The Food Chain

Why eat with your hands?

Many food cultures around the world eat using hands, and most of us use our hands some of the time. Do we really need cutlery or chopsticks to eat a salad, peas or rice? And if you were to tackle soup or stew with your hands, how would you go about it?

Michael Kaloki reports from Nairobi, Kenya, where the staple dish ugali, made from maize flour, is traditionally eaten by hand. Michael has observed that people increasingly use cutlery to eat the dish, and he speaks to restaurateurs and customers about why that might be, and what might be lost.

Ruth Alexander learns about the etiquette of eating by hand with food writer and consultant Karen Anand in India. And Ruth explores whether food might be more enjoyable, and even taste better, when eaten by hand. Psychologist Professor Charles Spence from Oxford University, and chef Jozef Youssef of Kitchen Theory in the UK share their research.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk

Presented by Ruth Alexander.

Produced by Beatrice Pickup.

Reporting by Michael Kaloki in Nairobi, Kenya.

(Image: a man’s hands, pulling apart a sweet cake wrapped in dough, with sauce on his hands. Credit: Getty Images/ BBC)

Stunning cakes, colourful salads and intricate garnishes use flowers to entice customers, but there’s more to this trend than just beautiful social media pictures.

Many cultures around the world have eaten flowers for centuries, and some of them pack a serious punch.

Devina Gupta explores the history of edible flowers and visits a site in the UK where they’re grown all year round. She gets quite a shock when trying one particular variety.

We find out why flowers are used on food nowadays, and how generations of knowledge about their use and properties were lost when they were brought to Western countries.

If you would like to get in touch with the programme, email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk.

Presented by Devina Gupta

Produced by Julia Paul and Beatrice Pickup

(Image: A nasturtium flower growing. Credit: BBC)

Do you know how much salt you should be eating?

And if I tell you it’s less than 5 grams a day, do you know how much that is?

Ruth Alexander explores the wonder of salt and why chefs think their job would be pointless without it and why the impact it’s having on the food might surprise you.

Professor Paul Breslin tells us about the “magical” chemical reaction happening on your tongue when you eat salt, and why your brain responds to that.

We hear about what eating too much salt can do to you from an expert in Australia, as well as a mother in Kazakhstan who cut out salt almost completely – in a country which has one of the highest consumptions in the world.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk

Presented by Ruth Alexander

Produced by Hannah Bewley

(Image: A chef sprinkles salt on a pan of food. Credit: BBC)

Over two million people work in the international shipping trade, and they are often at sea for months at a time.

That’s a lot of meals being made by the cook on board, and their work is crucial for keeping the crew happy.

Ruth Alexander hears from seafarers about why that makes “cookie” the most important person on board a ship and why, in some cases, crew members are going hungry.

A former captain of merchant vessels tells us how food is used for so-called “facilitation payments” to corrupt officials, and why crews can sometimes be powerless to stop port officials filling up suitcases with food from the ship’s stores.

We also hear about international efforts to try to tackle corruption in ports and increase welfare standards for seafarers.

If you would like to share your own experience, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Ruth Alexander

Producers: Izzy Greenfield and Hannah Bewley

(Image: A container ship at sea. Credit: Getty Images)

What’s the secret behind the on-screen chemistry shared by some TV chef duos?

The recent death of Dave Myers, one half of ‘The Hairy Bikers’ with Si King, has prompted this programme celebrating successful food friendships. Dave and Si made food shows and cookbooks that took their fans all over the world, and off-screen they were close friends.

In this programme Ruth Alexander speaks to two chefs who have found success in food with a good friend.

Ruth Rogers, co-founder of The River Cafe restaurant in London, talks about her partnership with the late Rose Gray, who died in 2010. Together they presented ‘The Italian Kitchen’ for Channel 4 in the UK in 1998.

Italian chef Gennaro Contaldo talks about his long friendship and work with the late chef Antonio Carluccio, and the TV series they made together for the BBC, ‘Two Greedy Italians’ in 2011 and 2012. Gennaro also talks about his friendship with the chef Jamie Oliver to whom he’s been a mentor.

Presented by Ruth Alexander.

Produced by Beatrice Pickup.

(Image: Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray plating dishes at The River Cafe restaurant in London. Credit: Maurice ROUGEMONT/Getty Images/ BBC)

Why are humans so vulnerable to big promises about food? Emily Thomas meets some people who became convinced salvation lay in what they ate, and a neurologist who explains why food can make us lose our powers of critical thinking. Plus, the story of a woman who fooled hundreds of thousands of people - as well as vast corporations - into believing she’d cured brain cancer with her diet.

*This is not a programme about a food that will save your life.

(Picture: Black pot. Credit: Getty Images)

Three women who fled the countries they were born in because of war or conflict tell us how food helped them rebuild their lives, explore family secrets, and reconnect with their cultures.

Their experiences are very different, but they all share a yearning to regain what they have lost through food. Emily Thomas talks to Razan Alsous, a Syrian refugee who has built a successful cheese business in the north of England; Cambodian-American Nite Yun who has used her cooking business to understand the family history that her parents never spoke of; and Mandana Moghaddam who runs Persian cooking lessons in London, having fled Iran with her family after the revolution.

(Photo: Barbed wire heart. Credit: Getty Images)

The world’s first genetically engineered animal for human consumption landed on Canadian dinner tables last year. Its arrival did not go by without controversy. Emily Thomas meets the company who created the fast-growing salmon and asks why it took the best part of thirty years for it to make its slow swim from laboratory to plate.

Plus, we gauge reaction from consumers and scientists and get to the heart of an emotive and controversial debate that has been raging for decades: Is genetic engineering a distraction from addressing the real issues of animal welfare and economic inequality in the food system? What are the risks, and is the public ready for it?

(Picture: Cow on the horizon, Credit: Getty Images)

A deadly and highly contagious disease is spreading across Europe's pig farms. African Swine Fever Virus doesn't harm humans, but once it infects domestic and wild pigs almost all of them die through internal bleeding within days.

More than a million pigs are thought to have died as a result of the latest outbreak, devastating hundreds of farms and damaging exports. It's the first time the virus has ever hit Europe's pig farming heartland. With a vaccine still years off, and amid fears the disease could reach as far as China, we ask if the virus can be stopped, and how. Emily Thomas meets people who think the answer lies in building fences between countries, genetically engineering pigs, and even calling in the army to hunt down disease-spreading wild boar.

(Picture: A pig in a sty. Credit: Getty Images)

Can you think of a food you would travel across continents for?

Emily Thomas meets people who have gone to extreme lengths for one special meal or ingredient. From a writer searching for a fruit in West Africa to better understand his ancestors, to a curry-lover who chartered a plane to deliver his favourite Indian takeaway.

What is the difference between a food pilgrim and a food tourist, and what dangers might culinary travel bring? Plus, what happens when an entire country decides no distance is too great for its favourite fish?

(Photo: Man with backpack looking into distance. Credit: Getty Images)

If you could not taste your food, what would you eat? Would you even want to? Taste disorders are rare, but they can have devastating impacts on people's lives. They can also tell us a lot about our food.

Emily Thomas meets a cookery writer who says she wanted to die after a car accident robbed her of taste. But as the sense slowly returned she became a more experimental cook.

And a man who has not been able to taste anything for five years, explains how it has changed his social life, and how he has found innovative ways to enjoy his food.

Plus, we hear calls for more research to develop treatments for these disorders, and how taste could be key in the early diagnosis of dementia.

(Photo: A hand holding a black apple. Credit: Getty Images)

Chef Gordon Ramsay is world-famous but, he tells us, people no longer want to talk about his food. The celebrity has become known as much for his cookery programmes, his fiery temper and explosive outbursts, as for his culinary skills.

This week, the focus is back on the food, as Gordon speaks to Emily Thomas about the five most memorable meals he has ever had and how they have shaped him as a chef - from his mother’s macaroni and cheese on a council estate in the West Midlands, to smuggled cheese soufflés at Le Gavroche.

Gordon's dishes are: Mum's Mac and Cheese with smoked bacon; soufflé Suissesse at Le Gavroche; braised pigs' trotters with cabbage at Casa Del Pescatore near Verona; rum baba at Le Louis XV; and his own chickpea curry.

(Photo: Gordon Ramsay. Credit: BBC/Getty Images)

Wine has been getting more and more alcoholic in recent decades, driven by consumer tastes and climate change. This has big implications not only for public health, but also the quality of the bottle.

But making a lower alcohol wine that is still full of flavour is extremely complicated, especially when growing grapes in rising temperatures – some have called it the profession’s Holy Grail.

Emily Thomas meets those trying to solve the puzzle: a Chilean vineyard owner; a climate change and grape variety academic; and an Australian scientist whose raspberry-flavoured Chardonnay could hold the key.

(Picture: Wine cellar. Credit: Getty Images)

Does food ever make you laugh out loud? We try to stand up the theory that food is getting funnier because modern diets make it a richer sauce of comedy.

Comedy about food seems to have moved a long way from oddly shaped vegetables and Charlie Chaplin slipping on a banana skin, to something more nuanced. Now we seem to be laughing at the way we eat - with ever more comedy acts, TV programmes and YouTube videos poking fun at diet trends, restaurant customs and cookery shows. Has the way we eat become so obsessive and complicated - that food has quite literally become a laughing stock?

Emily Thomas meets comedians JP Sears, Tats Nkonzo and Alex Thomopoulos, and comedy expert Delia Chiaro to explore the comedy potential of food. You know, just for laughs.

(Photo: A king feasting alone in a banquet hall. Credit: Getty Images)

Technology giants are gobbling up the online grocery market - and over the past year we’ve seen Amazon and Alibaba getting their teeth into bricks and mortar too.

But do they want to transform the supermarket experience, or is this about harvesting even more consumer data?

And what will all of this mean for farmers, your pocket, and the quality and sustainability of your food?

Emily Thomas discusses with Brittain Ladd, a strategy, supply chain and logistics expert who formerly worked for Amazon leading worldwide expansion for Amazon Fresh, Pantry and Groceries; Scott Marlow, senior policy specialist for Rural Advancement Foundation International, a non-profit organization based in North Carolina supporting family farms; and Amanda Long, Director General of Consumers International, which works to empower and champion the rights of consumers.

Plus, we visit Farmdrop, a London-based startup which aims to give customers a more ethical online shopping experience.

(Photo: a picture of the hand of a young man holding an ice lolly against a pink background. Credit: Getty Images)

Have you ever wondered what to do with a watermelon outside the kitchen? Or how many hot dogs a person can eat in 10 minutes?

It's time to find out with The Food Chain Quiz 2017. Get ready for some strange but wonderful food stories and play along with our two teams: chef Cyrus Todiwala and La Fromagerie founder Patricia Michelson versus food historian Marc Meltonville and Ghanaian food writer and TV cook Fafa Gilbert.

Emily Thomas hosts this challenging and at times bizarre battle for the coveted wooden spoon.

Rounds include: What Happens Next? What’s this Sound? And back by popular demand …. The Lucky Dip.

(Photo credit: Getty Images)

Fancy a career change? If you're not doing it already, what would it take to make you a farmer? Would smart technology, matchmaking websites or reality TV do it?

In our second episode to explore the problem of the world’s ageing agricultural workers Emily Thomas hears about some innovative and surprising attempts to re-brand farming.

Is education or technology the answer, does farming need a re-brand, OR is it just too hard for most farmers to make a living - and does the global food system itself need to change?

It matters - if the farmers die out, where will you get your food in the future?

(Picture: Young farm girl. Credit: Getty Images)

The average age of farmers globally is thought to be around 60, and rising. So where have all the young farmers gone and who is going to farm our food in the future? It’s an issue that could affect every single one us and the food we eat.

Emily Thomas meets families in Kenya, the UK and the Netherlands to find out how farmer’s sons and daughters really feel about taking over the family business. How much of a role do economics, regulations, lifestyle and public perceptions play in driving them from agriculture?

This is the first of two episodes to explore why so many young people across the globe are turning away from farming, and what can be done to tempt them back.

(Photo: Young woman standing in an empty ploughed field. Credit: Getty Images)

Why have so few African cuisines made it onto the world’s culinary stage? Whether it's Michelin stars, popular restaurant chains, or even takeaways and street food, the continent’s gastronomy isn’t anywhere near as prominent as Chinese, Italian or Indian in many parts of the globe.

Emily Thomas talks to chefs from Nigeria, Senegal and Eritrea to hear what they think is holding their food back from achieving global prominence - is it economics, culture or taste? And what can be done about it?

(Photo: Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam displays his food in New York City. Credit: Getty Images)

We're in Bologna, Italy as FICO Eataly World opens its doors to a curious public. Its mission is to educate people about Italian food, and attract 6 million tourists a year. But is a shopping mall really the best way for the Italians to reclaim the authenticity of their food?

Italian food is known and loved across the world, but much of what is consumed doesn't actually come from Italy. Could what some are calling 'the Disneyland of food', be the answer to increasing understanding and boosting exports?

Emily Thomas takes a trip around the park, speaks to the people behind the project, and visits local producers in Bologna.

(Photo: Chef with pasta. Credit: Getty Images)

Chewing gum seems to be on a mission to reinvent itself. There’s little we’re told it can’t do these days - prevent tooth decay, cure hangovers, even improve our vision.

As sales of gum flat line, we explore it's ability to take on new guises, and meet people who even believe it can be used to detect cancer and help end malnutrition. Could chewing gum save your life?

An expert on food regulation explains why the majority of gums with health claims are rejected, and presenter Emily Thomas meets a man who tried to solve one of gum’s stickiest and costliest problems.

Plus we'll ask whether we should we stop working so hard to find a purpose for this food we can't swallow, and find other, more environmentally-friendly solutions?

(Photo: Girl with chewing gum. Credit: Getty Images)

Does your favourite drink taste better from a bottle, cup or can? Are foods enhanced by particular plates, or packaging? Or is it all in your head?

Emily Thomas is joined by materials specialist Ellie Doney and food psychologist Charles Spence to find out exactly how the containers we eat and drink from can change the way food tastes.

From British fish and chips wrapped in yesterday’s news to clay tea cups in Kolkata and a pot unwashed for decades, we explore some traditional serving methods and find out why we may be discarding more than we think when we throw them away.

(Photo: Woman in large cup of coffee. Credit: Getty Images)

What happens to your body when you eat 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes, and why would thousands of people watch you do it? We’re exploring the curious appeal of competitive eating, and its impact on our stomachs, minds and society around us. What does the popularity of eating competitions tell us about our changing relationship with food? And why do humans appear to have such an appetite for watching other people regurgitate it?

In the second episode to explore the curious appeal of competitive eating, presenter Emily Thomas gives it a go, and speaks to a doctor about the potential risks. We find out what goes on inside the body of a speed eater and just how big their stomachs get. Is it nature or nurture that allows people to consume such vast quantities of food?

We also hear from a man who says competitive eating helped him get over anorexia nervosa, and find out what a psychiatrist thinks.

Competitive eating can be dangerous, especially outside of a controlled environment, so please do not try this at home.

We speak to some of the world's most successful competitive eaters and find out how, and why, they do it.

In the first of two episodes on the so-called sport, four ‘gurgitators’ tell us what it takes to eat the most hot dogs, corncobs or burgers in the shortest possible time.

This is not something you should try at home.

Emily Thomas speaks to one of the industry's biggest names, Takeru Kobayashi, a man credited with revolutionising competitive eating and turning it into a sport. We hear from New Yorker Yasir Salem, who combines speed-eating with triathlons and marathons, and Londoner Kate Ovens tells us how she is making a career from posting videos of eating challenges online, attracting thousands of fans in the process.

(Photo: Hand holding burger. Credit: Getty Images)

Join us for five unforgettable dishes from one extraordinary life as the food writer and actress Madhur Jaffrey reveals some rather surprising mealtimes - from a swimming lesson with a watermelon, to a dinner disaster with jazz legend, Dizzy Gillespie.

The food writer and award-winning actress has written more than 15 cookbooks, many of them bestsellers, and has been credited with changing the way people outside India think about the country’s food. She joins the BBC's Emily Thomas to talk about the meals that have shaped her remarkable career.

(Photo: Madhur Jaffrey. Credit: Penguin Books)

We're in South Africa again to find out whether fly larvae could help humans eat more meat and fish.

As the global population expands, traditional feed sources such as fishmeal, soya and grains, could put increasing pressure on the environment, depleting oceans and reducing biodiversity. Alternative protein sources based on insects are being developed by a number of companies across the world. In this episode we explore whether they are as effective as traditional feeds, and how big the industry is likely to get.

Plus, might maggots be able to ease the world’s landfill problems too?

Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Photo: Black soldier fly. Credit: Getty images).

This week we’re in South Africa, picking up great big squirming handfuls of maggots. Could these unpalatable little creatures hold the answer to some big questions – what to do about the huge amount of waste going into landfill, and how to meet the world’s growing demand for a sustainable supply of farmed fish, pigs and poultry?

A company called Agriprotein thinks its fly farm is the solution. They've just won The Food Chain’s first Global Champion Award - which recognises innovative ideas that could have a longstanding impact on the way we produce or consume food. The Food Chain's Emily Thomas gets up close to their armada of over 9 billion flies in the first of two episodes to explore the potential of using insects as a protein source for animal and fish feed.

Why do farmers feed their cows sweets? What are the implications for the animals’ health, the environment and the taste of our meat?

From the mystery of a rural US highway covered in Skittles, to chocolate-flavoured steak selling for hundreds of dollars, we explore the impact of feeding cows the byproducts of human food production.

Plus, we take our own bag of treats onto the farm and discover cows have rather expensive tastes.

Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Picture: A cow eating a chocolate bar.)

Meet the people determined to revolutionise what and how we eat as we launch our first ever international award.

We hear about the four shortlisted projects hoping to be named The Food Chain Global Champion, including an insect-based cooking oil, a beekeeper empowering women in northern India, a maggot-based animal feed, and a global movement seeking to transform food and agriculture.

We’ll also hear form our international panel of judges on their reasons for shortlisting the final four, and a slam poet’s verdict in verse.

The Food Chain Global Food Champion Award recognises a person or project whose work in the economics, science, or culture of food has (or has the potential to have), a global impact on how we produce, process, consume or think about food and drink. The winner will be revealed later this month.

Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Photo: Sahida Begum inspects her bees in the Araku valley, in the in the northern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Credit: Sahida Begum.)

For 20 years Sandor Katz has been fascinated by fermentation - the breaking down of food and drink by microbes. Through his books and workshops he has helped thousands of people begin to experiment with flavours, fruits, vegetables, spices... and microorganisms.

Dan Saladino travels to Sandor's forest home in rural Tennessee to meet Sandor, hear his story, and discover for himself the transformative potential of this culinary process.

Producer: Rich Ward

What does your choice of loaf say about you? Is your sourdough a source of pride? Have you ever felt ashamed of your sliced white?

Flour, water, and salt - over thousands of years the basic recipe for bread has changed very little. But often there's been a dollop of judgement thrown in too.

From Plato to modern-day Cairo, in this episode we’re talking about the ever-changing relationship between bread and social class. How have certain types of loaf come to have different moral and social meanings? And, can bread divide a society?

Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Photo: Loaf of bread. Credit: Getty Images)

Are you the kind of person who can’t help taking a picture of your food before you eat it? Do you search out Facebook foods, Twitter tips and Instagram ideas for new restaurants and recipes? Or maybe the very thought of all this puts you off your lunch.

This week we meet foodies, writers and experts to discuss where education ends and obsession begins. The BBC’s Manuela Saragosa talks to: Adaobi Okonkwo, who blogs about food under the name Dobby in Lagos; and Anna Barnett, who is a blogger, contributor to Vogue and Grazia, and author of cookery book “Eat The Week”. She also speaks to Ursula Philpot, registered dietitian and senior lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University; and Eve Turow Paul, a millennial food expert and writer.

(Photo: Woman takes picture of food on phone. Credit: Getty Images).

We’re on the hunt for the world’s biggest stashes of food.

Can the food system handle a big shock, or is it time to stock up on your supplies? In last week’s episode we met people doing just that - stockpiling food in anticipation of anything from a major natural disaster, to the apocalypse. They had little faith that their governments would be able to keep the food supply under control in extreme circumstances. This week we set out to test their assumptions.

From forgotten World War Two food sheds to Switzerland’s stockpiling sirens, which companies and governments are storing food in bulk? Where are they keeping it? Who can access it? And, if disaster strikes, will any get to you?

Presenter: Emily Thomas Contributors: Tony Lister, Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, Professor Tim Benton, University of Leeds, Tracey Allen, J.P. Morgan, Corinne Fleisher, World Food Programme.

(Photo: abandoned warehouse. Credit: Getty Images)

How long would your food supply last if you were unable to buy any food? Are you prepared for the worst is a hurricane hits, the floodwaters rise or the stock markets crash? Maybe your cupboards are full - but what if you had no electricity or gas to cook? Or if the water supply was turned off? And, if there was total breakdown of social order - could you defend the food you have?

This week we meet the people who are stockpiling food in anticipation of anything from an earthquake to the apocalypse. They call themselves 'preppers'.Do they know something you don’t? When society is falling apart, do taste or texture matter? And when does stockpiling food become hoarding?

The BBC’s Emily Thomas goes in search of some secret stockpiles to find the best post-apocalyptic food plans.

With contributors: Pete Stanford, Lincoln Miles, owner, Preppers Shop, Henry Hargreaves, Photographer, Lisa Bedford, The Survival Mom, and Kate Daigle, psychologist.

It’s a food problem that can prove fatal - and we might be about to crack it. The first licensed medicines to treat peanut allergy are close to being approved by regulators. But we ask – why has it taken so long?

For over a century we’ve known that an allergy can be treated by controlled exposure to the allergen. Simply put, the treatment of a peanut allergy is a very small dose of peanut. So when the prevalence of allergies began to soar in the 1990s you could have been forgiven for thinking a solution might not be far off. But as yet, there are no licensed medicines for widespread use. Some clinicians already use the technique – known as immunotherapy – but it is unregulated and the cost is prohibitive for many.

This could all be about to change. Two treatments are expected to be approved by regulators in the next couple of years. It couldn't have happened without the involvement of charitable donors, venture capitalists, and pharmaceutical companies. The food industry has also invested millions.

In this episode we explore the relationship between profit and progress when it comes to solving a serious food health problem. Why has it taken until now to get to this point? And, when the worst possible outcome is the death of a child, isn’t total avoidance of peanuts the safest option?

Contributors: Dr Louisa James, Queen Mary University of London, Lisa and Clara Goff, Dr Andrew Clark, Cambridge Peanut Allergy Clinic and Chief Scientific Officer, Camallergy, Dr Pierre-Henri Benhamou, DBV technologies, Stephen Dilly, Aimmune Therapeutics, and Dr Robert Wood, John Hopkins Children’s Centre.

Presenter: Emily Thomas

We're continuing our adventures in east Africa with the Hadza – a skilled tribe of hunter gatherers who could be the last remaining link to our ancient food past. We join them as they hunt and forage, eating baobab for breakfast and enjoying some very unusual honey, all in the quest to discover the ideal human diet.

The reason the scientists and geneticists are so interested in the Hadza, is because it’s thought they can help us better understand our complex relationship with our gut microbiome – the community of microbes that live inside us all. It’s thought the microbiome exerts such a powerful influence on our health it’s considered now to be in an organ in its own right, and the Hadza have a diversity of gut microbes unmatched by any group on earth. So if the Hadza can help us understand the microbiome and where our modern diets have gone wrong in depleting gut microbe diversity, perhaps the secrets of the their diet can help us all become healthier humans.

This week we’re going to be telling what might be the oldest food story in the world.

The Hadza of Tanzania, east Africa, are one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer communities in the world and the last remaining link to our ancient food past.

The total population of the group now stands at around one thousand, with up to two hundred living as pure hunter-gatherers, who grow nothing, and practice no form of farming. They’ve lived in this part of east Africa for at least 40 thousand years and food for the Hadza has remained relatively unchanged.

We meet the community, who walk in the footsteps of our human ancestors, joining them as they hunt for porcupine, climb 30 feet up a tree in search of honey, dig deep for tubers and snack on berries picked from trees. Through this insight into what our earliest human ancestors ate, we learn about our own human development and the crucial link between the food we eat, and the crucial microbiomes we carry in our digestive systems. Using these discoveries, the Hadza can help give us much needed ideas for our food future.

With contributors: Jeff Leach, Founder of the Human Food Project; Tim Spector, Professor of genetics at Kings College London.

Presenter: Dan Saladino, in collaboration with BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme

What if we told you something had been added to your food that could affect your health? You can't see it, you won’t taste it, and you might not have realised it’s there at all.

Most of us will eat something that has been fortified with micronutrients – small amounts of minerals and vitamins - every day. But who is adding them to our food - and why? And does a focus on fortification by development agencies mean valuable resources have been diverted from tackling underlying causes of malnutrition in the developing world? Mandatory fortification is when food manufacturers are required by law to add certain vitamins or minerals to foods. The other type of food fortification is voluntary - meaning it’s at the discretion of the manufacturer to add nutrients from a government-approved list. Some argue this leads to foods being fortified for commercial purposes, rather than genuine public health concerns.

We’ll be speaking to global food company, Nestle, which is on a mission to fortify more of its processed food - and to one of the main NGOs involved in fortifying staple foods in the developing world, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. We also visit a bakery in London, and a street market in Accra, Ghana to hear what the consumer makes of all this.

With contributors: Gordon Polson, Federation of Bakers in the UK, Mark Lawrence Professor in Public Health Nutrition at Deakin University, Australia, Wayne England, senior Vice President for the Global Strategy Unit at Nestle, Barrie Margetts, Emeritus Professor within Medicine, University of Southampton, UK and Lawrence Haddad, GAIN.

Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Photo: Milk being poured into an overflowing bowl of cornflakes. Credit: Getty Images)

Even if you’ve never picked up a book of recipes - cookbooks will have had a huge influence on how you live.

What may appear to be mere collections of ingredients and cooking methods, sometimes tell us just as much about social class, politics and gender.

We explore how cookery books have been used to demonstrate power, strengthen colonial and soviet ideology, and divide society by class and race.

Do we see these dividing lines reflected in today’s publishing industry? And what does your choice of cookbook say about you?

Plus - why did a stuffed peacock leave 150 Harvard undergraduates aghast?

With contributors: Barbara Ketcham-Wheaton, food historian and honorary curator of the culinary collection at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University; Polly Russell, food historian and curator at The British Library; Sarah Lavelle, publishing director at Quadrille; and Katharina Vester, professor of history at American University, Washington DC.

Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Photo: Man opens book. Credit: Getty Images)

People who have lived into their hundreds explain their food experiences and philosophies, to help us explore relationship between food and longevity. We ask whether despite having a greater variety of food available, and an ever growing abundance of dietary information, are younger generations able to replicate the diets of the oldest people on earth?

Does modern food culture prevent us from emulating the food habits of centenarians? In Acciaroli, Italy,one of the BBC’s longest-standing reporters visits a village where more than one in ten people live more than a century, to find out their diet secrets.

From there to Surrey, England, where 100 year old Helen Clare, a famous war-time singer explains her philosophy to food. Does attitude matter - and have younger generations become too obsessed with what we eat? We meet a man who has visited the oldest communities in the world - and hear their food secrets. What are the similarities between the diet of centenarians in Okinawa, Japan and California, US? Are there certain foods or general food principles that make you live longer? Or is it the company you keep?

Plus, what is the scientific evidence for the link between diet and a longer life? With contributors: Helen Clare, singer, Dan Buettner, author, and John Mathers, scientific director of the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University. Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Photo: Woman eating ice cream. Credit: Getty Images)

How social class has dictated when we eat. From Ancient Greece to New York hipsters, what has determined our mealtimes in the past and who wants them to change now?

For thousands of years when we eat signified where we were in society. It seems this idea may not have been consigned to history - is the resurgence of brunch marking out a new 'creative' social class?

And have you heard of the ‘fourth meal’? Snacking is on the rise - and the food industry might be helping you abandon the three meal model. Is more choice breaking apart the structured meal?

Plus, what exactly is the scientific evidence that any of this matters?

With contributions from: Paul Freedman, Yale University, Shawn Micallef, Author, Tamara Barnett, Vice President of Strategic Insights at The Hartman Group and Satchidananda Panda of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, at Harvard University.

Presenter: Emily Thomas

(Photo: Clock and cutlery. Credit: Getty Images)

For many chefs winning a Michelin star, or two or three, is often considered the pinnacle of their career. It could put them on the path to money and fame. But some critics claim not all stars are equal- and in an industry where receiving one could mean the difference between profit and loss, the stakes are high.

In this episode we take a closer look at the Michelin guide and how two brothers made the name of their tyre business synonymous with the highest quality food in the world. Why do some chefs view earning a Michelin star as a curse, and others as a celebration?

We’ll get a behind the scenes look at the life of a Michelin inspector, with an interview with Claire Dorland-Clauzel, who heads the guides. The BBC's Kent DePinto speaks to Michelin-starred chef Tom Kemble on how the accolade has helped his career. Gary Pisano, professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, talks about the impact of a Michelin star on a restaurant's ability to innovate. The BBC's Ashleigh Nghiem meets the Singaporian street hawker who was awarded a Michelin star. And we hear from food critic Andy Hayler on why he thinks recent partnerships by Michelin with tourist boards may be leading tourists astray.

(Image: a Michelin guide on display. Credit: Kazuhiro Nogi / Getty Images)

If you found some mould on a slice of bread - would you eat it, cut it off, or throw the loaf away? What exactly is that green fur anyway?

In this episode we’re asking whether we’ve become overly cautious about rot, and finding out how our attitudes to decaying food have changed. The BBC's Emily Thomas talks to Chris Wells from Leatherhead Food Research to find out when old food really becomes bad for you. Food historian Helen Zeit from Michigan State University explains how we may have become less tolerant of older food, and Christina Rice of Harvard law and Policy Clinic explains why the consumer is so confused over when to throw food away.

Of course many of us are prepared to put our reservations about old food on hold when something’s presented as a delicacy. We’ll meet people who take pride in eating the oldest food they can – from a Sardinian cheese full of jumping maggots to a man who lived off fermented food alone for a year. Finally we’ll get up close to some creatures which you could call the true masters of the decomposing meal.

(Photo: Mouldy bread. Credit: Getty Images).

When it comes to aspects of cultural life being shared, adopted or borrowed in an increasingly globalised world - where more so than food? But should a culture be able to claim ownership of a cuisine, and should you profit from food that isn’t culturally your own?

In this episode we discuss the cultural appropriation of food. Cultural appropriation can be defined as the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of another culture. Some define it as the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of those elements - which reinforces historically exploitative relationships.

We start in Ottowa Canada where a group of New Zealanders are objecting to the marketing of an energy drink. From there we go to Tennessee in the US where Rachel Martin, a food historian tells us how Hot Chicken has become Nashville’s favourite dish, and why she’s a little uncomfortable about how this happened.

So where do you draw the line between appreciating food and appropriating or misappropriating it? The BBC’s Emily Thomas is joined by four people from the food world who have a real stake in this hot and divisive debate: Michael Twitty, a chef, food writer, and historian; Alex Stupak, a chef and founder of the Empellon Mexican restaurant chain in New York, Rachel Lauden, a food historian, based in Austin Texas, and Clarissa Wei, a food writer from Los Angeles.

(Photo: Tacos being put on display by street vendor. Credit: Getty Images/ Milkos)

Coffee addict Dan Saladino sets out to understand what a cup of tea is really worth. Do we pay enough?

In south west India, food writer Vanessa Kimbell gets up close to the leaf and hears the reality of a hard day’s work from a team of tea pluckers 6000 metres above sea level. From there we move to the Assam region in the north east to hear about an investigation into working conditions on a tea plantation.

Will Battle, author of the World Tea Encyclopedia and a professional tea taster, explains how the global demand for tea has shaped where it’s grown and how it’s traded.

Next, after the long journey from field to cup – what’s the best way to consume a cuppa? Tea tutor Caroline Hope is visited by people from all over the world to learn how the British drink tea.

Finally, we enter a new realm of tea-drinking. Tim Doffay of Postcard Teas in London tells us about some of the world’s most expensive brews.

(Photo: Cup of tea and saucer with gold spoon. Credit: Getty Creative)

A forensic look at food and its crime-solving powers.

We start with one of the most challenging cases London’s murder squad has ever faced. The BBC’s Emily Thomas meets the Metropolitan Police’s former head of homicide investigations, Andy Baker, by the banks of the Thames, to hear how a murder victim’s stomach contents can help detectives.

We meet some hungry criminals – a bank robber with a burger and a thief with his hand in the biscuit tin. Former crime scene investigator Dennis Gentles, from Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland, explains new research to identify fingerprints on food, and David Foran, director of Michigan State University’s forensic science programme, tells us how a half-finished meal left at a crime scene can be a rich source of DNA. But why would a criminal stop for a snack? We speak to criminologist Richard Wright from Georgia State University.

Plus, we find out how food industry technology is being used by detectives. Sheriff Todd Bonner from Wasatch County in Utah tells us how a case that haunted him for 18 years was eventually solved by a vacuum designed for use on food. Finally, the Food Chain’s own Simon Tulett, explores the mystery of the disappearing sausage stew.

Please note - a couple of the cases we describe are of a graphic nature and might be upsetting for some, particularly younger listeners.

(Photo: Apple and outstretched hand. Credit: Getty Creative).

In the antithesis of a cookery programme, we meet people from around the world who can’t, don’t or won’t cook.

Cooking from scratch will bring us health and happiness. Well that’s what we hear from countless cookbooks, magazines, TV shows, celebrity chefs, and even government initiatives. But studies suggest that in countries like the US and the UK people are cooking less than they did in the past.

Is preparing our own food the realistic and logical choice for all of us? What are the social consequences if we don’t?

Who better to tell us than the people who don’t cook? We start in the leafy London suburbs, where the BBC’s Emily Thomas meets some men who have spent most of their lives staying out of the kitchen. From there to a swish hotel in Lagos, Nigeria, for tales of a marriage torn apart by a wife’s inability to cook a certain soup.

The non-cooking continues with Chilean actress Silvia Novak, journalist Bill Saporito in New York, and mum-of-two Melanie Dunn in Connecticut. Might they know something you don’t?

Finally we talk to Sarah Bowen, associate professor at North Carolina State University. For her, the reasons people don’t cook tell us a lot about society and inequality. She thinks the ‘the food evangelists’ are partly to blame.

Yes, there’s no space for master chefs in this week’s episode of the Food Chain.

(Photo: Woman with rolling pin. Credit: Getty Creative).

The wild bluefin tuna is being eaten to extinction, but this hasn’t curbed the global appetite for this valuable fish in Japan and across the globe.In the last 70 years the fish has become a staple of high-end sushi restaurants and celebratory meals. It sells for up to hundreds of thousands of dollars–as to eat bluefin caught in the wild signifies quality. It is the apex of the sushi platter across Japan, which eats about 80% of all the wild bluefin consumed. But the tuna’s popularity is actually a relatively new phenomenon, as tuna was once regarded as a waste product until the middle of the 20th century, and even used for cat food. But recently, the appetite for the huge ocean-going fish has led to an ecological crisis, with projections that wild bluefin will no longer exist in the coming decades. The BBC’s Edwin Lane visits the iconic Tsukiji fish market, the hub of the global tuna trade, and speaks to a sushi chef who can’t bring herself to stop preparing the fish despite the extinction warning, and visits one of the world’s only functioning bluefin farms to talk about why it’s so difficult to raise bluefin tuna in captivity. (Photo: Bluefin tuna on ice Photo credit: Kindai University, Japan)

Ahead of the French national elections, we’re looking at the food and politics of a country that for many is the epicentre of gastronomic excellence, with a tradition stretching back hundreds of years. Some see this crucial ingredient of the country's national identity being nibbled away by global competition.

We talk to French chefs, producers and historians about what the state of French food tells us about the state of French politics. To understand a changing France, do you need to understand the changing French meal?

We’ll be exploring the earliest origins of French cuisine, the foundations of the word ‘gastronomy’ and the advent of 'gastronationalism'.

(Photo: Man holding bowl of croissants. Credit: Getty Images)

** The content in this week’s show requires a fairly strong stomach. So if you’ve got children with you, or you’re a bit squeamish yourself, best to look away now. **

Listen if you dare to this episode of The Food Chain, as we explore the scary, creepy, and spooky stories that people like to tell about what we eat.

Why are some of our scariest stories about food? From the man-eating giants of Ancient Greek mythology, to the real story of Hansel and Gretel, the BBC’s Kent DePinto discusses why some of our scariest stories are about food and what that tells us about the societies that like to share them. We will also hear why many of those stories have their origins in agriculture and early economic systems.

Watch out for the BBC's Regan Morris in California – as she finds out how horror films create their visual effects using bananas and gelatine, and Bryan Fuller, the creator of the television show Hannibal, on how making a programme about a villain with a gruesome diet made him question his own food habits.

And what are we so afraid of? The social science behind why our bodies react to scary stories.

You may just want to leave the lights on.

(Photo: Selection of food and candles. Credit: Getty Images).

When does a ‘healthy diet’ become unhealthy? This week the Food Chain looks at Orthorexia Nervosa - an unofficial term used to describe an eating disorder where people restrict their diet based on the quality and purity of food, rather than its quantity. The BBC’s Emily Thomas talks to women who have suffered from following extreme healthy diets, and hears how their internet use influenced their eating behaviour. We also hear from the people trying to help those whose quality of life is being destroyed in their pursuit of quality food.

If you or someone you know has been affected by eating disorders please see the links to resources at the bottom of this page.

Photo: Woman rejecting water and lettuce Credit: Getty Images

You can now listen to Food Chain starting on Thursdays, so to welcome new listeners, we’re offering up some of the best bits of our award-winning programme exploring the culture, science and economics of everything you eat.

Could you survive at sea for two months on a small raft, relying on your wit to feed you? Steven Callahan did just that. But he had some difficult choices to make when the fish became his only friends.

It's no secret that there is a fierce rivalry between Ghana and Nigeria over who makes the best jollof rice. Singer Sister Deborah talks to The Food Chain about the history of the dish - and what the redness of your jollof says about your culinary skill.

Plus we revisit Chinatown and its chequered history. From Johannesburg to London, the BBC’s Dan Saladino, explores Chinatowns around the world, and hears about the attitudes Chinese workers encountered when they first set up shop in the US.

(Image: A world map made of baking flour. Credit: Roberto David/ Thinkstock)

In our second and final episode on the humble spud, we meet the people who see the global economic future as being potato powered.

The potato is the world's most produced staple food after rice, wheat and corn - yet historically, it was seen as the root of filth, misery and obesity. In our previous episode we heard how over time it came to be used as a tool of power by the state, to create a healthy and robust workforce. This week, food historian Rebecca Earle, tells us that history is repeating itself in China, which is now the world's biggest producer of potatoes.

China's central government sees the potato as key to food security, but it's got some work to do to produce a cultural shift away from rice. We'll be serenaded by one of the country's potato champions, the operatic 'new farmer' Sister Potato, who says she is changing hearts, minds and cuisine with her songs. Then we'll head to the streets of Beijing to gauge enthusiasm and ask can the spud shake off its lowly reputation?

Africa and developing countries have the biggest predicted growth in potato production in the coming decades. But is the world in danger of putting all its spuds in one basket? We’re asking whether the potato is the answer to food security or if the vegetable’s patchy history doomed to repeat itself.

Plus we head to Peru to visit the scientists protecting thousands of varieties of potato, and meet the man who ate nothing but potatoes - for a year.

(Image: A farmer eats a potato in China . Credit: Spencer Platt/ Getty Images)

In its time, the potato has been called the root of filth, misery and obesity - but is it fair to call it the 'food of the poor'?

In the first episode of a two-part series, The Food Chain goes to the very roots of the world's most popular vegetable, digging up some new perspectives on its history.

We visit the British Museum to meet Bill Sillar from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. He explains how the early Andeans and Inca developed innovative ways to cultivate potatoes, but preferred to celebrate maize instead.

From there we move to the kitchens at Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace, and find out how the spud was met with scepticism in Europe when it first arrived. Food historian Marc Meltonville tells the BBC's Emily Thomas how the humble spud was made into pasties and pies.

By the 19th century, the potato had firmly taken root in the west, but it was still subject to widespread disdain. The journalist and farmer, William Cobbett said potatoes should be fed to pigs, not people, and that they were the cause of "slovenliness, filth, misery and slavery". We speak to food historian Rebecca Earle at the University of Warwick, who explains how despite its reputation, the potato has played an important role in agricultural and economic development. The tuber was perhaps one of the very first products of globalization, and we hear how it became equated with a robust and hardy workforce, and associated with capitalism.

Finally, we ask what the future holds for the potato. Will it ever be able to shake off its unsavoury reputation?

(Image: A variety of raw potatoes. Credit: Ernesto Benavides/ AFP/ Getty Images)

As part of the BBC wide #SoICanBreathe season, The Food Chain explores how the ways we grow and cook our food can affect how we breathe. From the indoor pollution generated by cooking, to how farming practices change the air for miles around, our food can have a big impact on how we breathe. We come full circle to find out how air pollution can get in to our food and why your lettuce might have spots.

But it's not all bad news, and we'll also visit India and Ghana to explore developments that might help us all breathe a bit more easily.

Plus, if our diet is potentially part of the problem when it comes to air pollution, could it also be part of the solution?

(Image: A Pakistani woman blows on a small cooking fire to bake bread at a makeshift camp. Credit: Rizwan Tabassum/ Getty Images)

What can fast food tell us about the changing global economy? This week Karishma Vaswani, the BBC's Asia Business correspondent, takes a closer look at the history and the future of McDonald's in Asia. For many the company is a symbol of globalisation and food. To globalise though, the company has had to localize, and with that comes challenges.

From Beijing, to Hong Kong, to Delhi, we explore the changing tastes of Asia, and what the future might be for a market many multi-national companies have set their sights on. Is the business model of franchising still an effective way to export a food business? And as countries modernise is it getting harder for a global brand to compete with local rivals?

(Photo: Ronald McDonald at the opening of a McDonald's in Beijing. Photo credit: STR/AFP/Getty)

Remember the great bacon shortage of 2012? No? What about the one earlier this year? Still no? Well maybe that’s because they didn’t happen.

The Oxford English dictionary defines post-truth as: "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief".

This week we're looking at why stories about food shortages take hold so quickly – whether they are true or not. We’ll start with a popular food story from recent weeks, which warned the US could be running out of bacon. Brad Tuttle, journalist with Time Magazine separates the facts from the fiction.

But why do stories like these spread like wildfire? We speak to Michaela DeSoucey, Assistant Professor of Sociology at North Carolina State University, who says it’s not just our brains that react to food shortage scares – our behaviour changes too. And Paul Buckley, a psychologist at Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales in the UK, explains why an abundance of information leaves the consumer confused.

What can be done about all this confusion in a world where we are bombarded with information - and increasingly hear that we shouldn't believe much of what we are told? In a post-truth world, are we even more susceptible to exaggerated or untrue stories? We speak to Dominique Brossard, professor and chair in the Department of Life Sciences Information at the University of Wisconsin.

Finally - in a week where famine is officially declared for the first time in six years by the United Nations (UN) - we turn to the most worrying headline of all: that the world could run out of food. We speak to Joel Cohen, professor of populations at the Rockerfeller University and Columbia University in New York and Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization.

(Image: A long-nosed figure with a carrot dangling off the end leading people off a cliff. Credit: wildpixel/ Thinkstock)

Food is how we structure everyday life. For some people living with disabilities, the smallest of culinary tasks can be very frustrating and difficult.

As part of the BBC’s Disability Works season - exploring the experiences of disabled people in the workforce and as consumers - the Food Chain looks at the important role food plays for people who have, or acquire, a disability.

We hear what it’s like to grow up in a tribe when you can’t take part in the most valued activity – farming. Kudakwashe Dube had polio as a child in rural Zimbabwe and is now the CEO at the African Disability Allowance. He explains how people with disabilities can be discriminated against when it comes to taking part in agriculture, and receiving food aid.

The BBC’s Kathleen Hawkins hears stories of how technology, like mesh gloves and talking scales, can create an adaptive modern kitchen. She also takes us to her own home where we hear how she cooks from her wheelchair which struggles to fit between the kitchen cupboards. How can the kind of problems she faces be resolved? We speak to occupational therapist assistant Ann Kelly and registered dietician Juliette Harmer from the UK’s Ministry of Defence to find out.

Plus, we’ll discuss how modified chopsticks in Japan can be life-changing for people with disabilities. Katsuyuki Miyabi, a craftsman, doesn't think anybody should be excluded from using this age-old tool which is so important in Japanese society.

Finally, Emma Tracey from the BBC’s Ouch programme visits a café where food is made by a blind cook and his autistic helper.

(Image: A man in a wheelchair in a lowered kitchen. Credit: Huntstock/ Thinkstock)

You've swallowed many of them throughout your life without realising, and some look like aliens: we look at plankton, the sea's smallest living creatures that have a big global impact. At the centre of the food web, and responsible for most of the air we breathe, these microscopic plants and animals are eaten by fish in our seas, which are eaten by bigger creatures, and eventually eaten by humans. But what happens when new problems hit these ancient critters, which have existed for millions of years? And how does it affect our health - and our plates?

We speak to Jeff Herman in the US, whose skin was left crawling and in sweats after he got Ciguatera food poisoning from eating a hogfish. He tells us how his nightmarish symptoms were linked to toxins created by plankton.

We share a voyage with the crew in charge of the world's oldest plankton recorder in Plymouth, England. They have been monitoring the world's seas since the 1930s to check on the health of these tiny creatures so vital to our food chain. Plankton scientists tell the BBC's Emily Thomas that new types of plankton not seen since the Ice Age are moving in - prompting questions around how plankton will adapt to new challenges like pollution and climate change.

And what would you do if the sea around you turned bright red? So-called red tides can blight seasides and devastate fishing industries from Florida to the South China Sea. Hong Kong journalist Ernest Kao tells us about the devastation created by an overpopulation of algae, another kind of plankton.

And Professor Lora Fleming tells us about the movements and patterns of these tiny creatures, how toxins from some can skew with your sense of hot and cold, and how new research is helping us to harness the power of plankton in a more sustainable way.

(Image: Man swimming towards a 'red tide' or algal bloom in Sydney. Credit: William West/ ThinkStock )

What can one single dish tell you about America's history? One particular bowl of soup gives us an insight about the future of cultures that convene around it. Gumbo is eaten by nearly everyone in New Orleans, but its past speaks of the deep inequalities in American history that still resonate to this day. The BBC's Dan Saladino looks in to the origins of this dish and discovers influences from Native Americans, slaves from West Africa, settlers from Nova Scotia, and European immigrants from Spain, France and Italy. Dan tries to track down the perfect recipe for one of Louisiana's most famous dishes, and discovers how the politics of which food belongs to whom, is still at play, hundreds of years later.

(Image: A close up of a bowl of gumbo. Credit: Warren_Price/ Thinkstock)

Why won't our brains let us feel full on liquid food? After all, we spent the first months of our lives living on milk alone.

We talk to a man who lived on liquid alone for 30 days, as we explore why adults are ditching the knife and fork in favour of meals in liquid form.

We visit a juice and smoothie café in London where a gourmet smoothie can cost as much as a hot roast dinner, and meet a woman who is only too happy to swap her meal for a drink.

Sociology and Food expert Anne Murcott, from SOAS, University of London, tells us this trend is all in the marketing, and Richard Mattes of Purdue University explains why our adult brains are not perfectly wired to detect calories in drink form - and takes us on a journey through our digestive system to help us understand how we process liquid food.

And a warning about a little known problem that could be hiding in your smoothie, from allergy expert Dr Isabel Skypala.

Plus, we talk to the companies making whole meals in a bottle. The CEO of German company Bertrand, Tobias Stöber shares the thinking behind his product. Professor Amy Bentley isn't convinced though. She's from the Department of Food Studies, Nutrition and Public Health at New York University and tells the BBC's Emily Thomas why she doubts the nutritional value of these drinks.

(Image: A spilled glass of strawberry smoothies. Credit: Kondor 83/ Thinkstock)

This week we continue the story of the most abundant crop on earth. Last week we established its position as the king of the crops. This time we ask: are we producing too much of a good thing? Does the way we produce this crop epitomise everything that’s wrong with the global food system?

Maize - or corn, as it’s also known - is the lynchpin of the industrialised food supply. The BBC’s Emily Thomas talks to Ricardo Salvador from the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Stephen Macko from the University of Virginia about how the crop could be the fuelling the obesity problem in the developed world.

Conversely, hundreds of millions of people in the developing world rely on maize for their very survival. Prasanna Boddupalli, from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, explains the value of this crop – and the impact of US policy in sub-saharan Africa. We visit a farm in Aylesbury in the South of England and explore the role of corn in intensive livestock farming, with farmer Tom Morrison. From there we move to the cornbelt in the US Midwest, where corn farmer David Brant explains his solution for growing maize without stripping the soil, and polluting the rivers.

(Image: An eerie scarecrow in a crop field. Credit: pick-uppath/ Thinkstock)

Corn is everywhere, in much of our food, drink and even packaging.

It has found its way, in a myriad of guises, into thousands of products and has come to dominate the industrialised food supply. Hundreds of millions of people in the developing world rely on it too, for their very survival.

This week we bring you the story behind the king of the crops, in the first of two programmes dedicated to its spectacular rise, and its implications.

The BBC's Emily Thomas learns how maize rose to pre-eminence with author Betty Fussell, and takes a crash course in plant biology with Ricardo Salvador, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, to hear why corn is so productive. . We hear one woman's unenviable, life or death battle to avoid this ubiquitous ingredient and talk to a man who can estimate your corn consumption from a single strand of your hair.

Finally, we ask what lengths a government will go to to protect their corn secrets, and find out why the Chinese government is scaling back its production of the crop.

(Image: A man standing next to a field of tall maize crops. Credit: alexsalcedo/ Thinkstock)

Have you ever wondered how many litres of water it takes to make one egg, or what links a 19th-Century electrician to modern pet food? Whose job was it to eat a corpse cake, what really happens when you burn your toast, and what are the world’s most powerful chili peppers?

For the answers to these and many more questions, join us for the ultimate test of culinary trivia in The Food Chain’s inaugural quiz. Get your pens ready and play along with our studio panel: BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones; BBC Radio 4 correspondent Matthew Price; Jozef Youssef, chef and founder of Kitchen Theory in London; and BBC World Service presenter Jackie Leonard.

(Photo: Flour plus egg equals spaghetti. Credit: Ryan Michael Rodrigo/EyeEm/Getty Images)

What can our music tell us about our culinary and cultural heritage?

We explore the ways songs about planting, growing, milking and cooking reflect our lives and our livelihoods.

The BBC's Kent DePinto takes us through a sampler of music from around the world, all performed with one thing in mind - food. We'll interpret the rhythm of milking songs in northwest Scotland, visit the hey-day of Yiddish theatre in Manhattan's Lower East Side, dip our toe into an age-old culinary beef in Ghana, and hear how a samba about fish eggs pinpoints social inequality in Brazil.

Plus, we get a lesson in playing the leek from an orchestra that only plays vegetables.

(Image: A music sheet made of edible salad leaves. Credit: ShaunL/ Getty Images )

Lost in a barren and unforgiving part of Turkey, and forced to hide for days in a cave to get away from torrential rain and floods, a group of students turn to berries, grass and insects for sustenance. We speak to two of the students: Merije de Groot and David Mackie.

Plus, what happens when you’re surrounded by people, but still have nothing to eat? We hear from Amin Sheikh – who survived alone on the streets of Mumbai for three years from the age of five.

In the third of our Survival Stories programmes, the BBC's Emily Thomas is joined by Max Krasnow, an evolutionary psychologist from Harvard University, who explains how your tastebuds could save your life, and Dr Chris Fenn, a nutritionist and survival expert.

(Image: David Mackie, after being rescued in Turkey in January 2015. Credit: Anadolu Agency/ Getty Images)

Why do people struggle to feed themselves in wealthy societies? Food banks - depositories of donated and excess food where the neediest can collect ingredients for basic meals - have been running in America since the 1960s. But they are only meant to be for emergencies. Why then, does it seem that in some developed economies, they have become the last defence for those unable to feed themselves?

The BBC’s Manuela Saragosa visits the Oasis Waterloo Foodbank in London to hear the stories of people who depend on donated food during times of hardship. We look at the different perspectives around food aid and charity – is it right to treat food banks as a political issue? And, we explore how hunger and food waste - another perennial food problem - might make interesting bedfellows.

(Photo: A woman browses canned foods at a food bank in San Francisco. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Who does the cooking in your house? In many cultures the responsibility for preparing meals at home traditionally falls to women. But as more women join the global workforce, traditional household responsibilities are changing. What impact is that having have on our internal family dynamics?

As part of the BBC's 100 Women season, we hear about the social and economic costs of putting a meal on the family table, when the most expensive ingredient is time.

Four women from different continents explain the challenges they face trying to balance family life, work, and food. A working mother in Mumbai tells us why she won't give up her kitchen, and a stay at home mum in New York explains why her working husband does most of the cooking. Plus, we hear that in parts of rural Kenya women who cannot cook are far from marriage material.

(Picture: A woman prepares vegetables in a village in Bangladesh. Credit: Jewel Samad, Getty Images)

Twentieth century British playwright and novelist Somerset Maugham said that to eat well in Britain, you should eat breakfast thrice daily. And, nothing speaks to British culinary tradition more than the Full English breakfast - bacon, sausages, egg, beans, black pudding and mushrooms all on one plate. But how much of the ‘full English’ today is actually English? And, in a post-Brexit United Kingdom, how will the industries that cater to British breakfasters fare?

The BBC’s Manuela Saragosa works her way through each food on the full English breakfast plate and explores how they could be impacted following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Ian Dunt, author of Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now?, explains why many believe food prices are set to eventually rise. The UK imports two thirds of its supply from neighbouring Ireland, but as the BBC’s Diarmaid Fleming finds out, some Irish mushroom farmers have already gone out of business. Claire Macleod of Charles Macleod Butchers tells us why Brexit has cast uncertainty on the future of her black puddings. And, we speak to the staff and diners of Brunchies Café in Sutton, south of London – are they concerned about adding a sprinkling of Brexit to their breakfast and if costs rise, is it a price worth paying?

(Photo: A traditional English breakfast plate, with Union Jack flag. Credit: Thinkstock)

From the golden crust on a perfectly-baked loaf, to a crispy, crunchy potato chip - do you ever wonder why food that's been browned or charred, can smell, taste and look so good? It's one of cooking's most important flavour secrets. But it's now at the centre of a battle between health campaigners and the European food industry. The BBC’s Mike Johnson follows the story of browned and burnt food from an unexpected discovery in Paris 100 years ago to a state-of-the-art food testing laboratory in the UK, picking up some tips at a London cookery school along the way.

(Picture: Unhappy burnt toast Credit: Thinkstock)

What happens to a food when people stop eating it? Most of the food we eat today comes from a handful of crops, but before we became a globalised society, our diet reflected a variety of plants, proteins and foods that were cultivated as local specialties. Now, as our diets become less diverse, these foods face a critical point in their existence. In this programme the BBC's Dan Saladino explores several stories of foods that are dying out and talks to the farmers and producers who are working to save them.

(Photo: Mexican Blue Corn Credit: Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images)

Can you tell a Democrat by their salad? A Republican by their hamburger? An Independent by their coffee? With the outcome of the US presidential election just days away, The Food Chain looks at the surprising role food has played in a campaign like no other. We visit Arizona, a swing state in this year’s election, to see whether Americans think your food preference can be determined by your political preference. Regina Ragone of Family Circle magazine tells the BBC’s Kent DePinto how a comment by Hilary Clinton started a nation-wide baking contest that has been running since 1992. Plus, Lizzie O’Leary from Marketplace follows the money to understand how the political wishes of big food companies is expressed in political donations. We look at how taco trucks have become one the 2016 election's most polarizing issues. And we hear about the forgotten tradition of the American election cake.

Photo: A blueberry pie in the design of an American flag. Photo Credit: Thinkstock

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 feasting in Estonia, where family meals include the departed.

Plus, how funeral food extravagance is driving families into enormous debt in Ghana.

(Picture: Chocolate skulls prepared for Mexico's Day of The Dead celebrations)

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 Saragosa.

(Photo: A child contemplates a plate of salad. Credit: Thinkstock)

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 world would look like if everyone gave up animal products tomorrow, and the economic consequences of a meat and dairy-free world. We talk to the owner of the first vegan café in Qatar, we test a meatless burger that ‘bleeds’ beetroot juice and we weigh up the human cost of an animal-free diet.

(Photo: A detail of a painting by Giuseppe Acrimboldo featuring a man's head made out of vegetables. Credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

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 communities.

And we hear a meal shared between two re-settled Syrian families as they try to start a new life away from their war-torn homeland.

Plus, we further explore how a food culture re-forms after it’s forced to flee and relocate, as Syrian-American Dalia Mortada shares the food stories she’s been collecting from the diaspora in the United States. And the small industries that might offer hope for farmers in a post-conflict country.

(Photo: Bakers pack bread at a bakery in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Credit: Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images)

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 the complicated 56 dishes they have to make?

And what does the competition say about the evolution of modern Chinese food?

(Photo: A chef at the World Championship of Chinese Cuisine)

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. And, why a lobster has Sweden and North America getting their claws out.

(Photo: A camel at QCamel dairy, Queensland, Australia. Credit: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

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-conscious Californians. Some proponents say insects could be the new sushi. But are they right?

(Picture: A scorpion served up in Mexico.)

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 shortened life-span when compared to other professions. But some truck drivers are working to change that. Plus, we discover what it’s like to eat on the road in the world’s longest country, and get a lesson in cab cooking along the way.

(Photo: Truck drivers wait to pass at the border between Greece and Bulgaria. Credit: Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP)

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 beer writer Peter Brown and travels to a hop farm in the English countryside to see where it all begins. We head to Uganda where homemade brew is still the traditional drink of choice, and Jasper Cuppaidge from Camden Town Brewery - a London-based brewer - tells us what being taken over by a global company has done for his business. And, the BBC’s Rob Young breaks down the deal for us in the pub.

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 market "natural" food to us.

Are some supermarkets misleading their consumers with the way they are presenting their food? Journalist Tom Levitt from The Guardian tells Manuela Saragosa why some packaging may not tell the whole story. And we hear how the mislabelling of food in China can provide rich pickings for professional label readers. With more and more products declaring their 'pure' origins, David Jago, director of Global Insight and Innovation at the market intelligence company Mintel, outlines the size of the market. Should the word 'natural' be more closely defined? We ask Daniel Fabricant, CEO of the Natural Products Association in the US and a former FDA official.

Also, Manuela asks whether a diet of completely unprocessed natural food could actually be healthier for our bodies. Nutritionist Dimple Thakrar from Fresh Nutrition tells us why some processing could add to a healthy diet. And lawyer Kun Hoe describes how some professional label readers in China can benefit from mistakes in packaging.

(Photo: Shoppers in China's Anhui province. Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

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 friends were also his main source of food.

Plus, the tale of Yossi Ghinsberg who was lost in the Amazon rainforest. When he got separated from his group, Yossi survived for 20 days on what the forest gave him, and hoped desperately for a monkey to fall from a tree.

We also find out what happens to our bodies when they go into survival mode with Dr Chris Fenn, who specialises in survival in extreme environments. How much can we rely on our gut instincts? And should you ever drink from the sea?

(Photo credit: BBC)

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 balanced to bare with nutritionist Dr Chris Fenn.

(Photo credit: Ann Rodgers)

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' testicles, to ‘mad apples’ we find out which food the ancient Egyptians thought to be the biggest aphrodisiac, and why a 300 year old recipe book tells us beans lead to babies. How well does this all sit with the latest science? We talk to Dr Jorge Chavarro, from the Harvard Schools of Public Health and Medicine.

Also, unless you're a woman trying for a baby, you may think folic acid isn’t something you should be too worried about… but in about a third of countries in the world, it is mandatory to add it to main food products, such as wheat flour. Why supplement the whole population with something that might only be needed by some? We speak to Mark Lawrence, Professor in Public Health Nutrition at Deakin University in Melbourne.

Plus, hear some Bulgarian fertility music and find out why the grinding of black peppers is a ritual performed by men at weddings. Finally, we look at how hormones get into the food chain with Dr Richard Lea of the University of Nottingham, and ask if this should be a cause for concern.

(Photo: New arrivals at the Queen Charlotte Hospital, London, in 1945. Credit: Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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 the food miles. Ross McKissock at the Port of Tilbury outlines the importance of the food trade to the port business. We step inside a vast refrigerated warehouse and ask Dale Fiddy of NFT Distribution if the new facility is a sign that the industry is on the up?

Technological advances have made their mark on the way our food has moved over the centuries - Susanne Freidberg, professor of Geography at Dartmouth College, takes us back through time with the history of food transportation.

We hear from a vegetable packing plant in Kenya, which leads the world in terms of exports of fresh produce by air.

Shipping food over vast distances is now an established part of global trade, but does it really make financial sense? Washington economist and expert on international shipping, Marc Levinson explains the economics of moving food in huge volumes.

And, could it actually be good for the environment? A question for Kath Dalmeny from environmental group, Sustain.

(Photo: Factory workers sort out creates of peppers. Credit: Sergio Camacho/Getty Images)

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 State. Gilles shares some food secrets, including how the Kremlin's kitchen keeps President Putin’s food safe.

We visit the huge kitchens of Hampton Court Palace, where in 16th Century England, wine fountains and extravagant roasted meats were cooked to help Henry VIII impress - and intimidate - foreign dignitaries.

We move from there to look at arguably the most powerful cooking place in the modern era - the White House kitchen. Sam Kass, a former chef and close friend to the Obamas, explains how new ideas and even food policies for the future can be cooked up in State kitchens.

Plus, we go behind the scenes in the Belgian Embassy in Chile to see diplomacy in action – and talk to professor Stephen Chan of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies about Mugabe’s lavish feasts. We also meet David Geisser, a former Vatican chef and hear insights into the culinary preferences of Pope Francis. We find out if the Vatican leader practises what he preaches about food.

Finally, we talk to a journalist in Brussels who has witnessed some recent and dramatic EU meals, including the former British Prime Minister David Cameron’s last supper with European leaders.

(Photo: Barack Obama in 2008. Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

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 from donkey hide. We talk to the owner of a Beijing restaurant and the customers tucking in to his donkey hotpot.

Plus, we look at the rise of ingestible beauty in the West, and the products that have failed along the way. Could the food industry turn the beauty industry on its head? One company that thinks so invites us to take a look at their laboratory where they’ve created a small chocolate bar, which they say prevents ageing and promises all the goodness of 300g of Alaskan salmon. The promises made by these products are compelling - but is there enough science to back them up? We speak to an experts from Yale University in the US and a global collagen company in Europe.

Finally, we ask whether we should expect food to be the elixir of eternal youth, or if nutricosmetics feed an unhealthy pressure to be beautiful from the inside.

(Photo: A young woman eats strawberries in 1936: Credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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 Albania’s problems lies in its food and farming past. Tucked away in the mountainous communities of the north are some of the oldest food traditions in the Balkans, from dairy and meat products to foraged fruits and fermented vegetables. Could these foods be the basis for a new form of entrepreneurialism and kick start a tourism industry? The Albanian government and NGOs operating in the country think so.

(Photo: Albanian mishavin cheese)

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 to New Zealand, which became the only developed country in the world to withdraw financial support for its farmers in the 1980s - could that be the model for the UK to follow?

We are joined by a panel of guests - Geoff Pickering, a Yorkshire sheep farmer, Guy Smith, vice-president of the National Farmers Union and Vincent Smith, an agricultural economist at Montana State University in the US.

(Photo: A ploughing competition in Scotland. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

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 history join us to eat a feast with their hands.

Food historian Bee Wilson tells us cutlery is about so much more than just manners, and explains how entire cultures of eating are founded on utensils.

Lunchtime diners in Delhi reveal what we are missing when we pick up a knife and fork, and Indian food historian and critic Pushpesh Pant explains how people across the country are rediscovering their regional and cultural roots in the way they eat. Plus, a chef at a top-end Delhi restaurant tells us why he thinks the tide is turning in fine dining.

In ancient Greece elite men reclined to eat. Dr Ayesha Akbar, a Consultant in Gastroenterology tells us why they may have had the right idea. We also discuss the benefits of communal eating - and find out why some people fly into a frenzy of rage at the sound of chewing and slurping.

Finally, it has been said that while on the European continent people have good food, but in England people have good table manners. We ask James Field, from the very British institution, Debretts, for a lesson in how to eat in polite company.

(Photo: Food at Lalibela restaurant in London)

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 shrink to three. Are we heading towards a world where all seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides are in the hands of just one company? We are joined by experts from both sides of the debate as we listen to stories of subversion.

(Photo: An Indian farmer arranges a display of grains and seeds. Credit: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images)

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 diets around their DNA. At what point does a specialist diet give an athlete an unfair advantage? And what do nutritionists and athletes really think about sports drinks? Plus, a man moves his family to the Kenyan highlands to train and eat with its highland runners. And, a New York punk singer and vegan Ironman tells us why he thinks strong athletes do not need meat.

(Photo: Athletes running through a field. Credit: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images)

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 population, could this country be a model for global farming?

Plus, what impact is such intensive farming having on the environment, human health and animal welfare?

Presenter: Anna Holligan. Editor: Simon Tulett

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.

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 find out how illegal fishing is tied up with a criminal underworld of drugs and human trafficking.

Plus, experts tell us what consumers should look out for, and we discover fish farming may not be the answer to the problem.

(Photo: The Indonesian Navy blows up the illegal fishing vessel the MV Viking in the waters of Tanjung, West Java, 2016. Credit: Antara Foto, Reuters)

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 to reverse the trend. We also hear from a vet on the scientific advisory board for Nestle, the world's second largest pet food manufacturer.

Plus, what do a 19th Century electrician and a sailor's biscuit have to do with modern day pet food. And, from raw food to dog bakeries, we bring you the very latest in pet palette trends, including a taste-test of the most exclusive dog treats available on the market.

(Photo: Dog with food bowl. Credit: Thinkstock)

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 scenes at a leading supplier of emergency food, Nutriset, which makes peanut paste and milk products for malnourished children and adults around the world.

Plus, how agriculture bears the brunt of the economic damage caused by natural disasters, but receives a tiny proportion of aid funding - the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations tells us the balance must be redressed.

And when food aid can do more harm than good - we hear how farmers in Haiti are angry about US plans to send 500 tonnes of surplus peanuts to help the country recover from a three-year drought, and how prime agricultural land was lost in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.

(Photo: A Nepalese earthquake survivor in front of a destroyed farm. Credit: Philippe Lopez, Getty Images)

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, but opponents say it causes unnecessary environmental damage. We find out how bottled water is coming under attack in drought-stricken California, and whether the criticisms are fair.

In parts of the world where safe drinking water is difficult or impossible to come by, can bottled water be a lifesaver? We have a report from Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam.

Plus, we speak to Marco Settembri, head of Nestle Waters, one of the world's biggest water bottling firms.

(Photo: A man stores bottles at a warehouse in Afghanistan. Credit: Noorullah Shirzada, Getty Images)