Pellagra
“There was no treatment for pellagra, aside from an improved diet, and ... we can’t improve the peasants’ diet. That’s not our job. We’re doctors.”
Jun 23, 2025•40 min
Eat This Podcast
Using food to explore all manner of topics, from agriculture to zoology. Eat This Podcast tries to go beyond the obvious to see how the food we eat influences and is influenced by history, archaeology, trade, chemistry, economics, geography, evolution, religion — you get the picture. We don’t do recipes, except when we do, or restaurant reviews, ditto. We do offer an eclectic smorgasbord of tasty topics.
Episodes
Quinoa in the Po Valley
I didn’t realise, when I booked a brief holiday in the Po Delta, that I would be staying at the heart of the Italian quinoa supply chain
Jun 09, 2025•17 min
Eat This Gets Advice
Tara Schmidt, lead dietitian for the Mayo Clinic Diet, shares her thoughts on diet, diets and dietary advice
May 26, 2025•28 min
Puglia
In the past few decades Puglia has improved its food, wine and olive oil almost beyond recognition
May 12, 2025•26 min
The Paradox of Plenty
For much of the world, food has never been as abundant or as inexpensive as it is now, but at what cost?
Apr 28, 2025•25 min
Farming’s Overlords
Size and market concentration lock farmers onto a technological treadmill that does nobody any good, excpet for the giant corporations and their shareholders
Apr 14, 2025•32 min
Quinoa’s rise and fall
A new book looks beyond the hype to chronicle the effect of an unsustainable boom on the entire quinoa trade in Peru
Mar 17, 2025•30 min
Forbidden: Jews and the Pig
“The more that the pig comes to signify Jewish identity, the more it comes to signify Christian identity, and vice versa.”
Mar 03, 2025•31 min
Food facts are not the answer to fear of foods
“What kind of food system do we want for the future? What kind of questions should we be asking? Whose questions matter? What kind of questions matter and what kind of expertise is considered relevant to the question of what the future of food should be like?”
Feb 17, 2025•29 min
Food, folklore and St Brigid
“On the eve of a quarter day, the time is liminal, so there’s kind of a thinning of the space between the real world and the other world.”
Feb 03, 2025•17 min
Sensual, Salty, and a Little Bit Spicy
Gilda; how Rita Hayworth might have inspired the original anchovy-on-a-toothpick
Dec 23, 2024•17 min
Better Diets for All
“In a way, the multinational food industry is providing solutions for women.”
Dec 09, 2024•27 min
Bennett’s Law
What foods do poor people buy when they have a bit more money? What you might expect, but not as much of it as you might expect.
Nov 25, 2024•27 min
The Cost of a Healthy Diet
“Is it because of high prices? Is it because of low incomes? Or is it because ... you can’t see, taste, or smell the nutritional composition of food?”
Nov 11, 2024•30 min
Anchovies Part 2
”You know, anchovies are in our blood. My family’s been eating them for 500 years.” Er, no. Not really.
Oct 28, 2024•24 min
Anchovies Part I
To some, they’re stinky little fish in a tin can. To others, they’re a deep hit of umami delight that honour the work of women.
Oct 14, 2024•23 min
Crunch Time: Insects Are Not Going to Save Us
”Insect farming mostly adds an inefficient and expensive layer to the food system we already have.”
Sep 30, 2024•23 min
Olives Reborn in the Salento
The diease that has already killed 11 million olive trees in the south of Puglia might be a blessing in disguise
Sep 16, 2024•25 min
Avocado Anxiety: how to choose what to eat
Louise Gray’s new book dives deep into the trade-offs that accompany every food choice we make, where nothing is as simple as it seems.
Sep 02, 2024•25 min
Palatable is not Potable
Why are some people tap-water hesitant and what do we expect water to taste like anyway?
Jun 17, 2024•27 min
Women Butchers
“I thought, okay, I’m eating meat, but am I supposed to be eating meat? Would I ever kill an animal myself? Would I ever butcher an animal?”
Jun 03, 2024•26 min
Leftovers Through History
Throughout history, people repurposed food leftovers and surplus and animal byproducts, challenging the modern perception of them as waste.
May 13, 2024•28 min
What is Chametz?
In the end, the meaning of chametz rests on history and tradition, and new traditions are possible.
Apr 29, 2024•15 min
Passover and Easter Revisited
God’s original instructions for Passover did not include one of the crucial items on the Seder plate.
Apr 15, 2024•38 min
Malta Besieged & Black-market Intrigues
Ordinarily, evading food rationing in times of war is considered a crime. There are times when it must be accepted as a necessity.
Apr 01, 2024•29 min
The Case for Folic Acid Fortification
The European Union has failed to implement one of the most effective public health interventions, one that the United Kingdom is now able to contemplate.
Mar 18, 2024•22 min
Anthony Mongiello, Inventor of the Stuffed Crust Pizza
Pizza Hut says it invented the stuffed crust pizza. A judge agreed. But Anthony Mongiello has US patent 4,661,361, no matter what the law says.
Mar 04, 2024•26 min
Prehistoric cooking pots
In many respects the diets of farmers and hunter-gatherers were more alike than different
Feb 19, 2024•20 min
The Invention of Baby Food
Commercial baby food was perhaps the original industrial food product, with all that that entails
Feb 05, 2024•29 min
Black Stoneflower: A unique Indian spice
A lichen, which has no taste of its own, contributes hugely to the flavour of many Indian dishes
Dec 18, 2023•25 min
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