Fed with Chris van Tulleken

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Factual: Science & Nature

How chicken got big. Chris van Tulleken unwraps the forces that shape what we eat.

How chicken got big. Chris van Tulleken unwraps the forces that shape what we eat. This is how we changed chicken and chicken changed us.

Fed with Chris van Tulleken is a new food podcast, investigating the entangled web of forces that shape what ends up on our plates. In the first series, Planet Chicken, Chris digs into the story of one of the most widely eaten meats on earth - to try to get to the truth of why we eat so much of it, and what that means for the birds, for us, and for the planet.

If there's one thing Chris knows, it's what he should and shouldn't be eating.

He's across the dangers of ultra-processed foods: those nutritionally empty snacks that fill our supermarket shelves and entrance our kids. And at the same time, he's confident he knows what we should be eating: good, old fashioned whole food - recognisable ingredients, no mysterious additives, no harmful rubbish.

Something like a nice wholesome roast chicken, perhaps? In fact, in the van Tulleken household that's a family favourite.

But recently, Chris has been getting asked more questions - by neighbours, people on the street, even government ministers: and he's realised there's a massive gap in his food knowledge.

Sure, he knows what happens in our bodies once that delicious gravy-drenched chicken dinner passes our lips: but what about everything that comes before that? Where it's from, how it was reared, how it was processed? Can he say what toll the process of getting that chicken from farm to plate might've have taken on the animal, the environment, the nutritional content?
Because in a world where so much food comes via an industrialised, globalised food system; where we're subtly influenced at every turn by advertising and price tags; and where ALL food choices ultimately come with a cost of some sort - how much do any of us really know or want to know about the consequences of our dinner?

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Fed with Chris van Tulleken: Series 1: Planet Chicken: 3. U OK Hen?

3. U OK Hen?

Series 1: Planet Chicken

BBC Radio 4 - Fed with Chris van Tulleken, Series 1: Planet Chicken, 3. U OK Hen?

Dr Chris van Tulleken explores what it takes to make a chicken happy.

Dr Chris van Tulleken explores what it takes to make a chicken happy, and whether or not we're prepared to foot the bill.

We eat chicken. A LOT of it. We might love the taste, but what about how we're treating those birds?

After witnessing first-hand the reality of indoor chicken farming - how most of the chicken we eat is raised - Dr Chris van Tulleken wants to know: are the birds happy enough, or is our method of rearing cheap chicken actually cruel? 

If so, what’s the ‘happier’ alternative – and do carnivores like Chris care enough to pay the price for that, or does a love of meat ultimately trump ethics? 

Chris battles with his conscience, and finds the answer hard to stomach.

Produced by Lucy Taylor and Emily Knight. 



Archive audio:
- VIVA broiler investigation video (2021)
- BBC and Channel 4 news reports on battery cage ban (2012)

Fed with Chris van Tulleken: Series 1: Planet Chicken

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Fed with Chris van Tulleken

Series 1: Planet Chicken

3. U OK Hen?

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