We Brits are a nation of food lovers.
Oh, my goodness!
Hello!
Our supermarkets are jam-packed with products
from every corner of the globe.
Konichiwa!
But how much do we really know about the journey our food makes
to our plates?
Wow! I've never seen anything like it in all my life!
Oh!
The Food Unwrapped team travel all over the world and beyond...
This is like stepping into the future.
.. to reveal the trade secrets behind the food we eat.
Tonight, I journey to an Israeli date plantation
to help spread the love.
So, basically, these trees, these are just sperm donors.
I ask -- how much processed meat is it OK to eat?
So that is a very processed sausage.
And I meet a man with a magic apple tree.
- So you've got one tree... - With 250 different varieties on it.
Really?
First, dates.
I do enjoy a good date and I was thinking,
you know, if you get raisins,
I can get grapes,
if I buy plums, I can get prunes,
but you can't get, like, the fresh fruit of the date, can you?
- Or can you? - It's a good question. - Thank you.
I don't know. That's a good helpline, isn't it?
I wouldn't know off the top of my head, to be honest with you.
I think the fresh dates are plums.
Why don't you sell the fresh ones?
I think because of where they come from.
Do you like a date?
Depends who it's with, I suppose.
I'm going to have to keep looking for some fresh dates.
- Or go to Israel. - That is an excellent idea.
If only.
Sorry, Kate. This one's for me.
I'm bound for the Arava Desert in Israel,
which produces 30 tonnes of the fruit every year.
You look out the window here, it is dry, arid, harsh conditions.
It's the last place you'd expect to find thriving agriculture
but, in the distance there, there are huge date trees.
That's where I'm heading.
So look at this. In the desert...
Little donkey.
Donkeys, desert and not a drop of water anywhere.
Hi, there. I'm Jim.
'This is the Ketura Kibbutz run by plantation manager Lisa Solomon.'
- These must be the date palms. - That's right.
They're incredible, aren't they?
We're doing something very important right now
- for the production of the fruit. Let me come show you. - OK, great.
'On this vast plantation, there are 10,000 date palms
'producing the succulent medjool date
'and, today, they're collecting pollen for fertilisation.'
These are the male trees.
- So these are just male trees? - These are just male trees, right.
'Unlike most trees on the planet, you get male and female date palms
'and, to produce those juicy little fruits,
'Mr and Mrs Date Tree need to get jiggy.'
Female trees, obviously, produce the fruit
and the male trees produce the pollen.
'Unfortunately, neither birds nor bees are attracted to the flowers
'so these old boys need a helping hand
'getting their pollen into the female.'
So, basically, these trees, in the palm world,
these are just sperm donors.
You could put it that way.
'Once snipped from the tree,
'it's time to get up close and personal with the female.'
These are our pickers.
So this takes us right up to the flowers
- and then this is the pollen here. - Mm-hm. That's the pollen mixture.
- And we're going to disperse that on the flowers? - Yes.
- Right, well, let's do it, then. - OK. - Up we go.
So this is what a giraffe feels like.
'Despite this dry environment,
'these leggy ladies can grow to the dizzy height of 75 feet.
'That's three houses stacked on top of each other.'
So, looking at the flower there,
there's all those fun little nodules, those little bumps,
- what would they be? - Those are actually the individual flowers.
In each one of those is a potential date and they need to be pollinated.
OK, here we go.
'The male pollen is sprayed directly at the female plant
'to fertilise it.'
- How much do I put on? - Keep going. A little bit more.
'I don't normally do this on a first date.'
- The whole load? - That's enough. - OK.
So that's my first flower fertilised.
Good date producer, you are.
'Each female tree can yield up to 6,000 fruits a year,
'but not for another six months.
'Now, we're off to the packing plant where they process the fruit.'
Wow, I could eat them all.
'Here, the dates get sorted by size and flavour
'and dispatched to every corner of the globe.
'But hang on a minute,
'these look like the dried variety we get at home.'
So you can see that's been dried. Where is the drying happening?
- It has not been dried. - It hasn't been dried? It's really crinkly.
I know, but that's how the fruit looks
when it's picked from the tree.
- So it's picked... - It's picked just like that.
I always thought there was these great big drying rooms
where you put them in the sun to go crinkly.
- No, no. - Wow.
So what happens to the fruit?
It grows for seven months on the tree and it starts really smooth
and it's hard and then it loses moisture
and, as it's losing moisture in a natural way,
it becomes crinkly at the time that it's ready to be picked.
Right.
'The more moisture it loses, the sweeter the fruit becomes,
'until, eventually, it takes on
'the fudge-like flavour we know and love.'
Oh, my word.
Super sweet but it's fresh.
It is, it's absolutely fresh.
That's how it's picked from the tree.
'So fresh dates are, in fact, dry by nature
'and not processed like other dried fruits,
'but how on earth do they grow these juicy delights
'when there's no water for miles?
'Later, I find the answer in the unlikeliest of places.'
So, basically, this is like a city of sewage.
Next, processed meat.
Quick question for you,
I've been told I ought to cut down on processed meats.
I've been reading they're quite bad for you.
Can you tell me what is a processed meat?
Is bacon processed?
Probably not.
- Salami, is that processed? - How about a ham?
Oh, right. Square ham.
You don't know whether a sausage is processed or not?
Now, processed meat has been linked to bowel cancer
according to the World Health Organisation.
So I've come to Northern Ireland
to get to the bottom of what's safe and what's not.
It is breakfast time in Belfast
and the crew are tucking into a full English.
Bacon. Sausages.
Which ones are processed?
I think all of them.
'Processed or not processed?
'That's a sensitive subject for sausage supremo Dennis Lynn.'
Welcome to Finnebrogue.
Nice to meet you.
'Dennis's sales went down 20% when the report hit the headlines
'and he's got a beef with the World Health Organisation.'
Why do you think that the WHO's recommendations
around processed meat don't apply to your sausages?
Well, that's very, very simple. I think the best way to explain this
is to show you what goes into our sausages.
- Hands in here? - Yes.
'Dennis's state-of-the-art factory
'makes over 140 million sausages a year.'
So hi-tech!
First spot of sausage.
'Aren't all sausages processed?
'I've got my eyes peeled.'
This is the beginning of your sausage.
British, outdoor-bred pork shoulder.
So there's nothing wrong with that, is there?
That's a lovely piece of pork. Let's get mincing.
Do you add anything at this point?
Nothing. We just mince the meat.
'Nothing is slipping into these sausages that I don't know about.'
First up, you put in your mincer
and it's 100% pure, fresh lovely pork.
Exactly the same 100% pork you saw us mince there.
I'm just checking, Dennis. I've got to check.
OK, what's going in next?
Chives, parsley and gluten-free crumb.
'So maybe it is just mother nature's finest.
'Anything else?'
Salt, pepper and a preservative called E223.
'Come again, Dennis!'
- E223. - Well, this is it, isn't it? E223.
You're putting an E number in your sausage,
therefore it puts it into the processed category.
It's a very complicated question.
E223 is in most fruit juices, all beers, wines, cakes, buns.
E223 is a very, very safe preservative
and there are no carcinogenic links at all.
I want to see it in isolation.
Oh, OK. Right, this is it.
Now, although you're saying
that this doesn't make your sausage processed, according to...
I'm not saying it doesn't make it processed,
it goes through a process, but the word processed
means different things to different people.
It is not in the same category as a European-style sausage
that has had nitrites added to it which make it cured.
'So it seems not all sausages are equal, and that is Dennis's issue.'
The British sausage should never have been in the same category.
You can call it processed or call it whatever you like
but there's no reason to put it into that category.
Would you eat your sausages every day?
I do eat my sausages every day.
I'm the chief taster.
This is the same as eating a pork chop.
'So Dennis clearly doesn't see his sausages as processed meat
'but, if they aren't, then what is?'
I think I need to clear up exactly what is meant by processed meats.
I'm going to e-mail the World Health Organisation
and find out how they define it.
Coming up, we concoct the most processed banger on the block.
The Franken-sausage.
For the first time ever, I'm going to have to say no to a sausage.
Next, apples.
We Brits are quite discerning when it comes to our favourite fruit.
Can you name any apples without looking?
- Cox. - Bramley. - Braeburn.
- Braeburn. - Jazz.
- Granny Smith. - Green and red.
Can you name some different varieties of lemon?
- No. - I don't know. I didn't know there were different types.
So loads of different types of apple,
how many different types of banana can you name?
I can't name any bananas, no.
So how come there are so many different varieties?
'I've come to West Sussex to meet a fella who's really into apples.
'Over 25 years Paul Barnett has been building up a little collection.'
- What's going on here? - That's my apple display.
Holy cow!
- How many have you got? - 380 on display here.
Wow. That's astounding, actually.
'But how has he got so many and all ripe at the same time?'
You must have a massive orchard.
Most of the collection comes from this one big tree on the lawn here
with 250 different varieties on it.
What? Really?
It's like the Faraway Tree.
'It's taken Paul decades to create this extraordinary tree
'which grows apples used for everything
'from eating and cooking to cider making.'
I'm no gardener but I know that an apple tree grows one type of apple,
so how have you done this?
I take a little graft a couple of inches long
and graft in the winter months.
So you've got one tree and then you put other apple varieties onto it.
It's amazing.
'250 kinds of apples from one tree? Crikey!'
Later, I get grafting
and go underground to look at the world of supermarket apple science,
which is worth billions.
It's immensely valuable, to the tune of £8 billion.
- Really? - Yes.
Back to apples.
Earlier, I met Paul and his incredible tree.
Most of the collection comes from this one big tree on the lawn here,
- with 250 different varieties on that. - Eh? Really?
Paul's apple tree is a labour of love.
But how are all those supermarket apples growing?
So, I've come to East Morley Research Centre to find out
a little bit more.
The team here are on the cutting-edge
of horticultural science
and have revolutionised the way the world grows apples.
- Hello! - Hello, welcome to East Morley.
Feli Fernandes and her colleagues
are geneticists and pioneering fruit breeders.
- OK... - Have a bite, tell me - what you think. What's that called?
At the moment, it hasn't got a name, it's only a number.
They develop new apple varieties for our supermarkets.
Ooh, I like that.
And if you like it, we must be doing something right.
Surprisingly, they don't design these apples to be grown from pips.
Just like Paul, they create perfect apple trees
by attaching one cutting to an existing plant.
This is Dilly.
- Hello, Dilly. - Hiya. - Nice to meet you. - And you.
When the team find a variety of apple
they want to mass-produce, they take a graft
and attach it to the stump of a dwarf fruit tree called a rootstock.
So this is a rootstock here.
Yep.
You are kind of marrying...
Marrying the two together, yes.
- And that... - Is not wed!
The graft will fuse onto the dwarf rootstock
and then be planted out in the orchard.
I'm very pleased with that.
Let me show you what it boils down to
in terms of what rootstocks do for trees.
OK.
By grafting all our favourite varieties onto dwarf rootstocks,
they can produce normal-sized fruit on much smaller trees.
I mean, they're pretty small, aren't they?
They need to be. That has allowed the industry
to go from the traditional apple orchard, ladders for picking,
whole massive trees with actually very little yield per hectare,
to the modern orchards that you have at the moment,
with very compact trees that can be picked from the ground
for high productivity per hectare.
Thanks to the work here, apple producers have increased their
yields tenfold, but the real secret lies beneath these little trees.
So, come on in. Now we're going to go down into the bunker.
- Oh! - Come on in.
'This is the root lab.
'These tunnels have been built underneath the orchard.'
- And hopefully... - Like a massive wormery.
.. it's something to see when I do this.
- Can you see the lines? - Yes, I've got one here.
Here, under these special lights,
scientists study the root systems without disturbing them,
examining their depth and span and ability to absorb nutrients.
And with this data, they've developed super rootstocks,
which means we are spoilt for choice in the supermarket.
The research that made it possible has been immensely valuable
to the industry, the apple industry worldwide,
to the tune of over £8 billion.
- Really? - Yes.
£8 billion! A hell of a lot of money for some roots.
There is more to the apple tree than meets the eye.
Back to dates. I'm in arid Israel,
where I've discovered that dried dates are in fact fresh dates.
That's how the fruit looks when it's picked on the tree.
So it's picked?
It's picked just like that.
But how can they grow such succulent fruit in this desert?
I'm heading to meet Gil Shoham at a water plant
on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
- Hi, you must be Gal. - Hi. - Nice to meet you.
Now, tell me, what's going on here, then?
Let's go.
This gargantuan site is one of the largest
and most advanced in the Middle East.
It treats an amazing 120 billion litres of waste water every year.
Let's go.
Look at this place. It is colossal.
It is like a space station, isn't it?
'And the Israelis are light years ahead of any other country
'when it comes to water conservation.
'They recycle over 85% of what they use.
'Spain, in distant second place, recycles only 19%.'
So what is this over here, then?
That is the raw sewage.
Wow, look at that!
- It's just like a river. - It IS a river.
- You can smell it, can't you? - Of course.
So, how many people is that from?
2.5 million people,
all of them from the centre of Israel, right to this plant.
So 2.5 million people going to the loo every day ends up here?
You can see!
'To get rid of all these nasties
'and make the water clean enough for our dates,
'the sewage is pumped into these biological reactors.
'Oxygen activates bacteria in the sewage,
'which gets to work eating up all the harmful microbes.'
So you use natural bacteria, give them the right conditions,
and they do all the hard work?
Yes. I just have to sit and wait and they will do the job for me.
Very easy.
It then undergoes one final filtration process
in these sand aquifers before it's pumped via a vast network of pipes
to quench our desert dates.
So without that daily flush,
- you wouldn't be picking dates off your palms. - Exactly.
Well, since I've been here, I know I've been helping out.
Thank you very much.
Back to processed meats.
The World Health Organization has warned us
that too much can cause bowel cancer.
But their very broad definition of processed meats
has caused confusion.
This is the same as eating a pork chop.
Time to call in a professional.
OK, Matt, I e-mailed the World Health Organization to find out
exactly what their definition of processed meat is, OK?
Now, what I want to do today with you is make the most
processed sausage known to man.
Fine.
'And we're going to find out
'what all these processes do to our meats.'
OK, so we've got our lovely pork.
- Now, this, at this stage, is not processed at all. - No, OK.
'The first thing we're going to do is cure it.
'Manufacturers commonly use nitrites.
'This is the stuff that Dennis told me
'usually goes into those European salamis and pepperonis.'
These are toxic chemicals.
So, already in my head, alarm bells are going.
'Next, we extend its shelf life.'
- This is a preserving tablet. - OK. - Metabisulphate. It's also E223.
'That's the stuff in Dennis's bangers.'
Fermentation.
This is live bacteria.
'All those continental sausages are fermented to make them last longer.'
'Next, flavour enhancer.'
MSG here.
Monosodium glutamate.
Now, this stuff, according to the FSA, is completely safe.
Makes my Chinese food taste good,
on the whole!
'Now, as far as MSG, E223 and the live bacteria go,
'to date, there is no conclusive evidence
'to suggest they cause cancer,
'which makes this whole thing even more confusing.'
Shall we start mincing?
Ohh!
Get in! Do you want a Cumberland... ring?
I think that sounds fabulous.
Oooh! Well done, Matt!
'Finally, we're smoking these bad boys.'
- Are we done? - We're done.
- We're cooked? - OK!
Your sausage is very different to Dennis' sausage.
But... according to that definition, they're both risks.
Go on, why don't you have a little nibble of your processed sausage?
- How is it? - It's quite dense.
I'm actually not going to have a nibble.
You don't even want a nibble, no?
You were all fun and games earlier -- now, when it comes to the crunch...
I know, do you know what, Matt?
For the first time ever, I'm going to have to say no to your sausage.
I'll peel it!
Come on, come back!
'Some of these processes in our Frankensausage
'involve chemical nasties, while others seem more natural.
'So are they all equally risky?
'I'm confused, and so are the Young family from Lyndhurst in Hampshire.
'They've agreed to keep a video diary for us.'
We've got some... Some processed ham. Parma ham.
Sausage rolls.
Just picked up this pack of ham for the kids' sandwiches.
Sodium nitrite -- I don't know what that is.
Got some smoked bacon here. Is this really going to give me cancer?
'I'm heading round to the Youngs' with nutritional biochemist
'Dr Gunter Kuhnle from the University of Reading.
'He's going to interpret the WHO report
'and tell us what it really means.'
Hi, Vicki!
- Fancy a bacon sandwich? - Definitely. Always.
When you read the headlines about processed meat, did you think,
"Do you know what? Maybe we should just lay off it a bit."
It was, um, a bit of a warning.
'Let's see what Gunter's got to say.
'Does he think we should give up the bacon butties?'
The WHO doesn't say that you should stop eating processed meat.
All they say is that all the evidence which is there is
sufficient to say that there's an increased risk.
'So, which out of the long list of processes in the WHO definition
'should we be most worried about?'
Is it curing? Is it smoking?
Is it fermenting? Is it all those things?
The report which has been published so far,
which was only a preliminary one, does not
really distinguish between different factors.
It would be difficult to say one is good and the other's bad.
Of course, ideally, we need
to look at every individual type of product,
but that's virtually impossible, because there's
so many different types of meat product.
'The WHO is still looking into how much processed meat is OK to eat.
'But, for now, poor Dennis' lightly processed sausage will still
'be lumped in with the Frankensausage.'
So we all read the headlines and we were all told that
a couple of bits of bacon are as bad as smoking cigarettes.
Is that true?
No, definitely not.
'Eating two rashers of bacon a day increases your odds of getting
'bowel cancer from 6/100 to 7/100.
'But smoking a pack of fags a day ups your chances of lung cancer
'by 2,000%.'
Do you think the WHO's recommendations have been
- sensationalised by the press? - Yes.
Do you still eat sausage?
I eat sausage, I eat meat, I eat burgers,
I would eat this bacon straight away now.
Has that cleared things up for you at all?
- Everything in moderation. - Good.
I would eat everything on here. I haven't started that yet,
so, that, I'd probably eat that, so...
No, I wouldn't eat that!
Next time, I'm in Vietnam, where pepper prices are packing a punch.
Oh!
I dive headlong into the weird and wonderful world of yeast.
It looks like spaghetti!
And I look at how they get the flavours onto our crisps.
Lemon meringue crisps?
We'll do it for you!