The question of "What does a red fox eat?" can be almost as difficult to answer as "What does a human eat?". Foxes are true omnivores capable of devouring a large variety of plant and animal matter. On the vegetarian side of the equation, possible foods include various grasses, grains, fungi, berries and fruit. It´s much better known carnivorous diet might consist of insects (especially grasshoppers where abundant), rodents such as mice and voles, rabbits, birds, eggs, amphibians and small reptiles, fish, mollusks, earthworms, carrion and more. Foxes are also quite famous for scavenging human garbage, which can provide a major portion of their diet in urban environments.

An opportunistic eater, the red fox´s diet tends to vary directly in proportion to what´s available (a more carnivorous diet is prevalent in winter when edible plants are scarce). Nevertheless, despite an enormous variety of food that may sometimes be obtainable, individual animals tend to have preferences to a more narrow range of items. Whether this is a matter of taste, or a skill at catching certain prey over others, a fox will probably have its own preferences between mice and voles, or strawberries over another fruit. Like humans, a fox might make special efforts to obtain these favourites.

Regardless of what it eats, a fox needs to take in about half a kilogram of meat, or it´s equivalent in plants each day. It will spend a third of its time searching for food to fulfill this requirement.