Food - Delicious Science

Episode 1

Food on the Brain

Wed, May 17, 201754 mins

Food: Delicious Science is the delicious science story of the food on your plate. Michael Mosley and James Wong present a celebration of the physics, chemistry, and biology that lies hidden inside every bite. Together they travel the world as they deconstruct our favorite meals, taking us inside the food, right down to the molecular level. In the final episode, Michael and James explore the effect of Food on the Brain. The brain is one of the greediest organs in the body in terms of the energy it needs to run. It influences our diet is by generating the cravings we all experience. The food we put in our mouths has a very direct effect on all the grey matter lurking above. And the brain does something rather ingenious with all this sensory input. We all have a series of interconnections in our brains called the reward pathway. This allows us to make pleasant associations between the food we eat, who we eat it with, and where we eat it-and these feelings keep us coming back for more.