The Science Behind Your Salad

On the floodplains between the Tagus and Sorraia rivers, just outside Lisbon, lies one of Portugal’s most remarkable agricultural landscapes, Companhia das Lezírias.  In this episode of The Science Behind your Salad, Jane Craigie steps into a living, breathing system where cork oak forests, rice paddies, grazing cattle, and vineyards coexist, shaped by centuries of stewardship an...

Before sunrise in central Kenya, green beans are packed for European supermarkets while, on the same morning, women carry leafy greens to sell by the roadside. In this episode, Jane Craigie explores Kenya’s dual food systems — one feeding global markets with precision and scale, the other sustaining families through informal trade and smallholder farming. From women-led coffee cooperat...

In this special episode of The Science Behind Your Salad , we take you inside the World Food Prize and the Borlaug Dialogue, the gathering inspired by the grandfather of the Green Revolution , Norman Borlaug’s and his inherent belief that hunger is a challenge humanity can solve. Recorded in Iowa, the episode brings together voices shaping the future of food. Jeannie Borlaug Laube refle...

Food is also what connects farming to human health and our natural environment. In this episode of The Science Behind Your Salad , we ask you to close your eyes and listen: the steady hum of bees, the deep boom of a rare bittern, and the people creating the future of the food on your plate.  Host, Jane Craigie, visits the rice fields of Australia, where a grower and an ecologist are working s...

Social media has given farmers the perfect way to share the many joys, challenges and the daily realities of farming with people interested in how their food is produced.   A growing number of influencers have gained millions of followers who welcome their regular and honest posts and the insights the content gives into their lives.   Many say that they started sharing their st...

Feeding humanity in the future brings a complex set of interconnected challenges. What’s abundantly clear is that, over the coming decades, farming isn’t just about producing more, it’s about doing it differently, with the environment and society’s needs central to the task in hand.   In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad, Jane Craigie explores feeding...

This episode of The Science Behind Your Salad from BASF visits Spain, Portugal and Egypt in a quest to discover how olive crops will be affected by climate change.   Jane Craigie meets the farmers busily harvesting their crops, ready to take them off to the mill to be pressed into delicious golden olive oil.   The main focus of the olive growing industry encircles the Mediterranean. Oliv...

Our volatile climate will impact the way we cook and the way we eat. And so, farming needs to adapt, eating needs to adapt, and how we cook, will also need to adapt.   In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad, Jane Craigie explores the world of carbon farming: how can we grow better? How can we eat better? How can we feed ourselves with the climate in mind?   For chef and best-selling auth...

Whether we’re buying a punnet of fruit, a freshly made burrito or a can of tomatoes, we take it for granted that the food is safe and free of any biological or chemical contamination. There are a host of food laws, regulatory bodies and food inspection schemes, as well as guidance on food preparation in our homes, to make sure that our food is safe. In this episode of the Science Behind your Salad...

There is a huge variety of grains, from quinoa to spelt, from bulgur wheat to pearl barley, from barley to rye. Barley used to feed livestock and used in whisky distilling are found right on Jane Craigie’s doorstep in Aberdeenshire. In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad, Jane meets the growers and distillers as they strive to produce the crop sustainably. She meets Graeme Cruikshank fro...

The wettest country in the world is Columbia, which receives over 3200 ml of rain annually and the driest nation, Egypt, receives just 18 ml. Agriculture uses around 70% of the world's freshwater, and irrigated farmland is crucial in delivering, on average, double the production of rainfed farming and 40% of the world’s total food production. Jane Craigie discovers how farmers, policymakers and la...

More than 3 billion cups of coffee are drunk every day but how did the bean inside a fruit become synonymous with kick starting our mornings with a caffeine hit to wake us up? Jane Craigie speaks to growers and traders who explore the history and culture of coffee and look to the future when the climate and growing conditions are looking likely to become more volatile. Jane discovers how coffee ca...

Weeds are plants that are growing in the wrong place. Certain species can totally devastate farmers crops, resulting in huge losses of both productivity and income for the farmers. They can be the difference between survival and failure of a farm. But are they all bad? Tom Radford is a forager who spends his life travelling around in his van making social media content on plants that are largely u...

Improving the sustainability of agriculture extends far beyond the production of food, as farmers share the global challenges of climate change mitigation, increasing space for nature and protecting resources. In this episode of The Science Behind your Salad, we explore the sustainability of food, land and food packaging, as well as the role that cities play in creating sustainable food systems an...

Sweet and juicy, plump and delicious: In this episode of The Science Behind Your Salad we’re telling the story behind the production and innovation of fruit salad! Apples, peaches and watermelons come under the spotlight in our whistle stop tour of the sweeter crops we love to eat. We’ll hear from the lush orchards of England, the hot and dry peach fields of Northern Greece and the growers of a br...

If food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the United States, according to the UN's environment program.  Each year around 2.5 billion tons of food is lost or wasted each year, leaving roughly 3.1 billion people without sufficient nutritious food to eat. In terms of carbon footprint, the resources needed to produce...

Vegetables are at the heart of a healthy diet. They are packed with vitamins and minerals and play an essential role in our physical and mental well-being. The global vegetable market is a multi-billion-dollar industry. For the past few decades, globalisation has enabled retailers to supply consumers with an abundant source of almost any variety of fruit and vegetables. Where once people relied on...

The first traces of wine production date back some 9,000 years to parts of the Middle East. Georgia is known for making some of the earliest wines by burying Kvevris, giant earthenware pots, filling them with grapes and allowing the fruit to ferment. Over the millenia, the production of wine has evolved and the market is now worth over $200 billion. In this episode of the Science Behind Your Salad...

In this bonus episode, we’ll explore the meaning of grapes from a seasonal perspective. During the holidays, grapes play an important role – both in liquid and solid form. We talk to a winemaker who is working on non-alcoholic wine. His goal is to approach the same quality and taste levels of the alcoholic counterparts. Our second guest is a BASF Agricultural Solutions employees from Philippines....

Loved by Ernest Hemingway in a sandwich, around 4.5 milliion tonnes of onions are grown globally each year. While Hemingway ate his onions raw, the vegetable is truly versatile and is the basis of sauces and stews, and can be a condiment on meats such as hotdogs and burgers and much, much more. Onions are a staple crop, traded globally. They can be easily stored and transported, but there is one t...

Not every crop relating to what we eat is edible. The table dressing also plays a valuable roll with crisp white tablecloths and beautifully folded napkins. In this episode we focus on the way that sustainability of cotton crops can be traced from the seed to the manufacture and selling of products made from the fabric - a success story in Greece. In order to demonstrate the role blockchain techno...

We are currently facing significant challenges to our food supply. A global pandemic, a war on the ground in the breadbasket of Europe, a volatile climate, plus a growing population, have all led us to a pinch point. In this episode of The Science Behind Your Salad we examine the threats to our food supply and explore the possible solutions, innovations and approaches that could keep the ever-grow...

Waves of golden flowers can currently be seen rippling in the wind across many parts of the world as the oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) harvest is approaching. But it is in Canada that the crop is a real success story. Oilseed rape grown there is a derivative known as canola. Canola oil is a highly versatile oil used for both animal and human consumption. The oil is low in saturated fats, so it...

In this episode we discover the story behind the sweet, crisp, crunch of the salad leaves. From iceberg to Lollo Rosso, from radicchio to endive, the choice of salad ingredients is extensive. The flavours are equally varied from peppery to pea flavoured and plenty in between. We discover the story of the Frenchman who spent his days dressing the salads of London’s High Society in the 1800s a...

Every year 350 million tonnes of soybean are grown. More than three-quarters of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of the rest is used for biofuels, industry or vegetable oils. Whilst just 7% of soy is used directly as food for us to eat, the crop is packed with protein and is a valuable contributor to global health. This episode looks at breakthroughs in the produc...