Food Stories

At least 2,000 years ago, people in the Americas began cultivating the cocoa tree for its dark, bitter beans, which they brewed into a drink spiced with hot peppers. Today, we blend the beans with milk and sugar and call the stuff chocolate.

By choosing certified sustainable foods, you can send a message to your favorite grocery stores and brands that sustainability matters to you. Just look for the follow ecolabels that identify responsibly produced foods. And if you can’t find them, ask your favorite retailers and brands to start selling certified sustainable products.

One-third of all the food produced goes to waste. Food waste is both a humanitarian concern and drives climate change. Here are some tips to prevent food waste. 

Taking in the spectacular view from our table at Finca Agroecologica El Paraiso, it was hard to imagine the day getting any better—until lunch was served.

Reimagine your refrigerator to help freeze the footprint of your food

Shrimp farming is associated with mangrove destruction, water pollution, and illegal fishing and labor practices, but WWF is working with some of the world’s most innovative and conscientious farmers to demonstrate that shrimp production can be environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, and economically viable.

Sea turtles are some of the most majestic, long-living animals in the ocean, yet hundreds of thousands of them are accidentally caught and die in shrimp nets and other fishing gear each year. Endangered loggerheads, green turtles, and leatherbacks are especially vulnerable.

Sumatran elephants are pretty adorable. Yet across Indonesia, they’re losing their forest homes to the unsustainable production of palm oil.

With flavor as bright as its color, pesto is a delicious treat. But pine nuts are a key food for the Amur tiger’s main prey. If we consume pine nuts faster than the trees can replenish, we’re taking away food from tiger’s prey and, ultimately, tigers.

If you’re passionate about conservation, consider this: preventing and reducing food waste is one of the best things you can do to conserve natural resources and wildlife. Check out these tips to avoid tossing food in the trash this holiday season. 

Energy production is the largest source of these emissions, but agriculture contributes a significant share—about 24%, according to the World Resources Institute. Clearly, improving the way we produce food is critical in the fight against climate change.

Every so often, it’s important to pause, take a step back, and celebrate the progress we’ve made together in conserving the world’s wildlife and beautiful places. And this year gave us much to applaud. Though our conservation challenges persist and there’s still much work to be done, we all need take a moment to appreciate just how far we’ve come by working in tandem to protect the planet we love.

Feeding the world and protecting the precious resources that all life on Earth require is no easy feat. That’s why WWF and our partners brought together such a diverse group of people to “game out” how we can balance these needs even in the direst situations.

There’s a way we can have our palm oil and eat it too. By producing palm oil sustainably, growers and manufacturers can offer traders, retailers, investors, and consumer products that meet their needs in a way that’s good for the planet, people, and profits.

It has slipped quietly into much of what we consume—and its production is straining ecosystems around the world.

To sustain our planet’s natural resources for future generations, WWF is working with leading food producers, traders, processors and retailers to produce food more efficiently—using land, water, and energy more efficiently, and releasing less waste and greenhouse gas. This work is challenging enough, and it’s complicated further by climate change and population growth.

Building on a seven year-old pilot program in Mozambique, the CARE-WWF Alliance is now exploring opportunities to advance environmentally, socially and economically sustainable food production systems in Tanzania and Zambia.

The world’s most popular vegetable oil—palm oil—is produced in tropical rain forests everywhere. While it can be produced sustainably, palm oil made with conventional production methods can lead to unchecked agricultural expansion that threatens forests and wildlife.

The Amazon, central Africa, the Mekong. These are home to some of the world’s most species-rich, culturally significant and stunningly beautiful forests. But large swaths of these forests, and many others around the world, may not be there in 15 years if we don’t do more to save them.