Main content
This programme will be available shortly after broadcast

Dr Chris van Tulleken is joined by leading experts, including his twin brother Xand, to explore the incredible journey food takes through our bodies.

Dr Chris van Tulleken follows the extraordinary journey food takes through our bodies – from the very first moment we see and smell a potential meal... until it finally emerges at the other end of our digestive tract. Be prepared for plenty of gross moments in this one-hour lecture!

Prue Leith, the nation’s favourite baker, drops by with some very confusing Christmas foods to help Chris crack the mysterious science of taste, and Chris’s baby daughter Indigo is on hand as an expert food taster, to find out if we are born with the concept of disgust, or if we learn it as we grow up.

To get a really personal view of the journey our food takes, Chris’s twin brother, Dr Xand van Tulleken, uses an endoscope inside his own body. Chris then straps Xand to the spinning 'wheel of doom', to test whether it’s possible to eat upside down. He inflates 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. He meets a goat that’s powered by trillions of microscopic bugs in its stomach, and finally, Chris enlists members of the audience to find the right ingredients for a perfect poo.

This is the 199th year of the Christmas Lectures. They are the most prestigious event in the Royal Institution calendar, dating from 1825 when Michael Faraday founded the series for children. They have become the world’s longest-running science television series and promise to inspire children and adults alike each year, through explosive demonstrations and interactive experiments with the live theatre audience.

Release date:

59 minutes

Clip

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Christopher van Tulleken
Executive Producer David Dugan
Series Producer Peter Gauvain
Director David Coleman
Production Manager Felicity Chapple
Production Company Windfall Films Ltd

Broadcasts

Watch an exclusive interview with Professor Mike Wooldridge

Find out more about AI, the most rapidly evolving field of science in the world today.