A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Diet Coke vs. Coke Zero

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Today, Josh and Nicole put Diet Coke and Coke Zero HEAD TO HEAD! Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can you taste the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero? Josh? Oh, you were asking me? Yeah. Oh, um, yeah. Like probably, this is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what?

That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, a hot dog is a sandwich. The show we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host Joshair. And I'm your host, Nicole Innihani.

What was that hand gesture? That's Disney Channel West. Rainbow. Reading Rainbow. Sue us, Reading Rainbow. Come at me, LeVar Burton. Yeah, come at me. But all your Emmys.

You got like 15 Emmys, man. Well-deserved Emmys. I've heard to trade him... Take a look. Six Webbies for one Emmy, and he said no. You actually asked him that? Yeah. Are you on speaking terms with LeVar?

Yeah, I think we don't, you don't, like, hang out, I don't call each other. But you know, because of his lovely daughter. Yes. Anyways, that's not what we're talking about today, but we, boy, we could talk about Reading Rainbow. I can't. I don't remember much. That was a very, that was a very influential show.

You watched, yeah, I watched a little bit of PBS when I was over at others. It's not what I was, like, allowed. We just, like, didn't have TV. My mom was, like, too mentally ill to, like, hook up a TV. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know how to explain this to people. Like, we just didn't have. But you had, like, buckets.

of colored pebbles that you would sort through? She had a lot of weird stuff that I think was associated with cults. There's so much my childhood. I know the pennies. I know the pennies. But yeah, a lot of strange rocks, crystals. Toys,

like the toys were like no like battery operated toys. We didn't have like any toys. Any toys, just like functional things. I was able to, I would buy books at the used bookstore and the library for 25 cents. Yeah, I used to buy books too.

And then I had a ball. And I would bounce the ball. What color was the ball? Oh. And then eventually I would buy. I had a basketball. Cool. And I was able to...

Would you share with John? I was able to make skateboards. This podcast is no longer about food. It's about me psychoanalyzing Josh because I now have a child and I want to know about Josh's childhood really badly. And most of this was up through the age of 10. Because when I was 10, I moved in with my dad and he was just like kind of a more normal guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still quite poor at the time. He became a full-time teacher when I think I was like 13. Wow. And so then I was like, he's, oh my God, he's making $52,000 a year. That's a lot of money. We are rich. Yes.

We're rich, rich. Even though, you know, we're still paying off-deck collectors and all this. Sure, sure, I get it. Dude, we can move in like a two-bedroom apartment? This is nuts. That's really cool. Yeah. I know, right?

And so then it was like, hey, you can play organized sports. Oh, okay. But you wouldn't do you do toys anymore? But by then, I was like, what do you mean toy? I play sports. Okay. And I still read books. Ball.

And ball. I had like, you know, boards of sorts. Borgies? Like, boogie boards? Oh, you were active. Okay, that's good. It was like an active, that was a fat active child. I was a fatlete, you know what I mean?

I was an intellectual athletic child And I think I've become an intellectual athletic adult I agree What toys did you play with? Oh, so many Toys? Like tons I had millions in, well you have to think about it

I was the American kid My brother and sister in Iran right So their situation was different They come to America The land of the free home of the brave Lots of capitalism and toys So Sesame Street everything Like Disney everything

What do you do with them? How do you play with the toys? I don't remember back then. It was different. But now I actively play with Eve with toys. Like we play together. Like I teach her how to play. Like I teach her how to throw a ball.

She throws a ball back to me. Now that's not a toy. That's a sport. We take blocks and we shake the blocks and we make noise. We make music with the blocks. Okay. We have teddy bears and we say, I like explain stories like stories about teddy bears and how the teddy bear came from this place and now lives here with us.

So yeah. Oh. So you, I guess, use the power of your imagination. Yes, we use a lot of imagination and music and just like grabbing and moving things from one hand to another. And I leave her alone and let her play by herself, but I like to play with her. I think I like the way my mind developed without toys. Sure. You know what I mean?

Oh, sure. I learned a lot of social skills via sports. When you close your eyes, you have an imagination. Like, if I tell you to look at like a red apple, you can't. I've told you how this works in my brain, right? I don't remember. Tell me. It's text-based.

So if I say, close your eyes, if I say green apple with a leaf, what's in your... Aye? What's in your... Okay, so I'm picturing the Rename Maghite painting, the green apple over the face. But literally the text of Green Apple with a leaf, like, runs like a... That's so interesting. It's because you read a lot. It was a formative... See, when I close my eyes, I see a green apple with a leaf, not the Renée Marguerite photo, but...

You know the Rename of a Great Painting? The guy with Apple? Of course I do. It's called like, like, man with face or something. Man without a face? I don't know. It's like Face Man. Okay.

We are here. Sorry, quick aside. Josh and I haven't had any, like, one-on-one time in a while, so we just had to get that out of the way. So in front of us, we have the two bastions of diet soda. It's called the son of man. Oh, what did I say? Man without a face. It makes sense because it's son of man because apples, Adam and Eve.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have two sodas in front of me. I have a Diet Coke and a Coke zero. I always, I never, I'm sorry, I never grew up. I have a Dr. Trevor. I don't know why.

I never grew up with diet sodas. Diet sodas are something new to me. I want to say I've been indulging for about two and a half years, three years into diet sodas. And I believe it's through osmosis of working here at Mythical because everybody drinks diet sodas here. Diet Red Bulls, like Celsius's, Diet Coke's. What are you, you're grasping for something? I'm looking for a pen and paper to draw out my weight over time. Why? Do you think it's correlated to the soda? There's something there. Go ahead and you draw while I speak or do you want to speak and draw the same time? No, no, you speak. So for me, I never was like obsessed with sodas ever. I was more of a mineral water person. Like I loved Perrier growing up or like San Pellegrino.

I was never like, I need a Coke with my meal. And I just never like I would have it here and there, but it was never something like I needed. And now that I'm older, I do need that fizzy, sugary balance with my food. so diet soda makes the most sense because the thought of me having a full sugar soda makes me kind of sick. Like imagine like drinking two cans of soda. Ugh.

But I could knock down two diet sodas like it's no one's business even though I did get a little bit sick yesterday when I had two and a half of them. Are you, you're still madding? I've had violent diarrhea. Oh yeah. Do you think that's from the diet sodas though? No.

It's not from the asper team. I think I ate a lot of steak yesterday. I also ate a lot of steak yesterday, but I'm very used eating red meat. I'm graphing out. You have really bad handwriting. My weight over time. time. It's tough. There's a microphone. There's two kinds of people in this world.

There's, one, this is not called Coke Zero anymore. Hasn't been called Coke Zero for 10 years. What? What's it called? It's now been called Coke Zero Sugar for longer. For longer than it's, then it was ever called Coke Zero, which is crazy. But, but, but, but, wait. Nobody calls it Coke Zero Sugar. Well, of course, too many words. Zero is still in the name. The zero, the sugar in the zero sugar is implied. I still think it's a crazy rebrand. I think it's, apparently, they must have had the dab, but. And I think they actually had data coming out of Europe.

Like, all of these products were launched with different, like, branding and slightly different language. Like, the original Coke Zero branding was white. And Coke Zero didn't even launch in America. Like, we kind of got it later than a lot of other countries. Coke Zero Sugar, or sorry, Coke Zero, God, initially launched, I think it was white in Canada. And then in Australia, it was black. And then, like, they know it's not Australia. Coke White?

It was, like, the original Coke Zero branding was, Or the branding. I thought they called it Coke white and Coke black. Because Coke Black did exist and that was awesome. But then they launched the initial black branding, which Coke Zero had for a long time in Australia. And it just flew out shelves. And they were like, oh, this is way cooler and sleeker and more badass. And they did that.

But it was called like Coke no sugar in Australia. And then like all these shifts. So like this shipped around. But in America, this was called Coca-Cola Zero for, I believe it was introduced in like 2006. And then in 2016 or seven. it switched to Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, and I don't believe it was reformulated until 2021. So it's like these weird kind of things.

And I think one of the reasons, the big reason, Diet Coke came out in the 80s and Coke learned a painful lesson when they tried to reformulate original Coke and a new Coke. Right. Right?

That's like one of the biggest, you would like learn about this in marketing school, I assume. Like one of the biggest blunders in trying to change your product in history because people have gotten used obviously one of the most storied brands in history. And Coke is like, hey, we haven't updated this formula, and science has gotten better,

manufacturing's gotten better. We need to update this, make it better. And then they launched new Coke, and everyone famously hated it. Custom out. Yeah. So Diet Coke, they learned that lesson. They're like, we can't change this. But science has gotten better, and legislation changed. Let's just make a new product.

Let's make a new product. Yeah. And so the biggest difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero, Sugar, Coke Zero. Just call it Coke Zero. I know, I want to call it Coke Zero Just call it Cook Zero Yeah, I'm not beholden Who's stopping you?

It's like when people still call it Jamba juice What is it now? Just Jamba? I don't think there's any more juice In the name It's just called Jomba? I think Diddler Ditto with Duncan Diddler D donuts

Duncan Donuts is just Duncan now Oh I think they officially took donuts out of the name That's weird Yeah, so there's a couple places like that See, I love, is it illiterative? It was never Mama Celeste pizza It's only Celest.

Is it illiterative? whatever you say, like, Jamma Juice. Yeah, Jamba Juice. I love, like, I love that so much. Yeah. I miss the alliteration. We need more alliterations. Not an alliteration guy.

I need them. Coca-Cola. I need them to continue. Pepsi Cola. Why are you so cute? The old Brian Regan joke of, uh, I went through a line of a burger. What is it? I went through the drive-thru and now I own a Burger King franchise in Pensacola.

And then he goes, hey, give me a whopper. He goes, you know, I'm going to press and pesicola? I literally don't know. I love Brian Regan. I literally don't know what you're talking about. Josh, can you explain what you did over here? I haven't done it yet. No, put it back.

You have to put it back. I was talking about the scientific formula behind Coke Zero sugar and tight Coke. Biggest change. So what's the biggest difference between the two of them? A sulfane potassium. What did you say? A sulfane potassium. And what is that?

What is that? Artificial sweetener that was developed quite a bit later than aspiratame. But Sucolose is also developed, like, in the 70s as well. So Sucolos and Ace K, Sucolosa Splenda, were developed around the same time. Ace K has less of a home use because apparently Ace K by itself is, like, weirdly bitter and metallic. But when you combine it with other artificial sweeteners, it, like, rounds them out in a weird way. Interesting. Okay. So Coke Zero was made with just pure aspartame, which pretty conclusively considered.

safe. A lot of the early studies were like super, super flawed in crazy insane ways. They had to recant a lot of their findings. No links to cancer or weird DNA manipulation. That's great news. Yeah, sure. It's still, I don't think you can bleed, you know, get blood from stone. I think you have to pay the piper eventually. I see what you're saying. There's something spiritually bad about artificial sweeteners that I think is killing us. I'll get to that later. Okay. Okay. But anyways, I'm trying to. And I like mean this. But anyway, so... You think we're just playing God. A sulfame potassium.

Uh-huh. They combine that with the aspartame, and then figured out a way to reformulate to add, like, more acid and stuff to try and, like, get that cola flavor. But Ace K wasn't fully, fully allowed in all, like, by the FDA in all capacities until 2003. Mm-hmm. And so I don't think it's a coincidence that Coke Zero comes out in, like, 2005, 2006. Once they formulated it, yeah.

Yeah, once they, like, got that out there. I'm kind of surprised. I don't know if Coke ever went. the splendor out. I don't think they did. Yeah. I will say this. Whenever you said how the Ace Cave rounds things out, it's kind of like in perfuming.

Like you put a bunch of things that you think smell good together. And then you put one like wakadoodle smell in there like ambergris or musk. And it just rounds it. And these items are incredibly like, they're like an olfactory like vomit smell whenever you're very, very close to them. But whenever you have it mixed with other things, it makes this beautiful round. scented scent. So it's interesting that that same kind of mentality works with Coca-Cola zero sugar. It's really cool. Hi, we are Dan and Phil. And hard launch is our male podcast. We'll call it male podcast.

About the power of living your truth. We're better than that, honestly. Well, it's mostly us accidentally spilling scandalous info about our past dating lives. True and getting into inappropriately domestic arguments about it. After 16 years on YouTube, we decided to hard launch our relationship and now we are emboldened to overshare with you. So you might have seen us on Grindr this week. My ex texted me. What? He did. I have a confession. I completely thought you catfish me when we first met. What? Join us every Monday on hard launch with Dan and Phil. Hard Mondays start your week hard. Sorry. Do you want to try them? Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I'm graphing out my weight over time. This is so interesting. I can't believe

remember all of your weights like this. Some of this is an estimate. Coca-cotech-sweetened with Splenda from 2005 until it was discontinued. When is it discontinued? Let me look that up. That's so interesting. I vaguely remember Diet Coke Sweeten Splenda. Did it say like,

was it yellow? Because Splenda was like so, so hot when it came out as like the new thing. People were baking... No way! They had Splendacke Coke until 2024. That's what this is saying. What did it look like? I'm grabbing my weight.

This is important to me. 22. Yeah, I had yellow branding. How interesting. I was never, people used to be obsessed with caffeine-free diet Coke, too. Never had that. Caffeine-free coax with the gold branding. I was really into it, but I never bought it myself.

225. Okay, so I started drinking diet soda at age. Do you want to show people? No, no, no, I have to draw the lines. I have to draw the regression analysis. Here. You were 280,000 or you were 14? Yeah, I was a big kid.

Wow, you were a big kid. And were you always tall? Yeah, so I was probably about the same height at 14 as I am now. You were like 6-1? Yeah, 6-1, 6-2. Depends who you ask? I've probably gained about an inch since I was 14. I killed that you were 6-2 at 14.

I was so dominating middle school basketball, dude. Massive. Unbelievable. Football coach is salivating it. Okay, so if we graph my weight. Aw, so up and down. 14, though, is when I start. started drinking diet soda.

Okay. Zero to 13, got up to 280. We're drinking not even Coke. We're drinking Shasta. Oh, my gosh. Dr. Shasta in whatever, the three-liter sodas, like, name brand, like, Dr. A-plus, you know, was, I think, Albertson's Dr. Pepper. Race cola?

You know, I never had race cola. You never had race? You mean R.C? Oh, yeah. I called it race. We called a race cola? Jesus Christ. No, race like, because you're fast.

Not race because you like. No, R.C. Cola. I always call it. They're name brand. They're just kind of like they're, I think they're owned by the same company that owns like Fago. But anyways, 14 was when I started, or like 15, freshman year, freshman year of high school, started drinking diet soda, boom, lost like 55 pounds. That is all the way down. Not because of diet soda, not because of diet soda. But then- what do you mean? So there's no correlation between diet soda? What are you talking about? Hmm? I don't know. So then we're at 16. Wait! Wait, what are you talking about? So you started drinking

Diet Soda here? Like, yeah. Well, yeah, probably here, here. This is when I would have started drinking diet soda. Okay. And, okay. Then we're yo-yoing back up. Are you saying that your diet soda consumption did not correlate to the loss of...

No, no, definitely correlated. Definitely correlated. Of course it did. But it didn't... I don't know if it was causal. There were other causals here? If we can just go through my life right here. So this is, I think I kind of fudge, because I'm kind of going by school year a little bit.

Okay, that's fine. You know what I mean? But anyway, so, you're 280, like, freshman year, high school. And then, you know, about like 270 playing football. You lost your baby weight here. And then, well, here's the thing. I quit football. And the football coach said that I would just get fatter and get diabetes and die if I quit football.

And so I was like, okay, that's pretty upsetting to me. And so I lost, like, 55 pounds or whatever. Because of a bad teacher. Yeah. And then I, like, you know, gained like, probably like 10, like, you know, got more interest in shot putting. Then I wanted to get a scholarship for shot put. So boom, back up to like 265. Let's get that bench press up 100 pounds.

in a year did that. And then freshman year of college, freshman 15, dining halls, also lifting much weight there, boom. Sophomore year, out of the dining halls, you know, back down to like around 240, and then got kicked off the track team by a really bad coach, and I was in a really weird place. And so lost much weight down 220. Got back to UCLA. Coach starting to cut me if I was below 260, boom, back up there, quit my athletics career, well, you know, finish college, and then gradually lost weight until, uh, you know,

back down at around 225. And then this has sort of been roughly steady for... Wild. So you're saying bad... So you're saying bad educators. Why did we do... Why did I do that? It has nothing to do with the podcast.

I think this has to do with the education system, hiring people that have no emotional intelligence, and they make children feel bad about themselves. I think that's... I think that's what I've learned from this. I haven't had a lot of great educators and coaches in my life. I had some bad ones and I had some... really good ones.

Yeah. I had some really great teachers. I don't know if I was open to good ones either. Oh. You know, I was kind of, but, you know, Defiant. Needed somebody to.

You were just defiant. What I was in, the impetus for that graph is that, I like having a pen in my hands like in point. Sure. If it makes you feel more powerful. The impetus for that graph was I started drinking diet soda when I think my brother, like,

got to learn about these things called calories and macronutrients. I was like, holy smokes, what are those, man? And so there was like one summer where I was like, oh my God, all this sugar is making me gain a lot of weight and also in a way that like I'm not happy with myself. And I was like pre-diabetic and pre-hypertensive too as a kid, like causing actual health problems. Right, right. And so then literally I started drinking, that was when diet soda came into my life, you know? And so I started drinking a lot of it. Started really watching my you know, calories and all that, and then lost a bunch of weight and, you know, still very active and found a lot of joy in food.

Never got, like, crazy restrictive about it. But that was when diet soda came into my life, and now I'm addicted to it. Not addicted to it. You consume a lot of diet soda. Yeah, I consume a lot of sparkling water in general. Yeah, you do consume a lot of fizz. I like the fizz. I also really like fizz.

Also, I like real water, too, like regular ass water. The thing I'm really concerned with about soda pop is not the artificial sweep. Weakner's and they might be doing anything. But when I talk about like it's spiritually damaging, I mean this expectation of getting a sweet reward. Right? Whenever you sort of want it. You know, this idea of, oh, I want something sweet. I want something sweet in my mouth and I don't want to have to pay a requisite price for it.

Being, you know. Requisite price being like your health being compromised? Yeah, I suppose. Not even health. Just like being able. to indulge constantly whenever you want, both because of availability. Uh-huh. And it's all zeros whenever you look at the-

And it's all zeros across the board. Yeah. I think there's something interesting about that. And what it does behaviorally to people, you know, I think it's like, um, dates. Dates are as calorie-dense as almost any, like, baked good, right? A date is about as calorie-dense as a good thing. Okay, I thought you're talking about, like, going on dates. No, no, no.

But yeah, eating dates. Okay, eating dates, yes. I don't know I would guess that eating dates is like negatively correlated with a lot of diet related disease Interesting Whereas eating cookies are positively correlated with a lot of diet related

Well I do think it's because Despite the fact that there is calorie dense Well I do think it has to do with the glycemic index right So it's how Really? I don't I think it has to deal with behavior Because dates are not as indulgent as a cookie They just don't taste as good

I remember we talked to Liam from the plant slant I love dates, by the way. I eat dates all the time. Yeah. But that said, I've never depressively eaten a whole bag of dates and I have depressively eaten a whole thing at Girl Scout cookies. Well, that depends. Do you have Girl Scout cookies in your house all the time? No, I never.

So there you, well, when the options are limited, you will eat a handful of dates. I'll eat a handful of dates, but I won't like binge eat. I've never binge eating a date. Okay, that's good. You know what you? Do you been, you're out here. I've had a few bingies. You know what I do?

Oh, the only time I did is when I was uncomfortably high in a movie theater and I didn't know what to do and I ate a whole pound of dates. You brought dates to the movie theater? It was a complicated. We were stoned. What? Potts legal in California.

What? They just let you bring a pound of dates? Yeah, I don't know. I had like a tote bag and there was a farmer's market outside the movie theater in Goleta, California. What time did you watch this movie? Daylight. It was Disney Pixar. You gotta stop going to matinees.

This is so long ago. A Pixar Matinee? I mean, this would have been 12 years ago. It was Disney Pixar's Brave. Whenever Disney Pixar's Brave. Great film. Apparently, I miscalculated a local brownie that I bought from an artisan. Oh, no.

And I was locked in my own body. The only thing calming me down was I had a farmer's market bag and I was just eating dates. That's terrible. I wouldn't say I binge dates. I would say that, like, what I do is I make myself a little bowl and I put a scoop full of peanut butter and then some sea salt and then three dates that I remove the pits out of. And then I microwave it for about 15 seconds. And that's like my late night snack. That sounds great.

But it sounds like a bit. I wouldn't consider that a binge. No, certainly not. That's the opposite of what I'm talking about. That's like a nice, healthy relationship with eating a treat. I would say that if I had a pack of Girl Scout cookies, I would not have the same control. Yes. But going back to the prompt, which is Diet Coke, what does that have to do with consuming diet sodas?

Because this allows you to binge, right? This teaches binging habits. I see, because it's guiltless. I wouldn't drink six regular Cokes ever, right? but I would drink six Coke zeros in a day because I go, well, six times zero. But doesn't that hurt your tummy? I feel so bad all the time.

I'm in so much pain constantly that I have no idea what's hurting me and what's not. That's a problem. It's a sports thing. It's really just like... Are athletes in constant pain? Yes, all of them. All of them are in such constant pain.

It's insane. And you just normalize it because it's like... Are you for real? You're from... Jason Kelsey? I mean, he's obviously like... He's a professional athlete. Professional athlete for multiple years

in a very violent sport. But you still are quite athletic. But he was just like, you know, talking about, he's talked about his pink pills. They're not painkillers. It's just Torr-it-all. But just very powerful anti-inflammatory. But he's like, you know, I need like three hours to warm up before every practice because I'm just so much joint pain and beat juice and the turmeric and all this.

You need to get all this bodywork done. Yeah, most athletes are in tremendous amount of pain. And then there's the long-term chronic pain that comes from. I did not know that. I thought athletes are like optimal. They're like optimal. Oh, no, they're messed up, dude. Are all humans just a little bit messed up?

I think so. I think that's where we're coming at. Should we try these? Yeah, we should. You know what I mean, though, about the playing God, the spiritual decrepitness of all? I understand what you're saying. It's like, it's just like a visage of hedonism. Yes.

But there's no consequences. 100%. Or there are consequences. We just don't know what they are yet. Yes, I think the consequences is psychologically what it does to your brain in terms of your reward system. And I don't want to get into like very like the maha like, it's hijacking the kid's brains like cocaine. You know what I mean? But I do think there is something of the lesson has to be moderation, like more moderation and not more consumption.

That's what the lesson has to be, right? The lesson can't be you need to find hot, nasty, badass science that has created a zero-calorie. version of something. You know, the lesson can't be, well, we've just infused protein into the candy bars. You're saying that it just needs to be, it just needs to be cut. Yeah, or treated as an occasional indulgence because that makes life fun, but the indulgence is no longer indulgence when you're drinking six a day. That's then an addiction and a habit. I see, but do you think that the way to solve this is by putting their, putting calories into it? Like, what is, what is this, what is this, what is this No, I think solution just always going to, I think it's just so cultural, man. So cultural. I don't think any, I would be so curious to see, I haven't been able to find good data on this, but like diet consumption, diet soda consumption per capita. I would guarantee that America. Of course. Smokes. I think it was Mary Nessel that said never, never has such an unhealthy society been so obsessed with health. Right. But I think it's just very much a cultural thing. But again, I don't think that the average diet soda person is looking at the

and saying, I'm making the healthier choice by eating these. I think it's a means to an end. Like, I need something that's fizzy, that's sweet, that tastes like something that I used to have when I was younger. I think they need, I think it's a reason they call Diet Coke's fridge cigarettes. That's so true. This isn't a treat. This isn't like, this is non-nutrative. This isn't, this is like I need something to take the edge off. So you've been drinking these since you were for about almost 20 years, right?

Since you were 14? You're 34? If we consult the graph. Are you 34? Huh? Are you 34? Yeah, yeah. So you've been consuming diet soda for 20 years.

Yeah, yeah. Well, before that, you were drinking regular soda for what, 10? Like what? When did you start drinking soda soda when you were five? Oh, yeah, a small boy. Small, not small boy. A young boy. Yeah, a young boy.

So I guess it has a lot to do with like... I started drinking diet soda just for... I think it has a lot to do with how you were raised, too. Like, my parents never bought diet soda. They would say diet soda is bad for you. It's chemicals. We have no idea what this is going to do to your body. Were you drinking Shabat?

Oh my God. All the time. Like all the time Shabat? My mom used to do something called Obstakangibine where she would take mint syrup and she would give me lettuce, specifically the center, the heart of the lettuce. And she would literally peel back the leaves for me

and place these little hearts, the hearts of the romaine hearts. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She would lay out five. of them with a big bowl of sacanjamine, which is the syrup. And then she would put a little bit of like ice and soda water and salt. And then she would dip it in there. And like that would be like my refreshing snack instead of like a salad.

Lettis dipped in mint syrup? But that's the dates. That's what I'm saying. That's like a healthy thing that has grown in nature and there's a thing. And these are plants. You know what I mean? That's like a healthy snack. And I know.

That's what I'm saying. I'm saying spiritually, culturally, I think these are bankrupt. So you think America is void of culture and love because of the diet soda consumption? I think it is a symptom of. Okay. And that's not to say there's wonderful, especially like older, smaller cultures within America that are not dominant mainstream culture. I kind of made the mistake when we were talking to Christoph-Waltz and he was talking about like American food culture and how it's just overconsumption and capitalism. It's not only, but those are definitely cornerstones.

And there's a lot of wonderful regional cuisine. Of course. Look at Gala Gichi cuisine. Look at Central Texas barbecue and all the stuff. Of course, of course. And that's all wonderful. But yeah, our exports, we're not exporting proper dark rue gumbo to South Korea. We're exporting KFC.

You know what I mean? Like that is what the legacy is. But I think that labor of your mom doing that is so important. Yeah. It's so important. And I beg. I beg. I beg.

When people say they don't have time to cook, I beg, and this is out of touch me, and I don't give a f***. I beg, when you say you don't have time to cook,

show me your screen time. Show me your screen time. He's right. And when you see Instagram an hour and a half, get Rachel Ray's 30-minute meals cookbook, you could rip three of those, dude. You know?

And it is not a matter of luxury. To me, it's a matter of life and death. Sure. We are like, I just, I don't like being on this pedestal and I'm all riled up today. I don't exactly know why. I'm going to open these so we can taste them, but continue.

But like literally, I mean, there's just so much messed up diet-related disease going on out there. And I understand that it's hard and there's food deserts and I understand this. But like, when are we going to actually take the foods that we put in our body to that level of importance that we realize that we should be investing the time of that? I also think this state needs to invest more. There needs to be a lot of healing done. I think there needs to be a lot of healing done. And I think it starts with the person themselves. I agree with everything you're saying.

I agree with the screen time. I agree with the hedonism. I agree with the quick fixes. I agree with the binges. I agree with all these things. And they're very prevalent in all of our lives. But I think people just need to really look into themselves and decide. Is it worth it?

Like is all of this, is all of this like quick, easy answering things like literally like a five second answer instead of just being very introspective and thinking about the choices that you make are more important. I really do. Yeah? I'm going to put on a blindfold. I like that Rain Wilson advocated for a spiritual revolution. I don't know what that means. Well, I read this whole book. I do know what it means.

Put on your blindfold for a sec. Okay. What are you doing? I'm going to have you taste Diet Coke and Coke Sierra. and I want you to tell me if you can tell the difference between the two. You can take your glasses off.

I'm just wearing this in solidarity. Can you see how many fingers am I holding up? Zero. You weren't holding up any fingers, Nicole. Oh, God. That scared me. You should be scared. Okay.

I didn't expect all these feelings to get brought up. Josh, you are human. Why are just so strong feelings for me? Because you're a human being. I suppose. And we have feelings. Also, we've been doing this for such a long time.

Like, whenever you get comfortable, in your seat, like, you're gonna say things. The bully pulpit. I don't know what that means. The bully pulpit. But truly, like, I do believe that, you know, whenever you're comfortable in a setting with people and the place you are, you're bound to have feelings and emotions and say things that you really,

really, really, really want to get off your chest. Should I stop drinking Diet Cola? I don't know. Try this. Can you hold this? Can you hold this? Have a sip. Let me know which one this is.

Diet Coke, taste terrible. Okay. Tell me which one this is. That's Coke Zero. It tastes great. Okay. You're right. You're right. You did really, really good. How did you know that? How did you know that? One tastes bad. One tastes good. Really? Diet Coke is terrible. Yeah. Diet Coke tastes terrible. Can you do that for me? Yeah, I got you. I want to see if I can tell the difference. As a novice soda drinker.

Diet soda drinker. To me, I won't reveal how I figured it out. Okay. Shuffling a maran all the soda pops. Who knows which one you gotta taste. I think that one. I think... This one?

Yeah, it's not very full. So you've got to get deeper into the glass. I didn't open any new cans. That's all right. Okay. I don't know which one that is. I don't know. Okay.

So the first one I tried is Diet Coke and the second one I tried is Coke Zero? No. Oh my gosh. Wow! That's crazy. One doesn't taste bad and one tastes good to you? They both taste, like they both have like similar vibes to them.

I mean, yeah, they're obviously similar products, but... Which one is this one? That was the first one you drank. Yeah, so that was Coke Zero. Coke Zero has a really strong acidic note to it that I do not like. Interesting. That's why I like it. Because it has, I think, the acid in...

Coke Zero is more commensurate to the acid in Coca-Cola. Well, they do say that Coke Zero was engineered to taste like regular Coke. But what the fuck were they doing with Diet Coke? No one thought to try to make Diet Coke taste like Coke? I mean... Because I've read that same marketing blurb too, and it's just never made sense to me. Where I'm like, what were they doing here? They're just trying to make Diet Coke taste like bleach.

Diet Coke has this very, like, artificial saccharine taste to it, which I like, I guess. And I think I might like diet. Coke more than like Coke Zero. That's crazy. I know it's crazy. Coke Zero has this really intense, acidic punch to it. That dissipates really quickly. While Diet Coke has this like very saccharine artificial taste that lingers.

Yeah, that lingering. I like the linger. Diet Coke is such a specific flavor. I like it a lot. I truly, listen, the winner here is actually Diet Dr. Pepper because it's the best. That's what's in Josh's cup, by the way. diet so it never exist. And we're playing God and we're all going to have to pay for our sins one day.

I talked a lot with Millie Alcock about Sisyphus. You did? Yeah, we did. We talked about how much we like it. We like the feeling you don't... Ugh, I hate it. The worst thing. The worst thing that could happen is a boulder gets to the top of the hill because then what's

what's the f*** you're going to do with your time? No, no, no. The best feeling is when the boulder crashes back down. You walk away from the mountain. No. You walk away from the hill. Yes, you do. As I reach the top of the mountain, what's left for me but lightning?

Frederick Nietzsche Get out of here Oh God, he's quoting Nietzsche Oh, we gotta We gotta lighten this up Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say Now let's have to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe

It's time for a segment we call Opinions are like casseroles You can't say casserole with a frown Hey guys, my name's Natalia Number one, very, very odd answering It's not odd I think it's odd

I'm a Puerto Rican Gen X lady in New York City. And my hot take is because I grew up learning about different foods and having to try everything, I feel like in order to have more unity in this world, we need to have classes in school where everyone eats everything. We're learning about foods from around the world. Brilliant. That's a bingo. Try them all. Brilliant. And I think it should be part of our history classes.

Wow. As a tutor in high school for in a city of kids here in New York City. Wow. A lot of students just do have have no idea or the concept of geography and the world. And I feel like trying foods from different parts of the world would not only help them understand global history and geography, but it also helped unite the world, in my opinion. Just thought that my hot take would be something worthwhile. I'll see you guys later. Natalia, that is the best opinion we've ever had on this.

this show. Like actually, actually taught. Sisyph, sometimes whenever you do the Sisyphian thing, sometimes, you know, a new pebble comes into the, into the hill. Or you see like a cool little ant or a beetle. That was awesome. That was awesome. No notes. I also, like, really appreciate your perspective as somebody who's actually, like, working with high school students currently. Yes. Yes. For me, one of the, I would say a failure of the education system. However, I don't know that the goal of the education system is ever to actually educate, which is kind of a bummer. But anyways, a big missed opportunity, at least,

is the fact that school lunch is not used as an opportunity to continue education. Right? You want to treat school lunch as a class? Interesting. No, not treat school lunch as a class. Treat all of school as an opportunity to learn. Right. And eating is part of that. So the fact that there is always this insane cognitive dissonance for me of even going to school. And, you know, in French class or Spanish class we'd learn about the dishes, whatever, we'd take a nutrition class and we'd learn that, like, hey, maybe pizza isn't the best source of macronutrients or micronutrients for your entire diet. And then you would go to the school lunch line. The only options they had were pizza, pizza, hot pockets, and pizza sticks, and then chicken nuggets, right? Ultra-processed food.

And the only vegetables and fruits they had were garbage. Right. So you're, like, learning these things and then immediately shown the cognitive dissonance that you can't trust this authority in this place to follow through on the promises. So if you had, say, we are cooking all foods from Southeast Asia, you know, and there's, of course, there's no budget for it. We have trillions just to pump into fighter planes, but we can't, you know, feed children. So true. And so there is budget for it, but that's why I say the goal of our education system isn't actually to educate, and the goal of the current regime is, in fact, to gut public education to continue to funnel dark money into private institutions. So that.

Japan does a pretty good job in their public schools of using lunchtime as an opportunity to teach. Alton Brown wrote about this in his book. So I fully agree with you. I just hope that, I don't know, a larger voting populace in America does as well. And that anything, there's a lot of great organizations. Shout out to Danny Levin and the snack program in New York doing good stuff. but it needs to be a larger sweeping cultural change. I follow someone on Instagram who homeschools their kids,

and every week she has a dedicated day where she teaches her children about a country. So like she does Albania and she does Albanian food, how to say hello and goodbye in Albanian. They like get cute clothes, they watch videos, and that's really wonderful. And I agree that the schools should probably implement something similar to that, especially in geography or history classes.

Because the children are our future. By God, she's running. I'm on one today, man. I don't mind. I love when you're like this. I actually really love when you're like this. So many of the problems are obvious. But you're not sad.

You're like, you're just fired up. You're just fired up. And that's fine. I'm so glad that something like a podcast about tasting diet sodas can elicit It's such an intense response for me. That's awesome. Thanks, man. That's so exciting.

It doesn't take a lot to issue an intense response for me. That's not true. Hey, all. This is Harrison from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Hey. Shenando a river. I've got to talk to you guys. Huh.

So I've been struggling with symptoms of IBS for a long time. Oh, honey. And I've been looking for desserts that really fit my gut profile. Mm-hmm. And I was looking online and, I kept seeing different vegan options that I explored. And saw so many different things online. People saying that things like palm oils were problematic, which happened to be in the vegan thing.

Palma is also coconut oil in it, which was problematic, making it not vegan. The palm oil makes it not vegan. And there was also almonds in it. And so people were upset that there was almonds in it. Where do vegans draw the line? Oh, John. I have no idea. I don't know if this is going on.

I don't think we're ready for this opinion. Josh, Josh, Josh. Oh, no, I don't want to smoke. I don't want the smoke. I don't want to smoke. Don't say anything. We won't say anything. Well, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't.

No, Harrison. Harrison, Shenandoah Valley. Here's. Not today. I. Logan, you couldn't say something about like, I like to eat pepperoni with cheese or something like that. No, we're doing this. We're doing this.

We're doing this. We're doing this. We're doing this. They're, I respect people who want to do good. world. I'm currently getting a lot of smoke from vegans online. Still? In a way, it's, it happened a couple times. Something from last meals particularly will jump out. I talked to Joseph Gordon Levitt about how the anti, you're talking about almonds being problematic. Yeah. Everything's problematic. Let's get that out of the way. But I think it was actually a

sci-op, a marketing campaign from the dairy industry to try and convince people that almonds were the problem with the drought that they were so water-intensive. Ammons are a water-intensive crop. They're not nearly as water-intensive as dairy milk because you need to use water to grow the crops that the cows eat to then create the milk, you know what I mean? So that isn't problematic.

But anyways, I was talking to Jessica Gordon-Levin about that and, like, vegan news daily posted it. And it was me and Joseph Gordon-Levin just talking about, yeah, almond milk is actually not bad, and it was a site from the dairy industry. And then I got some new followers, but they saw me like my Instagram pictures, me posing with a ham. I love

hams. They're an artisanal American product. Shout out to Virginia. But anyways, a bunch of vegans just calling me like a murderer and how can I clutch dead flesh. And I was going to be like, I didn't and I don't want you here. I like you. I like vegan friends. I respect the fact that you're trying to do good is great.

Agreed. This happened freshly though with Alton Brown. Talking about how he doesn't eat lamb because he worked at a lamb slaughterhouse. And then he doesn't eat octopus because he had this experience with, he had this experience or an octopus, he claims recognized him at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And he then, you know, Alton Brown, being a smart, very thoughtful guy, goes, as humans,

it is the most human thing to decide what we lust for, knowing that there is going to be a physical, spiritual, environmental drawback to all of those lusts. But that is what makes us human living in those contradictions. Sure. He addresses it. He knows. And then just got a flood of vegans going like, this guy's a hypocrite. And so if you are looking for moral perfection in any of your foods, you will never find it.

You will never find it. Everything comes with a cost. The Jainist lacto-over vegetarians are as close to moral perfection as you can get in the diet. God bless my Jane homies. Janeism mentioned. I love Jainism. Sweeping in front of them to make sure they're not killing any bugs. And I'm like dead serious.

But every single thing is problematic. There is harm reduction. Turns out lamb is about the worst. thing you can eat in terms of methane production. Somebody casually said that once. There's like, lamb is actually the most environmentally destructive. I was like, surely that can't be true. And then I googled it.

It was like, oh, yeah, they're right. So, you know, there's harm reduction that you can do limiting the amount of meat that you eat, which I don't do a good job of buying local, but know that anything you consume. Yeah, there's going to be a drawback. Agreed. There's something about the orangutans and the palm oil. Yeah, the orangutans, their habitat gets demolished whenever. you harvest palm oil, but that food has been indigenous to, I'm not sure where, where.

Palm oil? Yeah. I mean, palm is like a West African thing. Yeah. And people were like shitting on West Africans and saying like, don't consume palm oil. And they're like, we've been eating this for centuries, like, F off. It's crazy, man. I, unfortunately, I don't have a strong opinion on veganism.

What I do know is that vegan people are very mindful. of what they consume and for that I am grateful. I personally don't put that much moral pressure on myself because I would go crazy if I put that much moral pressure on myself and I don't want to go crazy. So that's my mentality. It's not the best mentality. I'm far from perfect. I have no desire to be perfect.

But the meat is murder bothers me. Yeah. Because it is. But I'm still going to do it. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, listen, a lot of cultures have been eaten meat for a long time.

You know what I mean? I don't know. If you... I wish I had more insight. I wish I could... Yeah. Not care more because that's not the right word. I wish I could put more energy towards it.

But right now, I don't think I can. But I'll leave a vegan dish every now. I go to farmers market. I go to farmers markets now. They shop at a farmers market. I do it now more. Shop it, Kroger. All right, one more.

One more. One more. I've got one more. It's hard hitting. Yeah? Let's do it. My name is Kane. We've been a voicemail for you guys.

Hell yeah. Regarding my hot take. Let's do it. I happen to think that Taco Bell has the best fries out of any fast food restaurant. Not only are they limited edition, which makes you enjoy them more when they come around. Scarcity. The seasoning is phenomenal. The crunch is phenomenal.

And yeah, that's my case. Thank you for listening. Exactly what we're talking about. When you can indulge every single day six times a day, it no longer becomes special, the fact that Taco Bell's fries are LTO's, limited time offerings. We should do, we should incentivize LTO. We should do seasonal drops of. Everything. Everything should be seasonal.

Everything should be seasonal. You should only be able to drink Diet Coke once a week, once a quarter. Yes. Like the purge. Like spring. So spring, you are allowed peas, carrots, diet Coke. That's it. That's all you're allowed.

Summer, strawberries, cantaloupe, some sown fruit, and sprites. Tomatoes, late summer tomatoes. Sprite. Sprite. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Bring back season. Why don't we?

Okay, hear me out. Yeah. Why don't we as humans just, not humans, Nicole and Josh, why don't we just approach everything with seasonality at this point? Let's just do it. We should. We should. This is what sci-fi author Neil Stevenson refers to as omistics of deliberately rolling back technological advancements. Let's do it.

To try and increase our happiness in humanity. Yes. I want to start doing that. It's not going to make us happy? No more tomatoes. No, I'm saying this is great. No more tomatoes. No more tomatoes.

Unless you're canning them. Unless you're canning them. Hard winter brassicas baby. That's it. You're eating that kale at the tough leave. I truly believe that mentality of scarcity, limited time offer whatever you want to, whatever verbiage you want to use will make us happier because we won't have to think that much

about having these things at our fingertips at all times. Only TV once a week. Oh, no more screen time. Hey, your phones with a hammer. I don't watch that much TV anymore. I'm preoccupied.

I have something to live for you now a little bit. You have something to live for. That's awesome, dude. Yeah. What's that like? 10 out of 10. I love it. It's the best.

Thank you so much for watching a hot dog is a sandwich. If we made you sad, sorry. If we made you hopeful. Thumbs up. I'm so sorry. And I know what I said is out of touch because, like, frankly, I have a job where like, you know, I'm financially comfortable. Allow people to be out of touch sometimes. But, yeah, I stand by what I said.

What did you say? That was so controversial. I said that people should spend less time scrolling through their phone being depressed and more time cooking. Yeah. That's going to be taken. is tremendously out of touch because they're going to say that I have the luxury of doing that, which is true in a sense, but I think you can scrap for more luckers. You actually don't have any time to do that.

You work so hard and you work out so much. Thanks. I did spend six hours making cabbage rolls on Sunday. Cleared my schedule, didn't respond to anybody. Oh, they were so ugly. Soned out. I know. She said they're ugly.

They're good. Anyways. Bye.