Large, air-breathing marine mammals hunted historically for meat, blubber oil, and baleen, and now among the most protected animals on earth. Most species fall under international whaling regulations that ban commercial hunting, with limited subsistence whaling by Indigenous communities and a few regulated national hunts continuing. In food contexts they matter in two ways: their tissues accumulate mercury, PCBs, and other contaminants over long lifespans, raising safety questions for the communities that eat them, and the cultural, nutritional, and legal debates around whale meat consumption remain active in food policy. For the wider food industry they are largely a historical raw-material source, replaced long ago by plant and fish oils.