The Food Chain

What does a life on tour do to a stand-up comedian's eating habits? And how do you stay healthy if half of your working life is spent travelling? Ruth Alexander finds out. If you travel regularly for work you'll know how hard it can be to hold onto good eating patterns. International flights, client dinners and the hotel's buffet breakfast can blow your diet out of the water. And that's before you...

Are you hungry? How often do you stop to think about why that is and what sort of foods you are hungry for? In this programme Ruth Alexander explores the science of appetite – what causes us to feel hungry and full and why our appetites differ from one person to the next. Geneticist Professor Giles Yeo at the University of Cambridge in the UK explains how much of our appetite is informed by our ge...

Weight-loss medication, or GLP-1s as they are also known, are designed to suppress your appetite - so how do you make every mouthful count? Ruth Alexander looks into what happens to the body on these drugs and what it feels like to take them. She learns why it's vital to change your diet to minimise side effects like nausea and constipation and to avoid vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Plus why w...

Imagine not recognising the food in the shops, markets and restaurants around you. Moving to a new country to live and work can come with some culture shocks and food can be a big part of that. Ruth Alexander speaks to people who have lived in different countries. Listener Jen Ballantyne in the UK has taught in Japan, Tanzania, Azerbaijan and Brunei. Chinese Canadian chef Kelvin Cheung has lived i...

Is it more expensive to eat healthily? You might think the answer is simple: Yes of course, if you buy fruits, vegetables, beans and pulses and cook from scratch. But is it that easy? With the help of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, Ruth Alexander finds out where in the world a healthy basket of food costs the most, and why globally, billions of people are priced out of a nutritious an...

Ever wondered what the chef is eating? Snacking on the finest produce or surviving on thin air and caffeine? In this episode Ruth Alexander speaks to three chefs about how they get through the day, and the importance of the ‘family’ or staff meal. She’s joined by Juliette Feller, a Swiss chef working in London, Marisha Shukla a pastry chef in Bengaluru India, and Sam Grainger, an exec chef and res...

Do you have a local cafe, restaurant or bar that you go to all the time? Maybe the staff recognise you or know you by name, perhaps you even get special treatment. In this programme Rumella Dasgupta finds out why people like to return to the same place, and the commercial value to a business of having regular customers. You can contact the programme by emailing thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk . Produced by...

Moving out of the family home can be a big first step at whatever age you do it. Paying bills, budgeting, shopping, and importantly cooking for yourself. In this programme Rumella Dasgupta asks what dishes you should be able to cook when you leave home for the first time. Rumella meets chef and food writer Claire Thomson and her daughter Grace Williamson in their kitchen in Bristol, England. Clair...

What can food reveal about the people who came before us? From ancient meals and family recipes to the chemical traces left behind in bones and teeth, food offers remarkable clues about how people lived, travelled and survived. In this episode, Ruth Alexander explores how historians, archaeologists and old cookbooks are helping us piece together the story of our past. Historian Professor Peter Sch...

Have you ever asked yourself: should I do Keto? Is white rice good for me? Am I eating too many carbohydrates? If so, then this episode of The Food Chain is for you. Carbohydrate-rich foods are everywhere and they’re delicious. But are they good for us? Carbs have a reputation for spiking our blood sugar and making us fat. But is that reputation deserved? Ruth Alexander talks to Javier Gonzalez, P...

When should you eat your evening meal? Is it really better to eat earlier, or does it depend on when you go to bed? And if you do have to eat late, is there anything you can do to reduce the impact on your health? In this episode of The Food Chain, Ruth Alexander explores what science says about the timing of dinner. From our internal body clocks to the food on our plates, we examine how the eveni...

Listener Melanie wrote into The Food Chain to ask us to make a programme about the rising numbers of people who eat alone. She told us she often dines solo and sometimes finds the experience daunting. So today Ruth Alexander hears from Melanie and from other solo diners – some who find peace and joy in a table for one, and others who would much rather not be alone. With the help of Sociologist Pro...

Elite footballers are among the world's most finely tuned athletes. Every meal is carefully planned to fuel training, maximise recovery and prepare for the next match. But it wasn't always this way. In this episode of The Food Chain, Ruth Alexander explores how football's relationship with food has changed, from the days of steak and beef before a game to today's highly personalised nutrition plan...

With dining out becoming an increasingly expensive luxury, we find out how to order the perfect restaurant meal with top tips from a panel of seasoned pros. The Irish Times food critic, Corinna Hardgrave, veteran server and podcast host Brittany Felton and chef and hospitality advisor James Knight-Pacheco join Ruth Alexander to discuss how to make the most of a well-deserved meal from your hard-ea...

Many of us have our own theories about sleep. Perhaps it's avoiding coffee after lunch, drinking chamomile tea before bed, or having a warm glass of milk. But what does the science actually say? In this episode of The Food Chain, Ruth Alexander explores the relationship between food and sleep, asking whether changing what we eat and drink can help us get a better night's rest. Professor Marie-Pier...

The history of smoking foods stretches back many years, but when did what began purely for preservation become a highly sought-after flavour? In this episode of The Food Chain, Ruth Alexander explores the origins of smoked foods and finds out why their flavours are so appealing to so many people around the world. She visits a smokehouse run by Michael Price in the port city of Lancaster in north-w...

Music is part of the backdrop to millions of meals every day. But what if it is doing more than simply creating atmosphere? In this episode of The Food Chain, Rumella Dasgupta explores the growing evidence that sound can shape the way we experience food and drink. From scientists studying how the brain combines hearing and taste, to chefs designing dishes around playlists, we ask whether music has...

Running a restaurant is hard. Long hours, tight margins and constant stress. In this week's programme Rumella Dasgupta travels to Edinburgh, Scotland, to meet Lisa He and her mum Sophie. Lisa has just put her life and acting career on hold, to try and help her mum save the family's restaurant, the China Star. A video she made documenting her attempt has gone viral, with more than fifteen million v...

Food tours are becoming one of the fastest-growing parts of the travel industry, with tourists increasingly choosing to explore cities and cultures through what they eat. In this episode, Ruth Alexander explores the global rise of guided food experiences and the people building businesses around them. In Manchester, food tour guide Julia Fairburn takes Ruth through some of the city’s best-known fo...

Making cocktails isn't just about flair - bottles spinning through the air as the bartender puts on a show. It's about precision, perfectionism and people skills. Ruth Alexander meets three world-class bartenders to hear stories about their most glamorous customers, the dangerous ones, and what it takes to make the perfect drink. Hear about the highs and lows; from the glamour of working on a movi...

Meal prepping is supposed to save us time, money and stress. It is a huge trend on social media, but how can we make it work in our own real, messy lives? Ruth Alexander meets Hannah, a busy working mum who wants help to make meal times easier, quicker and more varied. Could batch cooking be the answer? On hand to offer advice and inspiration are Jess Rice from the US website Budget Bytes and Kevi...

Potatoes are having a moment. Once dismissed as dull, stodgy or even unhealthy, they’re now back, appearing on restaurant menus, in food magazines and across social media feeds. But the story of the potato goes back much further. In this episode, Ruth Alexander traces the journey of one of the world’s most familiar foods. From its origins millions of years ago to its place in today’s global food s...

Ever wondered how anyone gets a job writing about food? Ruth Alexander talks to Melissa Clark, recipe columnist and newsletter host for the New York Times; Laura Rowe food journalist and former content director of Olive and Delicious magazines in London, and Malin Turunen of MatMalin in Stockholm, formerly editor of Swedish food magazine, Allt om Mat. They discuss their first jobs, how their work...

It's exam season in many parts of the world and with her own daughter studying hard, Rumella Dasgupta began wondering how much food matters during this difficult and stressful time. Is there such a thing as a brain food and are there any foods in particular that we should be aiming to eat while studying hard? Rumella talks to students and experts about the role diet plays and what happens to our e...

Food Chain presenter Ruth Alexander was confident that she was eating a healthy diet, in particular, a diet that included enough fibre. But it turns out, like many of us, her fibre intake has been falling short of the recommended amount. In fact all over the world most of us are failing to eat enough, despite the growing trend for so called "fibremaxxing" where people try to maximise their daily i...