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What did the very first meal on earth look like? To begin his third and final Christmas Lecture in an explosive fashion, Dr Chris van Tulleken takes us back more than four billion years, to the beginnings of life. This was when microscopic bugs first began eating gases and metal, marking the start of an incredible food web which, billions of years later, humans have learned to master.

For tens of thousands of years, we’ve improved and hacked our foods, resulting in an extraordinary range of things we can eat. Chris reveals that we are the only species that processes and cooks our food – and he explores why this has given us more than one evolutionary advantage over other mammals.

Using some ingenious experiments – including making unmeltable 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.

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.