How Junk Food Works

Does your grandfather's diet affect you? Yeah? True that you know, you know they drunk food mite and well yeah, so you the future grandfather listening today, you're screwing up your grandkids health right now, that's right. Go listen to our epigenet accept Junk food is uh ubiquitous now and it wasn't in my grandparents day. No, you know, no, they

had lame, lame diets. Yeah, of whole foods, these natural things. Well, that's something that this article I thought was smart to point out that back in the day before junk food, it didn't mean everybody was just eating like hippies or something like that, Like they were just these wonderful, like wholesome spreads at every meal or something like that. They like crowd or they ate the same thing, or there are plenty of times where they were like I would kill you for a tomato right now in the day

of winter. Um, I'm tired of eating this forty steak covered in gravy exactly every night. Um. But they did not have access to mass produced, um, really fundamentally unhealthy food like we do today. And that's the definition of junk food. Really, that's right. Junk food. You might have heard of, like empty calories. Um, that's what junk food is. It's food that has either zero or very little nutritional

value but has a lot of calories. But has a ton of calories, usually in the form of carbs, which um is usually a shot of way more energy than you need. That doughnuts stick, it's tasty. What's a donut stick? Oh, there's donut sticks, just like it's exactly what it sounds like. No, it's a little debby device. Ohh yeah, I know this. Okay, So it's a shot of energy device. Very rarely do you need like a shot of energy like that, especially when you're going to sit down in front of your

computer for three hours straight. They don't need that. So what happens to that energy is it gets translated into fat stored is fat and just as bad, you don't get any nutritional value from it whatsoever. It doesn't contain dietary fiber usually you know, it doesn't have any of the minerals or vitamins that your body needs to like

mount immune response. And even worse, as we'll talk about later, it's entirely possible that it's contributing to things like um uh mental ill health in you ye, mental health, physical health. Because we're talking packaged sweet goods, talking soft drinks, uh, baked goods, salty stuff, man stuff loaded with that, all the good things, all the good things. Right Like when we were researching this, UM, I was like, I want a doughnut right now. I'm gonna go get a donut.

Maybe I'll get like a griddle or something too. Like I just wanted everything. I even thought like maybe I'll get a root beer somewhere. I don't even know where to get a root beer, but I was gonna try and find one. You get any other soda and I well, I I guess you probably could. That's what I was going on. But I'm just saying I don't have personal experience buying root beer anywhere. I gotta That's what this article did to me, you know what I mean. I

got a guy can get you from up here good stuff. Yeah, you just stick with me afterwards. All right, I'll introduce you. Thanks. Man, you gotta meet him first, but yeah, after that, it's all good. Um yeah, it's bad stuff. UM. So let's talk about junk food. Let's talk about the history. I guess because it's um it's pretty interesting and the like we were saying before, before the dawn of the nineteenth century, UM, people ate food mostly from stuff that they grew or harvested.

It wasn't processed that much. And big changes came around when the Industrial Revolution hit and all of a sudden people could get cheap flower. That was the big turning point, the big turning point four in your home. And the story of junk food is essentially the story of the industrialization of food. Like before we had food that was bad for you, like caramels were introduced by the Arabs probably about a thousand years ago, some somewhere around there. Um. Um,

chocolate has been around for a very long time. Cookies the dude who founded Keebler, Mr Keebler, he had a bakery in the early nineteenth century. Like, people were making stuff that wasn't good for you, but they were making it, and it was a pain in the neck to make it, so they weren't making it all of the time. You couldn't just go anywhere and get it. And that is inherently the problem with junk food today is it's everywhere,

and it's cheap and it's easy to get. Yeah, and there were, uh, there were a lot of other factors that contributed to the rise of junk food. Um, besides the industrialization. People moved to cities and away from farms. And if you're living in the middle of New York City and you're not gonna have a big farm, let us farm in your backyard. So long can let us that you can the winter before? Right? Uh civil war? That's what I know about canny. Uh. Well, we used to can when I was a kid. I think I

told that story. Yeah, my mom used to take me to the Canary and can stuff canary for like really, Yeah, where was the cannary. It was the Cab County Cannary over like a memorial drive. So it's just like the facilities you needed to can your own stuff. That's pretty neat. And you could show up with your green beans and your peaches and you could can that stuff. Yeah. I've never can, but I do eat a lot of can stuff because pickled things are very very good for you. Yeah,

and things in the can aren't necessarily terrible for you. No. No. And when you're saying can, like cans were not involved at all, I'm guessing like glass jars were that. We can't silver cans. Oh wow, yeah, man, that is serious stuff. Yeah, it was pretty cool. You're like a Steinbeck family or something. I just remember it was awful as a kid. Now I would totally get into it, but back then it was the most boring place on earth for a kid to be wrong. Tire store is the most boring place

on earth for a kid to be wrong. Fabric store, I will say, fabric store is definitely up there, I have to say. Man, and I tweeted about this. You me and I went to the fabric store the other day and I was looking around, like, what are some of you people doing in here. There were a lot of the fabrics people, a lot of people I would not have expected are into sewing, and like, I'm like, okay, everybody, so like the entire spectrum of humanity was represented in

this fabric store. Well, that doesn't mean they so necessarily know they were searching for fabrics and like looking at them and comparing them to other fabrics they alsold. Well, but that does it. Just because you buy fabric doesn't mean you sow. They could upholster. Okay, that's to me falls under sewing. It is one of the industrial arts on its own, true, but I think of upholstery is sewing to an extent, even though there's no sewing involved necessarily.

And these people better not have been upholstering anything with their pink valor leopard fabric that they bought. Yeah, the fabric stores are pretty amazing when you go in, like the stuff that you can tell has been sitting on the shelf since Yeah. Yeah, my mom used to take me to the fabric store, so I have needed it. I didn't like it either, but it wasn't like a

tire store to me, like getting tires put on your car. Yeah, because Not only is there nothing for you to do as a kid except to like run your hand over the little quickly things on the new tire. The smell in there just made it. It's just even worse. And unless you're into reading like Car and Driver magazine, than you're out of luck drinking bad coffee. That's where you started drinking coffee when you're like, hey, just to kill the boredom. So waiter, we agreed that the tire store

is the worst of all. Really for me, it was a fabric store. But I'm sure I have bad memories of the tire store in the Canary. Oh man, that was a good one. It was about seven seven minutes sometimes side trackage all right back to the ark in Civil War. Um, another reason that fast food and junk food became, and those are two different things we should point out. Um, fast food isn't always junk food. No, anybody who's been to Chipotle can tell you that. Yeah,

I went yesterday. They're trying to do it right, great stuff, you know, Um, which they're not McDonald's associated anymore, you know that, right. No, I don't understand why McDonald's divested because the stock went through the roof if I'm not mistaken, Chipotle was like, uh wanted the separation. I would guess McDonald's would be like ts, we own like tons of shares of you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure how that went down, so weird. It's probably a good thing though,

Yeah for Chipotle, you know, and McDonald's in big trouble. Ah. Yeah, I will be very surprised if there's not McDonald's fifty years from now. No, no, no, I don't think that. But they just had their big quarterly pow wow, and they're they're all pretty scared. No, no, I know, like they're right now. Their money is a way down their profits. It's our way now because like five Guys and all these other burger chains definitely eating into their market share.

The problem is is McDonald's is trying is chasing after everything right now rather than this is what we do. This is why people come to McDonald's. Yeah, I don't want to go to If I go to McDonald's is

because I'm hungover and I want a quarter poundary. I don't want to mcfresh wrap, right, and it's you don't even want something at the level of five guys like you want down in Rudy McDonald's familiar tastes, and the sooner McDonald's realizes that that's what people want from McDonald's and just says, here you go, if you want to come get it. Um, fantastic. Have you seen the Artist and girl chicken? That's what I'm saying, Like, what is that?

That's not okay, that's not McDonald's. Well, plus they're What is disturbing about it is you'll see the commercial saying now it's a better quality chicken, blah blah blah, and it's it's basically admitting like, look like mutants, like what were you giving us before? Or still? Yeah? And the other menu Yeah, American Civil War, I forgot where there again. In the Civil War, troops started eating rations for the first time, little easy to eat canned process garbage basically,

and they were like this is really good. Yeah. They got hooked on it, and when they came back, they wanted the same familiar taste and um, that's sort of how fast food grew. Food vendors started, you know, parking their carts outside of factories and stuff, and that that was sort of like the first fast food chain. Well not just that, that's where diners came from those food carts that were parked outside for people coming off of like the night shift or whatever, when all the restaurants

were closed. Um, they eventually took the wheels off and added like seating inside, and that's where the diners originally came from. And of course that all came about because of the suburban sprawl and the birth of the automobile. Right, Um, let's talk about a few of these. Uh. You found this great article on what was it called New York Times. Yeah, but what was the article called, I don't remember what it was called. Let us now praise the great men

of junk food. Yes, that was It was a great one. And so they listed some of the early some of the first junk food in the United States, and the first snaky junk food they credit as being cracker Jack's um, introduced at the World's Fair in Ee by the brothers Frederick and Louis or Lewis uh Rukheim m hm. And you know, cracker Jacks is delicious, is still around today, right, And and the thing with cracker Jacks is, again, there was recipes like that in existence prior to cracker Jack's, Right,

same with Caramel's name with chocolate. People made this stuff. But what the Rockheim brothers did was they took it. They figured out a way to produce it on a larger scale, sell it, and and this is one of the hallmarks of junk food. They figured out a way to market it effectively. That little prize, that's exactly right. That basically established the rule book for junk food from then till now. Yeah, the Tutsi roll is another good example. In five Um, there was candy before that, but this

is the first one to be individually wrapped. You know, that didn't come in a packet of six or eight. So you could take a penny, a little shiny copper penny, and you could get a Tutsi roll and you didn't have to like pick the hair off of it first because it was wrapped individually. That's right. Uh. I like this story. UM. An eleven year old named Frank Epperson UM left on a cold night in San Francisco, left his powdered soda drink with a stirring stick in the cup.

Came out the next day and it was frozen, and he ate it. He said, this is amazing. I'm gonna wait twenty years and then patting this. Yeah, and not quite twenty years. About eighteen years later, he basically applied for a patent and called them, uh, epsicles because everybody's like and this. Children said, hey, pop, why don't you call him popsicles? And so the popsicle was born. Yeah, and his children never saw a penny of that money another junk food, did they not? I'm just okay, what

about do you know much about potato chips? Uh? Now, So we could sit here for hours and hours and do this, because every junk food has a great origin story. There's a there's a book that did this for est. It's called The Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food, and it's on Academia dot E d U, which is basically apparently they upload books onto this thing and you

can read them. Yeah. So, um, potato chips. The legend goes that it was invented in the eighteen fifties in Saratoga, New York by a guy, a chef named George Crew I believe, and um, that's not true. They've been around for at least thirty years before that, but that's the

popular story. And Um, around the eighteen fifties, eighteen seventies eighteen eighties, people started manufacturing him on mass, but they were delivered in barrels, and then the customers would come and be like, I brought my own brown paper bag, shovel some potato chips into this, and I'll go home

and warm them up, and they'll be stale. And so they part of the mass commercialization of this junk food was to figure out how to package it and preserve it so that they didn't go stale and people didn't have to bring their own bag from home to go buy potato chips. They could just buy the bag and take it home. And it took until the nineteen thirties to figure that out. How long was that the eighties and really started to sell them. It took like fifty

years to get him package correctly. Interesting uh, soda soda drinks, soft drink, soda, pop pop coke. Depending on where you're from, you're gonna call it something different. Uh. That goes back to seventeenth century Europe when they had carbonated water mixed

with lemon juice and honey and um. Many years later, in nineteen seventy six, seven eleven introduced the world to the Big Gulp, which was thirty two ounces of um of nasty stuff, and then they said, how about doubling down on that, and they created the double Big Gulp, And then Mayor Bloomberg was like, no, no, I think I got rid of those, didn't they think they tried to? Yeah, they definitely tried to. I don't know if I went

through or not. In New York City, Yeah, Emily still drinks the diet Coke Big Gulp every day, and I'm just like, you just can't do that to yourself. Yeah, there's there's got to be something really really wrong with it. There has to be. This is too too much science, like in one concentrated form, you know. Yeah, but what's

funny is Coke, PETSI Hires, roop Here dr Upper. They all started out as a lick sers and tonics that were sold at the pharmacy, like that's where you got those originally, and then they became one of the most ubiquitous, unhealthy drinks on the planet. Alright, So we talked a lot about we could, like you said, we could go on all day talking about the history of different junks. Would you got one more? I got one more? The

world's first combination candy bar. There were chocolate bar bars before the first candy bar, Clark Bar really, which is uh, it's like a butterfinger but better is it? Because it was first and it's a Clark You got any more? I've got more, but I'll stop. Pop tarts used to be called the fruit scone. They used to be called ep tarts and oh, I've got this is this is very important, actually chucking all right, this is possibly the mind blower the podcast. And this is a mind blowing

episode so far. Oreos was the knockoff, Hydros was the original. Away Why how did they get market share? Oreo? Yeah? Just by tasting way way better, I guess. Interesting, yea, So Hidrocks is like made fun of it, like I got hide Drocks when I was a kid because they're a little cheaper, I think, you know, But they were the original ones in hershey or Oreos was the rival,

the competitor knockoff of hide Rocks. I wish I would have done that, although I'm not sure it would have worked in elementary school if people like you can't afford Oreos and like this was the original. It's disgusting, but it's the It came first, and I can't even get the cookie apart without it breaking like the oreo. Poor kid. All right, so after this break, we're gonna come back and talk a little bit about the science of junk food.

Google Cluster first. Munition Candy pop Tarts are the knockoff. They were originally created to overcome the rival country Square Stop. I love how you said it quieter, like maybe Chuck won't notice sitting right across from me, just between you and listening. Although the bubble gum one was pretty cool. The guy, yeah, he invented gun before bubble gum was just chewing gum. Double bubble is what he came up with, right, Uh, it was a double bubble, was the first one, I think.

So it was in that one New York Times article. Yes, it was double bubble. And he said that he died with a smile on his face because he brought so much joy to children all over the world. You didn't care about their gentle habits. Alright, So the science of junk food, Um, it's actually pretty interesting because it's not just there's nothing willy nilly about it. These are very there's a lot of money at steak, so companies throw a lot of dough into food laboratories, um, finding what

they refer to as that sweet spot or the bliss point. Yeah, the bliss point. Um. Again, the article is really great for New York Times. That was a different one. That one is called The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. It's very long, um, but that bliss point or the sweet spot is what they're after. And what you're really talking about is mouth feel, which we've talked about in Nothing Taste or Know something else more recently than that.

I think I had to do with bars. Remember gum Arabic gave a different mouth feel, um to than just

regular simple syrup. Yeah, that's right, mouth feel. So Cheetos is one of the more famous junk foods of all time because it's sort of a wonder of science in that um it praise upon something called vanishing caloric density, which basically means you put a cheeto or a cheese puff or a cheese poodle in your mouth and you're gonna chew it a couple of times and it's just gonna sort of dis aolve and your brain doesn't really

register that it's even eating calories. That is why you eat an entire bag of Cheetos because we've evolved to see with our tongues, or to measure with our tongues. Um, roughly the caloric density of a food. Yeah, because when took Tucks running around, they needed to eat efficiently, which means eating as many calories as they could with his little stuff going in their mouth as possible. Exactly right. So, um,

the tongue would learn to detect fat. Fat is extremely dense calorically, So after you eat a certain amount of fat, you get kind of this nasty feel in your mouth. Your mouth feel it's kind of greasy, right, and you suddenly realize that you can't eat another bite of this fatty slab of pork fat. You know, yeah, it is good, but imagine eating a big toilet seat size slab over you would not write. You get sick from it, and

the reason why is your brain becomes satiated. So what these food scientists figured out is that they if they can make something basically melt like a cheeto, it tricks your tongue into missing the fact that it's a really fatty food, and like you said, you can eat a

whole bag of it thanks to that vanishing caloric density. Well, another thing they do is like, let's say you're eating a cheeseburger from a fast food chain and that has that same fatty feel, but they realize if you serve the the soda with that, it balances things out to where you don't have that greasy mouth feel any longer exactly. So that's I mean, that's one reason why they sell SODA's fast food chains. That's what a value meal comes from. It's not just like, yeah, we want to make we

want to make sure you get your money's worth. No, they want to make sure that you're gonna say I could use another cheeseburger. I'm back, I want another cheeseburger please, And I say, certainly, we will happily sell you one of those. See, I don't drink soda, So when I eat fast food, what do you drink water? Huh? Is that strange? Yeah? Like what else would I drink? Off? Notn soda? Well that's that's it. Oh yeah, that's your choice, soda or nothing. You're not even allowed to drink water.

You have to sit there and eat it dry well. Although my sister in law drinks milk with most meals. I grew up like that. Like milk and pizza even, Yeah, milk and everything. Yeah, not me. I've got a really disgusting milk and broccoli story that I'm not going to tell, but it is rody. Come on, you really want to hear it? Okay? Well, then warning for those of you with a weak stomach, you really don't want to hear this. Or if you're I would say eating broccoli or drinking

milk anytime soon, probably avoid it. Okay. So um, I hate broccoli, but I used to really hate broccoli. And when I was a kid, like you just couldn't leave the table until you were done eating your vegetables, and we drank milk with every every meal. So I would I would eat the broccoli where I would take a bite and it would touch my tongue for a mill a second, and I'd wash it down with like half

a thing of milk. Right, So you're basically swallowing broccoli, hoole, Right, but I'm taking like a half a cup of milk for each swallow. So I kept having to drink more and more milk, I think. Well, one night, my mom was working a shift at the er and my dad was in charge of feeding me dinner. And um, I'd gotten about halfway through my broccoli and then drank god

knows how much milk with it. When I took one more bite, and all of it just came right back up on my plate and without looking my dad was like looking up at the ceiling while he grabbed my plate. I was like, okay, I think that's enough for you, and like cleared the plate, and I thought I won. So your dad cleared a plate of vomited up food without knowing it, No, without like purposely not looking at Oh, okay, He's like, okay, that's enough. Well, that was nice of him.

It was I didn't have to finish my brother. I thought he was gonna say, like, eat it again, right, he rubbed my face in it. My mom used to said the old oven timer, remember that trick. Oh, we didn't have time. It was just you're not getting up. It doesn't matter what time it is. You can't get up and go get bed or watch TV or anything. We had. Like he got ten minutes to finish those screen beans, and I did the old drink. I was like,

I'm drawing just corner the bathroom, right. It didn't work. Now, I thought it was smart all right, So drunk food is not healthy for you. Oh yeah, we know that, Um, the American Civil War. Here are things that can happen if you eat too much junk food. You're going to get obese, which means you're gonna have an increased risk of heart disease. You may get type two diabetes, and like you said, with the mental side, you may become depressed.

Because addiction. UM, it has all the characteristics of just like a drug addiction and alcoho all addiction. You bene on it, you withdraw from it, you um get an

increased tolerance from it. And UM, I I have the impression that they have figured out like that there really is a certain amount of addiction you can you can get from eating junk food, and that it's basically getting that pop, that that blood sugar high rush that you're dropped off from very quickly and then having to chase after it again, chasing, chasing the dragon or something like that. So I guess that's what it's called. UM. And so you can display them the signs of addiction from junk

food as well. UM. Much more closely linked is the connection between junk food and type two diabetes. Yeah, Americans UM consume about twenty two teaspoons of sugar a day on average. UM. A lot of this stuff comes from high pric doose, corn sert um, candy, junk food, soft drinks, and UM. How that works, as your body is going to break that down, uh, break down those carbohydrates, and your blood sugar is gonna spike. UM. Which you know, a single episode of your blood sugar spiking isn't the

biggest deal in the world. But when you repeatedly do that to your pancreas, UM, it's gonna basically tire out and wear out those insulin producing cells and trigger type two diabetes. Right. Because when you when you have glucose in your blood, that's a good thing because that provides energy to yourself and insulin comes along and helps open up your cells to allow it to absorb the glucose

and get it out of your blood stream. Right. But after being exposed to this time and time again, your cells stop absorbing glucose as well, so you have to produce more and more insulin, and eventually, like you were saying, those cells tire out, your pancreas can't produce enough insulin, and so you always have an elevated level of glucose

in your blood streak. That's bad. That leads to nerve damage and blood vessel damage which is associated with type two diabetes, and everything from heart disease to foot amputations can result. Because, like say, with your foot, this always fascinated me. I was like, why would diabetes lead to your foot getting amputated? I'll tell you why. So, remember, glucose levels leading to nerve damage supposedly concentrates in the

foot and you lose feeling in your foot. So even just like stubbing your toe badly can lead to an infection that you don't notice because you're not feeling the pain. And all of a sudden you have this uh infection that's not being fought off properly because the blood circulation to your foot is diminished. And next thing you know, you have gang green and your foot has to be amputated because of type two diabetes. Yeah, and isn't um

I didn't look this up. But the way I understand it is you can reverse the head towards type two diabetes until you have type two diabetes, and then you've got it. That's what I think, That's what I thought to you, like, you can't undo it once it's take and hold right. What you what you go through first is called insulin resistance metabolic syndrome or pre diabetes, and

you can catch that. You just need to go in for a physical like once a year or something like that, and you'll be able to catch whether or not you have pre diabetes, and then you take certain measures to not get type two diabetes. But yeah, I think once

you have type two diabetes, you got it for life. Um. One other thing I want to say, uh, and it's not just about the health aspects of it, but there's this really great documentary narrated by Katie Curic called fed Up I think everybody should see and it's about this really good, really well done documentary. Yeah. There there's a lot of great food documentaries out right now, Um that really go into what the food industry has become these days.

Very eye opening stuff. Yeah. Have you seen Supersize Me? Yeah, you know he's under fire for basically like a lot of people have tried to replicate his results and if no one's been able to do it. Huh, it was interesting at the time. Have you seen super High Me? Uh? Yes, Benson, Yeah, it was funny. That was For those who don't know, Doug Benson is a comedian who was famous for smoking

tons of weed. And he's got a documentary called Super High Me Yeah, in which I believe he smoked pot every day, all day for thirty days and then died and took a bunch of tests like brain tests and physicals and things like that, and then did not smoke at all, and then compared the two. How did it turn out? That was interesting? Some results were as you'd expect, in some surprise to see that he's a funny guy that I like him. Um, all right, so we'll take

a break here and we come back. We're gonna to talk a little bit more about this really cool article, the Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. All Right, you sent me this article that we reference, the Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, and it's really interesting. UM by

Michael Moss. Right was that his name pretty sure? As in the New York Times in two thousand twelve, or yeah, And he basically details, Uh, at first, a meeting in n of the heads of some of the largest food companies in the world getting together, um to talk about the fact that all these doctors are staying we're making junk people are getting no beasts, and um this this chemist basically thought, I'm going to talk these people into sort of reverse seeing some of their their practices the

name of good health, and was disappointed to find that they all kind of dug in and we're like no, Like, we're gonna make this stuff and people want it. They want it, and we're not going to try and make a healthier snicker bar that doesn't sell because the name of the game is selling food. I think the way

nobody's holding a gun to these people's heads. Yeah, the thing is is a lot of people controvert that point and say, you guys kind of use science to hijack our evolutionary processes and make it so that it's really, really difficult to refuse this food, right, like the cheetos that melt in your mouth and your brain doesn't realize it's eating all these calories. Uh, so you end up

eating tons of cheetos. Um one of the most interesting stories in here, I thought, And he tells a bunch of sort of histories of some of these junk foods, but um, lunchables was super interesting to me and I want to say nefarious almost, you know when you look at how it came about. Um, But basically what they did a lot of research into uh motherhood and found that the biggest challenge was time and moms don't have time. And I say, mom's parents, Well this is so it

was mom's Yeah that's true. Um, parents and moms don't have time to get to get a good meal into their child. So we're also having a bologney crisis, right. Oscar Meyer was like, nobody's eating all of loaf any longer. We're in a lot of trouble. So what are we gonna do? Yeah, these things came together to create the Lunchable, which was a new convenient way to package food in a tray. But it was the same stuff. Yeah, sell that ballogne. Yeah again, it's all marketing and packaging. So

that Bologny. They wanted to put bread in there, but of course bread, you can't make bread lass for two months. Um, So they threw some crackers in there. Uh, they wanted cheese in there because what goes better with bologna and crackers cheese? And then I think Oscar Meyer bought Kraft, so they just started using craft cheese, and both of them. By the way, we're owned by Philip Morris, a cigarette

manufacturer who definitely has your health at heart. Yeah. Uh. They did experiment with some different cheeses and they found that like, real cheese was no good. Uh. And the best cheapest cheese that lasted the longest was not even cheese. It was cheese food, which I think is awesome that it's in its own category cheese food, cheese food. Yeah, but hats off to him for trying real cheddar first. Yeah, I guess. So it's like the potato chips and a barrel.

Though they go stale, you can't you can't sell it. Yeah. This article points out that it takes several months for something from to go from the factory to the grocery store shelf. Yeah. So wait, that's the part I didn't get. The ham in those things is good for several months. Yes, Oh, it's probably good for several years. Preservatives the same thing that the poison squad was like testing against. Remember in the FDA episode. These are the things that didn't make

them sick. That's what preserves our food. Now, it's not necessarily good for you, but it won't make you sick immediately and Chuck, There's one other thing I want to say. Um, I've seen this a couple of places. Apparently the apple that you buy at the store has been off the tree for an average of fourteen months. Really, yes, and it's just the preservatives, Like, I have no idea how they do it. Fourteen months is the average from tree to shelf for an apple? An apple? That's what eve.

I don't know. Interesting, I don't know, but I have seen it a couple of places, and I would like to know if anyone out there knows that that is incontrovertibly untrue, or if it is true, how that's possible. I would love to know, all right, the big I'm sure someone knows, because you make an excellent point, like why would then it's spoil very quickly in your house unless it's kept under certain conditions until it gets to your house, and then it's like, well die because you

bought me. Uh So back the lunchables, the sales were going gangbusters, but they were still losing money on it because it was just an expensive product to package those little trays and everything costs money. Um, and then they just started to run wild with adding things to make a two increased sales. They started adding desserts to it. They started adding sugary drinks to them, um Pret's son Yeah Kool Late Capris son um. And then they started marketing.

They tried things like carrots, but they didn't sell well, so they scrapped it. Uh. And then they started realizing that we should market to children and not moms anymore, because what they figured out was that it was about the kids having control, because the kids would go and throw out the carrots and just eat the meat and cheese,

let's say, in the loresa cup that went in there. Uh. And so they started marketing to children with commercials like all day you gotta do what they say, but lunchtime is all yours. And little kids on Saturday mornings are like, lunchtime is all mine with lunchables and they wanted it, so they would go to the store and scream at

the top of their lungs until they got it. The other interesting thing was which which also one other thing I guarantee you, and I haven't verified this, but I guarantee you that if you go to the store and you find lunchables, they're at a child's eye level. Oh, I'm sure they are. That's where they're placed, not mom I level, child eye level. Yeah. I think they're on

the um the horizontal part of the meat section. Yes, like not built vertically up on a shelf as if they're down even below the kid where they can even grab it, yeah and run out of the store with me. Um. The other interesting thing I think it was in this article when they talked about what's happened to yogurt over the years, was that in here we're basically they hijacked something that should be good for you, and now you get like twice the amount of sugar your body needs

and a serving of yogurt these days like heath bar sprinkles. Yeah. Yeah, and now let's put it. Let's put it in its squeezy tube for kids. Can call it yogurt, call it yogurt. Yeah. Um. This article was really great. I mean, this guy really laid it out. Um, just the ideas behind it, the thinking behind it, the science behind It's a really long article. It's really really worth reading. Um. One of the other things he goes into is that there's this um uh,

this food scientist who's kind of like a legend. I think his last name is Moscow Wits. Yeah. Um, he's just a legend in this field. And he figured out very early on that the optimizer. Yeah, he figured out that UMP not only does your tongue like detect fat and say, okay, you've had enough fat, stop eating this, that that has to be tricked. It does the same thing with flavor too. So um, if there's a really overt and obvious flavor that might taste delicious, you get

sick of it faster. So what this guy figured out what food scientists now do is they'll take flavors and combine other flavors so one isn't dominant, so that there's no real flavor for the tongue to be like, I'm sick of it. So doritos are a really good example, Like nacho dorritos is its own flavor. It's not just garlic, it's not just cheesy. It's this thing that they've put together that tricks your tongue into never being satiated, which

is how you can down a whole bag of doritos. Yeah, it was so interesting, and so much research goes into this. When they start talking about the amount of consue, more study they did and and uh, like thousands and thousands of hours of people tasting things, uh and taking notes on what they're tasting, and basically creating a mathematical formula for how to create the perfect thing that you won't want to stop eating, and not just for people for this age group or this age group of this ethnicity

or whatever. Like, it's really down to science all of this just to come up with cherry vanilla dr pepper. Yeah. Uh. And the other thing too was remember how I railed about all the doritos now the different flavors, which I have no problem with that. Well, I just thought it was interesting and that they basically food technicians at a certain point stopped worrying about new products and said, the

line extension is where it's at. So instead of uh, one type of dorito, will offer you like twenty five different types rather than one type of dorito and like an entirely new product, because apparently one of the hardest things in the world to do is to get people

to buy a new product. Whereas if you already have the branding associated with it, the emotional attachment, people know it's tasty, they'll try a different version and offshoot of it, but not necessarily a whole new product that could be superior in every way. Uh. And they spend as much as thirty million dollars a year on some of these products, not the company, but like on a specific food product, including things like machinery forty dollar machine that simulated a

chewing mouth to test the perfect breakpoint of a potato chip. Yeah, which is four pounds per square inch. I think have four pounds of pressure per square inch. And so they're not only spending money on research on advertising as well as how stuff works. Article pointed out that um, in two thowelve, just McDonald's spent two points seven times as much money on advertising as all fruit, vegetable, bottled water, and milk producers can buy. Yeah, I believe that totally.

You don't see a lot of broccoli commercials. They're disgusting. All right, we'll finish with something interesting that you sent about the junk food diet. I think I've heard of this before, um, where someone will undertake a diet of not only junk food, but a lot of junk food. Oh, this guy's a nutritionist, like a nutrition scientist from Kansas State. Go some sort of cat Yeah, like a large cat case state. Yeah, it's some sort of big cat there.

You all right, go big cats? Uh. Yeah. He went on a ten week junk food diet, um chocolate covered snacks, cream filled cakes, sugary cereals, cookies, chips. He did eat a protein shake every day, and some vitamins and supplements and some veggies here and there too, And he lost a lot of weight doing it because he calories a day, which is a calorie reduced diet. But technically, as far as macronutrients goes uh, it was a balanced diet, balance between carbs, proteins, and fats. And he lost a bunch

of weight. He lost a bunch of weight. He lost his b m I went down, his total body fat was reduced, his cholesterol was reduced, the bad cholesterol went down, the good cholesterol went up. And that nuts eating junk food on a junk food diet. Like I can see losing weight like calories or calories, And there's a big debate about that, but I think ultimately that's what this thing shows. And if you reduce calories, it doesn't matter where your calories are coming from, you're going to lose weight.

But to have your bad cholestero all go down and you're good. Cluster all go up. Was really surprising to me. Yeah, and I think the main thing I took away though, this is a ten week diet and what happens over a ten year period, Well that yeah, who knows. That was a great question, pretty interesting though, very interesting stuff. Mark stab, I believe Mark Hobb of K State go big cats man. Sorry, K State. That was Lane Chuck.

That was lame. Uh. If you want to know more about junk food, you should type those words in the search part how stuff works dot com and check out, um the New York Times articles. There's some good ones on there. Check out the Encyclopedia Junk Food and Fast Food. Actually go to the podcast page for this episode, and it's got all that stuff. Uh. And I guess it's time for listening there. Uh. Yeah. By the way, I just looked it up. I don't normally do that. But

it's wildcats, so we were right. Bam, Willie the wildcat is the actual man. We said big cats, and it's the wildcat. Wildcats are not super big, but they can be yeah, like allions. Technically a wildcat. Oh, I guess I just think of like bobcats and things in mountain lines when I think the wildcats, but the line would be a wildcat right, Sure, they're huge, huge, All right, I'm gonna call this aborigines. Um. Remember when the Male Puberty episode we talked about, Um, the Aborigines had some

pretty brutal puberty rights that they would put boys through. Um, we were taking a task a little bit in a nice way. Um, guys, want to give you some feedback about the term in the Australian context. Uh, this is quite an outdated term to say aborigines. Some people still identify with it, but it's generally accepted to say Indigenous Australians are Aboriginal Australians. Uh. There are hundreds of Aboriginal nations around Australia, each with their own traditions and knowledge.

Within these nations our various clan and family groups, and within those are multiple types of kinship relationships. It gets really complicated. So that puberty ritual you mentioned would likely have only been practiced by some people. Others would have had their own traditions. So in other words, we shouldn't have just said, like, the Aborigines do this, because it might have been like one small part of a tribe or something very very good point. Yeah, so that is

from Krista Uh, I assume in Australia. Can you say it like in Australian. Yeah, that's pretty good, all right Australian for Krista. Um if you want to take us to task in a nice way or otherwise, but we always prefer it a nice way. Um, we'd love to hear from you. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook

dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com