Jive Turkey

since you don't eat the meat anymore. Yeah, I stuff a chicken into a turkey, right, confused with fury to furkey, which is different. I do not do be to furkey. What's your thoughts, Well, I just feel like there are many things that a vegetarian can make and bring in their completely acceptable and really wonderful tasting. And you don't have to go the toe freaky route unless you want to get the side eye from your guests. Okay, Okay, some people may feel differently about to freaky. That's just

my take. Well, certainly, my whole thing is that Thanksgiving me all great. There's lots of fabulous side items I love, like broccoli casserole. I love. Oh what are the little guys that you're supposed to not like as a kid? Um, Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts, you have. Brussels spouts are delicious, Um, sweet potatoes, all of it, you know, all the side

dishes are great. And then at the center you have this big cook turkey that even if it's cooked well, even if it's not too dry, even if it's seasoned properly, it's still like the least interesting thing for me on the table. But it's a tradition, so everyone has to eat it. It's the star of the show, even though the supporting cast is really just bringing it a lot

more than the actual turkey. Um. I will not malign turkey because I could go on for for a while as just say, like, we spend so many hours trying to incus edible, but um, I think that it would be better if we spent some time talking more about uh, this creature and how it's kind of amazing and um, how we've gamed it, how we have manipulated its DNA and it's become part of our culture here in the States.

I mean, I mean, I'm sure, every every podcast it's out this month is it's it's probably doing like a turkey episode, and they're hitting some of the usual things. But it's worth noting that, I mean the turkey that was the bird of Benjamin Franklin said, forget the eagle. The eagles kind of a jerk, Let's go with the turkey,

because the turkey silly. The turkey is I believe his words were, um, yeah, a little vain, a little silly, a bird of courage that would not hesitate to attack a grenader of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on. So he he liked people the turkey. He thought the turkey was a more noble creature. And now but though when he is thinking or when he was talking about that turkey, it was a wild turkey, which is very different from

what we think of today. Yes, and we'll get into some of the cross of it between wild and domestic turkeys as we go. For Another big American thing with turkey is the pardoning of the turkey. That's right, the president pardons the turkey so that the turkey may live another year, which I know it's something like people love it.

I guess that I always find it just kind of distasteful because it's like the president's partying pardonering one bird, all the other birds are not getting pardoned, And then there's a lot to be said to about the use of capital punishment in the United States, and it's it's a little tacky for me. Well for me, it's a little out of time. It feels very vaudevillian, like, why are you turkey? Don't worry about it? Yeah, yeah, we have no other pressing issues at the moment, so we

were pardon a bird. Yeah. But I guess it's a nice act. It's an altruistic act, even though there's another turkey that will take its place at the presidential dinner um. But it is an interesting thing, and it all points back to this idea that it's the turkey is so steeped in tradition. But when you think about it, the first Thanksgiving that we hear about, that we read about in tech books was not really uh as traditional as we think. In other words, historians have tried to piece

it together, have tried to figure it out. The various resources available to the pilgrims, to the these Puritans English Puritans that were relocated here in the United States, and they have figured out that it is probably not the turkey that was on the table. In fact, it may have not have shown up at all, because more likely the feast would have looked like something like shellfish venison. Those would be the sources of protein that would have shown up on the table. And so you know, you

kind of think about that in this other content. Yes, as well as corn, right, because the Puritans had the benefit of being instructed by American Indians on how to cultivate food. Because remember they arrived here rough conditions, drought, etcetera. They weren't having a lot of luck. So this first Thanksgiving really was a feast of harvest time to celebrate the bounty that they are actually instructed how to grow.

And of course this sort of celebration, this harvest time celebration, is not anything that is unique to the United States, and we've seen this in all different cultures across time, celebrating the sort of bounty that comes in. Yeah, the harvest rolls in. We're in an agricultural scenario or even you see this even in groups that are not agriculturally driven. But suddenly there's there's a surplus of food, and what

do you do. You have yourself a feast tonight we sort of truly eat, which is really beautiful because I mean, it really is about fellowship and getting together and and and celebrating and taking at least one moment. Even certainly in cases where you can actually store the food and provide for the next day. In the day after that and the day after that, yeah, you're gonna you're not gonna want to eat at all, but there's enough to

at least engage in a feast for one day. And then in other situations you might not be able to preserve the food, so you might as well just go nuts. So eventually the turkey, though, takes this place on the table. And um, what I wanted to mention is that there's another myth about turkeys and Thanksgiving that we should probably put to bed. Most people probably know this that l tripped a fan. This is an amino acid, which is

a natural sedative, is found in turkey. So it was thought that because tripped a fan helps the body produce niacin, which in turn helps the body produce serotonin, a chemical that acts as a common agent in the brain. It was thought that if you ate a lot of turkey, that this would account for how tired, how sleepy, and just like this food coma feel come over to you. That this was attributed to eating turkey. Yeah, I mean ignoring, of course, the fact that after Thanksgiving meal, you've you've

probably consumed three thousand calories of fat. You've probably you may man, I've had some wine in there, You've had a very rich meal. So of course your body is going to shut down. You're gonna collapse on account somewhere. But but yeah, this myth ends up. It's still you still see it circulated around and sort of laughed about over the over the dinner table in no small things to sign felt because they had a whole episode, of course, where people were pulling out boxes of wine and turkey

to essentially roofy one another. Okay, well again, there are different things that play here. You would have to eat a huge amount of turkey. If you think you eat a lot of turkey and Thanksgiving, you would have to probably quadruple that, eliminate all the side dishes, and just stack up the cold cuts on an empty stomach, on an empty stomach, because that's the other thing. L Trip de Fan needs to work on an empty stomach to really get the effects that we are that that are

attributed to a turkey feast. And still the sleepiness that will occur has a lot to do with the daunting job ahead for your gastro intestinal tract, because it's gotta break all that down. So I just wanted to mention that put that turkey to bed. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a certain amount of sebo effect here, because obviously people eat turkey at other times. You can go and get you know, turkey cold cuts at the

Dali and you put it on a sandwich. And I remember in the past when I would like take a cold cut sandwich with turkey on it to work. I would I would be thinking in my mind, it's like, I'm gonna be sleepy after this because it's loaded with the helfan. But but of course that's not the case. Unless I really went into it with that mentality, I guess I could conceivably allow myself to get a little sleepy afterwards. Well, I would say to that, it's a

great excuse to go take a nap and escape family. Yeah, it's family's great. It's great. But when you stuff each other into the same house, especially when you're adults, right, you know, for a twenty four hour period, it's you need the break. Yeah, it's like there's nothing for me to do now, becaucept laid down and watch football for a couple of hours. Sorry, yeah, that turkey. Oh, I gotta go take a nap. By the way, the turkey

that would have in my sandwich. Haven't picked this up in years, But I was really partial to the boar's head Cajun turkey, which my wife hated because she thought it smelled really awful um and and would joke. I think she was joking that I needed to keep it outside, like in a cold box. Anyway, This just doesn't seem right, But but it goes back to what I was saying earlier about the turkey. Turkey meat itself being not all that exciting and it needs like some Cajun spice in

there to really, you know, make it good. It needs to be Uh. You actually sent me some recipes and I said that that's exactly what needs to happen. It needs to be marinated in the hell pit fires and then exhumed eight hours later like I always think Tandory turkey, that would be great. I would far rather do a Tandorri turkey. But you can't because you have all this a you have family members that are going to be like, what's the tan Dori? Oh my goodness, this is hot?

I can't possibly eat this. And then also you start thinking about it where it's like, well, if I had complete control over my Thanksgiving meal, I why stop there with the Indian food? Why not just ignore the turkey entirely and just have a lot of delicious pin here and stuff? I know, right, because I mean that in and of itself is a meal, all right. So the turkey,

the humble, the humble turkey as an organism. It is worth noting that even if the turkey wasn't present at the Thanksgiving meal, the initial Thanksgiving meal, and if the Pilgrims weren't, we're actually just eating oysters and deer jerky. The turkey itself is is an American original, which makes it sound like it's running for office, but no, it goes back, of course, the prehistoric times, and then the domestication of the turkey goes back pretty far as well.

So imagine a pre Columbus America. Alright, you have few domesticated animals in general, just just human wise, there are few domesticated animals, all right. Most big animals can be tamed. You can treat them to not fear humans, but to actually domesticate something, it's beyond that. You need an animal that doesn't fear humans, and you also need an animal's gonna breed a lot and allow you to select for certain traits. You want a bigger animals so you can

eat it. You want a tamer and tamer animals so that it doesn't mall you or gore you or what have you. But few animals are actually capable of being domesticated. Humans have only ever domesticated twenty five mammals, and also roughly a dozen birds and possibly a single lizard, which I'll touch on in a second. And then you also have arguably some insects like the honeybee, the silkworm, etcetera.

All right, so just six of these, uh, These animals existed in pre Columbia America, and they were mostly minor creatures. You had dogs that were eaten in Central and South America.

Dogs that were used as labor, pulling sleds. And whatnot in the far north, delicious guinea pigs in the Andes along with llamas and alpacas to haul stuff around um South America's muscobe duck, and some say to get back to the lizard, some say that the iguana was also domesticated because it was it farmed in Mexico and Central America.

But then, of course this also leads us to the turkey, which was apparently domesticated in in Mexico as far back as three hundred BC to a d according to a two thousand twelve University of Florida study where they actually

we're finding evidence of this in Mayan ruins. And then in the sixteenth century, right, it was traded or actually it was transported to your up and you know, there's a long tradition there of domestication and turkeys and eating them, which brings up another really interesting thing about the turkeys. From why do we call him a turkey? Right? Why why is this ancient bird that came from North America?

Why don't we why is it seemingly named after a country on another continent, Why it has nothing to do with turkey? Right? Turns out there two theories about this Robert Crowitch, one of the post of Radio laps. He he did a piece, uh, you can find it on NPR. I'll link to it in the blog post accompanying this episode. But he examined this question. He found there basically two

theories about this, right. So one of the theories is that in the fifteen hundreds, when the bird first arrived in Great Britain, it was shipped by merchants in the in the East, mostly from Constantinople, and they had of course brought the bird over from America. But since it essentially came from Turkey, the British referred to it as a quote Turkey cock. That's c o q uh and

that means chicken, Turkey chicken in other words. Uh. But the thing is that the British is referred to anything from the East as its Turkish, so Turkish rugs, Turkish flower, Turkish bags, um, Turkish baths, you name. It is just sort of a generic catch all for something that was quote unquote oriental. And then there's another theory, uh. Theory number two, the Corolla, which lays out is that long before Christopher Columbus went to America, Europeans already had a

wild fowl that they like to eat. It was from Guiana and Western Africa, and it was a guinea fowl imported to Europe again by Turkish merchants, so they ate this in London. They loved it. So it got the nickname turkey cock because it came from Concantinople. And then when people were introduced to similar birds, then well what do you call it? I guess it's a turkey cock. It's worth pointing out that it wasn't called a turkey and other parts of Europe. In Russia it was called

in Jushka, which means bird of India. In Poland it was in yik set. Again I'm butchering that because it's like I n y c z k a, but that again means bird from India. Um. So it's it's really fascinating when you when you look at it all comes to not where the bird came from, but where it came through. What was the initial port of call in

this new land? You know, I'm gonna go with number two. Yeah, it's just because I feel like if you if you look at the United States and you look at all the city names, that so many of them that they actually took from Britain and from the cities in Britain, and then they just you know, lapped it. You know, they just said, okay that you're going to be you know, New York, the New New York, so on and so forth. Um So I feel like they probably did the same thing.

They looked in the woods and they were like, oh, look, it looks like a turkey. I could be wrong, but as long as we are talking about turkeys of our past, we are still someone of our present. Wild turkeys. That's what we need to talk about. Yes, wild turkeys. So yeah, there's a definite difference between domestic turkeys and wild turkeys, just on a very physical level. First of all, domestic

turkeys cannot fly, can't even run very fast. They're easy pickings for a predator because they generally they don't have to deal with predators there. Domesticated animals, you can comment them with a hatchet, a hammer, just some strong words that take them out. Their neck, skin or wattles are heavier than wild turkeys. The snoods, which are the fingerlike appendages that you know when you make a turkey fake turkey out of a glove or something. Those are snoods

um that hang over the bill. Uh. They're longer on domestic turkeys, and the breasts are much larger and broader because we've bread these things to eat. And they also possess a temperament that's more suited to confinement. Okay, they're not freaking out every time they see human. They're a little more comfortable around humans. But then you have the wild turkeys. These things are sleek, they're alert, they are built for speed and survival. These are they're not living

in a pin somewhere. They're living out and about. They're having to deal with predation. They are surprisingly tall when you encounter them. Because my mom's house occasionally see them out there. And you, I mean you see them also in the Atlanta area. And I know, people you get turkeys in your yard, you live in a turkey zone.

I live in a poultry zam. And I guess you could say a lot of people have chickens in their backyards, but I know I've never seen one in my I have heard reports of them hanging out near the railroads, probably with bendel sticks. But their senses they're sharpened. You know, They're they're not gonna just sit there and stare at the sky, and they're actually dealing with with dangers around them. And this makes them one of the harder animals to

actually actively hunt because they're very afraid of humans. Well, and because they can fly, they can roost up in the tree and it can get away from people. Unlike the domestic they can actually use those wings for something.

In terms of how they appear, I think of them as like the traditional image of a thanksgiving turkey, right, because when you look back again textbooks from when you were a little it was this turkey, at least for me, that was presented as the thankshiving turkey, as this big, just gloriously feathered animal that was usually black and brown and just fat as all get out, like just an

enormously fleshed creature. Yeah, and like Buddha with feathers. Feathers, but not that the thin Buddha, but like the press on Kaji Buddhist monk that is that has gained all this weight to keep women from distracting. And well that's a whole another story. Yeah, and that is and maybe that's what these turkeys were trying to do. You never know, but because their display is so amazing, it probably won't

strike anybody as this being on. There are twenty thousand feathers at play here with wild turkey, and if you look at the domesticated turkey, you're looking about thirty five hundred feathers. So this really is a glorious display of feathers, and some of those feathers can have different colors. Um, they're just so cool looking to me, and to me they're also a little bit more formal looking in a little scary because they kind of look like the skexies

from the Dark Crystal. I mean, I guess the skexies in the Dark Crystal kind of look like turkeys since uh, turkeys were there first. But you know, they're kind of the they're especially when you're close up there, far bigger than you expect. Also worth noting male domestic turkeys they are they're gonna gobble a lot more. They're in they're in a safe environment, so they're just gonna talk their

heads off as much as they want. Yeah, females just click, but but male wild turkeys not so much, because they again, they're in a situation where they have to deal with predation, they have to deal with actual dangers and surprise, surprise. If they stand around talking all day, something's gonna know where they are and shoot them or eat them or both. Yeah, they have plenty of natural predators like skunks, boxes, and snakes, but humans are the number one killer of wild turkeys.

So here is one really cool thing about these turkeys is that they have a kin ship, a sort of packed at play, and it has to do with our mating rituals. So we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back we will talk about the wingmen of the Turkey mating world. Okay, we're back and we're

talking about mating in the Turkey world. So we've talked about cuttlefish before, which is a bit of a departure, but as you remember, there's this whole scenario with the cuttlefish, and again this is the cephalopod squid like creatures that change their colors are fabulous and they range from cute to kind of cathulu esque looking kind of like bearded

men with with tentacles. But you encounter the scenario and they're mating where you'll have the big bowl beefy uh, muscle dude on the beach type of cuttlefish and then you'll have the slender maybe a little effeminate if you will, because that comes into play here. You know, it's a slender, weaker cuttle fish. And so when it comes time to mating, the big male cuttle fish is out there and he's like, I'm mating with this one and this one. Everyone else

hands off or I will fight you. But this is a zebra pattern, yes, which kind of reminds me of wrestling pants. But go on, yes, yes, wrestling zebra pants. Um gosh, there's one guy in Japan who wore those. I can't remember it. His name, Ogawa zebra pants. He was a little guy, so it doesn't really that's a big guy in zebra pants. So but the little guys, they realize, if I'm gonna have a chance at mating and passing on my jeans in this evolutionary game, I

need to be sneaky. I need to sneak in there, pretend to be a female. And then the big bowl beefy um, you know, muscular beach dude cuttlefish. You'll be like, oh, another lady, line up, I'll get to you next. And while he's busy defending his turf, then this gender bending cephalopod gets in their mates with the female and passes on his jeans. So you end up with cuttlefish. You have a mixture of lineages here. You have you have cuttlefish that are born that have those beefy, beat people

up mentality and also the sneaky and careful and deceptive nature. Well, you have the dominant and the non dominant trying to figure out ways in which they can mate best. Whereas with these wild turkeys you have a very interesting dynamic going on. And uh, it is actually related to kin. So let's say you have two brothers, one wearing wrestling pants, one not. Okay, so we're talking to dominant and the non dominant, and they display something called kin selection. Now okay,

both of them. You have to to remember, have they they share a great deal of d n A. Right, They're they're bros. They're killing. So the non dominant takes the position that if his brother and his wrestling pants can successfully mate, well, then in a sense, his own genes are being propagated. His victory is mine and uh and I should really, if anything, live vicariously through his

conquests and help him out. Hence the wingman and not get in there and try and score for myself, because that was one of the things that the two thousand five you see Berkeley study from the Museum Vertebrate Zoology. They looked into this because that was kind of the question are these waynman turkey are they really they're supporting their bro or are they going into business for themselves on the side, because it was really hard to tell

what's going on in the bush. It's one thing to sort of form these theories, but who knows what's happening in the underbrush. So what they did is um and this is explained by Alan Karkaer. He is the lead author on this study. They captured, tagged, and obtained blood samples from male and female turkeys, and then captured flightless young scavenged broken eggshells from abandoned nests, or lifted eggs from unattended nest to obtain the DNA of offspring. So

this is how they could confirm what was happening. But what I think is really interesting is that Carkard said, you know, this is this is something we thought was going on in the wild, but we really needed to prove that there's this this kinship selection at play and so he explains this the scenario, and he says, it's really interesting because while the dominant male was strutting, the sub subordinate male might continue to display, as he says, like a backup singer, or even chase away the other

males that got too close. So provide a little muscle if someone else comes up to the bar to interfere with the date. But also don't be afraid to do a little dance in there. Just too excited a bit. Now you had you had talked about turkeys being called turkey coke c Q. So is this the turkey cloke block cock block? Yes, Okay, I just had. I'm sorry

it was poorly executed. The joke needed to be told, So yeah, croc Our sums it up in this wonderful quote says, basically, since subordinate males and dominant males shales share some portion of their DNA, the subordinate males benefit indirectly by helping the relatives breed. A subordinate partner gains more by giving help than it would by going off

on its own and trying to breed by itself. So it's really a remarkable amount of cooperation going on there and where they're actually like, all right, this is our best, this is our brightest. We're gonna do everything we can to make sure he gets out there and gets it done. There we go, another example of how humans and animals are alike. All Right, so we've talked about wild turkeys, We've talked about these wingmen. Let's talk about domesticated turkeys.

The star of the show, the star of the plate. The average American eats seventeen point five pounds of turkey each year in one setting. Or is this yes, yeah, that's the that's how large the turkey is. Um. Turkey consumption by Americans has increased one hundred and sixteen percent since the nineteen seventies. Over forty five million turkeys are eaten each Thanksgiving. And well, if you look at that in pounds, that's a hundred that's a six D seventy

five million pounds of turkey eaten each Thanksgiving. In the US. It can get really competitive trying to get a turkey, especially if you're trying to get into like an organic bird. Um. Like last year we got one from a little grocery in Oakhurst. They were gonna get some turkeys in and so we were like calling every day. If you ordered the turkeys, you know when the turkeys are gonna come because you're trying to down that turkey list so you can get a good, you know, organic bird that you

know was pampered during its life or something. Yeah. I saw that Trader Joe's a couple of weeks ago. They had a pamphlet out about the turkeys that were coming in, and the whole message was don't wait, these wonderful turkeys will be snatched up. Because again, a lot of it it comes back to that whole tan DOORI turkey discussion earlier. There are a lot of us out there that might otherwise not really want to get a turkey for Thanksgiving,

but you have to. You you have certain obligations to family and tradition, and you find your So I imagine there's a market there for the turkey that is that you don't necessarily find that many people uh that are that are gonna have to maybe break a little out of their their normal eating routine and normal diet to get a bird. So they're gonna be a little more selective. They're gonna want to get that bird it's organic or free range or or in some cases made entirely of tofu.

That's true, very true. Um, so Americans are not the only ones who are turkey crazy. According to World Poultry, Russia's turkey meat market will increase fivefold over the next ten years from the current one hundred thousand tons to five hundred thousand tons per year. So the bird is

making gains and other parts of the world. Yeah, I mean, certainly we've talked before about about the demand for meat in the in parts of the world changes as the socio economic setting settings, their change and all domesticated animals is worth remembering. These are animals that have essentially been hijacked from the natural world, and they have they are they're certainly still organisms, they're still deserving of our compassion

and understanding, but they have largely become food sources. They have become as much a food source as they are an independent animal through human tinkering it or Yeah, and let's talk about this domestication, because when we talk about turkeys in the United States, the one type of turkey that is domesticated that dominates supermarkets is the broad breasted white turkey. Now, we have an article about genetically modified turkeys, and in it, the author describes this turkey as the

Ana Nicole sniff The turkeys um. The reason for that is because they're bred for really large breasts. They have white feathers. Um. And this really has its roots in the nineteen thirties because that's when consumers were beginning to favor white breast meat over dark meat, and the distry began to respond by using something called selective breeding techniques. Now, selective breeding technique is different from genetically modified. Yeah, selectively

bring that's just about all right. I like the kind of this one's jib, and I like the kind of that one's jib, and I love eating the jib. So I'm gonna have those two, mate, and I'm going to try and encourage even larger jibs. Still, yeah, because you're selecting for the traits you want well, And I think about it in terms of cow so cows that produced the most milk might be selected to breed and pass that trade off to offspring so that you get cows

that are really great at producing milk. Or if we've talked about dog breeds before too, it's like I want a pug that looks just completely ridiculous, and I don't care how healthy or saying it is. So let's just breach for those ridiculous qualities over and over again until I basically have a cushion that poops. I'm just gonna let that linger. I love pugs, though, but seriously, take a look at these guys, all right. So these monster trick key trucks that we have, um, they are actually

genetically modified. And when we talk about genetic modification, we're talking about a high tech way to change the DNA pattern and an organism, and it's used commonly in cotton, corn, soy, canola. UM. And with these techniques, you can take genes from any organism and cross them to create something new. So hypothetically you could cross genes with cotton and pigs. You could genetically modify a pig to have some expression of the

genes of say something like cotton. Yeah. And uh, this brings me back to to the I listed some of the animals and the numbers of animals, so we've actually successfully uh domesticated that number. Those numbers don't include animals that we've been able to domesticate through genetic tankering, because certainly that opens the door for for even more domestication

in our creatures. So what happens when you have these industry bread birds, particularly they're genetically modified, you have an unusually large breast and so it's disproportionate with the rest of their body. And what that means is that they often have trouble standing, uh, walking, and even mating. So when that happens, to be in from wellmating, obviously they have to then have or be artificially inseminated. The essentially at this point, yeah, yeah, and they begin life hatched

and incubators. They have their upper beaks and toenails clipped, and they spend their days and nights eating fortified corn in a barn full of hundreds of fellow turkeys. And that, my friends, is a is a good reason to seek out that organic for your range bird. That's true, it's true. And you know, we have this idea that these these

creatures are really dim witted. And the reason for this is because this species of turkey that's been domesticated and the genetically modified in some instances this they have a limited family tree and so that's bred them to be somewhat dim witted and disease prone. Like the monarchy in some European country whe's the coolest, not that deep, and and like a member of the of the European monarchy, they don't really have to get out there and find

for themselves or make their way in the world. Their domesticated they don't need the sharpest senses either, so there's nothing to eat them when they start getting stupid. What does do you remember the rare blood disorder that the current royal family they have the genetic predisposition for, like hemophilia, I believe, I think so. Yeah, if we're wrong, someone let us know about that. But then you get the

idea right there. Back to the disease prone part of turkeys is obviously that leads to a widespread use of antibiotics, and we won't get into that here, but as we know, that has had all sorts of ramifications, not just with the meat itself but on humans. Again, another reason to potentially choose an organic, free range bird over some sort of giant mammoth creature from the freezer box at the

local grocery. Now, it's also worth noting that I mentioned earlier the idea of turkeys actually going out and ropping banks and causing mischiff. Well, they haven't reached that point yet. But you certainly do encounter uh, some violent or intimidating clashes between human kind and turkey kind in the world. Act two of two thousand elevens Poultry Slam episode of This American Life. Every year around Thanksgiving they do a poultry Slam episode and it's all related to birds or

turkeys or whatnot, somehow marginally connected. Anyway, it's a great lesson, and it's great. It's another great thing to listen to on those road trips for the holidays. But on last year's episode they talked about Tom the turkey who was a menace in Martha's vineyard. We're talking like a turkey would come up to you while you're in your car and not let you out, essentially like the Kujo of turkey. And and and it's a it's a factless story. I won't ruin it for you, but go listen to it

because it involves tragedy and conflict. It's it's it's wonderful. But certainly you do see turkeys as a menace in some areas. While turkeys have made a comeback, even like it said, urban areas, they have, they've been spotted in the Atlanta area. And it's interesting, as we mentioned before, the you're normal wild turkey is going to avoid humans. It is a it is a cautious creature that does not want to get messed messed up in human business

because humans will probably kill them and eat them. And certainly if they watch TV, they know that's the truth. So what happens though, is you will have rogue domestic turkeys who have grown up wild, or you'll have hybrid turkeys where it's a domestic and a wild turkey that have made it and created this hybrid creature that has a lot of the physical attributes of both sides, but also more importantly does not have that fear of humans. So it can be a menace. It can kujo somebody

in their car somewhere and not let them out. Um. And then certainly an agricultural areas, whild turkeys do like to eat and they can be somewhat of a of a menace to uh to farms. All right, So there you go, So be Um, if you encounter turkeys and they are not running from you, just be aware that they might run after you. Okay, you know, I always say, like this should be a horror flick. This should be Why isn't there a Thanksgiving marauding Turkey night if turkey

of the turkey? Yeah, there you go. Alright, So since we are abstracting turkeys this concept of turkeys, let's talk about meat analogs, because surely meat analogs will be showing up at some tables this Thanksgiving. And I always meat analog selection. I know it's the worst term, right because it's just it's so sterile um. But I want to mention that the global meat analog industry is beginning to

gain ground in the meat market. So three and five adults now eat eat meat free food so that doesn't mean that they're vegetarians, but that they eat regularly these meat freed foods foods. And this is part of a market that increased by eight between two thousand and five and two thousand and ten. And so what's happening is that we're very likely to see more and better quality

meat substitutes in the next ten years. And this is according to Florian Wild, who is the who is leading like meat and this is a European Union research project that is geared toward improving fake flesh as they call it. I feel like I have to say that fake flesh. He predicts two trends that on the one hand, the development of premium products with more fibrous, elastic and juicy textures with the potential to replace meat and good restaurants

that this will happen. The other trend he sees is that for lower qualities substitutes to come online because they have the potential to replace five of today's meat market. And so he sees the potential for this uh in developing world and as well in the fast food arena in the form of burgers and nuggets, which is kind of a no brainer, right um, because it contains no brain unlike a lot of nicely done yes yes uh.

And to this uh, to this end, Twitter co founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, they have invested in a new faue meat company called Beyond Meat, and this apparently is taking the faux meat world by storm. Um. In fact, Slates far had mancho reviewed the product in the company and he said he said that he would rate Beyond Meat as being as realistic as chicken, but in every

other way it's superior, superior. It requires far less energy to produce, it has no saturated fats, no antibiotics, and no animals are harmed in the process, as he says, So it's interesting to look at this, this industry and try to extrapolate what it means. By when we've talked about um, the dearth of land available to raise livestock, and the three point five billion more people who will exist on earth and how we will feed them and some of them may some of those people maybe meat analogs.

By that point, does that mean we can eat them? Well, you could, I guess, but I would hope we would protect our our meat analog brethren from well from from the predation. That's a fight to uh, it's a fight to deal with in the future. Another the mentioned of the future, people were probably wondering, well, what about robot turkeys? Right, Well,

let's what's the possibility of robot turkey's. Granted they're not they're not as good to eat, but truly there's been some work there and true enough Spring Turkey, who hilariously enough, on the m I T website they had enlisted as had dates, but that's when he was she was in service, right. The first walking robot at m I T. S Leg Lab was part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. And it was essentially this biped this robot biped that

walked around and kind of turkey legs. So so there you go. If you ever wondered if there was a turkey robot, yeah, a pioneer one, I thought, all right, Well, on that note, speaking of robot turkeys, let's call over our robot and see if he has any listener mail for us. I cannot leave me just called Arnold a turkey. Well, all right, this one comes to us from Nando. Nando

rights in and says, Hi, Robert and Julie. I've been a listener for a while now, and finally I heard an episode in which I feel I can share an experience. I had heard about how some people would stare into mirrors and lose focus on the body and meditate. A few weeks ago I decided to try it. I used a full length mirror that I have in my living room. At first, I saw the edge of my face sort of fade away into blackness. After a while, I lost sense of my position in the room, meaning I thought

I was standing where my reflection was. This kept going on for a few minutes, shifting focus on my side of the room and the reflections until I saw something that scared the living daylights out of me. After about ten minutes or so, I saw the mirror become translucent, like when you turn on the light on the back end of the two way mirror. There was a man standing there. I became really scared and lost focus. My eyes felt really tired, and I had a really strong headache.

Immediately after I tried to make sense of it. I figured my eyes hurt from focusing on the mirror, which caused the headache as well. I couldn't explain what I had seen. I don't recall the man's features that he had any and even now when I think about it, my eyes start to hurt. I couldn't find the next nation online that didn't have to do with the supernatural. I'm glad I listened to your podcast. Now I know that other people have seen strain things and I am

not losing my mind. Keep up the good work. So indeed, that's awesome, because again that that whole episode Light is a Feather Stuff as a Board was about some sort of slumber party Shenanigan. Supernatural tricks like the use of Luigi boards looking into a mirror and seeing bloody Mary party levitation, that kind of thing. And the whole message is that even though an experience may seem kind of spooky and supernatural and magical, it's all in our perception

of it. And there are a number of things that play there, in the way that our mind works, in the way that um interpersonal relationships work, and in the way that that we remember what has happened, and all these things are in place. So certainly, anytime we can help people understand that something isn't really all that magical but in actuality based in science, then I feel like

we've done a good job. No, it's great feedback to to see what his experience was like, particularly after ten minutes, because he could see the different stages that his his hirst sception was going. Yeah, and it sounded very creepy. I would have been freaked out if that happened. That's exactly the reason why I was always too afraid to actually go in and ask about I was thinking about that when I read that. I was like, Oh, that's what Robert was talking about, because that's what you don't

want to see. Yeah, And certainly if you you don't have an explanation for it, especially if you're say twelve and a pre internet age and you go with it with two with that, who's going to have that answer ready for you? Well even if you are you know, in an Internet age, right yeah, yeah, true, Like as he said he would and looked done online and there was just a bunch of bunks out there. So anyway,

thanks for writing in, Nando. We love to hear cool stories about people's personal interactions with the phenomena that we talked about, so certainly, if anyone has any cooky related stuff they would like to share with us about their own their own thoughts on Thanksgiving, to traditions, or about the bird itself, about our history with it culturally, or or or whatnot, then right in and let us know.

You can find us on Facebook and tumbler. We are stuff to blow your mind on both of those, and if you head on over to Twitter you will find us under the handle blow the Mind and you can always drop us a line at blew the Mind at Discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is It how Stuff Works dot com m