WEBVTT - Junk Food Junkies 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:14.160 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.080 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:21.720 what's your relationship with junk food? Well, you know, as 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.800 a hinder teen, I would love to get myself into 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.080 some Cheetos and darker pepper. I felt like this was 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.120 the taste sensation. I don't know that I had an 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.840 addiction to it, but that was my go to poison. Yeah. 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.800 I feel like for a lot of us, our childhood 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.920 was a waste land of of bad food. And you know, 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.400 and I my dad was was a dentist, so you know, 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.279 I feel like we we didn't have as much of 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.800 the whole, eat everything you want candy bowl kind of 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.720 environment that a lot of households had, but that still 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.840 I remember drinking a lot of colas. I remember eating 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.400 a lot of magic metal, the cubler of cookies that 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:03.880 had a chocolate e center and a short red outside 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.560 that they eventually quit making, and it was a very 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:11.520 cheerful event. I remember eating tons of Twizzlers, and even 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.920 even to this this day, I have I've been able 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:15.880 to to shut out a lot of junk food from 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:21.080 my life, at least overt junk food. And still if 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.440 someone offers me twizzlers, I end up falling into the 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.200 trap of accepting them. You know what mine is? What 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.240 is it? Chip? Which? Chip? Which? It's the chocolate chip 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:36.640 cookies with the ice cream middle chocolate chip cookie. Oh, 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.560 like an ice cream sandwich. Yeah, yeah, Which turns out 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.200 is we're going to discuss, has all the elements of 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.480 like an addictive food because you have the texture, you have, 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.720 you know, the different ingredients contrasting and the creaminess. And 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.640 so I'm kind of powerless if if you put a 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:57.840 chip which in front of me, well, luckily it has 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.800 that frozen aspect to it. So it's it's not the 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.240 kind of thing you would necessarily find on a table 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.120 at work, like left there by someone who was just 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.760 trying to remove the curse from their own life. Um, 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.600 something frozen has to be hidden away in a freezer 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.360 or offered directly from a chilling advisum. You're right, I 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.280 could if I could just turn away from it for 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:22.680 like twenty minutes, then I could just Yeah, but we 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.920 are going to talk about this. These powers, the hold 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.720 that junk food has over us, and the fact that 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.560 it's not accidental. There's a lot of money in research 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:38.200 and development into making the perfect junk food to trip 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.359 the sort of hardwired desires that we have for it. Yeah, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.079 it's kind of chilling because it's it's easy to just think, well, 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.600 chocolate chip cookies are delicious, you know, my mom makes 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.120 my grandma makes them. Whatever. There's something kind of natural 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.560 and wholesome about that. And and even if it is 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.000 super normal stimuli and its own right, it's still doesn't 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.280 seem that nefarious. But when you start looking at at 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.800 the way that these companies create these items and the 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.919 way they tweak their game plan and just and and 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:12.239 really gain the food item in their favor economically, then 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.280 it kind of gives you the willies. Yeah, because you're like, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.200 all of a sudden, you you realize that that chip 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.720 which has been engineered in a lab somewhere with some 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.959 really expensive equipment. And we'll get to that, but first 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.320 let's talk about this influence of food on our behavior, 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.440 because not just like, hey, we we desire this and 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.240 therefore we take the actions to secure it and eat it. 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.280 It's something a little bit more and a good example 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.960 of this is the power of freshly baked bread. Yeah, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.720 this is really really interesting. And and it involves bread, 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.880 which is an artificial food. You know, for the most part, 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:51.880 it's uh, it's not something you're going to pick out 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.240 of a tree. It's a it's a product of human ingenuity. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.840 And yet it seems wholesome enough, right. I mean I 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.640 I even find myself at the store sometimes picking up 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.920 bread and forgetting that that it could contain it could 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:07.640 contain high fruit dose corn syrup until I actually bring 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.880 the bread home and I'm like, oh crap, it's wheat bread, 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.000 but it has high fruit dose corn serpent. But there's something, 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.680 there is something safe feeling about the bread and it's 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.560 been a part of safe rituals for a long time. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.280 I mean to take of bread and salt in Eastern cultures. Uh, 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.599 bread and salt were eaten uh with an oath that 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.520 was taken. Um. You know, there's the the just the 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:31.960 idea of the breaking of bread being away to to 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.680 to ease grievances. You have the ritual of the Eucharist 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.839 in the Catholic tradition and uh and and uh, you know, 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.280 and basically throughout Christianity, the idea that you know, you're 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.320 gonna eat this bread and it's the the flesh of 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:47.200 Christ and all that. I mean, it's still it's it. 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:52.000 That's that's bread breaking and it's most ritualistic. Yeah, I mean, 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.720 that's some deeply ingrained troops right there, ingrained, ingrained, right 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.280 there you go. And we even see it show up 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:03.080 in the hardest rebel world of Game of Thrones, that's right, uh, 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:07.240 George R. Martin's universe there, of of wester Ross and beyond. 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.400 You see that ritual of breaking bread, of having bread 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.800 and salt when say, two warring families meet. In fact 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.440 I specifically remember no spoilers, but a specific specifically remember 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:23.400 a scene where two very antagonistic groups are meeting and 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.000 one of the characters is very insistent, let's get the 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.200 bread out, let's get the salt out. Let's go ahead 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:32.279 and break that bread, because that that alone maybe what 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.680 could prevent us all from dying here. So taking that 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.000 information and knowing that it might you know, flavor ha 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.599 ha um. The way that we behave this study about 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.480 altruism and bread is really interesting because it turns out 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.080 that the room is so influential that Researchers at the 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.320 University of Southern Brittany and France found that its mere 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.839 presence amped up altruism and strangers passing by a bread shop. 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.640 We're talking about seven seven percent of people who passed 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.160 a bakery with a robust smell of bread emanating from it. 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.400 Those people stopped to help a person pick up their 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:13.240 glove or handkerchief or tissue. In contrast with people passing 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.400 by a closed store, of which only fifty of those 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.760 um who stopped to help that confederate that person in 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.960 the study retrieve their snotty rag. It's amazing. It's it's 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.520 as if it ties into this this primordial food sharing 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.000 sort of vibe that we have. You know, something, something 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.560 just buried deep in the hind brain where there's a 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.239 smell of bread in the air, the smell of food, 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.000 a smell of sustenance. Therefore, maybe I should start being 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.080 nice to everyone, or at least a little less awful 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.359 on the chance that I could have some of that bread, 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.800 because ultimately that's part of my my whole genetic programming 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:52.240 is I need to eat, I need to breed, I 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.840 need to keep going. Ah, So you're saying that altruism 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.200 could be connected to the pleasure circuit, which we'll talk 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.080 about in a second. What I is, do you does 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.800 that actually affect crime statistics? Like if somebody's looking to 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.080 rob a fast food restaurant, do they go into subway 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.280 and suddenly feel a little like, I don't know, these 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.720 guys look like decent folks. I don't want to, uh, 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:14.200 you know, do a stick up job here. I'm going 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.440 to go down the street to the burger place. Yeah, 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.040 maybe maybe they grab a sub and they go down 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.680 to Burger, Burger King or Burger King. Would I would 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.080 be interested in seeing the results of such a study. 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.520 All right. Um wanted to point out that neuroscientists David 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.840 Lyndon said in an interview with Terry Gross fresh Air 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.520 that the average weight of an American between ninets and 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.920 sixty and now has gone up by an astonishing twenty 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.760 six pounds. And he says that's not because americans genomes 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:48.320 have changed significantly. It's because we have these thirty two 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:53.240 sodas and fast food and food corporations realizing that certain 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:58.480 combinations of flavors and textures produce craving. So again, it's 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.240 sort of like take the bread example, um that elicits 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.080 this idea that we're going to have this reward, that 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.840 there's a certain pleasure in that smell, there's a certain sustenance. 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.040 So I also wanted to point out that there is 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:17.160 a twenty thirteen survey by market research firm Technomic. They 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.400 looked at twenty two thousand, four d fifty nine adults 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.480 and they found of people who eat outside of the 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:30.480 home are prompted by cravings, and seventy who visit restaurants 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.760 more than once a week do so for a specific 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:38.199 dish that they crave. And can you guess the restaurants 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:42.440 that people hit up the most. It was interesting to 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.240 to look at the findings here because they're not necessarily 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:50.800 the places that I would crave, but the number one 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.079 on this list on the chart rather than the highest 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.800 ranking one Krispy Cream Donuts. And while I like to 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.360 believe I'm immune to the temptation of chris be Cream 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:03.199 Donuts today, I do know that there is a there 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.080 is an upscale donut place just down the street from 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.360 where I live, and I do feel a little bit 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.320 of the temptation to drop by there, uh not in 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:14.400 part because I know that it would be delicious. But 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.920 also there's just sort of the uh, you know, the 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.360 you're like a hero if you bring donuts somewhere, do 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.839 you bring you bring really nice donuts somewhere. I mean, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:24.719 not not for my son. I wouldn't let him have 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:26.319 one of these things, but you know, just to bring 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.199 bring one home to some to the family or to 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:31.360 two friends and say, look, i am the bringer of 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.240 doughnuts and therefore I'm an okay guy. I've noticed that 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.080 an office culture, right on a Monday morning or Friday morning, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.240 if you bring in a bunch of donuts, it's kind 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:45.479 of like this grand gesture and everybody's like, wow, donuts, 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.040 like you know, like like it's the Victorian Agency when 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.680 brought in oranges. Um. But yeah, that that there's a 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:53.560 certain kind of power there. So it makes sense that 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.000 Krispy Kreme is occupying the top slot because they have everything, 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.960 and it's not just Krispy Creme, but donuts in general. 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.000 You've got the sweet, you've got the fatty, the bretty, um, 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.800 even the even some of the meat flavoring. Now, I 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.199 mean you can get the like one of the donuts 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.320 is really popular with the place I was talking about has. 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.319 It's like a like a a caramel sea salt caramel 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.760 topped with with not bacon DIBs per se, but bits 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.760 of bacon and uh and so yeah, you're getting the salty, 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.000 you're getting the sweet, you're getting the bretty, the fatty, 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:31.040 the meaty, all in one super stimuli lump of food. Yeah. 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.640 And you know what, I'm immune to the donuts and 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.959 I live around You're lucky, immune to the charms of 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.160 the donut, and I live by the way around the 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.480 corner from that place that you're talking about. And that's 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.120 because as an angsty team. My first job, or one 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.240 of my first jobs, was at Duncan Donuts, working the 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.720 six am to two pm shift on the weekends with 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.200 the conveyor belt. No no in the store. Like, I 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.240 didn't make the donuts. Um one of the best jobs 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.600 I had, but I smelled donuts and and then it 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.760 was disgusting and so getting pulled over all the time. Yeah, 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.040 people are just started sniffing me and licking my hair. 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.240 Uh So anyway, for me, donuts don't hold that power. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:16.360 But I did think about something on this list. After 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.080 cold Stone Creamery, you have red Lobster as the first 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.040 kind of like restaurant restaurant. And I'm not a big 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.160 red lobster fan, but I have had those Cheddar Bay biscuits, 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:30.040 and I understand this. This might be my crave item 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.040 if I were to go out and seek something from 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:35.160 a restaurant each week. I agree because I'm the same 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.120 way you mentioned red lobster to me, and I'm instantly 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.000 gonna think seafood drowned in butter. I don't really want any, 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.600 but then I'm gonna remember that those those those biscuit things, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.319 those Cheddar biscuits were so good. Now, why is this 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.360 gaming us in such a way. Well, it all has 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.680 to do with the metal or brain pleasure circuit. And 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.000 this is the region of the brain which is dependent 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:01.439 upon the neurotransmitter dopamine. And um, this is really essential 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.360 to our evolutionary survival if you look at it this way. 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.080 So it's a very ancient region of our brain, and 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.800 it exists originally because we want eating food and drinking 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.680 water and having sex to be pleasurable in order to 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.600 repeat this, to have children, to propagate our genes, survive 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.640 and pass on this to the next generation. Um, it 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:28.000 means that our ancestors could quickly identify which foods had 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.480 the dense caloric value that their bodies needed to support 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:37.079 what what are really like huge daily energy expenditures. So, 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:42.320 as we saw in our episode about addiction, the problem 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.880 about hitting this kind of supernormal stimuli, as you say 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.880 over and over again, is that those dopamine receptors, those 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.360 D two receptors, they start to decrease and they need 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.760 more and more in order to get that same effect 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.440 of dopamine in your brain. So it's the same sort 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.200 of situation you see with someone who is addicted to 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:09.200 to to various drugs, to various illicit substances. There they 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:13.400 need more to get the fixed because because the circuits 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.240 are breaking down kind of under the load of this, uh, 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.800 this colossal stimuli. Yeah, when we looked at that World 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.720 Science Festival panel on addiction, they showed those three brains 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:28.239 right the um I think it was a meth addict, Um, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.079 it was an obese person and then a heroin addict, 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.640 and they all had a lack of D two receptors. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.679 And so the interesting thing about this is that something 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.360 like of cases of severe BC are food addiction, with 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:46.920 only ten having to do with a metabolic defect. So 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.880 and you can see this power of these foods and 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.040 as kind of going to them over and over again 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:57.640 creating those pathways of addiction. So again, what's going to 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.480 make the brains sing the most with openmine? That's super 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.320 normal stimuli. And that's where I'm like that that's why 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:09.160 something like the Cheesecake Factory exists because I was like, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.600 what is a good example of this cheesecake? Um, what's 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.560 an even better example a restaurant that fetishizes it? And 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.600 according to their website they have something like thirties seven 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:25.840 different types of cheesecakes available. And just to add I 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.000 think a little bit of injury to insult, they offer 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.400 something called the Skinny Liscious Menu, which I'm going to 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.320 assume is a wave too for people to eat like 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.280 maybe dinner with less calories and then rationalize that giant 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.080 cheesecake or yeah, I was, I was. I was wondering 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.040 is there going to be a smaller piece of cheesecake 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.120 or what? And do they have all types of cheesecake? 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.960 Did they have like savory cheesecakes? Because I had an 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.720 alligator cheesecake once in New Orleans? Who was tell me, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.160 what do you mean? You had an alligator cheesecake, like 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.280 a cheesecake with with alligator, and it's it's everything that 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.200 is a cheesecake except savory and meaty via the meat 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.120 of an alligator. How was it? It was good? It 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.280 was really good and exceedingly rich, and it made you 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.880 feel like a bad person after you ate it. That 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.400 it's such like an Americana thing right there, alligator cheesecake 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.600 exactly shrinking bit of American If you're an adventurous eater, 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:18.400 look it up there. There are a few different places 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.240 to get it down there, all right. So it would 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.440 make sense that we have this this reaction to food. 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.480 And it would also make sense that when it comes 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.520 to engineering junk food that scientists leave nothing to chance. 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.440 And we're gonna take a quick break. When we get back, 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:44.920 we're going to talk about the techniques and the technology. 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.840 Hello there, won't you join me on the information elevator 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.800 this week? Ben Bullen of Stuff they Don't want you 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.640 to know, car stuff and brain stuff, will join me 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.040 on the elevator and we'll look at whether or not 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.800 he is a lire lire pants or fire. You can 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:11.800 find the Information Elevator on mind Stuff Show on YouTube. Hey, 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.360 we're back. Um, you know, I was thinking I mentioned 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.640 earlier the whole breaking of the bread. We talked about 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:18.680 how that the scent of the bread, the aroma of 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.560 the bread is pleasing and therefore inspires altruism. And we 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.160 mentioned Game of Thrones and the idea that you have 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.000 to rival houses coming together, and that smell of bread 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:30.760 and the ritual of the bread maybe all that keeps 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.000 them from tearing each other apart. It occurred to me 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:38.240 after you mentioned donuts in the office, when another situation 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.920 where you see this kind of peace offering made. And 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.240 that's when there's bad news in the office, or some 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.520 sort of major transition or some major pain in the 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:50.000 butt giant meetings HR stuff, or or in our case, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:54.320 when our our our company recently changed corporate masters from 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.880 one dark overlord to another. And uh, not to imply 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.040 that they're they're dark or get your meaning, but you 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.080 know they're they're overlords. And and so what happens when 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.520 the transition is announced instantly there's some sort of baked 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.840 good in the office, right, big good fruit and some 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.800 coffee and some orange juice, but especially the smell of bread. 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.280 Get that bread smell in there. So that nobody kills 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.240 anybody well, and everybody feels like it's okay. Yeah, it's 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:23.200 okay because there's bread. You know. I wonder if law 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:27.280 firms should begin to use this tactic when mediating cases, right, 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.320 if they're trying not to go to court with the case, 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.800 maybe everybody shows up at the table and they break bread. 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.840 Would this actually, in fact, uh dial down the animosity 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.440 between the parties. What if when a police officer makes 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:44.639 an arrest, before they duck their head into the patrol car, 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.359 they stick a Kaiser roll in their mouth. You know, 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.760 I feel like there might be a lawsuit really arising 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.480 from that. Well, we would need to be gluten free 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.520 and it would need to be vegan, right, but some 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.280 sort of bait good. I mean, we are a litigious society. 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.200 I mean, I states so or a police baton that's 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:08.920 actually a French French bread. I love that. I love 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.080 the image now and now I'm thinking about bobbies in 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:15.440 the UK, you know, yeah, alright, um, alright, So how 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.879 do these these food scientists get to that extra itchy 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:24.080 place in our brains? According to New York Times magazine 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:28.080 article The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food Freedom lay had 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:33.880 a formidable research complex near Dallas were nearly five hundred chemists, psychologists, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:39.000 and technicians conducted research that cost up to thirty million year, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.800 and the Science Core focused intense amount of resources on 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.000 questions of crunch, mouth feel, and aroma for each of 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.000 these items. And one of the items that they used 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:55.399 is a forty thousand dollar device that stimulates chewing to 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.080 test imperfect chips, which we'll talk about later. Chips is 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.640 like sort of like the old standard of junk food um, 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.720 which gets us to this whole chewing thing. Yeah, the 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:09.680 idea of how much chewing is optimal, right, because because 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.439 apparently the whole situation is you want some chewing because 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.840 you need to be needed chew your food. Chewing the 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.040 food is part of the enjoyment of it when we've 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.080 taste it. And this is an interest. If you ever 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.600 really stop and think about a food that's pleasing you 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.840 and try to dissect why it's pleasing you, it's almost 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.879 an unanswerable question. Have you ever done that. There's a 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:31.680 there's some sort of dish you're looking forward to, it's 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.080 in your mouth, and then you're trying to break it down. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.600 Why am I enjoying this. Am I enjoying it? Do 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:38.480 I enjoy? Why am I going to swallow it? Like? 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.200 Because once I swallowed, I can't taste it. Yeah, And 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.480 it's funny because we don't think about it in slow mode. 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.159 But if you did, you would realize that that saliva 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.280 is actually releasing some of the aromas of the food 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.160 and that in and in and of itself, is making 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.960 a more pleasurable experience. But most of us kind of 0:19:55.000 --> 0:20:00.159 just rushed through it, and um, the problem without is 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.520 that the faster you rush through chewing, the less your 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.239 stomach has a chance to kind of catch up with 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:10.680 feeling sated and send signals to the brain that says 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.359 stop right. But this is one of the key tactics 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:18.040 in food engineering or junk food engineering, is if you 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.320 can reduce the amount of chewing, you can stuff more 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.560 stuff into your your gaping maw, and you can feed 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:26.520 the addiction more and you can get to the bottom 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.640 of that chip bag faster. And companies kind of want 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:31.359 you to do that, right, because then you're just going 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.239 to buy more and more of the thing. Yeah, I mean, 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:35.800 they have to put that suggested serving on the side, 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.680 but really they don't want you to stop. They want 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.280 you to to plow through bag after bag, and if 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.040 it takes forever to chew each each kernel, each chip, 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:49.120 each families fun sized piece, then it's gonna take forever. 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.239 And that's gonna cut into how much fast food they 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:53.000 can sell you and how much fast food they can 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.760 put in that mount. Yeah. Oh. Dr Lennon, who wrote 0:20:55.800 --> 0:21:00.159 the I believe it's called the Compass of Pleasure. In 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:02.520 an interview again with Terry Gross is a separate one, 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.840 Um said that much of the meat in chain restaurants 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.520 has been mechanically tenderized and injected with marinite to dissolve 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.000 in your mouth, and it's lubricated for swallowing by high 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:16.640 water content, and so he says, in essence, the factory 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.440 has done half of your chewing and swallowing for use 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:21.840 that you can eat more. And he says that's one 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.119 of the things that chain restaurants have figured out now. 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.240 Gail vance Seville, who's the founder and president of Sensory Spectrum, 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:31.439 this is a consumer research firm, says that in the 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.400 forty five years that she's been in the food business, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.400 they used to have foods that they chewed fifteen times 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:40.960 and twenty times and thirty times before they were swallowed. 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.800 But now she says, there's rarely a food out there 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:47.159 outside of say, like a sweet chewy candy you have 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:51.719 to chew more than twelve times before it's gone. And 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.480 so the idea is that you you're getting these quick 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.920 hits and you're onto that next pleasure or seeking that pleasure. 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.399 And I thought that was not fascinating because probably a 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.560 good example of this chicken McNuggets, which is if you've 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.520 ever looked at that processes, you know, the meat is 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:13.400 basically turned into a paste and then it's just molded 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.480 and cooked. And that is that it's made like that 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.640 because you can consume it faster, Yeah, and you can 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.359 make more from the chicken. It's just it's it's like 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.320 a lot of our our meat products out there. It's 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:27.680 it's what's left and what can we do with that 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:29.520 that can then be sold as a food product. And 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:31.320 then when it's kind of patted down like that, you 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:34.760 have more surface area to put all of the fatty 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:38.120 bread crumbs on it to even amp up that product 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:41.199