Beef is meat obtained from a bovine. Beef is one of the principal meats used in European cuisine and cuisine of the Americas, and is important in Africa, East Asia, and Southeast Asia as well. In the Middle East, lamb is the usual meat preferred over beef. Beef can be cut into steak, pot roasts, or short ribs, or ground into hamburger. Several Asian and European nationalities include the blood in their cuisine as well?it is used in some varieties of blood sausage. Other beef variety meats include the tongue, which is usually sliced for sandwiches in Western cooking; tripe from the stomach; various glands?particularly the pancreas and thyroid?referred to as sweetbreads; the heart, the brain, the liver, the kidneys; and the tender testicles of the bull commonly known as "beef balls", "calf fries", "prairie oysters", or "Rocky Mountain oysters." The better cuts are usually obtained from steers, as heifers tend to be kept for breeding. Older animals are used for beef when they are past their reproductive prime. The meat from older cows and bulls is generally tougher, so it is frequently used for ground beef. Cattle raised for beef may be allowed to roam free on grasslands, or may be confined at some stage in pens as part of a large feeding operation called a feedlot. The United States, Brazil, the EU, Japan and China are the world's five largest producers of beef. Beef production is also important to the economies of Nicaragua, Argentina, the Russian Federation, Australia, Mexico, and Canada.

Pork is the meat taken from pigs. While it is one of the most common meats consumed by Chinese, Thais, Vietnamese and Europeans, and to some extent North Americans, it is not sconsidered kosher in Judaism or halal under Islamic law.

In general use, non-scientists take "sugar" to mean sucrose, also called "table sugar" or saccharose, a white crystalline solid disaccharide. Humans most commonly use sucrose as their sugar of choice for altering the flavor and properties (such as mouthfeel, preservation, and texture) of beverages and food. Commercially-produced table sugar comes either from sugar cane or from sugar beet. The "simple" sugars, or monosaccharides (such as glucose), store energy which biological cells use and consume. In a list of ingredients, any word that ends with "ose" probably denotes a sugar. For information on the other sugars, see monosaccharide and disaccharide. In culinary terms, sugar as a type of food delivers one of the primary taste sensations, that of sweetness.