Meals is without doubt one of the most necessary issues in life – but few of us perceive precisely the way it sustains us.

We all know it goes in a single finish and comes out very otherwise on the different, however what goes on in between is a thriller to many. And meals scientist Dr Chris van Tulleken hopes to assist change that just a little.

The TV science presenter – who’s fronted reveals together with BBC Two’s latest Irresistible: Why We Can’t Cease Consuming, and is the creator of the best-selling guide Extremely-Processed Individuals – will reveal how what we eat can have an enormous impact on each our our bodies and our brains by means of The Fact About Meals programme, as a part of BBC 4’s Royal Establishment Christmas Lectures for youngsters.

And he’ll carry science to life by means of the lectures’ trademark demos and self-experimentation – together with taking younger viewers on a journey to the centre of his intestine by swallowing a camera-pill to unpack each step of the digestion course of.

“We’re going to make use of cameras to get views contained in the human physique, and do a number of massive experiments with youngsters about how the intestine works and the way your physique breaks down and destroys meals,” says van Tulleken.

“And for some demonstrations, we shrink kids all the way down to the dimensions of atoms and present precisely what’s taking place inside cells and inside engines at an atomic stage.”

The presenter, who’s additionally a practising NHS infectious ailments physician on the Hospital for Tropical Ailments in London, stresses that the intention of his lectures isn’t notably to get kids to alter what they eat.

“That’s not my ambition,” he insists. “We actually aren’t going to offer anybody any recommendation – what we would like is to offer them data. Even when a toddler needs to eat completely different meals, they don’t have a variety of management over it – they’re fed by the grown-ups who take care of them. So we’re treading a really cautious line right here.

“Life is about turning meals into actions and respiration and all the opposite issues life does, and I believe youngsters are profoundly interested in it.”

However their curiosity isn’t the one purpose van Tulleken, who has three kids aged seven, 4 and 9 months, needs kids to know extra about how meals impacts their physique. He stresses: “Kids on this nation have been made very sick by our meals system – 1 / 4 of them dwell with diet-related illness, which is an obscenity.

“So kids have a proper to data and good well being, and a part of these lectures is about serving to them perceive how the meals they put of their our bodies impacts them.”

He explains that whereas kids ought to know that after they don’t eat fibre, for instance, they might find yourself constipated, he’s not going to inform them what they need to and shouldn’t be consuming.

“We’re not going to say it’s important to eat 5 parts of fruit and veg a day, and we need to be very cautious warning about ultra-processed meals (UPF). However we’re going to have a look at the science of it, and the confirmed results on the physique,” he explains.

He insists that he’ll  “by no means, ever give recommendation – I refuse to do it,” as a result of he’s a meals scientist, not a certified nutritionist or dietitian, and factors out: “In the event you give recommendation, it’s actually arduous for folks to comply with.”

He says it’s arduous for fogeys to do away with all UPFs of their kids’s weight loss program, and admits that even his kids eat wholegrain UPF bread of their packed lunches, explaining: “Except you make the bread your self, or dwell close to a bakery that sells actual bread – which is as much as 10 occasions dearer than grocery store bread – it’s very arduous to do away with the ultimate little bit of UPF. So, no-one ought to panic – no-one’s saying it’s worthwhile to stop it fully.”

His kids don’t have smooth drinks with their packed lunch, and drink milk or water. “That’s most likely essentially the most agreed on little bit of well being recommendation there may be, that kids ought to drink milk or water, not smooth drinks,” he says.

“In case your youngsters love smooth drinks and also you need to cut back them, you’re in a really troublesome spot, as a result of the drinks, after all, are engineered very cleverly so youngsters love them and need to drink a number of them. However youngsters, in the event that they’re thirsty, will drink water and milk.

“Smooth drinks aren’t toxic, however you recognize they’re not nice both, and we expect there’s some proof they prepare the palate to essentially love sweetness, even the sugar-free ones.”

He says consuming zero-calorie sweeteners might have an effect on kids’s desire for candy issues, so they might desire sugary meals, and “sugar in a toddler’s weight loss program will not be nice. It rots enamel and it causes different issues.”

However he stresses that oldsters utilizing sugar after they prepare dinner at residence isn’t an issue. “The issue is the sugars in all of the industrially produced meals. There are such excessive ranges that you find yourself consuming an enormous quantity,” he says.

And what about portion sizes?

“Right here’s a factor that amazes me,” he says. “A small bottle of fizzy pop is 2 servings. So you need to drink one portion, then put the lid on and have the remainder later.

“I don’t know anybody within the historical past of ingesting fizzy pop that has ever put the lid again on and never completed it. The identical is true with packets of crisps.”

He says meals is engineered so we’ll eat an excessive amount of of it, and it’s good for youngsters to have a look at meals packaging and really useful portion sizes, and ask themselves in the event that they’re glad by a portion. “And the reply is usually no,” he factors out.

So are mother and father giving youngsters parts which are too massive as properly?

Van Tulleken says: “It’s not mother and father serving their youngsters an excessive amount of meals, it’s that we’re all consuming meals that’s engineered to bypass our physique’s means to say I’m full.”

He explains there are “heaps and many methods” of engineering meals so folks eat rather a lot, explaining: “The properties of meals that we expect result in weight acquire are softness, power density, excessive portions and excellent ratios of fats, salt and sugar, flavouring, colouring and advertising and branding. All of that mixes to imply that whether or not it’s crisps or prepared meals or quick meals, all of it you’ll eat to extra, and it received’t make you are feeling good.”

However what can mother and father do about it?

“If a father or mother stated to me, how can I learn a pack and inform if one thing’s wholesome or unhealthy – you form of can’t. It’s very arduous,” says van Tulleken ruefully.

However it’s, after all, each father or mother’s selection what meals they offer to their youngsters, and he stresses: “I’m very cautious of being one other man with privilege telling the nation tips on how to eat.

“I personally discover it very, very arduous feeding my kids healthily – it’s a problem. It takes time, cash, power and energy. And if persons are struggling, the primary factor I’d say to them is that’s regular, and it’s very arduous.”

The Royal Establishment Christmas Lectures are on BBC 4 (and iPlayer) at 9pm on December 29, 30 and 31.