The Science Behind Your Salad
Episodes
From Roadside to Runway: How Kenya Feeds Itself… and the World
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Before sunrise in central Kenya, green beans are packed for European supermarkets while, on the same morning, women carry leafy greens to sell by the ...
The Next Billion Plates: World Food Prize Conversations
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode of The Science Behind Your Salad, we take you inside the World Food Prize and the Borlaug Dialogue, the gathering inspired by ...
The Future of Food
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Food is also what connects farming to human health and our natural environment. In this episode of The Science Behind Your Salad, we ask you to close ...
Celebrating Farmers
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Social media has given farmers the perfect way to share the many joys, challenges and the daily realities of farming with people interested in how the...
Feeding the Future
10 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Feeding humanity in the future brings a complex set of interconnected challenges. What’s abundantly clear is that, over the coming decades, farm...
The Impact of Climate Change on Olives
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode of The Science Behind Your Salad from BASF visits Spain, Portugal and Egypt in a quest to discover how olive crops will be affected by cl...
Carbon conscious cooking for the future
04 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our volatile climate will impact the way we cook and the way we eat. And so, farming needs to adapt, eating needs to adapt, and how we cook, will also...
Food Safety
21 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Whether we’re buying a punnet of fruit, a freshly made burrito or a can of tomatoes, we take it for granted that the food is safe and free of any bi...
Sustainable Cereals
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There is a huge variety of grains, from quinoa to spelt, from bulgur wheat to pearl barley, from barley to rye. Barley used to feed livestock and used...
Water security
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The wettest country in the world is Columbia, which receives over 3200 ml of rain annually and the driest nation, Egypt, receives just 18 ml. Agricult...
Coffee
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
More than 3 billion cups of coffee are drunk every day but how did the bean inside a fruit become synonymous with kick starting our mornings with a ca...
Weeds
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Weeds are plants that are growing in the wrong place. Certain species can totally devastate farmers crops, resulting in huge losses of both productivi...
Sustainable Agriculture
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Improving the sustainability of agriculture extends far beyond the production of food, as farmers share the global challenges of climate change mitiga...
Fruit
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sweet and juicy, plump and delicious: In this episode of The Science Behind Your Salad we’re telling the story behind the production and innovation ...
Food Loss and Food Waste
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the United States, accor...
Vegetables
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Vegetables are at the heart of a healthy diet. They are packed with vitamins and minerals and play an essential role in our physical and mental well-b...
Wine Grapes
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first traces of wine production date back some 9,000 years to parts of the Middle East. Georgia is known for making some of the earliest wines by ...
Holiday Bonus Episode: Celebrate Grapes
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this bonus episode, we’ll explore the meaning of grapes from a seasonal perspective. During the holidays, grapes play an important role – both ...
Onions
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Loved by Ernest Hemingway in a sandwich, around 4.5 milliion tonnes of onions are grown globally each year. While Hemingway ate his onions raw, the ve...
Cotton
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Not every crop relating to what we eat is edible. The table dressing also plays a valuable roll with crisp white tablecloths and beautifully folded na...
Food Security
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We are currently facing significant challenges to our food supply. A global pandemic, a war on the ground in the breadbasket of Europe, a volatile cli...
Canola
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Waves of golden flowers can currently be seen rippling in the wind across many parts of the world as the oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) harvest is a...
Salad Leaves
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we discover the story behind the sweet, crisp, crunch of the salad leaves. From iceberg to Lollo Rosso, from radicchio to endive, the ...
Soybeans
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Every year 350 million tonnes of soybean are grown. More than three-quarters of global soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. Most of ...
Holiday Bonus Episode: Celebrate Wheat
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this surprise bonus episode, we’ll talk about the meaning of wheat from a seasonal perspective: Different Christmas&...
Wheat Part Two
25 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this, the second episode exploring the importance of wheat as a crop globally, we discover the ways in which farmers can safeguard their crops agai...
Wheat Part One
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The story of wheat begins 10,000 years ago and becomes the tale of the biggest crop on the planet. Wheat covers more of the earth than any other crop ...
Seeds
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Seeds are the building blocks of agriculture. You can have the perfect land, the most fertile soil and optimum growing conditions, the perfect climate...
Rice Part Two
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the second episode devoted to one of the biggest crops on the planet: rice, Jane Craigie explores the way in which rice production in Australia is ...
Rice Part One
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rice is staple food for over half the world’s population, and when you think of how the crop grows, an image of shimmering paddy fields, with an...
Tomatoes
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Craigie traces the origins of the humble tomato from a small hairy specimen to a juicy plump red fruit, and discovers the science and technology ...
The Science Behind Your Salad Trailer
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Science Behind Your Salad will shine a spotlight on the innovation, technology, digital and sustainability for healthy food made by BASF in Agricu...