Episode description

The psychologist Kimberley Wilson lays bear the truism ‘we are what we eat’. In Unprocessed: How the Food We Eat is Fuelling our Mental Health Crisis she bring into sharp focus the known links between diet, brain, behaviour and mental health. She tells Tom Sutcliffe how the government’s failure to address poor nutrition is a catastrophe.

Rebecca O’Connell’s research focuses on the social, cultural and economic reasons that shape what children and families eat, and the part food plays in their everyday lives. With the cost of living crisis and an increase in families suffering food poverty, she looks at the capacity to ‘choose’ to buy healthier food, and what other countries, like Portugal, have achieved in prioritising school meals.

But what about the food itself and how it’s grown? The author of The Ethical Carnivore, Louise Gray, turns her attention to fruit and veg in her latest book, Avocado Anxiety And Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From. Tracking from farm to table, Gray discovers the impact that growing fruits and vegetables has on the planet.

Producer: Katy Hickman