Lists of foods


This is a categorically organized list of foods. Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is produced either by plants, animals, or fungi, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organism's cells in an effort to produce energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth.
Note: due to the high number of foods in existence, this article is limited to being organized categorically, based upon the main subcategories within the Foods category page, along with information about main categorical topics and list article links.

List of foods

Basic foods

Baked goods

Baked goods are cooked by baking, a method of cooking food that uses prolonged dry heat.
Breads

Dairy products

  • Dairy products – Dairy products are food produced from the milk of mammals. Dairy products are usually high energy-yielding food products. A production plant for the processing of milk is called a dairy or a dairy factory. Apart from breastfed infants, the human consumption of dairy products is sourced primarily from the milk of cows, yet goats, sheep, yaks, horses, camels, and other mammals are other sources of dairy products consumed by humans.

Edible plants

Edible fungi

  • Edible fungi – Edible fungi are the fleshy and edible fruit bodies of several species of macrofungi. They can appear either below ground or above ground where they may be picked by hand. Edibility may be defined by criteria that include absence of poisonous effects on humans and desirable taste and aroma.

Edible nuts and seeds

  • Edible nuts and seeds – Nut is a fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, where the hard-shelled fruit does not open to release the seed. In a culinary context, a wide variety of dried seeds are often called nuts, but in a botanical context, only ones that include the indehiscent fruit are considered true nuts. The translation of "nut" in certain languages frequently requires paraphrases, as the word is ambiguous.

Legumes

Meat

Seafood

Staple foods

  • Staple foods – Staple food, sometimes called food staple or staple, is a food that is eaten routinely and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard diet in a given population, supplying a large fraction of the needs for energy-rich materials and generally a significant proportion of the intake of other nutrients as well. Most people live on a diet based on just a small number of staples. Most staple plant foods are derived either from cereals such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rice, or starchy tubers or root vegetables such as potatoes, yams, taro, and cassava. Other staple foods include pulses, sago, and fruits such as breadfruit and plantains. Of more than 50,000 edible plant species in the world, only a few hundred contribute significantly to human food supplies. Just 15 crop plants provide 90 percent of the world's food energy intake, with rice, maize and wheat comprising two-thirds of human food consumption. These three alone are the staples of over 4 billion people.

Prepared foods

Appetizers

  • Appetizers – Items served before the main courses of a meal, typically smaller than main dishes, and often meant to be eaten by hand. Hors d'oeuvre may be served at the dinner table as a part of the meal, or they may be served before seating. Stationary hors d'oeuvre served at the table may be referred to as "table hors d' oeuvre". Passed hors d'oeuvre may be referred to as "butler-style" or "butlered" hors d'oeuvre.

Condiments

  • Condiments – Condiment is something such as a sauce, that is added to some foods to impart a particular flavor, enhance its flavor, or in some cultures, to complement the dish. The term originally described pickled or preserved foods, but has shifted meaning over time.

Confectionery

  • Confectionery – Confectionery, or the making of confections, are food items that are rich in sugar. Confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories, bakers' confections and sugar confections. Bakers' confectionery includes principally sweet pastries, cakes, and similar baked goods. Sugar confectionery includes sweets, candied nuts, chocolates, chewing gum, sweetmeats, pastillage, and other confections that are made primarily of sugar. Confections include sweet foods, sweetmeats, digestive aids that are sweet, elaborate creations, and something amusing and frivolous.

Convenience foods

  • Convenience foods – convenience food, also known as processed food, is commercially prepared food designed for ease of preparation and / or consumption.

Desserts

  • Desserts – Dessert is a typically sweet course that may conclude a meal.

Dips, pastes and spreads

  • Dips – Dip or dipping sauce is any condiment for another kind of food. Dips are used to add flavor, texture or both, to a food.
  • Paste – Food paste is a semi-liquid colloidal suspension, emulsion, or aggregation used in food preparation or eaten directly as a spread. Pastes are often highly spicy or aromatic.
  • Spread – Foods that are literally spread, generally with a knife, onto bread, crackers, or other food products. Spreads are added to food to provide flavor and texture.

Dried foods

  • Dried foods – Drying is a method of food preservation that removes water from the food, which inhibits the growth of bacteria and has been practiced worldwide since ancient times to preserve food. Where or when dehydration as a food preservation technique was invented has been lost to time, however the earliest known practice of food drying is 12,000 BCE by inhabitants of the modern Middle East and Asia regions.

Dumplings

Fast food

  • Fast food – Fast food is the term given to food that is prepared and served very quickly, first popularized in the 1950s in the United States. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a packaged form for take-out/take-away. Fast food restaurants are traditionally separated by their ability to serve food via a drive-through. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.

Fermented foods

Halal food

Kosher food

  • Kosher food – Kosher foods are those that conform to the regulations of kashrut. Food that may be consumed according to halakha is termed kosher in English, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér, meaning "fit". Food that is not in accordance with Jewish law is called treif or treyf, derived from Hebrew trāfáh. Some of the restrictions include not being able to eat seafood. One also can not mix meat with dairy. Pork also can not be eaten. But there are those in the Jewish community that do not actually keep Kosher.

Noodles

  • Noodles – The noodle is a type of staple food made from some type of unleavened dough which is rolled flat and cut into one of a variety of shapes. While long, thin strips may be the most common, many varieties of noodles are cut into waves, helices, tubes, strings, or shells, or folded over, or cut into other shapes. Noodles are usually cooked in boiling water, sometimes with cooking oil or salt added. They are often pan-fried or deep-fried. Noodles are often served with an accompanying sauce or in a soup. Noodles can be refrigerated for short-term storage, or dried and stored for future use.

Pies

  • Pies – Pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients.

Salads

  • Salads – Salad is a ready-to-eat dish often containing leafy vegetables, usually served chilled or at a moderate temperature and often served with a sauce or dressing. Salads may also contain ingredients such as fruit, grain, meat, seafood and sweets. Though many salads use raw ingredients, some use cooked ingredients.

Sandwiches

  • Sandwiches – Sandwich is a food item consisting of one or more types of food placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein two or more pieces of bread serve as a container or wrapper for some other food. The sandwich was originally a portable food item or finger food which began its popularity primarily in the Western World, but is now found in various versions in numerous countries worldwide.
Sadza

Sauces

Snack foods

  • Snack food – Snack food is a portion of food often smaller than a regular meal, generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged and processed foods and items made from fresh ingredients at home.

Soups

  • Soups – Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm, that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.

Stews