Food is a fundamental part of life’s biggest celebrations, from birthdays and weddings to religious feasts. It’s also a key part of death. This week, we hear how saying farewell to the departed has inspired centuries of food tradition, from corpse cakes and sin-eating in medieval Europe, to the pan de muertos and sugar skulls of Mexico's Day of the Dead. We visit a Death Cafe in London to find out how food and drink help end the taboos around discussing grief and loss, and we go graveside feasti...
Oct 29, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are parents wrong to impose their own restrictive diets on their children? An Italian MP wants to jail parents who choose vegan or other “reckless” diets for their kids. But many of these families argue their children are healthy and happy. This week, we take a look at the implications of excluding certain foods from a child’s plate. Should children be encouraged to develop their own food choices regardless of their parents’ convictions? Vegan, veggie and Paleo parents talk to the BBC’s Manuela ...
Oct 22, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast What would happen if we all became vegans? Veganism – cutting out animal products from your diet, and often your wardrobe – suddenly seems more mainstream than ever. It is attracting followers from Beyoncé to Al Gore, and there’s a new breed of vegan, too: vloggers espousing their veggie-heavy lifestyle to millions of online fans. Whether it is for health, environmental or ethical reasons, more and more people are embracing plant-based food. The BBC’s Mike Johnson sets out to explore what the wo...
Oct 15, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast How do people living through the Syrian conflict find food? The BBC’S Dan Saladino explores what’s happening in Syria, where food is often used as both a weapon and target of war. Bakeries have been reportedly targeted in bombings, and profiteers look to gain from the scarcity of staples by hiking up prices for the food that is available. We speak to Jakob Kern, who oversees a $700m operation for the UN’s World Food Programme as he attempts to get food aid into besieged towns and hard to reach c...
Oct 08, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast The world's top names in Chinese cuisine meet once every four years in a prestigious and gruelling cooking contest to determine which of them is the very best. Can a team of UK chefs make a gold medal-winning debut? The BBC's Celia Hatton takes a front-row seat at the World Championship of Chinese Cuisine, often called the Olympics of Chinese cooking. She follows Gavin Chun, a first-time competitor from London, who hopes to help his team to culinary glory. But will the chefs be able to execute t...
Oct 01, 2016•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Invasive species or pests are animals that end up in an ecosystem that is not their natural home. They pose a huge environmental risk to local ecosystems and food systems. But perhaps there is a solution and it might involve getting our taste buds used to the idea of eating them. Some of us are doing it already. One of the most popular items on one London menu is the pesky grey squirrel. We also head to Australia to hear how feral camels have found an unlikely market with an immigrant community....
Sep 24, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's widely agreed that bugs could be a sustainable source of protein for humans in the future, but large-scale production is very labour intensive. As the BBC’s Katy Watson discovers, in Mexico - where there is a long bug-eating tradition - the infrastructure required for a profitable bug industry is almost non-existent. In the US though, where the idea of having insects for lunch still turns most stomachs, some farmers are adding bugs to protein bars and crushing them into powder for health-co...
Sep 17, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast It could be argued that our global economy is in some ways, driven by drivers. That is, long-haul truckers who carry goods from one side of a country to another. But truck driving is a profession that is struggling to recruit new members and a lot of it has to do with lifestyle and what’s available to eat. The BBC’s Mike Johnson discovers that a lack of fresh food options, combined with a sedentary lifestyle and strict schedules, leave truck drivers facing a higher rate of obesity and a shortene...
Sep 10, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Next month, the world’s current largest beer maker, AB InBev is expected to take over the world’s second largest beer maker, SABMiller. If the plan goes ahead, together they will become the world's largest brewer, making about one out of every three beers around the world. But many, craft beer drinkers especially, do not like the idea of a single company making so much of our brew. The BBC’s Manuela Saragosa asks whether their concerns are valid - or whether it is all just froth. She talks to be...
Sep 02, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast What is 'natural' food and is it better for us? We explore the language of food labelling. Does a product bearing the word 'natural' on its label make you more likely to buy it? Or, is describing food as 'natural' just a marketing trick? We hear from a cattle farmer in the US state of Vermont who stopped using growth hormones on his herd so that the meat can be sold as 'natural'. Consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow, professor emeritus at Goldengate University in the US, explains how companies marke...
Aug 27, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our second episode of Survival Stories further explores our relationship with food in the most extreme circumstances. What choices do we make about what we eat, when we’re all alone in the wild? Do our reflexes, instincts and tastes change? First, the story of Steve Callahan, who was adrift on an inflatable raft in the middle of the Atlantic ocean for 76 days. He tells the BBC’s Emily Thomas how he began to make three courses out of just one fish, and how it felt when his only companions and fri...
Aug 20, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast What happens when your food choices are determined by nothing but the environment around you and your own resolve? The Food Chain follows the story of 72- year-old grandmother Ann Rodgers, who went missing in the Arizona wilderness in March 2016. In this illustrated food survival story, we examine the food choices we make when left with just our animal instincts. The BBC's Emily Thomas uncovers the science behind those decisions too – and what happens to our bodies when our diet goes from balanc...
Aug 13, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast How much could your diet affect your ability to have a child? Throughout history, harvest and the abundance of food have been associated with the creation of life. Join us on a journey from ancient traditions to the latest science. When the vegetable sellers of east London shed little light on which foods make us fertile, the BBC’s Emily Thomas goes to the Wellcome Library to look through some 16th century recipe books with Dr Jennifer Evans from the University of Hertfordshire. From stags' test...
Aug 06, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fruit in the summer, grain in the autumn - our diets once consisted of eating what was around us and what was in season. But we now live in a global food village, where in many countries the idea of eating seasonally has been consigned to history. In the 21st Century we ship, fly and truck our food supply across huge distances. Britain, for example, imports 90% of its fresh fruit. The BBC’s Mike Johnson is dockside at one of Europe’s biggest ports to hear how - and why - the world is racking up ...
Jul 30, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why is cheese essential when the German Chancellor comes for dinner? For millennia, international relations have been massaged by the chefs working inside palaces and state kitchens. The BBC’s Dan Saladino finds out about their unusual vocation and how their food might have influenced some of the biggest decisions in history. He meets Gilles Bragard, the founder of the world’s most exclusive culinary club, Le Club des Chefs Des Chefs, which brings together twenty people who cook for Heads of Sta...
Jul 26, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week we're looking at what happens when the worlds of food and beauty collide. The BBC's Emily Thomas explores how the market for nutricosmetics - foods that have claimed beauty benefits - is growing by 10% every year. A beauty blogger in Tokyo explains why she thinks these products are already popular in Asia, particularly Japan. In China, the concept of beauty from within sits comfortably with traditional medicine. One 'beauty food' that's been consumed for thousands of years is gelatin f...
Jul 16, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast The BBC’s Dan Saladino takes a journey on a newly built road through the remote mountains of the country’s north in search of a slice of mishavin cheese. After decades of communist rule, Albania started its transition to democracy in 1991. It hasn’t been easy. The country, which borders Greece and Macedonia, remains one of the poorest in Europe; it experienced massive rural depopulation, emigration and has stubbornly high levels of unemployment. However, many are convinced one answer to many of ...
Jul 09, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast The British people have voted to quit the European Union. That would leave the UK once again in charge of its own agricultural and fisheries policy – so what should that future look like? Could we see a return to the Cod Wars, where countries used gunboat diplomacy to assert their fishing rights? We hear from fishermen in Scotland, keen to win back control over their waters. Plus, dairy farmers in Cornwall tell us they fear a future where exports to the EU may become more expensive. And, we look...
Jul 02, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's not what you eat, but the way that you eat it on this week's The Food Chain. As people are exposed to cuisines from all over the world, we ask if there has been a global shrugging off of table manners. From how we sit, to the tools we use, is there a best way to consume food? And what do your eating implements of choice - hands, cutlery, or chopsticks - say about your cultural identity? We start at Lalibela, an Ethiopian restaurant in North London where experts in dining etiquette and histo...
Jun 25, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast A rebel grandmother faces losing her livelihood after smuggling maple syrup in Canada, a Vermont gardener stocks fridges full of seeds, an artist plants vegetables on the streets of Los Angeles, and a widow in India blames ‘foreign seeds’ for a string of suicides. Meet the rebels and revolutionaries fighting back against what some see as a growing food dictatorship. Just six companies sell almost two-thirds of the world's seeds, and potential takeovers raise the possibility that number could shr...
Jun 18, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast As the Olympic torch edges closer to Rio, we explore how food can make you a better athlete. We start in Brazil where we meet the man responsible for feeding the best athletes on the planet - from a kitchen the size of three football fields. Our producer has a kick about with Arsenal Football Club’s nutritionist in London, and we talk to Olympians past and present about what they eat. We delve into the science of nutrigenomics and ask whether you can give athletes an edge by designing their diet...
Jun 11, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast How has one of the world’s smallest countries become one of its biggest food producers? This week we visit a tiny nation responsible for the second largest exports of farmed food. Its vegetable, fruit, and livestock farmers are pushing the limits of productivity – how do they get so much food out of so little land? We visit a dairy farm run almost entirely by robots, one of the country’s many industrial-sized greenhouses, and a farm on the roof of a former factory. With the planet’s soaring popu...
Jun 04, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast We know that both smoking and obesity can contribute to an early death. In fact health professionals are now telling us that junk food is even worse than tobacco. But do the parallels between the two industries run deeper than that? They have both been accused of cynical marketing, powerful lobbying and trying to avoid regulation. Some people have even suggested big food is taking a leaf from the big tobacco playbook. Manuela Saragosa asks whether junk food is the new smoking.
May 28, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fish are a vital source of protein around the world, but there are ever more fishermen chasing ever fewer fish. Most wild fisheries are at, or near, breaking point and it is estimated up to a third of all fish are caught illegally, feeding an underworld of crime. We find out how the growing pressure is leading to violent clashes on the high seas and joins an Indonesian coastguard patrol chasing and shooting vessels out of their waters. We ask Interpol how it is trying to police the oceans and fi...
May 21, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pet food is a global multi-billion dollar industry, but does it cater more to us humans than our four-legged friends? We swap the dinner plate for the dog bowl to find out what we feed our furry companions, and why. We examine the pet food supply chain and find out how intertwined it is with our own, both in terms of raw materials and regulation. And with pet obesity and diabetes increasing in many parts of the world, we ask if we have passed on our own bad eating habits and talk to those trying...
May 14, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast How does a country feed itself following an earthquake, flood or drought? The Food Chain looks at the role of food in disaster relief - from the emergency response to the longer-term efforts to restore devastated farmland. We speak to Nepal's farmers to hear how they coped in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake. An aid worker scrambled to Kathmandu tells us how the World Food Programme hired 25,000 mountaineers to deliver food to remote communities cut off by the disaster. We go behind the scen...
May 07, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast It has been described as the ultimate marketing trick, but the allure of bottled water is something more and more people are swallowing. With global sales set to overtake those of soda, The Food Chain asks why so many of us are paying for something we could easily get for free. With prices of some bottles hundreds of times more expensive than the tap we visit a water testing lab to see if there is any difference between them. The industry claims it offers a healthier alternative to soda drinks, ...
Apr 30, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast The animals we eat consume more than 60% of the world’s antibiotics - but not always because they are sick. This week, the Food Chain explores the controversy over the use of antibiotics in agriculture to promote growth and prevent illness. Amid dire warnings that we are heading into a dangerous new world of resistance to antibiotics, we ask whether there really is a link between their use on farms and human resistance. From large scale agricultural businesses in China, to small scale farmers in...
Apr 16, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast As part of the BBC’s Identity season we meet the people who feed us after hours, following the characters and cuisines that only come out after dark. Starting with the heady rush of a London kebab shop, Mike Johnson explores late night food culture around the globe. In an increasingly 24-hour world, how and when we eat is changing. What do our late night food habits say about our identities? We meet the late-night taco eaters of Mexico City, and find out why Hong Kong street vendors are under th...
Apr 09, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s life like for a career waiter at the top of their game? The Food Chain looks at the business of serving and pleasing the ever-fickle customer. The food service industry is facing a cycle of disruption, with business practices changing as rapidly as the customers at lunch hour. We'll look at the current topic du jour - the controversy of tipping and how a movement to democratize the service industry may leave some minimum wage earners struggling to keep up. Manuela Saragosa contemplates th...
Apr 02, 2016•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
