The two types of special food used are nutrient agar and blood agar.

Nutrient Agar
Since agar is only a solidifying agent, it carries no value for the bacteria
grown on it. Bacteria need nutrients to live and reproduce. One solution to
this issue involves the mixing of agar with a nutrient broth, containing
peptone and beef extract, to create nutrient agar.

Carbohydrates, vitamins, salts, and trace amounts of organic nitrogen make

up the beef extract. The principle source of organic nitrogen, amino acids,
and long-chained peptides is the peptone. This provides all of the nutrients
needed for bacteria to grow on the agar.

Nutrient Agar Is a Complex Media

For practical purposes, nutrient agar works well for growing most types of
non-fastidious heterotrophic bacteria. "Fastidious" means selective, and
"heterotrophic" means the bacteria cannot make their own food. Non-
fastidious heterotrophic bacteria, therefore, need their food supplied to them,
and they are not fussy about from where it comes.

Since many pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria fall into the non-

fastidious heterotrophic category, a complex media consisting of various
nutrients such as peptones and beef extracts is the ideal choice for bacterial
growth and cultivation.

Scientists are also able to manipulate the nutrients in the nutrient agar in
order to isolate genetically modified bacteria during cloning, sequencing, and
other genetic experiments.
Read more about how to make nutrient agar at home.

Blood Agar
Blood agar is almost identical to nutrient agar except that it contains five to
ten percent sheep, rabbit, or horse blood. Blood agar consists of:

 Beef extract, for nitrogen

 Blood, for nitrogen, amino acids, and carbon
 Sodium chloride, for maintaining osmotic balance
 Agar, for the solidifying agent

Microbiologists use blood agar to identify fastidious pathogenic bacteria by

studying the hemolytic (blood cell destroying) reactions they cause.

Blood Agar Is a Differential Media

Microbiologist use differential media to identify and isolate specific bacteria.
An example of this is the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes, which is the
pathogen that causes strep throat. You can grow these bacteria on a
complex media such as nutrient agar, but if other bacteria are also growing
on that agar, it is very difficult to distinguish one bacterial colony from
another without the use of microscopic examination and special staining
techniques.

If you grow it on blood agar, though, it will destroy the red blood cells in a
process called beta-hemolysis, and other cells will not cause this reaction,
which makes identifying Streptococcus pyogenes much easier.

So while both nutrient and blood agar are used to cultivate bacteria and
other microorganisms, blood agar serves a more particular and specific
purpose during lab work