Food Food is an item that can be eaten , either by a player character or by a hunter pet . Types of food . There are six main types of food : bread , fish , fungi , meat , cheese , and fruit . The main difference between types of food is that the various types of hunter pets are only able to eat certain kinds of foods . Player characters can eat all six main types . 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 . Fortunately , there is no in - game penalty for attempting to feed your pet something it will not eat . ( The food item level , which is also relevant to feeding pets , can be found in the tool tip ) . 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 . Consumable food will have a description of the food benefits , clearly indicating consumable food status . 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 ingredient tooltips are sparse . 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 . Some food consumable by a player character will not satisfy any pet . 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 ) . You may experience this with soup and stew items . , a quest reward , appears to be an example . Various kinds of candy , frequently acquired during event s , appear to work like this . Some inventory items are ' food ' and use food graphics for their icon , but are not food in the game . These will usually be quest items . Many of the beginning quests are a ' hunt for food ' quest that use this type of object . ( Similarly , many of the beginning quests are a ' hunt for hides ' quest that use hides that are not leather trade goods items . ) There are meat and fish mace s in the game , and there are food vendor trash items as well , although , see ' Raw food types ' below . There are also non - food items , such as Trophy fish , which can be used as pet food , so the boundaries are not always distinct . There are also items , such as the , that can be ' used ' ( presumably ingested ) that are not food in any other way , acting more like a potion . These do not require the sitting and remain seated process and any buffs they confer are not ' well fed ' buffs ( and thus can be applied in addition to a well fed buff ) . Raw food types . Raw food types were removed in Patch 3 . 0 . 2 . Food item level . Items in WoW have a property item level . This property is generally correlated with the level that the item can be used at , which lags , nominally ten less than the item level , but progresses at a similar rate , and more loosely , the overall properties and benefit of the item ; the ' power ' of the item . The vended food items are a basic framework for all other food items . For edible food items , there are eight basic increments of item level from 5 to 75 in steps of 10 . These can be consumed by player characters ten levels lower that the item level or above ( obviously , the minimum is character level 1 ) . The six basic food types are represented by one vended example of each food item level , ( with seasonal additions that do not change the basic structure . ) Food items are not tied to these specific levels , but will follow the overall rough progression of this framework . There are also foods that scale with a character ' s level . Any character can eat the food , but higher level characters will derive more healing . is an example . Use of food . Eating . You eat food by ' using ' it - right clicking on it . This will cause your character to sit down ( you must be seated in order to eat or drink ) and will consume one charge of the stack of food items . ( Most , but not all , food has one charge per food item . ) This will restore your health over a specified time period , during which you must remain seated and cannot engage in most other activities . You can eat and drink at the same time . ( Drink s are similar to food , but restore mana ) . You can eat additional food while seated , but will only be in the process of eating the last food item eaten ; the previous ones are lost , so it is best to wait for the eating timer to run out . Some food items can restore mana as well , at a similar rate as health . Some foods in addition to their restorative properties also provide various buff s for a short period of time ( typically 5 – 15 minutes from pre - Burning Crusade foods , 30 min from Outland food , and 60 min from WotLK food ) . The most common food buff you will encounter early in the game is a slight increase to stamina and spirit . Later , there are foods that buff other stats as well . Foods that buff key stats are generally in high demand . In order to receive the buff , you must remain seated during most of the food timer for that food item , until you see the buff appear . These are called ' Well Fed buffs ' . They do not stack ; you can have only one at a time . Buff foods are primarily cooked foods . The restorative power of the food increases with item level . Across the vended samples , the food type does not matter ; they all have the same restorative power at a given level . Player characters can eat food of a much lower level , but derive less benefit . The benefits are scaled to provide restorative effect comparable to the scale of the health of characters at that level . The presence of a buff does not correlate specifically to an increase in level , but higher level foods that have a buff will provide better buffs . The buffs are scaled to provide stat increases comparable to how bonuses on equipment scale . Feeding your pet . Upon learning ' Tame Beast ' from your trainer after reaching level 10 . You will be able to make certain beasts your partner in crime . You can make a beast your pet only if they are in fact tameable and the same level as you or lower . To determine whether or not a certain beast is in fact tameable , you can do two things . You can try casting ' Beast Lore ' on said beast that you are attempting to tame , or you can cast ' Tame Beast ' which will tell you if they are tameable and regardless of being tameable either start the taming process ( in which a channeling bar will appear as the beast attacks you ) or a message will appear telling you they cannot be tamed . Using ' Beast Lore ' is preferable because it not only tells you if they can be tamed , but also any special abilities they can learn and the types of food you can use to feed them . Along with the ability to tame any tamable pets , you will also get a pet command toolbar and some other pet related abilities including the ability to feed your pet . You feed your active pet using the ' feed your pet ' icon , the one that looks like a dog biscuit . Click the ' feed your pet ' icon , then click the food in your inventory that you want to feed to your pet . The pet may accept the food , but if the food is a wrong type they may reject it . You can view the types of food your pet will eat by clicking your character screen and accessing the ' Pet ' tab on the bottom . There will be a dog biscuit icon on the top right hand side that will display the types of food that pet will eat . Feeding your pet restores health rather than making the pet happier , increasing its effectiveness , and over time , and its loyalty like it had done prior to the Cataclysm expansion . Hunter pets generally need food of around their level for it to be worth the trouble . If the food ' s item level is too low , ie : 30 levels less than the pet ' s level , they will refuse to eat it . Unlike player characters , pets can consume food of a much higher level than they are , but they get no additional satisfaction out of it , the ( rather costly ) extra levels are wasted . Pet treats . is food for hunter pets , but used differently than ' feeding your pet ' and to different ends . Pet treats are " used " ( by right clicking ) , just like you would eat food , and do not affect pet happiness , instead they provide a buff for the pet . used to be a pet treat , but was changed to junk in Cataclysm . Sources of food . Food can easily be purchased from NPC vendor s , which appear on your minimap as a bread / milk icon ( ) when using the tracking feature . The food vendors are well distributed and very common , for instance all inn s have food for sale , but finding the specific food type vendor when you need it for your pet can be a pain . Gorilla s eat only fruit and fungus , for example , and you may be hard pressed to find the vendors . Vended foods are always of the consumable type , so the vended fish is always the cooked version . Food items can be gotten as quest rewards . These are helpful , but limited ; if you use a lot of food ( hunters ) you will need other sources . These are often the same item as a vended food . Consumable food and food ingredients are frequently dropped by mob s . You can often find edible food in chest s . These will be of any food type . These are often the same item as a vended food . Fish can be obtained by fishing . You should be able to keep yourself supplied with fish if you need it , and you should be able to purchase other players ' surplus fish at the auction house . This makes feeding fish - eating pets easy as well . Food can be made by player characters using the cooking profession , a secondary profession that all player characters can learn . ( It does not count against their primary profession quota . ) Cooking will make food ingredients that are inedible by player characters into consumable food products . Often , higher level recipes will use similar ingredients and produce better quality food . Many fish can be eaten raw but have better food properties when cooked . Buffing food is primarily made by cooking . The food in demand by players for their characters , as opposed to pets , is invariably cooked food or a hard to find food ingredient used to make the food they want to cook . Pets can eat cooked food of the proper type , but do not get the benefit of the increased stats . Mage s can conjure bread type food ( and can conjure drinks ) . The level of the food and corresponding restorative value increases as the mage learns more powerful versions of the conjure food spell . Conjured food is mostly the same as other food during play but cannot be sold on the auction house nor to vendors and disappears when you log out . Creating food consumes mana , so plan ahead and ask for food before the battle starts and mana becomes a critical resource . Conjured bread can be used to feed bread - eating pets . Achievement . The general achievement " " requires a character to " " Sample 50 different kinds of Azeroth ' s delectable dishes . " " . Only foods that provide a restorative effect over time appear to count for this achievement . Food - like items that provide only potion - like benefits do not appear to count . Foods with different forms , raw fish and cooked fish , for example , each count separately . Event foods count toward this achievement . Food conjured by a mage counts as well . Holiday events usually also 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 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 .