Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Improving the Way You Think & Eating Without Worrying

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Starting point is 00:00:18 That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. Today on Something You Should Know, you can't make yourself taller, but you can look taller, and I have simple ways to do that. Then, you probably don't think much about how you think, but you can actually improve your thinking. The inventor of brainstorming is a man by the name of Alex Osborne in the 1950s,

Starting point is 00:00:55 and he used to say it's a whole lot easier to tame a wild idea than it is to invigorate an idea that doesn't have any life in it in the first place. So go wild, go crazy. Then what's the difference between watermelon and seedless watermelon? I'll explain that, plus putting the joy back into eating. Because the way we look at food today is frankly odd. The value of a meal lies in what it lacks rather than what it has. You know, the less sugar, salt, fat, calories, whatever the suspect stuff, the better the meal. And that's a pretty strange notion if you think about it. All this today on Something You Should Know. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic.

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Starting point is 00:01:58 Download Bumble and try it for yourself. 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 appreciate you taking the time to listen today. You know, while I don't have any evidence for what I'm about to say, I would guess, my sense is, that if you were to ask a hundred men at random, what's the one thing you would change about your appearance if you could,

Starting point is 00:02:36 very close to the top of the list for many of those men would be that they would like to be taller. I wouldn't mind being taller. And of course, there isn't much you can do to make yourself taller, would be that they would like to be taller. I wouldn't mind being taller. And of course, there isn't much you can do to make yourself taller, but there are some things you can do that will make you look taller, and here's what Esquire magazine recommends. First, don't wear short sleeves. So much of what we wear creates an optical illusion, and one of the weirder ones is that short sleeves make your arms

Starting point is 00:03:06 look short. And if your arms look short, so will the rest of you. You should keep accessories simple. In order to appear taller, you want the eyes of whoever's looking at you to sweep upward. The more someone's eyes sweep upward, the taller they register whatever it is they're looking at. So to maintain that upward sweep, you should avoid anything flashy that will draw their attention below your waist. So steer clear of flashy shoes, flashy watches, and big flashy belt buckles. Make sure your shirt doesn't go lower than your hip bone. If you're short and wearing a button-down shirt, you should be tucking it in most of the time anyway, but if you absolutely have to untuck or you're wearing a shirt designed to be untucked, make sure that the hem doesn't go past your hip

Starting point is 00:03:56 bone. Anything longer and it will swallow you up and make your legs look stubby. Avoid low-waisted pants. You'll want to wear trousers at your natural waistline in order to maximize your leg line. The appearance of longer legs is a major factor in looking taller. And that is something you should know. Whether you have to solve a problem, or come up with some new idea, or just sort of figure things out,

Starting point is 00:04:26 it's all a result of your thinking, how you think. And no one probably ever taught you how to think. You just think. But could you think better? Can you actually improve your thinking so you think better thoughts? It's an intriguing idea and one that Tim Herson has made a career out of. Tim is a speaker and writer and his book is called Think Better. Hi Tim, so this is something I don't think people think about

Starting point is 00:04:56 because we're so busy thinking about other things, we're too busy thinking to stop and think about how we're thinking. If you know what I mean. So how did you get interested in this? One of the things that really intrigued me when I was a creative director in my advertising agency was why is it that some people seem to be able to come up with just a fountain of new ideas bubbling forth with ideas, and other people seemed to be less capable of doing that.

Starting point is 00:05:27 And it wasn't a question of one person was intelligent and the other person wasn't intelligent. It wasn't a question of extrovert and introvert. It seemed to be something else. So I started to investigate that. It really intrigued me. I started to investigate that, started to look into all kinds of research that had been done by cognitive psychologists and others. And it became very, very clear to me that creative thinking, what I call productive thinking, is a skill. It's a skill that can be learned. And once you know that,

Starting point is 00:05:58 it's really interesting. It's amazing that if you can teach people, literally, to have more ideas, better ideas, that's just a great thing. So that's how I got involved with it, and I've become passionate about it. It's something that I've made my life. When I think of great thinkers, I think of a very select few people who think amazing things, and my impression is that great thinkers are born to some extent, that they have something that the rest of us can't, that their ability to think is almost magical.

Starting point is 00:06:34 The research is very clear. People who come up with great ideas do so because they follow, whether consciously or not, a systematic approach to coming up with those ideas. And one of the things that they do is that they do something that I call separating their thinking. They separate the idea generation part of thinking. That's the kind of thinking that you have when you're in the shower, when you're drifting off to sleep, perhaps when you're driving your car. They separate that from the critical thinking, which is the

Starting point is 00:07:05 judgmental. And I don't mean that in a negative sense. I mean the evaluative kind of thinking. And simply by separating those two things, you are able to generate more, a list of more ideas that then you can evaluate. It's kind of like this. The analogy I like to use is a kayak paddle. If I have one end of my kayak paddle labeled creative thinking and the other end labeled critical thinking, and I just paddle with the one side, I go creative, creative, creative, creative, creative. I'm just going to go around in circles. And if I just go critical, critical, critical, critical with that one paddle, I'm going to go around in circles the other way. But if I figure out how to alternate these two and I go creative, critical, creative, critical, critical, critical. With that one paddle, I'm going to go around in circles the other way. But if I figure out how to alternate these two, and I go creative, critical, creative, critical,

Starting point is 00:07:49 I can develop enormous forward momentum, and it's exactly the same with ideas. First the creative, then come back with your critical thinking, evaluate, then do some more creative thinking, come back with your critical thinking to evaluate. That's the whole secret. And it seems like every single creative mind that we honor historically has in one way or another done exactly that thing.

Starting point is 00:08:14 But it does seem that those are two very different skills, that someone might be more inclined to be a good creative thinker and not such a great critical thinker. I mean, aren't those two very different skills? They are very different skills. In fact, on the creative side, what you want to do is defer judgment. You don't want to have any judgment. You just want to pour those ideas out.

Starting point is 00:08:37 It's like a little kid. When kids are creative, what they do is they literally shout out ideas. They go, I got an idea, I got an idea, I got an idea. They're not discussing them. They're not thinking about them. They're just throwing them out into the universe. So the first part of the skill is the ability to just let it be for a while. The second part is to build on ideas.

Starting point is 00:08:59 What you do is you have one idea, and then you kind of see, well, if that idea leads to this, the next idea leads to that, and you build on ideas and seek just little tiny variations sometimes from one idea to another, and often it's the tiny little variation which turns out to be a huge plus for an idea. But in my experience, I've always thought that this idea of just coming up with great ideas, crazy ideas, any idea will do, it doesn't matter, without some sort of context is a total waste of time. That you have to have boundaries to some extent because otherwise you're talking about things that are never going to fly. The inventor of brainstorming is a man by the name of Alex Osborne in the 1950s,

Starting point is 00:09:45 and he used to say it's a whole lot easier to tame a wild idea than it is to invigorate an idea that doesn't have any life in it in the first place. So go wild. Go crazy. And the fourth one is go for quantity. Just pour out ideas. Pour out 30 ideas, 40 ideas, 100 ideas, and within those 30, 40, or 100 ideas, there are going to be some gems. It's kind of like sales. Anybody in sales knows that you've

Starting point is 00:10:12 got a certain closing ratio. If you make 10 sales calls, you're going to possibly close one. If you make 20 sales calls, you're going to make a close on two. 30, you're going to get three sales, and so on. It's exactly the same with ideas. The more you have, the more likely it is that one, two, three, four will really be gems. So that's the creative side of thinking. The critical side is very, very different. It isn't expansive. It doesn't want to generate lots of ideas. It wants to actually evaluate and judge and focus down on ideas. It wants to use success criteria. It wants to actually evaluate and judge and focus down on ideas. It wants to use success criteria. It wants to unpack ideas. It wants to discuss them. It's not the shouting out of ideas like the creative. It's really discussing it. Well,

Starting point is 00:10:56 what's this aspect of it? What's that aspect of it? Do I have some good criteria against which to judge the idea? And those then become the critical thinking skills. Now you combine those two, balance them, separate them in a sense, creative, make a long list of ideas, critical, select the best of those ideas using your critical thinking, and suddenly you can have some really exciting ideas. But don't you think if more people are involved in this process, the better? That if you're creating and judging your own ideas through your own lens, through your own biases, that you're not such a great judge of ideas? I'm not sure that's true. I think one is the worst judge of one's own ideas if you don't give them time to breathe. More often than not, what we do is an idea comes out and we say, no, it'll never work.

Starting point is 00:11:48 No, it's not my responsibility. No, the boss won't like it. No, it'll get me into trouble. Before we give them time to breathe, once we give them time to breathe, kind of like a baby coming out, just smacking on the bum a little, give it some time to breathe. Then come back and you can view it with new eyes. Often we're the worst judges of our ideas because we're not judging the ideas, we're judging ourselves. Or we have an agenda, like I really need this idea to work, or I'm really under the gun here, and so something's got to work, so let's pick this one. May not be the

Starting point is 00:12:21 best one, but we'll go with that. So there are other things at play. Well, and one of the things is that the productive thinking process takes a real strong look at what are the criteria, what are the really appropriate criteria by which to judge your ideas. And you establish these criteria ahead of time so that they're not willy-nilly. They're not just, gee, I don't like it or gee, I'm afraid of it. They're real clear, critical criteria that you can, in fact, judge the ideas against.

Starting point is 00:12:54 I think what we're looking for here is a systematic, repeatable approach so that anybody, and I mean anybody, can have more ideas, better ideas, more of the time. My guest is Tim Herson. His book is called Think Better, and we're talking about just how to think better. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks and free fast streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather.

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Starting point is 00:14:49 The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Tim, specifically, how is what you're talking about, this process, how is it different than just plain old brainstorming? The productive thinking process is actually a six-step process. I talked about it being a repeatable process that you can do over and over again. One of those six steps is what is conventionally known as brainstorming. The first step we call simply what's going on. It's the step where it's kind of what you do when you take a jigsaw puzzle out of the box.

Starting point is 00:15:25 First thing you do is you turn over all the pieces. Well, you've got to know what's going on in order to solve the right problem. So many times in the work that I've done with corporations, the work that I've done with individuals, people arrive at what I call the great answer, wrong question syndrome. They've come up with wonderful plans, wonderful ideas. They try to implement them, and they don't work. They don't change anything. Well, the reason they don't change anything is they haven't done that first step. They haven't figured out what's really going on so that they can ask the right question.

Starting point is 00:15:58 So we don't start with brainstorming. We start with figuring out what's really going on, who's affected, what are the implications of's affected? What are the implications of this problem? What are the dreams that I might have about this issue? And only once you've done that can you begin to start generating some ideas. But there are even other steps that you have to do as well. You've got to figure out what success is. What is success going to look like? What's it going to feel like? We talk about something called the gravitational pull of the past. And all of us have experienced this.

Starting point is 00:16:29 You know, you try a new idea, whether it's at work or at home, and the gravity of the past pulls you back. You try another one, the gravity of the past pulls you back. So how do you overcome that? Well, we call it, in our process, we call it future pull. And what you do, it's like taking a grappling hook and throwing it into an imagined, wonderful future. Having it latch on to that future that is so powerful, so compelling, that you literally pull yourself towards it and overcome the gravitational pull of the past. Well, that's the second step in the process, is how do you figure out what that future is going to be

Starting point is 00:17:03 so you can throw your grappling hook towards it? Only then do we get to brainstorming because then we have the ability to, first of all, understand what we're brainstorming about, and secondly, to have that future pull that allows us that exciting, energizing future pull that allows us to generate the kinds of answers that are going to help us get there. The fourth step of our process is something that we call forge the solution. This is a really

Starting point is 00:17:30 important thing because brainstorming usually ends up with a bunch of little embryonic ideas. What you need to do is you need to take those embryonic ideas and you have to put them through a forge in exactly the same way that a ste smith might do when they're creating a beautiful object out of steel or a sword or something like that and you bang your ideas around you burn them you bang the impurities out of them so that what happens at the other end of the forge is you come up with a powerful workable solution not just a little idea but something that you can actually implement. So brainstorming is part of the process, but it's by no means all of the process. Well, it's interesting to hear creativity broken down into steps of a process, because I think,

Starting point is 00:18:25 I guess I like to think, and I think a lot of people like to think that a lot of creativity is, you know, magic. It just, it's that aha moment that it's magic. Well, there is magic. Of course there's magic. You know, we call, I talk about something called the unexpected connection. And that's that experience that all of us have had when suddenly we look at something. It could be a tree outside the window. It could be your shoelace lying on the floor. It could be your hand as you reach for the knob of your shower, and you look at that, and bingo, you have an absolute insight into something. You've made some kind of unexpected connection. That's one of the most powerful experiences that human beings can have. So there is magic there. The point is that you can create an environment

Starting point is 00:19:05 and you can create a system and you can create a process that increases the chances of your seeing those unexpected connections. Because the unexpected connections are around us all the time, everywhere. It's just that we're not open to them. But if you create a process,

Starting point is 00:19:21 if you follow a process, if you create a system, if you have a mindset that allows you to begin to see them, then you can see them in front of you, behind you, above you, below you, all the time. They're there. It's just that our eyes aren't open to them. Give me an example, if you can, of what you consider one of those great aha moments.

Starting point is 00:19:41 There's a scientist by the name of Kekule who had been searching for years and years and years for the structure of the carbon molecule. That was his life's quest. And he'd inundated himself with knowledge and understanding and research about this, but he couldn't crack it. One night, the story goes, he's falling asleep in front of his fireplace. And he has a dream about a snake that is eating its tail. In other words, it's making a kind of a circle. And he wakes up with a start. And he realizes that what he had been doing is that he had, in a metaphorical way, dreamed the shape of the carbon molecule,

Starting point is 00:20:25 which is an eight-sided, more or less circular figure. So what happened is that when we talk about the power of our minds, often works in the background. And one of the most powerful tools that you can use for creativity is something called incubation. It means steep yourself in the subject, understand it as clearly as you can, and then let it go.

Starting point is 00:20:47 And then let it go. Go to sleep. Go on vacation. And often what happens is that your mind in the background is starting to make those, what I called earlier, unexpected connections. And those unexpected connections can be the aha moments. The power of our minds to work by themselves, if we leave them alone sometimes,

Starting point is 00:21:07 is astonishing. What you need to do, however, is you have to have been able to steep yourself in the ideas beforehand. And all of us have had those aha moments when we go to sleep with a problem, we say, man, we can't solve this, I can't solve this, what's going on here? And you wake up in the morning or sometimes in the middle of the night, and you say, I got it. That's your mind working in the background. But except for the occasional exception, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs kind of exception, I guess, it does seem that even the great thinkers who come up with great ideas are really only good for one or two or maybe three, but that you're kind of spent after your great, big, successful idea.

Starting point is 00:21:48 Isn't that funny? I think that people do have hundreds and hundreds of great ideas. I think that what happens is that they don't capture them. Think of the last time that you were in the shower and the water is nicely pouring on your back or on your head and you're just kind of daydreaming, drifting along, you probably have hundreds and hundreds of ideas. But what happens is that we don't have a mechanism to capture them so that by the time we pull back that shower curtain or open the shower door,

Starting point is 00:22:19 they're gone. We've forgotten them. We've all had the experience of having the world's greatest idea that we can't remember. And this happens over and over and over again. I don't think Thomas Edison is unique in having the ideas. I think Thomas Edison is unique in having been able to capture the ideas. One of the things that the creative problem-solving process that I've developed does is it gives you ways of capturing those ideas. We all have them.

Starting point is 00:22:47 So what's an example of a way to capture ideas before they slip away? Well, real simple. It is literally, write them down. One of the most powerful things that any individual can do is carry around a notebook. Carry around a notebook and record your ideas. And here's the funny thing that happens when you record your ideas. It's the most basic of psychological principles. We reward psychologically. We repeat behaviors that are rewarding. So that as you capture ideas and get rewarded by capturing your ideas, you will automatically have more ideas.

Starting point is 00:23:22 In other words, the more ideas you write down, the more ideas ultimately you will have to write down. It's one of the most basic truths. And you talked about Thomas Edison earlier. You talked about some of the great minds in history. Think about them. Leonardo da Vinci, notebooks. Thomas Edison, tons and tons and tons of notebooks. Virtually every great thinker that we can name captured their ideas by, in most cases, writing them down. But are there other ways? Of course there are. Today we have the ability to have little voice recorders. Today we can send telephone messages to ourselves every time that we have an idea and not lose those gems. There's a great Chinese proverb that says,

Starting point is 00:24:06 the strongest mind is not as powerful as the weakest ink. And it's so true. You can't remember this stuff unless you write it down. Ooh, I like when the answer is simple. Write it down. Tim Herson has been my guest. He's given you a lot to think about, about thinking. And the name of his book is Think Better.

Starting point is 00:24:27 There's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Tim. 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

Starting point is 00:24:59 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. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks.

Starting point is 00:25:36 And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture.

Starting point is 00:26:04 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. You know, when you think about it, we have really sucked much of the joy out of eating. Instead of just finding the food we eat pleasurable, we worry. We worry about how many calories, how much fat or sugar, does it have enough fiber? Eating has become more about what we don't eat than enjoying the food we do eat. We also think that some foods have powers to improve our health that science doesn't recognize, and other foods we think single-handedly will kill us, also that science doesn't recognize. Well, Barry Glasner is

Starting point is 00:26:54 a professor of sociology at USC and author of nine books, including The Gospel of Food, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Enjoy What We Eat. Hi, Barry. So I wonder, why is it that we're so concerned about food? Where did this come from? And why do we demonize some foods and think other foods are magical? I mean, we have a lot of weird beliefs about food. As a sociologist, I got interested in where those come from and why people believe what they do and really the effect that has on

Starting point is 00:27:25 individuals and on society as a whole. Is this strictly an American or a Western thing that people are so concerned about food, or is this in all cultures? You know, every society has had its food preferences and prohibitions, and usually these have been dictated more or less by religious teachings like Judaism and Islam prohibited pork and Catholicism decreed fish on Fridays. But the big difference today, it seems to me, especially in the United States, is that for huge numbers of people, eating is a religion. I mean, we worship at the temples of celebrity chefs. You know,

Starting point is 00:28:02 we raise our children to believe that certain foods are good and certain foods are bad. And we engage in all sorts of elaborate rituals around food at home and when we eat out. Like, what do you mean, what kind of rituals? Well, for example, we put various foods in various categories, and we keep them there, and then we kind of worship some and demonize others. And we even believe in miracles through eating. I mean, when you look at surveys, nine out of ten Americans say that they believe that some foods have benefits that go beyond basic nutrition somehow. But exactly which foods they believe in and which ones they don't varies tremendously. So vegetarians believe that their meatless regimen will prevent just about every serious malady from heart disease to world hunger.

Starting point is 00:28:53 And at the opposite end of the spectrum, the followers of the late Dr. Atkins devour meat at nearly every meal because they're persuaded one way or another that protein is some kind of magical potion for them. Well, but whether they're right or not, and whether what they believe is true or false, so what? I mean, what's wrong with believing, what harm does it do? Well, it certainly is true that eating is one of the really great activities, one of the great joys in life. And we should value that and be grateful that we're able to have good food and enjoy it with our friends and our families. And at the same time, what's happening is many people have lost a lot of the joy of eating

Starting point is 00:29:38 because they've just taken the joy right out of the equation. You know, they've restricted themselves so much in what they will eat or where they will eat or how they will eat that they've really taken the joy out of their diet. But you can certainly make the argument that we now have new information about nutrition, about

Starting point is 00:29:58 what foods are good for you and which ones aren't, and that maybe you shouldn't eat a meal that's nothing but deep-fried foods, and that that's a good thing. So we have this information. Why not use it to eat better? I think the good news in American society right now is more people are eating a more diverse diet. We're much more open to new tastes than we've been before.

Starting point is 00:30:21 But the bad news is what I call the gospel of not. You know, that's the belief that the value of a meal lies in what it lacks rather than what it has. You know, the less of bad stuff in a meal, the less sugar, salt, fat, calories, carbs, additives, whatever the suspect stuff, the better the meal. And that's a pretty strange notion if you think about it. And as we keep enlarging that list, we keep narrowing what we can eat and what we will enjoy. But it's curious to me anyway, why it is that we have all this concern, oh, that's got too much fat and there's too many grams of fat and too much salt and sugar is terrible. And yet the population is getting fatter and fatter. So we have all these people running around concerned, but it doesn't seem to be helping.

Starting point is 00:31:16 The interesting thing about the obesity epidemic is that it's so much more interesting and so much more complicated than what we're led to believe a lot of the time. You know, the simple notion that it's just, you know, that people are eating more fast food or something, it really doesn't get to the heart of what's going on. In fact, the fast food industry blossomed really took off way before the obesity epidemic. People forget that it was in 1966 that signs outside McDonald's restaurants said over 2 billion sold with a B. But it wasn't until much later that we really had an obesity epidemic.

Starting point is 00:31:55 If you look at the causes of obesity, it has a lot more to do with factors like genetics, with factors like stress patterns that people are under, and some very surprising and very interesting factors. So, for instance, the success of anti-smoking campaigns has a lot to do with the obesity epidemic. Now, the anti-smoking campaigns are a great thing. Smoking is really very dangerous to health. But when people give up smoking, they typically gain

Starting point is 00:32:25 10 to 20 pounds. And the anti-smoking campaigns happened at the same time that weight went way up. Well, that's actually pretty interesting, because you're right, people who stop smoking tend to eat more and gain weight. But you can't attribute all the obesity problem in the United States of America to stopping smoking. Not that many people smoke anymore. No, no. There are multiple causes of obesity, and that's what makes it so interesting and so important. It ranges from increasing stress that a lot of people are under, which has a big impact on weight, to genetics, to these factors that most people don't even think about,

Starting point is 00:33:07 like the anti-smoking campaigns. But it's also true, I mean, I don't think you can argue with the fact that people generally eat more at a meal than they used to. I mean, the joy of cooking recipes have been shown that the recipe in the version of that book 30 years ago, the same recipe that fed six now feeds four. I think there are definitely groups of people in the U.S. who eat a lot more than people, than they themselves, or people like them were eating earlier.

Starting point is 00:33:37 But it's very easy to romanticize, you know, this distant past, the glorious 50s or 60s, and the American diet. If you look back at what people were eating back then, you know, the typical meal had lots of calories, lots of fat. You know, it was meatloaf and steak and potatoes and hamburgers and, you know, pie a la mode for dessert and whole milk with the meal. You know, it's not what today people would generally consider especially healthy, but we think somehow, you know, in the past it was all different.

Starting point is 00:34:18 But I think it's pretty clear that portion sizes have gone up, that a plate of food in a restaurant today is much, there's just much more food on the plate because people expect more food on the plate. Well, Americans love big portions. But again, that's nothing new. You know, if you look historically, we've always been a country that thinks big and eats big and likes big portions. You know, those of us who are old enough to remember back to, you know,

Starting point is 00:34:47 the 70s, the 60s, even the 50s, you'll remember the all-you-can-eat buffets were super popular. You'll remember church socials. People from the 20s, 30s, 40s remember these church socials where, you know, people ate massive amounts of food. It was just spread out everywhere. So the notion that somehow this is a new thing really misses the point. But to hear you talk, it's almost as if you're saying, just don't worry about it,

Starting point is 00:35:16 but clearly we have an obesity problem and we have people who don't eat very well. I think we should be always concerned about our health and about our diet. But what I'm urging is a sense of proportion and realism here. We've lost all the enjoyment many people have, a lot of the enjoyment of eating. And that's very sad because eating is one of the great pleasures. It's also unfortunate if we lose the joy in our eating and in our food and our meals because people get more out of a meal, not just emotionally but also physically, when the food is a pleasure to eat, and that's been shown in several studies.

Starting point is 00:35:56 Wait, what does that mean, that people get more out of a meal physically if it's pleasurable? One of my favorite studies of the many that I looked at took women from two different countries, took women from Thailand and from Sweden, and fed them foods that they enjoyed and they were used to or foods that they didn't enjoy. And when they ate the foods that they liked and enjoyed, they absorbed more iron. It's literally better for you when you're enjoying the food. The importance of the joy of eating is officially recognized in various parts of the world. So you have some countries and some governments in Europe, for instance, that in their official dietary guidelines, they talk about this. One country comes right out and declares joy and food equals health.

Starting point is 00:36:51 What a difference from the perspective that many people take in the U.S. Our official dietary guidelines are faithful more to, I guess you'd say, our Puritan roots, and they don't say anything about enjoyment. No, not at all. And you know what's interesting is when you think about it, for centuries, for all of human history until recently, people have eaten to survive, and now we don't have to eat to survive. We can eat to enjoy the food, and yet all of the guidelines about what to eat

Starting point is 00:37:21 are all restrictive, you know, don't eat this, don't eat that. Yeah, that's right. It's all about restraint and cutting things out rather than the enjoyment and the pleasure of the food or the meal. But just a few decades ago, it seemed that, you know, people didn't obsess about this stuff. They ate what they ate, and when they were done, they stopped. And it wasn't so, you know, pick-it-apart kind of thing. I think that Americans, you know, have long enjoyed, many Americans have long been into bigness, you know, including eating a lot and having big meals. And so, you know, I don't really think that's anything new.

Starting point is 00:38:01 Neither is it new, really, that we demonize some foods and worship others. You know, if you look back, it changes from period to period, time to time, which foods we admire, which foods we put on the good list or the bad list. But we tend to have those lists. You know, if you look back just a couple of decades, for instance, eggs were widely regarded as almost lethal. There were all these big campaigns by food activists and nutritional reformers demonizing eggs because eggs contain a lot of cholesterol, even though no study had shown, still no study has shown, that egg consumption causes heart disease.

Starting point is 00:38:47 It just doesn't work that way. And eggs abound in protein, B vitamins, all sorts of nutrients at a low cost. They work well in many recipes. But egg consumption plummeted during that campaign. Well, the term you just used, I think you said food advocate, you know, people advocating against eggs. Why are there people doing this? Why are people so in an uproar about eggs or any other food? Why do people pick a food and then just go after it? And what does that do to this whole conversation? I think what we need is just a little perspective on these things.

Starting point is 00:39:26 You know, our grandparents or great-grandparents, depending how old we are, or even great-great-grandparents, when processed food came along, they were thrilled. This was a big advance for civilization because now you could have foods that were safe, that were convenient to use, that you could get foods out of season and enjoy them. You could get foods that were unheard of in certain places in the country or the world. What a great advance. But now we go 100% in the other direction, you see. And now what we do is we think, wow, you know, if it's processed or preserved somehow, or heaven forbid, if it's canned, it's inferior.

Starting point is 00:40:09 And, you know, we just, we go through these swings back and forth to what we romanticize or idealize. But there are these people, these advocates, who I remember several years ago, Michael Jacobson, who was all upset about theater popcorn, that we had to get theater popcorn out of the theaters because it was going to kill you. Why? You know, when I hear some of these people, it's impossible for me not to think about the boy who cried wolf. You know, if you say that almost everything, and especially the foods that people really enjoy a lot, you know, whether it's popcorn or food at the Chinese restaurant in the U.S.,

Starting point is 00:40:48 you know, that that stuff's going to kill you, and you do this time after time, then you shouldn't really be surprised when people say to themselves, at least when they're reading or hearing this, ah, forget him. Well, but I'm not so sure that's true, because when there's a food story, when there's some new study about, you know, some food that's now somehow deadly, these people show up on the news, and I think people do listen. As your egg example indicated earlier, that people do listen, and because the stories about, you know, most food's okay and moderation is fine, that's not news. You know, scary stories are very appealing to the news media.

Starting point is 00:41:31 And scary stories about food work especially well because people are concerned for good reason about what they eat. You put it in your mouth, it becomes part of you. And so if somebody is out there, and especially if they have doctor by their name or something like that, or they have an official sounding organization behind them, and they make claims that are frightening about people's diet, it's going to catch the attention of the media. So when the dust settles on all of this, what's the advice? Because clearly, you don't want to be telling people nothing matters, eat whatever you want, it doesn't make any difference, nor do you want to say, you know,

Starting point is 00:42:10 you can only eat sticks and twigs. So what's the advice? The moral of the story is embarrassingly simple in one way, it's much more complicated in other ways, but in a sense it's really simple. Your mom was right. Eat your fruits and vegetables, eat in moderation, and everything else will be just great. I would add to that, enjoy what you eat, and eat what you enjoy within moderation, and be sure it includes your fruits and veggies. Well, I am fascinated by what you said earlier about if you enjoy your food,

Starting point is 00:42:46 it's better for you. You get more out of it. I mean, that almost sounds like magic. Well, the body and the mind obviously respond to things that are positive and pleasurable and try to shy away from things that are negative and are not pleasurable. So, you know, in a sense, it's exactly what you would expect. It's just that, you know, we hear so often that if something tastes good, feels good, it's got to be bad for you.

Starting point is 00:43:16 Well, what you say, I think, will come as a relief of sorts to some people. And, you know, other people will think you're nuts and don't know what you're talking about. And that's okay. Barry Glasner has been my guest. He is a professor of sociology at USC. He's the author of nine books, and today we've been talking about the gospel of food, why we should stop worrying and enjoy what we eat. There's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Barry. I appreciate you being here. September marks the end of summer, and it also marks the end of watermelon season. Nothing, to me anyway, nothing tastes more like summer than watermelon. But there's watermelon,

Starting point is 00:44:00 and then there's seedless watermelon. So what's the difference? Well, a lot of people, including me, think that seedless watermelons don't taste as good as regular watermelons. But beyond that, seedless watermelons are a lot like mules. They're sterile hybrids formed by crossing genetically incompatible parents. So what happens is farmers treat some of their watermelons with a chemical that allow chromosomes to duplicate, but prevents them from splitting into two cells. This creates a super squash with four complete sets of chromosomes. The fruit is not genetically modified. Cells contain the same DNA as standard melons, just twice as

Starting point is 00:44:45 many. Then they introduce those melons to regular watermelons. This offspring will grow up to be a normal-looking vine that produces flowers and fruit, but when it tries to reproduce, the chromosomes can't divide properly. This means that real seeds never develop. So what are those white-looking seeds in seedless watermelon? They're what would have been the seeds, but in fact they're just soft seed coverings that cannot grow into anything. And that is something you should know. We have outstanding sponsors on this podcast, and I strongly recommend you check out what they have to offer. All of the websites and the promo codes for discounts are all in the show notes for this episode. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:45:36 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.

Starting point is 00:46:14 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. Contained herein are the heresies of Redolph 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 00:46:52 The Heresies of Randolph Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available.

Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Improving the Way You Think & Eating Without Worrying

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