Wine producers say a warming planet can be detected in the glass.

The owners of long-established vineyards are having to adapt their methods to preserve the taste of their wines, but experts say change is inevitable and already tangible.

Ruth Alexander finds out how climate change is challenging some of the world’s most famous wine regions, while providing opportunities for new producers emerging in the most unlikely places.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

(Picture: woman holding a glass of wine. Credit: Getty/BBC)

Contributors:

Sally Evans, Chateau George 7, Bordeaux, France

Dr Greg Jones, wine climatologist and CEO of Abacela vineyards and winery in Oregon, United States

Bjorn Bergum, Slinde Vineyard, Sognefjord, Norway

As food prices are rising around the world, along with the cost of energy, even people living in some of the world’s wealthiest countries are struggling to manage.

In this episode, three UK citizens discuss how difficult it can be to feed a family on a low income.

Single parents Sue and Dominic tell of how they have had to skips meals themselves to ensure their children are fed, and how food insecurity has at times left them with feelings of shame.

And Kayleigh Maughan, the founder of the charity End Holiday Hunger, explains how the donations she relies on to make up the food parcels she sends to families in need are dwindling as supermarkets and households feel the pressure of the rising cost of living.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

(Picture: hand holding a shopping basket. Credit: Getty/BBC)

Contributors:

Sue Stalker

Dominic Watters

Kayleigh Maughan

Imagine a world where going out for dinner virtually - from the comfort of your own sofa - becomes the norm. Whether it sounds appealing or dystopian - there are restaurants, chefs and gamers already out there experimenting with food in virtual worlds.

Tamasin Ford speaks to the developer of a ‘foodverse’ that will feature everything from virtual dining and cookbook signing experiences to food-based virtual games and we hear from a large US restaurant chain on why they are playing with their customers in the metaverse. But what does a future of virtual worlds mean for the food industry? Will it be a niche pursuit or an invaluable tool? And could it threaten the existence of restaurants in the real world?

(Picture: person wearing VR headset. Credit: Getty/BBC)

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Contributors:

Supreet Raju: Co-Founder of OneRare

Chef Olia Hercules invites us into her London home to reflect on her country’s rich culinary heritage and the power of food in even the darkest of times.

She opens her well-stocked kitchen cupboards and fridge to reveal the varied flavours, colours and scents of a cuisine she says is often wrongly dismissed as being ‘beige’ or boring.

Ruth Alexander joins Olia and her Russian friend and fellow food writer, Alissa Timoshkina, to discuss the close ties between their nation’s traditional dishes, and the importance of the two women’s own personal friendship.

The conversation was recorded on Tuesday 8 March; 12 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email [email protected]

(Picture: Olia Hercules and Alissa Timoshkina. Credit: BBC)

Producer:

Sarah Stolarz

Slipping drugs or extra alcohol into someone’s drink is a crime, but one that is under-reported and little understood.

It’s often thought to take place in bars and nightclubs, but as Ruth Alexander discovers from people who’ve been targeted, it can happen to anyone, at any time.

Campaigners explain why myths and misconceptions around drink spiking persist, and we ask what could be done to move the crime out of the shadows and into the open.

(Picture: hand holding glass of water. Credit: Getty/BBC)

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Producer: Elisabeth Mahy

Contributors:

Clara George, Miss United Kingdom, and campaigner against drink spiking

Dr Lata Gautam, associate professor in forensic science, Anglia Ruskin University, UK

Dawn Dines, CEO and founder of Stamp Out Spiking

What is a recipe? A simple question... with many answers. It could be a set of instructions on how to make a dish – but also so much more. Recipes can reveal how we lived in the past, and how we are living today. They are part of our sense of identity, belonging and loss and they are portals we can use to travel to different cultures.

This week, Ruth Alexander speaks to three recipe collectors in India, Ghana and the USA to find out why they are preserving their nation’s recipes. What can you learn by documenting these culinary guides? How do you even capture a recipe that has never been written down? And what is at stake if they are lost?

(Picture: Cookbook with utensils. Credit: Getty/BBC)

If you would like to get in touch with the show please email [email protected]

Megan Elias, cultural historian and director of the Gastronomy programme at University of Boston, USA

Muskaan Pal, co-founder, Indian Community Cookbook Project at Flame University in Pune, India

Social media is full of fake news about food.

Fad diets, cure-all superfoods, demonised ingredients, made-up health scares – you’re never more than a few clicks away from unreliable nutritional information.

In this episode, Ruth Alexander meets two people trying to take on those who peddle the food myths. What is it like getting into an online food fight; can an individual ever hope to change people’s minds; and why would anyone even try?

(Picture: Hand holding cream pie on man's face. Credit: Getty/BBC)

Contributors:

Dr Joshua Wolrich, NHS doctor, nutritionist and author

Erin aka Food Science Babe, chemical engineer and food scientist

It’s estimated that as many as 1 in 7 adults are suffering from constipation at any one time. And yet, talking about the problem is taboo.

Ruth Alexander is joined by two experts who want us to be more open about the condition. They say our reluctance to talk about constipation is having an impact on our well-being and creating a costly burden on health services.

Find out why a balanced and varied diet will help many people avoid the problem, but not all; and why prunes – a famous remedy – can actually make it worse.

Plus, a historian traces how we came to be so reticent about our toilet habits; and how constipation may have had a decisive role at numerous turning points in history.

If you would like to get in touch with the show please email [email protected]

(Picture: Closed airplane toilet door. Credit: Getty/BBC)

Contributors:

Anton Emmanuel, University College Hospital London and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery

Louise Foxcroft, medical historian and author

Miguel Toribio-Mateas, School of Applied Sciences at London South Bank University.

Imagine being able to ‘taste’ every word that comes out of your mouth. Everything you or someone else says provoking something in your brain to kick your taste buds into action. It sounds incredulous, but for a tiny proportion of the world’s population, that is their reality. It’s a neurological phenomenon called synaesthesia, where two or more senses merge.

Tamasin Ford meets two sisters from Glasgow, Scotland, who have had the condition for as long as they can remember. They share what it’s like to live with this explosion of taste at every waking moment.

But how and why does it happen? We try to unpick the science behind it and take a look at what synaesthesia could tell us about how we experience taste and flavour.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email [email protected]

(Picture: Keyboard letters in a soup bowl. Credit:Getty/BBC)

Contributors:

Julie McDowall and Jennifer McCready

Can you imagine suddenly finding that it hurts to eat? Or that when you take a bite of your favourite meal you feel nothing?

In this episode, we’re talking about something that isn’t much talked about: what happens to your relationship with food when you’ve got cancer.

Ruth Alexander is joined by three women who want you to know about a side effect of treatment that they weren’t fully prepared for - the loss of their sense of taste.

They share how what is a relatively minor detail, given a devastating diagnosis, nevertheless had a huge effect on their everyday routine, their interactions with family and friends, their sense of self.

Hear how they learned to cope and how, out of the depths of this distressing experience, came a new appreciation of the everyday.

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email [email protected]

(Picture: Grapefruit with pills coming out of it. Credit: Getty/BBC)

Producer:

Sarah Stolarz

Contributors:

Heather McCollum

Semira Oguntoyinbo

Angharad Underwood