Something You Should Know - Why It’s So Hard to Eat Healthy & The Amazing Ways All Humans are Connected

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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, jet lag can ruin a trip. I'll tell you how to minimize the effects. Then, how our food environment makes it so hard to eat healthy and stay thin. Today, if you were to go into McDonald's and get the kids' meal,

Starting point is 00:00:47 you would get that little hamburger, and the small fry is the same size as a large McDonald's fry from 1972, and you'd get a 12-ounce soda. Well, in 1955, McDonald's was serving 6- and 7-ounce Cokes. Then, why are they called piggy banks? What do pigs have to do with it? And, as humans, we're all connected to each other, Then, why are they called piggy banks? What do pigs have to do with it? And as humans, we're all connected to each other, but in ways you likely never realized.

Starting point is 00:01:11 Our brains are much more porous than we intuitively think. So every word that we hear from others, every word that we read in a book is changing the neural networks in our brains. So we're continually changing each other through our communication. We're co-creating our brains. So we're continually changing each other through our communication. We're co-creating our identities. 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

Starting point is 00:01:45 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.

Starting point is 00:02:29 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. One of the many things that I am grateful for in my life

Starting point is 00:02:54 is that I don't really ever get jet lag very much. Unless I'm crossing many, many time zones, I don't suffer the way I see other people suffer from jet lag. What is jet lag? Well, simply put, it's that feeling of feeling tired and sluggish after traveling over at least two time zones. Jet lag is generally worse when you lose time traveling west to east. If you're an older adult, jet lag may hit you harder and recovery can take longer.

Starting point is 00:03:27 Jet lag happens because rapid travel throws off your biological clock that helps control when we wake up and when we fall asleep. A good rule of thumb is to plan on one day for every time zone you've crossed to adjust. But there are some effective strategies that can help minimize the effects. First of all, simulate your new schedule before you leave. Start shifting your bedtime towards what it will be at your destination. If you can, move it a half hour earlier each night for several nights before you go.

Starting point is 00:04:00 Next, adapt as quickly as possible. If you can't start shifting your schedule before you leave, do it as soon as you get on the airplane. In other words, change your watch to the time at your destination and try to get into that rhythm. Stay hydrated. Drinking ample amounts of water does seem to help. And once you get to your destination, take a hot bath or shower before bed. It will relax you and help you sleep, which is exactly what you need to get in sync with where you are. And that is something you should know. Eating in the 21st century, at least in the U.S., has become a real challenge. It's hard for many people to eat healthy

Starting point is 00:04:45 because there are so many temptations to eat food that's not very healthy. To the point where we now have a real health problem. People are much heavier on average than just a few generations ago. And seemingly, many very smart people are making some very poor choices when it comes to the food they eat. Jack Bobo is a food psychology expert with over 20 years advising four U.S. Secretaries of State on food and agriculture.

Starting point is 00:05:17 He's really studied this problem. He has a book out called Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices. Hi, Jack. Welcome. I am delighted to be here. It's interesting when you think we have conquered so many diseases and illnesses and made such huge advances in medicine, and yet we have this big and growing health problem that seems really hard to stop. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Starting point is 00:05:43 42% of all Americans are obese and 75% are overweight or obese. And that's dramatically higher than the number back in 1960 or 1970. And so as you said, what's really striking is that we have never known more about health and nutrition in the history of the planet, and we've never been more obese. We've never been able to go into a grocery store and have access to more healthy food options, and we've never been more obese. And so it's not that Americans have less willpower today than they had in the past. You know, nothing's really changed there, and our genetics have not changed over time. What's really changed is our food environment, the foodscape that surrounds us.

Starting point is 00:06:27 And that's what's influencing the choices that we make every day. And then you couple that with our natural innate psychology, how our minds work, and they team up to deliver unhealthy outcomes. Just as in back in the 1960s, our food environment was helping to make us healthy. So put that into a real-life example of how this works. Yeah, so let's think about it. You know, supersized portions are something we're all familiar with today. But the idea of supersizing all goes back to the mad genius of one man, David Wallerstein, back in the 1960s.

Starting point is 00:07:06 And he was trying to sell more popcorn in a movie theater chain. And it finally dawned on him, what if the reason people won't go back for a second bag is that they're embarrassed, that they might look gluttonous if they go back. And so he introduced the jumbo-sized popcorn. And of course, the rest is history. And what he really was tapping into was this idea of value, that if I offering a little bit bigger portion for a few cents more, it's very difficult for people to turn that down and say, you know what, I'll just take the small, even though it would be better value to get the large. But that little bit of more has turned into a lot of more. Yeah, well, and it's not just a little bit of more. I mean, most of us don't even understand what an adult serving of food looks like. So imagine this,

Starting point is 00:08:13 today, you know, if you were to go into McDonald's and get the kid's meal, you would get that little hamburger, and the small fry is the same size as a large McDonald's fry from 1972, and you'd get a 12-ounce soda. Well, in 1955, McDonald's was serving six- and seven-ounce Cokes. And so, you know, and that's what an adult portion looked like, smaller than a small fry, a hamburger, and a six-ounce soda. And that served an adult. If you go back to the 1960s, the average dinner plate was seven to nine inches. Well, that's the size of a salad plate today. Most people have a 10, 11, or 12-inch plate in their home. And if you go out to restaurants, they're often 13 inches or larger.

Starting point is 00:08:59 So if we're eating 20, 30, 40, 50% more food every time we sit down to eat, how can we be surprised that we're gaining weight? And yet some people don't. Some people live amongst, you know, and you said that it's about 75 percent of the population is overweight in one form or another, but that other 25 percent doesn't. So what's the difference? Well, it's really just a matter of time. Because if we went back to 1970, only about 10% of Americans were obese. It's 42% now, it'll be 50% by 2050 if we don't change things. So we have this feeling that people who are not overweight or obese are somehow special, and the environment is becoming more and more challenging for everybody.

Starting point is 00:09:53 You know, 10 years ago, it was only 30% of people, and we would have said, well, what's special about the other 40%? Now we're saying, what's special about the other 25%? It's that the food environment is coming to get us all if we don't find a way of changing that food environment. So we shouldn't focus on what's special about individuals. We should focus on what's special about the food environment that is leading some people to have a healthier outcome. Because that's something that we can then replicate. We can't replicate people's income or access you know, access to gyms and all of those things. But there are things we can do about our environment. Like? Well, so we can work at the

Starting point is 00:10:33 individual level, we can work at the community level, and we can work at the societal level. So there are different ways that we can do this. Just in our homes, of course, we can look for those smaller plates, you know, go to a yard sale or estate sale and, you know, buy up those old plates from the 1960s and use them every day. And, you know, that will get you used to that smaller plate. One of the things that I've done, I've gone into restaurants and after they serve the food, I have pulled a nine-inch plate out of my wife's purse and I've replated my food before I take my first bite. And that's what's important because if I get to the end of the meal and my plate is clean,

Starting point is 00:11:13 my brain thinks, okay, I should be full now. But if I get to the end of the plate or the meal and I've still got half the food sitting there, our minds are going to work against us. So we can begin to think about, well, if I'm not going to finish my meal, let's just set some of it aside. Or one of the things that my family, we do, is that there are four of us, my wife and two kids, when we go out to dinner, we just order three meals. And if we get to the end of the meal and we're still hungry, well, now we've got room for dessert, and we don't have to feel bad about it.

Starting point is 00:11:44 Not once in the years that we've been doing this have we thought, wow, I wish've got room for dessert and we don't have to feel bad about it. Not once in the years that we've been doing this have we thought, wow, I wish we had an extra meal between the four of us. You know, if you have a tendency to eat a lot of snacks, well, if you don't buy snacks, you won't eat them. If you do buy the snacks, instead of putting them, leaving them on the countertop, put them away in the cupboard where you don't see them and you're not tempted. So they're just little nudges that we can do to our everyday experience that make it slightly less likely that we're going to consume it. And that's all it really takes is little nudges every single day. And over time, you can begin to lose that one or two or three pounds every year, just as you've gained

Starting point is 00:12:26 it, not by massive weight loss, but just without even really noticing it and without suffering. You know, we worry too much about our food. We count too many calories. We do all sorts of things that actually lead us to focus more on food. And those things actually make it harder to lose weight. Someone said something to me, and it seems so true, and it tails into what you just said, that food now is, rather than being something that you buy to enjoy, you buy it in a defensive mode. Oh, that's fat-free, that's sugar-free, that's gluten-free. It's what food doesn't have in it that makes us buy it. It seems completely backwards. And a lot of this grew out of the dietary guidelines back in the late 1970s and the early 80s when they decided to encourage Americans to eat less fat in their diets.

Starting point is 00:13:22 And when they did that, the grocery stores and the food manufacturers did really what one would have hoped. They started offering low-fat mayonnaise and dressings and all of these things. And that should have been a good thing. The problem is that that psychology came along and it gave a health halo to that product. And we began to think, well, if one cookie is good, eating the whole bag must be great. And so we ended up, because of things like the halo effect, over consuming products that had that health halo, rather than maintaining our current consumption pattern and actually benefiting from that. The other way that that's a challenge, though, is that as soon as you put something like low-fat or low-calorie on a product,

Starting point is 00:14:10 consumers just enjoy it less. They don't expect it to be as filling. So if you were to buy a Weight Watchers meal and eat it versus a frozen meal that wasn't Weight Watchers, and it was exactly the same product, just one had the label and one doesn't, people that eat the Weight Watchers would report being less full, even though they ate exactly the same number of calories as the other product. So if we think we're eating something healthy, we actually enjoy it less,

Starting point is 00:14:40 and we don't get as much benefit from it because it leads us to eat more. And so there's that kind of pressure against us all the time that's sort of working against all of our good habits, like you were saying. We are talking about how and why eating has become so problematic for so many people. My guest is Jack Bobo. He's author of a book called Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices. 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

Starting point is 00:15:25 and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Rudolf 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.

Starting point is 00:15:58 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.

Starting point is 00:16:26 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. So Jack, it seems, listening to you talk, that if somebody wants to lose weight, that it's going to take a very deliberate commitment to doing that. That you can't kind of, sort of, just get the small french fries this time, kind of thing. It has to be more of a deliberate attack on your food environment

Starting point is 00:17:10 as well as your eating habits and the way you approach food. But that sounds like a diet, and we hear a lot of bad things about diets. You know, every diet in the world works if people stick to it. The problem is that no diet actually works because there's no diet that people consistently stick to. You know, one diet might work for one person for a certain period of time and that's why it's useful to understand the information at the personal and household level. But we really need to go beyond that. And communities, and that could be local governments, federal governments, others,

Starting point is 00:17:50 and the food industry itself need to buy into this idea that we can begin to reshape the food environment so that people don't have to work that hard. Because if we said that that was the solution, then we would never actually achieve the solution because people have been saying what you just said for 50 years. But if we could work with the grocery stores, if we could work with the restaurants, I'll just give you an example. In the UK, one of the grocery store groups decided to redesign the layout of the grocery store to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables. And over the course of a year, they increased fruit and vegetable purchases by 16%. And that's something that the consumers who were coming into the grocery store had no idea. They were just buying more fruits and vegetables because of the positioning and the organization and the layout of the store encouraged healthier outcomes.

Starting point is 00:18:50 And we can do that in restaurants and cafeterias and other places as well. So we don't have to rely on the mental fortitude of consumers. We can actually help them to deliver those healthy outcomes without all of that effort, because nobody was stressing about it in the way you just described back in 1960. We were cooking with Crisco and all sorts of things that are crazy today, and yet somehow it wasn't leading to those bad outcomes we have. Yeah, well, that's always fascinated me because, you know, people say, well, you know, food is different today. But it wasn't that different in the 60s. It was different. And as you point out, we were cooking

Starting point is 00:19:30 with Crisco and all that. But we were somehow eating less. And somehow we weren't so tempted to just keep eating and eating and eating. Yeah. And so a lot of it, you know, you think about a lot of ultra-processed foods. It's just easier to consume more of them. It's not that, you know, chips and, you know, a plant-based burger and other things are inherently bad. It's that our, one, the palatability of the products often just encourages us to eat more. And they tend to be very, you know, calorie dense. So, you know, I can eat a small bag of chips and actually get quite a few calories, but I'm also tempted to just keep eating them.

Starting point is 00:20:16 And, you know, in 1960, you know, when we were growing up as kids, you know, people didn't snack all day long. You know, they didn't have access to that. You came in for your meals and, you know, people didn't snack all day long. You know, they didn't have access to that. You came in for your meals and, you know, maybe you had a snack in between, but it probably was something a little bit healthier. And so that's why my focus is mostly on that food environment. And, you know, that's something that we all need to address rather than sort of the mechanics of any individual product. And so the nature of the products has changed, but how we consume those products has changed even more. I recently decided to lose some weight and do some things to be more healthy.

Starting point is 00:20:58 And one of the things that I did was I just made peace with the fact that it's okay to feel hunger, that you don't have to, every time you feel a little bit hungry, run and go eat something. Which I think, as you just pointed out, that people snack all day long. As soon as they start to feel hungry, they go eat something. But I've made peace with the fact that feeling hungry doesn't require my attention all the time. Yeah, no, I think that that's correct. And we need to find different habits. So, you know, the current habit is, if I have a little bit of hunger, or, you know, to be honest, when you're bored, I mean, many people are snacking, they think they're hungry, but they're mostly actually just bored. And they think

Starting point is 00:21:44 about, well, what do I want to do? And then maybe their stomach growls a little bit and they think, oh, I must be hungry. And it's actually boredom. And if you could create a different cue, which is anytime I'm bored, well, I go do a little bit of exercise or I go for a walk. You can begin to turn those intentional activities into habits. And it's the habits that keep us going in the right direction when we're not thinking about it. And that's the problem when we talk about trying to use willpower, is that it's just too exhausting to have willpower constantly. And we see this when we go to the grocery store.

Starting point is 00:22:27 It's something called mental fatigue and decision fatigue. The more tired either intellectually or physically we are, the worse the decisions that we make. And that's just true for everybody. And there's no place that you have to make more decisions than a grocery store. A grocery store today has about 10,000 more products than one in 1980. And so it's just wildly more difficult, more exhausting to go through those experiences. And that's why, you know, having a list is having a habit that says, these are the things I'm going to buy.

Starting point is 00:23:02 And, you know, you're not distracted by snacks and other things that are coming along. So creating habits, whether it's, you know, working out or, you know, the habit of, you know, when I feel a little bit hungry, this is what I do, are all things that can be very powerful because they can, they're acting even when we're not really aware of it. You know, there has been a tendency, it seems, in recent years to, I guess you would call it blame the food, that, you know, the problem is sugar, or the problem is fat, or the problem is portion size.

Starting point is 00:23:35 And maybe there's some validity to that, but ultimately, too, it's choices that we make. Well, and, you know, we hear a lot about today about how food is addictive and, you know, sugar is, you know, should be classified as a addictive drug. And, you know, I certainly understand how tempting things like sugar are. But, you know, we should also recognize that, you know, the more money you have, the less likely you are to be obese, despite the fact that you can afford even more and more food. And so there's something about having access to better quality food, to having access to gyms and a better food environment that is making those people that are

Starting point is 00:24:20 wealthy healthy. And it's not just because they have more willpower and, again, not suggesting that those who aren't doing as good a job as others are somehow failing. It's our food environment that's failing us. It's not we who are failing our bodies. But what you just said, that they have access to higher quality food. Everybody in the U.S. today has access to higher quality food. It's just that they also have access to lower quality food and they're making choices. Well, you know, the choices that, you know, you and I make when we grow to the grocery store are different than somebody who's on a fixed food budget. You know, we can go through and, you know, maybe we buy the Parmigiano-Reggiano and we don't

Starting point is 00:25:11 bother with the Kraft Parmesan cheese or the generic store brand. But somebody who's on a fixed food budget, you know, they may like that better quality product, but they have to do the math of, well, how many ounces, how many servings am I going to get? You know, it's a struggle every day that they go to a grocery store. And so, you know, sometimes there's this feeling, well, you know, I should have the candy bar when I leave because they feel like they deserve a reward. And, you know, maybe they do. And so, you know, the value means something different. When restaurants put the menu labels and the calorie counts, what somebody like you and I might do is we may use that labeling to choose the low calorie option on the menu. But if I'm on a fixed food budget,

Starting point is 00:26:00 I may choose the most caloric product on McDonald's menu to get value for my money. Well, what I like about your message is that for people who have trouble keeping weight off, not to look at it as a personal failure or some shortcoming in your character, it's really because of the food environment that you surround yourself with, and that you can control. You know, that would be my message is that, you know, don't focus on personal failure. Focus on the environment. And if you do better, if we do better, our family will benefit from that because good health is actually contagious.

Starting point is 00:26:43 If we can make ourselves healthier, it will benefit everyone around. Great, Jack. That's really empowering information. Jack Bobo has been my guest. He is a food psychology expert, and he's author of the book, Why Smart People Make Bad Food Choices. And you will find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Jack. All right. Thank you so much. 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.

Starting point is 00:27:26 Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. 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,

Starting point is 00:28:05 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. I'm sure you've heard people say things like, we're all part of the human race, we're all connected, we're all part of the same family, we're intertwined. And it all sounds a little woo-woo, because your experience, or my experience, is that I'm an individual, I'm an independent creature. I think for myself, I'm responsible for my thoughts and actions, and I'm fairly consistent in that I'm the same person today as I was yesterday or a year ago. Well, maybe not, or at least not as much as we think. Tom Oliver is a professor of ecology at the University of Reading, and he's author of the book The Self-Delusion, The Surprising Science of Our Connection to each other and the natural world.

Starting point is 00:29:05 Hi, Tom. Welcome. Hi there. Thanks. Nice to be here. So explain in what way we're all connected. What do you mean by that? If you think about our bodies, our bodies overlap with countless others. So we're made of human cells, of course, about 37 trillion of them. But we've also got about 38 trillion bacterial cells in our body. They're on the surface of our skin. There's about 440 species in your elbow joints, behind your ears, depending how often you wash, about 125 bacterial species.

Starting point is 00:29:39 And in our mouths, inside our mouths, about a thousand. Of course, inside our bodies, you know, they're inside our guts. Thousands of species in our guts can affect, actually through this vagus nerve, which wraps itself around the guts. Those bacteria, the chemicals they produce, they can affect our moods, you know, our emotions and the way we think and even how we behave. And so what does that have to do, having all these bacterial cells, what does that have to do with being connected to everyone else? three or four weeks and our gut cells aren't with us for very long. There's this continual turnover of material that builds our bodies. And that material comes from molecules that were once

Starting point is 00:30:31 part of other organisms, other people that were alive, other plants, dinosaurs, sharks, you name it. Those molecules are in the air that we breathe. They're in the water that we drink, in our food. Just to take an example, if you think of how much oxygen in your body, each of us has about 40 to 50 kilograms of oxygen. And when we die and our bodies decompose, then that enters the air or the oceans. If you just imagine it going into the air, for example, all the molecules of oxygen in

Starting point is 00:31:05 your body in any one cubic meter of air from anywhere in the earth there'd be about 27 million molecules that were once part of your body so if you think of when you take a breath you're actually breathing in that dense fog of molecules that were once part of any other body that has ever lived i mean literally we're breathing in the molecules that were part of these animals and plants, breathing in that zoological legacy, and that builds our bodies. And that's true for everyone. So we really do overlap with each other, anything that's gone before. That's why we're so connected to the natural world. Well, that's pretty interesting. And so I get that, that we're all made up biologically and physically of all the things and people and creatures that have come before. But you also say

Starting point is 00:31:51 that our minds are connected in some ways. And that doesn't feel like that to me. It's not my experience that my mind is connected to other people's minds. Actually, our brains are much more porous than we intuitively think. So every word that we hear from others, every word that we read in a book or on the web page is changing the neural networks in our brains. We have about 170 billion neurons in our brain and the way they're wired up determines our personality our self-identity and how we think and what we feel so we're continually changing each other through our communication we're co-creating our identities and there's actually even other ways that we're influencing each other below the conscious radar so for example pheromones these are smell chemicals

Starting point is 00:32:43 that each of us produces. Without even knowing it, we're shedding cells and we create this signature in the air around us that you can use DNA sampling to actually pick out a unique signature of a person in the air around them. And some of those molecules are smell pheromone molecules. For example, if we're anxious, then that anxiety can transfer through contagion to cause other people to be anxious. So as an example, there's some really nice studies where people put in stressful situations, you know, imagine you're, you know, skydiving. I mean, literally they put people in a t-shirt and send them skydiving

Starting point is 00:33:22 and the sweat that's produced on those t-shirts, if you place that on a mannequin of the kind that dentists do their their training on then those dentists are more likely to make mistakes compared to a control where there's just you know some sweat on a t-shirt but not in a stressful situation so it's the the pheromones are actually causing the anxiety to spread from one person to the other. And at the frontier of this research, we're starting to find that actually happiness and well-being, positive emotions can also be spread through those chemicals. So really, all the time we're influencing each other, the boundaries of ourselves, even our minds, are much more porous than we might first think.

Starting point is 00:34:11 I've heard about this before, this idea that we affect other people's behavior and they affect ours in a simple sense that, you know, if you hang out with a smoker, you're more likely to smoke. If you hang out with someone who's overweight, your possibility of becoming overweight goes up. So what's going on there? Behaviors or, you know, tendencies can spread through social networks to the degree even actually that we can influence people that we haven't even met through, you know, stepping stones of our kind of social links. So obesity risk, voting preferences, taste in music can all spread through these social networks even some negative you know things like suicide risk as well can spread through these social networks and in influencing people well beyond our immediate contacts and that's because you know

Starting point is 00:35:00 the way our brains work we essentially co-create each other's identities, that any behavior is very easily transferred between humans. And actually, our culture is so powerful in the way that it links us together. You know, in the West, we have this kind of myth of inventors as lone geniuses working alone. But actually, when you really study it, many of these inventions, you know, the hypodermic needle, for example, the thermometer, the incandescent light bulbs, steamboats, these inventions were actually invented in different places, different locations in the world at the same time. And so it's really as a myth that inventors and creativity is a sole endeavour. Actually, it's part of a great linked creative human endeavor. And so the kind of hackneyed saying that we stand on the shoulders of giants is absolutely true because we build on that culture and we share more than we hold uniquely to ourselves. I would assume that, let's just take, you know, taste in music, that someone might influence my taste in music just because I'm hanging around them and they're

Starting point is 00:36:13 playing their music and I'm listening to it and I'm kind of getting used to it. And yeah, I kind of like it. Is it any more than that? We're really influencing each other in ways that we don't always consciously register. So, you know, we might talk about a song and decide that we both like it. And then maybe I'll go away and listen to that song. But actually below the conscious radar, we're influencing the way we talk, the way we we think, even the way we feel. And that happens because our minds are so much more porous than we intuitively think. And both that's a good thing and a bad thing. And in a good way, that connectivity facilitates creativity of humans and our ability to create this civilization has been achieved through this amazing ability to

Starting point is 00:37:06 cooperate and share knowledge and build a culture. But on the negative side, it does mean that negative tendencies can spread through these social interactions. So whether that's the risk of obesity, whether it's suicide risk, and actually part of the solution to that, from my perspective, is an understanding and recognition that we are much more connected. You know, when we feel isolated, we then tend to be more anxious and more depressed. Research shows that when people feel more connected to each other, they do tend to be happier and have a greater sense of autonomy and also show more pro-social and pro-environmental behaviors too. What about our connection to non-humans, to nature and to pets and other creatures? I don't know how much we know about that, but what do we know about that?

Starting point is 00:37:58 So we know quite a lot now that, again, challenges this illusion that we're independent entities or that we're you know that humans are exceptional and in some kind of way if you think about our bodies you know they're built from materials scavenged from the environment and the dna is the the instructions the genetic code in our cells directs those materials to be built into a body which looks like us when we look in the mirror. But that DNA is actually shared. It's borrowed from our ancestors and we'll pass it on to ancestors to come. And by ancestors here, I don't just mean humans. I mean, obviously humans evolved back through the web of life, right from single-celled organisms like bacteria.

Starting point is 00:38:43 So actually, if you think about the genetic code of a bacteria, think of that information, for example, on a musical score, you know, a piano piece. If you were to add more layers onto that piano piece, you know, add a violin and a cello, the music, the musical score, the information on that bit of paper becomes more complex. And that's essentially the human genome is that complex genetic code. But still within that, you'd be able to look at

Starting point is 00:39:12 the score and recognize the piano piece that was the bacteria. And that's the same with our DNA. We share 33% of our DNA with simple bacteria. So really, you know, if you think about the tree of life, the tips of that tree of life are not distinct, they're not isolated. There's a biologist called Lynn Margulie. And she says that evolution is not a linear family tree. Instead, it represents change in a single multidimensional being that has grown to cover the entire surface of the earth. And I really love that quote, because this idea that we are one life is actually true to the science. As I listen to you explain this, of all the ways that we're influenced and how we're connected to other people and how they're changing us and we're changing them. But it doesn't feel like that to me. I feel like I am the same person that I was yesterday and last year, and fundamentally that I am who I've always been.

Starting point is 00:40:16 And you say that we're changing all the time. So how so? Just to give a concrete example, we think of our education systems, and there's been this history of kind of building self-esteem, you know, almost to the degree of selling yourself as a personal brand. But if our minds, I mean, our brains literally dynamic, they're changing all the time, this neural network, and that's changing our personality, then we're not the same person we were last year, but equally, we're not the same person we were last year. But equally, we're not the same person we were when we woke up this morning. So this idea of selling yourself as a brand, some kind of static, you know, entity is obviously going to cause this cognitive dissonance that kind of makes us anxious to maintain this self-image, which is projected and untrue because

Starting point is 00:41:04 we're changing all the time. But when you say, I'm not the same person I was when I woke up this morning, but that's not my experience. I feel like the same person. And, you know, maybe some of this is semantics. I mean, how much different do you have to be to not be the same person? If you never liked country music before and now you do, you're still the same person. You just like country music. I don't think that makes you a different person. The normal pathways in your brain will show some similarity with the patterns that you were yesterday.

Starting point is 00:41:39 But there will be differences, new experiences that happen even as i mentioned how other organisms in our bodies like bacteria can affect the way we think and can affect the configuration of those neural networks so there will be subtle differences of course you're not completely different to the person you were when you woke up yesterday because that would be if we were completely different we wouldn't have any personality which has some persistence over time but there is always these changing networks in our brains and those are influenced by outside forces to a degree much greater than we intuitively think the reason that we think we persist over time even through years is somewhat of an illusion that we

Starting point is 00:42:26 have this feeling of a sense of self which is permanent and uh and and lasts over many years but actually the evolution has set our brains a configuration of our brains a program as it were to to build this illusion because it Because it was healthy, it allowed us to find food, to navigate complex social interactions, to have this sense of self. Well, we all know people change, people grow up, they mature, they are changed by events that happen in their life. And that's just what happens to people. But I don't think we should underestimate the ability of our mind to weave narratives and stories. That's how the mind evolved. And that's its great strength, even to the degree that people can behave in a certain way, and then rationalize

Starting point is 00:43:19 a narrative to explain that behavior afterwards. And I think that to me is what's going on to a great extent with our sense of self, that we weave together this narrative about a coherent, continuous entity. But actually, there's a lot more change going on than we might imagine, and a lot more hidden influences that are affecting us than we might intuitively think. As interesting as it is to hear this, that we're all connected in these unusual ways that I certainly never knew, and that we're all breathing in molecules of every living creature that's ever gone before us, it's pretty fascinating stuff. But what do we do with this?

Starting point is 00:44:03 What's the big payoff to all of the research about how we're all connected? So I think the key message really is that for me, many of these problems that we face in the world today, you know, mental health, epidemic, planetary crisis in terms of ocean acidification, air pollution, biodiversity loss, they all seem such big daunting problems. And we often think we need to fix them by working on institutions that are well beyond us as an individual. But actually, this research shows that what goes on in our minds and how connected we feel to the world and and the more we can overcome this illusion that we're isolated entities actually that has a massive impact on addressing these

Starting point is 00:44:52 problems because of the way that sense of connectedness actually leads to changes in behavior of people and if we think about those institutions that we want to change um you know the economic institutions our justice systems you know actually these are made up of of world views both past and present so really you know those big problems i mentioned might seem so daunting out there but actually the solution to those problems lies within us right now and so to me that's that's an empowering uh message from from some of the science of our connectedness well as i think i've said a couple of times in our discussion here it it sure doesn't feel like that it doesn't feel like i have these connections with the natural world and with other

Starting point is 00:45:40 people and that i'm breathing in cells from dead people from ever since Earth began. It's just, it sure doesn't feel that way. So it's really interesting to hear. Tom Oliver has been my guest. He is a professor of ecology at the University of Reading and author of the book, The Self-Delusion, The Surprising Science of Our Connection to Each Other and the Natural World. And there's a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, Tom. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Mike. It's been a pleasure. Just about every kid has a piggy bank.

Starting point is 00:46:16 And when you're a kid, that's a good place to save your money. But why is it called a piggy bank? Well, surprisingly, it's not, because pigs are associated with greed. The answer actually dates back to the Middle Ages. In the 15th century, metal was expensive and not really used much in households. Instead, dishes and pots were made of clay, and the clay was called pig, P-Y-G-G. If you were lucky enough to save a coin here and there, you'd drop the coin into one of your clay jars, or your pig bank.

Starting point is 00:46:58 Fast forward a few hundred years when English potters had requests to make pig banks, they naturally shaped them like pigs. And that's how we got piggy banks. And that is something you should know. We're continuing to close in on 5,000. 5,000 ratings and reviews on Apple Podcast. If you'd like to help push us over that mark, it would be really nice. Just go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and review. Preferably five stars. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the

Starting point is 00:47:37 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

Starting point is 00:48:01 between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot. And someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network.

Starting point is 00:48:25 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, 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. 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.

Starting point is 00:49:08 Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - Why It’s So Hard to Eat Healthy & The Amazing Ways All Humans are Connected

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