For a lot of Americans, tofu conjures up images of bland, squishy cubes: a sorry alternative to meat. Even in Asia, where tofu was born, the soybean was initially seen as unappetizing, not to mention flatulence inducing. This episode, we tell the story of how people in what's now northeastern China figured out how to turn this legume of last resort into an a ... Show More
Nov 3
Free Food: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Foraging
For most of human history, humans have fed ourselves by foraging, with a little bit of hunting when we were lucky—think more gatherer than hunter. Picking edible greens, nuts, fruits, roots, and mushrooms kept us alive before the advent of farming and, scientists think, helped ma ... Show More
48m 23s
Oct 6
Fibermaxxing FTW: Meet the Neglected Nutrient That's the Key to Health
Move over protein, it's time to fibermaxx! Fiber has always been the neglected stepchild of nutrients: it's never been seen as essential, and some of its earliest enthusiasts were poop-obsessed oddballs. Take the inventor of cornflakes, John Harvey Kellogg. Inspired by the gorill ... Show More
51m 52s
Mar 2025
A Ridiculous History of Processed Cheese
Let's be honest: cheese is inherently weird. As humanity advanced, civilizations leveraged positively alchemical science to arrive at the perfect cheeseburger melt. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore the evolution of processed cheese -- the not-quite-cheese that change ... Show More
32m 21s
Jul 2021
How One Guy Made Europe Fall In Love With Potatoes
<p>Today, the humble potato can be found in restaurants and dinner tables across the world -- but this wasn't always the case. In today's episode, Ben and Noel dive into the story of one spud-loving, potato-proselytizing man named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, and his ambitious li ... Show More
1h 2m