Something You Should Know - Fascinating Ways Different Foods Affect You & Cool Life Hacks That Will Save You Time & Money

Episode Date: July 19, 2018

When you want something from someone else – like in a negotiation – it usually doesn’t pay to get mad. But it might be a good idea to get sad. This episode begins with some interesting research that can help you get better at getting what you want. http://www.thestar.com/business/careers/2015/07/02/wanta-raise-try-crying-it-8217-s-science-.html Does eating sweets put you in a sweeter mood? Does thinking a food is high in fat rev your body up to burn the calories better? These are just a few questions I discuss with neuroscientist Rachel Herz, who teaches at Brown University and Boston College. Rachel is the author of the book Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food https://amzn.to/2L5HAxj. What she has to say about you and your food will startle you. Why do mosquito bites always itch? Why can’t they take your blood and be done with it? I’ll reveal the anatomy of a mosquito bite and why it is so annoying. http://mentalfloss.com/article/64950/why-do-mosquito-bites-itch-so-much Who doesn’t love life hacks? And there is no better expert on the topic than David Pogue, author of Pogue’s Basics: Life https://amzn.to/2NPyhAo. David joins me to discuss simple hacks that can save you time and money: like how to get the last of ketchup out of the bottle, how to read when you don’t have your glasses, how to get a better price on hotels and more. You’ll like and remember what he has to say.  This Week’s Sponsors Hoka One One. Get free expedited shipping on your first pair of shoes by going to www.hokaoneone.com/SYSK and use the promo code SYSK InterContinental Hotel Group. Listen to the podcast called “Stories of the InterContinental Life” at Apple Podcasts, GooglePlay or wherever you listen to podcasts Quip Toothbrush. Order your Quip toothbrush and get your first refill pack free by going to www.GetQuip.com/something Bombas Socks. Get 20% off your first order by going to www.Bombas.com/something and using the promo code SOMETHING Hunt A Killer. Order now and get 10% of your first box. Go to www.HuntAKiller.com and use the promo code SOMETHING Sworkit. Get your 30 day free trial and then 10% off your subscription by going to www.Sworkit.com/something and use the offer code SOMETHING FIXD. Get 10% off your purchase by going to www.ListenToMyCar.com and use the promo code SOMETHING Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, when you want something from someone who isn't giving it to you, is it better to get mad or sad? I'll answer that, plus our relationship with food. For instance, the research on sugar and sweets says... We are driven to want sweets. Now people vary to the extent to which they have a sweet tooth. But for instance, in a really important meeting, it actually is quite a good idea to bring some small sweet treats because doing that will make people in a better mood and more agreeable. Then, when mosquitoes bite, why do they always leave that bump and itch that drives you crazy? Plus, great life hacks that will make your life so much easier.

For example... It's quite amazing if you use an app or a website on your smartphone, you will save a ton of money for the identical hotel room using the identical booking service than if you use your laptop or your desktop. All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right?

Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.

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Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome. Here's an interesting question to start this episode of the podcast. If you want to get something and someone's not giving it to you, is it better to get mad or to get sad? Well, it turns out getting sad, even crying, is best. A business school placed 168 students in four negotiations to see whether

people acting sad got more out of the situation than those who acted neutral or got angry. In each scenario, the participants were asked to negotiate a deal with points awarded for achieving certain goals. One of the pair was told to act sad during the bargaining while the other remained neutral. In all four scenarios, those acting sad were able to gain more concessions from the other side. However, researchers said the tactic seems to work best when the other party feels superior to the person crying or getting upset, or if they think they might meet them again in the future. Crying is also effective when the relationship between the two parties

is seen as collaborative. The downside of faking sadness is that it could actually make you sad in the long run. And using the tactic too many times could also mean it loses its effectiveness and may even lead people to become annoyed with you as that person who always gets sad every time they want something. And that is something you should know. For much of human history, people ate whatever they could get their hands on. Finding food, any food to be on. author of the book, Why You Eat What You Eat, The Science Behind Our Relationship With Food. Hi, Rachel. Welcome. Thank you, Michael. Great to be on.

It's interesting that humans for so long throughout history have struggled to find food, and today we struggle to resist food. Right. Now, we are living in an atypical phase of our evolutionary biology in the sense that we are struggling to resist all the tempting delights that are around us all the time. And most of us have a problem with saying, no, I kept trying not to eat rather than searching for food, you know, all day long. And that is the main goal of the day. So we are, unfortunately, from the point of view of present day, programmed to be very, very attracted to foods that are very high in calories,

especially those that are high in sugar and high in fat. And they're, you know, a little sugar and a little fat are great, but the point and the problem is that there's too much of that around us. And so we have to kind of fight our own nature as it were to try to resist overdoing it. But this is a question I've asked a lot of people I've always wondered about that we have this obesity problem now and people are eating a lot of junk but if you go back to the 60s I mean there were still a lot of fatty sugary foods in the supermarket but people weren't as fat as they are now so what changed? Probably the most significant from the point of view of

changing people's waistlines is probably portion size. And especially from the point of view of going out to restaurants. And I think also there is much more eating outside of the home in general. So we are much more exposed to these really large portions. And we then tend to think that these portions are actually normal. So that when we go home and we're making ourselves food, we're also serving ourselves very big portions. And I think a lot of the time we're not paying attention to how food is making us feel, if it's making us feel full,

if we're getting satisfaction from it. And this ties into something else, which is that we're often very distracted when we're eating these days. So a lot of people end up eating their main meals in front of the television or maybe in front of a screen, you know, working or something like that. And when you do that, you don't pay attention to how much you're eating and can definitely overeat. So by paying attention to what you're eating and being more mindful of the plate in front of you, you will tend to eat less? You'll tend to eat less and you'll also get a lot more

pleasure and satisfaction from eating. Because when we pay attention, we actually get more sensation. We get more flavor we actually get more sensation. We get more flavor. We get more enjoyment. And so you can feel like, okay, you know, I've just really enjoyed what I've just eaten and I actually feel full. I feel satisfied. But if you're not paying attention, even if it's the most delicious thing and your hand is just going in, you know, reaching into the souffle or the potato chips or the chocolate

cake or whatever the case might be, you're not even getting the full flavor profile. And as a function of that, you're not getting the same kind of satisfaction, which can also lead you to eat more, on top of which you're just not even paying attention and, you know, just keep on eating as a function of the habit of it rather than the intentionality of it. So what are some of the main things that influence the average Joe throughout his day? What are the things that cause us to eat what we eat? So one of the things that's interesting, if the average Joe, for example, walked into a fast food restaurant where there was a really loud, fast music playing, that actually can make us eat more quickly and also take more bites and therefore also overeat potentially.

We're also less likely to be engrossed and engaged in the food because the music is also distracting. And really loud music can actually change how food tastes. So this was, in fact, there was a fascinating study done based on an observation made by Lufthansa, the German airline company, who noticed that people were ordering as much tomato juice as beer on flights. And this is kind of strange when you have the opportunity for beer, but also it's strange because fruit juice outsells vegetable juices by a large margin. So they were wondering what was going on with respect to people ordering so much tomato juice. And it turns out that the noise and also the cabin pressure, but specifically the noise, actually changes how we taste different basic tastes. And by that,

I'm talking about salt, sour, sweet, bitter, and umami, which is sort of the savory, kind of salty, delicious kind of quality that's in tomatoes, as well as mushrooms and a variety of other foods. It turns out that our response to sweet and our response to salty actually is diminished by the loud noise of an airplane cabin. And that's between 80 and 90 decibels, which is actually very loud. It's like standing next to a lawnmower. So that kind, although we get habituated to it when we're on an airplane and we often don't notice that we're actually in this really loud noise environment. But one of the reasons why food never tastes very good on an airplane

is because tasty things like salty and sweet are decreased. Bitter does not change. So if you're eating grapefruit, it tastes probably more bitter and less sweet because the bitter is coming out. But umami taste, which is in tomato juice, like I said, becomes augmented, and it tends to be a pleasurable sensation. So people who don't normally drink tomato juice actually often order tomato juice on airplanes because of the fact that it really is a different flavor experience when you're in the mile-high scenario than on the ground, and that's essentially because of the really loud noise of the cabin.

So back to what you said about loud music in a fast food restaurant causing you to eat more. So is the antidote to that soft music, no music, silence? So there's a couple of different things. So interestingly, when we're in, let's say, a restaurant that is playing soft, however, whatever you want to consider nice music to be, it has a positive ambient, so a low light ambient, people do eat more slowly, but they tend to linger longer also. So lingering longer at the table can also potentially lead to more eating because, for instance, if you're not in a rush,

you might order dessert or stay for more, you know, coffees or drinks or things like that. So from the point of view of further consumption, I think there's sort of the middle ground with, if you're trying to curb that in any event, of not being in a too relaxing environment where you really don't want to leave, especially when food is being offered to you, but also not being in an environment which is rushed and loud and where your senses

are being dulled by the sort of overload of experience. I think the most interesting thing I saw in the book was this idea that food labels that you read can influence how your body metabolizes food. That in other words, if you think something is low-fat, your body will process it. That's baffling. So explain that. This was a fascinating study done with a milkshake, a French vanilla milkshake, where people were given the milkshake to drink. And in real life, the milkshake had 340 calories. So that's like the truth of the milkshake calories. But in one condition, this milkshake was given to them with this label, decadence you deserve, and this luxurious, really high calorie, 620 calorie shake with all the delicious, you know, fat and fantasticness that

you would want in a really great dessert kind of milkshake. And in another condition, the same people were given the same exact milkshake to drink, but this time it was labeled Sensi Shake, 140 calories, you know, no added sugar, 0% fat and so forth. And what was being examined in this study was ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone, and to see how it responded to the calories in the milkshake. Now, normally for 340 calories, if you didn't know, but that's a fair number of calories, your body should respond in such a way that ghrelin levels actually drop because ghrelin levels are, ghrelin is the hunger because ghrelin levels are, ghrelin is the hunger hormone, so it's high when you're hungry,

and after you eat, it drops. And by dropping, it also revs up your metabolism so you can burn the calories you've just consumed. So that's the normal response. Now, in the 620-calorie indulgent label shake, that's exactly what happened. People's ghrelin levels dropped down dramatically after drinking the shake and seeing that label. But when they were given the exact same milkshake, but it was tagged

120 and sensible and low, low calorie and this and that, their ghrelin levels didn't budge at all. They stayed flat. Their metabolism didn't rev up. So their bodies actually acted like they'd consumed something very low calorie, even though the real calories were moderately high. And this is something phenomenal that we can be deceived. Our brains are literally quelling or suppressing our body from something that it would naturally do as a function of just believing something is low calorie. So the takeaway is don't look at those low calorie labels and think everything is really high-calorie instead. And another really amazing thing, too, and this is sort of simpler, is that sweet taste is, going back to your original

question, so we are driven to want sweets because sweet is carbohydrate, and carbohydrates are a great form of usable energy. And especially in a food-scarce world where we're trying to survive, calories from carbohydrates are fantastic. So we love the taste of sweet. Now, people vary to the extent to which they have a sweet tooth, but everybody, if you give them a taste of sweet, actually gets a little bit nicer. So it makes everybody happier, and it makes actually everybody a little bit nicer and more agreeable to their fellow humans. So one of the things I've sort of suggested is if you have, for instance, a really important meeting where you are, you know, trying to discuss something that's going to be difficult and you're trying to bring things together,

it actually is quite a good idea to bring some small sweet treats because doing that will make people in a better mood and more agreeable. It's quite transient, so it's not going to last forever. But it actually is a really useful strategy. So the people, you know, the sort of examples of the person always brings the donuts or something like that to the boardroom meeting and so on, and people like that person more. Well, part of it is that they're being generous by bringing this,

and people tend to like sweets, but also because they feel happier in the presence of this person, and they're actually feeling more agreeable with each other. Why does bringing reusable bags to the grocery store encourage you to buy more treats? So this is also one of these incredibly fascinating mind over matter kinds of situations where, and this is potentially less so today and especially living in a state like California, although this research was originally done in California, it was done between 2005 and 2007,

when you weren't penalized for not bringing your own bag. So in the case, though, where, and it's still the case in many states in the U.S., if you just bring your own bag out of your own free will and feel like you're doing something good for Mother Nature and not adding to the landfill and so forth, you actually have this sense of feeling virtuous. And the fact that you've done a good deed leads you to feel like you can give yourself a little pat on the back. And in the food store, this pat comes in the form of a little tasty treat. So you are more likely to,

you know, pass by the ice cream aisle and go, oh yeah, you know, I'm going to stick some of that into the cart because I have my reusable bags with me. And I'm like, you know, this is a way of rewarding ourselves, in other words. And so we end up, when we bring reusable bags, tending to buy more organic produce and products, which is somewhat logical given the sort of combination of organic and environmental conscientiousness with your own bag. But the really funny, interesting thing is that we feel licensed also to reward ourselves, and we do that with food when we're in a grocery store. Rachel Herz is my guest. She's a neuroscientist and author of the book,

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Wherever podcasts are available. So, Rachel, what are some of the other things going on in the store that affect what we eat, or at least what we buy? So another thing that's really interesting is how we shop, sort of the geography of shopping in relation again to our virtue and vice meter that we all have kind of subconsciously rolling in the back of our head. And that is that when you have just been in the produce aisle and put that kale and grapefruit into your shopping cart, the next place people are most likely to go in a grocery store is either the alcohol or the ice cream department. And this was actually shown in an experiment where radio frequency trackers were put on

grocery store carts so the sort of paths that people took in the grocery store could be tracked. And so we have this incredible internal kind of register of, oh, I just did something healthy. Okay, now I get to do something not so healthy. And we're kind of constantly balancing this out so that, unfortunately, we tend to not usually err too far into the healthy domain before giving ourselves a little surprise in the less healthy context. Isn't that weird that it's so simplistic that, you know, if you think you've done

something good, you reward yourself with something a little naughty. It seems almost childlike. Well, it is. And, you know, it's also, unfortunately, it goes all the way to diet and weight loss. So people who are tracked when they're on a diet, the more weight someone loses in a given week, the more likely they are to either gain that weight back or not lose any the following week. So we have this kind of internal set point, both with respect to patting ourselves on the back for, like you said, doing something great, we get to do something a little bit naughty.

But also even for our own body metabolism and our own body weight, even when we're trying to decrease that. So we're trying to lose weight, yet we still tend to, oh, like I lost 10 pounds. Great, now I'm going to have that dessert I've been craving. And so unfortunately, especially when we're on a diet, and actually a diet is the worst way to lose weight, the sort of evidence from dieting is that if you want to gain weight in the long run, go on a diet. I mean, what you really need to do is kind of change your relationship with food in a much more global way,

sort of just approaching it differently. And like I said, sort of this moderation variation, I think, personally, and also coupled with smaller portion sizes really kind of is the way to go. But in any case, we tend to have this sort of constant frame where we're keeping ourselves, whether it's the goodies and the beer or how much we weigh and so forth. And so the whole point, I think, is not to try to think in these black and white terms, so not to try to think that, okay, this is good, now I get to do something bad, but rather this is a whole way of life, and when I'm living in this way of

life, I can, you know, be in this more moderate zone, and I don't have to, you know, always balance everything out. But that's not true for everybody, and I wonder what the difference is, because some people, I mean, I have a friend who just put herself through hell to be in a bikini contest because it was on her bucket list of things she wanted to do, and she did it. And so some people can say, you know what, I'm going to lose the weight, actually do it, and then there are those people who do what you just described. They lose a little weight, then they gain it back. So what's the difference? Is it just willpower? Is it determination? What is it? Well, it is willpower and determination, but I do have to say, and, you know, maybe your friend is one of the really rare extremes, the exception that makes the rule,

but most likely, even people who really get down to that, their fighting weight, whatever, their desired, you know, bikini weight, will over time gain that weight back and usually with interest. So that's just the unfortunate nature both of our metabolism because one of the things that happens when we diet is actually our metabolism slows down because your body thinks you're starving. So it's trying to conserve energy and keep everything kind of functioning at the lowest possible level so that you don't lose too much weight under the conditions where that would actually be very dangerous. So there is that as a problem.

So even when people aren't trying not to overeat, your body tends to kind of take the wrong road and add on more weight for the exact same amount of food that it would have not added as much on prior to dieting. So that's one of the issues, unless someone really maintains a very rigorous exercise regimen on top of that. But in any case, there are definitely exceptions. But like I said, the more important part is to sort of change your eating plan and mentality in a much more global sense, rather than just like, I'm going to get down to that bikini weight or not. But apart from that, it is the case that people who just as a function of their personalities will have a very, you know, strict goal in mind and can adhere to it.

Now, the problem though, and this could also be for your friend as well, like you said, she put herself through hell. It's not fun to be in that super restricted state. And that's another reason why these things in the long run don't work, because people don't like to be in this sort of negative relationship with food because it is one of the greatest pleasures of existence. And so, you know, especially when existence isn't always fantastic, food is something that people often turn to to try to make themselves feel better. And it's a very reliable, comforting friend in those respects. So to keep keep in any kind

of long-term sense, that kind of squash on something which is so inherently pleasurable is extremely difficult. And then, like I said, you often have this sort of backfiring where your metabolism has been suppressed. So it's not functioning the way it previously was. And so you end up gaining weight from even eating little amounts of food. Right. So talk about comfort food. I mean, what is comfort food? What makes it comfort food? Why does it have its own category? Talk about that.

So comfort food is food that is comforting. And dictionaries typically have this redundant description of it. It also tends to be food that is high in carbohydrate and high in fat and often high in calories as well. And there's two aspects of comfort food that make it comforting. One is that it was food that our caregivers gave us in childhood. So it is actually associated with feeling comforted by our parents or caregivers or whoever loved us and took care of us. And so when we eat comfort food as adults, we have this feeling of being brought back to that comforting time and place and you sort of feel a warm hug from your parents or your caregivers

when you're eating that food. So when we're stressed and we feel like we need that hug, that's a really reliable way of getting it. On top of the fact that the calories and the carbohydrates and the fat also make the brain very happy too. So we get that positive hit as well. Now, the fact that comfort food is associated with people who loved us and took care of us can be especially dangerous, as it were, for people who actually did really grow up in very loving, trusting homes. So people who have what are known as a securely attached attachment style, so that is to say they

had very loving parents or caregivers who were constant in their love and affection, and they never were worried, you know, if I do this, mommy's not going to be happy with me. And they sort of, there's a variety of different attachment styles that we develop through childhood as a function of how our parents treated us. And so from the point of view of having like a really loving, trusting upbringing, you are more likely then to use comfort food as a stand-in for mom giving you a hug or your best friend or someone else than someone who is not securely attached and doesn't feel so comfortable with relationships.

And then comfort food doesn't sort of become that best friend or your mother or someone giving you a hug. It's still great from the point of view of your brain loving the food and you love the taste and the flavor sensations, but you don't use it like getting your best friend's arms around you, as it were. So research has shown that people who are securely attached, after they, for example, have been thinking about having a fight with someone they're very close to, are more likely to eat a lot of comfort food and actually enjoy the comfort food more,

whereas people who are insecurely attached don't have that same level of pleasure from comfort food after thinking about a fight. Well, it's so interesting. Who knew so much is going on in our head and behind the scenes when it comes to why we eat what we eat? So this is great. Rachel Herz has been my guest. She's a neuroscientist specializing in perception and emotion.

She teaches at Brown University in Boston College, and she is the author of the book Why You Eat What You Eat, The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food. There's a link to her book in the show notes. And thank you, Rachel. I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much for the interview. Bye-bye.

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Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong.

And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The internet is full of life hacks. There are websites and videos and blogs and articles all devoted to life hacks, little ways to make your life easier. And one of the guys who's really into life hacks is David Pogue. He's an interesting guy who has been profiled on 60 Minutes and 48 Hours. He's a correspondent for the CBS Sunday Morning Show, and he's hosted science shows for PBS as well. He's also the author of a couple of books,

including a book called Pogue's Basics. It's a collection of life hacks that he's put together that can really save you time and money. Hey, David, welcome. So start by talking about how you came across this collection of life hacks that people can use in their lives. Part of it is that it's a personal failure of mine. I have no tolerance for steps.

I have no tolerance for inefficiently designed mechanisms. So my entire life, I'm looking for shorter, more efficient ways to do things. So they come from my brain. They came from my followers on Twitter. They came from everybody I spoke to for a year telling them I was working on this book. And almost everybody's got one or two of their own. So it's an amalgamation. So since there's so many, let's just have you dive in, first of all, with some of your favorites. Well, I love the ones where some designer put in some feature that's really cool, but the word just never got out. So the classic case is the American Highway sign, those green highway signs. It's a big sign that says, you know, Poughkeepsie, five miles. But then above that is a small sign that has the exit number, exit 23.

The side of the big sign that the small sign appears on tells you which side of the highway the exit will be on. So if it says exit 23 on the left of the big sign, that's the side of the highway to be in when you exit. And I mean, it's always been there, but whoever communicated that to us. Well, but most exits are on the right anyway. So, you know, it's only the occasional one that's on the left. So, but it's good to know when it is on the left, that that's on the left. Exactly right. And a similar example is in the car, maybe about half of everybody knows this one.

On your fuel gauge, where it says E to F, there's a tiny picture of a gas pump with an arrow pointing either to the left or the right. And that arrow tells you which side of the car your gas tank is on. And you probably know which side your own car's gas tank is on, but if you're in a rental or a borrowed car, it tells you which way to pull into the gas station. So pick one or describe one that has impacted you the most or that you found really fascinating. Sure. This is the one that's

changed my life the most. Someday most of us will be over 40 and start to need reading glasses or contacts. Turns out if you're caught without them, you can't find them, you don't have them in, or you're in the shower or something, you can use the pinhole camera effect. You take your hand and curl your index finger very tightly until there's just a pinhole left. Hold it up to your eye and look through it, and incredibly, you can suddenly read again without glasses. So it's great for menus in restaurants or the little bottles in the shower in a hotel. It works by, as a photographer would say, decreasing the aperture so that it keeps everything in focus.

It's quite amazing. Talk about, well, here's one, getting the last of the ketchup out of the bottle. My mom suggested this one. People trying to get the last ketchup out of the bottle will pound on it, they'll bang it, but there's a much easier, more efficient way. Hold the bottle from the bottom and swing it around your body like centrifugal force. And amazingly, that forces the ketchup infinitely down into the neck of the bottle where you can just open the cap and pour it out.

It works with mustard and children's toothpaste and all kinds of jelly substances. So how many times have people been printing out some important thing and the printer cartridge runs out of ink and you have a way to save it? Yeah, you can coax more ink out of inkjet cartridges by blow drying them. Take them out, heat it up with a blow dryer and put the cartridge back into the printer. You'll get another 5% or so out of the ink that was there. So it'll save that print job that was about to end. And why have I been tying my shoes all wrong? It turns out that the way they taught us to tie our shoes actually creates a granny knot.

It's a slip knot. And that's why children's shoes come untied, for example. In the first step of tying your shoes, you're holding one lace in each hand, and most people have the left lace in front of the right lace before they duck it under and tighten it. Switch that. Put the right lace in front of the left lace as you do that first crossover, and then proceed as usual with the loop, that will not come undone until you want to undo it. Now, you have a way to re-record a voicemail message, but I thought it kind of depended on the system people had.

No, it doesn't. I mean, many of the commands are determined by whether you have Verizon AT&T or whatever. But this one happens to work on all four of the American carriers. So if you're leaving a message for somebody and you press the pound key, it doesn't matter what carrier the person uses, a voice prompt gives you three options. And number three, press number three, always gives you the chance to delete the voicemail you've just left and try it again. So if you change your mind or if you think a more conservative wording would be better, press pound and then three. Works for all the carriers. Why is renting a hotel room from my phone cheaper than my computer? Turns out that every hotel wants to sell their unsold hotel rooms, of course. So as the day of the lodging approaches, they make the price lower on smartphones than on computers

because they're trying to appeal to business travelers and millennials and people who make last minute hotel arrangements. But it's quite amazing. If you use an app or a website on your smartphone, you will save a ton of money for the identical hotel room using the identical booking service than if you use your laptop or your desktop. There's a way to get a customer service phone number for just about anybody, right? Google it.

Google knows every customer service number. You don't have to wade through people's websites trying to find it. Just type, you know, Burger King 800 number and you'll get it. But you've also got a website, too, called, what was it? Contact Help? Oh, right. That's right. I forgot about that one.

Yeah. Contacthelp.com. They have a database of the world's companies, email, phone, web, the whole thing. You know which one I found really interesting in the book was about butter. Sure. Everyone thinks they have to refrigerate butter because it's a dairy product and it'll go bad. No, it won't. Even the USDA website says it's okay to leave butter out of the refrigerator for many weeks. And the advantage of that, of course, is that it's always soft and therefore more spreadable. And the reason it works is because bacteria can't grow in food without moisture, without water.

And butter is almost entirely fat. What water there is is sealed into tiny little cells. So it's true. You do not need to refrigerate butter. And in Europe, nobody does. I like to think I'm up on these kind of things because I do all these interviews with people, but that one I'd never heard. I always thought you had to refrigerate butter.

I just changed your life, sir. You have. You've changed profoundly. It's just amazing. So this one about finding your lost dog, has anybody ever, you know, by putting this stuff down and hope that they come back, has anybody ever studied that to see if it really works or you're just kind of hoping it does? Oh, no.

This is something that is proven. So if you can't find your dog, you leave out things that smell like him. You put out the blanket, the toy, some water, and, by the way, a note to let other people know not to disturb that stuff. And, you know, in many cases, the dog will come back to you. That's, you know, veterinary science at work. All right, last one. You pick one more, hit it out of the park for me, and we're done. All right.

I'm going to change your listeners' lives. When you're picking up somebody at the airport, pick them up at the departures level. Even though they're arriving, pick them up at the departures level, even though they're arriving, meet them at departures. And the reason is they don't have security guys chasing cars away at the departures level because most people just arrive, drop off, and leave. Nobody's hanging out. So you'll have the opportunity to sit there in your car at the curb, not be chased away, and greet the person coming out. It works, you know, much better if they don't have luggage, but even if they do, it's sometimes better for them to go up a level so that

you can wait for them. Well, you have some things in the back of the book about some things that don't work, that people think work. That's true. The internet is wishful thinking land, and people send these things around like crazy. They're called life hacks, and most of them don't work. Some of them are just silly. Like, if you're ever caught out in the woods camping without kindling, you can light Doritos as kindling. Well, okay, but who's camping when they have Doritos but not wood? Or a great example is you can make a piece of leftover pizza crisp again

by microwaving it next to a cup of water. It's like, no, it doesn't work at all. You're just going to make it mushier that way. So every one of these tips in the book has been POG tested and certified. I like this one because I've always thought it was true. You tap on the top of a soda can if it's been shaken, and that will prevent it from spewing when you open it. Yeah, it does not work.

If it seems to work, it's only because you're waiting longer. You're taking time with the tapping for the bubbles to settle down. But it does not, in fact, make any difference whether you tap the can or not. And time is the only thing that'll settle it down. That is correct. Well, you know, it's interesting, just as there is fake news all over the internet, there are fake hacks all over the internet. A lot of them, as you point out, don't work. And so it's good to have somebody who's tested some of these and separated the ones that do from the ones that don't. David Pogue has been my guest. The book is

called Pogue's Basic Life, and there is a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, David. Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. You probably spend a good part of your summer trying to avoid mosquitoes. But sooner or later you will get a mosquito bite. And you know you got a mosquito bite because it itches. But why? Why can't the mosquito just bite you, take your blood, and leave in peace without leaving that itch? Well, the itchiness comes from her saliva, only the female mosquitoes bite. She injects the saliva into her prey before and during the actual blood extraction process, and it's because her saliva serves as an anticoagulant that keeps the blood flowing during consumption.

The human body responds to foreign intrusions like mosquito saliva by creating histamines, which make the area's blood vessels swell and create a bump on the skin. That bump is what we refer to as the mosquito bite. All that swelling often disturbs nearby nerves under your skin, which then react by making your skin itch. And your mother was right, don't scratch it. It'll only make it worse. And that is something you should know. Check out our website at somethingyoushouldknow.net. And I invite you to always check out the show notes.

It has all the links to all the guests' websites and books and whatnot, as well as links to the advertisers that you heard in this episode. I'm Micah Brothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro,

who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan.

Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone.

So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll, of course, have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him,

but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.