Speaker 1: I'm Manny, I'm Noah, and this is no such thing.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, we're trying to find out if it's
Speaker 1: possible to cure picky eating. No, there's no no such thing.
Speaker 2: Such a thing than.
Speaker 1: This episode is in collaboration with the search Engine podcast
Speaker 1: hosted by p J vote Uh. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun to do and we're just gonna let them
Speaker 1: take it away from here.
Speaker 3: Do you guys want to introduce yourselves?
Speaker 1: Absolutely. My name is Manny, I'm Noah.
Speaker 3: And this is Devon and search Engine listeners may remember you.
Speaker 3: You guys were on the show previously. Usually we answer
Speaker 3: people's questions. You guys showed up with a question which
Speaker 3: you then answered, which was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why are there so many chicken bones on the streets?
Speaker 3: It was it was an investigation. People honestly still email
Speaker 3: me about people. I think there are just Americans now
Speaker 3: who walk down the streets, see a chicken bone, and
Speaker 3: think about these three unusual gentlemen from New York.
Speaker 4: We answered this.
Speaker 1: I love to hear that.
Speaker 4: We got an email last week about it.
Speaker 5: Really Yeah, someone sent us a picture of a chicken bone.
Speaker 1: Not that the like. We were still doing research for
Speaker 1: the episode I think.
Speaker 3: Since that first story published a year ago, Manny, Noah,
Speaker 3: and Devin have started their own podcast. They answer questions
Speaker 3: something I was pretty sure we completely invented, but whatever.
Speaker 3: I think the reason their show is so good is
Speaker 3: their excellent question choosing the big questions that come out
Speaker 3: of their arguments. These three are always arguing about stuff
Speaker 3: like do audiobooks count as reading? Do horses hate running? Well?
Speaker 1: Actually, today an episode came out called is it okay
Speaker 1: to wear your outside clothes on your bed? Oh?
Speaker 3: I've been Uh, I've been criticized for this quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Ye, I'll ask you, do you think it's okay?
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot of things I do that
Speaker 3: I don't think are okay, But I will I go
Speaker 3: to bed like I don't know the people you're talking
Speaker 3: about have discussing are But I'm definitely worse than that.
Speaker 3: Like I will get in bed, I will sleep in
Speaker 3: my jeans.
Speaker 1: That's an extreme case. That's pretty nasty.
Speaker 3: It's disgusting. I mean why because I don't.
Speaker 4: Like, you have really comfortable jeans.
Speaker 1: They're not they're like they are like jeggings, or like
Speaker 1: they're not they're broken in.
Speaker 3: I'll they're very broken, just like by the end of
Speaker 3: the day, the exertion of literally I sometimes I just
Speaker 3: don't have it anyway. The reason the Chicken Bone Squad
Speaker 3: was back here today was because once again they had
Speaker 3: a question for our show which they wanted to find
Speaker 3: the answer to, a question we hear at search Engine
Speaker 3: found particularly delightful.
Speaker 1: Today. We have a problem, and I'm grateful to be
Speaker 1: able to use this platform again to answer something so stupid.
Speaker 1: But I'm a member of the picky eating community and
Speaker 1: that's OK. That's run into a lot of issues in
Speaker 1: this friend group. It's run into a lot of issues
Speaker 1: in my relationship, specifically because my version of pickie eating
Speaker 1: is an aversion.
Speaker 3: To seafood across the board, No, seafood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty much across the board.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's like, are you a lifelong picky eater?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And it's just has it been the same versions since
Speaker 3: you were a kid or have you developed, Like as
Speaker 3: your palette has advanced, has your pickiness also advanced?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it's been lifelong, especially with seafood. I
Speaker 1: am to tell you a layout a little bit about
Speaker 1: like my background, so I'm eritrean American. Both my parents
Speaker 1: are from Eritrea, and in that cuisine there's really no
Speaker 1: seafood at all. Unless you are from one of the
Speaker 1: port towns on the Red Sea, you don't eat seafood.
Speaker 1: So I didn't grow up with any seafood. The only
Speaker 1: seafood exposure I had was like at elementary school or
Speaker 1: middle school where they would have like the fish Fridays
Speaker 1: or fried shrimp or whatever.
Speaker 3: But so, would you eat the fried shrimp when you're
Speaker 3: a kid?
Speaker 1: I did, but I didn't know what it was because.
Speaker 3: It is always carrying the weight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is what struck me about this aversion because
Speaker 1: it wasn't the taste at the time, because it's knowing
Speaker 1: what it is is what made me.
Speaker 3: I understand it, don't. I don't find pickiness in food
Speaker 3: consumption strange, and like I like seafood, but there was
Speaker 3: like I had a couple of years with shrimp all
Speaker 3: the sudder. It's like I'm not doing that, and then
Speaker 3: it came back because they're like they are like insects.
Speaker 3: It's like you're eating this like weird fat worm that
Speaker 3: has like that visible poop in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: And my family ends up being a good exam for
Speaker 1: this because although none of my siblings grew up eating fish,
Speaker 1: they all love fish, Okay, they like it. Now there
Speaker 1: are another group of people who I'm running into this
Speaker 1: issue with. We cannot go out to eat and get
Speaker 1: what they want to get because I'm there.
Speaker 3: And what are the conversations around this, Like they're.
Speaker 1: Like stop being Yeah, I won't use the words. Basically,
Speaker 1: I'm like being a child and like preventing them from
Speaker 1: getting what they want to get. And I'll just say this, like,
Speaker 1: for the picky eaters out there, I don't think you
Speaker 1: should change who you are. But for me specifically, I'm
Speaker 1: running into this enough to where I'm curious about whether
Speaker 1: it's possible to cure your picky eating. I want to
Speaker 1: know if, like, is there something I can do to
Speaker 1: make it so that I can tolerate fish enough to
Speaker 1: be able to be at a restaurant and not cause
Speaker 1: any issues when I'm ordering in a group or with myro.
Speaker 3: And is the idea that you'll let like actually consume it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like the ultimately, like it'd be great
Speaker 1: if I was just towing down on like any kind
Speaker 1: of fish, shrimp, tuna, whatever, But mostly I just want
Speaker 1: to be able to exist in this restaurant space and
Speaker 1: like not be a hindrance to people who you know,
Speaker 1: in New York, it's a lot of money, so to
Speaker 1: go out to eat. If you're paying that much money
Speaker 1: and you're not eating what you want to eat, I
Speaker 1: feel like I don't want to be an obstacle to,
Speaker 1: you know, someone's desires. Okay, So that's the question that
Speaker 1: we came here to answer, like is it possible to
Speaker 1: cure picky eating? And we started with Noah. We had
Speaker 1: him kind of look into the history of picky eating
Speaker 1: and some of the stuff people have done to try
Speaker 1: and cure it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So what I found was the kind of idea
Speaker 6: of even just choosing what you eat is actually a
Speaker 6: pretty recent historical phenomenon. I mean, you can imagine most
Speaker 6: people just had to eat whatever was given to them
Speaker 6: throughout history. So I mean, like the term picky eating
Speaker 6: didn't even exist until the seventies, or wasn't used until
Speaker 6: the seventies. But there has been kind of this war
Speaker 6: between picky children and their parents for probably since like
Speaker 6: the eighteen hundreds, so I mean for the past century
Speaker 6: or so, parents and doctors have been trying all sorts
Speaker 6: of ways to cure this modern affliction. There's all sorts
Speaker 6: of cookbooks designed to help parents sneak healthy foods into recipes.
Speaker 6: The kids might actually try things like spinach and browniesie, Yeah,
Speaker 6: which is pretty perverse. I feel like, yeah, there's probably
Speaker 6: some better ways to do it. Hopefully, you know, maybe
Speaker 6: new technology is helping this. I hope hypnotherapy is actually
Speaker 6: a popular method for that's for both children and adults.
Speaker 6: So maybe Manny can try that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would love to.
Speaker 6: But one of the most common, and definitely the one
Speaker 6: I was most familiar with, is what i'd call forced exposure. So,
Speaker 6: all right, you hate some food, but if we just
Speaker 6: kind of force you to eat it or be around it,
Speaker 6: then maybe eventually you're just kind of give in and
Speaker 6: up to that. This is a decent food to eat.
Speaker 3: And common because it's uh successful, or common because it's
Speaker 3: just what every parent defaults do.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think it's just kind of an obvious thing to try.
Speaker 6: It's also very popular on daytime TV.
Speaker 3: Daytime TV.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so shows like Maury. I mean, you could find
Speaker 6: a lot of examples of this. It makes for great
Speaker 6: TV fodder, you can imagine. So I want to show
Speaker 6: you a clip.
Speaker 3: Actually, okay, this is Mariah.
Speaker 2: She's eighteen years old and she is deathly afraid of pickles.
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole world eats pickles.
Speaker 3: There's a woman who looks like she just found out
Speaker 3: she's dying. She's shaking school.
Speaker 2: Was called the pickle Girl.
Speaker 3: And then they're presenting her with trays and trays and
Speaker 3: trays of pickles.
Speaker 2: This is what the side of a pickle does to Mariah.
Speaker 4: Everything about pickles?
Speaker 3: Are is it crazy? What every idea you have has
Speaker 3: been done by someone in a umermeanor.
Speaker 2: We wanted to see firsthand the extent of Mariah's pickle phobio,
Speaker 2: so we sent her to the Patterson Pickle Factory, where
Speaker 2: she would come face to face with thousands of thousands
Speaker 2: of pickle maris.
Speaker 6: A saydust, listen, if Mariah the Pickle Girl is out there,
Speaker 6: I would love to hear you know where you are
Speaker 6: now and kind of what your life has been like.
Speaker 3: It seems like being on Maury being humiliated for having
Speaker 3: a very unusual psychological response to pickles is so much
Speaker 3: worse than the problem she was trying to solve.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So like need just to say at the end
Speaker 6: of the segment, the pickle girl is still very much
Speaker 6: afraid of pickles, and like the research says, forced exposure
Speaker 6: therapy like that just doesn't actually work right.
Speaker 3: Stacking the thing people have a problem with in their
Speaker 3: face over and over response is like good daytime TV.
Speaker 6: But yeah, so we could have just take Manny to
Speaker 6: some factory and hope it would go away. But we
Speaker 6: tried to find a scientist who had studied this kind
Speaker 6: of stuff. So we actually came across the professor at
Speaker 6: Duke University, who is one of the first people to
Speaker 6: really hone in and look at picky eating in a
Speaker 6: comprehensive way.
Speaker 1: We wanted to first just ask if you could say
Speaker 1: your name and what you do.
Speaker 7: My name is Nancy Zooker, and I am a professor
Speaker 7: of psychiatry at Duke University and I direct the Duke
Speaker 7: Center for Eating Disorders.
Speaker 1: Great, I'll tell you a little bit about my experience
Speaker 1: with this. Yeah, I've been a picky eater my whole life.
Speaker 1: I have a specific aversion to seafood and fish, and
Speaker 1: so what we're kind of planning to do with this
Speaker 1: episode is cure that as best as we can. And
Speaker 1: so you know, you did just mention that you worked
Speaker 1: at the Center for Eating Disorders. I guess my first
Speaker 1: question is do I have an eating disorder?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: You know, so the boundary in which being a picky
Speaker 7: eater is defined as a disorder is based on impairment.
Speaker 7: And so if you're a version to fish, does it
Speaker 7: include seaf food like shrimp skeleton?
Speaker 1: Yeah, all of it, all of it, the whole lot
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 7: Right, So like if you were I suppose I'm aspiring
Speaker 7: New York chef and it was getting in your way
Speaker 7: of kind of designing the menu of your dreams, then
Speaker 7: it might be, you know, crossing over into impairment. But
Speaker 7: if it doesn't get in your way, then it probably
Speaker 7: wouldn't cost. The lines of a.
Speaker 3: Disorder interesting, So it's kind of the same way we're
Speaker 3: defining like depression or alcoholism. Like whether behavior rises the
Speaker 3: level of disorder has to do with how well you're
Speaker 3: able to fit in society exactly, And how we draw
Speaker 3: the line between picky eating and disordered eating is like
Speaker 3: how much it's impairing your relationship to society, Which is
Speaker 3: funny because it's like I'm not going to disagree with psychiatry,
Speaker 3: but like I slightly disagree with that where I'm like,
Speaker 3: but we kind of do know, Like there's a difference
Speaker 3: between like, oh, I have an aversion and like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's like a deep psychological pain. Like it feels like
Speaker 3: an insufficient way to describe the severity of the problem,
Speaker 3: but I'll allow it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man is not so extreme as in like he
Speaker 5: goes out to eat with us, and he can be
Speaker 5: in a presence of seafood. But some people don't even
Speaker 5: want to be. You can't smell it, you can't look
Speaker 5: at it right, Like.
Speaker 1: But I do feel disgusted by like fish, just like
Speaker 1: when they're alive, Like they're slippery and squirmy, and in
Speaker 1: the world, I'm not gonna throw up, but I'm like
Speaker 1: a live fish. Yeah, a beautiful school of fish that
Speaker 1: disturbs you. There are some I get it.
Speaker 4: No, I don't.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I'll defend you against your friends. Man, he's talking
Speaker 3: about you're on the beach on vacation. You're standing, the
Speaker 3: water's up like your thighs and something like something rushes
Speaker 3: on your leg is something squirmy and black kind of squirrels.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Did you go to aquariums as a kid? Yeah, so
Speaker 4: you were just like, oh, this.
Speaker 1: Is giant fish are different.
Speaker 4: Oh, you don't like small fish.
Speaker 1: There's the little ones that are like skiming something like.
Speaker 3: The famous spots of fish.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But so you wouldn't like if you're out for dinner
Speaker 3: with your girlfriend and like a waiter walked by with
Speaker 3: a you know, a plate full of like shrimp on
Speaker 3: a kebab, you don't care. But if you're with your
Speaker 3: friends and they're being jerks and they like picked up
Speaker 3: a shrimp and dangled in your face, you would feel discussed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be like, get get it, get that out
Speaker 1: of my face.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I asked doctor Zucker to explain to me, like,
Speaker 1: what's what's going on with this disgust factor, Like why
Speaker 1: is that happening?
Speaker 7: So disgust is a really cool emotion in my opinion. Right,
Speaker 7: So it's designed to protect us from getting contaminated from pathogens. Right.
Speaker 7: So it has a very protective function. And so when
Speaker 7: you think about how one becomes contaminated, we get contaminated
Speaker 7: when something crosses a body barrier. We ingest it, we
Speaker 7: inhale it, we absorb it through our skin across the
Speaker 7: some orifice, and by the time it does that, you're
Speaker 7: contaminated and it's too late, and so there should be
Speaker 7: these cues that people who are discussed sensitive pick ups.
Speaker 7: You mentioned slimy, right, these kind of things that just
Speaker 7: look to us like they're threatening and they could cause
Speaker 7: us to be contaminated. And you know, it's interesting that
Speaker 7: it's restricted to that one area. I would guess that
Speaker 7: you're pretty detailed sensitive in other things like that. You
Speaker 7: notice like visual details of things.
Speaker 1: Like textbo Oh, yeah, I'm really observant. I'm a video producer,
Speaker 1: and so that's kind of like part of my whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's ruined to movies for me. Actually, I can't watch
Speaker 1: movies like a normal person anymore.
Speaker 7: Oh, it wasn't that so interesting, right? So I just
Speaker 7: I think that that's like a cool adaptive trait that
Speaker 7: might not be as adaptive to the modern environment. But
Speaker 7: like if you are a cave dweller back in the day,
Speaker 7: perhaps you would have outlasted your peers.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, Mannie. It's like you have a brain that
Speaker 3: is suited for being a cavebeller, where it's like avoid
Speaker 3: unfamiliar foods at all costs because they could be poison.
Speaker 3: And it's like sending you the right signals. But the
Speaker 3: problem is we're in a world where everything we want
Speaker 3: to do is just fit in socially, and the fact
Speaker 3: that your poison avoiding brain is telling you not to
Speaker 3: eat fish is causing you like three percent social friasion,
Speaker 3: which is the worst thing that could happen in modern society.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, yeah, I think my ex once
Speaker 1: described me as someone who had a brain suited to
Speaker 1: be a cave dweller's that's not the first time I've
Speaker 1: heard that comment, actually, But I was interested in why
Speaker 1: Devin and Noah don't have the same problem that I do.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting in terms of my experience. But Devin
Speaker 1: and Noah here love fish. Why isn't their body telling
Speaker 1: them to avoid fish?
Speaker 7: Well, because it's pretty adaptive to eat fish, right, Like,
Speaker 7: not everything's contaminated. So there needs to be this kind
Speaker 7: of balance of like people that have kind of a
Speaker 7: low bar for trying out things and adventuring and testing
Speaker 7: things out and seeing if it's okay. So there should
Speaker 7: be variation in the population about kind of one sensitivity
Speaker 7: to these different features. So you got some people taking
Speaker 7: risks like your friends, and you know you who is
Speaker 7: kind of holding back and saying like, you guys, try
Speaker 7: it first.
Speaker 5: So what's interesting is that doctor Zucker actually did a
Speaker 5: study a few years ago with twenty thousand self described
Speaker 5: picky eaters.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 5: And part of what they were trying to figure out
Speaker 5: what the study, especially with her work with kids, it's like,
Speaker 5: what are the things that your parents did that helped
Speaker 5: with your pick eating? And what are some of the
Speaker 5: things that they did that like really fucked you up?
Speaker 4: But she said, the.
Speaker 5: Things that are helpful are like creating positive experiences with
Speaker 5: your kids, involving them and prepping the food. Like one
Speaker 5: example they had is like introducing cultures with food as
Speaker 5: a way to introduce new foods to kids.
Speaker 3: Oh like the culture from which the food.
Speaker 5: Exactly, like giving some background on it, making it feel
Speaker 5: more like an experience.
Speaker 4: Yeah, versus here's this thing in front of you, eat
Speaker 4: it now.
Speaker 3: So it sounds like basically since we were kids, the
Speaker 3: it's like the picky eating, like literature has progressed, like
Speaker 3: the fuel of getting kids to eat things that might
Speaker 3: be unfamiliar or weird like people, because I don't think
Speaker 3: like like my parents or most of those parents were
Speaker 3: reading books that were like sit your kids table with
Speaker 3: the plan roc they tell everyone's crying, but like, gods
Speaker 3: are their parents? Does that's what they were doing? And it's
Speaker 3: like people have actually thought about this, and like psychiatry
Speaker 3: has approached this, and like we have ideas about what
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 5: Exactly interesting but honestly the coolest thing about doctor Zucker
Speaker 5: and her team and they take all this data, all
Speaker 5: this information that they gather, and then they apply it
Speaker 5: to individual plans for individual people. So we asked her, Hey,
Speaker 5: we're putting together a plan for Manny. Can you help
Speaker 5: us sort of shape what that plan looks like.
Speaker 7: So this is very simplistic, but like I have a
Speaker 7: grid where it's like, you know, sweet and salty is,
Speaker 7: let's say, on the X axis, and like chewy and
Speaker 7: crunchy is on the y access And so like, Manny,
Speaker 7: if you were to like plot the foods that you
Speaker 7: currently prefer and eat, you know on this you can
Speaker 7: get the picture right, like, you know, is there a
Speaker 7: kind of a pattern in terms of the textures and
Speaker 7: tastes that you prefer?
Speaker 5: So basically her advice was like, try to introduce fish
Speaker 5: in a format that many might already like. So maybe
Speaker 5: like a fish dish that's crunchy and salty, you know
Speaker 5: that sort of thing.
Speaker 7: You know, like parents will often start with like fish
Speaker 7: sticks for example. You know, like things like that are
Speaker 7: like really really crispy shrimp because there's more breading to fish.
Speaker 7: You know, you guys get the picture.
Speaker 1: She basically said, like start with fried foods or put
Speaker 1: it in a sandwich.
Speaker 3: Like she said, just putand just.
Speaker 1: Like because I'm already used to eating sandwiches and I
Speaker 1: like sandwiches. Like maybe if you do a fish sandwich,
Speaker 1: this is like a very entry level way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, things that can help mask the fishiness.
Speaker 1: Yes, or fried foods. Get do some fried fish, fish
Speaker 1: and chips.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fried fish. We're testing them.
Speaker 4: Fish sandwich.
Speaker 1: Maybe she didn't say sandwich. Maybe that it's an example
Speaker 1: the doc.
Speaker 5: And she also said like you should be realistic about
Speaker 5: what you're going to do, right, Like first step shouldn't
Speaker 5: be like I'm going to eat a hundred.
Speaker 4: Bites of this fish.
Speaker 5: Yeah, She's like ticket one bite at a time, small bites,
Speaker 5: like take the keys that your body is giving you
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 7: You know, like I would really do this, like be
Speaker 7: gentle with yourself. Think about like how many bites I
Speaker 7: want to kind of manage Do I want to just
Speaker 7: get over that initial gag and call it a day.
Speaker 4: She's like, you should have a chaser.
Speaker 7: I would absolutely have a chaser.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like a shot of whiskey or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or like.
Speaker 7: Another a bite of food. I work with five year olds,
Speaker 7: for gosh sakes, like chocolate chips. You know.
Speaker 3: My views this like ends with you guys that like
Speaker 3: in all you can eat seafood restaurant and you're just
Speaker 3: hammered like vomiting. Yeah, you could drink your way through
Speaker 3: a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Not the purpose of this whiskey is to clear the taste.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, kind of reset. Okay, yeah yeah, that feel good.
Speaker 1: So she gave us a few tips that were, you know,
Speaker 1: smart and reasonable. But what I really wanted to know
Speaker 1: before diving in was, you know, as a doctor, did
Speaker 1: she think this experiment could work? Do I have a
Speaker 1: real shot at curing this?
Speaker 7: I think that the odds are in your favor, And
Speaker 7: I'll tell you why. One is because it is restricted
Speaker 7: to this one domain, You're able to tolerate the look
Speaker 7: and smell of it and be around it. Right, So
Speaker 7: that's another kind of clue that it's not as severe
Speaker 7: as it could be. You're highly motivated to work on this,
Speaker 7: which means that you're going to go into it with
Speaker 7: your threat kind of perception down and be more kind.
Speaker 1: Of just curious about it.
Speaker 7: And you're doing it for your girlfriend, which is just lovely.
Speaker 7: And so there's like all the things that would be
Speaker 7: rooting for you to be able to get through this
Speaker 7: or on your side.
Speaker 3: After a short break a series of trials and experiments,
Speaker 3: will Manny be able to cure his picky eating? Welcome
Speaker 3: back to the show.
Speaker 1: So after talking to doctor Zucker, you know, I felt
Speaker 1: a little bit more confident about our goals here, still
Speaker 1: a little skeptical, but like we have a plan now
Speaker 1: we have this experiment, and so Noah, Devin and I
Speaker 1: thought it's finally time to do this thing which is right,
Speaker 1: which was three steps of fishy meals and increasing fishiness.
Speaker 1: All right, this is Manny. I've just sat down with
Speaker 1: the first of three increasingly fishy meals. I recorded everything
Speaker 1: along the way. Uh, we just jumped straight into step one,
Speaker 1: which you know, I found myself sitting in my apartment
Speaker 1: with some takeout. There is a restaurant by me in
Speaker 1: my neighborhood that's kind of moderately popular, and it's a
Speaker 1: seafood restaurant and I've ordered their fried fish sandwich. It's
Speaker 1: a spicy fried fish sandwich.
Speaker 3: So you were thinking fried fish sandwich, because again, fried
Speaker 3: is a dominant flavor, yes, and sandwich.
Speaker 1: Also also the sandwichwich. It's in a vehicle that I
Speaker 1: know and love.
Speaker 3: You're mainly eating like fish inflected bread.
Speaker 1: That's what I would like to hope. Okay, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there examining the sandwich. I am touching it,
Speaker 1: I'm smelling it, I'm assessing it. Generally, my first kind
Speaker 1: of thought is that it looks exactly like a fried
Speaker 1: chicken sandwich, and for that reason, I think all of
Speaker 1: the receptors in my brain are are saying, Wow, this
Speaker 1: looks really good, and it smells good as well. Crucially, though,
Speaker 1: we're gonna try to see if it tastes good or
Speaker 1: tastes good specifically to me. And so yeah, let's take
Speaker 1: this first bite. And the first bite is great because
Speaker 1: there's no fish in it. You're just I just got
Speaker 1: the fried park and I'm like, oh wait. As I
Speaker 1: look at the sandwich, I'm like, oh, there's the fish.
Speaker 1: Definitely fish. I can already tell my jaw is like
Speaker 1: slowing down, like my brain does not want me to
Speaker 1: continue chewing this, but I'm gonna fight through it.
Speaker 3: Did you gag?
Speaker 1: I didn't gag. I think because there's spices in the
Speaker 1: fried part are so like they were so savory, and
Speaker 1: they were so what's the word, they smelled really good
Speaker 1: and I didn't. I don't know. I think it just
Speaker 1: masked the fishiness. I kind of like barely taste the
Speaker 1: fish in this, but I still do taste the fish,
Speaker 1: and so that is my body is just kind of
Speaker 1: like it is not enjoying that part of this, the fish.
Speaker 3: So it tasted grows. But it was kind of a
Speaker 3: success in that you were able to like, like people
Speaker 3: eat food they don't like all the time. That's that's
Speaker 3: different than having a disgust reaction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I ate a few more bites. I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if you guys looked at the sandwich
Speaker 1: like you didn't touch this thing. But for someone who
Speaker 1: has an aversion, I ate a lot of the sandwich.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think if we were we weren't with many
Speaker 6: when he ate the sandwich, I think if we were there,
Speaker 6: we probably would have forced a few more bites, which
Speaker 6: is probably against the wisdom of the doctoral.
Speaker 3: As like parenting the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I school.
Speaker 3: The sandwich were like a moon, Like what phase of
Speaker 3: moon would it be? Like, there's full moon, there's moon.
Speaker 1: Oh, we're talking pretty close to full where's about to.
Speaker 4: Come right bright?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Maybe the night before a full moon?
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm seeing.
Speaker 1: The night before. No, but I think what I took
Speaker 1: to be a success was that I even ate part
Speaker 1: of a thing that was touching fish.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, yeah, So step one we could generously call
Speaker 6: a success, so we wanted to up the difficulty level
Speaker 6: a little bit.
Speaker 1: For step two.
Speaker 6: We decided to do a home cooked meal. Yeah we're
Speaker 6: outside welcome, So Devin and I were going to cook.
Speaker 6: So we got some ingredients and went to Mandy's place.
Speaker 6: It's our and Devin and I had googled a few
Speaker 6: different fish recipes to consider.
Speaker 4: Do you remember to search terms we used, Yeah, I
Speaker 4: mean like.
Speaker 6: Fish for babies, like easy, easy fish recipes for kids,
Speaker 6: things like that.
Speaker 1: Just insulting.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, a lot of it was pretty simple, kind
Speaker 6: of either whitefish or salmon roasted in butter and kind
Speaker 6: of covered in garlic or other things. Yeah, fish tacos, sheep,
Speaker 6: pan fish, and chips. But we wanted something that wasn't
Speaker 6: super fried. We wanted to kind of step it up
Speaker 6: a little bit so we'd actually kind of see if
Speaker 6: he can take this next step or if we're kind
Speaker 6: of still stuck at the fried fish stage. And we
Speaker 6: landed on a recipe that I've made several times before
Speaker 6: from the New York Times, Roasted salmon glazed with brown
Speaker 6: sugar and mustard.
Speaker 3: Damn had it.
Speaker 6: It's Sam sifted and it's a very popular one.
Speaker 4: It's really good and it's super easy.
Speaker 6: It's like you don't even need the recipe really Yeah,
Speaker 6: And what was good was you could dial in the
Speaker 6: kind of sweetness of the sauce and how much there is.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So it's brown sugar and Dijon mustard.
Speaker 4: Almost like barbecue sauce on the tread.
Speaker 6: So let's see, this one on the left is going
Speaker 6: to be the one for Manny. So I'm gonna make
Speaker 6: sure that one's extra sauce.
Speaker 1: We added way more glaze than whatever. Noah had any
Speaker 1: taste the glaze, and I was like, we're gonna need more,
Speaker 1: yeah more so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was pretty covered. We made sautee green beans
Speaker 6: as a palate cleanser, and he had whiskey on the
Speaker 6: rocks as his other palate cleanser.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm here with my whiskey that I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: need after this. This looks worse while I'm going in,
Speaker 1: so then I ate some of it, and the glaze
Speaker 1: was really good, and I remember kind of being like,
Speaker 1: this is the first time I could see why someone
Speaker 1: would like this. Really, it's it's like this tastes good.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that it doesn't taste good.
Speaker 1: It's more of the it's more of the like mental
Speaker 1: factor of like trying to get past what it is.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, I'm having an easier time
Speaker 1: eating this than the fish sandwich. Really, I was taken
Speaker 1: aback by the feeling of like, oh I can I
Speaker 1: kind of get it. I get this.
Speaker 3: It's like the feeling you get with like an unfamiliar genre,
Speaker 3: Like the first time you hear like a country song,
Speaker 3: you like, oh yeah, right, it might not be for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the guys singing about his rent is too high
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah, wait, my rent is too high. That
Speaker 1: is pretty much the feeling I had eating this salmon.
Speaker 3: Okay, so phase two relatively successful. Yeah, can I just
Speaker 3: observe that I don't know if, like if like picky
Speaker 3: eating is mainly just a social problem, Like it's not
Speaker 3: like you have some food deficiency for not even fish
Speaker 3: or whatever. You just I understand that you guys are
Speaker 3: trying to solve this problem partly because like you have
Speaker 3: a podcast to make and you have a question for
Speaker 3: the podcast whatever. You just have very nice friends, like
Speaker 3: the legs that you guys are willing to go, Yeah,
Speaker 3: to make this work is very sweet.
Speaker 1: And yeah, no I thought about that. It's and it's
Speaker 1: in stark contrast to how our usual dynamic is. And
Speaker 1: so I was struck by that at some point during
Speaker 1: this experiment.
Speaker 3: Even because they weren't just like teasing you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Noah looking up a recipe making me
Speaker 1: a meal. I know, it's kind of wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So now that takes us to the real test, which
Speaker 5: is step three, going to an actual restaurant to see
Speaker 5: how big of a paint of ass is in many.
Speaker 4: And honestly, I didn't know how this was gonna go.
Speaker 5: Step one two I thought went fine, but I was
Speaker 5: curious how many was going to perform and an actual
Speaker 5: restaurant with some actual fish dishes.
Speaker 4: So where do you guys go?
Speaker 1: We went to a restaurant called Swoonies in Brooklyn. It's
Speaker 1: just like a neighborhood spot.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: I like Swooties. They have some weird, cool fish dishes there.
Speaker 6: I believe that's the fish that's like their main fish entre.
Speaker 7: I've never heard of that before.
Speaker 1: Do either of you know what crudo is?
Speaker 5: Yeah, there were a bunch of fish dishes that we
Speaker 5: had never heard of, but we ended up choosing three
Speaker 5: of them, and the first one was the tuna krudo.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about this dish, So tuna crudo, it's raw,
Speaker 1: like cubed tuna, but it's in kind of like a
Speaker 1: salad with like avocado and what is that cilantro. But
Speaker 1: the main part that I liked was that it's served
Speaker 1: with this bread that is incredibly buttery. And so what
Speaker 1: we were doing were put all this stuff onto the
Speaker 1: bread and then eating it.
Speaker 3: It's kind of your sandwich theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one wants to acknowledge the sandwich theory is
Speaker 1: a valid theory. And the one thing I remember is
Speaker 1: not tasting the tuna at all, Like I just didn't
Speaker 1: taste the tuna first reaction, Like, there's definitely a little
Speaker 1: bit of the texture you're getting in there, but it's
Speaker 1: really good. Like the whole thing's really good. I'm taking
Speaker 1: a second bite. It's kind of rare for me a second.
Speaker 6: I was shocked because he went in and immediately was
Speaker 6: just like, oh, I like this.
Speaker 3: I was kind of like, oh, we can.
Speaker 1: Just go now, I mean, we did it.
Speaker 6: Shocked by what I'm seeing. Not only does he like it,
Speaker 6: He's actively going back for more bites.
Speaker 1: I think we might need to order another entre here.
Speaker 1: This is crazy. So then after the crudo came the
Speaker 1: lobster orizo, which was another advertiser, and it's I mean,
Speaker 1: ores of people don't know what it is, like it's
Speaker 1: pasta kind of but it's like thicker rice, I guess,
Speaker 1: and it's got This one's more of a red sauce
Speaker 1: and it's really creamy and delicious. But the thing that
Speaker 1: I thought helped a lot with our experiment here is
Speaker 1: that you couldn't really see the lobster inside.
Speaker 3: It's like hiding spinach in a brownie.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. You're kind of like micro dosing seafood.
Speaker 3: But you were finding that your micro dosing seafood experience
Speaker 3: was like not just that you were tolerating it, but
Speaker 3: enjoying it.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm having a really good and in my
Speaker 1: view successful experience as spoonies. But I do imagine if
Speaker 1: we went to like a lobster shop or something and
Speaker 1: it was just straight up lobster forking knife, you'd still
Speaker 1: have some struggle.
Speaker 3: Or if you went too like a Portugese restaurant vertise,
Speaker 3: I'll serve you like a whole fish with the eye
Speaker 3: looking at Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, But I mean like
Speaker 3: I don't really like like every time it's a full fish,
Speaker 3: this doesn't feel right. Like I'm more on your side
Speaker 3: of it, where like fish can be an ingredient, fish
Speaker 3: can mean ingredient, and I feel like if the progress
Speaker 3: you've made is fish can bet an ingredient, that's progress.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Honestly, it did feel like progress, like I was actually
Speaker 1: eating the stuff that that they were putting down on
Speaker 1: the table. But then the final dish came out and
Speaker 1: it didn't look like the other ones, like it actually
Speaker 1: just looked like you know, out here, I'll just show
Speaker 1: you a photo. I think I was calling it deraate
Speaker 1: a without knowing, but this, you know, this is just
Speaker 1: literally a fish without the head I.
Speaker 3: Think, and without the tail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this was the final test. This is like
Speaker 1: the final boss, right. I took a fork full, I
Speaker 1: examined it, and then I for it. What can I say?
Speaker 1: It's really good, the tar the tarredness of the skin
Speaker 1: on the top. This tastes like a steak. And so
Speaker 1: I don't know, this is really good, but the.
Speaker 3: Way you fully enjoyed, like an actual filet of fish.
Speaker 1: That was really good to me, not fried, not fried,
Speaker 1: And there was very few kind of hang ups about it.
Speaker 1: Five times the term.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny though, you know the process you're describing,
Speaker 3: because I feel like you have answered the question like
Speaker 3: can you cure picky eating? Like I think you have.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think like most people, if there's like a
Speaker 3: kind of cuisine or kind of food that they're a
Speaker 3: little bit of verse to because it's unfamiliar, this is
Speaker 3: kind of like how they walk in like the first
Speaker 3: time you try it. Maybe it's fried, maybe it's an
Speaker 3: ingredient something else. Maybe you go to a place that
Speaker 3: prepares it really well, and like you just like slowly
Speaker 3: get used to something unfamiliar until you discover the pleasure
Speaker 3: in it, and then one day you turn around you've
Speaker 3: just like changed.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really didn't have any hopes for myself in any
Speaker 1: of these experiments. I really was like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: kind of a lost cause there is something so I mean,
Speaker 1: this just sounds obvious now, but just like the repetition
Speaker 1: of doing it over and over again until you get
Speaker 1: used to it just like helps a lot. The texture
Speaker 1: of these fish, the fish that I've had in these
Speaker 1: past couple of months, I'm used to it now, and.
Speaker 3: So I'm okay, So this is a two month process.
Speaker 3: For instance, the argument you guys were having, the question
Speaker 3: we're trying to answer is can you cure a picky eating?
Speaker 3: What do you believe?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 1: I think you and at least in my case, you
Speaker 1: can kind of cure it because I'm not going to
Speaker 1: eat fish that's just sitting there, that's not presented in
Speaker 1: any kind of way. But depending on like the flavors
Speaker 1: around it, depending on the vehicle it's served in, there
Speaker 1: are ways you can tolerate it.
Speaker 6: For my purposes as a bystander, the answer is yes,
Speaker 6: because I was shocked when he was taking bites of
Speaker 6: this raw too and enjoying it, and I was like,
Speaker 6: this is good for me.
Speaker 3: And do you feel like I don't want to be
Speaker 3: too big a thing out of this, but like, do
Speaker 3: you like picky eater is like a trait, Like it's
Speaker 3: like one of the aspects of your personality. Do you
Speaker 3: feel differently now on the other side of this experience?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's definitely there's like all the corny
Speaker 1: stuff that it's taught me, like how much I can
Speaker 1: personally affect in my life. But there's also other foods
Speaker 1: that I have a picky eating aversions to that I
Speaker 1: want to try. Now, what do you want to try?
Speaker 1: Like corn, for example, I just torn hate corn.
Speaker 3: Corn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what streams you with corn? You know what? It
Speaker 1: is kind of similar to fish in a way that
Speaker 1: it's slimy and like the texture is weird. It's okay
Speaker 1: if it's like sprinkled in a salad or something like that,
Speaker 1: but just like eating it right off of the ear
Speaker 1: is tough, really tough for me. Popcorn Popcorn is fine.
Speaker 1: Corn bread corn bread is great.
Speaker 3: Okay, You're gonna be fine.
Speaker 4: And how do you guys feel good?
Speaker 1: I'm all enjoyed.
Speaker 4: It was nice to see.
Speaker 3: Manny, Noah and Devin. Their podcast is called No Such Thing.
Speaker 3: If you like our show, we think you'll really love theirs.
Speaker 3: Some episodes to check out that we really liked. Are
Speaker 3: suburban dogs happier than city dogs?
Speaker 4: I hope not?
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