Science Friday - Attention, Trivia Nerds! It’s A Food Science Fact Feast

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

After years of getting your emails and phone calls, we know that SciFri listeners are in the 99th percentile when it comes to nerdy knowledge. We’re putting your fact retention skills to the test with the first ever Super Food Science Excellence Trivia Blowout (SFSETBO).Host Flora Lichtman teams up with trivia kingpin Mangesh Hattikudur, co-host of the podcast “Part-Time Genius,” to quiz one lucky listener on her food science knowledge.Guest: Mangesh Hattikudur is the co-host of “Part-Time Genius” and co-founder of Kaleidoscope.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Hey, it's Flora Lickman, and you're listening to Science Friday. Today in the show, food science trivia. Please let it be pop rocks. Today in the show, we are going to do something a little different. We're going to play a game, and maybe you can play along. We know that after years of getting your emails and phone calls, that SciFri fans are in the 99th percentile when it comes to nerdy knowledge. So we figured, let's test your facts.

retention skills and play some trivia. We're calling the game SFS E-T-B-O. S-F-S-F-S-E-T-B-O. Superfood Science Excellence Trivia Blowout. And we teamed up with my friend and trivia Kingpin, Mangesh, Hatikudur, co-host of the podcast Part-Time Genius, which scours the globe in search of obscure facts, hidden histories and strange science stories.

Hi, Mangesh. Hey, how's it going, Flora? I know you have a zest for trivia. I mean, I think trivia is the easiest way to deflect when you don't know about things. Really? I feel the exact opposite as someone who's terrible at trivia. I mean, I don't really remember that much trivia, even though I love it. But I feel like, you know, when someone's talking about birdwatching, I can always drop in a fact about flamingos that I learned from you and how they can drink boiling water, which I think is just so amazing. That's the only fact I have retained, you know, in all my years of doing this.

It's burned into my brain, into my bird brain. Okay, so let's get started. We reached out to Science Friday listeners, many of you through your name in the ring, and we have a very special contestant today to play the game with us. Emily is a medical student based in Indianapolis. We have her on the line. Hey, Emily. Hi.

Emily, are you a trivia game veteran? Oh, 100%. I have to reach kind of far back to establish cred, but I talked to my twin sister last night. She reminded me that she and I were both not only state trivia champions in high school, but also in middle school. So from age 10 to 18, we ran the state of Indiana. That's incredible. You're going to crush today. Today's theme is food science.

And I don't think your medical training is going to help here, but we do have some pretty fun prizes. Emily, are you ready? I'm so ready. Hit me with your food questions. So number one, pandas are unable to detect which basic taste. Is it A, sweet, B, sour, C, bitter, or D, umami? Hmm. Well, all I can picture is pandas eating green leaves, so they must not care a lot about sugar. I'm going to guess sweet. Oh, sweet is very, very close, but it is actually umami. Panda ancestors were carnivores, and now after millions of years on a bamboo-based diet, the panda's taste receptors can no longer recognize umami. The savory flavor

associated with proteins like meat. All right, so starting strong here. While we're here, can I hit you all with an additional panda fun food fact? Yes. I did not know this, but pandas spend up to 12 hours a day eating bamboo, which is like me with seaweed snacks. But 12 hours a day of bamboo, we are talking like 80 to 100 pounds of bamboo a day. according to the National Zoo.

Yeah, but like when you think of caloric density and how much food they actually have to get in their body, if you're only eating bamboo, like I'd have to eat for 12 hours a day also. That's exactly it. I love having a medical professional on the line because they only, yeah, they only digest a fraction of it, like 17 percent or something like that. I know. I feel like you came up with the rationale for that very, very quickly, which is brilliant. I'm so glad you're on. So why don't we continue? Number two, what happens when a food experiences a my-e-r reaction? I know this. Does it A, go bad, B, turn brown. C, it loses half its nutritional value, or D, it gets really, really into John Mayer. I hope it's not D. It's B. It becomes brown and delicious. That is incredible. Yay.

Yeah, absolutely. It turns brown. It is named for the French chemist who first described it. And this chemical reaction is responsible for the brown color and the complex flavor of everything from like baked bread, cooked meat, and even dark roast coffee. My favorite. You know, we talked about this on Science Friday with a food scientist Ariel Johnson. And apparently if you want to kick the myar reaction up, notch. She gave us some tips. So here she is. So if you want more browning, you can think about adding more sugar. But if you can increase the amount of protein and amino acids you have, you'll get much more browning. It's also very sensitive to pH, to acidity and alkalinity.

You get more browning under alkaline conditions and less browning under acidic conditions. So if it's going to brown, you can add some acid. If you want as much brown of possible, you can add, for example, a little baking soda. And that has to do with actually, like, whether the amino end of the amino acid is protonated. Emily, are you like, yeah, duh, pronation, duh. I was imagining this structure of an amino acid in my head. And I was like, all the words she's saying separately makes sense. But together, I'm just going to go with, I like brown food.

That sounds great. So we're going to progress to number three. I have a feeling you're going to get this one, too. So which American pharmacist developed a scale to measure the pungency or spiciness of chili peppers? Wilbur Schoville, Norville Rogers, John Pepperton, or Dr. Pepper? It's the Scoville Heat Index, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, his scale measures the amount of dilution required before the burn of a chili can no longer be felt.

Are you a chili person? a chili pepper person, Emily? I'm not. My kid is. I have an eight-year-old who loves spicy foods. He ate wasabi when he was like two years old. Well, this is a fun fact just for your kid. When you all think about the source of heat in chili peppers, where do you think the heat is in the pepper? I feel like I read recently that like we all think it's the seeds, but it's actually somewhere else. Emily, you know too much. Of course, when you have a lot of course, when you have a lot of a state champion trivia person that you already know the thing I'm going to tell you. That is exactly right. Here's Paul Boslin, director of the Chili Pepper Institute and a professor at New Mexico

State University. It is the veins. It's the cross wall of the chili that has the heat. The seeds have no heat, but being very close to those cross walls and the veins, you know, one would associate that with the heat. But the walls of a chili are not hot. And we always have a little joke here. We take someone to our teaching garden where we have 150 different varieties of chilies, and I'll take a jalapeno and eat a piece of the wall and then get somebody the piece of the vein, their mouth will get on fire, and I'll look like, oh, not bothering me a bit, but it's just a little breeder's joke, we say. I love that.

And a breeder's joke is this. That sounds diabolical. That's not fair. Well, here's question number four. Which of the falling foods is so rich in carbon that it can be made into a, Diamond. Is it A. Beef, B, peanut butter, C, green peppers, or D, Poprox? Oh, man. I'm going to go with the carbohydrate-based food and say it's Poprox. Please let it be Pop-Rox.

Also, like, you have a scientific rationale, which I really love. I want it to be Pop-Rox. Unfortunately, it is peanut butter. During an experiment to reproduce the pressure conditions of Earth's lower mantle, the British scientist Daniel Frost successfully forged carbon-rich peanut butter into microscopic diamonds. So I guess in this economy, we should be stocking up on peanut butter. It's a good investment. Awesome. Okay.

So this is the final question. I'm sure there's a lot of pressure on you, Emily. This is for all the marbles. The unique properties of honey make it one of the few foods that can never do what. Is it A, expire, B, freeze, C, evaporate, or D, disappoint? I go with expire and disappoint, because honey is delightful. I'm on disappoint. Never can disappoint. Yes.

You are right on both counts. So you get a bonus point. But the answer we had here is expire. So due to its low moisture content, natural acidity, and the presence of hydrogen peroxide, honey doesn't foster the growth of spoilage organisms such as bacteria. And that is how archaeologists have been able to find 3,000-year-old pots of honey that are still perfectly edible. Would you try that? I think I would.

If someone told me it was safe. So, Flora, you want to tell Emily what she's won? I would love to. Emily, you have won an amazing assortment of Science Friday and Part-Time Genius merch. And as always, we're going to throw in an atomic fireball, which is the official sciencey candy of part-time genius. Amazing. Thank you so much. But that's not all because you did so well. We're also going to send you a bottle of Lina Weber's Hot Honey, which won? just like you, the grand prize in this year's Scovey Awards and is made in your home state of Indiana.

All right, Indiana. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you for playing, Emily. We are so thrilled to crown you with the first superfood science, excellent trivia, blowout crown as well. So congrats on that. It's been delightful. Have a happy science Friday. Magis, thank you so much for doing this with us. Oh my gosh, Flora. It was so fun. really hope it's not the last time we do it. Me too. Let's do it again. SFS ETBO two coming to.

I'm ready. If you like the show, rate and review us wherever you listen, or just go straight to guerrilla marketing. Take a friend's phone and subscribe them to this podcast. Please help us get the word out about science Friday. Today's episode was produced by Shoshana Bucksbaum. I'm Flora Lichten. Thanks for listening.