How a peculiar fruit captured hearts and imaginations across the world.

The science and history behind the making of butter

Why are we turning out diets into personality traits?

We may not have the same jobs as you, but our life is busy too.

The ecological processes behind one of the world’s most popular beverages

Eating more meat made us human. Now our survival demands we eat less of it.

Who decides what you eat? There’s a whole team behind it.

The 17th-century mistake that put the ‘fizz’ into fizzy

We have become a salt-obsessed society, but maybe we can blame our ancestors for that?a

The highly processed history of a much overlooked fruit When  something is plain and boring, we call it vanilla. “Vanilla ice cream”,  we say, and think of the “default flavour”: a bit dull,...

Ever wondered how to deep-fry without oil? This is almost, if not quite, the same. Deep  frying might be the only cooking technique that seems to make  everything better, from the mundane, l...

Most of our vegetables can’t fight back. So how do onions bring us to tears? Onions  are one of those flavourful foods that compliment almost any dish. So  much so, we’ve even learned to pow...

White spots are good: are you throwing away a perfectly good cheese? The  funny thing about being a food scientist, is that before meeting me,  most people have never even heard of my field....

Stuck in a microwave oven? Here’s how not to get cooked. If you get stuck in a microwave oven, don’t panic. As an ant, your body is small enough to take the rays for a short while. The impor...

What if the main dish was really a dish? It’s a common thing for people to carry their own food while travelling on a train. But when I’m travelling on the 12677 Intercity Express, from Beng...

Who knew that Tomatoes could connect Tintin and The Pirates of the Caribbean?

There are hundreds of different kinds of pasta — you’ll never be able to remember all of them! — but they’re all made from the same basic ingredients: 100% durum wheat, and water. More flavo...