Something You Should Know - Great Relationship Advice from a Divorce Lawyer & Your Fascinating Sense of Taste

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

Have you heard of “Imposter Syndrome?” It’s that feeling that you don’t really deserve the success you have achieved. A lot of people suffer from it so we begin this episode with an explanation of where it comes from and how to stop feeling like such a fake so you can truly enjoy your success. http://mentalfloss.com/article/75699/what-imposter-syndrome-and-what-can-you-do-about-it Would you take relationship advice from a divorce lawyer? Think about it – who knows better why relationships fall apart than a seasoned divorce attorney? And perhaps with that knowledge you could reverse engineer a relationship, so it stays together. That’s what my guest James Sexton is going to discuss. James is a divorce lawyer and author of the book How to Stay in Love: Practical Wisdom from an Unexpected Source (https://amzn.to/39XlfvB). From his unique perspective he has some suggestions that I think will resonate with you and that you will find very practical if you want to keep your relationship or marriage going smoothly - or at least understand why it isn’t. One reason people eat yogurt is because it has bacteria in it that is supposed to be good for you. Well, it turns out it might not be as good for you as you think. Listen as I discuss what yogurt really does – or doesn’t do to promote “gut health.” http://www.businessinsider.com/ed-yong-explains-yogurt-not-healthy-2016-9 Your sense of taste is rather amazing. It turns out it is so much more than the flavor you experience on your tongue. And it also changes. Foods you hated as a kid you may enjoy as an adult. And why do you like some foods that other people hate? Camilla Arndal Andersen is a food scientist in Denmark who studies people’s sense of taste and she joins me to explain the fascinating, complicated and very subjective sense of taste. Camilla also has a TED talk on the subject which you can watch here: https://www.ted.com/talks/camilla_arndal_andersen_what_happens_in_your_brain_when_you_taste_food?language=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 was 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. 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. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be right back. first place. I think people lose the small connections. If you really talk to people, you come to realize that no single raindrop was responsible for the flood. That it was all these little raindrops that led to this more cataclysmic event. Plus, why yogurt may not be as healthy as you think. And your sense of taste. Why you like the foods you like and hate the foods you hate. We

taste the food the same way, whether it's in the morning or the afternoon, whether we are at a party or whether we're at home. It tastes the same, but the liking of this food might change dramatically depending on what your past experiences are with this food or where you're located. All this today on Something You Should Know. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like

Something You Should Know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS

and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast.

The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. 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 to Something You Should Know. I meant to mention this the other day. I don't know if you saw it, but last week on the homepage of Apple Podcasts,

they have banners of different shows and they have categories like new and noteworthy and curated collections and several other categories like new and noteworthy and curated collections and several other categories. And one of their categories is shows we love, shows Apple loves. And there we were. We were one of the shows Apple loves. And while it's great to be loved, it's really great in the podcasting business to be loved by Apple because they are the big elephant in the room. And consequently,

I've seen a big increase in the number of listeners in the last several days, most likely due to that. So thank you, Apple. First up today, imposter syndrome. An amazing number of people suffer from imposter syndrome. What is it? It's the belief that your success isn't because you're competent, it's just luck and you really don't deserve it. And many well-known people admit to suffering from it, including poet Maya Angelou, who says, I've written a lot of books, but each time I think, oh, they're going to find out now, I've run a game on everybody and they're going to find me out. One big symptom of imposter syndrome to look for is negative self-talk. If you keep telling yourself you don't deserve your success,

you start to believe it. Experts say it helps to talk to other people to get some perspective on your achievements. Imposter syndrome thrives in isolation. And that is something you should know. When you hear relationship advice on podcasts or on TV or the radio, the advice is often coming from a psychologist or a psychiatrist or someone who is, by training, a relationship expert. And we don't have a lot of those type of guests here, only because so many podcasts do that. But when I saw this, I thought, yeah, this could be good. Relationship advice from a divorce lawyer.

And I know it sounds a little odd, but think about it. A divorce lawyer sees relationships as they end. So maybe there's some insight there, some ideas on how to reverse engineer a relationship so it doesn't have they end. So maybe there's some insight there, some ideas on how to reverse engineer a relationship so it doesn't have to end. Joining me is James Sexton. He is a divorce lawyer and author of the book, How to Stay in Love, Practical Wisdom from an Unexpected Source. Hi, James. So yes, you are an unexpected source for marital advice. Seems like you would be the last guy to be offering help to couples on how to stay together. Yeah, you know, I think having been a practicing divorce trial lawyer for 20 years,

I've just seen every permutation of how relationships fall apart. And I think there's a wisdom that develops over that course of a career where, you know, you watch enough things break, you start to think about the things that break them. And I really believe by the time people get to my office, things are so fundamentally broken that it's worth looking at how you could reverse engineer a way to fix things before they become broken. My sister's a dentist, and she's always telling me that by the time someone came to her office with a toothache, that it was really too late, that there were things she could have done to help that person if she'd seen them before they got a toothache. But once you have the toothache, things are

already reached a point where there's enough decay that a nerve is involved. I would think that in your position, the wisdom that you would have come up with after seeing a couple after couple coming in and fighting and divorcing that the wisdom is that don't get married in the first place? Well, I mean, it's the number one way to prevent divorce is to not get married. But I actually don't know that it would solve the problem of relationship conflict, which underlies divorces. I actually think I've had the opposite experience. And that is that even though 53% of marriages end in divorce, which is a staggering statistic, especially when you consider the fact that, you know, let's say another 10 or 20% stay together for the kids or because financial reasons or religious reasons.

So then you have a technology that fails, you know, 73% of the time. That's a terrible statistic. I told you that a model of car, the brakes fail 73% of the time. You would never buy that car. Probably not. But here's another interesting statistic. And that is that 86% of people who get divorced are remarried within five years. Now that to me is the one that makes me say, you know, there's got to be something to marriage. And that is that even when people have been through the experience of playing the hand and losing the hand, they still have something in them that says, you know what, there's a value to this kind of pair bond is, to me, you know, worth looking at.

Understanding that every couple is different, I know. But if you step back and look, what goes wrong in a big, broad stroke, general sense? I think people lose the small connections and that the small connections eventually lead to large disconnections. I think people fall out of love. You know, Tom Clancy in the Bonfire of the Vanities, one of the characters is talking to another about his financial bankruptcy. And he says, how did you go bankrupt? And he says, well, the way everyone goes bankrupt is very slowly and then all at once.

And I think that that's what happens in marriages, that people fall out of love very slowly and then all at once. There's some major factor, some marriage killer that lands them in my office, usually infidelity, financial impropriety that gets discovered, something major. But if you really talk to people in the way that I have over the course of my career, you come to realize that this was really that no single raindrop was responsible for the flood, that it was all these little raindrops that, that led to this, this more cataclysmic event. And those small connections are really the key maintaining the small connections, which means what things like what I think just the small kindnesses that we

show to people when we're, when we're wooing them or when we're enamored with them. I think there's an intoxication in romantic love that happens sometimes very quickly for people and sometimes is revealed in the smallest kindnesses, the opening of the car door, the sliding the sugar across the table because you remember that this person likes to take sugar with their coffee. You know, the leaving a little note in the morning when you head off to work saying, you know, just thanks for last night. It was so lovely. Or just sending a quick text, you know, I got to the mall safely and have a nice evening. Those small courtesies, those small kindnesses that when you're trying to, you know, look, we all know that when you go for a job interview, you present your best self. And

when you first start a new job, you present yourself, you know, in the best possible way because you want to make a good first impression. And then perhaps over time, you start to take for granted the fact that you have this position and maybe you don't put on your best performance every day, at least not a first week worthy performance. I think it's the same thing. You know, we become used to, we don't, we lose the knowledge or the awareness, I should say, that love is not permanently gifted, it's loaned. And that the person chose us out of 7.3 billion people and that we should be guided accordingly in our small gestures that remind that person we care about them. And that their pleasure means something to us and that they have value to us and that, you know, that they have valued us. But we've all heard, and I think bought into this notion that, you know, that romantic love must fade, it must go away, because

nobody can sustain that for a long time. And it's wonderful while it happens, but then reality sneaks in. Yeah, look, I think you're absolutely right in the sense that there are certain levels of romantic connection that I don't think can be advisably sustained. I mean, I guess if they could, it might be lovely, but you know, that feeling of electricity when,

when a new romantic attachment, you know, brushes up against you, that you feel that intoxication that you feel when you're newly in love. I don't think any of us would get anything done if we walked around like that, you know, 365 days a year for a couple of decades. But that's not to say I don't think it's

binary, that it has to be, you know, total disregard and taking for granted of someone, which I think we see a lot of, or total intoxication. I think it has to do with maintaining a certain symbiosis or synergy where you focus on being this person's cheerleader and being kind to them and showing them kindness and love, and that that motivates them to want to show you kindness and love, and then their acts of kindness and love, which further inspire you to continue your behavior. I think it's a symbiotic relationship where there's mutual benefit. And I think our pain in relationships and in marriages, it arises the same way, which is you're kind of miserable. So you make this person kind of

miserable and they're miserable. And then you go, well, this person's so miserable, they're making me more miserable. And then you get more miserable and you, you know, so that spiral can work in either direction. I'm just simply saying, why not reverse the spiral and try to have it be a spiral of goodwill and of affection if you've committed to this person, rather than making it a spiral of resentment towards, you know, your circumstances. Yeah, well, wouldn't that be nice? But so what do you think happens? What makes somebody, I know you said people get miserable and so it spirals downward, but why typically do you think people start getting miserable in a situation that once

was so wonderful that you've pledged yourself to each other for the rest of your lives? Well, you know, I don't know who discovered water, but it probably wasn't a fish, right? I mean, I think when you're surrounded in something, immersed in something, you don't really see it anymore. And I think that's the nature of marriage is that there's a familiarity that starts to occur. And this person's presence is really, I think, taken for granted to some degree. They just become, you know, the French have a saying that, you know, marriage turns a lover into a relative. And I think that there is something to that.

There's a familiarity that develops in relationships. And I think often there is something to that. There's a familiarity that develops in relationships. And I think often with good intentions. You know, I think when you first meet someone, you want to show them your best self and your best behavior and your best affection. And then after a certain time, you start to realize, OK, these are the things I do that resonates with this person emotionally and that seems to really light them up. And so you just keep doing those things because it's like a musician who plays their greatest hits at their concert. You know, they know what, what gets the crowd going, but after a while, you know, then those things just become, you know,

some songs you've heard over and over and over again, and they're no longer as exciting perhaps. So I really do think that sometimes even with good intentions, people just become so familiar to each other that they don't, uh, you know, find excitement in the relationship anymore. They're afraid to change and they become something that holds each other back. I think we speak in generalities, you know, I want to be happy. I want to be in love. I want to be connected to my partner. What are some tangible things a person can do to do that? What do you mean when you say you want to be in love? What do you mean when you say you want to be connected? If my spouse says, you know, I want to feel connected to you. Okay, what do you mean? Do you mean you want to have more sex? Do you mean you

want to spend more time together? Do you mean that you want to go on a trip and do something that we haven't done before? You know, I don't know whether to take you to the bedroom or take you to the beach when you say to me that that's what you want. So I think we have to be, A, mindful of what we want and B, mindful of how to communicate that to our partner in a practical way because people can't hear what we don't say. Well, yeah, that's true. James Sexton is my guest. He is a divorce lawyer and he's author of the book, How to Stay in Love, Practical Wisdom from an Unexpected Source. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Puntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God

and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Randolph Bantwine wherever podcasts are available. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared.

It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get

your podcasts. So as I'm listening to you talk, the advice you're giving, you know, sounds so reasonable, sounds not even particularly difficult. And yet, people somehow don't do it, because if they did it, you'd be out of business and everybody would be living happy, married life. Well, I don't think it's that hard, for example, to maintain a reasonable body weight, you know, or to stay in decent shape. It just requires a certain commitment. It requires discipline, you know, and the discipline is trading what you want right now for what you want most. And I think just like maintaining a healthy body weight, it's a whole lot easier to stay a certain weight than it is to gain a bunch of weight and then try to lose it. So it's the same thing with love and affection. It's a lot easier to maintain a high level of love and affection

than it is to lose it and then try to find it again and go backwards and find a way to fall back into love with each other. I think that's much harder. So a lot of my book is about maintaining love, how to not screw up a relationship. Because I think the world, just like again, with when it comes to things like health and fitness, the world is antagonistic to the goal of a happy relationship. We're inundated constantly by social media, by films with unrealistic portrayals of what relationships actually look like, and by the sort of fantasy life of people, and not reality. And so we're constantly in this state where we believe everybody else is

happier than we are. Just like we believe when you watch a commercial where people are eating junk food that's being advertised. These are gorgeous, skinny people eating food that if they ate that food, they'd never look like that on a regular basis. So I think we have a world that's antagonistic to relationships. And so it's understandable to me that people have a hard time maintaining them. But I think that's the key is maintaining them, not letting them get too far afield. And that's what I think makes marriage an interesting concept to look at, not just relationships in general, because marriage is you have two people that have said, look, there's 7.3 billion people in the world. I'm picking you. So at some point, these people had an abundance of optimism and affection for each other. And I just think if you can, at that point,

when you have that optimism and that affection, start good habits, then I think it's going to be easier for people to just stay on the right path and not lose the plot of the story that they're trying to write together. And so what are some of those things that help to maintain that? You know, communication is a huge piece. And when I say communication, I mean, you know, promptly discussing in a way that's not confrontational and critical. When your partner or spouse is doing something that's, you know, blipping on your emotional radar, good or bad, you know, when they do something right, telling them how much it meant to you and how nice it was. When they do something that irks you, even if it's just a small thing, finding a way to communicate that to them so that they know how to navigate you emotionally.

I find what really happens in the people who end up in my office is they allow these small things to build up. And then when some event occurs, it becomes sort of the prism that focuses all the hostility and resentment that was built up from all these small things. So, you know, sending your partner an email, as unromantic as that may sound, on a regular basis, just pointing out, you know, things that they've said or done that really made you feel good, or things that they've said or done that sat wrong with you so that resentments don't build up and miscommunications don't happen. They get people far away from each other. So I think that's one example. And I think there's a lot of other practical examples. I mean, one of the ones I tell people all the time is if you've ever been

to a dinner party with couples there, even if the couple is having a tense moment or they don't seem particularly fond of each other, if you ask one of them, hey, so tell me the story of how the two of you met or tell me the story of how the two of you began dating or how this person proposed, there's a softness that immediately happens in that person because they go back in time in their memory to this time when they were so incredibly fond of each other. And I've rarely seen a heart so hardened that they didn't have a softness to them when they tell that story, even if they've been together a really long time. And so I think that that kind of mental effect that is really undeniable with most couples, that can be leveraged to the benefit of a marriage. That can be used, that sense of remembering who this person is and the fact that their love was loaned, not permanently gifted to you. It does seem that in relationships, particularly marriages, which by definition are harder to get out of, that people

become disappointed or frustrated or mad. And as you were saying, you know, but if you are kind and you show these little courtesies to the other person that will, in kind, they will do the same in return. But I think there's this, well, I'm going to wait for them. Let them do it. Let them go first. Yeah, and I don't think that's a great way to do things. I'll be honest. I'm critical of that. You know, I think that it's very easy in a marriage to start thinking about what we owe to each other. And the truth is, you don't owe anybody a marriage. You don't owe anybody your affection.

You don't have to get married. But if you've made the choice to get married or even to be in a committed relationship with another person, you've decided that you want this person's happiness to be tied to yours in some way. And I think you have to think about not your obligations, but what will make that situation the best for all involved for yourself as a self-interested person and also for your partner. I mean, one of the examples I talk about is that, you know, constructive criticism while constructive is still criticism and nobody likes

being criticized. I had a relationship where the woman I was dating, you know, I used to, I'm a lawyer. So, you know, during the week I'm clean shaven and wearing a suit. And on the weekends I like to give my face a break and not shave for a day or two. And I tend to grow facial hair pretty quickly. And, you know, she, she would say to me after a day or two, like, oh, like I hate the stubble. Like it just, you know, it scratches my face, you know, and I don't, I don't really like it, you know, and did that. And it, it, it welled up in me feelings of, well, you know what? I shave all week. And like, this is something I get to do for two days is not have to shave. And I, you know, I don't know why this is like, you should be happy. I'm kissing you to

begin with, like, you know, and those are the feelings I would have. It's not necessarily what I'd say. It's kind of indelicate. And then I thought about a subsequent relationship I had, where instead of taking that approach, um, the woman would, whenever I would shave, would say, would come up to me and maybe tickle my chin and say like, oh, I love it when you like your face is so smooth and you just shaved like that. shave three times a day when I was in that relationship because it was, it was presented to me not as a criticism, but as a cheerleading, as a, as a compliment, as, as something positive, you know? So rather than, for example, if you, if you feel like your partner, um, you know, is in a routine or a rut and always likes to do the same thing, we'll find some small thing that they did differently and praise that. Say, Oh my God, you know, last night when you ordered, you know, this, instead of ordering that, like, I my God, you know, last night when you ordered, you know, this instead of ordering

that, like I thought that was so sexy or I thought that was such a cool thing, you know, that you just, you're always willing to try new things. And I really think that's exciting. We should do more of that, you know. And I really believe that that kind of positive behavior modification, if you will, is way more productive than just sitting around and wallowing in the, oh, you used to do this and now you don't that I think is just destructive. Yeah. And, and yet so common and so knee jerk and so human.

Right. It's modeled to us all the time. I mean, watch any sitcom on television and it's always the like idiot husband and the, you know, exasperated wife. And it's sort of like, Oh, he's such an idiot, you know, and that's become like a cute thing. It's become an archetype in our culture. And I don't think that's helpful. I think that it's created in people, this belief that your spouse is supposed to be this sort of buffoon who you tolerate as opposed to what they are, which is like I said, there's 7.3 billion people in the world and you pick this person. So if they're an idiot or a buffoon, what does that say about you and your choices? So I think we need to start encouraging people to be their spouse's cheerleader. I'm not suggesting if your spouse is engaged in bad

behavior that you should condone it. But at some point, you and this person were trying to tell the same story and you saw value in them. And so I'm just trying to find a way to encourage people to reconnect to the best in themselves and in their partner. Well, obviously, every relationship is different. But if you, from just your experience, if someone were listening to you and saying, OK, well, I get it. Where do you start? Where's a good place to start? I think the best place to start always is yourself, which is to really know what you want, and then to know how to express it to another person. I think that's the greatest challenge in most relationships, even non-love romantic relationships, parenting

and family relationships of any kind, work relationships, is knowing what you're feeling, knowing what you want, and then being able to express that to another person. I think that that's really, those are two distinct things, to know what you want and know how to say it to another person. And they're two distinct, difficult things to do that we really don't receive a lot of training in. It's something we learn from the first time we're infants and we cry in the hopes that our mom will come to the crib and pick us up. We learn on the job as human beings. There's no classwork that you do in school on, you know, how do I identify my emotional needs and how do I express them to another person? And I think that

that's the most fundamentally important thing in maintaining relationships. Well, it's certainly an interesting perspective on relationships and marriage that you have that very few other people have, and I appreciate you sharing it. James Sexton has been my guest. He is a divorce attorney and author of the book, How to Stay in Love, Practical Wisdom from an Unexpected Source. And you'll find a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, James. Great speaking to you. 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. 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Not a day goes by that you don't taste food. And yet you probably don't think too much about it. But what makes a food taste good? You probably like some sweet foods, some salty foods, all kinds of foods. And then there are probably foods you don't like the taste of.

And there are probably foods you didn't like before, but now you do. So why is that? Camilla Arndahl-Andersen is a food scientist in Denmark who studies people's sense of taste. And she has a TED Talk on the subject. She's here to help you better understand why you like some foods and not others. Hi, Camilla. So what is our sense of taste anyway? Yeah, so let's first get the definition right.

When we sense food, we sense it with all our five senses. And these senses are the sight, so we see our food. It's also hearing. Like, for example, when you eat popcorn or crisps, you hear the food. You also smell it. You taste it. And then we have this weird sense called somatosensation, which covers touch, temperature, and pain. So when you say that you're tasting food, most people actually use that term incorrectly because they use it to cover both smell and taste.

But these are actually two separate things. But they feel like all part of the same thing. They seem that way. That's it. That's it completely right. That's actually why we have a separate term called flavor. So the flavor covers the smell, the taste, and then the touch temperature.

These three senses, because they're so combined. Like I don't, when I experience an orange, I don't experience the taste of an orange. I experience an orange and that's the smell, it's the taste, it's the juiciness. So you're absolutely right. They're very combined in our experience of the food. And our experience of food is so subjective. It seems to be so influenceable by so many other things. And you talk in your TED Talk about how you gave your husband

two different cups of coffee. You told him they were two different kinds of coffee, and so he perceived them as very different. And yet it was the same coffee in both cups. And, you know, we can like some food one day and not like it so much the next, or it might be good in the morning and not so good in the evening. Why is it so subjective? That's a good question.

So when we taste food, we both have the physical sensation, this is sour, this is sweet, is sweet this is bitter right and then we have another thing that's how we like it and typically what we say is that we we taste the food the same way whether it's in the morning on the afternoon whether we are at a party or whether we're at home it tastes the same but the liking of this food might change dramatically depending on what your past experiences are with this food or where you're located and so liking especially is very subjective subjective where we usually say that the taste itself is more objective or the same doesn't depend on the environment so much

but when when again the example in your talk about your husband tasting the same coffee twice and perceiving it very differently what's going on there yeah so although i'm saying that that things should taste the same no matter if it's in the morning or if it's in the afternoon, when we put food in our mouth, it is first registered via our receptors. This information is sent to our brain. Our brain processes this information heavily. And then we experience just a very condensed part of this information. So when we experience food, we don't experience it one-to-one. It's not physical stimuli that are converted one-to-one to our conscious experience. There's a lot of processing

in between. And in all of this processing, there are factors such as the environment, past experiences, biases that affect how we actually consciously experience the food. And my husband, he obviously had a bias. He thought that I was serving him two different coffees. So his brain started interpreting these sensory signals. Although they were the same, it put this pattern on top, this bias that they must be different. So now I'm going to serve my husband two different conscious experiences of this coffee. Well, this must make your job as a food scientist and someone who studies people's sense of taste very difficult because it people's sense of taste changes and something may be good one day not good the next or expectations may be that

something tastes good so it does and so how do you make how do you make sense of that it's extremely difficult so what we do in the food industry if we want to make food more delicious, well, we take a food item and then we make different variants of it. And then we serve it to people and we ask them, what do they prefer? What do they like most? But if I ask them whether they like the products at all, then they're probably going to say, oh, yes, they like it. But they're probably going to say that because of this bias we have,

it's called a courtesy bias, where we like to be kind to people. So they would like to be kind to me. So they say they like it. It's actually very similar to when you visit your mother-in-law and she makes food and maybe it's slightly burnt, but you're not going to say it's burnt. You're going to say it tastes delicious.

It's this courtesy bias and it's built in us. And it's actually a problem when I want to optimize my food to make it taste better because people are going to say it tastes good. Also, maybe if I want to see do participants, do they like if a product is organic or not, then they might be inclined to say that they prefer the product that's organic. But when it comes to it, when they actually go to the supermarket and buy the product, maybe they're not going to behave as what they told me they would. We've seen this in several studies. We've seen that up to 80% of new food market launches, they fail. And that's although we have asked people, what do they like? What do they prefer? But it seems as though people, maybe they're not lying, but maybe they're lying to themselves. So, yeah, it's a huge problem.

Is there a sense as to why it is that some people love a certain food and other people hate it? Can you just chalk it up to that's just preference? I mean, for example, some people, like I love beets. I love to eat beets. But a lot of people really hate beets. And I can't understand that. They taste great. But why is that?

Is it conditioning? Is it expectation? Is it just because their parents hated beets and now they hate beets? What is it? Yeah. So when I said before that it is assumed that we all taste the same, there are studies that say that we don't taste exactly the same. There are some people that are more susceptible to bitter compounds, for example.

They simply have receptors that can detect certain bitter compounds better, which means that if a beet is more bitter, which it is, it's bitter, then these people would experience this beet as more bitter. And bitterness is usually a taste that we need to learn it like we we don't like beer the first time we have beer because beer is bitter but once we've tried it a few times we learn to like it but it could also be as you say it could also be that your conditions maybe your grandmother made a nice dish with it it It could be a lot of reasons. Another thing that I find interesting too when you eat or drink certain things

is the temperature. Like when you drink a glass of wine and if it's really cold, you kind of taste the cold and you don't taste the wine because it's so cold. Whereas if it was a little warmer, you would taste the wine and you don't taste the wine because it's so cold whereas if it was a little warmer you would taste the wine and wouldn't be you wouldn't notice the cold so much yeah temperature it's it's extremely complicated how we sense food because temperature will affect the taste and the

smell um higher um so for example you know this from ice cream, melted ice cream will taste incredibly sweet. But if you eat it frozen, then it doesn't taste as sweet. So temperature modifies the sweetness, for example. So that's the taste. But temperature also modifies the smell. And I think when you say you taste red wine, I think most of it is actually smell. It's the aromas that you're detecting. And this is a tricky part. I think that's why most people,

they confuse smell and taste. It's because this smell, we actually smell also via our mouth. It's not just via our nose from the outside. So just a super neat trick to figure out whether you're tasting the wine or whether the effect is a smell. Then take the wine in your mouth or maybe actually stop half the wine in the glass then pinch your nose real tight and take a sip take a sip and while you're pinching your nose it might be a bit difficult it's possible trust me and then you'll feel

the taste and just the taste and then let it set for a while then remove your fingers take a deep breath and now you'll get the aroma from the wine so that's a really neat way to figure out what what is the aroma i'm sensing from the wine what is the taste i'm sensing from the wine it also seems that expectation plays a big role in this that at least my experience and here's a quick story i went to a winery it was an apple winery and they had this all the glasses out oh taste this and this is really good and oh smell and you'll see you'll sense the thing and it was this big you know production it was a big presentation and and by the end of it you're thinking yeah this is pretty good and then i bought a bottle of it and i took it home and it

was horrible and it was the same thing i was drinking but i was kind of caught up in the the show and but but objectively this stuff was terrible yep i also think that's why so much money is spent on marketing. I once heard of a study that said that one could measure that people actually preferred Pepsi, but they kept on buying Coca-Cola anyways. That the marketing can do a lot it can because we don't really think about the taste we don't close our eyes and do a test like what i did on my husband but maybe you should right well when you go into a fancy restaurant you have an expectation the food here is probably pretty good just because there's tablecloths on the table it's a it's decorated well has nothing to do with the food but you just assume that a

fancy restaurant like this with expensive menu prices food's probably pretty good exactly so that's when my husband he came home and he said that, Camilla, I found this new fantastic yet very expensive coffee and it's much better than the cheap one. That's when I was thinking, just like you're thinking right now, that this is just an expectation effect. And just a small blindfold actually showed me this result. So yes, you're right right is there any food that everybody likes i imagine people generally like sweet things i mean it's hard to imagine somebody doesn't like sweet things but but are there foods that pretty much everybody likes um just going back to that sweet thing, we actually typically studies, they would group people as sweet likers and sweet non-likers.

There are several groups. And that's because some people, when you increase the sugar concentration, then at some point they start disliking because it becomes too intensive. And depending on how you like that, you can actually group people. And I think it's a trend as you get older, you dislike sweetness more and more. And whether there is something that all people like, well, there are these very cute studies on babies where scientists, they put sugar, water on baby's lips, and then they see the baby smacking, and they interpret this as a liking. So they like it even before they've been taught what this is. So they interpreted this as an innate liking response to sugar and explained it as a vital cue that was used through evolution because sugar meant that the fruit was ripe, meaning that

this is when they're ripe. Ripe fruits has a lot of vitamins and carbohydrates, so sweet food would indicate calories and vitamins. So sweetness is a good sense to have. Same with bitter. Poisonous compounds often taste bitter. So babies are typically seen to retract from bitterness put on their lips. But whether there's something that everyone likes, I don't know that food, no. I would imagine environment has a lot to do with taste.

I mean, for example, when I go to the movies, I usually get popcorn. A lot of people eat popcorn at the movies. I almost never eat popcorn anywhere else. I never eat it at home. I never eat it. I never eat it. Except when I go to the movies.

Is that? So the environment has a lot of cues and we read these cues. Sometimes it's conscious. Sometimes it's subconscious. And for example, it's bakeries. I've heard they use a strategy where they actually pump out the smell from the freshly baked buns onto the road. Because just smelling freshly baked buns is a cue such that you want a bun and go in and buy a bun so marketing is done in many different ways in the food industry well that makes sense because you're right i mean i would never think oh gosh i've got to have a bun today but if i walk by a bakery and smelled it i go hey wait a minute that's

yeah let's go get and and it's probably very similar with the popcorn you walk into a movie theater and what do you smell? You smell popcorn. And then they go, oh yeah, let's get some popcorn. But I don't smell popcorn in my house, you know, walking around. So then I never think of it. And yet when I eat it at the movie theater, I really like it. But then that's it.

Well, this has been really interesting and explains a lot of why some people love some food while other people hate that food. And some people like some food when they're kids, but don't like it when they're adults. And it's really interesting how subjective it all really is. Camilla Arndahl

Anderson has been my guest. She's a food scientist in Denmark, and she has a TED Talk on this subject. There's a link to that in the show notes. One of the benefits of eating yogurt, supposedly, is because of all the good bacteria that's in it. That bacteria is supposed to be good for your gut and for your digestion and a host of other things. Well, science says otherwise, according to journalist Ed Yong, who has researched this extensively. The bacteria in yogurt are not

the kind of bacteria that do you much good, nor is it high enough in concentration. It basically just passes through you. There isn't a lot of evidence to support the claims that the bacteria in yogurt is beneficial, which is why the claims made are usually very nebulous, like, promotes gut health, which basically means nothing. The bacteria in yogurt is not necessarily the best bacteria. It's in there in part because it's easy to manufacture. And again, the concentrations of bacteria in yogurt is very low. So yes, adding good bacteria may have health benefits,

but not the bacteria in yogurt. And that is something you should know. We appreciate ratings and reviews, and it only takes a second to leave a rating. Just go to Apple Podcasts, or wherever you got this podcast, and leave a rating. Just go to Apple Podcasts or wherever you got this podcast and leave a rating. I'm Mike Carruthers. 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, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever

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