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The Food Chain

Factual: Food & Drink

Examining what it takes to put food on your plate

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

The Food Chain: Health by Stealth?

21/11/2014

Health by Stealth?

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Health by Stealth?

Companies are vying to improve junk food, but will customers actually want to eat it?

Food companies are racing to take the junk out of junk food, but is that what the customer really wants? Angela Saini explores the business behind 'health by stealth'.

Food manufacturers today face a tricky dilemma. Their customers have developed a taste for their products, but rising levels of obesity and  more health-concious customers mean the demand for products that are healthy, but don't taste that way, is increasing.  

Angela Saini reports from the Food Matters Live conference in London - talking to manufacturers about how they create products that are healthier, without neccesarily letting consumers in on the secret. 

Plus, Angela has an introduction to stevia, an alternative sweetener that some manufacturers see as an answer to sugar and artificial substitutes, though as she discovers it can leave a bitter taste.

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