Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones Classic: Christmas is Trying to Kill You

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

A pre-Christmas warning, we're re-releasing our 2015 live show outlining all the ways that you need to watch out this Christmas – and not just from Santa's wrath.This week on Sawbones, Live from Hun...tington, WV and Candlenights 2015: CHRISTMAS IS TRYING TO KILL YOU. Grandma. Egg nog. Trees. Mistletoe. The Grinch. RUN.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/Harmony House: https://harmonyhousewv.com/

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. All right. Sorry is about some books.
Starting point is 00:00:30 One, two, one, two, three, four. Two, three, three, we came across a pharmacy with its windows blasted out. Pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around. The medicines, the medicines, the Estelle and McCormack. for the mouth Hello everybody, welcome to Sawbones Merrill 2 of Misguided Medicine. I am your co-host, Justin McElroy.
Starting point is 00:01:14 I'm Sidney McElroy. Is it because you're waiting until we've both introduced ourselves and then applauding for us both? How kind. That's what I'm going to tell myself. No, no, they just like me better. Well, Sid, it's Christmas time again,
Starting point is 00:01:39 and I myself would very much like to live until Christmas. Me too. Is that, were you worried about that? Well, I wish you had told me. Sort of always him, but, like, candle nights especially gets me, like, super worried about it. Because of all the days in candle nights, Christmas is like the top three of the days.
Starting point is 00:02:02 It's in the top three for sure. But I just really want to live to it. And you think there are specific things about Christmas or candle nights or this time of year that... One is the excitement. One is the excitement. I don't know how... That you're just going to keel over from the excitement? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:21 A lot of bad movies have led me to believe that like getting excited is the leading cause of heart attacks or if the movie was made in the 50s. if your daughter enters into an interracial couple that seems to be a big one but those are the two leading causes of heart attacks I'm assuming number two in the 50s is like smoking all the time forever they constantly did I'll give you the third
Starting point is 00:02:47 the other two just no comment but that one yeah I mean that sure but I guess I'm not really that in any more danger at Christmas time than I am in any other time I don't know that that's exactly true I mean, there are definitely things that I think of as, like, this time of year, like, staples of the season that maybe you want to stay away from, that maybe might pose a little extra threat.
Starting point is 00:03:09 Sydney, are you saying Christmas is trying to kill me? I'm not saying it's trying to. I'm saying it might inadvertently kill you. Give me an example, because, like, I'm super stressed now. Well, like, mistletoe. Okay. For example. No one actually has that or knows where to get it, but we all.
Starting point is 00:03:28 know that you kiss underneath it. That's what I know about mistletoe. Has anyone ever seen Missiletoe for sale? Come on. Help me out. I'm trying to do a thing. Did you bring it? Are you trying to get lucky? Do you have it?
Starting point is 00:03:43 I love it. Do you have it scattered around the room? Hey. That's cute. Do you see what's up there? Missletoe. It's 30 years old because no one sold it for three decades. But all the kisses aren't used up. Do you know anything about Mistletoe?
Starting point is 00:03:57 like why do we I literally just gave you everything Okay So mistletoe Romantically enough is a parasitic species It's actually a collection Sounds about right
Starting point is 00:04:10 It's actually a collection of several different plants that we kind of call mistletoe But generally it's like an evergreen plant It's like viny and there are leaves And there are berries and they actually kind of grow into like the branches of other trees
Starting point is 00:04:29 and suck all the nutrients out of the trees. They're like parasites. Got it. So you can see how they were so well connected to, you know, love and romance. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. They're really important for ecosystems, so like don't get rid of all of them.
Starting point is 00:04:45 Unless I need a lot of... My ecological message for the date. Don't get rid of all the mistletoe. Everybody was trying to. Do you mean like burn them? Don't like, ah, mistletoe! Get it! Maybe. Colony collapse. I heard about that.
Starting point is 00:04:57 I'm anger. Like you hung it up at your holiday party and nobody kissed you. And at the end, you were like, No, we need it. You're going to pay. Think twice before you put it in the garbage disposal. The use of mistletoe, though, as medicine, because it has been used as medicine, dates back to the time of the druids.
Starting point is 00:05:15 The poison? What? Wait, is it, is it poisonous? Well, how did you know that? Well, I know lots of things about it. I know you can't buy it because it's poison. No, well, okay. We'll get to that.
Starting point is 00:05:32 Let's talk about why it was medicine first. Got it. So it was noted by the druids that it would grow even in the dead of winter. So even when everything else was dead and there was frost everywhere, you would see mistletoe growing. And so it was thought to be something connected to like vitality and maybe fertility. And so maybe it was a good idea to eat it or to take it in some way so that you could have more kids. You think it's how we got like the Yule Thai connection? Because it was like, it grew really well in cold times?
Starting point is 00:06:01 Well, yeah, I think that, yeah, I think that makes sense. Crushed it. Yeah, okay. Not just a hat rack, folks. The, they also give it to animals to, like, make your animals have more animal babies or animal kids. Okay. The Greeks also thought that it was a good medicine. Hippocrates recommended using it for a lot of different things from, like, problems with your splen.
Starting point is 00:06:25 which you know when you have them, right? You know when your spleen's acting up, everybody does, to menstrual cramps, which are so much harder to figure out than spleen problems. How would I know I'm having a spleen issue? Well, I mean, you wouldn't, but... Oh, okay, got it. They used to blame a lot of... I'm with you now.
Starting point is 00:06:43 They used to blame a lot of stuff on their spleens. Okay. They used to be a common thing. Like, oh, it's just your spleen acting up. That's why you're so crouchy. Eat some mistletoe. Eat some mistletoe. You know who else was a big proponent of mistletoe?
Starting point is 00:06:59 Who? Somebody who I like to think I've made a little bit of a celebrity. Who? Pliny the Elder. Oh, that fool always shows up. Every time Plenty the Elder gets cheers when we say his name, it makes me happy. Yeah. I'm like this dude from back in history, like somewhere, like, I mean, he's dead, but somewhere
Starting point is 00:07:19 in his grave, we're all cheering for him, and it's like, yes. I did it. I've lived on. I got on a podcast. Also, what's a podcast? I told my dad, I'd get it on a podcast. He was like, what's that? Plenty.
Starting point is 00:07:33 Plenty. I, Plenty, the elder, elder in wondering what a podcast is. And Plenty the elder was like, I don't know, fool, but I'm going to get on there. And I'm going to make it legal to dance here, wherever we are at. Greece? Ro. Where was it illegal to dance? Footloose?
Starting point is 00:07:54 That's right. That's right. I got foot loose and grease makes up. Because they both have kind of a... Connect full loose to grease now as fast as you can.
Starting point is 00:08:07 You've got six moves. Did they both have a character named Danny Zucco? I guess there's that. So, Plenty thought that it was good for epilepsy, for ulcers,
Starting point is 00:08:20 and also to treat poisoning, which is really strange as we'll cover soon. But he also wrote, the reason that we think the druids used it for medicine, as I mentioned earlier, the reason I think that is because of what Pliny wrote about it. So he wrote this big description of the way it was used in what was called the druid's ritual of oak and mistletoe. And this is actually where a lot of people kind of get their perceptions of what druids were like, like with trees and everything. Because he wrote this big description of this ritual where on the sixth day of the moon, you have. hail in the moon and that means
Starting point is 00:08:56 they have a word that means healing all things and you prepare a ritual sacrifice and you have a tree with mistletoe and then you're going to kill two white bulls and then you're going to kill some bulls and then you're going to take the mistletoe
Starting point is 00:09:12 and you boil it and you drink this drink and then everybody's going to get pregnant and it's a great ritual I'm assuming you have to do something else after that like you're going to kill the bulls you drink the mistletoe drink then we won't talk about the next part this is a family show
Starting point is 00:09:27 but then they're babies okay got it get it but that's probably where we and that's the only place that this like ritual is really well described and that's probably where we all get
Starting point is 00:09:37 that weird perception of like the druids like trees kill bulls you know chanting Stonehenge were the Druid's Stonehenge I don't think so
Starting point is 00:09:48 okay maybe I don't know hey were the druid's Stonehenge all right cool Yes, but I think that's where that perception, it's from Plenty. Oh. And as we all know, Plenty only sort of knew what he was ever talking about. Ever. Like, yeah, at best, he was 20% accurate.
Starting point is 00:10:05 In the Middle Ages, it was sort of used as a medicine in the sense that you would hang it from, like, your ceiling to ward off evil spirits. So that's medicinal. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I'll grant you that. Sure, why not? You could hang it around your door to scare off witches? Or vampire, like, regardless. like with vampires, that kind of thing? I didn't say vampires, witches. This is very specific.
Starting point is 00:10:28 Okay, got it. Just witches. It was also thought that it would stop fire, but I'm thinking that if something's on fire and you throw a mistletoe on it, it's not going to stop it. That's the, okay, wait, hold on, stop, wait, no, stop. That's when you could, like, once.
Starting point is 00:10:45 Like, right? You try that once. It's like, nope, this, we crack this one. It does not help with fire. That fire got bigger. That fire got bigger because there's things. are burning it. What were we thinking? Why did we listen to Greg? It's used as something for kissing purposes. Kissing purposes. Probably actually
Starting point is 00:11:08 dates back to its connection to the Greek festival of Saturnalia because it was a symbol of fertility. We've already established this. So it could be used for like marriage rights and then it was also just associated with romance and love and that kind of thing. There There were even like enemies could make truces over or underneath some mistletoe. So you would find mistletoe in a tree and then you could like shake hands with your enemy and then you were cool. Okay. So or kiss them, I guess.
Starting point is 00:11:32 Or kiss them. If you secretly love them, oh, that's so dramatic. You secretly loved them all along and then shake hands and you're like, ah, I love you all the time. It's like the cutting edge, right? You thought they were fighting the whole time and then she was like, Toepic. And then he, but then they got together at the end. Yeah, it's the one movie where the two people don't really like it. each other at the beginning, and then later on they fall in love.
Starting point is 00:11:57 I would try to explore that trope more. Where do they come up with this stuff? Hollywood. So in Victorian times, you know, mistletoe had become an established tradition, and you, the way that it works is that if you saw a woman standing underneath the mistletoe, so I guess if you were a Victorian man, you would like hang it up everywhere like traps, you saw a woman standing underneath it, you were allowed to kiss her, and she can't refuse, or else it's bad luck, which is little creepy, like pretty creepy. A little, yeah. What goes along with that is that, you know, there are berries on mistletoe, right, the little white berries. And what you would do
Starting point is 00:12:32 is every time somebody got kissed under it, it like used up a little bit of the mistletoe, so you would fuck off a berry. And then once all the berries are gone, there's no more kissing power. Oh, kissing power is exhausted. So you're done, so no more. I'm glad there's a scientific basis behind it that you have kiss fuel that you expend. From mistletoe berries. Now, the thing that we've already alluded to is that the sad thing about mistletoe is that it is poisonous. Oh, man. Definitely poisonous. There are a couple different varieties that are poisonous.
Starting point is 00:13:02 The most common has a toxin called forotoxin, which can cause, I would say some pretty unromantic things, like drowsiness, diarrhea, blurred vision, puking, weakness, and seizures, which is crazy because, as I mentioned, it's been used to treat seizures for a really long time. So not well. Not a good idea. All parts of it are dangerous, not just the berries. So like if you really have a hankering to eat a mistletoe leaf, which I don't, like, they're kind of poignant. Okay, but like berries, you think that they might want to eat those? I mean, they're berries. Yeah, that's true.
Starting point is 00:13:37 Berries are delicious. I can see getting hungry enough and not getting any mooches and thinking like, man, I'm going to eat you. You're useless, you stupid plant. I'm just going to eat you. You're not good for anything. What's crazy is that... This is a worst holiday party. my life. Now it's going to end with seizures. What have I done? Despite the fact that it is
Starting point is 00:14:01 definitely poisonous, it's still kind of a staple in some like alternative medicines. You can use mistletoe like injections. You can take it as an oral preparation or there are like shots of mistletoe that you can be prescribed, especially in Europe they do this for everything from like headaches to again infertility. That theme is still there. high blood pressure arthritis for seizures again I don't know there are even some places where it has been used for cancer wow effectively or no no no no no no no no no no no no there are okay well I'll cut it I'll cut it a little because usually we get really we are really upset about this I'm gonna cut it a little bit of slack because there have been
Starting point is 00:14:43 some studies done in labs that show that like mistletoe really does kill cancer cells in labs But in people, we haven't really seen such great results. So I don't know that I would be rushing off to get a mistletoe injection. Okay, perfect. But we've been investigating it since the 60s. So we are really hot to use mistletoe as medicine. I don't know, I don't know why. Well, we, is it expensive?
Starting point is 00:15:11 I mean, I've never bought it. Because maybe they want to sell it. No, that. I like that thinking, the drug company. The berries look like. drug companies are always out to make a buck with mistletoe. The berries look like little pills too, so.
Starting point is 00:15:23 So it's perfect. But I would say that despite that, my best advice, and this is important. Good, because I'm a little confused about mistletoe, because I do want to not get cancer. Okay, but you also don't want to die for Christmas. Right, so what's
Starting point is 00:15:40 the number one? Give me some guide rules for mistletoe. I'm going to break it down real simple, because I know that's not just cheer wine in that can. Um, very simply. Thanks to hear. We brought the chair on, by the way. Don't eat mistletoe.
Starting point is 00:15:56 Don't everybody. Don't eat mistletoe. Okay. That seems very fair to me. Okay. Um, that's an easier thing to, to remember because, uh, I've, I've always been somebody who believes that, but above all, Justin, are you okay?
Starting point is 00:16:16 Don't. It's the Grinch! Oh no! The Grinch, no! No! No, not me, Grinch. Why was I so festive? No!
Starting point is 00:16:26 The Grinch stole Justin! Oh no! Oh no. He's such a mean one. The medicines, the medicines that escalate macabre for the mouth. Oh no. I feel like that part in Wayne's world when it's just garth, you know? Um, well, so usually, um, on sawbones when Justin isn't here, I have like a backup. Um, I think I need a, somebody to fill in. Can I, can I, can I, can I, yeah, thank you.
Starting point is 00:17:16 My backup, my hand in. No, you're going to have to sit over here with a mic first. This is Riley. She's my sister. You may remember her from such episodes of Sawbones as the one where Riley was there or the other one where Riley was there. Or maybe the ones you just skipped because Justin wasn't on there. No. No. There was a, see, there was this crazy thing that happened once where Justin and Riley freaky Friday into each other's bodies. And so Riley had to help me, well Justin in Riley's body had to help me host the podcast.
Starting point is 00:17:56 And then Riley in Justin's body, I think you had to help. cover E3? I did, and it was really confusing. I don't know a lot about video games or traveling or anything. I don't know how you didn't get Justin fired, but I'm glad. I almost did, but then I recovered and just made a funny joke that sounded like something Justin would say. You just pretended your way through. Yeah. Well, Riley, thank you. The Grinch told Justin, So I'm assuming he'll bring him back at some point. Christmas came early for me. But we're talking about,
Starting point is 00:18:35 Justin and I've been talking about things that could kill you at Christmas. And you asked me a really weird question the other day about things that could kill you at Christmas. Could you share that, and this is real, this isn't like a bit. She really asked me this question. I'm still wondering about it,
Starting point is 00:18:53 and it's a real question. Do you think anyone has ever tried to poison Santa Claus with cookies? So I have some problems with this. I'm a little worried. So where are you on the Santa existence? What? Okay, I got it. Never mind.
Starting point is 00:19:14 We'll move on from there. Okay, so I hope not. I mean, I would hope so too. That would be awful. Right. Who could ever do such a thing? But, well, some people have tried to poison others with Christmas cookies. It's such a jolly season.
Starting point is 00:19:30 I know. But cookies are so delicious and nobody can resist them, and so they're perfect for poisoning. I mean, I guess I get it, but it's Christmas. So let me tell you about a couple times where I don't know, I mean, let's say they weren't trying to poison Santa with Christmas cookies, but Santa may have been like an accidental victim of these cookies had they been set out, right? It happened? Yes. Well, not, I mean, not Santa. Like, Santa was not killed by Christmas cookies.
Starting point is 00:19:56 You're scared right now. As far as I know, I mean, tell me, I don't keep up with Twitter all the time, so somebody let me know during this show. So last year, there was a woman in New York. And when you look at these, by the way, if you ever look at these stories, because these are real stories, the women who have done this look so sweet. They're mugshots. They're in, like, Christmas sweaters.
Starting point is 00:20:18 They're like these little ladies, and they're like, hi. And I poison somebody with cookies. There was an older woman in New York who mailed Christmas cookies laced with rat poisoning and laxatives. Because I love that. It's not enough just to kill somebody. You're going to poop yourself a lot before you die. That's almost worse, isn't it? I think so. Like it's insult to injury. It's like, ha, ha, ha, you're pooping and you're dying. Ha ha ha. and she mailed them to like another resident of the town she lived in randomly
Starting point is 00:20:58 and the resident got suspicious. I don't know if they like sniffed the cookies or gave them to somebody they didn't like. I don't know what they did, but they called the police and they got the woman arrested. And seriously, you should look up this mugshot because she looks so pleasant. Wait. But she tried to kill somebody with Christmas cookies. So she has picked a random person. She is like picked her in a matter of the phone book and was like,
Starting point is 00:21:19 like, this is what I want for Christmas this year. I want to kill someone while they're pooping their pants with Christmas cookies. I guess she was bored? I mean, hey. It was a dare. She just had a lot of vacation time around Christmas and was like, eh, you know, it's on the bucket list. Now, week before last, this just happened.
Starting point is 00:21:41 This was just in the news. Breaking news. Yeah, breaking news week before last. There was an older woman in Germany who was caught handing out. out poisoned Christmas cookies just to people like out in the town square. So she lived in Berlin and she was just wandering up to people like a really pleasant-looking woman. I was like, hello, dearie.
Starting point is 00:21:59 Here's it. Well, only in German. I can't speak German. But hello, dearie, in German. Here's some Christmas cookies. So, snow-white. It's sort of like snow-wife. Eat this apple, but it's better.
Starting point is 00:22:10 It's cookies. Who could do such a thing? I know. So she gave cookies to this couple and they got super sick. and ended up in the hospital, and it turned out, again, rat poison. Why is this such a common, like, Christmas time occurrence? I don't know, and why rat poisoning? Why rat poisoning?
Starting point is 00:22:29 I don't know. Does anyone know? What's terrifying is she's still at large. What? Are you here? They haven't caught her yet, so I guess if you go to Berlin, be careful. Don't take cookies from strangers. I would think that would be, like,
Starting point is 00:22:49 common sense I mean I don't know maybe not for most people not see like a random lady on the street just be like hey here's some cookies and they're like oh my gosh thank you but do you know that weirdly do you know that they also tried to assassinate Rasputin with cookies you know like Rasputin from like the Disney movie I don't that one what the evil sorcerer guy from the Disney movie and that what he was he was in the Disney movie and the I've never seen that movie you don't know who Rasputin is we'll cover that another day Anyway, they tried to assassinate him with cookies, but it didn't work, so they shot him, or stabbed him or something.
Starting point is 00:23:25 I would think the cookies would be a better way to go. I think there's a really practical piece of advice that I can give you, and listen very closely, and you have to pay attention, because, again, that's not just cheer wine, don't drink that, but because you're a teenager, and, you know, I know with the phones and the TV and the electronic, the attention. The gadgets, right. Don't eat cookies. Ever? I would say just don't. Be on the safe side. Just don't eat cookies.
Starting point is 00:24:00 That's such a depressing thing to tell me. Cindy, Riley! Justin's back. No. I'm okay. He was, um... He's doing massages. He feels bad about it.
Starting point is 00:24:18 ceiling, all the ceiling, bad Christmas stuff, and he's doing massages. What? Yeah, he's doing spot stuff, all the spot stuff. That sounds really, it sounds really creepy. I mean, Sidney just told me how to take cookies
Starting point is 00:24:32 from strangers. Why would I take massages from strangers? Maybe a manipetti? I could, I could go for a minipetty right now. Ladies are doing with Riley Smurrow. Riley. Now he's back. Those have to...
Starting point is 00:24:54 So, mistletoe, whatever you just talked about. Right. Cookies. Oh, cookies. Oh, man. Does you eat anything cookies, or is it just off? Oh, no, no, I told him... I told Riley not to. I told everybody not to. Perfect. Okay, good.
Starting point is 00:25:08 I didn't think cookies ever again, because I told me not to. As long as I didn't miss any eating of cookies. But those are the two things that have to worry about a Christmas, right? Nah, not the, probably not the only two things. what about holly oh no no no no you got to watch out for holly if you eat just because you probably have heard this too holly is poisonous as well um if you eat a couple berry christmas how's it going seems bad like a lot of poisonous things it seems like
Starting point is 00:25:35 if you eat like one or two berries you're i mean you're probably going to be okay like i don't know why you want to do this like i heard i would be okay if i ate these two i don't think they're delicious you're trying to build up a tolerance like iocaine powder Let me try like, by next Christmas, I'm going to be able to eat three holly berries. God is my witness. But if you eat like 20, you'll die, so don't do that. Okay, got it. So somewhere between two and 20 is the number.
Starting point is 00:25:58 Don't try it. It has something called Theo Bromine, which is actually really structurally similar to caffeine. And there's a lot of it in chocolate, not enough to hurt us, but that's why dogs can't eat chocolate. Oh. I figured this puzzle out while I was solving this. a folly problem. I'm sorry, I just was excited about. What about, no, that's good. What about Poinsettias? Everybody loves those
Starting point is 00:26:22 and knows where to buy them. And Poinsettas. I think kind of sound like Poinsets. Poinsettias, they sound like Poinsettias or Poinsettos. Okay. Got it. I think they kind of sound like poison either way. And everybody, I think, knows, like, don't eat Poinsettos, they're actually not as bad for you. So if you want to eat a
Starting point is 00:26:41 poinsetta, and then you, like, let's say you have something you want to get out of, so you want to be sick, but not really sick you could eat some poinsetta because it'll just make you kind of like oh my tummy but it like sorry one more time
Starting point is 00:26:54 oh my tummy that's really cute so I just want to see it good okay that's kind of like how you and your brothers are all the time you kind of always like oh my tummy
Starting point is 00:27:03 okay well what about what about Christmas trees certainly they're okay right if you want to eat a pine tree oh tanon bomb if you want to
Starting point is 00:27:16 I want to eat a pine tree, you'll probably be okay like in terms of like... You know me so well. But like a lot of people... I do. I do want to do that. A lot of people don't eat pine trees. I don't know what they're missing. The secret is you got to cook them low and slow.
Starting point is 00:27:32 If you try to rush into that bad boy, it's going to be tough as nails. You got to cook it low and slow. 12 hours, saute, little rosemary, little bark. Extra bark. It's more of a... It's more of a mechanical problem
Starting point is 00:27:47 because the little needles will like lodge in your GI track and that's bad. Like you don't want that. Do you know, Travis actually got a Christmas tree needle stuck in his foot once and got infected to get surgery?
Starting point is 00:28:01 Ask him about it later. Is he okay? No. Oh. Okay. So we'll be closing the show tonight. Good night. Thank you for coming.
Starting point is 00:28:11 This is the lock. Eggnog. Eggnog. Hey, real quick, carry your show of hands. If you're down with eggnog, raise your hand. I'm curious where we stand. Okay, put them down. Not down with egg dog.
Starting point is 00:28:21 Raise your hand. It's literally like 50-50, right? It's crazy. Okay. Sorry. You're like eh on it, right? We made our own. Oh, I like eggnog.
Starting point is 00:28:29 You're into it. We made our own. It was great. Anywho. And we made our own, and we made it without, like, cooking anything. We just made, like, the raw eggs. That's how we do, right or die.
Starting point is 00:28:39 We don't care. Blended them on. I know a doctor. So the reason that everybody's worried about eggnog is because, like, raw eggs, salmonella, right? Like, we did a whole show on that. I'm not going to talk about salmonella again. Look it up. It's probably okay most of the time if the eggs were pasteurized.
Starting point is 00:29:00 You're probably still pretty cool. Like, there is a risk. It's, like, something in, like, 400,000 eggs a year in the U.S. do have salmonella in them. So, I don't know, take your chances. Yeah. Maybe. I think this is kind of cool. At Rockefeller University, there is a bacterial pathogenesis and immunology lab
Starting point is 00:29:18 where they have been for like 50 years, every year around this time, well, earlier in December, they make a batch of eggnog and then out of raw eggs and then they keep it in the cold room, like not in the fridge, in the cold room, until Christmas and then they all drink it and nobody gets sick. Oh, really? I guess this is how like bacteriologists have fun. I'm like, aha. We knew it was safe, and we proved it. Take that.
Starting point is 00:29:45 Don't they have, like, science for that? Can't they just do some science? It may be because the batch they make is, like, 14% alcohol, which is a little higher than most of, like, your store-bought eggnogs or, like, what you're probably making. Not quite cheer wine levels, but... I mean, this cheer wine. Yeah, no, really.
Starting point is 00:30:05 But generally, the booze won't kill the bacteria, so don't rely on them. I mean, do add it, but don't rely on that. Sydney, can I sing you something? Yeah. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. What about chestnuts? Yeah, you want to be really careful about that. Okay.
Starting point is 00:30:20 The main reason is, I mean, chestnuts are fine. If you get the eating ones, the sweet chestnuts, the American chestnuts. If you accidentally get horse chestnuts, those are definitely poisonous and will make you puke a lot. Cool. So don't eat that. And you should be able to tell because the chestnuts you can eat are encased. in this super sharp, like needle sharp shell
Starting point is 00:30:43 of little spiny green things. And if you pick it up, it hurts really badly. So if it's that, eat it. Cool job, nature. You did it again. We have a ton of those in our backyard. Grandma and Grandpa? You might want to be careful.
Starting point is 00:31:00 What? About grandma and grandpa. Because this was actually, I found this on a list of like dangers around the holiday season. Watch out for these things. watch out for grandma and grandpa, they might have medicine in their purse. And your kids might get into it.
Starting point is 00:31:17 Like, don't. You think they're so cuddly and snuggily, grandma and grandpa, and then... They're walking dangers with fake teeth. They're waiting to give your kids drugs. If I have to worry about everybody's going to give our baby drugs, I'm never going to get to do anything else. What about my free time, you know?
Starting point is 00:31:37 So is there anything... Is there anything you can trust? I mean, like, just the, you know, the joy and the peace of the holiday season, brotherly love and family togetherness. Beer. Okay, great. That's all I got. Ladies and gentlemen.
Starting point is 00:31:57 I didn't research beer, so it may be, I'm never going to know. It may be dangerous, but I'm just going to stick with it. It's fine. That's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for coming out to Canada Nights. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming. You're also super cool, but anyway. Thank you to the Grinch for stealing Justin.
Starting point is 00:32:16 Thanks to the Grinch. So that Riley could come out. Thanks to Riley Smurl. And for Sydney, so until the next time we talk to you for perfectly safe beer, my name is Justin McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Maximum Fun.
Starting point is 00:32:56 A Worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.

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