Did you ever pause mid-sip of your morning coffee and wonder if all of it would disappear? It sounds like it would never happen, but in reality, your favorite foods are facing a serious threat. Climate change and biodiversity loss may be reasons why you could lose some of your favorite foods forever. Get ready to discover the 9 foods that could disappear from your plate forever.
9. Maple Syrup
Your pancake condiment may be in trouble. One thing to know about maple syrup production is that it’s sensitive to climate change. Sugar maple trees need a specific cycle of freezing nights and warm days to produce sap, and that balance is being disrupted, thanks to climate change. The heart of maple syrup country, Vermont, is seeing the effects due to unpredictable seasons and lower yields.
8. Rice
The staple food for more than half of the world’s population is facing a serious threat from climate change. Rising temperatures, especially at night, are causing crop failures in major rice-producing regions. A recent study warned that extreme weather events could wipe out crops in several major growing areas at once. If it happens, the consequences of a global rice shortage would lead to widespread food insecurity and economic instability.
7. Honey and Bees
There is a decline in bees when our food system relies on their work. In the U.S., beekeepers have been losing an average of 40% of their colonies each year for the past 15 years. But 2025 is up to be even worse, with around 60-70% colony losses. The suspected culprit is the Varroa mite, which is a parasite that has evolved resistance to the most common treatments.
6. Salmon
Wild salmon are fighting for survival. Warming waters are disrupting their entire life cycle, from the streams where they are born to the oceans where they mature. In Ireland, the Atlantic salmon population has collapsed by 80% in just 20 years. On the other side of the world, Chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest are facing extinction due to a combination of climate change, overfishing, and habitat loss.
5. Vanilla
Who knew that we’d live in a time when the world’s favorite flavor is facing a crisis? Nearly 80% of the world’s vanilla comes from Madagascar, where a combination of extreme weather and climate change is devastating crops. In 2017, a cyclone wiped out an estimated 30% of the island’s vanilla vines. More recently, in early 2024, tropical cyclones once again destroyed vanilla crops. Vanilla’s delicate orchid requires a stable climate to thrive, and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events is making it nearly impossible for farmers to cultivate the spice.
4. Oysters
Ocean acidification, caused by the absorption of excess CO2 from the atmosphere, is making it harder for oysters to build their shells. Well, this isn’t a new problem as scientists have found a similar event caused a mass extinction 201 million years ago. Today, oyster populations in places like Chesapeake Bay and Apalachicola Bay, Florida, are collapsing due to a combination of pollution and overharvesting.
3. Chocolate
Sadly, chocolate could disappear in the near future. In 2024, a global cocoa shortage caused prices to spike by a shocking 400%, reaching a record high of over $12,000 per ton. The cacao tree is sensitive to climate change, and it was found that the heatwave in West Africa was made 10 times more likely by climate change. The future of chocolate is so uncertain that Nestlé is developing a technique to produce it with 30% less cacao.
2. Coffee
Wild Arabica, the coffee species that makes up 60% of global production, is already on the endangered species list. It was predicted that if global temperatures rise by 2°C, half of the world’s coffee-growing regions will no longer be suitable for cultivation. Sadly, the future of coffee may depend entirely on our ability to find and cultivate these rare varieties before it’s too late.
1. Bananas
Surprisingly, bananas may face future extinction. The Cavendish variety, which accounts for 99% of the global banana trade, is being wiped out by a fungal disease called Panama disease TR4. This deadly fungus has already spread to major banana-producing countries, including Colombia and Peru. Because Cavendish bananas are clones, they lack the genetic diversity to fight off the disease. Sadly, the last time a popular banana variety was wiped out by a similar disease in the 1950s, the Cavendish was there to take its place.