RI Christmas Lectures 2024

To get a really personal view of the journey our food takes, Chris’s twin brother Dr Xand van Tulleken will use an endoscope inside his own body. Chris will then strap Xand to the spinning “wheel of doom”, to test whether it’s possible to eat upside down. He will inflate a stomach to discover how much food it can hold - before revealing that the small intestine is really very big, as he spills his guts right across the lecture theatre. Chris will meet a goat that’s powered by trillions of microscopic bugs in its stomach and finally he will enlist members of the audience to find the right ingredients for a perfect poo. 

Our food does more than fuel us - it also builds and repairs us, providing construction material we can use to regenerate almost every cell in our body. Chris attempts to compile all the ingredients that make up a human body – including some rare elements known to be vital such as the teaspoon of iron that makes our blood red and our snot green.  We source many of these elements from our food, so Chris explores what can go wrong with our bodies when our diets don’t supply what we need.   

Using some ingenious experiments – including making un-meltable ice-cream - Chris demonstrates why a drive to make cheaper and more accessible meals has led to a new age of industrially produced foods, including some which can confuse our bodies feedback mechanisms.

But the modern science of food processing hasn’t only created problems - it also offers solutions. To explore ways to improve our food system, and to wrap up this year’s Christmas Lectures, Chris assembles an expert panel of scientists. With the help of The Royal Institution’s young audience, together they set about finding ways to rediscover just how amazing our food really is.