Jon Richardson: Ultimate Worrier. S01 E03. Food.

  • 2 months ago
First broadcast 30th May 2018.

Jon Richardson


Victoria Coren Mitchell
Rob Beckett
Rose Matafeo
Ed Gillespie

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:00Thank you very much for having me.
00:30Hello and welcome to Ultimate Worryer, the show where I break down the entire world's
00:41worries and add them to my ever-growing stockpile of stress. Think of it as an ISA if you were
00:46saving up for a nervous breakdown. Here's where they live, this is my worry index. All
00:51the worries in the world have been carefully filed away in here following decades of thorough
00:55analysis. Anything you see that's red has been classified as a severe worry, the orange
01:00ones are moderate, and anything I consider a low worry is a sort of turquoise. Let's
01:07have a closer look at a low worry, which is this. I worry that Netflix is secretly trolling
01:13me. This is the recent news that Netflix keep tabs on what their viewers are watching, and
01:17they're definitely trolling me with suggestions like this. Alvin and the Chipmunks 3, Chip
01:24I've not even seen the first two films, so, you know. I mean, as it happened, it's the
01:28best film I've ever seen, but they couldn't have known that. So that's a glimpse into
01:31what's already in the worry index. Tonight we'll be logging some new worries, which are
01:34all related to a theme, which tonight is food. Please welcome my guests for tonight, Victoria
01:40Corrin-Mitchell and Rob Beckett. You strike me as a man, if I might say so, who doesn't
01:59worry a lot about life. Not really. I think I was a bit nervous as a kid, but I've just
02:03sort of grown up and I just don't care. Have you got like a single worry in the world?
02:08Do you know what? The only thing that, I don't really worry about anything, but the only
02:11thing that really sticks into my mind is whenever I go for a massage. You sort of lay down and
02:17you have your pants on, and then what they do is they put the towel in the top of your
02:21pants and put it down a bit and expose a little bit of your bum crack. And then whenever they
02:25do that, I immediately just panic, and it's like a real weird flush of panic that I've
02:30got a poo smear. That's the only time I worry, I go, what if there's a poo smear? Good. Well,
02:40I'm going to file away the worry that I worry grown men aren't wiping their bums properly.
02:45I mean, I take that as grown men as a compliment, so thank you for that as a grown man. Victoria,
02:51if I were to judge, I would say to be a successful poker player as you are, you can't worry too
02:55much about consequences, otherwise you wouldn't gamble. Actually, poker, like chess and other
03:01sorts of games like that, is full of people who use it as a way of ordering an otherwise
03:07chaotic and terrifying world. So I'm not frightened of consequences at the poker table, I'm frightened
03:12of consequences everywhere else. I don't worry about public speaking, I don't worry about
03:17losing money in a poker game or carrying money in a strange city at night. What's that one
03:22come from? The other ones, I was like, yeah, I'm getting this. I was like, that came out of nowhere.
03:27No, if you play poker, then you have to do a lot of walking about places you don't know with a lot
03:30of cash. At Bingo, the security guard walks... If my mum wins Bingo, the security guard walks her to
03:37the multi-storey car park next to the cinema. Did you win about 400,000 euro, I think, in the poker
03:43stores? Yeah, I've done that a couple of times. But how long do you have to play for when you
03:46won 400,000? Four or five days. Four or five days. See, my mum was in there 30 minutes. 800 quid,
03:52bang, she's back home for Emmerdale. So it's just, you know, it's just whatever lifestyle you choose, isn't it?
03:57Let's kick things off. Let's file away my first worry of the night, which is this one. I worry
04:04that people are eating badly. And to be clear, I'm not talking about people eating bad foods.
04:09I'm talking about you eat whatever you like, as far as I'm concerned, so long as you do it in the
04:13correct order and with adherence to the correct rules. So I've written a small pamphlet, which is
04:19John Richardson's Universal Guide to Eating. It's basically a guide that tells you how to eat any food,
04:25because I just think people aren't getting the basics right on a lot of foods. Like what? Well,
04:31I'm glad you asked. Muller Fruit Corner. Alright. A lot of people think you can just eat a Muller
04:35Fruit Corner any way you like, but you can't. I'm gonna get the pointer out, if I may. Now,
04:41this is taken from the advert, so you can see this. They're telling us, the guys at Muller,
04:45this is how to eat a Muller Fruit Corner. You'll notice initially, no under-spill. Now,
04:50you can't get yoghurt on a spoon like that by just dipping it in, because you're gonna get
04:54the under-spill. So what that tells us, this is a tertiary spoon situation. So you've got your
04:59holding slash eating spoon, you've clearly got your secondary spoon for dolloping on the yoghurt
05:04there, and then you've got a tertiary spoon for delicately applying the fruit layer on top,
05:09and you do this for each mouthful. Jon, are you happy? Are you alright? I just don't think
05:20there's time to get into that, really. Fair enough. Let's get back to the spoon. I'll tell
05:24you what, though. I've got a clean body. I'd like to talk to you about sandwiches. Fair enough. So
05:35sandwiches... Because my MP will not return my calls. I've got you a couple of sandwiches here.
05:43Oh, thanks. So Victoria, that's your sandwich there. That's a basic chicken salad, is that
05:47alright? Classic. Yeah. Put it on a little paper plate, so it feels like we're having a party. It
05:51looks like, Victoria, you put in Victoria, and it looks like it's a new spice at Nando's. That's
05:55right. That's a sandwich. Cheers. Thank you. Happy with that? Yeah. So if you want to sort of tuck
05:59into that sandwich, I'll just watch. Whoa! What's happening there? That's not how you'd eat a
06:09sandwich. You're doing that to piss me off, surely. That's not how you eat a sandwich in real life.
06:18You have taken out the best part of the sandwich, centre middle, with your first mouthful. So now
06:23you're working towards a conclusion that's not as good as what you... You've eaten the best bit,
06:27you've ruined the whole thing. No. Well, you never know what can happen in life.
06:34Imagine if I died now, and I'd just gone crust. I'd be fuming.
06:44Can I take a bit of sandwich off you there? Please have yourself. I'll show you what needs
06:47to be done. I won't eat this sandwich because it's got chicken in it, and that might give me joy.
06:54So what you're going to do, you're going to start with the corner, as you've correctly done there,
06:57you're going to take this corner off here, then you're going to take this corner off here,
07:00then you're going to delicately pivot the sandwich, holding the filling right in there.
07:04Oh, no, no, no. Don't want any spillage. We're going to take off... This is the worst bit of
07:07the sandwich. This is really just bread. Oh, there's a nice bit of cucumber in there, to be
07:12fair. We're going to take this corner off, then we're going to work along this side, we're going
07:15to work along this side. What we've left ourselves with there is a sort of smaller triangle of just
07:21filling and bread. So it's very difficult to go wrong at this point, but if you ask, again,
07:26corner, corner, corner, front, middle, finish the sandwich. Can I make a suggestion? Yeah.
07:30Just eat baguettes. Why does it worry you how someone else eats? Because I want to spread
07:38joy throughout the world, Victoria, and the way I do that is by staring at people on the tube
07:42eating their lunch. If I would eat a burger on the tube, that would kill you. You'd go,
07:46I'd eat a burger on the tube if I'm in a rush. I don't mind you eating a burger on the tube,
07:49so long as you let me watch and make notes. Basically, what you want to do, you want to
07:53look at any meal as if it was a music festival, and you want to say, what is my headline act?
07:58Where do I want this to end? You put them on last. I'll show you some food, you tell me where you
08:02think the headline act is, right? So this is the first food, lovely bowl of soup. What's happening
08:07there? Where's your headliner? It's the soup, isn't it? It is the soup. Still got a headliner,
08:11Rob. Your headliner. Tricky one, this. And if you're serving soup, don't put the spoon in
08:15straight away, because you've got soup right up the handle there, which I'm going to have to lick
08:19off to start with a clean spoon, which is not an elegant start to a meal, to be honest. Headliner's
08:24right in the middle. It's all about temperature here. You want to keep that middle bit, it's
08:27core temperature, as hot as you can, so you're working around the rim. Behave yourselves.
08:33Constantly around the rim of the bowl, and that core centre is staying warm right to the end of
08:37the soup. So a tricky one. You're by no means a fool for not knowing that one. Next meal,
08:43roast dinner. Where's your headliner? All of it. All of it. You want a little bit of everything.
08:48You want a bit of roast potato, you want a little carrot baton, you want a bit of your meat, you
08:52want some broccoli, you want some Yorkshire pudding. You're cutting these up, you're working...
08:55More of a jazz ensemble than a music festival. Oh, no, no. You see that a classic vegetarian speaks.
09:00You fork down the broccoli first out of grim duty, and then you have the nice thing.
09:06We're going to file that away now into my worry index. So we're talking about the worry that
09:10people are eating badly. Serious, moderate, amateur fracking, loneliness. I mean, it's so
09:16closely linked to loneliness in my head. Loneliness, that's a bleak one for mid-level, isn't it?
09:20It sort of feels like... Where on that scale is the infinite bleak horror of finite consciousness?
09:26Is that severe? I think that's the sort of middle worry. It feels like it has to go with loneliness
09:32to me, because it's basically what we're talking about. I'm going to put it between loneliness
09:35and amateur fracking. There we go. That's fair. Eating badly on the list.
09:40Well, that's the end of part one, so why not go and grab yourself a jaffa cake and then eat
09:48carefully around the circumference of the disc of orange jelly. Peel it gently off the sponge
09:52before eating the rest of the sponge. Pick the chocolate off the orange jelly and then put the
09:56disc onto your tongue and let it dissolve in its own time. We'll see you in a bit.
10:10APPLAUSE
10:15Welcome back to Ultimate Worrier, where tonight we are looking at worries exclusively to do with
10:20food. Now, sometimes I worry I don't know all the things I should be worried about,
10:24which is where my guests come in. Victoria, do you have a worry about food?
10:28Many, many worries. Chiefly, I worry about buffets. I worry that I will have to select
10:36food with people watching. I mean, I hate everything about a buffet. It's the greatest
10:41concentration of food that should be in a fridge, not in a fridge. So you can sort of watch crusts
10:48form on mayonnaise lies, and then eventually they take the cling film off and then people
10:54crowd over just wheezing and coughing and sneezing and sputtering and dribbling into food, and then
10:59it's your turn to stand there and have the sort of crusty, old, warm, separated, germy food. And
11:05then everyone watches you. Oh, having some of that. Another helping of that. Oh, you like that?
11:08Really? Do you think you really need that? Ah, I hate it. Still, thanks for inviting me to your
11:13wedding. Weddings are the absolute worst. Let me tell you what it costs to go to somebody's
11:17wedding now. First of all, you always have to go to the hen night somewhere far away. It costs a
11:21fortune. You've flown there, you've got to pay for a hotel. Then the wedding is somewhere far
11:24away again, so you've got the travel, you've got the hotel, you've got the present, you've got to
11:27buy something new. It will kill you to bring me some chicken where I'm sitting in a chair.
11:31I have to stand in queue, everyone's staring. I mean, bring the food around on plates already. I
11:36sort of feel like I need a new list for you. I think I was about 12 worries in about a minute
11:42and a half there. The central anxiety is that people will watch me choosing food. You're worried
11:49you're going to be watched at a buffet? Yes. Is this a sort of poker thing that you don't want
11:53people to know what you've got? Yeah. Keep your carbs closer to your chest. It's very exposing.
12:00People sort of say, oh, it's interesting that we eat in large groups socially. We never defecate
12:04in large groups socially. For me, it's the same. It's the same. My concern with a buffet is that I
12:11think I'm really good at it. So I think I'll pretty much dish up the perfect plate of food.
12:16And I think other people look at me and think, oh, shit, I should have done that. That guy knows
12:19what he's doing. Do you get food envy watching people? You just said that nobody looks at what's
12:23on your plate, and they do. Do you remember a few years ago, there was all this thing about,
12:27before pre-Tinder, it was all about, oh, you might meet someone in the supermarket,
12:30so make sure you always have in your basket something that looks a bit sexy.
12:35Because you might, so I'd always have... Well, like a cucumber and lube.
12:40But they would always, the magazines would always say that. You know, you never know.
12:44If I had sexy, oh, that chicken looks well fit, I'll put that in.
12:47Get his fucking legs out, dirty basket. You filthy little fucker.
12:53Look at you getting that basket. I'm on the pole.
12:55They introduced this idea of, be careful what's in your shopping basket,
12:58because people are looking. So I would walk around, make sure your basket's got
13:02some lychee, a pot of Elm Lea, a packet of mates, you know, and it just means I'm very aware of
13:08people looking at what you want to eat. There are people who thrive in a buffet
13:12situation and love a buffet too much. This is a headline from a recent news story.
13:17A pair banned from All You Can Eat restaurant for eating too much.
13:22Absolute heroes. Yeah.
13:25This is a Mongolian restaurant in Brighton, banned two customers,
13:28who he said were eating them out of business. That's the restaurant in the background.
13:32Those are the two guys. They've had that shot. The photographer's obviously said,
13:35I'm not getting a sense of the story. Could you look full? Of course they can.
13:47So their argument is, the bowls are too small, you keep having to go up. And it's a trick,
13:51basically. They're saying, keep going up with bowls to get meat. And he said,
13:55right, you're eating too much meat. Whose side are you on, the restaurant or the...
13:59No, their side. You can't call yourself an All You Can Eat buffet and then go,
14:03actually, it's not all you can eat. I think in that situation, I would sort
14:08of side with the restaurant, but he looks so let down, that guy on the right.
14:12I just feel I can't help but be on his side. Let's put this worry in the worry index,
14:15then. I worry that people are watching me at a buffet. I think it has to go down near the bottom
14:21of the list, between flatulence and jet skis. There we go. People watching me at a buffet.
14:34Rob Beckett. I'm worried that food now isn't as good as it was when I was a kid.
14:41Food becomes a bit too serious as an adult, doesn't it? Like, oh, that Michelin star,
14:44this or this. You just want a face on it. I just want a face on it.
14:50I remembered recently the fiendish feet yoghurt pot, which is basically a kid's yoghurt and it
14:55had little plastic feet on it. And I did wonder, at what point does an adult not want yoghurt with
15:01feet on the pot? I still draw a little face when we boil eggs. Why not? Why don't you want to see
15:08a little smiley face when you're eating? And then smash his head off and eat his guts.
15:12No, but that's the thing with, like, drink. Like, drink is rubbish as an adult, isn't it? Not like,
15:17you know, alcohol is nice and fun, but like, when you go to someone's house, I feel like we've been
15:21bullied into liking tea and coffee. It's horrible. But it's the only thing you get offered. You go
15:27anywhere. Do you want a tea or a coffee? No. But then after a while you just give in because you
15:32can't go, you got any squash? Sorry. But is this to do with being a child or the 80s compared to
15:39now? Because I would say, looking at the world, food is the only thing that's got better. I'm still
15:43pro-turkey twizzlers. Let's look at the Rob that was obsessed with turkey twizzlers. Let's look at
15:49Rob. There he is. That's a happy Rob, though. That's a Rob who's looking forward to everything
16:01he's eating that week. Yeah. Turkey twizzlers. What else are we talking in this era? Oh, just
16:06all the old frozen shit that was at the bottom of the freezer. Yes. You know, when your mum used
16:11to do a dinner and it was just whatever was loose in the freezer and then awful loose in the freezer
16:15dinner. Whatever had come loose. Yeah, mum's like, oh, mum's not been shopping. So I go,
16:20what have we got for dinner? She's like, um, we've got, uh, uh, three fish fingers.
16:26What, a half a waffle? Got some peas. Always peas. It was terrible. Everything was awful. School
16:33food, awful. Home, awful. If we went to my grandparents, do you know what my grandma used
16:36to do? My granny was so worried that if people were coming for a Sunday lunch that it wouldn't
16:40be ready, she'd cook it the day before. Whole thing. Meat, vegetables, everything. Roast the
16:44whole thing. And then, you know how now they go, oh, you can do the potatoes. They did everything.
16:48And then put it, warm it up in the oven the next day. Horrible. And you had to eat it.
16:52What a sign of love. The day before. I'll get it ready. I'll do a dress rehearsal dinner. Going
16:57back to the squash. Would you eat a certain squash with a certain meal? So would you eat like a
17:02blackcurrant squash with red meat? A lemon squash with fish? No, I'm a laid-back guy, John. Anything
17:08you give me, I'll drink. And you just genuinely love all of them? Yeah, I still drink squash now.
17:13Because what is coming across is a complete lack of pretension about just saying, well,
17:16if you offer me a drink, I want Ribena, and you should just get me what I want. And I think there's
17:20a level of pretension that has peaked with this next gentleman, who is Martin, who is a water
17:28sommelier. My name is Martin Riese. I live in Los Angeles, and I am a water sommelier.
17:36A sommelier is a gentleman who works in a restaurant and recommends different wine pairings.
17:41I'm doing the same with water. So all these waters taste completely different,
17:45and it all depends on the different mineral levels. My passion for water began as a child,
17:51but I drink it professionally now.
17:56To one-on-one class here at Patina restaurant, people can taste different waters with me.
18:01When water is pure, do not drink it. Water should always have some mineral content to it.
18:07So that's Martin Riese, who is a professional piss-taker.
18:11So we're going to test your palates now to see if you can identify. So we're going to bring on a
18:23table with three different drinks for you. Those are coming out now via my johns. I have a number
18:28of johns on hand at any one point to do my lifting. So, Victoria, your table there has
18:36three different waters. Rob, I know you like squash, so you've got three different squashes.
18:43So, Victoria, what you have is a tap water. That's free. Supermarket-brand water for 40 pounds. And
18:50excitingly, water sourced, and this is a fact, from a 4,000-year-old iceberg, which costs 80
18:57pounds. So I want you to see if you can identify the iceberg water. Rob, one orange squash,
19:05one orange and mango squash, and one lemon squash. And I want you to see if you can identify the
19:11lemon squash. I would say he's got a slightly easier task than me. It's a specialist subject,
19:17so have a little go. Can you taste it? Is that double concentrate?
19:29What kind of heathen have you got making this? It's full up to the brim. How much do you think
19:33that's going to drink of it? I mean, you've kicked off about not getting offered squash. I'll bring
19:37you out three, and you're in a rush. It's too strong, and it's too full. Send it back, please.
19:43Could you taste any difference between the waters? I've no idea. That one is slightly nicer, oddly,
19:49when they're all water. That's the iceberg, that's the tap, and that's the other one. So you say an
19:54iceberg. See, Rob, where are you sitting? The mango, lemon, orange. Rob, you have correctly
20:01identified the mango, orange, and lemon squashes.
20:11Victoria, I can tell you that the iceberg water is...
20:15It's cup A. Cup A is the £80 water. C, which you said was the nightest, was the supermarket water,
20:21and B is the tap water. So you've correctly identified the night water. Can I try some
20:25iceberg? Have a bit of iceberg, mate. Do you mind me sharing cups? They all just taste like water.
20:31Do you know what it tastes like? Orange, mango, and lemon.
20:36Please, Johns, take away the glasses.
20:42Still up for dinner later, guys? So, it's time to log the worry. I worry that food and drink
20:48were much better when I was a child. Are they just not, mate? I can appreciate that you like squash,
20:56but squash is still readily available. We're going right down here, because I just think
21:00not only is food better now, but in the 80s it was positively... I mean, Jeremy Oliver's career
21:04is built on mending the bones of children who ate his food. I think it's probably around ear hair,
21:10to be honest, so I'm going to pop it right next to that. I worry that food was better when I was a child.
21:20We're going to take a break now, so why not pop into your time machine and grab yourself some
21:24opal fruits, or just accept that that's just nostalgia talking and you haven't handled the
21:28fact that you've grown up. See you after the break.
21:46Welcome back to the Ultimate Worry Aware tonight. We're looking at the world of food. Let's take a
21:50look at my next worry. I worry the world will run out of food. This is based on the statistics that
21:59say the population is growing faster than we can grow food. To back that up, Grow Intelligence
22:04founder Sarah Menke says that by 2027 there could be a 214 trillion calorie global deficit. That is
22:13the equivalent of 379 billion Big Macs. More Big Macs than have ever been sold in the world.
22:21What you're worrying about is the end of food in rich countries, isn't it? Because this has already
22:25happened, of course. This is how the world works. They run out of food, and people starve, and then
22:29there's less people, and then there's enough food. It's sort of grimly self-righting, like those
22:33people that never wash their own hair. This is a nervousness about it possibly affecting us.
22:41I don't want to take myself out of the loop at all, but we've already seen, as you said, globally,
22:47and even in rich countries, after certain events you see a bit of a food crisis where food can't
22:51reach certain areas. This is a supermarket in Texas after Hurricane Harvey, and you can see
22:56very little food left. This is the fresh aisle. This is the fruit and veg. There we go, that's your
23:03bread. And this is the vegetarian aisle. Genuinely completely untouched. Not a scene you usually see
23:12in an apocalypse film. My God, there's no food, we're going to have to eat graham. There's quite
23:16a lot of tofu burgers left, actually. I'll probably still have a bit of graham, to be honest.
23:21I always worry that we're going to run out of food, but on a much smaller level. I don't like
23:25going to people's houses, because I worry there won't be enough food. What if there's not enough
23:28food? God forbid you go to stay the night in someone else's house. I always pack food, I take
23:33food, because you never know. Other people, they might not eat as often, they might not eat as much,
23:38they might think after eight o'clock at night there's no more eating, they might wake up and
23:41think we don't eat first thing. I need to know that I'm going to be able to eat at all times,
23:45so I'm always carrying little sandwiches, biscuits, little snacks. How would you feel
23:50tomorrow if there were no food? Sometimes you think, well, what I could do is get a small
23:55holding somewhere, Scotland, somewhere that you could get to and just plant it full of stuff. You
23:58know, you think about that, don't you? In case a bird flew. But then, in that eventuality, wouldn't
24:03other people spill onto your land and kill you for the stuff that you've grown? So you're going
24:06to need weapons? Yes. What if we run out of meat? You like meat? Meat's one of the first things to
24:11go, it's one of the most intensive industries on the planet. Well, I'll eat something else,
24:14so we're all, like, I'm a bit overweight, so it'd be quite a good diet. I'll just get into a
24:19jack of potatoes. There is a solution to the meat crisis, and one of the solutions is possibly to
24:26begin growing all the world's meat in laboratories. In 2013, one company managed to create the world's
24:33first burger grown entirely in a laboratory, and we sent our very own Rose Matafeo to meet
24:38the team responsible. Meat. We obviously all eat it, but for how much longer? This beef burger
24:52could soon be a thing of the past, as the meat industry struggles to keep up with increasing
24:56global demand. What's more, the environmental impact of meat production is taking its toll,
25:05with animal farming responsible for almost a fifth of all greenhouse gases.
25:11Cows are literally farting humans to the brink of extinction,
25:15turning the entire planet into one big Dutch oven.
25:20So that's why I've come searching for answers here in the Netherlands.
25:27One company looking into alternative fillings for our burger buns is Mosa Meat,
25:32who are building meat using nothing but science, hard work, and bits of cow goo.
25:38I've come to their laboratory to speak to co-founder and CSO of Mosa Meat,
25:42Professor Mark Post, to find out what the future holds for lab-cultivated meat.
25:49Why do you think we need to create synthetic meat? Oh, that's very simple. We cannot really
25:54continue with livestock meat to produce the 70 percent more meat that we need to have in 2050.
26:01We just don't have the land, we don't have the resources to do that.
26:04So you guys have obviously chosen beef to create, but it kind of opens up a whole
26:08world of being able to take stem cells from other animals and create meat from that.
26:13Could we make meat from animals that are going extinct?
26:16You could do a snow leopard. I've always wanted to try a snow leopard before,
26:19but I feel like that would taste disgusting.
26:21Technically, you can make this from any animal that has stem cells in its muscle.
26:27Yes, if you want to eat a giraffe or a leopard or whatever, technically that's possible.
26:32I don't know why you would want to do that, but that's possible.
26:36Now that endangered animal burgers are finally a possibility, I was eager to find out how they
26:41use stem cell research to create the synthetic meaty Frankenstein.
26:46It's two stages. One is you grow a lot of cells.
26:49So for a hamburger, to give you an idea, we probably need a couple of hundred of these
26:54flasks. So that's a lot of plastic. And then you need to start to make tissues out of that.
27:00Okay, so what are we looking at here?
27:01So these are the cells. They are attached to the bottom of the flask.
27:05So for one strand, you need one and a half million cells.
27:08Okay. And how many strands would you use for a beef patty?
27:1110,000.
27:1210,000. Oh my gosh.
27:14Right. We made a very small patty to just show how that works.
27:19So you see here all the individual fibers.
27:21Yeah. It looks like mince, doesn't it?
27:23Yeah. Yeah.
27:24That's amazing. What is the future of this? What are you going to do with this?
27:27This is a test, but obviously we are going to scale up production of this
27:30and in a couple of years, hopefully bring it to the market.
27:34The meaty professor's miniature bovine patty definitely looked the part,
27:38but how does it pass the taste test?
27:40Or is this all just another vegetarian sausages style false dawn?
27:44Have you tried the beef patty that you guys made?
27:46Of course. Of course I've tried it.
27:48Why wouldn't you try it? What was your honest opinion about it?
27:51It's meat. It's not great yet.
27:54So we still, with the versions that we have tried so far, there was no fat tissue.
27:58Very lean meat in a patty is not the greatest thing.
28:02Well, that visit left me feeling slightly optimistic.
28:04I mean, if these scientists can find a way to lower the cost of cultured meat,
28:08then perhaps we could avert a global food crisis.
28:11Now that just leaves, you know, the rise of super bacteria,
28:13the nuclearization of dictator regimes and asteroid collisions to solve.
28:19I'm Rose Bedder-Fair for Ultimate Warrior.
28:27Thank you, Rose. Would you eat that burger?
28:31I think I need something else after.
28:33Not a lot there, was it?
28:35No, it's not a massive...
28:36That current burger, we've got a picture of the motor meat burger as is,
28:41and the current cost of that burger, 250,000 euros.
28:46Do you know, interestingly as well, why they make burgers?
28:50Because they have to grow it in a Petri dish, so that's what shape it comes out.
28:53That's depressing, isn't it?
28:55Really?
28:55They haven't even thought yet to try a test tube to make a sausage.
29:01So how worried should we be about running out of food?
29:04To help answer that, please welcome food futurist, Ed Gillespie!
29:16So tell me quickly what a food futurist is.
29:21Well, a futurist is someone who looks at current trends
29:24and tries to predict what might happen tomorrow.
29:26But obviously prediction is difficult, especially about the future,
29:29so I try and refer to it more as stretching the imagination of the possible
29:33so people can get engaged in the real choices that are in front of us
29:36and hopefully make better ones to beckon into better tomorrow.
29:38Victoria said she didn't worry about food running out.
29:42Would you say generally we should all be worried about food running out?
29:46I think there is a concern.
29:47You're touching on exactly the right questions.
29:49Population growth is likely to outstrip some of the agricultural capacity
29:53if we carry on trying to do the same things that we do now.
29:56Meat is going to be a huge challenge if the rest of the world
29:58wants to adopt the high meat diet that we currently enjoy at the moment,
30:02for all the reasons mentioned in your film.
30:04Meat takes up a third of the land use, it only provides a sixth of the calories,
30:08and it's also responsible for 15% of global carbon emissions,
30:12driving climate change.
30:13So we kill a billion farm animals every year in the UK alone,
30:18so there's sort of carnage on those fronts,
30:20plus we're sort of we're knackering our pollinators.
30:23A lot of the chemicals we're using are removing the bees and the insect life,
30:26and a recent study in Germany showed that insect life has gone down 75%
30:31in the last 25 years, and they pollinate our food crops,
30:33which enable us to eat.
30:35And lastly, we're rinsing our soils.
30:37Intensive agriculture is incredibly damaging with the chemical input
30:41and the fertilisers and the pesticides,
30:43and it takes a thousand years to make three centimetres of topsoil.
30:47So we actually live on a very thin skin of civilisation.
30:51So some people are saying we've only got 100 harvests left
30:53if we carry on the way we are at the moment.
30:55That's the first time I saw, like, a genuine look-off
30:57into the middle distance there, Rob.
30:59Well, I'll be honest, I've got ADHD,
31:01so when someone talks a long time, I do panic that I'm not paying attention.
31:05Yeah, I was a bit worried about the old food situation.
31:08Would it help if I skipped lunch on Wednesdays?
31:10Always.
31:12Does that mean...
31:12Because I always thought if I didn't eat meat,
31:14then I was part of the solution to that.
31:15But if it's about soil erosion, am I as bad as everyone else?
31:18No, because, I mean, the meat is the big problem at the moment.
31:21So actually, being a vegetarian, you know,
31:23you're doing exactly the right thing.
31:24And I think we all should be trying to cut down on the amount of meat we eat.
31:27What are on the list of the sort of danger foods, then?
31:30The danger foods?
31:31Well, a lot of our favourite things.
31:33I mean, chocolate's a big problem,
31:34because most of the West African agriculture is basically modern slavery.
31:39Coffee is suffering from a fungus called coffee leaf rust,
31:43which is now starting to take out coffee plantations around the world.
31:47And actually, the banana, which is actually, you know,
31:49the biggest fruit crop in the world.
31:50100 million tonnes of bananas every year.
31:53But the trouble is, all of the bananas are almost genetically identical,
31:57because bananas don't like having sex with each other.
31:59Tell me about it.
32:00Yeah.
32:02Wasted weeks.
32:03So we essentially have to clone them.
32:04So all of the bananas in the world are almost genetically identical,
32:07which obviously makes them very vulnerable to outbreaks of disease.
32:11And we have a new outbreak of Panama disease,
32:14which could wipe out the global banana.
32:15It's currently the Cavendish variety that we grow everywhere.
32:18And it was this same disease in the 50s,
32:20which killed off the Gros Michel,
32:22which was the previous variety of banana.
32:24Fuck me, you know a lot about bananas.
32:25I don't care! I'm a banana off the edge!
32:32So, if we talked about a lot of the problems, are there any solutions?
32:35I think some of the more creative stuff is around alternative proteins.
32:38I mean, you looked at lab-grown meat.
32:40But there's also insects as an alternative protein,
32:42and half the world already eats insects.
32:44And actually, insects are fantastic,
32:46because they're a really good source of protein.
32:48They're very lean.
32:49You know, all the nutrients are the right balance.
32:50You can see on the screen there,
32:51you've got your kind of domestic mealworm farm.
32:54So you put your mealworms into the top there,
32:57and they gradually eat their way through your food waste.
32:59You can harvest them in the bottom, and they're quite tasty.
33:01The thing is, they grind them into flour.
33:03So often, it's used as a protein supplement.
33:05So you can make chocolate brownies with mealworm flour or cricket flour.
33:08So actually, you don't get the bug itself,
33:10but you're just getting the benefits of the bug's nutrients.
33:13I mean, I think also...
33:13And they're well little, aren't they?
33:14Yeah.
33:15Well, the thing is, insects love being kept
33:17in really dark, unpleasant, and cramped conditions.
33:20So the mealworms there, they're quite happy living in a drawer.
33:23How do you know?
33:24How do you know?
33:25There's probably one guy in there,
33:26I'll go away.
33:28If you send me there, I'll go there.
33:30Thank you very much for helping with my analysis.
33:32Ladies and gentlemen, Ed Gillespie.
33:44With that expert analysis, you've heard all the evidence,
33:46you've seen the solutions.
33:47Let's file the worry into the worry index.
33:50I worry the world will run out of food.
33:52We're talking about potential death here.
33:54Hadron Collider.
33:55Maybe Hadron...
33:55It's got to be near the Hadron Collider, sort of.
33:57Near the Hadron Collider.
33:58I'm not worried the world is going to run out of food.
34:00After all that, you think...
34:01I don't think it's going to happen.
34:03You're going to put it in the middle?
34:05Yeah.
34:05Well...
34:06I don't think it's a mealworm.
34:07I guess this comes down now to whether this show is a democracy or not.
34:11And we're going to put it on the top.
34:14On the Hadron Collider.
34:15Running out of food.
34:20That's it for part three, so why not join us in a bit
34:23when we'll be looking at a brand new worry from the world of food.
34:31Welcome back to Ultimate Worrier, where I've got just enough time to look at
34:44one more worry from the world of food, which is this.
34:48Every time I eat out, I worry I'm touching too many penises.
34:54I'll point out at this stage, I'm not touching them directly anymore.
34:59This is the court case.
35:01This is basically gentlemen in a restaurant who go to a toilet,
35:06urinate, don't wash their hands, leave the toilet,
35:09thus smearing bits of their penis on the door.
35:13I go to the toilet, I wash my hands, thus washing my own penis off my hands,
35:18and then I can't get out without touching his penis.
35:21It's not just his penis, it's everyone.
35:22There's probably 300 penises on that door.
35:25What's wrong with touching a penis?
35:28I just...
35:30What's wrong with touching a penis?
35:32It's only a bit of skin.
35:33I just feel like this is something you'll be shouting across a courtroom one day.
35:45I think perhaps what John's saying is there's nothing wrong with it,
35:47but you want to finish your dinner first.
35:48It's the traditional way.
35:50I think there is an argument to say that a penis is
35:53one of the cleaner parts of a man's body once you've washed it and put it away.
35:56This is what I was going to say, because if we're going to talk about hygiene,
36:00when it comes to eating out in a restaurant,
36:01your worry is not penises, John, it's anuses.
36:04I mean...
36:05Oh, don't do this to me now.
36:09Piss is a mere bagatelle.
36:11It comes out sterile.
36:13There's not a shit in the world that comes out sterile, not even Kate Middleton's.
36:19What it suggests to me is that you're not thinking about hygiene,
36:22you're just thinking about penises.
36:23That's a different thing.
36:25So let's group it together.
36:27Toilet time.
36:28Penises are a-nigh.
36:30The statistics on hand washing are 91% of people said they washed their hands.
36:34When they were analysed, 82% were found to wash their hands.
36:38So already 10% are lying.
36:39The tragedy of the 82% is that's made up of 90% of women and 75% of men.
36:45So one in four men go to the toilet and don't wash their hands when they come out,
36:48which is too many.
36:50And at least some of those are chefs.
36:53Oh!
36:55Statistically, some men are chefs.
36:59You can't argue with the facts, guys.
37:01The solution is practicing getting out of a toilet without touching the handle.
37:05And I have at home what I call my work-through dick door.
37:10And it's a door with a number of different handles that I practice on to get out.
37:14So I believe my Johns will now bring out the door.
37:17Here's John's.
37:19I reckon you could have got away with a smaller example-sized door.
37:23Where's the fun in that?
37:24Thanks, John. Still up for the old John Poconite later?
37:28Nope? Okay, fine.
37:29Please join me at the toilet door.
37:38Your bog-standard toilet door.
37:40We're all oddly in the cubicle today.
37:42Your bog-standard toilet door.
37:44We're all oddly in the cubicle together at this point.
37:47Or we're leaving the toilet.
37:48So there's various handles you can take in.
37:50The dream toilet door is just a push toilet door.
37:53So you can shoulder that or you can foot it if you like.
37:56Just get straight out of the toilet.
37:58These are your sort of basic push handle, door handle,
38:00if you've been to the toilet in a Victorian shed.
38:04This is the sort of train door scenario.
38:06This, again, you'd probably use an elbow there.
38:10Or some people I've seen use a foot to avoid any contact at all,
38:13but I think there's a lot of dirt on the foot,
38:15so I'll just use a knee there.
38:19Then you've got to identify the parts of the hands
38:21that you least mind having dicks on.
38:23So if you are forced into a hand like you are with this,
38:27I'll sort of pinch between those two.
38:29I'm a right-handed, so I'll go with the left.
38:31Pinch and turn, pinch and turn.
38:34This one, most people are going to go straight in and grab that.
38:37So this is your dick hot spot here.
38:41So I will concentrate on the top and bottom.
38:43Obviously, for me, it's this simple method, you know, it's just...
38:46Yes, yes.
38:48I'm always a student.
38:49Yes!
38:54I assume that the reason you wore cardigans
38:56is so that you can slip them down for the loo door handle.
38:59Yeah, the problem is, with this sort of handle here,
39:01you lose purchase with a cardigan
39:03and you're basically just cleaning the dicks off.
39:07The next person in the toilet.
39:11If the locks are broke, will you use that toilet?
39:14Absolutely not.
39:15Because I was desperate and I had to,
39:17and it was one of these, it had one of these on it, right?
39:19So I'm sat in the toilet here.
39:21Right.
39:22And the only way was to take my belt off.
39:24Oh, lovely.
39:25And then what I did, I can't get my microphone,
39:27I put the belt through there.
39:28Looped it out.
39:29And then, but I had to hold it, I buckled it back up again
39:33and then put it in my teeth,
39:35because it was too far away, so I was having a...
39:38I'm having a dirt, and now I'm like a dog with a leash,
39:43and I'm holding my belt there and it's sitting there going...
39:45And then someone tries to take it, I'm like...
39:53And I felt like, I felt that real primal.
39:56It felt, it felt good.
39:58So the worst thing in that situation is,
39:59when you go to test a toilet door,
40:00what you want is a good solid...
40:02Yeah.
40:02The minute you get a bit of give...
40:04Yeah.
40:04You think, oh, it's not that it's locked,
40:06it's just that I'm not pulling it hard enough.
40:07I'm hardly taking your teeth out.
40:09Well, you can try, I can show you what I did.
40:11Go on then, I'll be on the other side.
40:15So basically, I had to loop it through.
40:17It's weird doing this when I know what you're doing in there.
40:19Yeah.
40:19It feels like I'm sort of desperate to see you have it.
40:21And then that went through like that.
40:23So now I'm biting this.
40:29And then...
40:30And then...
40:41Felt good.
40:43I felt like I was a dog.
40:45Felt like I'd been a dog.
40:47But then a dog that was sort of like,
40:48living beyond its means in like,
40:51doing poos in human toilets.
40:53It's getting by.
40:54A dog with aspirations.
40:55An aspirational dog.
40:56The dog from Woof, because TV was better in the 80s.
40:58Yeah.
40:59Let's sit back down,
40:59and the Johns will come and take away the toilet door.
41:04Let's fire away the penis worry,
41:05onto the worry in depths.
41:07I worry I'm eating too many penises.
41:08Yeah, but I don't think it's the touch of the penises.
41:11Touching the dick ain't gonna get you ill.
41:14Obviously, depend on the dick.
41:16Do you know, some people put them in their mouths.
41:19Out of choice.
41:22So you're worried about like,
41:23a slight touch of it,
41:25potentially on a door handle,
41:26and people get home from the restaurant and pop them in.
41:29So...
41:37It can't be that bad.
41:38I'm gonna put it next to USB sticks,
41:40and pretend that that's a neat analogy for penises.
41:43There it goes.
41:44Bottom of the list.
41:45Touching dicks.
41:51So before we go, Robin Victoria,
41:52is there anything you're gonna take away with you this evening,
41:54that I've managed to stress you out about?
41:56If someone thinks it's the opposite,
41:57I came here in a state of high anxiety like I always am,
42:00and I'm actually going away thinking the world isn't gonna run out of food,
42:03and it doesn't matter if you get a bit of wee on your hands during a night out.
42:06Yeah.
42:06Lovely.
42:08I'm gonna take away that half a sandwich I didn't finish.
42:23So that's it for this week on Ultimate Warrior.
42:25Thanks to my guests, Victoria Coren Mitchell and Rob Beckett!
42:30Well, I for one have learned this,
42:31that the golden era of food is behind us,
42:33meat production is strangling the planet one whopper at a time,
42:36and food shortages will soon mean the only thing available in restaurants
42:39will be the remnants of other people's dicks.
42:41But then again, I tend to stay at home and eat tofu,
42:43so that's your problem.
42:44Goodnight!

Recommended