Something You Should Know - The Fascinating Reason Why More is Never Enough & What You Never Knew About Spices

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

Everyone seems to have a cellphone – ALL the time. But there are some circumstances when you really should put your phone away so others don’t see it. I begin this episode by discussing when that is and why it is important. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9589232/Putting-a-mobile-phoneon-the-restaurant-table-will-ruin-your-meal.html It appears to be human nature to always want more. Then when we get what we want it is never enough. Why is that? It turns out there is a chemical in your brain that drives this behavior. To explain, I am joined by Daniel Lieberman, MD, who is a professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University and author of the book The More Molecule, How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex and Creativity – and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race (https://amzn.to/2RBclxi). Of course you know the results of reheating pizza in the microwave are horrible and heating it in the oven takes too long. But there is another way that is very fast and won’t leave your pizza all soggy and mushy. https://sciencenotes.org/why-microwave-pizza-with-a-glass-of-water/  What do you know about spices? One thing for sure is that your food would be pretty bland without them. But there is so much more to the world of spices and how to use them. Food science writer Stuart Farrimond, author of the book Spice (https://amzn.to/2GWVm4K) explains the science and lore of spices and offers suggestions to help you use them to cook tastier, more interesting food.   This Week's Sponsors -Capterra. To find the right software for your business visit www.capterra.com/something -ADT. Go to www.ADT.com/smart to learn how ADT can design and install a smart home system for you. -Geico. Go to www.Geico.com to see how Geico can save you money on your car insurance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know is all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.

Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, there are times when

you're better off putting your cell phone away and out of sight because it affects how people judge you. Then, did you know there is a powerful chemical in your brain that makes you always want more and never be satisfied with what you get? That's the basis for buyer's remorse. You know, we might look forward to purchasing something for weeks, even months. Our imagination goes wild with how it's going to change our life. And as soon as we get it, we say, oh my God, why did I spend this much money? Also, the best way to reheat pizza and the fascinating world of spices and understanding how to use them better. I think this is the reason why many of us are quite scared about cooking with spices

is because they actually taste awful. You bite into, let's say, a peppercorn and it tastes repulsive. But in very small amounts, they're actually really pleasant, really flavorful. 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, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Got a really interesting program today. Well, I like to think they're all interesting, but I love it when I just, I hear some out of the blue, fascinating stuff that I've never heard before. And you will hear that today in the first interview. But first up today, cell phones are everywhere. I mean, kids as young as eight and nine years old are walking around staring at

their phones. But the next time you have an important date or an important meeting, hide your phone. A study found that those people with no phone in sight were perceived as more likable, sincere, and trustworthy. And this held true in both personal and professional settings. If you have no intention of using your phone, it should be off and out of sight, because when people see you with your phone, it suggests that there may be an interruption of the conversation at any moment, and that person is not your top priority. And that is something you should know. Why is it that we always, or most of the time, want more?

We want more money, more success, more love, more novelty, a bigger house, a nicer car. More, more, more. We don't want less. We want more. And on top of that, when we get the more that we say we want, it's usually not enough. Then we want even more than that. So why is that? What drives us to always want more? Here to explain why we are this way and why it's so fascinating is Dr. Daniel Lieberman. He's an M.D. and professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, and he's author of a book called The More Molecule, How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity, and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race.

Hi, doctor. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me, Mike. Sure. So, first of all, what is this more molecule? What is this chemical that you're talking about? So, it's a chemical called a neurotransmitter. So, the brain uses different neurotransmitters for different functions. Some of them control our mood. Some of them control our energy. What dopamine, the molecule of more, does is it orients us to the

future. It evolved in order to help us to maximize future resources, i.e. keep us alive, keep us reproducing. And so it always makes us think about what's next. And it can take our mind off of what we're doing now, the good things we have in our life now, and really focus us on what we don't have and the things we want or need. So when people say, just be grateful for what you have, that's really contrary to human nature because we always want more. Exactly. Now, there are chemicals in our brain that do allow us to be grateful for what we have. In the book, we call them the here and now neurotransmitters, but they're not as powerful as dopamine is.

In fact, they're pretty weak, and modern society tends to shift us away from those neurotransmitters and really makes us a lot more dopamine focused. So how does it work? How does a chemical in the brain make me want a bigger house or more money? How does it work? Well, there are a number of different pathways that dopamine takes to the brain. And I like to think of them like pathways that fuel will take through a rocket ship. You can have the main thrusters that move you forward. You can have side thrusters that steer. Retro rockets to slow you down. The fuel's doing different things, but it's all to get the rocket to the destination.

And dopamine is the same way. It can travel through different pathways in the brain, seemingly in very different ways, but the outcome is the same, and that's maximizing future resources. So, for example, we've got what we call the desire pathway. That makes you want things, and it also gives you the energy, motivation, and perseverance to go after the things that you want. The problem with the desire pathway, though, is that it's pretty indiscriminate. If it wants something, it just wants it, whether or not it's really going to be good for our long-term future. The desire pathway has a very short-term orientation,

such as, I want an ice cream cone right now. Then there's the control pathway. That involves the frontal lobes, which are the most sophisticated parts of the brain for processing and the most recent to develop from an evolutionary point of view. And we call that the control circuit. That allows us to look a little bit farther into the future than the desire circuit does. It allows us to weigh options. It allows us to use abstract concepts such as language and mathematics. And it's really very, very powerful in terms of being able to help us to dominate our environment the way human beings have dominated the planet. So when dopamine is telling you you want more and you want that ice cream cone right now, but you don't want any ice cream cone right now, if you got a broccoli

flavored ice cream cone handed to you, you'd probably pass. So what's going on there that, yes, you want more, but not that more? Right. So, you know, dopamine is part of the brain, and the brain is the most complex, most individualized organ in the body. So we can talk generally about what these circuits do, but it's important to remember that they are different in every single individual, probably who's ever existed on this planet. So what I want more and what you want more are going to be different and they will be more or less specific depending on the situation. So for example, if I'm starving, I think I'll take that broccoli flavored ice cream. So it's complicated. It depends on one's genetics. It depends on one's

environment. It depends on one's past. It depends on a whole lot of different things. So what about the people that don't seem to want more? I think we tend to call them lazy. They don't. Nothing really seems to motivate them. They don't care. They're going to live in mom's basement for the rest of their life. What happened to them? You know, there are people who have particularly strong dopamine systems. We call them dopaminergic personalities. And they can have a number of different dopaminergic personalities.

And then you have the non-dopaminergic type. We sort of jokingly refer to them as the pot-smoking basement dwellers. And so they can come across in a very negative way. They can be lazy. They can be unmotivated. They can always be depending on other people to support them. But there's a positive side as well. They can also be the serene monk who lives up in the mountains and does little but meditate and is enormously happy and satisfied with the very bare necessities of life. So there is a positive and negative side to both of these things, to the very dopaminergic person and to the person who is very low in dopamine activity.

Is dopaminergic a real word, or did you just make that up? I did not. That's actually a real word from the scientific literature. Wow, I've never heard that word before, and I would not even attempt to spell it. So, knowing this, so what? I mean, is this just a, well, isn't this interesting? Or knowing this, we can do something with it? I think it's important to know about. You know, a lot of people who have read the book have said that it really changes the way they view their life and the world. As they go through the day, we shift between dopamine activities and non-dopamine activities. And it's very helpful to be aware of which one

we're doing so we can try to fully be in that mode. So for example, if you're at work and you've got to produce something, you're in dopamine mode and you want to be focusing on what are my needs for the future and how do I get there? By contrast, when you come home and you spend time with loved ones, it's important to do your best to get out of dopamine mode, to come down into here and now mode and really try to be present with them. And it's pretty hard to do. It's pretty hard to do. I mean, you think how often are you in conversation with someone you care about very deeply and you're not even listening to them. While they're talking, your mind is elsewhere, probably thinking about something you need to do in the future. And so it's good to think about what mode am I in,

what mode should I be in, and what can I do to more fully experience this mode? If dopamine is the thing that makes you want more and then be bored with it after you've gotten it, is there something in the awareness of that that maybe helps you appreciate that more, or that's just the way we work? Yes, it's a very, very funny phenomenon, the way when we get something, it instantly changes from before. And the reason is that the way the brain is wired, dopamine is designed only for processing things that are in the future. And so if I want a new pair of shoes, I'm imagining how amazing I'm going to look in these shoes and how perhaps it's going to change my life. That's all well and good as long as I don't have the

shoes because that keeps the shoes in the future. As soon as the shoes become mine, they're now in the present and dopamine utterly shuts down because it's not designed for processing things in the present. And that immediate loss of dopamine activity can come as quite a crash. And that's the basis for buyer's remorse. You know, we might look forward to purchasing something for weeks, even months. Our imagination goes wild with how it's going to change our life. And as soon as we get it, we say, oh my God, why did I spend this much money? It happens to people with relationships too. A lot of times there are people who will just jump from one relationship to another.

And when the relationship is new, when you have this idealized object of desire, it creates an enormous amount of excitement and enthusiasm. But once that object of desire becomes a real human being, the future-focused dopamine shuts down, and maybe these kinds of people don't have particularly strong here and now chemicals in their brain, and all of a sudden they've completely lost interest in this person, and they think it's time to go on to the next one. I'm speaking with Dr. Daniel Lieberman. He's author of the book, The More Molecule, How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love,

Sex, and Creat sex, and creativity, and will determine the fate of the human race. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf 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. The heresies of Redolf Bantwine, 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 not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the

best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I was thinking as you were describing how dopamine works about Christmas morning, how kids, after they've been anticipating Christmas for so long, and they open the presents, and then it's, you know, is that it? I mean, there's nothing more?, is that it? I mean, there's nothing more. It's that thing, right? Exactly. And what do they do? They play with the boxes because the boxes trigger imagination, which is dopaminergic. And that's a lot more

exciting than possessing what is often just a lump of plastic. So it's good to pay attention when this happens to you. It's good to experience the feeling of dopamine shutting down when we get something we've been anticipating, because that might give us a perspective, a more realistic perspective on what we want. And we may say, you know what, it feels great to anticipate this big purchase, but I know it's not going to feel that great when I get it. So maybe it's not necessary for me to actually purchase it. You may have heard of the saying, it's better to travel hopefully than to arrive. And that's all about dopamine. And before we make decisions, we need to think about what's it going to feel like when we arrive.

What about something like gambling, which I think is probably, dopamine is at the heart of that, I would imagine. And I, like many people, like money, but I have no interest in gambling. Gambling does nothing for me, and I don't do it, but other people do it. Other people go nuts and get in a lot of trouble. So what do I have or not have that they have? So you're absolutely right. Gambling does stimulate dopamine in a way that's not so different from the way drugs of abuse stimulate them. But it comes down, again, to just the individual variations in abuse stimulate them. But it comes down again to just the individual variations

in people's brains. I'm like you. I think I spent a total of $5 gambling on two or three trips to Las Vegas. It just does absolutely nothing for me. And I've got a friend who loves it. And I said to him one day, look, you're not stupid. You know what odds are. You can do simple math. You know that there's no way you can win in the long term. Why do you give the casinos your money? And he said, well, it's the same as somebody who's going to spend $1,000 on a ski trip.

I know I'm going to lose the money, but boy, is it fun while it's happening. So I think it's the same as lots of things. Some people enjoy skiing, some people enjoy gambling money in Las Vegas, and it really comes down to individual differences in genes and brain circuits. You say this relates to politics, liberals and conservatives. So talk about that, explain that. Overall, liberal political philosophy is more oriented on the future. We see that in the name that liberals often give to themselves, which is progressives. They're very interested in making the world a better place. And some of them think that they can make the world a perfect place through the right combination of policy, education, and technological developments.

So people who have very strong dopamine systems, and these tend to be people who are very good at working with abstract concepts, people like mathematicians, artists, movie stars, writers, journalists, they tend to have more of a progressive approach to politics. Conservatives, on the other hand, have more of a here and now approach. And once again, that's right in the meaning of the word. They don't want things to change. They want to appreciate the best that we have inherited from our forebears. These are people who tend often to have jobs that are less focused on abstract concepts and maybe more focused on physical reality, jobs that involve more physical activity. So they tend to be a little bit less dopaminergic, a little bit more focused on the here and now. And this accounts for a lot of the stereotypes

about the people on both sides of the equation. So for example, liberals, you know, there's a saying, a hundred liberals walking down the street is probably a protest. 100 conservatives is probably a parade. Liberals tend to be dissatisfied. They always want things to change. Conservatives, on the other hand, think that things are pretty much okay just the way they are. And population polls tend to bear this out. In general, conservatives are happier and more satisfied than liberals are.

Well, it's interesting because if what you say is true, liberals want change because the goal is change. So if they get the change, it doesn't solve anything. It doesn't satisfy anything. They're just going to want more change. It would never end. it. When you drive a car, you've got a gas pedal and a brake, and both of them are equally important. You need the gas pedal to get somewhere. You need the brake to control and no one to stop when you get there. And I think that liberals and conservatives are like that. The liberals are the gas, the conservatives are the brakes. And the system, I think, is going to work very, very well when the two are cooperating, when the two are exchanging rational arguments and really figuring out what's going to be the best for everyone. So we've been talking about how dopamine makes you more inclined to want more. You want more of whatever it is you want. But how much more inclined? In other words,

where is free will here? How much of this is predetermined? And when does somebody get to say, if ever, well, you know, it wasn't me that made that decision. It was my dopamine. This is just who I am. I must have this. You know, that's an extremely difficult question. And it's one that psychiatrists, especially psychiatrists that have to interact with criminals, they struggle with that all the time. It's sad versus bad. Is this person a sick individual? Or is this person a morally flawed individual? We don't have the answer because really, any behavior at all can be understood on a neurological basis. And there is no neurological basis for free will. That is a philosophical concept that science has not made any progress whatsoever in understanding. Now, I think it's

good to understand that to some degree, nobody has full control over their mind, which I think you come across as a foreign concept. We understand that we don't have full control over our body, but we think we ought to be able to determine our thoughts, but we can't. We have limited ability to do that. And I think that what that allows us to do is to see what's going on and see what we need to do to shape things. Often it involves advanced planning. And if I could just give an example, if somebody is having a problem with alcohol, goes to a party, and they are offered a drink, they will often be overwhelmed by craving and take that drink. And I think legitimately say at a later date, I couldn't control myself.

On the other hand, if they know that that lack of control is going to occur in advance, what they can do is say, I'm not going to go to this party. Or they can say, I'm going to take a sober buddy with me who, if they see someone offering me a drink, is going to step in. So I think that both things are true. There are times when we don't have control over our brain, but there are things we can do to maximize that control and really take full responsibility for our lives. Yeah. Well, and when you say that we don't control our thoughts, well, we can control some of it. I

mean, I can decide to think about an elephant right now, and guess what I'm thinking about? I mean, I have some control over it, but not as much control, therefore, as maybe I think I do, because of the example you just gave of, you know, someone who has trouble with alcohol is going to have a hard time stopping, and those are thoughts they cannot control. Right, and I think an example we can all relate to is that next time you're talking to a friend or family member, try and pay 100% attention to what they're saying. And I think you'll find it's harder than you think it is, that your mind wanders very quickly and you have to constantly bring it back into the present moment. But people think of that as a flaw, not because something

else is controlling their thoughts. It's just that they're not doing a very good job at staying focused. I don't think that's true. I think that we've developed these brain habits through evolution and experience. We can change them. We can make it easier to live in the present, easier to pay attention to other people. But through habit, we do lose a little bit of that control. Well, you hear about dopamine a lot. I mean, it comes up a lot in this program. But people don't typically call it the more molecule. People tend to think of dopamine as the pleasure molecule.

It's what happens when you use drugs, eat food, have sex. That's only half the story. A much more important thing is that it takes us out of the present moment, out of physical reality, and off into the nebulous abstract world of possibility and future. Well, it is interesting, and I've never heard dopamine explained this way, so I appreciate that. My guest has been Dr. Daniel Lieberman, M.D. and professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, and he's author of the book, The More Molecule, How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity, and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race.

There's a link to his book in the show notes for this episode. Thank you, Doctor. All right. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed it. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely

need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me But Am I Wrong. Each week we deliver four fun filled shows. In Don't Blame Me we tackle our listeners dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice.

Plus we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our 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 Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. A world without spices would be very dull and boring.

Almost any food, it seems, can be made to taste a little better if you add the right amount of this or the right amount of that spice. And humans have known this for thousands and thousands of years. There's evidence of spices being used in ancient civilizations as a way to flavor food and, just as importantly, to mask unpleasant flavors. There are tales in history when spices were more valuable than gold, and wars have been fought over spices. And spices have been used as medicine for thousands and thousands of years. Today, as before, we use spices and herbs to flavor our food.

But there is a lot about spices in your food you may not know. Stuart Faramond is a food science writer and the author of a beautiful new book called Spice. Welcome, Stuart. Hey, Mike. Great to speak with you. So explain, if you can, because this has always intrigued me, how somehow, somewhere, a long time ago someone thought hey if we put this spice on this food it will help it taste better when in fact almost every spice when you taste it by itself on its own it tastes terrible so how did this how did this come

together it's bizarre it's really strange because this is this is the thing about spices. And I think this is the reason why many of us are quite scared about cooking with spices is because they actually taste awful. You bite into, let's say, a peppercorn and it tastes repulsive. But in very small amounts, these highly potent flavor capsules, if you um in in small amounts uh they actually are really pleasant really flavorful who first discovered this that's a really good question spices have historically had um mystical values and medicinal values uh they've been using medicines and all sorts of things like that so uh and putting that into cooking, I guess that was kind of a natural progression of adding it into your diet so that you get the benefits from these from these spices. Wasn't part of the whole reason of using spices was to make food that might otherwise taste pretty lousy and try to make it taste better?

Yes, that's that's as the story goes. Say your meat doesn't keep very well in hot climates and would go off and taste horrible and rotten. By heavily spicing it, you could mask lots of horrible flavors. And so just to define our terms, what is the difference between a spice and an herb? Or as you say in the UK, herb. We don't pronounce the H. Well, what's the difference between spices and herbs? Spices are from any part of the plant other than the leaf. The leaf is the herb. Every other part of the plant is the spice. And it matters because spices are generally so potent that we dry them. And because they're dried, we've kind of got to reawaken the flavors.

We've got to get it out of that spice. So if you can imagine, let's just say a peppercorn, the flavor in that peppercorn are kept in tiny little droplets of oil that are inside the substance of that peppercorn and you're only going to get that out by bruising bashing cooking that peppercorn and then it'll all be spilled out into into your cooking and and the flavors will spread throughout whereas an herb you would generally for best results cook with an herb fresh and so they need to be added um treated with care when you're cooking with them so add them towards the end of cooking they um they release their flavor much more quickly they're much more fragile uh and so they are the the main distinguishing features of a spice and an herb is salt a spice no salt is a seasoning uh salt is a mineral

so it's not a spice it is the cheapest and most effective flavor enhancer that we have on earth because it's something that our body craves in nature salt is very hard to come by and so we have this inbuilt evolutionary desire to crave anything that is salty. So adding salt to any kind of food enhances all the flavours. It makes our taste buds more sensitive to sweet. It makes the aroma compounds that flood our nose, our body becomes much more sensitive

and all flavours are intensified by salt. So salt is an essential part of many cooking cuisines, but in its own right, it is not actually a spice. So from your experience and from watching people and talking to people, what are some of the mistakes people make when they use spices or herbs or seasonings or however you want to attack this yeah yeah what's the top mistakes not roasting them beforehand uh that is probably the biggest mistake that people make you just get your jar of spice out of the cupboard and you throw

it into your cooking midway through um And if you don't roast them beforehand, you're missing out on so much of the flavour. It's like having a steak and not searing it before you eat it. You're losing all the rich flavours on the outside. Because when you roast a spice, or you fry it off at the beginning of your cooking, that's a really important thing to do. Roasting or frying off at the beginning of cooking,

there is a fantastic flavour reaction that's going on important thing to do roasting or frying off at the beginning of cooking there is a fantastic flavor reaction that's going on on the outside called the maillard reaction exactly the same reaction that happens when you toast bread or when you sear your steak that brown crust that you get on the outside that's the same thing that's happening in spices but the unique flavor compounds and substances that are in the spice give it a nutty rich unique aroma that is unique to that individual spice and if you don't do that you're missing out on so much of the flavor so that is the number one mistake that people make is not to fry or roast your spices beforehand even if you've got powder you can fry it off in some oil briefly at the beginning of cooking and the other mistake is to just throw it into your

your steaming pot of stew or whatever and hope for the best because all those gorgeous flavor molecules they dissolve really well in oil but really terribly in water so you need to have some fat in there which is why it's ideal to fry them off at the beginning to get the flavors out into the oils which will then spread out throughout the rest of the dish when you add your other ingredients if you put it into a liquid stew or a broth it just won't spread out as much and the flavor won't be anything like as rich. Most people probably buy their spices at the grocery store. And so the question is, is there much of a difference between different brands of spices, whether you buy them whole or ground up? Is it worth going to the trouble of getting fresh spices or buying them through the mail? Or

if you're cooking and you need a teaspoon of cumin, I mean, does it really matter where it comes from? Is it pretty much going to be the same? So the first part of that is that, yes, there is a difference between pre-ground and whole spices generally it's always a good idea to go for the whole spice whenever you can sometimes that can be very difficult to get hold of but the whole spice is generally better for the same reason why it's much better to have um i don't know fresh fish rather than fish that's been dried it's got so much more flavor in it soon as you grind up that spice the flavors which are contained within the oils evaporate really quickly when you're cooking with them you smell the aromas it fills the kitchen but soon after you've ground a spice some of those

vapors all the flavors are being lost into the air so the process of grinding and that is also involves heating the spice as well when it's done in manufacturing plants loses a lot of the subtle flavors you tend to retain the core flavors but you lose all the subtleties all the nuances all the little kind of floral or the citrusy notes that you might get in it and also sometimes as well as tasting blander the spice can take on a slightly different form so ground ginger is hotter than fresh ginger and that's because the substance in ginger that gives its heat changes form into a more potent more aggressive um fiery form when it's been when it's been dried and when it's been ground so generally speaking buy the whole spices uh roast them and you don't have to make

it a big chore you can get a batch and just roast them up and put them in a pot and just keep them keep them from it do a batch and you can do it once every couple of months or so. And then before you use it, grind it up. And then all those little droplets of oil that have been kept stored up inside of it, they will burst out and they'll be fresh and full of flavor. And my tip for grinding up is you can use a pestle and mortar, but it's a lot of hard effort. So get a coffee grinder.

And what about the difference from one brand to another? I mean, is there really going to be much of a difference? There can be. Generally, if you go for the cheaper brands, they're going to possibly be of poorer quality this is especially true if you're going for um more expensive spices like saffron extremely expensive it's very expensive because you're gonna get three tiny little strands from each crocus flower that it comes from it actually comes from the flower itself uh these strands are plucked out by hand and you need something you need you need thousands and thousands of plants to to get a gram or an ounce of saffron and so

that's often contaminated it's often been cut with something else all sorts of things they put twigs in there all sorts of and also the flavorless parts of the plant that they'll they'll put in there it's highly adulterated saffron so so it's always worth paying more for saffron and getting it from a reputable supplier. Yeah, but saffron's one thing. But if you're going to buy cinnamon and one jar is $7 and the other jar is $3 and you're just going to put it on your toast, does it really matter? I would say, when you're looking at that sort of thing i would say

probably not but the thing to bear in mind with cinnamon is that there's two types of cinnamon there is true cinnamon and that um there is another type of cinnamon called casey or cassia c-a-s-s-i-a and the the casea uh is often sold as cinnamon but it's not really cinnamon itself you can if you look on the back of the packet if it says ceylon cinnamon then that tells you that it's real cinnamon and the the kind of the imitation is cheaper and it doesn't have um as much of the the flavor to it it's it's it's a harsher flavor a more bitter flavor so cinnamon is worth looking out for and look on the back and check whether it actually says true cinnamon or not uh true cinnamon or not on the back of the packet generally speaking i think you could probably for say

something like some ground cumin uh paying twice as much you're probably not going to notice the difference my guess would be that people use and stick to the same spices they've always used, or maybe the spices their mother used, and they don't really experiment too much with spices. So what are some of the spices that you've uncovered or researched that maybe people haven't even heard of before that would really be exciting to try? In the six months of writing this book of being utterly surrounded in spices, I've explored some weird and wonderful spices. There are so many out there,

some fantastic ones that you will have to probably search online to find them. But my all-time favorite spice that I found is one called wattle seed. And it's from Australia. It was it's been used for hundreds, if not thousands of years by aboriginals in part of their cooking and in their medicines. And wattle seed, it's like a roasted, nutty, smoky, flavoured spice, unlike anything else i've found and you can use it on in meat rubs or anything that you want to add a kind of a roasted smoky aroma to it wattle seed that's one that i would

really uh recommend anybody uh looking out for or seeking out you go online and find wattle seed the one is lemon myrtle now this is more lemony than lemon. The substance that gives lemon its flavor is called citral. And the concentration of this lemon flavor compound is many times more concentrated than is in lemon itself. And so that's well worth hunting out because you can get lemony flavor without needing a lemon. And also, if you use lemon in your cooking you know it's very acidic and that can often change a dish it can make cream curdle for example so if you get this you can add make something really lemony really simply just by getting some some

sprinkles of this lemon myrtle what else about spices do you think people don't really understand or would be fascinated to learn is when you look into the individual stories of in of spices because the the spices themselves um you could you could pick an individual spice and there's a there's incredible history and story behind it because many spices um have been used as as currency in the past uh one time in history i think was in the 16th century uh nutmeg was said to be uh more valuable than gold um because spices can be uh can be stored for such a long period of time and they've been long

esteemed of being something that's of medicinal value and highly sought after that uh it has a value in its own right i mean now we don't even think about it we just buy it in a pot and cook with it um the dutch and the british fought wars for decades over the rights to uh the spice islands so there are some fascinating stories behind spices uh and vanilla for example vanilla fantastic spice and it was um comes from central america comes from an orchid and when the spaniards first went across to central america in 1519 i think it was an aztec king served the spaniards uh some beverages with vanilla in they took some vanilla back to Europe and tried to grow it They could grow the plant

But for some reason they couldn't get it to develop the vanilla pods and it took them hundreds of years to work this out until eventually a botanist figured out that um there wasn't anything to um to pollinate them in europe the bee that pollinates them only exists in central america and so um a botanist developed i think it was a belgian botanist developed a technique to self-pollinate so with your hand you can get the uh the orchid plants to uh pollinate themselves and so they would produce their fruit and you would get the you would get the vanilla pod so that yeah it there is some real fascinating stuff mike about spices and if you'd like to learn more and if this topic interests you you'll be an expert by the time you get through

stewart's book it's a gorgeous book it's called spice it is by dr stewart faramond and there's a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Stuart. Cheers, mate. Take care. Bye-bye. Since we're talking about food and spices and all, one of the things that's always fascinated me about Italian food is how most Italian food tastes better the second day than it does the first day, with one big exception, that being pizza. That's because you have to reheat pizza. Most of us do it in the microwave, and the microwave is no friend to pizza.

It turns the crust soggy, and if you don't watch it carefully, it will just vaporize all the toppings on the pizza. Of course, you can always heat pizza up in the oven, but that takes forever. Another very effective way is to heat the pizza in a frying pan. It's a little faster than the oven if you put it in a frying pan on low heat and cover the pan, which makes a little mini oven in there, and it heats up pretty nicely and keeps the crust crunchy. But if you do need to use the microwave to reheat your pizza, here's a little trick.

You put a glass of water in the microwave next to the pizza. The water absorbs some of the excess radiation and helps keep the crust crunchy. And that is Something You Should Know. And that's it for today. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.

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