logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2025
46m 5s

Brian Wansink: Guess Who’s Conning to Di...

Wondery
About this episode
During the early 2000s Brian Wansink made his mark as a “food psychologist” with quirky studies backed by the USDA and Cornell. His research led to the 100-calorie snack pack, the side plate for dinner, and the idea that Elmo stickers led kids to eat healthier. But one tone-deaf blog post led a pack of scientists to dig into Brian’s data. What they found was ... Show More
Up next
Mar 2025
Billy Mitchell: Truth or Kong-sequences | 151
Billy Mitchell became the king of arcade games when he achieved a perfect Pac Man score, and held the highest score in Donkey Kong. But in the early 2000s, a documentary about an upstart trying to be the best at Donkey Kong leads fans to examine how Billy actually achieved those ... Show More
48m 15s
Yesterday
Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It’s (Not) True | 231
When news broke that Milli Vanilli were lip-syncing frauds, it was a defining moment in pop-culture. Forty years later, their name is still synonymous with fakery. But Rob and Fab weren’t the masterminds. Behind them was a Svengali producer named Frank Farian, who’d built his ent ... Show More
55m 49s
Sep 7
ENCORE: Martha Stewart: The Homemaker Hustler Part 2 | 230
We’ll be back next week with a brand new episode of Scamfluencers. In the meantime, enjoy the conclusion of Martha Stewart: the Homemaker Hustler: In the summer of 2003, Martha Stewart is indicted for obstruction of justice and lying to investigators. She stubbornly maintains her ... Show More
43m 8s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2021
School Lunches, P-Hacking and the Original "Pizzagate"
<p>This week we&apos;re diving into one of the biggest-ever scandals in nutrition research. For nearly two decades, Brian Wansink&apos;s Food and Brand Lab told Americans that lower weights, healthier workplaces and better school lunches were just a few small tweaks away. Then, i ... Show More
1h 17m
Apr 2022
Ultra-Processed Foods: A Load of Baloney?
We hear over and over that ultra-processed food is bad for us. But is there actually something funky going on here — or is it just junk food? We dig into what these foods are doing to our bodies. You’ll hear from Dr. Kevin Hall, Prof. Carlos Monteiro, Dr. Cathrina Edwards, and Dr ... Show More
38m 33s
Jul 2025
Short Stuff: Bliss Point
The food we eat – especially the junk food – is a highly engineered technical marvel that’s designed to make you want nothing other than more! more! more! Learn about how food scientists make that possible by hijacking our brains.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio ... Show More
14m 45s
Jun 2023
Are we what we eat?
Brian Cox and Robin Ince examine their own diets and the diet fads of the past to ask what we should actually be eating. They are joined by Dr Chris van Tulleken, Professor Janet Cade and comedian Harry Hill to discuss the nutritional merits, or lack thereof, of everything from s ... Show More
42m 28s
Jul 2025
Is the Food Pyramid a Scam?
Today, Josh and Nicole breakdown the food pyramid, MyPlate, MyPyramid, all the ways we're told to eat a balanced diet – and get down to whether there's any merit, or if it's just a scam. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://yo ... Show More
49m 49s
Jun 2023
CLASSIC: Several Terrifying Things You Just Ate
Nowadays it seems like a few times a year we’ll hear about a food scandal -- contaminated meat, perhaps, or recalled yogurt. We’ll also inevitably hear something like “studies show coffee is good, or bad, for you.” When you add up all these complaints, studies and articles it bec ... Show More
53m 46s
May 2025
Presenting “Smart Girl Dumb Questions”
<p>Nayeema Raza describes her podcast as “a curiosity party.” In this episode of <a href="https://linktr.ee/smartgirldumbquestions" target="_blank">Smart Girl Dumb Questions</a>, she asks chef and food writer J. Kenji López-Alt whether cooking is an art or a science — and whether ... Show More
47m 32s
May 2017
#74 — What Should We Eat?
Sam Harris speaks with Gary Taubes about his career as a science journalist, the difficulty of studying nutrition and public health scientifically, the growing epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the role of hormones in weight gain, the controversies surrounding his work, and othe ... Show More
47m 3s
Jul 2025
Most Replayed Moment: The Truth Behind "Healthy" Food Labels - Dr. Chris Van Tulleken
In this Moments episode, Dr. Chris Van Tulleken (the Junk Food Doctor) delves into the complexities of foods labelled as "healthy." He explores how certain food products, from diet sodas to breakfast cereals, might not be as beneficial as they're marketed to be, suggesting that t ... Show More
17m 44s
Jun 2025
Are We Being Lied To? The Wellness Scandal
This week on The Wellness Scoop, we’re unpacking the stories that are reshaping the way we think about food, health, and community. We start with a major new report exposing the rise of nutrition misinformation online — with up to 24 million people now at risk of following harmfu ... Show More
57m 12s