The Food Programme

If food is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and also a lens through which we can interpret our history and how we live now, then surely it deserves a museum? The UK has only just got its first permanent Food Museum. It’s in Stowmarket in Suffolk, recently rebranded from The Museum of East Anglian Life. Sheila Dillon visits its beautiful 84 acres, with its historic buildings, crops, orchard, kitch...

Wedding food is one of the biggest costs on the big day but the sit-down three-course dinner is making way for food trucks and festival-style take-aways. We explore how the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have affected couples and caterers. We find out why it's called "a wedding breakfast" - even though the reception's rarely in the morning and ask what's happened to the traditional wedding...

World leaders met in Rome to fix the food system. Dan Saladino reports on what happened at the United Nations summit and looks at some of the big ideas put forward for change. Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Mushrooms like Chaga, Reishi, Lion’s Mane and Turkey Tail are popping up all over the place at the moment, in supplements, powders, and even coffee. These are the so-called medicinal species of mushroom that have been used for centuries by our ancestors, and currently today in Traditional Chinese medicine. Sheila Dillon started taking these mushrooms a decade ago as part of diversifying her diet a...

Dan Saladino and psychologist Kimberley Wilson explore the latest science about food, mental health and boosting our brain power. Featuring Professor Michael A Crawford (Imperial), Professor Felice Jacka, Professor Felice Jacka of the Food & Mood Centre, Deakin University, Australia and Professor Ted Dinan, psychiatrist at University College Cork. Also, from the Radio 4 archive, Dr Bernard Ges...

Ultra-Processed Food makes up more than 50% of all calories consumed in the UK - but UPFs are being linked with obesity and disease, and there are calls for tougher regulations. In this programme, Sheila Dillon meets the Conservative MP for Stourbridge, Suzanne Webb, who says current government guidelines about healthy eating do not go far enough. She says regulators need to stop focussing on indi...

The practice of smoking is one of the world’s oldest food preservation methods, but which techniques are catching fire today, while other processes risk being extinguished? We hear from producers bringing diverse barbecue and smoking techniques to new audiences, as well as those keeping traditional processes alive. Leyla Kazim visits Cue Point to hear from Mursal Saiq and Joshua Moroney about thei...

Dan Saladino hears from the bakers in Ukraine supplying fresh bread to the frontline, and journalist Felicity Spector travels across the country to visit the bakeries supplying people in need, the elderly, displaced and soldiers. Produced by Dan Saladino.

Eighty six year old Fergie MacDonald remembers shooting Red deer as a nine year old boy. The Second World War was on and food was scarce in his home village in the rugged Moidart peninsula, in the Scottish Highlands. It was of course a crime, as he freely acknowledges - the deer belonged to the local estate. But his family had to eat. His mother roasted, boiled and salted the venison and, as Fergi...

Italy is famous the world over for its delicious food and beautiful countryside. The two come together in the form of the agriturismo, a type of farm-stay where the food – produced on the farm itself – takes centre stage. Agritourism there has been hugely successful since it was first established in the 1980s as a way to make small farms viable. It now contributes around 1.9 billion euros to the I...

The diets of children in the UK are now mostly made up of ultra-processed food, so can we learn from the French in how they teach children healthy eating habits? Sheila Dillon finds out. Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol

Sheila Dillon explores how food habits are formed in the early years, and how parents and nurseries are coping with a food environment full of unhealthy ultra-processed food. Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol

From Nobel winners to great innovators, Dan Saladino explores the history of prize-winning food ideas that changed the world, including researchers who uncovered the secrets of our stomachs to the plant breeds transforming the future of wheat. Nominations are now open for this year's BBC Food and Farming Awards until June 19th, including Best Innovation which was created to celebrate ideas that wi...

The BBC Food and Farming Awards are back for 2023 and now is the time to get nominating. This year the judging will be lead by former Masterchef winner, and founder of the Mexican restaurant chain, Thomasina Miers. In this programme, Jaega Wise meets Thomasina at one of her London restaurants to discuss how she plans to approach judging, and she chats to Sheila Dillon about how the awards came abo...

Leyla Kazim examines the growing influence apps, maps and lists are having on restaurant recommendations, food writing and the way we eat. Leyla sits down for lunch with Michael O’Shea from the restaurant recommendation app Jacapo, ‘the social network for people who love food,’ to hear why he thinks apps like his have the potential to reshape the way people find new places to eat. She meets Jonath...

Can you eat like a hunter-gatherer in 21st Century Britain? Dan Saladino meets a group of people doing exactly that to see how their bodies change during the three-month experiment. Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

As people around the country gather to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III, Jaega Wise finds out how food is bringing communities together. Jaega joins a community lunch in Kidlington, run by the Cherwell Collective, to talk to its founder, Emily Connally, about their coronation lunch. She also asks Lucy Scott of the pay-as-you-can bakery Lil’s Parlour in Birmingham, all about why she wan...

Traditional cafes, greasy spoon cafes - have been a fixture of our highstreets for at least a century, providing sustenance for those looking for something cheap and cheerful. But for a long time, they have been in decline for a number of reasons, tough competition from chains, our changing tastes and work patterns. From the early 2000s people have been calling curtains for the cafe, but, with inf...

Joris Minne, Northern Ireland's most respected food critic, takes Jaega Wise on a culinary expedition to show how the politics of peace have helped revolutionise the local food scene. He remembers how the Troubles destroyed the night time economy and forced the majority of the region's restaruants to pull down the shutters during the 1970's and 80's. He describes how the Good Friday Agreement, sig...

Is hacking our biology the only solution left to an unhealthy food system and bad food culture? Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Sheila Dillon delves into the world of fresh produce wholesale markets – an unseen part of the food system which has provided a steady supply of fruit and veg to greengrocers, corner shops and restaurants during the recent shortages in supermarkets. Could they be game changers in building a better, more secure food system in Britain? Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC...

Are we still a nation of pudding lovers and does pudding still matter? Join Sheila Dillon in her kitchen where she's joined by some of the UK's best pudding makers to share some of the secrets of great pudding, and why they matter to them. Olia Hercules makes a pudding from her childhood in Ukraine, a cheesecake made from the "cheese of all cheeses"; Regula Ysewijn bakes an early version of a Bake...

Leyla Kazim and producer Robbie Armstrong explore the central role of food in building community, shaping identity and providing culturally appropriate spaces for refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow, resettled in the city as part of the UK Government’s asylum dispersal policy. Leyla speaks to Selina Hales, founder of charity Refuweegee, which distributes welcome packs and emergency food parcels...

Hospital food has long had a bad reputation, but after several high profile campaigns, are things finally starting to improve? In England, new regulations are being implemented which are hoped to transform the meals being served, reduce waste, and make sure staff have access to good food 24/7. 60% of hospitals are already said to be complying - will the rest be able to catch up? But with many hosp...

From energy to seasonality, Dan Saladino explores the big ideas prompted by the recent shortage of fresh produce in supermarkets. Is the now time for a major food rethink? Produced and presented by Dan Saladino