Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: And we're in the day of the turkey here, the
Speaker 1: age of the season of the turkey, I guess you'd say.
Speaker 1: Here in the United States, Thanksgiving is upon us, and
Speaker 1: so it's all about this big, at times delicious bird.
Speaker 1: Well and and uh it's usually the turkey, but sometimes
Speaker 1: that there's the turn duncan. Yeah, this is what you do, right,
Speaker 1: since you don't eat the meat anymore. Yeah, I stuff
Speaker 1: a chicken into a turkey, right, confused with fury to furkey,
Speaker 1: which is different. I do not do be to furkey.
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts, Well, I just feel like there are
Speaker 1: many things that a vegetarian can make and bring in
Speaker 1: their completely acceptable and really wonderful tasting. And you don't
Speaker 1: have to go the toe freaky route unless you want
Speaker 1: to get the side eye from your guests. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: some people may feel differently about to freaky. That's just
Speaker 1: my take. Well, certainly, my whole thing is that Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: me all great. There's lots of fabulous side items I love,
Speaker 1: like broccoli casserole. I love. Oh what are the little
Speaker 1: guys that you're supposed to not like as a kid? Um,
Speaker 1: Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts, you have. Brussels spouts are delicious, Um,
Speaker 1: sweet potatoes, all of it, you know, all the side
Speaker 1: dishes are great. And then at the center you have
Speaker 1: this big cook turkey that even if it's cooked well,
Speaker 1: even if it's not too dry, even if it's seasoned properly,
Speaker 1: it's still like the least interesting thing for me on
Speaker 1: the table. But it's a tradition, so everyone has to
Speaker 1: eat it. It's the star of the show, even though
Speaker 1: the supporting cast is really just bringing it a lot
Speaker 1: more than the actual turkey. Um. I will not malign
Speaker 1: turkey because I could go on for for a while
Speaker 1: as just say, like, we spend so many hours trying
Speaker 1: to incus edible, but um, I think that it would
Speaker 1: be better if we spent some time talking more about uh,
Speaker 1: this creature and how it's kind of amazing and um,
Speaker 1: how we've gamed it, how we have manipulated its DNA
Speaker 1: and it's become part of our culture here in the States.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I'm sure, every every podcast it's
Speaker 1: out this month is it's it's probably doing like a
Speaker 1: turkey episode, and they're hitting some of the usual things.
Speaker 1: But it's worth noting that, I mean the turkey that
Speaker 1: was the bird of Benjamin Franklin said, forget the eagle.
Speaker 1: The eagles kind of a jerk, Let's go with the turkey,
Speaker 1: because the turkey silly. The turkey is I believe his
Speaker 1: words were, um, yeah, a little vain, a little silly,
Speaker 1: a bird of courage that would not hesitate to attack
Speaker 1: a grenader of the British guards who should presume to
Speaker 1: invade his farm yard with a red coat on. So
Speaker 1: he he liked people the turkey. He thought the turkey
Speaker 1: was a more noble creature. And now but though when
Speaker 1: he is thinking or when he was talking about that turkey,
Speaker 1: it was a wild turkey, which is very different from
Speaker 1: what we think of today. Yes, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: some of the cross of it between wild and domestic
Speaker 1: turkeys as we go. For Another big American thing with
Speaker 1: turkey is the pardoning of the turkey. That's right, the
Speaker 1: president pardons the turkey so that the turkey may live
Speaker 1: another year, which I know it's something like people love it.
Speaker 1: I guess that I always find it just kind of
Speaker 1: distasteful because it's like the president's partying pardonering one bird,
Speaker 1: all the other birds are not getting pardoned, And then
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be said to about the use
Speaker 1: of capital punishment in the United States, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a little tacky for me. Well for me, it's a
Speaker 1: little out of time. It feels very vaudevillian, like, why
Speaker 1: are you turkey? Don't worry about it? Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: have no other pressing issues at the moment, so we
Speaker 1: were pardon a bird. Yeah. But I guess it's a
Speaker 1: nice act. It's an altruistic act, even though there's another
Speaker 1: turkey that will take its place at the presidential dinner um.
Speaker 1: But it is an interesting thing, and it all points
Speaker 1: back to this idea that it's the turkey is so
Speaker 1: steeped in tradition. But when you think about it, the
Speaker 1: first Thanksgiving that we hear about, that we read about
Speaker 1: in tech books was not really uh as traditional as
Speaker 1: we think. In other words, historians have tried to piece
Speaker 1: it together, have tried to figure it out. The various
Speaker 1: resources available to the pilgrims, to the these Puritans English
Speaker 1: Puritans that were relocated here in the United States, and
Speaker 1: they have figured out that it is probably not the
Speaker 1: turkey that was on the table. In fact, it may
Speaker 1: have not have shown up at all, because more likely
Speaker 1: the feast would have looked like something like shellfish venison.
Speaker 1: Those would be the sources of protein that would have
Speaker 1: shown up on the table. And so you know, you
Speaker 1: kind of think about that in this other content. Yes,
Speaker 1: as well as corn, right, because the Puritans had the
Speaker 1: benefit of being instructed by American Indians on how to
Speaker 1: cultivate food. Because remember they arrived here rough conditions, drought, etcetera.
Speaker 1: They weren't having a lot of luck. So this first
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving really was a feast of harvest time to celebrate
Speaker 1: the bounty that they are actually instructed how to grow.
Speaker 1: And of course this sort of celebration, this harvest time celebration,
Speaker 1: is not anything that is unique to the United States,
Speaker 1: and we've seen this in all different cultures across time,
Speaker 1: celebrating the sort of bounty that comes in. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: harvest rolls in. We're in an agricultural scenario or even
Speaker 1: you see this even in groups that are not agriculturally driven.
Speaker 1: But suddenly there's there's a surplus of food, and what
Speaker 1: do you do. You have yourself a feast tonight we
Speaker 1: sort of truly eat, which is really beautiful because I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is about fellowship and getting together and and
Speaker 1: and celebrating and taking at least one moment. Even certainly
Speaker 1: in cases where you can actually store the food and
Speaker 1: provide for the next day. In the day after that
Speaker 1: and the day after that, yeah, you're gonna you're not
Speaker 1: gonna want to eat at all, but there's enough to
Speaker 1: at least engage in a feast for one day. And
Speaker 1: then in other situations you might not be able to
Speaker 1: preserve the food, so you might as well just go nuts.
Speaker 1: So eventually the turkey, though, takes this place on the table.
Speaker 1: And um, what I wanted to mention is that there's
Speaker 1: another myth about turkeys and Thanksgiving that we should probably
Speaker 1: put to bed. Most people probably know this that l
Speaker 1: tripped a fan. This is an amino acid, which is
Speaker 1: a natural sedative, is found in turkey. So it was
Speaker 1: thought that because tripped a fan helps the body produce niacin,
Speaker 1: which in turn helps the body produce serotonin, a chemical
Speaker 1: that acts as a common agent in the brain. It
Speaker 1: was thought that if you ate a lot of turkey,
Speaker 1: that this would account for how tired, how sleepy, and
Speaker 1: just like this food coma feel come over to you.
Speaker 1: That this was attributed to eating turkey. Yeah, I mean ignoring,
Speaker 1: of course, the fact that after Thanksgiving meal, you've you've
Speaker 1: probably consumed three thousand calories of fat. You've probably you
Speaker 1: may man, I've had some wine in there, You've had
Speaker 1: a very rich meal. So of course your body is
Speaker 1: going to shut down. You're gonna collapse on account somewhere.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, this myth ends up. It's still you
Speaker 1: still see it circulated around and sort of laughed about
Speaker 1: over the over the dinner table in no small things
Speaker 1: to sign felt because they had a whole episode, of course,
Speaker 1: where people were pulling out boxes of wine and turkey
Speaker 1: to essentially roofy one another. Okay, well again, there are
Speaker 1: different things that play here. You would have to eat
Speaker 1: a huge amount of turkey. If you think you eat
Speaker 1: a lot of turkey and Thanksgiving, you would have to
Speaker 1: probably quadruple that, eliminate all the side dishes, and just
Speaker 1: stack up the cold cuts on an empty stomach, on
Speaker 1: an empty stomach, because that's the other thing. L Trip
Speaker 1: de Fan needs to work on an empty stomach to
Speaker 1: really get the effects that we are that that are
Speaker 1: attributed to a turkey feast. And still the sleepiness that
Speaker 1: will occur has a lot to do with the daunting
Speaker 1: job ahead for your gastro intestinal tract, because it's gotta
Speaker 1: break all that down. So I just wanted to mention
Speaker 1: that put that turkey to bed. I also wouldn't be
Speaker 1: surprised if there's a certain amount of sebo effect here,
Speaker 1: because obviously people eat turkey at other times. You can
Speaker 1: go and get you know, turkey cold cuts at the
Speaker 1: Dali and you put it on a sandwich. And I
Speaker 1: remember in the past when I would like take a
Speaker 1: cold cut sandwich with turkey on it to work. I
Speaker 1: would I would be thinking in my mind, it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be sleepy after this because it's loaded with
Speaker 1: the helfan. But but of course that's not the case.
Speaker 1: Unless I really went into it with that mentality, I
Speaker 1: guess I could conceivably allow myself to get a little
Speaker 1: sleepy afterwards. Well, I would say to that, it's a
Speaker 1: great excuse to go take a nap and escape family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's family's great. It's great. But when you stuff each
Speaker 1: other into the same house, especially when you're adults, right,
Speaker 1: you know, for a twenty four hour period, it's you
Speaker 1: need the break. Yeah, it's like there's nothing for me
Speaker 1: to do now, becaucept laid down and watch football for
Speaker 1: a couple of hours. Sorry, yeah, that turkey. Oh, I
Speaker 1: gotta go take a nap. By the way, the turkey
Speaker 1: that would have in my sandwich. Haven't picked this up
Speaker 1: in years, But I was really partial to the boar's
Speaker 1: head Cajun turkey, which my wife hated because she thought
Speaker 1: it smelled really awful um and and would joke. I
Speaker 1: think she was joking that I needed to keep it outside,
Speaker 1: like in a cold box. Anyway, This just doesn't seem right,
Speaker 1: But but it goes back to what I was saying
Speaker 1: earlier about the turkey. Turkey meat itself being not all
Speaker 1: that exciting and it needs like some Cajun spice in
Speaker 1: there to really, you know, make it good. It needs
Speaker 1: to be Uh. You actually sent me some recipes and
Speaker 1: I said that that's exactly what needs to happen. It
Speaker 1: needs to be marinated in the hell pit fires and
Speaker 1: then exhumed eight hours later like I always think Tandory turkey,
Speaker 1: that would be great. I would far rather do a
Speaker 1: Tandorri turkey. But you can't because you have all this
Speaker 1: a you have family members that are going to be like,
Speaker 1: what's the tan Dori? Oh my goodness, this is hot?
Speaker 1: I can't possibly eat this. And then also you start
Speaker 1: thinking about it where it's like, well, if I had
Speaker 1: complete control over my Thanksgiving meal, I why stop there
Speaker 1: with the Indian food? Why not just ignore the turkey
Speaker 1: entirely and just have a lot of delicious pin here
Speaker 1: and stuff? I know, right, because I mean that in
Speaker 1: and of itself is a meal, all right. So the turkey,
Speaker 1: the humble, the humble turkey as an organism. It is
Speaker 1: worth noting that even if the turkey wasn't present at
Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving meal, the initial Thanksgiving meal, and if the
Speaker 1: Pilgrims weren't, we're actually just eating oysters and deer jerky.
Speaker 1: The turkey itself is is an American original, which makes
Speaker 1: it sound like it's running for office, but no, it
Speaker 1: goes back, of course, the prehistoric times, and then the
Speaker 1: domestication of the turkey goes back pretty far as well.
Speaker 1: So imagine a pre Columbus America. Alright, you have few
Speaker 1: domesticated animals in general, just just human wise, there are
Speaker 1: few domesticated animals, all right. Most big animals can be tamed.
Speaker 1: You can treat them to not fear humans, but to
Speaker 1: actually domesticate something, it's beyond that. You need an animal
Speaker 1: that doesn't fear humans, and you also need an animal's
Speaker 1: gonna breed a lot and allow you to select for
Speaker 1: certain traits. You want a bigger animals so you can
Speaker 1: eat it. You want a tamer and tamer animals so
Speaker 1: that it doesn't mall you or gore you or what
Speaker 1: have you. But few animals are actually capable of being domesticated.
Speaker 1: Humans have only ever domesticated twenty five mammals, and also
Speaker 1: roughly a dozen birds and possibly a single lizard, which
Speaker 1: I'll touch on in a second. And then you also
Speaker 1: have arguably some insects like the honeybee, the silkworm, etcetera.
Speaker 1: All right, so just six of these, uh, These animals
Speaker 1: existed in pre Columbia America, and they were mostly minor creatures.
Speaker 1: You had dogs that were eaten in Central and South America.
Speaker 1: Dogs that were used as labor, pulling sleds. And whatnot
Speaker 1: in the far north, delicious guinea pigs in the Andes
Speaker 1: along with llamas and alpacas to haul stuff around um
Speaker 1: South America's muscobe duck, and some say to get back
Speaker 1: to the lizard, some say that the iguana was also
Speaker 1: domesticated because it was it farmed in Mexico and Central America.
Speaker 1: But then, of course this also leads us to the turkey,
Speaker 1: which was apparently domesticated in in Mexico as far back
Speaker 1: as three hundred BC to a d according to a
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve University of Florida study where they actually
Speaker 1: we're finding evidence of this in Mayan ruins. And then
Speaker 1: in the sixteenth century, right, it was traded or actually
Speaker 1: it was transported to your up and you know, there's
Speaker 1: a long tradition there of domestication and turkeys and eating them,
Speaker 1: which brings up another really interesting thing about the turkeys.
Speaker 1: From why do we call him a turkey? Right? Why
Speaker 1: why is this ancient bird that came from North America?
Speaker 1: Why don't we why is it seemingly named after a
Speaker 1: country on another continent, Why it has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with turkey? Right? Turns out there two theories about this
Speaker 1: Robert Crowitch, one of the post of Radio laps. He
Speaker 1: he did a piece, uh, you can find it on NPR.
Speaker 1: I'll link to it in the blog post accompanying this episode.
Speaker 1: But he examined this question. He found there basically two
Speaker 1: theories about this, right. So one of the theories is
Speaker 1: that in the fifteen hundreds, when the bird first arrived
Speaker 1: in Great Britain, it was shipped by merchants in the
Speaker 1: in the East, mostly from Constantinople, and they had of
Speaker 1: course brought the bird over from America. But since it
Speaker 1: essentially came from Turkey, the British referred to it as
Speaker 1: a quote Turkey cock. That's c o q uh and
Speaker 1: that means chicken, Turkey chicken in other words. Uh. But
Speaker 1: the thing is that the British is referred to anything
Speaker 1: from the East as its Turkish, so Turkish rugs, Turkish flower,
Speaker 1: Turkish bags, um, Turkish baths, you name. It is just
Speaker 1: sort of a generic catch all for something that was
Speaker 1: quote unquote oriental. And then there's another theory, uh. Theory
Speaker 1: number two, the Corolla, which lays out is that long
Speaker 1: before Christopher Columbus went to America, Europeans already had a
Speaker 1: wild fowl that they like to eat. It was from
Speaker 1: Guiana and Western Africa, and it was a guinea fowl
Speaker 1: imported to Europe again by Turkish merchants, so they ate
Speaker 1: this in London. They loved it. So it got the
Speaker 1: nickname turkey cock because it came from Concantinople. And then
Speaker 1: when people were introduced to similar birds, then well what
Speaker 1: do you call it? I guess it's a turkey cock.
Speaker 1: It's worth pointing out that it wasn't called a turkey
Speaker 1: and other parts of Europe. In Russia it was called
Speaker 1: in Jushka, which means bird of India. In Poland it
Speaker 1: was in yik set. Again I'm butchering that because it's
Speaker 1: like I n y c z k a, but that
Speaker 1: again means bird from India. Um. So it's it's really
Speaker 1: fascinating when you when you look at it all comes
Speaker 1: to not where the bird came from, but where it
Speaker 1: came through. What was the initial port of call in
Speaker 1: this new land? You know, I'm gonna go with number two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just because I feel like if you if you
Speaker 1: look at the United States and you look at all
Speaker 1: the city names, that so many of them that they
Speaker 1: actually took from Britain and from the cities in Britain,
Speaker 1: and then they just you know, lapped it. You know,
Speaker 1: they just said, okay that you're going to be you know,
Speaker 1: New York, the New New York, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: Um So I feel like they probably did the same thing.
Speaker 1: They looked in the woods and they were like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: it looks like a turkey. I could be wrong, but
Speaker 1: as long as we are talking about turkeys of our past,
Speaker 1: we are still someone of our present. Wild turkeys. That's
Speaker 1: what we need to talk about. Yes, wild turkeys. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a definite difference between domestic turkeys and wild turkeys,
Speaker 1: just on a very physical level. First of all, domestic
Speaker 1: turkeys cannot fly, can't even run very fast. They're easy
Speaker 1: pickings for a predator because they generally they don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with predators there. Domesticated animals, you can comment
Speaker 1: them with a hatchet, a hammer, just some strong words
Speaker 1: that take them out. Their neck, skin or wattles are
Speaker 1: heavier than wild turkeys. The snoods, which are the fingerlike
Speaker 1: appendages that you know when you make a turkey fake
Speaker 1: turkey out of a glove or something. Those are snoods
Speaker 1: um that hang over the bill. Uh. They're longer on
Speaker 1: domestic turkeys, and the breasts are much larger and broader
Speaker 1: because we've bread these things to eat. And they also
Speaker 1: possess a temperament that's more suited to confinement. Okay, they're
Speaker 1: not freaking out every time they see human. They're a
Speaker 1: little more comfortable around humans. But then you have the
Speaker 1: wild turkeys. These things are sleek, they're alert, they are
Speaker 1: built for speed and survival. These are they're not living
Speaker 1: in a pin somewhere. They're living out and about. They're
Speaker 1: having to deal with predation. They are surprisingly tall when
Speaker 1: you encounter them. Because my mom's house occasionally see them
Speaker 1: out there. And you, I mean you see them also
Speaker 1: in the Atlanta area. And I know, people you get
Speaker 1: turkeys in your yard, you live in a turkey zone.
Speaker 1: I live in a poultry zam. And I guess you
Speaker 1: could say a lot of people have chickens in their backyards,
Speaker 1: but I know I've never seen one in my I
Speaker 1: have heard reports of them hanging out near the railroads,
Speaker 1: probably with bendel sticks. But their senses they're sharpened. You know,
Speaker 1: They're they're not gonna just sit there and stare at
Speaker 1: the sky, and they're actually dealing with with dangers around them.
Speaker 1: And this makes them one of the harder animals to
Speaker 1: actually actively hunt because they're very afraid of humans. Well,
Speaker 1: and because they can fly, they can roost up in
Speaker 1: the tree and it can get away from people. Unlike
Speaker 1: the domestic they can actually use those wings for something.
Speaker 1: In terms of how they appear, I think of them
Speaker 1: as like the traditional image of a thanksgiving turkey, right,
Speaker 1: because when you look back again textbooks from when you
Speaker 1: were a little it was this turkey, at least for me,
Speaker 1: that was presented as the thankshiving turkey, as this big,
Speaker 1: just gloriously feathered animal that was usually black and brown
Speaker 1: and just fat as all get out, like just an
Speaker 1: enormously fleshed creature. Yeah, and like Buddha with feathers. Feathers,
Speaker 1: but not that the thin Buddha, but like the press
Speaker 1: on Kaji Buddhist monk that is that has gained all
Speaker 1: this weight to keep women from distracting. And well that's
Speaker 1: a whole another story. Yeah, and that is and maybe
Speaker 1: that's what these turkeys were trying to do. You never know,
Speaker 1: but because their display is so amazing, it probably won't
Speaker 1: strike anybody as this being on. There are twenty thousand
Speaker 1: feathers at play here with wild turkey, and if you
Speaker 1: look at the domesticated turkey, you're looking about thirty five
Speaker 1: hundred feathers. So this really is a glorious display of feathers,
Speaker 1: and some of those feathers can have different colors. Um,
Speaker 1: they're just so cool looking to me, and to me
Speaker 1: they're also a little bit more formal looking in a
Speaker 1: little scary because they kind of look like the skexies
Speaker 1: from the Dark Crystal. I mean, I guess the skexies
Speaker 1: in the Dark Crystal kind of look like turkeys since uh,
Speaker 1: turkeys were there first. But you know, they're kind of
Speaker 1: the they're especially when you're close up there, far bigger
Speaker 1: than you expect. Also worth noting male domestic turkeys they
Speaker 1: are they're gonna gobble a lot more. They're in they're
Speaker 1: in a safe environment, so they're just gonna talk their
Speaker 1: heads off as much as they want. Yeah, females just click,
Speaker 1: but but male wild turkeys not so much, because they again,
Speaker 1: they're in a situation where they have to deal with predation,
Speaker 1: they have to deal with actual dangers and surprise, surprise.
Speaker 1: If they stand around talking all day, something's gonna know
Speaker 1: where they are and shoot them or eat them or both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have plenty of natural predators like skunks, boxes, and snakes,
Speaker 1: but humans are the number one killer of wild turkeys.
Speaker 1: So here is one really cool thing about these turkeys
Speaker 1: is that they have a kin ship, a sort of
Speaker 1: packed at play, and it has to do with our
Speaker 1: mating rituals. So we're gonna take a quick break and
Speaker 1: when we come back we will talk about the wingmen
Speaker 1: of the Turkey mating world. Okay, we're back and we're
Speaker 1: talking about mating in the Turkey world. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about cuttlefish before, which is a bit of a departure,
Speaker 1: but as you remember, there's this whole scenario with the cuttlefish,
Speaker 1: and again this is the cephalopod squid like creatures that
Speaker 1: change their colors are fabulous and they range from cute
Speaker 1: to kind of cathulu esque looking kind of like bearded
Speaker 1: men with with tentacles. But you encounter the scenario and
Speaker 1: they're mating where you'll have the big bowl beefy uh,
Speaker 1: muscle dude on the beach type of cuttlefish and then
Speaker 1: you'll have the slender maybe a little effeminate if you will,
Speaker 1: because that comes into play here. You know, it's a slender,
Speaker 1: weaker cuttle fish. And so when it comes time to mating,
Speaker 1: the big male cuttle fish is out there and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm mating with this one and this one. Everyone else
Speaker 1: hands off or I will fight you. But this is
Speaker 1: a zebra pattern, yes, which kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: wrestling pants. But go on, yes, yes, wrestling zebra pants.
Speaker 1: Um gosh, there's one guy in Japan who wore those.
Speaker 1: I can't remember it. His name, Ogawa zebra pants. He
Speaker 1: was a little guy, so it doesn't really that's a
Speaker 1: big guy in zebra pants. So but the little guys,
Speaker 1: they realize, if I'm gonna have a chance at mating
Speaker 1: and passing on my jeans in this evolutionary game, I
Speaker 1: need to be sneaky. I need to sneak in there,
Speaker 1: pretend to be a female. And then the big bowl
Speaker 1: beefy um, you know, muscular beach dude cuttlefish. You'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: another lady, line up, I'll get to you next. And
Speaker 1: while he's busy defending his turf, then this gender bending
Speaker 1: cephalopod gets in their mates with the female and passes
Speaker 1: on his jeans. So you end up with cuttlefish. You
Speaker 1: have a mixture of lineages here. You have you have
Speaker 1: cuttlefish that are born that have those beefy, beat people
Speaker 1: up mentality and also the sneaky and careful and deceptive nature. Well,
Speaker 1: you have the dominant and the non dominant trying to
Speaker 1: figure out ways in which they can mate best. Whereas
Speaker 1: with these wild turkeys you have a very interesting dynamic
Speaker 1: going on. And uh, it is actually related to kin.
Speaker 1: So let's say you have two brothers, one wearing wrestling pants,
Speaker 1: one not. Okay, so we're talking to dominant and the
Speaker 1: non dominant, and they display something called kin selection. Now okay,
Speaker 1: both of them. You have to to remember, have they
Speaker 1: they share a great deal of d n A. Right,
Speaker 1: They're they're bros. They're killing. So the non dominant takes
Speaker 1: the position that if his brother and his wrestling pants
Speaker 1: can successfully mate, well, then in a sense, his own
Speaker 1: genes are being propagated. His victory is mine and uh
Speaker 1: and I should really, if anything, live vicariously through his
Speaker 1: conquests and help him out. Hence the wingman and not
Speaker 1: get in there and try and score for myself, because
Speaker 1: that was one of the things that the two thousand
Speaker 1: five you see Berkeley study from the Museum Vertebrate Zoology.
Speaker 1: They looked into this because that was kind of the
Speaker 1: question are these waynman turkey are they really they're supporting
Speaker 1: their bro or are they going into business for themselves
Speaker 1: on the side, because it was really hard to tell
Speaker 1: what's going on in the bush. It's one thing to
Speaker 1: sort of form these theories, but who knows what's happening
Speaker 1: in the underbrush. So what they did is um and
Speaker 1: this is explained by Alan Karkaer. He is the lead
Speaker 1: author on this study. They captured, tagged, and obtained blood
Speaker 1: samples from male and female turkeys, and then captured flightless
Speaker 1: young scavenged broken eggshells from abandoned nests, or lifted eggs
Speaker 1: from unattended nest to obtain the DNA of offspring. So
Speaker 1: this is how they could confirm what was happening. But
Speaker 1: what I think is really interesting is that Carkard said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is something we thought was
Speaker 1: going on in the wild, but we really needed to
Speaker 1: prove that there's this this kinship selection at play and
Speaker 1: so he explains this the scenario, and he says, it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because while the dominant male was strutting, the
Speaker 1: sub subordinate male might continue to display, as he says,
Speaker 1: like a backup singer, or even chase away the other
Speaker 1: males that got too close. So provide a little muscle
Speaker 1: if someone else comes up to the bar to interfere
Speaker 1: with the date. But also don't be afraid to do
Speaker 1: a little dance in there. Just too excited a bit.
Speaker 1: Now you had you had talked about turkeys being called
Speaker 1: turkey coke c Q. So is this the turkey cloke
Speaker 1: block cock block? Yes, Okay, I just had. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: it was poorly executed. The joke needed to be told,
Speaker 1: So yeah, croc Our sums it up in this wonderful
Speaker 1: quote says, basically, since subordinate males and dominant males shales
Speaker 1: share some portion of their DNA, the subordinate males benefit
Speaker 1: indirectly by helping the relatives breed. A subordinate partner gains
Speaker 1: more by giving help than it would by going off
Speaker 1: on its own and trying to breed by itself. So
Speaker 1: it's really a remarkable amount of cooperation going on there
Speaker 1: and where they're actually like, all right, this is our best,
Speaker 1: this is our brightest. We're gonna do everything we can
Speaker 1: to make sure he gets out there and gets it done.
Speaker 1: There we go, another example of how humans and animals
Speaker 1: are alike. All Right, so we've talked about wild turkeys,
Speaker 1: We've talked about these wingmen. Let's talk about domesticated turkeys.
Speaker 1: The star of the show, the star of the plate.
Speaker 1: The average American eats seventeen point five pounds of turkey
Speaker 1: each year in one setting. Or is this yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the that's how large the turkey is. Um. Turkey
Speaker 1: consumption by Americans has increased one hundred and sixteen percent
Speaker 1: since the nineteen seventies. Over forty five million turkeys are
Speaker 1: eaten each Thanksgiving. And well, if you look at that
Speaker 1: in pounds, that's a hundred that's a six D seventy
Speaker 1: five million pounds of turkey eaten each Thanksgiving. In the US.
Speaker 1: It can get really competitive trying to get a turkey,
Speaker 1: especially if you're trying to get into like an organic bird. Um.
Speaker 1: Like last year we got one from a little grocery
Speaker 1: in Oakhurst. They were gonna get some turkeys in and
Speaker 1: so we were like calling every day. If you ordered
Speaker 1: the turkeys, you know when the turkeys are gonna come
Speaker 1: because you're trying to down that turkey list so you
Speaker 1: can get a good, you know, organic bird that you
Speaker 1: know was pampered during its life or something. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: saw that Trader Joe's a couple of weeks ago. They
Speaker 1: had a pamphlet out about the turkeys that were coming in,
Speaker 1: and the whole message was don't wait, these wonderful turkeys
Speaker 1: will be snatched up. Because again, a lot of it
Speaker 1: it comes back to that whole tan DOORI turkey discussion earlier.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of us out there that might
Speaker 1: otherwise not really want to get a turkey for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: but you have to. You you have certain obligations to
Speaker 1: family and tradition, and you find your So I imagine
Speaker 1: there's a market there for the turkey that is that
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily find that many people uh that are
Speaker 1: that are gonna have to maybe break a little out
Speaker 1: of their their normal eating routine and normal diet to
Speaker 1: get a bird. So they're gonna be a little more selective.
Speaker 1: They're gonna want to get that bird it's organic or
Speaker 1: free range or or in some cases made entirely of tofu.
Speaker 1: That's true, very true. Um, so Americans are not the
Speaker 1: only ones who are turkey crazy. According to World Poultry,
Speaker 1: Russia's turkey meat market will increase fivefold over the next
Speaker 1: ten years from the current one hundred thousand tons to
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand tons per year. So the bird is
Speaker 1: making gains and other parts of the world. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly we've talked before about about the demand for meat
Speaker 1: in the in parts of the world changes as the
Speaker 1: socio economic setting settings, their change and all domesticated animals
Speaker 1: is worth remembering. These are animals that have essentially been
Speaker 1: hijacked from the natural world, and they have they are
Speaker 1: they're certainly still organisms, they're still deserving of our compassion
Speaker 1: and understanding, but they have largely become food sources. They
Speaker 1: have become as much a food source as they are
Speaker 1: an independent animal through human tinkering it or Yeah, and
Speaker 1: let's talk about this domestication, because when we talk about
Speaker 1: turkeys in the United States, the one type of turkey
Speaker 1: that is domesticated that dominates supermarkets is the broad breasted
Speaker 1: white turkey. Now, we have an article about genetically modified turkeys,
Speaker 1: and in it, the author describes this turkey as the
Speaker 1: Ana Nicole sniff The turkeys um. The reason for that
Speaker 1: is because they're bred for really large breasts. They have
Speaker 1: white feathers. Um. And this really has its roots in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties because that's when consumers were beginning to
Speaker 1: favor white breast meat over dark meat, and the distry
Speaker 1: began to respond by using something called selective breeding techniques. Now,
Speaker 1: selective breeding technique is different from genetically modified. Yeah, selectively
Speaker 1: bring that's just about all right. I like the kind
Speaker 1: of this one's jib, and I like the kind of
Speaker 1: that one's jib, and I love eating the jib. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have those two, mate, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: try and encourage even larger jibs. Still, yeah, because you're
Speaker 1: selecting for the traits you want well, And I think
Speaker 1: about it in terms of cow so cows that produced
Speaker 1: the most milk might be selected to breed and pass
Speaker 1: that trade off to offspring so that you get cows
Speaker 1: that are really great at producing milk. Or if we've
Speaker 1: talked about dog breeds before too, it's like I want
Speaker 1: a pug that looks just completely ridiculous, and I don't
Speaker 1: care how healthy or saying it is. So let's just
Speaker 1: breach for those ridiculous qualities over and over again until
Speaker 1: I basically have a cushion that poops. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let that linger. I love pugs, though, but seriously, take
Speaker 1: a look at these guys, all right. So these monster
Speaker 1: trick key trucks that we have, um, they are actually
Speaker 1: genetically modified. And when we talk about genetic modification, we're
Speaker 1: talking about a high tech way to change the DNA
Speaker 1: pattern and an organism, and it's used commonly in cotton, corn, soy, canola. UM.
Speaker 1: And with these techniques, you can take genes from any
Speaker 1: organism and cross them to create something new. So hypothetically
Speaker 1: you could cross genes with cotton and pigs. You could
Speaker 1: genetically modify a pig to have some expression of the
Speaker 1: genes of say something like cotton. Yeah. And uh, this
Speaker 1: brings me back to to the I listed some of
Speaker 1: the animals and the numbers of animals, so we've actually
Speaker 1: successfully uh domesticated that number. Those numbers don't include animals
Speaker 1: that we've been able to domesticate through genetic tankering, because
Speaker 1: certainly that opens the door for for even more domestication
Speaker 1: in our creatures. So what happens when you have these
Speaker 1: industry bread birds, particularly they're genetically modified, you have an
Speaker 1: unusually large breast and so it's disproportionate with the rest
Speaker 1: of their body. And what that means is that they
Speaker 1: often have trouble standing, uh, walking, and even mating. So
Speaker 1: when that happens, to be in from wellmating, obviously they
Speaker 1: have to then have or be artificially inseminated. The essentially
Speaker 1: at this point, yeah, yeah, and they begin life hatched
Speaker 1: and incubators. They have their upper beaks and toenails clipped,
Speaker 1: and they spend their days and nights eating fortified corn
Speaker 1: in a barn full of hundreds of fellow turkeys. And that,
Speaker 1: my friends, is a is a good reason to seek
Speaker 1: out that organic for your range bird. That's true, it's true.
Speaker 1: And you know, we have this idea that these these
Speaker 1: creatures are really dim witted. And the reason for this
Speaker 1: is because this species of turkey that's been domesticated and
Speaker 1: the genetically modified in some instances this they have a
Speaker 1: limited family tree and so that's bred them to be
Speaker 1: somewhat dim witted and disease prone. Like the monarchy in
Speaker 1: some European country whe's the coolest, not that deep, and
Speaker 1: and like a member of the of the European monarchy,
Speaker 1: they don't really have to get out there and find
Speaker 1: for themselves or make their way in the world. Their
Speaker 1: domesticated they don't need the sharpest senses either, so there's
Speaker 1: nothing to eat them when they start getting stupid. What
Speaker 1: does do you remember the rare blood disorder that the
Speaker 1: current royal family they have the genetic predisposition for, like hemophilia,
Speaker 1: I believe, I think so. Yeah, if we're wrong, someone
Speaker 1: let us know about that. But then you get the
Speaker 1: idea right there. Back to the disease prone part of
Speaker 1: turkeys is obviously that leads to a widespread use of antibiotics,
Speaker 1: and we won't get into that here, but as we know,
Speaker 1: that has had all sorts of ramifications, not just with
Speaker 1: the meat itself but on humans. Again, another reason to
Speaker 1: potentially choose an organic, free range bird over some sort
Speaker 1: of giant mammoth creature from the freezer box at the
Speaker 1: local grocery. Now, it's also worth noting that I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier the idea of turkeys actually going out and ropping
Speaker 1: banks and causing mischiff. Well, they haven't reached that point yet.
Speaker 1: But you certainly do encounter uh, some violent or intimidating
Speaker 1: clashes between human kind and turkey kind in the world.
Speaker 1: Act two of two thousand elevens Poultry Slam episode of
Speaker 1: This American Life. Every year around Thanksgiving they do a
Speaker 1: poultry Slam episode and it's all related to birds or
Speaker 1: turkeys or whatnot, somehow marginally connected. Anyway, it's a great lesson,
Speaker 1: and it's great. It's another great thing to listen to
Speaker 1: on those road trips for the holidays. But on last
Speaker 1: year's episode they talked about Tom the turkey who was
Speaker 1: a menace in Martha's vineyard. We're talking like a turkey
Speaker 1: would come up to you while you're in your car
Speaker 1: and not let you out, essentially like the Kujo of turkey.
Speaker 1: And and and it's a it's a factless story. I
Speaker 1: won't ruin it for you, but go listen to it
Speaker 1: because it involves tragedy and conflict. It's it's it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: But certainly you do see turkeys as a menace in
Speaker 1: some areas. While turkeys have made a comeback, even like
Speaker 1: it said, urban areas, they have, they've been spotted in
Speaker 1: the Atlanta area. And it's interesting, as we mentioned before,
Speaker 1: the you're normal wild turkey is going to avoid humans.
Speaker 1: It is a it is a cautious creature that does
Speaker 1: not want to get messed messed up in human business
Speaker 1: because humans will probably kill them and eat them. And
Speaker 1: certainly if they watch TV, they know that's the truth.
Speaker 1: So what happens though, is you will have rogue domestic
Speaker 1: turkeys who have grown up wild, or you'll have hybrid
Speaker 1: turkeys where it's a domestic and a wild turkey that
Speaker 1: have made it and created this hybrid creature that has
Speaker 1: a lot of the physical attributes of both sides, but
Speaker 1: also more importantly does not have that fear of humans.
Speaker 1: So it can be a menace. It can kujo somebody
Speaker 1: in their car somewhere and not let them out. Um.
Speaker 1: And then certainly an agricultural areas, whild turkeys do like
Speaker 1: to eat and they can be somewhat of a of
Speaker 1: a menace to uh to farms. All right, So there
Speaker 1: you go, So be Um, if you encounter turkeys and
Speaker 1: they are not running from you, just be aware that
Speaker 1: they might run after you. Okay, you know, I always say,
Speaker 1: like this should be a horror flick. This should be
Speaker 1: Why isn't there a Thanksgiving marauding Turkey night if turkey
Speaker 1: of the turkey? Yeah, there you go. Alright, So since
Speaker 1: we are abstracting turkeys this concept of turkeys, let's talk
Speaker 1: about meat analogs, because surely meat analogs will be showing
Speaker 1: up at some tables this Thanksgiving. And I always meat
Speaker 1: analog selection. I know it's the worst term, right because
Speaker 1: it's just it's so sterile um. But I want to
Speaker 1: mention that the global meat analog industry is beginning to
Speaker 1: gain ground in the meat market. So three and five
Speaker 1: adults now eat eat meat free food so that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they're vegetarians, but that they eat regularly these
Speaker 1: meat freed foods foods. And this is part of a
Speaker 1: market that increased by eight between two thousand and five
Speaker 1: and two thousand and ten. And so what's happening is
Speaker 1: that we're very likely to see more and better quality
Speaker 1: meat substitutes in the next ten years. And this is
Speaker 1: according to Florian Wild, who is the who is leading
Speaker 1: like meat and this is a European Union research project
Speaker 1: that is geared toward improving fake flesh as they call it.
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to say that fake flesh.
Speaker 1: He predicts two trends that on the one hand, the
Speaker 1: development of premium products with more fibrous, elastic and juicy
Speaker 1: textures with the potential to replace meat and good restaurants
Speaker 1: that this will happen. The other trend he sees is
Speaker 1: that for lower qualities substitutes to come online because they
Speaker 1: have the potential to replace five of today's meat market.
Speaker 1: And so he sees the potential for this uh in
Speaker 1: developing world and as well in the fast food arena
Speaker 1: in the form of burgers and nuggets, which is kind
Speaker 1: of a no brainer, right um, because it contains no
Speaker 1: brain unlike a lot of nicely done yes yes uh.
Speaker 1: And to this uh, to this end, Twitter co founders
Speaker 1: Evan Williams and Biz Stone, they have invested in a
Speaker 1: new faue meat company called Beyond Meat, and this apparently
Speaker 1: is taking the faux meat world by storm. Um. In fact,
Speaker 1: Slates far had mancho reviewed the product in the company
Speaker 1: and he said he said that he would rate Beyond
Speaker 1: Meat as being as realistic as chicken, but in every
Speaker 1: other way it's superior, superior. It requires far less energy
Speaker 1: to produce, it has no saturated fats, no antibiotics, and
Speaker 1: no animals are harmed in the process, as he says,
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to look at this, this industry and
Speaker 1: try to extrapolate what it means. By when we've talked
Speaker 1: about um, the dearth of land available to raise livestock,
Speaker 1: and the three point five billion more people who will
Speaker 1: exist on earth and how we will feed them and
Speaker 1: some of them may some of those people maybe meat analogs.
Speaker 1: By that point, does that mean we can eat them? Well,
Speaker 1: you could, I guess, but I would hope we would
Speaker 1: protect our our meat analog brethren from well from from
Speaker 1: the predation. That's a fight to uh, it's a fight
Speaker 1: to deal with in the future. Another the mentioned of
Speaker 1: the future, people were probably wondering, well, what about robot turkeys? Right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's what's the possibility of robot turkey's. Granted they're not
Speaker 1: they're not as good to eat, but truly there's been
Speaker 1: some work there and true enough Spring Turkey, who hilariously enough,
Speaker 1: on the m I T website they had enlisted as
Speaker 1: had dates, but that's when he was she was in service, right.
Speaker 1: The first walking robot at m I T. S Leg
Speaker 1: Lab was part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Speaker 1: And it was essentially this biped this robot biped that
Speaker 1: walked around and kind of turkey legs. So so there
Speaker 1: you go. If you ever wondered if there was a
Speaker 1: turkey robot, yeah, a pioneer one, I thought, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, speaking of robot turkeys, let's call over
Speaker 1: our robot and see if he has any listener mail
Speaker 1: for us. I cannot leave me just called Arnold a turkey. Well,
Speaker 1: all right, this one comes to us from Nando. Nando
Speaker 1: rights in and says, Hi, Robert and Julie. I've been
Speaker 1: a listener for a while now, and finally I heard
Speaker 1: an episode in which I feel I can share an experience.
Speaker 1: I had heard about how some people would stare into
Speaker 1: mirrors and lose focus on the body and meditate. A
Speaker 1: few weeks ago I decided to try it. I used
Speaker 1: a full length mirror that I have in my living room.
Speaker 1: At first, I saw the edge of my face sort
Speaker 1: of fade away into blackness. After a while, I lost
Speaker 1: sense of my position in the room, meaning I thought
Speaker 1: I was standing where my reflection was. This kept going
Speaker 1: on for a few minutes, shifting focus on my side
Speaker 1: of the room and the reflections until I saw something
Speaker 1: that scared the living daylights out of me. After about
Speaker 1: ten minutes or so, I saw the mirror become translucent,
Speaker 1: like when you turn on the light on the back
Speaker 1: end of the two way mirror. There was a man
Speaker 1: standing there. I became really scared and lost focus. My
Speaker 1: eyes felt really tired, and I had a really strong headache.
Speaker 1: Immediately after I tried to make sense of it. I
Speaker 1: figured my eyes hurt from focusing on the mirror, which
Speaker 1: caused the headache as well. I couldn't explain what I
Speaker 1: had seen. I don't recall the man's features that he
Speaker 1: had any and even now when I think about it,
Speaker 1: my eyes start to hurt. I couldn't find the next
Speaker 1: nation online that didn't have to do with the supernatural.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I listened to your podcast. Now I know
Speaker 1: that other people have seen strain things and I am
Speaker 1: not losing my mind. Keep up the good work. So indeed,
Speaker 1: that's awesome, because again that that whole episode Light is
Speaker 1: a Feather Stuff as a Board was about some sort
Speaker 1: of slumber party Shenanigan. Supernatural tricks like the use of
Speaker 1: Luigi boards looking into a mirror and seeing bloody Mary
Speaker 1: party levitation, that kind of thing. And the whole message
Speaker 1: is that even though an experience may seem kind of
Speaker 1: spooky and supernatural and magical, it's all in our perception
Speaker 1: of it. And there are a number of things that
Speaker 1: play there, in the way that our mind works, in
Speaker 1: the way that um interpersonal relationships work, and in the
Speaker 1: way that that we remember what has happened, and all
Speaker 1: these things are in place. So certainly, anytime we can
Speaker 1: help people understand that something isn't really all that magical
Speaker 1: but in actuality based in science, then I feel like
Speaker 1: we've done a good job. No, it's great feedback to
Speaker 1: to see what his experience was like, particularly after ten minutes,
Speaker 1: because he could see the different stages that his his
Speaker 1: hirst sception was going. Yeah, and it sounded very creepy.
Speaker 1: I would have been freaked out if that happened. That's
Speaker 1: exactly the reason why I was always too afraid to
Speaker 1: actually go in and ask about I was thinking about
Speaker 1: that when I read that. I was like, Oh, that's
Speaker 1: what Robert was talking about, because that's what you don't
Speaker 1: want to see. Yeah, And certainly if you you don't
Speaker 1: have an explanation for it, especially if you're say twelve
Speaker 1: and a pre internet age and you go with it
Speaker 1: with two with that, who's going to have that answer
Speaker 1: ready for you? Well even if you are you know,
Speaker 1: in an Internet age, right yeah, yeah, true, Like as
Speaker 1: he said he would and looked done online and there
Speaker 1: was just a bunch of bunks out there. So anyway,
Speaker 1: thanks for writing in, Nando. We love to hear cool
Speaker 1: stories about people's personal interactions with the phenomena that we
Speaker 1: talked about, so certainly, if anyone has any cooky related
Speaker 1: stuff they would like to share with us about their
Speaker 1: own their own thoughts on Thanksgiving, to traditions, or about
Speaker 1: the bird itself, about our history with it culturally, or
Speaker 1: or or whatnot, then right in and let us know.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook and tumbler. We are
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind on both of those, and
Speaker 1: if you head on over to Twitter you will find
Speaker 1: us under the handle blow the Mind and you can
Speaker 1: always drop us a line at blew the Mind at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is It how Stuff Works dot com m