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Food is one of the most important things in life – but few of us understand exactly how it sustains us.
We know it goes in one end and comes out completely different at the other, but what happens in between is a mystery to many. And food scientist Dr Chris van Tulleken hopes to help change that a bit.
TV Science Presenter – who hosts shows including BBC Two’s recent Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating, and author of the best-selling book Ultra-Processed People – will reveal how what we eat can have a huge impact on our bodies and our brains through the Truth About Food programme, as part of the Royal Institution’s Christmas Lectures BBC Four for children.
And he’ll bring the science to life through trademark lecture demonstrations and self-experimentation – including taking young viewers on a journey to the center of his gut by swallowing a pill for the camera to unpack each step of the digestive process.
“We’re going to use cameras to get views inside the human body, and do a lot of big experiments with them kids about how the gut works and how your body breaks down and destroys food,” says van Tulleken.
“And for some demonstrations, we shrink the kids down to the size of atoms and show exactly what’s going on inside the cells and inside the motors at the atomic level.”
The host, who is also a practitioner NHS infectious disease doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Londonemphasizes that the goal of his lectures is not specifically to make children change what they eat.
“That is not my ambition,” he insists. “We’re not really going to give anyone advice – what we want to do is give them information. Even if a child wants to eat different foods, he doesn’t have much control over it – he is fed by the adults who care for him. So we’re going very carefully here.
“Life is turning food into movement and breathing and all the other things that life does, and I think kids are deeply curious about that.”
But their curiosity isn’t the only reason why van Tulleken, who has three children aged seven, four and nine months, wants youngsters to understand more about how food affects their bodies. He emphasizes: “Children in this country have been made very sick by our food system – a quarter of them are living with foodborne illness, which is obscene.
“So children have a right to knowledge and good health, and part of these lectures is to help them understand how the food they put in their bodies affects them.”
He explains that while children should know that when they don’t eat fiber, for example, they can end up constipated, he won’t tell them what they should and shouldn’t eat.
“We’re not going to say you have to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and we want to be very careful about ultra-processed foods (UPF). But we will look at the science behind it and the proven effects on the body,” he explains.
He insists that he will “never, ever give advice – I refuse to do that”, as he is a food scientist, not a qualified nutritionist or dietician, and points out: “If you give advice, it’s really hard for people to follow it. ”
He says it’s difficult for parents to get rid of all UPFs from their children’s diets, and he admits that even his own children eat whole grain UPF bread in their chains, explaining, “Unless you make your own bread or live near a bakery that does.” sells real bread. bread – which is up to 10 times more expensive than supermarket bread – it is very difficult to get rid of the last bit of UPF. So no one should panic – no one is saying you have to give up completely.”
His children do not drink soft drinks with packed lunches and drink milk or water. “That’s probably the most complicated piece of health advice out there, that kids should drink milk or water, not soft drinks,” he says.
“If your kids like soft drinks and you want to cut back on them, you’re in a very difficult situation because the drinks are, of course, very cleverly designed so that kids like them and want to drink a lot of them. But children, if they are thirsty, will drink water and milk.
“Soft drinks aren’t toxic, but you know they’re not great either, and we think there’s evidence that they train the palate to really like something sweet, even sugar-free.”
He says that consuming zero-calorie sweeteners can affect children’s preference for sweet things, so they may prefer sweet foods, and “sugar in a child’s diet is not great. It rots the teeth and causes other problems.”
But he stresses that parents using sugar when cooking at home is not a problem. “The difficulty is the sugars in all industrially produced foods. There are such high levels that you end up eating huge amounts,” he says.
And what about portion sizes?
“Here’s the thing that amazes me,” he says. “A small bottle of fizzy pop is two servings. So you should drink one serving, then close the lid and drink the rest later.
“I don’t know anyone in the history of drinking fizzy pop who has ever put the cap back on and not finished it. It’s the same with packets of crisps.”
He says that food is made so that we will eat too much of it, and it is good for children to look at food packaging and recommended portion sizes and ask themselves if they are satisfied with the portion. “And the answer is usually no,” he points out.
Do parents give their children too large portions?
Van Tulleken says, “It’s not that parents are serving too much food to their children, but that we’re all eating foods that are designed to bypass our body’s ability to say I’m full.”
He explains that there are “lots and lots of ways” to engineer diets so that people consume a lot, explaining: “The qualities of food that we think lead to weight gain are softness, energy density, large amounts and perfect ratios of fat, salt and sugar, flavours, colors and marketing and branding. All of that together means that whether it’s crisps or ready meals or fast food, you’re going to eat too much of it and you’re not going to feel good.”
But what can parents do about it?
“If a parent told me how to read the package and tell if something is healthy or unhealthy – you somehow can’t. It’s very difficult,” says van Tulleken with regret.
But, of course, every parent has a choice about what food to feed their children, and he stresses: “I’m very wary of being another privileged man telling the nation how to eat.
“I personally find it very, very difficult to feed my children healthily – it’s a challenge. It takes time, money, energy and effort. And if people are struggling, the main thing I would tell them is that it’s normal and it’s very difficult.”
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are on BBC Four (and iPlayer) at 9pm on 29, 30 and 31 December.