The Food Programme

Each January, with the arrival of the seville oranges, hundreds of people across the UK ritually boil and jar batches of marmalade, following family recipes and leaving their kitchens sticky and fragrant with citrus. But who's eating it? For years sales figures have been in decline and the under 25s say it's 'boring'.So Tim Hayward heads out to a little corner of Cumbria to the Dalemain estate where the amber preserve is celebrated at the Marmalade Championships. From 'dark and chunky' to 'any citrus' hundreds of home-made and artisan examples have been entered for judging while enthusiasts dressed in orange accessories browse the presentations.He asks whether marmalade, once commonplace on British breakfast tables, is dying a slow death or becoming the preserve of the wealthy or an enthusiastic elite. He also learns a worrying truth - could foreign marmalade makers now be beating us at making the best?Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.

Sheila Dillon looks at how our sense of taste develops throughout our lifetimes, and what happens when we lose it, through old age, illness or injury. Two hundred thousand people a year seek medical help over loss of taste, Sheila hears the story of Marlena Spieler, a food writer who lost her sense of taste following a road accident.

Sheila Dillon explores Africa's forest foods, both an emergency larder and source of wonderful flavours.With the support of Comic Relief and funds raised through Red Nose Day work is underway to tap into the potential of this neglected food source.From Shea butter to Maringa, Sheila tastes her way through this story with Tony Hill of the charity Tree Aid, and Malcolm Riley, "the African Chef", whose cooking career started in Zambia. On the menu, prawns stir-fried in an ingredient from the baobab tree, and as Malcolm explains, it's "modern African cuisine".Producer: Dan Saladino.

Hectic lifestyles are increasing the demand for ready-made, 'grab n go' convenient foods. Today's time pressed commuters buy bagels at the station or carry breakfast bars in their briefcase. Retailers have led this change - offering snack size portions and handy grab packs to stave off hunger. Gourmet 'food on the go' has been identified as a key growth sector and sales are increasing. Sheila Dillon asks if, in our hurry, we've forgotten the value of three square meals a day, eaten at a table at set mealtimes.She meets restaurant guide writer Richard Harden who takes her on a whistle-stop tour of the speedy choices on offer including the fashion for "the small plate menu". There's now no distinction between lunch and dinner - if you fancy a steak at 4pm most cities will be able to help. Consequently people seem to be losing track of when and how much they can eat. It's all just one long munchfest.Sheila also hears from staff and children at a Nottinghamshire school where pupils were arriving having had no breakfast and sometimes no dinner. Their response was to offer free breakfasts to those from families on low incomes but their experience offers some revealing insights into the eating habits of children across all incomes.With so many snacks to choose from, do those "on the go" have more nutritious options than simply crisps and a chocolate bar or should we be asking if there is a more serious cost to this new bite-sized way of eating? What is the true cost of speed and convenience?Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.

It's an ingredient that is key to many cuisines of the world, and has a prominent role in folklore and traditional medical systems- although some people avoid it because of the passions that it is said to arouse. Sheila Dillon explores a bulb which provokes strong feelings - both culinary and otherwise - and is now to be found in most of our kitchens: garlic. The United Kingdom is importing five times the amount of garlic than twenty-five years ago. Some British growers are smelling an opportunity for home-grown bulbs, but how much have we stopped to think about the way we use this enigmatic 'allium'?

Sheila Dillon investigates the food lives of people surviving on the basic state pension. To fully understand the experience of living on a small income and feeling the limitations of older age, food writer Andrew Webb volunteered to spend a week living as his 80 year old self.Kitted out in a suit that replicates some of the physical challenges of someone twice his age Andrew shopped, cooked, ate and dined for a week as a pensioner. His right knee was stiff, he was felt unbalanced by weights placed on his ankle and his eyesight was restricted by a pair of glasses replicating a loss of vision. He was also given a pair of gloves that reduce skin sensitivity and created the effects of arthritis in his hands. Ear plugs made him partially deaf. Dressed like this he heads off on a mission to the shops, and on to cook a meal. With an ageing population, an increase in food prices and cuts to local council services, The Food Programme investigates what our food future might look, feel and taste like.

Sheila Dillon reports on fresh developments in the horsemeat scandal. As more tests reveal large amounts of horsemeat in beef products, Sheila investigates the supply chain.Producer: Dan Saladino.

Sheila Dillon with an exclusive food interview with former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney. More than thirty years since becoming a vegetarian he reflects on his life through food.He describes his early life in the terraced council house, 20 Forthlin Road, now owned by the National Trust and where the McCartney kitchen, circa 1955, has been restored. Paul McCartney recalls meals of pork chops, liver and tongue , the latter proving to be one of the biggest food challenges of his childhood.He recounts stories on the road with The Beatles and seeing huge steaks drooping over the plate on their American tour, and then the 1960 trip to India and facing a strict vegetarian diet. Several years later, after spending time on his farm, and influenced by his wife Linda, he stopped eating meat.So how, from a personal decision based on compassion for animals, did he decide to shift to a more political and campaigning stance on food and farming? Sheila Dillon finds out how he took a fame based on the stage, into arenas like the European Parliament and The White House.Producer: Dan Saladino.

Ireland's horsemeat burger scandal makes the guarantees on traceability and product standards by some supermarkets look unreliable. The discovery may also be a wakeup call for the Food Standards Agency. In a special edition of The Food Programme, Sheila Dillon talks to former regulators and experts on food processing to find out how it could have happened and what kind of meat supply chain it has revealed. The discovery comes as many people monitoring food safety have expressed concerns about cuts in budgets to the UK's food testing regime. Public analyst Duncan Campbell explains why he thinks the two scenarios are connected. To shed light on the global trade in horse meat and protein products Sheila speaks to Latitude News journalist Jack Rodolico. He's traced the movement of race horses into the EU food supply chain. New York Times reporter Michael Moss also explains why the UK might be following in the footsteps of a debate around cheap meat sparked off in the US by the so called "pink slime" scandal. Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Dan Saladino.

Traffic light labelling - whether red lights will stop us eating bad foods. Sheila Dillon investigates whether this year's change in food labelling will encourage us to improve our diet.Sue Davies from Which? explains the change to food labelling. This year a consistent system will be adopted across supermarkets. The labels will show a combination of guideline daily amounts, colour coding and "high, medium or low" wording will be used to show how much fat, salt and sugar and how many calories are in each product.Dr Mike Rayner has worked on a system like this since the 1980s. He celebrates this as a landmark year in public health, but thinks that the traffic light system still is not perfect.And New York Times columnist Mark Bittman describes his dream food label, which would also include details about animal welfare and how processed the food was.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Emma Weatherill.