We all have recipes we turn to again and again, perhaps from the stained pages of our favourite cookbooks, or handed down through families. But have you ever wondered about the work that’s gone into writing that set of instructions? In this edition of The Food Chain, Ruth Alexander looks at the art and science of recipe writing.

How does a cook turn what is often an instinctive and creative process into a list of instructions anyone can follow? How much detail is too much, and what are the essential elements no recipe is complete without? Ruth talks to a well-known cook who describes her love-hate relationship with recipe writing and a cookbook editor reveals how she’s built recipes from chefs’ doodles or even notes scrawled on a napkin. Find out what it’s like to work in the world of recipe testing and how the art of writing recipes has changed over hundreds of years.

Producer: Lexy O’Connor

Sound engineer: Hal Haines

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Most of us have foods we refuse to eat - think coriander, or maybe olives. But where do those strong dislikes come from, and is it possible to change them?

In this episode of The Food Chain, Ruth Alexander sets out to find out whether you really can learn to love the foods you hate. From first encounters that go wrong to memories that linger, she explores why food preferences can feel so fixed, and whether anything might help shift them.

Ruth speaks to neuroscientist Dr Dana Small, professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair at McGill University, about what’s happening in the brain and body when we eat, and how unconscious reward signals shape what we come to like or avoid.

She also hears from psychologist Dr Rachel Herz, an expert on the science of smell and author of Why We Eat What We Eat, about the powerful role odour, memory and emotion play in food dislike, often before we’re even aware of it.

And registered dietitian Clare Thornton-Wood shares practical, low-pressure techniques used with both children and adults to build tolerance - and sometimes even enjoyment - for foods they can’t stand.

Producer: Izzy Greenfield Sound engineer: Annie Gardiner Picture: A woman holding a fork with a piece of broccoli in front of her, looking unsure (credit: Getty)

Fermented foods are fashionable – kimchi, kefir, kombucha – they're all having a moment, many thousands of years on from where they were first produced. But how much do you know about how they're made? Do you know your SCOBY from your kefir grain?

In this episode, fermenting novice Ruth Alexander goes on a quest to find out more about this ancient way of preserving food; how to do it yourself, why you might want to, and what it's doing for our guts.

Follow along as she experiments with making her own kefir, and talks to fermentation guru Sandor Katz about how to get started and whether there's anything that can't be fermented.

Scientist Professor Gabriel Vinderola explains what's known about the microbes behind it all and how they affect our health while Kheedim Oh and his mum Myung Oh talk about how they've brought the family recipe for kimchi to a US audience via their business, Mama O's Kimchi. (Kimchi on pizza anyone?)

And with the help of Adam Goldwater from UK based Loving Foods Fermented, Ruth discovers how kombucha is made, and the alien like SCOBY powering the process.

Produced by Lexy O'Connor. The sound engineer was Andrew Mills.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected].

Image: A woman in an apron is holding a jar of brightly coloured fermenting vegetables, with orange carrots and purple cabbage tightly packed in. Credit Getty/Migrogen

Meal kits have become a familiar part of food shopping in many countries, offering pre-portioned ingredients and recipes delivered to the door. But how widespread are they, and what do they reveal about how people are eating today?

Ruth Alexander hears from Philip Doran, CEO of HelloFresh UK and Ireland, and Sarah Hewitt, CEO of South African meal kit company UCOOK, about how these services operate in very different markets.

She also speaks to Dr Rebecca Bennett, a food systems researcher, about what meal kits say about changing cooking habits and online food platforms, and to market analyst Nandini Roy on how big the global meal kit industry is and where future growth may come from.

Producer: Izzy Greenfield Sound engineer: Hal Haines

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Image: A woman unpacks a box full of food (credit: Getty Images)

The Mediterranean diet is rich in vegetables, pulses and olive oil and traditionally includes small amounts of fish and very little red meat. Thousands of studies back its health benefits. In fact, it's considered to be one of the most widely researched diets in the world. But why has this way of eating come to prominence over others?

Marta Guasch-Ferre from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark explains what the Mediterranean diet is and how her Spanish roots have informed her work.

Professor Sarah Tracy from the University of Oklahoma tells the story of the diet's roots, popularised by American scientist Ancel Keys in the 1950's.

And Ruth asks, if this way of eating isn't familiar in your culture, can you still make use of the Mediterranean diet's principles to improve your health? Singapore based cardiologist Professor Huang Zijuan has been looking at the science behind Asian inspired food swaps that could offer the same health benefits.

Plus public health expert Professor Pekka Puska explains how he used the work of Ancel Keys in the 1970's to help transform the life expectancy of Finnish men. He co-led the now world famous North Karelia project, after Keys' research revealed how the region in eastern Finland had the highest rates of blood cholesterol in the world.

Produced by Lexy O’Connor

The sound engineer was Andrew Mills.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Image: A family is eating together. The wooden table is covered in brightly coloured plates of salads, pastas and olives. Hands reach over to take some of the food. (Credit: Getty/Compassionate Eye Foundation/Natasha Alipour Faridani)

Ruth Alexander gathers the most useful, actionable nutrition advice from our episodes of 2025 to help set you up for 2026. Things like how to nourish your brain, keep an eye on portion sizes, and why it’s important to focus on fibre. Experts from around the world tell us about the small tweaks that can make a real difference to how we eat, think, and feel.

Producer: Izzy Greenfield Sound mixing: Hal Haines

(Photo: a person looks at a variety of foods, Credit: Getty Images)

Food is at the centre of family life – on ordinary days, in the everyday rush, during the dramas, and the quieter moments too.

In this episode, Ruth Alexander looks back at some of The Food Chain's most moving and intimate moments of 2025, all revealing the power food has to bind people together.

From the first meal taken by a foster child in an unfamiliar home to the couple cooking together for the first time in their lives after a dementia diagnosis, these stories show how food has the capacity to strengthen family bonds and how its absence can shape a life just as deeply.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Producer: Rumella Dasgupta.

With the festive season approaching in parts of the world, Ruth Alexander explores what’s actually happening in the body during a hangover, why some people suffer more than others, and whether common remedies make any real difference.

How the body processes alcohol and why that can make you feel so bad is explained by Andrew Scholey, Professor of Human Psychopharmacology at Northumbria University in the UK and member of the Alcohol Hangover Research Group.

Marisa Moll, a registered nutritionist from Paraguay, shares her recommendations on what to consume before you drink alcohol to try to reduce the risk of a hangover.

And Jonathon Shears, Professor of English Literature at Keele University in the UK and author of The Hangover, a Literary and Cultural History, reflects on the cultural history of the hangover.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected].

Producer: Izzy Greenfield Sound engineer: Andrew Mills Image: A woman looks at empty bottles of alcohol (credit: Getty)

***This programme contains conversations about disordered eating which some listeners may find upsetting*** Social media is awash with nutritional misinformation with foods often cast as superheroes or villains. So how can we separate fact from fiction? And how can we know what posts we can trust?

Social media loves to portray some foods, like carbs, sugar and seed oils as villains, to be avoided at all costs.Other food groups like protein are often claimed to be food heroes and some social media influencers tell their followers to prioritise those foods and cut out others. Ruth Alexander looks at the truth of some of those claims and the impact it can have on those who believe them and end up restricting their diets as a result.

Cecile Simmons tells Ruth how she "fell down the rabbit hole" and ended up cutting out dozens of foods in an attempt to cure a skin condition.

Personal trainer and nutrition expert Michael Ulloa explains how he's made it his mission to fight food misinformation online. Plus Ruth hears from Dr Emily Denniss, registered public health nutritionist and lecturer at Deakin University in Australia, who has studied the spread of food misinformation on social media. And with the help of US based registered dietician Grace Derocha, Ruth separates food fact from food fiction.

Producer: LexyO'Connor Sound engineer: Gareth Jones

(Image: A comic book cartoon of a blond, muscle-superhero in a blue suit and yellow cape is flying through the air towards a baddie in a red suit with their fists outstretched as if ready to fight. Credit: Yogysic/Getty Images)

How do you eat well in freezing the cold? When you live in some of the coldest places on earth, what you eat, and how much, really matters.

Ruth Alexander hears advice from a scientist, who goes on expeditions to study the body’s reaction to sub-zero temperatures, and talks to people living in the Arctic circle.

What do they cook, and what is their favourite food and drink to keep them warm in the winter? She hears how they find fresh ingredients when all around the ground is frozen – and how freezing temperatures can spark culinary creativity.

Producer: Julia Paul and Lexy O'Connor Sound engineer: Hal Haines

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Ruth Alexander explores the art and etiquette of tipping and how it varies around the world.

She hears from staff and customers in countries where tipping is essential and in places where it can be taken as an insult.

Ruth also talks to servers and bartenders about what your gratuity means to them and how tipping can sometimes bring out the best and worst in their customers.

Producer: Lexy O’Connor and Rumella Dasgupta

Sound mixing: Hal Haines

Image: A jar full of coins and notes has the word “tips” written on it. It floats on a red background. Credit: Nikola Stojadinovic / Getty