The Food Chain

Do you love to share food with friends and family? Or resent handing over even one french fry from your plate?
Sharing food has a long and proud tradition in some cultures and is relatively rare in others. Ruth Alexander looks at what it does for our relationships, how it can enhance the experience of a meal and how it can help boost a restaurant's bottom line. It can even improve the outcome of tricky work negotiations.
But what if you can't bear to share? You're not alone. Ruth hears from dedicated anti-sharers who will protect their own private portion at all costs.
Produced by Lexy O'Connor, Amber Mehmood and Beatrice Pickup.
Sound engineer: Hal Haines.
Image:A woman and a man's hand reach across table laden with curries and breads. She is dipping bread into a dish and the red and gold embroidery of her sleeve is also visible. Credit: Getty.

What does a life on tour do to a stand-up comedian's eating habits? And how do you stay healthy if half of your working life is spent travelling?
Ruth Alexander finds out.
If you travel regularly for work you'll know how hard it can be to hold onto good eating patterns. International flights, client dinners and the hotel's buffet breakfast can blow your diet out of the water. And that's before you consider the impact of sleep disruption, jet lag, late finishes and early starts.
Plus a work trip may involve a big presentation, a stressful conversation or a performance of some kind. So what do nerves and stress do to your appetite? And can you eat to maximise your performance?
Ruth chats to comedian Celya AB, currently three weeks into her UK tour and hears from Marisa Poster, boss of Perfect Ted Matcha who spends half of every month travelling – often taking long-haul flights.
Plus South African dietician Nathalie Mat on how to handle stress and jet lag and the vital importance of travelling with good snacks.
Produced by Lexy O'Connor, Sam Clack and Beatrice Pickup.
Sound Engineer: Fiona Fairmaner.
Image: A young woman in a business suit sits on the end of a hotel bed, gazing out of the window. She is holding a wheelie suitcase. Credit: Getty.
If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk

Are you hungry? How often do you stop to think about why that is and what sort of foods you are hungry for?
In this programme Ruth Alexander explores the science of appetite – what causes us to feel hungry and full and why our appetites differ from one person to the next.
Geneticist Professor Giles Yeo at the University of Cambridge in the UK explains how much of our appetite is informed by our genes and how much by our environment. Registered public health nutritionist Federica Amati, author of 'The Appetite Reset', explains what happens in our gut to help us feel full, not just immediately but for hours after eating. Amber Alhadeff, neuroscientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, US says that GLP-1 weight-loss medications are changing what we know about appetite.
And Ruth meets Darren Ratcliffe at his home in Manchester, UK. Darren shares how GLP-1 medications affected his appetite, and what happened when he stopped taking them.
If you'd like to contact the programme you can email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk.
Produced by Beatrice Pickup and Lexy O'Connor.
Sound engineer: Andrew Mills
(Image: Darren Ratcliffe is standing in his kitchen. He is wearing a green t-shirt and holding a plate of food that contains a baked potato with tuna and sweetcorn and a salad. Credit: BBC).

Weight-loss medication, or GLP-1s as they are also known, are designed to suppress your appetite - so how do you make every mouthful count?
Ruth Alexander looks into what happens to the body on these drugs and what it feels like to take them. She learns why it's vital to change your diet to minimise side effects like nausea and constipation and to avoid vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Plus why what you eat before you start taking the medicines also matters, and how to give yourself the best chance of coming off them without regaining all of your weight.
Ruth Alexander talks to UK based medical scientist Federica Amati, author of The Appetite Reset and US dietician Whitney Black who takes the drugs herself and specialises in supporting patients on GLP-1s. Whitney shares her real-life experience alongside Michelle Herum from Denmark, a busy mum of four who's been taking Wegovy for three years.
Produced by Lexy O'Connor and Beatrice Pickup.
Sound Engineers: Hal Haines.
Image: Two donuts, one pink and one brown are balanced on a small plate in the foreground. A woman's hands are visible, holding an apple in one hand and holding up her other hand to reject the donuts. (Credit: Getty)
If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk

Imagine not recognising the food in the shops, markets and restaurants around you. Moving to a new country to live and work can come with some culture shocks and food can be a big part of that.
Ruth Alexander speaks to people who have lived in different countries. Listener Jen Ballantyne in the UK has taught in Japan, Tanzania, Azerbaijan and Brunei. Chinese Canadian chef Kelvin Cheung has lived in Belgium and India and today has a restaurant called Jun's in Dubai. Miwa Kishi is a Japanese cookery teacher living with her family in The Netherlands. We also hear from listener Juanita Ruiz a Colombian chef living and working in a small ski town in British Columbia, Canada.
(Photo: a man wearing a blue shirt pushing a supermarket trolley and looking at the shelves of food in a confused manner. Credit: Getty Images)
If you'd like to contact the programme you can email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk
Producer: Beatrice Pickup and Rumella Dasgupta