Something You Should Know - Is Junk Food Really So Bad? & How Buildings Affect Your Health and Behavior

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Starting point is 00:00:17 You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, a technique that seems to allow you to drink without getting drunk, or at least as drunk. Then the ingredients in the food you eat. Is it true that if your grandma can't pronounce it, you should avoid it? So I know a lot of people who swear by that advice, and I don't.

Starting point is 00:00:50 If I tell you that a food contains 1-alpha-D-glucopyranosyl-2-beta-D-fructofuranoside, you'd think I was trying to poison you. But that is just sugar. That's another name for sugar. Also, with a million different brands of dishwashing liquid, is one really better than the others? And your indoor environment, it affects you in ways you never imagined. You know, there's a study that showed that the floor you live on, if you live in a high-rise building, can affect whether or not you survive a heart attack.

Starting point is 00:01:21 Or the layout of your office can affect the social relationships you form. All this today on Something You Should Know. 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,

Starting point is 00:01:55 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.

Starting point is 00:02:22 Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared 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.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Hi, welcome. Another day and another episode of Something You Should Know. And thanks for listening. We start today with some advice on how to drink without getting drunk. Now, some people drink to get drunk, so this doesn't apply to them. But Jim Koch, chairman of the Boston Beer Company, spends a lot of time with a beer in his hand. And he revealed a secret that he learned, how to drink alcohol without getting wasted. In an article at Esquire.com, he explained the secret he learned from a friend who has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. And the secret he learned from a friend who has a PhD in biochemistry. And the secret is yeast. Plain, old, active dry yeast you buy in those little packets at the grocery store.

Starting point is 00:03:32 You see, dry yeast has an enzyme in it called ADH which is able to break alcohol molecules down into their constituent parts of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. That's the same thing that happens when your body metabolizes alcohol in the liver. If you also have that enzyme in your stomach when the alcohol first hits it, the ADH will begin breaking some of it down before it gets into your bloodstream, and thus into your brain. Just before he starts drinking, Koch takes one teaspoon of yeast

Starting point is 00:04:05 mixed with yogurt for each drink he plans to consume. While it does not eliminate the effects of alcohol, it can minimize them. The author of the article did some tests and found that it did help mitigate some but not all of that feeling

Starting point is 00:04:21 of being drunk. And that is something you should know. I know you've heard this advice that when you buy a food product at the store, it's a good idea to look at the ingredient label. And the general wisdom is that the fewer ingredients, the better. And if there are a lot of hard-to-pronounce ingredients, well, that's a bad sign. So how accurate is that advice? And why are all those ingredients in some food products?

Starting point is 00:04:53 And what are they in there for? Here to discuss this is George Zaden. He is an MIT-trained chemist who created National Geographic's web series, Ingredients, the stuff inside your stuff. He co-wrote and directed MIT's web series, Science Out Loud, and he is the author of the book, Ingredients, the strange chemistry of what we put in us and on us. Hi, George, welcome. Mike, thanks for having me. So the advice that I think many of us have heard that, you know, if you're looking at a food product to buy and there's ingredients in there that

Starting point is 00:05:29 your grandmother didn't use or that you can't pronounce, that you shouldn't buy it. Are you in agreement with that? So I know a lot of people who swear by that advice and I don't. First of all, your grandma probably ate a lot of stuff that may have been easy to pronounce, which I think was another part of that advice, but not great for you, like spam or pound cake or snickerdoodles. And your life expectancy is probably higher than your grandmother's was. So I'm not really sure why people think idolizing grandma's diet is a good idea. I'd listen to her wisdom, sure, but I would not try and copy her diet. Yeah, I get that. But I'm not so sure that I idolize

Starting point is 00:06:11 my grandmother's diet so much as I have a concern, and I think a lot of people have a concern, for the way food is seemingly over-engineered. I mean, things are artificially colored in colors that you don't find anywhere in nature. There are ingredients in the ingredient list of big long words I've never seen before. I don't know how to pronounce them. I don't know what they are, so why am I eating them? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it helps to know a little bit about the different types of ingredients, of additives. There are things like vitamins and minerals, which, you know, are added to try and prevent nutritional deficiency diseases. Classic example there is iodine is added to almost all salt to try and prevent goiter. There are flavorings, you know,

Starting point is 00:07:00 which are added obviously to make food taste better, And that's a whole other, you know, debate we can have. There are lots of different types of texture modifying additives. So for example, most peanut butter you buy will contain emulsifiers to prevent the peanut solids from separating out from the peanut oil. And then of course there are preservatives, which if you didn't have those, your food would go bad a lot faster. So, you know, those are just a few of the categories. And if you're interested in seeing the entire long list, you can find that the FDA has a list. But the question is, you know, why is all this stuff in there? Does it need to be in there?

Starting point is 00:07:40 We all want foods that are healthy, delicious, convenient, and cheap. But it's really hard, if not impossible, to have all of those things at once. If you want peanut butter that doesn't separate, you can either buy the all-natural stuff and put it in the fridge, which I personally think makes it taste not as good, or you can buy a peanut butter with an emulsifier in it. It is a trade-off. You know, the other part of the trade-off is, if you want everything to be all-natural, be prepared to spend a lot more on your groceries and spend a lot more time preparing food. It really is a tradeoff. The whole idea of added ingredients gets a bad rap because there is this just idea that the fewer ingredients, the better. And I guess it's because like when you, when you eat an apple, the only ingredient is

Starting point is 00:08:25 apple. And that's a very, you know, natural, easy to understand concept. And so when you have some, something else, applesauce, and there's 18 added ingredients, people are suspect of that. Yes, that comes part and parcel with the other piece of this, which is if the ingredient is really hard to pronounce, it must be bad for you. You know, I have I have issues with that, too. My main issue with the pronouncing thing is like, you know, one chemical can have 40 different names and they can range from really easy to pronounce to impossible to pronounce. So if I tell you that a food contains one alpha D-glucopyranosyl-2-beta-D-fructofuranoside, you'd think I was trying to poison you. But that is just sugar. That's another name for sugar. The name of the chemical doesn't tell you anything about whether it's good or bad for you. It tells you how the FDA regulates ingredient labels. And your other point of, you know, the more ingredients it has,

Starting point is 00:09:25 the worse it must be for you. That's, I think that's a side effect of the wellness industry, basically brainwashing us or trying to, to believe that chemicals are somehow bad for you, or that just because something is a chemical, it must therefore be bad for you. So the more chemicals you have, the worse a food is. And, you know, that couldn't be further from the truth. An apple, for example, seems really simple, but it has hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals in there. It's made of living cells with proteins and genomes and small molecules and, you know, polysaccharides, all kinds of things that are hard to pronounce. But, you know, no one would ever argue, oh, an apple has a thousand chemicals, so therefore it must be bad for you.

Starting point is 00:10:07 So here's the concern I think people have that seems pretty obvious, that the amount of processed food being manufactured and eaten is on the rise. I mean, the store is full of processed food products. Every corner has one or two or three or four fast food places. There's a lot of processed food being consumed. And in addition, we have an obesity problem, a growing obesity problem in this country. People are getting heavier and I don't think it's going out on a limb to say these two things are probably connected. Yeah, so that's another great question.

Starting point is 00:10:53 You know, trying to work out what caused and what is continuing to cause the obesity epidemic that we are all living through is really difficult. Ultra processed foods could very well be responsible. It could be that by overengineering these foods, we've made them addictive. So people eat more of them and then they become obese. I talked to many scientists who totally buy that theory. I think it sounds very plausible. I also talked to a few scientists who had different ideas. They said, look, it may not just be one thing that's doing that.

Starting point is 00:11:19 One person said that he thought the obesity epidemic could be explained partially by the decrease in smoking rates. Now, how might that have a role? Cigarettes are an appetite suppressant. So, you know, if you, if a large number of people stop smoking, they're going to start eating more food. Another scientist I talked to thought that architecture might play a role. He said that, you know, the way homes are designed these days, kitchens are the hub of the home. And if you spend a lot of time near a kitchen, you know, that's going to make you want to eat more food. So my belief here is that the obesity epidemic has many different causes. One major one may very well be ultra processed food, but there's not going to be one silver bullet to ending it.

Starting point is 00:12:08 One of the processes of processed food seems to be everything has added sugar. It's hard to find foods that you wouldn't necessarily even think would have sugar, have sugar. There's a lot of added sugar in an awful lot of foods, and people have demonized sugar, whether right or wrong, that that is a real culprit. That is one theory. I find it a little slightly hard to believe that one chemical is the only responsible party for an entire epidemic across large parts of one country. I think it's more likely that there are multiple

Starting point is 00:12:45 causes at play. It's funny, the other part of that is sugar is completely natural. It's sort of funny to me that some of the same people who are saying sugar is the devil are also some of the people who are saying only natural things. It's, you know, that's conflicting advice. Yeah, but for example, if you make, I don't know, crackers at home, there probably isn't much sugar added to it. But if you look at crack, a package of crackers you buy at the store, there's sugar in it. Well, why is there sugar in crackers aren't sweet. So why is there sugar in it? I'm not sure exactly. My suspicion is that if you if there is added sugar in something, it will, it will cue you to eat more of it, or it will cue you to take that next bite.

Starting point is 00:13:26 There was a study that came out one or two years ago that was done at NIH and it was a randomized controlled trial, which is the gold standard of these kinds of studies. And basically what they did was they took two groups of people and fed one group a diet high in ultra-processed foods and fed another group a diet low in ultra-processed food. Now, this was not looking at sugar specifically. This was looking broadly at a diet that was more processed versus a diet that was less processed. And they found that the people who were given the ultra-processed diet did eat more. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't double, but it was a measurable amount more that, you know, over time does lend weight to the theory that ultra-processed foods could be partially responsible for the obesity epidemic. So yeah, I mean, I buy that sugar might play a role. I'm just not sure it's the only thing playing a role. We're talking about the foods you eat and the ingredients in

Starting point is 00:14:22 those foods, what they are, what they do, and what they don't do. My guest is George Zayden. He is an MIT-trained chemist, and he is author of the book Ingredients, The Strange Chemistry of What We Put In Us and On Us. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolph Buntwine, 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.

Starting point is 00:15:00 The heresies of Redolph Buntwine, wherever podcasts are available. 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

Starting point is 00:15:46 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

Starting point is 00:16:10 in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So George, it sounds like you're saying, you know, there's a lot of factors here and we can't really figure out or find a silver bullet. So don't worry about it. Is that what you're saying? Broadly, I would say, yeah, worry a little bit less. But it also depends on who I'm talking to. So I'm talking really to the person who is worried a lot about food and spends a good chunk of time on the internet researching individual ingredients. If that's you, or if you've changed your diet five times in the last

Starting point is 00:16:52 year because of news you've seen, then I would say, yes, go ahead and worry less about food. You can relax a little bit. On the other hand, if you are overweight or obese, or if you've got a medical condition of some kind, there I would say you're probably worrying the right amount, or maybe you should worry a little bit more. Do you think that if a processed food is sold in the United States, that whatever is in it is probably okay? I believe that we can all be fairly confident that unless something is contaminated or something has gone wrong somewhere in a production process, foods sold in the U.S. are not going to be immediately toxic or poisonous. Now, where things get tricky is when you start extending that time horizon.

Starting point is 00:17:38 So, yeah, okay, those ingredients may not be poisonous immediately now, but are they going to raise your risk of a heart attack or cancer? That is a lot harder to figure out. You have to follow a large group of people over a long period of time. You have to accurately record what they eat. You have to track what diseases they get. And so using these methods, scientists have estimated that eating 10% more ultra-processed food is associated with roughly a one-year shorter lifespan. And there's a lot of disagreement about that result. It's not ironclad. But I do think we have to be comfortable with the idea that we know less than we think we do about the longer-term health effects of most foods and ingredients.

Starting point is 00:18:19 Then doesn't that circle back and support the idea that if we don't know the long term effects of all these ingredients and all these things we're eating, that we should eat a simpler diet and that that would be safer in the long run? Or you could argue, you know, you could argue the opposite. If we don't really know, why don't you just eat whatever whatever you want? There's a lot of factors that go into your decision about what to eat. Some of it is health effects like we've been talking about. Other parts of it are, what do I enjoy? I mean, the sort of more European or the more French way of eating is we don't worry about whether a food is particularly good or particularly bad. We just eat what we like, what makes us feel good, what we eat with company. And that, I would argue,

Starting point is 00:19:12 is probably, I hesitate to use the word healthier, but that's maybe a more sane way of looking at foods rather than worrying about, well, is this one particular ingredient bad for me because I can't pronounce it? Well, I think there is a suspicion that people who, the companies that make processed foods are up to something. I mean, why do we need to have caffeine in orange soda? I mean, oranges don't have caffeine. Why does the soda have to have caffeine? The suspicion is to hook people on it. And that there's just trouble afoot here. That manufacturers are manufacturing,

Starting point is 00:19:46 addicting foods, making us fatter, making us unhealthy. And that's the problem. Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I think that is a, that's a philosophy that actually France does share with us, because they are quite vigilant about certain things over there, especially how quote unquote natural a food is or how natural it's perceived to be. I think part of the problem does come down to the food industry there. I mean, they have made no bones about the fact that they have engineered foods to be delicious. I mean, on the one hand, why wouldn't you engineer – if you're trying to sell a food, you would want it to taste as good as possible. So why wouldn't you engineer it to be delicious?

Starting point is 00:20:25 But on the other hand, you can argue that they've gone too far, that things are too good, that we eat too much of them. And so that suspicion is probably a natural reaction to that perception. Well, you know, in every story there has to be a bad guy. And so it's easy to point fingers at the food manufacturers and point at things like, you know, why do cheese puffs have to be that bright orange color? What is that and what is it doing to us? I think everyone's heard that, you know, the artificial strawberry flavor is actually, you know, crushed up bugs. Well, why don't they just use strawberries? Why do they have to crush up bugs? There's this suspicion that somebody's manipulating this. Crushed up bugs are completely natural. I mean, that's the funny thing about it, right? It is that part of it is

Starting point is 00:21:16 a perception issue, you know, natural bugs are not okay, but adding caffeine to cola, for example, you know, is, is fine. The, the other thing I would say there is bad news tends to sell. And so if you have a headline that says, for example, you know, coffee raises your risk of a heart attack or whatever it may be, that is much more likely to get clicks and traction and media coverage than a headline that says, you know, coffee is probably fine. And there's maybe one group of people who should avoid it. But you know, you know, most of the time you're okay. Let's go back to crushed up bugs for a sec. Crushed up bugs are there to make strawberry flavor. Why isn't there just strawberries in it? And it's fine if you want to put natural crushed up bugs, but say it's natural crushed up bug

Starting point is 00:22:00 flavored, whatever, not artificially strawberry flavor and put in crushed up bugs. So I think there it's because I think the crushed up bugs are actually for color, if I remember correctly, not for flavor. But your point is well taken. It's like, why would you add artificial strawberry flavor instead of actual strawberries? And basically there, the answer is cost. I mean, it is way more expensive to, if you want to make strawberry ice cream, to make it out of freshly harvested, delicious, ripe strawberries than it is to take one or two of the chemicals in the strawberry flavor, isolate them and add them to ice cream. So again, you know, you can have healthy, cheap, delicious, and convenient food. You can't have all four of those things. Occasionally, they're going to have to be trade-offs. Well, and I think that's really where it comes down to, isn't it?

Starting point is 00:22:54 It's really trade-offs because you can get naturally flavored just about anything, but it's going to cost you more. Organic is going to cost you more. It's just if you're willing to pay for it, go have it. But if you want cheap strawberry ice cream, well, it's probably going to have some artificial flavors in it. Yeah, absolutely. There are a lot of people, though, who write books and go on TV and they wear white lab coats and they demonize a lot of foods that they say that, you know, you should eat an all natural diet and, and, and explain why all these horrible foods are going to kill you. And, and, and they have

Starting point is 00:23:33 science to back it up. They publish a lot of either unsubstantiated stuff, or they'll read a study and over-interpret it, um, or, uh, not say things about the study that were counterintuitive or weaknesses of the study, they won't give you the full picture. You know, a lot of the stuff you read on blogs is basically blueberries are a miracle food or, you know, I don't know, kale is poison or things like that, extreme statements that aren't necessarily grounded, in fact. Well, I've noticed that there is a lot of nutrition advice that is based on assumptions, based on philosophies that, you know, humans are naturally vegetarian. Oh, no, they're not. No, humans are naturally carnivores. Well, they can't

Starting point is 00:24:17 both be right, but they take that one of those positions or some other position about what humans should or shouldn't eat and run with it based on the philosophy. Yeah, exactly. And much of that advice, if it is tested at all, it's tested in a way that really doesn't actually test what the person is claiming was tested. You know, if they say, listen, you should avoid every single processed food and never eat anything unless it's completely all natural. Well, no one's ever done that experiment. You know, we've done experiments where we've incrementally increased someone's processed food intake, but we have not had two groups of people and, you know, released one group into the forest to fend for themselves and fed the entire, the

Starting point is 00:25:02 other group, you know, a diet entirely of Cheetos and Coke. That just doesn't just doesn't happen like that. But reading these blogs, you'd think it does. Well, I like having these conversations about food and nutrition because there is so much conflicting advice and some of it is very extreme. But every single person has to figure out and sometimes struggle with what should they eat, what should they not eat, and it's good to get some solid information about it. My guest has been George Zayden. He is an MIT-trained chemist. He created the National Geographic web series Ingredients, the stuff inside your stuff,

Starting point is 00:25:40 and he is author of the book Ingredients, The Strange Chemistry of What We Put In Us and On Us. There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, George. Cool. Thank you very much, Mike. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm

Starting point is 00:26:00 the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top ten 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,

Starting point is 00:26:18 check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. our advice plus we share our hot takes on current events then tune in to see you next tuesday for our lister 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 podcast spotify or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes every monday Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. You most likely spend a lot of time indoors. And that environment, those rooms you spend time in, at home or at work, have a real impact on you. Your indoor environment affects your health, your mood, your productivity, even your social life to some extent. Emily Anthes is an award-winning science journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Wired, Businessweek, Scientific American, and more.

Starting point is 00:27:37 She's author of a book called The Great Indoors, the surprising science of how buildings shape our behavior, health, and happiness. Hi, Emily. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks so much for having me. I'm glad to be here. So in broad strokes here, explain how the buildings that we are in at home and at work, how they affect us. Absolutely. So the indoor environment affects us in a wide variety of ways, some of them somewhat obvious. So, you know, air quality can affect your physical health and your respiratory health, and I don't think that would surprise too many people.

Starting point is 00:28:15 But almost every aspect of the indoor environment can influence almost every aspect of our lives. So mood, cognitive performance, productivity, sleep quality, even our social relationships and the social networks that we form. And some of these effects are really surprising and profound. So, you know, there's a study that showed that the floor you live on, if you live in a high riserise building, can affect whether or not you survive a heart attack, if you have a heart attack at home, or the layout of your office can affect the social relationships you form. And so those are just two examples, but the indoor environment really affects our lives in a huge way and in a way that we don't always appreciate.

Starting point is 00:29:02 Well, I've had the experience, and I think everybody has had the experience of going into a building or into a room, and it just makes you feel different. It can make you feel good. It can make you feel anxious. I mean, we know that buildings and interior spaces have an effect. Even though I think we've all felt that, I don't think we've always appreciated or really thought through the extent to which these environments affect our lives and really looked in a systematic way at, given that, are there ways we can alter or tweak our environments to improve our lives? And I'm a science writer, so I'm really interested in what the research had to say. And it turns out there are a lot of sort of evidence-based strategies for improving our indoor environments and thus our lives. So dive in and talk about some of the specifics of this, how it

Starting point is 00:29:56 works, how interior spaces affect us. A big one, especially in an era where we're talking a lot about infectious disease, is ventilation. So bringing in more air from the outside is one of the best things you can do for your home. And that can be, you know, in a high-tech way. If you have an HVAC system, you can adjust the outdoor air fraction, but it doesn't need to be. Just simply opening a window and bringing that fresh air into your home can have all sorts of benefits from, you know, diluting the amount of pathogens that might be in the air, but also diluting all the air pollutants that the consumer goods in our home tend to generate. So crack open a window if you can. That can have all sorts of benefits. Another really well-supported intervention is nature. So this is another way in which

Starting point is 00:30:52 you can think about trying to bring elements of the outdoors into your home. So there are a huge number of studies now that show that having some sort of greenery or natural element, indoor plants or something like that in your home can have all sorts of benefits from boosting your mood and reducing your stress to improving your attention span and productivity. And what's really interesting about nature is that studies show that it doesn't even have to be real nature. So if you can put a bunch of plants in your home or apartment, great. But it turns out that even looking at photos of nature or even

Starting point is 00:31:31 just listening to the audio of bird song can have a lot of the same effects. So if there are ways to incorporate that into your home or office, any of your indoor spaces, that can be really helpful as well. You mentioned at the very beginning that there's evidence that what floor you live on determines whether you survive a heart attack. So we can't really let that go by without explaining that. Of course. So there's a really interesting study that came out a few years ago. And here we're talking about people who live in apartment buildings and high rises and not so much single family homes. But it turns out that you are far more likely to survive a heart attack if you live below the third floor than if you live, say, I think the cutoff was the 14th floor. But if you live on one of the higher floors,

Starting point is 00:32:23 and at first, that seems kind of strange strange, like why would that matter so much? But there's a really sort of simple explanation, which is just that it takes paramedics and emergency responders longer to get to you if you're higher up. And it might not sound like it makes a huge difference. And, in fact, the research shows that it's only a couple of extra minutes you're adding on to get to the top floors. But in an emergency situation, if someone's in cardiac arrest, those few extra minutes can matter. And so survival rates are significantly higher on the lower floors than they are on the higher ones. I would have never thought of that, but you're right.

Starting point is 00:33:08 And not only does it take extra minutes for them to get up there, it takes extra minutes to get back down if you're going to the hospital. Right, exactly. And I guess just a general caveat is that none of this is absolutely determinative. So if you live high, you will die. And if you live low, you're in luck. But we're talking about things that matter at the margins and can make a significant difference. But I don't want to suggest that, you know, there's nothing else that matters. You also said at the beginning that the layout of your office can affect the social relationships you form. so we would need an explanation for that as well. There's been some really interesting work

Starting point is 00:33:50 tracking and mapping office workers' social networks, and again this is something that maybe seems like it would be obvious, but a lot of us don't maybe don't appreciate or think about, and this comes from a study that was done by a company called Humanize, which makes these sort of badges that office workers can wear that track their face-to-face interactions. And they were contracted by a European bank to try to figure out why some of their bank branches were performing much better than others. And what

Starting point is 00:34:25 they actually found was that the highest performing branches, everyone that worked in the office had lots of social connections to each other. And at some of the lower performing branches, there were sort of two discrete social groups that didn't interact much with each other. And when they looked at it even more closely, what they found was that these were largely two-floor locations and that the employees had sorted themselves into two social groups, depending on what floor they worked on, and they didn't interact much with people in the other social group. And when the banks started to remedy this, they started rotating people

Starting point is 00:35:06 between the floors so they would make more relationships with co-workers they otherwise didn't see much. The employees' social networks expanded and the branch's overall performance increased. So it doesn't seem like a big thing. It's just, you know, a flight of stairs. But we humans are creatures of habit. And we like to do things that are easy and convenient. And we just don't go up those stairs that much to talk to our colleagues that might work on a different floor. Yeah, I remember hearing or talking to someone about that, like a set of stairs or even a door that you have to go through will really inhibit you doing it, even though it's not a whole lot of effort, but it's like an obstacle.

Starting point is 00:35:50 Absolutely. And I talk about that also in context of eating behavior. So, you know, studies that show that if you have, you know, cut up fruit and vegetables on the table where you're sitting, you're much more likely to eat them than if they're just on a different table six feet away. And no obstacle at all in that case other than having to get up and go get it. But one of the big lessons, I think, is that if there are certain behaviors and habits you would like to do more of, to make them as easy and convenient for yourself as possible. And if there are things you'd like to discourage, like having cookies every afternoon, making that even just a little bit more difficult by maybe putting the cookies on a high shelf

Starting point is 00:36:38 can really influence your behavior. With all that you have learned researching this, what are some of the things that maybe you do differently or the way you've reorganized your house or your office? What are some of the things that people could do that have some surprising benefits that no one's ever thought of before? Well, the plants and nature thing is a big one. I think I went from having no plants in my apartment to at least a dozen now. So that's something that, and I can feel, you know, maybe it's partly placebo, but it brings me joy to walk into my workspace. I work from home and to see all this greenery.

Starting point is 00:37:23 The other one is thinking about the air quality in my home, which was something I had not considered much at all before. But a lot of the activities we do in our home, like cooking and cleaning, generate a huge amount of indoor air pollution. But there are really sort of simple ways to reduce the concentration of those air pollutants. One, as I mentioned, is opening a window. But there's another sort of ingenious strategy that I had not thought of, which is just cooking on the back burner of your stove can really reduce the amount of pollutants that are emitted when you cook. And the reason that is, is if you have a stove hood, a range hood that's, or some sort of ventilation fan over your stove,

Starting point is 00:38:13 almost always the mechanics of that system are sort of in the vents and the fans are positioned in the back. And so the closer you cook to those vents, the less particulate pollution gets sort of emitted into and circulate in your home. So cooking on the back burner is like a really quick, easy tip that I bet a lot of people haven't thought of. Daylight is another factor that has huge benefits across a wide variety of psychological and physiological functions. So even just making sure that when you get up in the morning, you open your shades and let yourself have that dose of strong light in the morning. That can help keep your circadian rhythms on track and even make it easier for you to fall asleep that night.

Starting point is 00:39:00 The implication of your cooking on the back burner idea implies that you're using the fan in the first place. And I know I sometimes forget, you know, unless there's visible smoke coming out, I'll sometimes forget. But I would imagine there may be something in what you're saying that you should probably always use it if you're cooking. Yeah, absolutely. That's one of, you know, I talked to some atmospheric chemists whose whole work is studying the pollution that we generate in our homes. And one of the top things they say when I ask what should people be doing is they say always use the kitchen ventilation.

Starting point is 00:39:40 I forget the exact numbers, but it's definitely people use it less than half the time. So you're not alone. But, you know, they say if you can smell something like the delicious scents that are coming off whatever you're cooking, that means you're generating pollution and you should be using the fan. You mentioned the bedroom early on. And, you know, I think people struggle with that because the bedroom in many cases has become somewhat of an entertainment center with TVs and music and all that, which I imagine makes it hard to sleep. And maybe rethinking the bedroom might be a good idea. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:40:18 And, you know, I will be the first to admit that I'm not very good in this regard. I am, you know, on my devices and on Twitter late at night before I go to bed. But one thing we know for sure is that blue light, which is the kind of light that's really prevalent in daylight and that is so important to expose yourself to in the morning, that's the kind of light that I mentioned that sort of tells your body and your circadian rhythms that it's daytime is harmful to expose yourself to at night because it keeps your body awake and alert. And so anything you can do to sort of cut down on that kind of blue light in the evenings and especially in your bedroom can be helpful to sleep. And there's actually now a whole line of research happening into what's

Starting point is 00:41:05 known as circadian lighting. And that is very much based on that principle. The idea is to have light fixtures that vary the kind of light they put out throughout the course of the day. So in the mornings, it might emit a bright bluish light. And as the day progresses and it gets closer to evening, it switches into sort of a more amber colored light that's less likely to interfere with sleep. And there are some consumer products and bulbs out there that do that already. So that's something that might be worth exploring in the bedroom. What about color in general? Color is complicated. It's really interesting, and there's been a lot of research on it. The studies are somewhat contradictory, and there's not really a lot of clear lessons there. You know, I mean, there's some thought and some evidence that pale blues

Starting point is 00:42:00 and greens and things in that range can be calming, whereas, you know, a neon pink or a red might be more activating. But one thing that I learned, whether it's talking about color or a lot of these other factors, is that there's enormous individual variation. And so someone might work great with a red walled office and that might drive someone else to distraction so part of what's difficult is trying to extract these general principles that can be sort of useful rules of thumb and balance individual preference and difference and so I mean I would tell people that if they love the color of their study or

Starting point is 00:42:46 their dining room, that they should probably keep it, even if the quote-unquote research says it's not ideal for that setting. So that's something that varies a lot, just individual to individual. Yeah. Well, plus, you know, when you say the color red, well, how many shades of red are there? I mean... Absolutely. And what are you using that room for? I mean, one of the big lessons is that although there are ways we can absolutely improve our environments, there's no one-size-fits-all building or environment that what works great for one person might be terrible for someone else. Let's talk about the work environment for a moment because, well, under normal circumstances,

Starting point is 00:43:28 people spend a lot of time at work. And so there must be things we can do to make the work environment better. Well, so some of the best things you can do are things I've already mentioned. So I won't go back over them, but, you know, ensuring that employees have access to daylight and some sort of nature can be really helpful. In terms of offices more specifically, I mean, it seems like open offices are terrible almost universally. That won't surprise most people who have worked in them. But one of the interesting things about open offices is sometimes you'll hear companies say,

Starting point is 00:44:05 like, oh, we know that that might be more distracting, but we think an open office is better for collaboration and communication. And the research is conflicting, but there are some solid studies that show that that is not, in fact, the case, that after companies move from closed offices to more open ones, that face-to-face communication actually plummets and that people tend to move more of their conversation online. And that may be because they're uncomfortable having a private conversation in a big open room, or they're afraid of distracting their colleagues. But there really seems to be very little to recommend

Starting point is 00:44:45 open offices except for the fact that they're cheap, which is, of course, why a lot of employers like them. Going back to sort of the idea of individual difference, one of the best things that I think a workplace can do in an office is to try and maximize both variety and control. So create a lot of different kinds of working spaces. So maybe you have a big open area where people can share tables, but then you also have some quieter reading nooks or a conference room where someone can go work if they need to not be distracted. And then to actually ensure that employees can control their own environment so that they can move around the space throughout the day as their needs change and as their tasks

Starting point is 00:45:32 change. This is sometimes known as activity-based working. But, you know, I am sympathetic to the fact that employers have to create spaces for lots of people, but the more different kinds of spaces they can create, and the more they can allow employees to choose their own workspaces, the better it tends to be. Was there anything in the research that you did on this that surprised you? Yeah, well, so one chapter, I focus a lot on what I call the indoor microbiome. And listeners might know about sort of the microbiome that's been in the news a lot in recent years. And that sort of refers to all the microbes, bacteria, viruses, fungi that live on us and our bodies. And mostly they're helpful and beneficial. They're just sort of a natural part of our biology.

Starting point is 00:46:26 And in recent years, though, scientists have been trying to document sort of the microbiomes of our buildings. And one thing that floored me is just how much life is hiding in our homes that we don't see or think about. I think the researchers were finding tens of thousands of species of bacteria and other microbes that were sort of living in our home. Again, most of them totally benign, some of them even helpful. Homes have on average close to 100 different species of insects, and most of them you'll probably never see or know about. So the idea that these indoor spaces we spend so much time in are really these vibrant ecosystems that we often don't see and certainly don't often think about just fascinated me. And I actually had, I got to participate in one study where I had scientists identify all the microbes that were living in my shower head.

Starting point is 00:47:27 And it was just mind-boggling what was there. They found traces of a mysterious bacteria that they don't know much about, but that has previously been found in paleolithic cave paintings and in dog noses. And somehow I had that same bacteria in my shower head. So I think that is kind of fascinating that all this life exists around us that we can't even see. I love that. You have paleolithic bacteria in your shower head

Starting point is 00:47:57 and nobody knows how it got there. Yeah, and you might have it too. I might. So that's something. Scientists are really at the early stages of this research, and it's been, what they've discovered already is pretty staggering, and I look forward to seeing what else they turn up in the years to come. Well, it's kind of creepy to think that all those things are living in your house,

Starting point is 00:48:20 but, you know, it's not that surprising, really, when you think about what could be living under your house. But, you know, it's not that surprising, really, when you think about what could be living under your house and in the gutters and in the pipes and in the walls. I guess maybe it's that we just don't want to think about it because this is our house. This is my space. Emily Anthes has been my guest. She's an award-winning science journalist and author of the book, The Great Indoors, The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness. You'll find a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Emily.

Starting point is 00:48:55 Thanks so much for having me. It's been great to talk, and I hope everyone finds a way to keep their homes healthy. The next time you go to the supermarket, you might take note of all the different brands of dishwashing liquid. There are dozens of them, including name brands like Dawn and Palmolive, as well as store brands and generic brands. And while most people probably have their favorite brand, is there really any difference when it comes to washing dishes in the sink? Consumer Reports put a dozen brands through their paces, testing for the ability to clean and cut through grease.

Starting point is 00:49:39 What they did was they used dirty panes of glass and they used a machine to scrub the glass so each dishwashing liquid got the exact same test. The results? There was no discernible difference. They all performed well. So the advice from Consumer Reports is to just buy the cheapest or whatever's on sale. And that is something you should know. Our audience is growing, and it's due mostly to word of mouth, people like you sharing this podcast with their friends. I invite you to do that right now. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:50:20 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.

Starting point is 00:50:42 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,

Starting point is 00:50:57 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 co-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 Lightning,

Starting point is 00:51:27 a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity.

Starting point is 00:51:49 Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - Is Junk Food Really So Bad? & How Buildings Affect Your Health and Behavior

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