in reply to how do i find the word following a specific word

$str =~ /food1=(\w+)/; print $1;

The parenthesis 'remeber' what's inside of them, so the $1 variable contains the first remebered variable (from left to right): If you had more parenthesis, they would go into $2, $3, .. $9. You can find more about regular expressions here.

As a side note, you might want to check out DBI if you're dealing with databases.