Fed with Chris Van Tulleken

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Fed with Chris van Tulleken

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Factual: Food & Drink

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?

Fed with Chris van Tulleken: Series 1: Planet Chicken: 7. Big Chicken

7. Big Chicken

Series 1: Planet Chicken

BBC Radio 4 - Fed with Chris van Tulleken, Series 1: Planet Chicken, 7. Big Chicken

Dr Chris van Tulleken ponders the global cost of keeping the world in wings.

Dr Chris van Tulleken explores the massive global business that is chicken production, and wonders who pays the highest price for keeping the world in wings...

We're a planet addicted to chicken - and our appetites fuel a massive global industry... but is it one we should support?

As Chris wrestles with how he personally feels about this weird and wonderful bird, he decides to take a look at the business as a whole: a global industry that's cited by some as a shining example of a super-efficient food production system, one that could help drive food security around the world. 

But others say it’s a cruel, destructive and outdated structure that makes a few people richer while exploiting others – along with animals and the environment.

In Brazil, one of the world’s biggest chicken and soya producers, our reporter Leonardo Milano hears accusations of threats and pollution relating to the feed sector; while in Africa, Chris learns about poultry-farming initiatives helping to make struggling nations more food-secure.

And then there are the other challenges that the industry is wrestling with: from antimicrobial resistance to the threat of another major global pandemic, potentially stemming from chicken farms…

So is there a ‘big business bad guy’ to blame – or does responsibility lie closer to home, with unquestioning consumers like Chris?

Produced by Lucy Taylor and Emily Knight.
Additional reporting, editing and translation by Fernando Otto, BBC News Brasil.

Fed with Chris van Tulleken: Series 1: Planet Chicken

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Fed with Chris van Tulleken

Series 1: Planet Chicken

7. Big Chicken

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