as well. Items like 
[Kibler's Bits] for hunter pets, and 
[Happy Pet Snack] or 
[Pet Treat] for battle pets.
Types of food
There are six main types of food: bread, fish, fungi, meat, cheese, and fruit. It is not always clear which type of food a food item is. The food type is not explicitly stated in the item tooltip. The best indication is the item name and the graphic icon representing the item, then using common sense to figure out which food category a food item belongs to. If the item is vended, the type of vendor often explicitly states the food type, but this is not generally true for seasonal items. Beyond that, it boils down to trial and error.
For meat and fish, there is also a distinction between food that is ready to eat, which is a consumable, and food ingredients, using in cooking food, which are trade goods. Player characters can only eat consumable food, but hunter pets can often eat food ingredients.
Food ingredients are merely trade items with little description. Consumable food will have a description of the food benefits in the item tooltip, clearly indicating consumable food status, and will appear in the consumables, food, and drink section when browsing the auction house. Food ingredients will appear in the trade goods, meat section when browsing the auction house. This includes eggs and fish ingredients.
Some ingredient fish is consumable as food by a player character even though it is an ingredient, not a consumable. It will have a consumable style tooltip, will typically have the name Raw Fish-name, and will have less restorative power than its cooked counterpart.
There appears to be an additional category of untyped food. Some food ingredients appear to no longer satisfy pets when cooked into a consumable food item (whose type is not as clear). Various kinds of candy, frequently acquired during events, appear to work like this.
There are also edge-case items such as the 
[Deviate Fish], that can be 'used' (presumably ingested) that are not food in any other way, acting more like a potion and provide an instantaneous effect.
Sources of food
Food can easily be purchased from NPC vendors, which appear on your minimap as a bread/milk icon (
) when using the tracking feature. The food vendors are well distributed and very common as all inns have food for sale.
The foods that give the strongest [Well Fed] buff are usually only made by players with Cooking.
Consumable food and food ingredients are frequently dropped as loot by mobs.
- Humanoid mobs drop edible food of a random type as if they were carrying it to consume it. These are often the same item as a vended food.
- Many beast mobs frequently drop food ingredient meat, representing their flesh.
- Aquatic and semi-aquatic mobs like murlocs will often drop fish.
- Some aquatic humanoids, like murlocs and naga can drop clams, which contain clam meat.
Fish can be obtained by fishing.
Mages can conjure food which restores both health and mana, but is a conjured item and will disappear after a while.
Achievements
There are numerous achievements associated with food:
- In the Exploration achievements categories are several achievements attained by consuming a selection of foods
- The World Events achievements category includes some achievements for consuming special event foods
- The cooking section of the Professions achievements category includes numerous achievements for cooking or consuming foods
Holiday events usually have achievements that involve eating some food related to that holiday, either consuming all the different varieties available (such as candies and chocolates during Love is in the Air), or consuming large amounts of one kind of food (such as 
[Noblegarden Chocolate] during Noblegarden). Note that the latter type of achievement may not be possible in one sitting, even if you have enough food, as consuming enough food items in rapid succession will eventually result in an error message informing the player that the character is too full to eat any more. More research is needed to determine how long this condition takes to wear off.
Patch changes
Hotfix (2014-10-16): Food that gave a bonus to Hit should now give a bonus to Critical Strike.
See also
- Category:Food items
- List of foods by level
- Drink
- Raw food types, a food type removed in Wrath of the Lich King.
External links
Petopia Hunter pet comparison, including table of food types consumed by each pet family
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