Many of us imagine that an athlete's diet consists of sports supplements providing carefully calibrated doses of carbohydrates, protein and electrolytes, but for ancient Olympians, a diet of cheese or figs was seemingly enough. In truth, whole foods are still the most important part of an athlete's diet today, as we discover on our culinary tour of the sporting world.

The egg is an extraordinary thing. In the pantheon of miraculous food chemistry, it takes on a range of essential roles. From helping cakes and soufflés to rise, to bringing disparate ingredients and flavours into a unified whole. They can also take on a starring role, whether fried, scrambled or poached. Eggs frequently appear in art, literature, design, and philosophy, too, and they are at the heart of the age-old paradox: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Australians don't always see eye to eye on election day, but there is one unprepossessing foodstuff that seems to straddle divides of age, geography, ideology and class: the sausage. How did the humble sausage come to be the food that fuels election days in Australia, with its name now synonymous with the democratic act?

What is appetite? Many happily succumb to it, while others struggle against it through willpower or even pharmaceuticals. But what are the biological, cultural and psychological mechanisms that make us want to eat? These questions are increasingly complicated in this era of unprecedented abundance and ubiquitous food.

In times of war, food and nourishment can determine victory or defeat. Welcome to the world of military food. Armies once lived off the land, but now they can live off a sealed, freeze-dried pouch. Imagining, making and storing combat-ready food leads global food science, which means that each and every one of us eats a little like a soldier.

In many religions, the key moments of ritual centre around food. Whether it's Eid al-Fitr, Passover or Easter Sunday, these feasts mark the passing of time and have bounty and renewal at their heart. In this episode, we pull up a chair at Easter and Passover celebrations around Australia and abroad, and en route we learn about some of the more ancient rituals that underpin these feasts of faith.

If you were to list the world's best bakers working today, Richard Hart's name would have to be right near the top. After honing his craft at big-name bakeries in California, he teamed up with the world-famous Noma to open Hart Bageri in Copenhagen. His skills with sourdough are so well-known, he was even namechecked on The Bear. Richard recently published his first book. It's called Richard Hart Bread.

When the bread baking craze took off during the pandemic, many of us encountered sourdough starter for the first time: a concoction of flour and water playing host to a colony of micro-organisms — most importantly: yeast. Without this single-celled fungus, we would have no leavened bread, no wine, no beer and no spirits. So, what role does it play? And how long have humans partnered with this miraculous organism?

Doctors and scientists around the world are increasingly alarmed by the impact that industrial processing is having on the food we eat and by what that food does to our bodies. Ultra-processed foods may last longer and taste good, but our guests explain, they are designed for overindulgence, and they are linked to health problems like obesity and an increased risk of some cancers.

If you took the sodium chloride out of human history, you would have a very different and strangely flavourless tale to tell. Salt has historically been one of the world's most valuable commodities. Its discovery, extraction and commodification has shaped the story of humanity. So, let's take a trip from the test tube to the kitchen, to salt tolerant plants that could revolutionise agriculture.

This is an episode of Blueprint for Living, originally broadcast on March 24, 2018.