The Food Programme

Pulses are little marvels - protein packed lentils, peas and beans are cheap, good for health and help the soil. They're central to many food cultures including Italy and France but as a nation we eat very few other than baked beans. Now the Food and Agriculture Organisation has announced the 'Year of the Pulse' to encourage us to eat more but they may be met with reluctance from some quarters.Sheila Dillon's panel will kick off any tarnished reputation of wind and worthiness with tips on how to prepare pulses with ease and how to choose them. Chef Sanjay Kumar and cookery expert and author Jenny Chandler get cooking in the studio with a breakfast sambhar from Goa and 'black badgers and bacon' - a traditional Black Country dish better known as grey peas and bacon which tastes far better than the name would suggest.Farmers across the UK grow fava beans to help enrich the soil yet most of them are exported or fed to animals. Nick Saltmarsh was so shocked when he learnt this that he set up a company to market British beans to consumers and he's now asking farmers to grow other varieties especially. In addition to dried and tinned pulses he's selling them as snacks and flours and looking into pastas and other uses for them. Sheila's also discovered a beer made from British fava beans and now chocolate covered pulses are hitting the shelves. It's a hard job but someone's got to try them for you.Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.

The range of fats and oils available to us is growing but the advice has changed dramatically. Sheila Dillon looks to cut through the latest thinking to help gain clarity of which we should be using when. She's joined in the studio by Dr Michael Mosley whose recent investigation looked into how the composition of saturated and polyunsaturated fats changed when heated with food and resulted in the production of dangerous aldehydes. Sheila finds out what response there has been since the programme and how he's changed his own cooking and buying habits but what questions should we be asking when we eat out? Over the past decades animal fats have lost out in popularity and newer products like coconut oil have risen in prominence. Yet a butcher from Clonmel in Tipperary has seen his dripping crowned 'supreme champion' in the Great Taste awards - could this signify a change of thinking on what was once classed 'unhealthy fats'. Meanwhile in parts of Italy a new disease is threatening olive trees. N.B. In this programme, mustard oil is used. Due to the high levels of the allergen erucic acid present in mustard oil, EU regulations state that the oil must be marked for 'external use only'. However, it continues to be widely used in Indian cooking and is often recommended by chefs to create authentic dishes.

Why is cheese essential when the German Chancellor comes for dinner? Dan Saladino explains why a plate of food shouldn't be taken at face value in this special episode of the Food Programme, made in collaboration with the Food Chain on The World Service. This week we enter an arena usually hidden from public view; the kitchens behind the most powerful people on the planet, where politics, policy and diplomacy are the main ingredients.For millennia, international relations have been massaged by the chefs working inside palaces and state kitchens and their food might have influenced some of the biggest decisions in history. Dan meets Gilles Bragard, the founder of the world's most exclusive culinary club, Le Club des Chefs Des Chefs, which brings together 20 people who cook for Heads of State. Gilles shares some food secrets, including President Putin's food security protocols. We visit the kitchens of Hampton Court Palace, where in 16th century England, wine fountains and roasted meats were cooked to help Henry VIII impress and intimidate foreign dignitaries. The White House kitchen, is perhaps the most influential in the modern era and Sam Kass, former chef and close friend to the Obamas, explains how policies were cooked up in State kitchens. Professor Stephen Chan of London's School of Oriental and African Studies tells the story behind Robert Mugabe's lavish feasts. David Geisser, a former Vatican Swiss Guard, provides insights into the culinary preferences of Pope Francis and finally, we hear from a journalist in Brussels who has witnessed some recent and dramatic EU meals, including the former British Prime Minister David Cameron's last supper with European leaders.Producer: Emily Thomas.

Dan Saladino travels on a new road in Albania that leads to an undiscovered cheese world.

In 2013, The School Food Plan was published aiming to revolutionise food in schools across England, and to show countries around the world what providing good food in schools could look like. Out of the policy came 'universal infant free school meals', dubbed by the Government as "good news" for any family with small children at infant school. A £600 million commitment to giving children a hot meal at lunchtime.But in this programme, one of the authors of the School Food Plan says the Government failed to listen to the advice it asked for. Now thousands of primary schools across England face funding cuts which could see them struggling to provide school lunches to tens of thousands of pupils.Sheila Dillon hears how a Government report on funding food in small schools was never published and asks what the future holds for school food across the UK in an uncertain political climate. Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Dan Saladino outlines the big food issues we're facing because of Brexit. From the impact of a devalued pound to longer term questions over the future of how we farm, produce, buy and sell food. Dan goes on the road in search of answers. The podcast of this programme is a special extended edition featuring Angela Hartnett.Producer: Rich Ward. Photo: Artur Melez Tixiliski.

Dan Saladino returns to the world of the gut microbiota, the vast array of microbes within us all. From the Amazon Basin to East Africa to the life underneath our feet; food will never be quite the same again.Featuring Tim Spector, author of The Diet Myth, Jeff Leach, co-founder of the American Gut Project, microbiome scientist Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, food professor and author Ken Albala, and DJs Lisa and Alana Macfarlane - aka The Mac Twins.Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Dan Saladino reports on food, survival and fishing from the Faroe Islands. From fermented sheep's head to whale blubber he finds out how people eat on the remote archipelago. For many generations many of these traditonal foods were only eaten in family homes, often having associations with poverty and difficult times. Things are changing however and dishes from the past are now helping to drive a restaurant boom.Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Dan Saladino discovers the world of the gut microbiota, the vast array of microbes within us all. From East Africa to the White House, it's a story that'll change the way you eat.Dan is joined by Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London, and author of The Diet Myth - The Real Science Behind What We Eat. Tim tells the story of how he became fascinated by the gut microbiome and our diet.The programme also features a Dutch draper named Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, co-founder of the American Gut Project Jeff Leach, evolutionary biochemist Dr Nick Lane, and Alexandre Meybeck - a Senior Officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

In the British Library there is an archive of life story sound recordings which tells the true story of how our food has changed over the past century. Until now, this collection has been accessible only by visiting the British Library. Now, for the first time, the 'National Life Stories project' is being made public online. Featuring hundreds of voices, and thousands of hours of interviews, it is one of the most comprehensive and revealing resources we have on food in the UK. Contributors range from chefs like Shaun Hill and Albert Roux, to biscuit factory managers, from butchers to apple growers.In this edition, The Food Programme is collaborating with the British Library to bring you highlights from the 'National Life Stories' archive. Historian Polly Russell picks voices which shed light on hidden parts of the food industry, from restaurant kitchens to the high street. And in recounting these histories to today's chefs, restaurateurs and shop owners, she finds how working in British food has changed.Presented by Sheila Dillon with Polly Russell & Barley Blyton Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.