Stuff You Should Know - How Food Tasters Work

Episode Date: August 30, 2016

Some people might think that tasting food for a living is the best job in the whole wide world. But think again! The reality is, it can be a tedious, grueling job that destroys your very love of food. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there.

And this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. Yeah. Hey, dude. Hey. What is that? Shwetty balls? Bob Ross. Oh man, I could sleep to that guy,

like no golf tournament that's ever existed. Love that guy. Yeah, he's a lovable dude. Yeah, and he's on our list of people that I wanna buy out on our show, along with Dr. Seuss and Mr. Rogers. There's a few of those icons out there that I still wanna tackle.

Okay. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's do it right now. Let's just scrap what we're gonna do and start making up stuff about Bob Ross. It might be better than what's coming. This isn't that bad.

Food tasters? No, it's not that bad. You know why it's not bad? Because everybody out there who's ever even thought of the concept of food tasters, and then learned that it's a real thing, has this great conception of it. That's a bubble that we now get to come along and burst.

Yeah. I love ones like that. Yeah, that's true. You like it. Oh, you have a great fantasy about something? Not anymore. Yeah. Here's ugly stark reality.

We should change the name of our show to Dream Squashers. Ooh, ooh, that's not bad. You like that? Yeah. I have to remember that. We could create a TV show where we de-renovate someone's house, like we trash it. Yeah, Dream Squashers.

And then move a semi out of the way and be like, here's your new house. This is the starter home you thought you loved. It's awful now. I pooped on the porch. Oh man, and Cooper's gonna love that one. Who? Aaron Cooper.

Oh, yeah. What do you mean who? It's funny because for people that don't know, Aaron Cooper, one of our oldest and dearest, most dedicated listeners, and I don't mean old as an age, although he's no spring chicken, of Kansas, which is why we make fun of Kansas lovingly. Well, one of the reasons.

He is our Photoshop guru and does all our great, funny Photoshop things. Yeah. And we met him in Denver, came over and saw the show, came backstage, and I gave him a big toothless grin in a photo and just said, have fun with that one, Coop. And it's like been comedy gold since then. He's good.

I'd say about a third of our new Photoshop pictures are my big goofy toothless smile. Yeah, it's just hard to resist putting that in there. He did one of my favorites of all time, which is me over Jack Nicholson's face coming through the door in the shining. Yeah, that's a good one. And it's uncanny what that guy can do with Photoshop.

It looks like I was in the shining. Yep, pretty great. So salute you, Aaron Cooper. Way to go, Coop. We should salute a listener for every show. Yeah. Or maybe just that once. Okay, so food tasting.

Yes. There is legitimately a profession out there. Yeah. Whether it's full time or part time, it depends. Yes. Where you are paid to taste test food. And it can be amazing food, chocolate, ice cream, Ben and Jerry's have what they call flavor gurus.

Yeah, they like profile them on their website. Of the flavor gurus? Oh yeah. So those people are not just in charge of taste testing, they're in charge of coming up with new flavor ideas. They're, well, let's get into it. They represent one branch of food tasters, like the professional educated branch.

Yes. Right, so if you're one of those food tasters, you probably have a degree in food science. Yeah. Well, the Ben and Jerry's gurus, I think, are mostly food scientists. Right. Well, what can they come up with that they haven't done?

That's what I was kind of zoning out on. I don't know. You know? I mean, no, they're trying to still innovate with the ice cream, but I'm just curious. They need another hippie groove band to create an ice cream flavor for. It's like, what's fart on a honeycomb?

Oh, honeycomb fart. And stir a pot of boiled cherries with that honeycomb. Okay, and then spit in it. Yeah, that's Ben and Jerry's new flavor. Wowie-zowie. They do have an ice cream graveyard for real, though, on their, I think it's on their campus. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, where they put, they have like those little funny gravestones of, I guess like the fart. Retired ones? Honeycomb fart that didn't work out. Right. I love Ben and Jerry's. Oh, man.

I can't find any chubby hubby anymore. Oh, really? No, like nowhere. I even looked up to see if it was discontinued. Have you looked in the graveyard? It's not in the graveyard. They say it's still out there, but I do not see it anymore.

All I see are these ones with the, what do they call them now, with the plug in the middle full of stuff? Core? Yeah, the cores. Cores are taken over. Yeah. I hope you like cores, pal,

because that's all you're getting. Well, I don't use much ice cream now, which is good. Oh, okay. Because I can't find my chubbs-hubs. There you go. What's your favorite? We talked about this. I like chubby hubby.

New York Super Fudge Chunk. Right. Are you talking just Ben and Jerry's? Because I have a different favorite now, and it's Baskin Robbins, actually, surprisingly. Whoa, which one? Mom's Bacon Cookies. Wow.

Oh, my God. Cookie dough, obviously. No. Oh, no? It's some sort of heavenly ice cream with like a ribbon of brown sugar. I do like my ribbons. And something else in it.

And it's like, legitimately, like when you've taken a bite out of a sugar cookie, a buttery sugar cookie, and you've gotten most of it, but there's still like the, just a little bit of like grit to it. Yeah. That is the sensation of eating this ice cream.

All right. I gotta try that now. And Chuck, what I just did is what flavor tasters do. Quick shout out to Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter. Brother, that is about as good as it gets. Anything Chocolate Peanut Butter I will eat, but Haagen-Dazs is up there pretty far.

And the bottom end, when you get all the peanut butter that sinks. All right. So that is taste testing. We could have just made money had we been testing, and then saying very plainly what we liked about them. Cause that's plainly what the job is sometimes.

Right. And again, there's basically two ways you can get into it. One is you can be trained and educated and get some sort of degree, higher degree in something like food science. You could be a trained chef. Somebody who knows what they're talking about quite literally when it comes to food and taste.

Right. Not just, oh, this is good. I like it. Yeah. They want specificity. Way to go, Tostinos. This is a great pizza roll flavor. And a very refined palate.

And we'll talk more about sensory acuity. But that's a big, big part of it. The other way you can get into it is you can just basically be some everyday schlub who says, you know, I think I could be good at this. Hook me up. I'll come like taste food for you. Yeah.

And you write a letter like that, sign it in crayon, mail it off somewhere, and see if they get in touch with you. Yeah. Specifically, if you live in, or near Marshall, Minnesota, and you like yourself some frozen foods. Yeah.

You can apply to the Schwann Company. And basically just send in, like you said, send in your little application. And you can get hired on. They do, though, I believe make you pass tests. Yeah. They don't just take anyone. Right.

All of them are gonna put you through some sort of testing, if not also testing and then training. Correct. Because not just anybody can do this. Some people have what you mentioned earlier. It's called sensory acuity. Yeah. Which is an ability to really differentiate

the different flavors and textures and smells. Yeah. Associated with particular food. And then on top of that, be able to discuss it in an objective, smart way. Yeah. It's not always a food company either. There's a company called MMR Research Worldwide.

And they do. They're like the middlemen. Yeah. They're like market research. Yeah. Middle people. Sure. And they are the ones who will put you through the ringer

with a sensory acuity. And they're the ones that say you really need to be able to not only articulate your thoughts for a piece of paper maybe that you fill out. But you have to be nice to your kids too. Well, that too. We'll find out if you're not. Many times you're in a room

in that kind of setting with other people. And you have to be able to get along and not fight about it. And did you ever do any of those market research rooms? No. I used to, I got on some lists post college and it's a great list when you're fresh out of college. Most of mine were not actual tasting of food. Most of it was more what do you think

about this ad campaign type of thing? Right. Like I did one for Heineken one time. And I was like, oh, great. You know, I get to go drink Heineken. You're like, yeah, great. Did you? No, it was just about there when they rolled

out their big red star campaign. Oh, man. And then I used to do them for non-food products like something at Home Depot or like a... You like this hammer? Yeah, basically. Got some good heft. Yeah.

Hold it tight. How's it fit in your hand? Hold it tight. By your lower lip, by your whole... How likely would you be to recommend this hammer? Like just dumb stuff like that. Right. Okay, so you don't need any training for that.

And there are actual food tasting jobs that do amount to that. And you leave with like 50 bucks in cash, which is the best part by the way. But it's gonna be like a thumbs up, thumbs down, or something like, I think I saw like, is this egg roll too spicy? Does this pizza have enough cheese?

Did these genes make me look fat? It could be something very broad, like give us your general thoughts about this product. Or if they're in the final stages and they wanna spend even more dumb money. That's not true. Market research is valid. It might be something super specific.

Like you said, like, is there too much cheese? Or is there just enough? Yeah, like that's it. I don't wanna hear about the tang and the sauce. Right. Or the crust. And if you're the kind of food taster who's like, whoa, what do you wanna hear?

You're not gonna be very good at it. They wanna hear the tournament leader, but they don't care. Because this company, they're not, they're market researchers that they get their dough either way. So we'll talk about dough, and how the day in the life of a food taster goes right after this.

I'm a Breathing Man. I'm a Breathing Man. I'm a Breathing Man. On the podcast, Hey Dudes The 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the co-classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster?

Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts

flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, hey, dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast,

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So, Chuck, there's this really interesting article on a site called Billfold.

Did you read the interview with the food taster? No, but I read one on vice with three food tasters. OK. Let's chat about our experience. So the one I read about, it was an interview with a food taster named Matthew. They didn't use his last name. But Matthew, apparently, has a pretty decent amount

of sensory acuity. He went through the training. He said the training. I got the impression he was trained by MMR. They didn't actually say who it was. But I also get the impression that MMR is about the biggest game in town, if not really the only game in town. But what you're saying is he's in touch with his umami.

Yes, very much so. So he said that they give you all these solutions to taste, but also sense to identify as well. Because the old wives tale or old rule of thumb is that taste is 80% smell. Yes. So he passed all these tests. And apparently also they test your visual acuity as well.

They want somebody who is sensorily very attuned to what's going on. And then they said, OK, explain mayonnaise. Tell us what mayonnaise tastes like. Creamy, tangy, delicious. Yeah, eggy. Does it taste eggy to you? I can taste the egg sometimes.

OK. You know how much I love mayonnaise. So it's hard for me to articulate. Do you love mayonnaise or do you love Duke's mayonnaise? Well, I do love Duke's, but I just love mayonnaise. Do you love all mayonnaise? Yeah. I mean, what other mayonnaise do you need besides Duke's?

Well, you don't. But if Duke's is not available, I'll take a craft or a- Miracle Whip? Or no, that's salad dressing. It's different. But it's the consistency of- Yeah, I mean, it's a distinction though. Like, it's not mayonnaise.

Because it's all artificial, right? A sandwich just says in a sandwich without Miracle Whip. That's like, they distinguish themselves purposely from being mayonnaise. OK. It's way tangier. Is it? Yeah.

And I like Miracle Whip, but I just never buy it. Because I'm always getting that Duke's. Yeah. Duke's light, actually. Duke's is the bomb. One of the few light products that still tastes great. Yeah. I didn't know you love mayonnaise so much.

Oh, yeah, man. Like, if it was more socially acceptable to just squirt mayonnaise all over your plate of French fries, like it is in Europe. Yeah, I was going to say. Then I would be doing that every single time. What I do is I ask for mayo for my burger. And I'm like, oh, a little extra.

And then I just like- Oh, look, oh, it spilled over. Yeah. Sneakily dip the fry in there. I don't want people to think. Because mayonnaise people think it's gross, which I never got. Yeah, some people do.

I don't get it either. Yeah, they'll eat aioli like that's any different. Well, it's pretty pungent with the garlic. Not if it's not garlic aioli. It's just fancy mayonnaise. I thought it was all garlicky. That was like a hallmark of aioli. No, no.

You have any kind of aioli. Yeah, but I thought there was still garlic in the base. No. All right, all right, all right. We're off track here. No, we're not. We're kind of. We're talking food tastes.

All right, so let's talk food tastes. Oh, wait, no, I know. We were talking about a day in the life of a food taster. Yeah, Matthew Taster and his Mayo description. Right, so this guy really kind of tore the scales from my eyes as far as what food tasting consists of. It's not fun. It's not a fun experience.

And it can be very monotonous. Like for example, so he signed on with this. Actually, he was through a temp agency. And the temp agency hooked him up with a frozen food manufacturer. Sure, so the frozen food group was mostly concerned over I think the course of eight months with frozen French fries.

Oh, he was that guy. Yes, yeah, I did read that. And he said he tried frozen French fries in every different way. They would say, do you like these? They're baked a little longer. Do you like these with this cooking time? Do you like these with this much oil?

Do you like these with this much salt? And he said salt was like the through thread throughout the whole thing. Sure. So much so that he developed blisters in his mouth, sores in his mouth from eating these French fries for eight months straight. And this is even working for only a couple hours a day

because it's all you can work because your palate will get worn out. Yeah, well, that's not true, but a lot of these people work all day doing it. Is that right? Yeah, okay. If you're full time in it. That's not what I heard.

Yeah. Not what I heard. So in addition to having to eat the same stuff, prepare the different way over and over and over again, you are, you're given the same test basically because the company wants to make sure that what you're experiencing is repeatable. Yeah, it's like a little science experiment almost.

Exactly. So they'll say, here, try this fry. How has the oiliness hit you? Yeah. It hits me like on a five because there's, this is again, this is supposed to be objective. Right.

Like you said, it's a science experiment. So on one end, zero or oils, on the other end, 10 are fruit juices as far as taste impact goes, right? Okay. And so they say, okay, great. Here's some more fries. Do the same thing,

but you don't remember what you gave it. So you actually are experiencing a certain level of stress because you feel like you're being tested yourself. Sure. And it doesn't sound like fun. And at the end of the day, you go home and you dream of French fries and you wake up crying and have to get up

and go do it again. Yeah. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me. Dream smashing. This article in Vice Professional Food Tasters tell us about their jobs. They interviewed three people and the highlights are as follows.

Louise Bamber is a product manager for ASDA. And she says, in a testing week, I can be tasting up to 250 ice creams from eight in the morning till eight at night. See that? I mean, that sounds great, but she's probably taking a bite and spitting it out. She is.

She says she spits it out. She said, and if I don't, that means it's a really good ice cream if I actually swallow it. Yeah. I imagine so. Like if you're eating 200 something ice creams a day. Yeah.

And she loves her job. Like I don't think all these people are like, oh my God, I hate my life. No, they all hate their jobs. And she says she always craves like buttery mashed potatoes and cheese and crackers and things. And she goes to the dentist four times a year

because we're a job. There's a guy, Peter Nixon. If you ain't got Peter Nixon, then your food tasting group could use some fixing. It's so bad. He works at Morrison's. And this is his day. He says, and this is all quote,

at eight in the morning, I have around five different cooked meats. Half hour later, I taste from 15 different quiches. 9.30 in the morning is pie hour. I taste 10 different pies. Then I vomit. All of our chicken pies, all of our steak pies, plus all of the fruit pies.

That was gonna say. And that is my day every day. Then at 10 on the dot, I have a bacon buddy, B-U-T-T-Y. I don't even know what that is. Might be some product they sell. Or it's a misprint. Maybe. And then he says he actually does eat

a proper lunch and dinner when he gets home just to keep his life sort of normal. But he points out that especially in the case of pies, you have to take a bit from each part of the pie. Yeah. So he said, you gotta taste the lid, the pastry, the filling and the meat content and the gravy. These are always experimenting with gravies.

Have I talked to you about pork pies? And how much I love them? Yeah, yeah, from the trip to England. Yeah. Okay. Is that your new obsession? Oh, yeah. Where do you buy them here?

I don't know. Oh, you haven't found them? No. Oh, I'm sure you can get pork pies in Atlanta. I hope so. And then finally they talk to this guy who's a noodle taster and he is the founder of his own Kabuto noodles.

Have you heard of those? Mm-hmm. But it's supposedly like a sort of a finer version of, you know, cup of noodles or ramen. Yeah, no, I haven't. Yeah, they're supposed to be pretty good. You ever had tofu noodles? Mm, I don't think the noodles.

It's like five calories, zero, very low carb. Yeah. They're in their noodles and they're made from tofu. And they are really great. They're a great substitute for pasta. I do like tofu. My pasta substitute, though, is spaghetti squash. Yeah, this is, once they're cooked,

you have no idea that they're tofu. Yeah. They taste and appear just like cooked pasta noodles. Yeah. This dude started his own company and he said that when they were getting going, he tasted, he said easily over 200 noodle types. And when they tasted their own company,

he said it's not the kind of thing where you taste a little bit and spit it out. Like they require that you eat the whole pot. He said because it's different. The whole five gallon pot. Yeah. He said it's different like as you work your way through it, being a noodle in a soup.

Oh yeah, that's true. And you don't just like take a little broth up top. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah. And that's actually a huge distinction for that company, then, because for the most part, like you said, you are gonna take a small bite, but you might take different,

small bites of different components. Yeah, a little crust, a little lid, a little filling, a little gravy, a little meat. And then with each of those bites, right? So for the lid, they'll say how rate the butteriness. Right. Spit it out. Take another bite of the lid.

How's the flakiness? Spit it out. Take another bite of the lid. Is it sweet? Yeah. And then you do that. So. What kind of sweet?

A bunch of different kinds. Yeah. A bunch of different times, just for the lid. They say, okay, spit it out. Let's start over again. And let's see if you give it the same marks this time through. And that's just for the lid.

Yeah. That's not just for the meat content. It's like for all the different parts, you have to rate them and then do it again and again. This job is horrible. I don't care what anybody said. Well, I can see very easily how you would grow to loathe whatever you're eating.

Yeah. Like that guy probably never eats another French fry again in his life. And what kind of life is that? I can't remember if he said he does or not. It probably took a while at the very least. He says, I feel like at the end he'll eat fries. Really?

Something, yeah. But yeah, he got mouth sores. And he said some people develop dental problems so they quit. Yeah. Well, the ice cream lady goes four times a year. Yeah. Like me.

Good part. Did you know I have to go four times a year now cause my stupid teeth. Yeah, you told me. Does insurance cover those or just the two? I should say does Obamacare cover them? Cause two should be free. Yeah, I have to pay more than your average Joe

for my tooth care. And that's not including the obvious extra work that I've got going on. Is that why you've been stealing from the office lately? Yeah, I've been stealing from the swear jar. But I've been adding most of that in fairness. It all evens out. Two more weeks, new tooth.

So if you're a professional there are some things that you need to do to keep your mouth and just all your senses kind of sharp. One of the main things they say to do is to not be a smoker. Although I was surprised to learn that that's not just an absolute requirement. Yeah, me too.

I thought like once they found out you're a smoker they'd tell you to get out. I'm sure it varies. I bet you there are plenty of companies that don't allow you to smoke. Yeah, but I was also wondering like with everything that disqualified you. Couldn't you also make the case

that that makes you like a niche taster? Like surely there's a bunch of smokers out there that are gonna eat this turkey pot pie and they wanna make sure that smokers love it too. So maybe let's get like these high end like smoker food tasters. I'm just, I'm trying to picture that as a marketing tool like the turkey pot pie

for the rotten mouth. Right, exactly. You'll love it. And all the food tasters in that group, but can you see them? They all look like Chris Cooper or something like that in adaptation. Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, boy, that was a great role for him. He, or not he. In the research I was surprised to learn that you could smoke like I was saying because one of the things pointed out that they will demand that you not smoke within 30 minutes of tasting. Which just seems like.

If you're a heavy smoker, that's torture. Yeah, like I just had like five camel menthols half hour ago. Oh, well you're good, very good to go. Have a seat. Yeah, open up. So that does surprise me. What else?

What, like what else are you not supposed to do? Yeah, just like keeping like, you know, if you have food allergies then you're probably not destined for a career. Unless you're part of a niche food allergy food testing group. A gluten person? Yeah, and I was researching.

Yeah, I was researching food tasting or food tasters just across Google. And I found that there are not one but two portable food testing devices that detect gluten. Oh, really? The NEMA and the six sensor labs gluten, portable gluten detectors.

So this is if clearly if you have celiac, you would have one of these. You put some food in it? Not trust your restaurant that you're eating in. Right, screw the lid on and I think. Shake it up. One of them like gives you a smiley face if it's all good.

Or it's like the smile is like, you're gonna get messed up in a second. And the other one just has a toilet with a line through it. All right. But yeah. Wow, that's weird. Yeah, but I mean, it's handy

if you have like a severe gluten allergy. Well, Emily is off the gluten and she is not celiac, but she has found a lot of just positive, digestive results by avoiding gluten. But she did dabble in it in Europe and it did not affect her, which there's some who say like.

Once you go non-gluten, you can't go back. No, there's some who say that the wheat over there is different in that. Oh, oh, really? Yeah, so I don't know if it's true or not, but. We gotta do one on milk because there are two definitely distinct types of milk available in the US.

And a lot of people think that that's why so many people in America have milk allergies. Yeah, because of the milk that we're drinking. Interesting. Yeah. We got some milk. What we're trying to do now is,

she's reading a book called Pharmacology. And so we're very much trying to buy, not just organic, but and not just local. You're gonna milk your own goats? Organic local seasonal food. Basically part of the whole slow food thing, trying to eat things that aren't shipped

all over the country or frozen ever. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we've been going to the local farmers market and only getting what they have to offer. And we got this milk from a grass-fed Atlanta dairy, whole milk. It is the sweetest, creamiest, most delicious. It tastes like dessert almost.

Nice. It's delicious. I'll bet that would make frosting flakes really pop. Oh my God, it's so good. We bought it for our daughter, but I drank like half of it by itself. Oh. And then the farm fresh eggs,

like it's all just noticeably better. It's all good. They ain't cheap though. Yeah, I can imagine. But putting money in a farm, putting cash in a farmer's hand, and them handing you eggs is like a great feeling. You know, you feel like you're participating

in how things should work. And not like, well, this came off the truck and only half are broke. Yeah. So let's put them in the grocery store until they rot and then we'll throw them away. Yeah. All right, that was a little soapbox moment for you.

After shaving cologne, no good, perfumes, no good. You gotta put your Dracar up forever. Yeah, because it all goes back to the smell and taste thing. Yeah. They don't want your Dracar tainting that smoky pot pie or pizza rolls. And then how much can you make, Charles?

You know, oh, these are always very dubious numbers when I see articles like, you can earn between 30 and $100,000 a year. Depending on your negotiation skills. Yeah, I mean, that's what it says, but. Yeah, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not have a food taster category, but they do have a food scientist category.

And even that's pretty, there's a pretty wide spectrum between the two. I think the mean annual wage for food scientists and technologists is 65,340, with some professionals earning more than 100,000. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. Takes that throat off the trash.

Yeah, exactly. You might also end up, I should say, a pet food taster. Oh, yeah. People eat, people eat pet food. And the reason why is because the theory goes that if a human finds it disgusting, there's a pretty good chance your pet's gonna find it disgusting

or awful or bad or tasteless. So humans eat pet food as part of taste testing. Yeah, I thought that was an interesting section because I thought it was a joke at first, but they first point out that there's way more testing of the product than actual tasting. Right, but that's part of it. But it is part of it.

And smell is a big part of it. And it made perfect sense to me, like not only are animals enticed by smell, but as a human, you don't wanna open that can of cat food and gag because it's so strongly smells of like salmon guts or whatever, isn't it? So it has to be palatable to the human in a smell sense, you know?

Yeah. Like our dog food is a little stinky because it's all natural, like real meat stuff. Sure, from that local farmer. Yeah. Oh man, I wish, get some local dog food. I bet there is some. Oh, I guarantee there is some.

What other kind of food tasters are there? There's the one that most people think of when they think of food tasters, which is the one that is basically testing food out to make sure that the king or these days, the president isn't being poisoned. Yeah, I saw a website that was making fun of Obama. King Obama is what they call them because, you know,

he had someone taste his food and blah, blah, blah, and they didn't, they failed to mention that every president has people who taste their food. At least since Reagan. Yeah, when they go out from the White House, it's a very common thing. Secret Service doesn't give details on that because they're Secret Service,

but they take great measures outside the White House to make sure the president's food is safe. Right, and Putin took a lot of heat in 2012, so apparently it comes up every once in a while and everybody makes fun of whoever it is that is called the food taster. But it's actually a very, very old tradition that dates back at least to the Egyptians,

where there were people of great import would have somebody eat their food first, which is stupid, it turns out, because there are almost no poisons available to humankind that kill so quickly that a food taster would be affected by it before the person, the president or the king or whoever ate.

Yes, cyanide is the quick killer. And even that takes like an hour, right? It says minutes. Oh, okay. Well, there you go, cyanide. Strychnine, atropine, trioxide, other things, arsenic, things that people have generally used in history to poison people, like you said.

Not like King Henry VIII said, well, I'll wait a day before I get that turkey leg going. I'll be kind of nasty by him, but who cares? I gotta feed my gout, so bring it on. And this person who wrote this article, Ashley Lutheran, said that she thinks of it more like a placebo. It just made them feel better about tasting.

Right. I ran across an article, one of Hitler's 15 young girls who tasted his food during World War II. He had 15 young girls tasting food? Yeah, and she was the only one who survived because she was the only one who left the Wolf Slayer before the Russians rolled in and killed all the rest of them.

That seems like weirdly fetishist. He had young girls eat, she was food and spit in his mouth, that's kind of fetishist. Yeah, they didn't do that. I'm just joking. I know, but just bring me 15 young girls to taste my food just seems weird. Right.

And well, there was a lot about Hitler that was weird, to say the least, but that was definitely part of it, was he had 15 young girls taste his food. Let's take a break, man, and then we're going to tell you, everybody, when we get back, as maybe even you could consider it a PSA. Yeah, we could do that for tax reasons. How you at home can develop your own palate.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in,

as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road.

OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear.

And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step.

Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart

radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Chuck, so if you want to go about creating a more sophisticated palette for yourself. Yeah, not even just to become a food taste. No, but just to enjoy life more. And we should say, it does seem like a bad idea to teach Americans how to appreciate food more. We've got a pretty big food problem as it is.

It turns out that if you follow some of these steps, you'll probably end up eating less, as a matter of fact. Become a saver in your food. Exactly, which requires things like going slow, slowing down, and thinking about the food that you're eating, right? Yeah, that's, well, let's just start there. If you think, I mean, it's a process.

The way the chemicals fire in your brain from your taste buds, like we've talked about smile antase, it seems immediate, but there's a process going on. And if you're just shoveling, if you're drinking that gallon of ramen down, like it's Gatorade on a hot day. Sure. You're not savoring all the subtleties of that broth.

No, you're not. But if you can slow down, some of the recommendations are eat with chopsticks, use your non-dominant hand. Yeah, boy, that'd be tough. Chewing 30 to 50 times per bite. Ridiculous. That is really tough. That's ridiculous.

Turning off the TV or your computer or putting your phone up. That's ridiculous. Making the meal last 20 minutes. Yeah, we should. Maybe taking breaks if you need to, if things are going too fast. I try to eat a little slower when I think about it. Sitting down while you eat. It's a big first step right there.

Do you stand and eat? I mean, it depends on the meal and how busy I am. Occasionally I'll stand at my kitchen island and eat. Yeah, same here. I like it. Oh, you like it? Yeah, not like as a everyday practice, but it's not by accident that I'm standing. I got you. Like I kind of enjoy it.

Okay. So you want to not do that so you can savor the food. And when you're savoring this stuff, when you're savoring it, you're eating more slowly. Correct. And by eating more slowly, you're probably going to be paying a lot more attention as well. And surprisingly, I didn't realize this,

but this article says that your digestive process has become 30 to 40% less effective when you're tuned out. When you're not paying attention, you're like watching TV or something like that. You're not paying attention to your food. Yeah, that's interesting. So training yourself could actually help you

become healthier because you may get more nutrients out of your food because you're breaking it down better. Yeah, plus don't they say that a lot of overeating is eating too fast because you just power through that point where you're really full, but you just don't know it yet. Right, yeah. Harahachi-bo. Yeah, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God.

Yeah, I can't move. Yeah, no good. So if you are paying attention, you're also feeling when you're starting to get full and you say, okay, bail, bail, and that stuff expands and all of a sudden you're fully full, but you're not overly full. You just feel good.

Yes. You ever hit that sweet spot when you're eating and the food is literally making you high? You're getting a body high from it. You're just getting off on the food. Oh, that happens to me every once in a while. With very fresh food where I'm eating just the right amount, like I'll feel high, not like out of it.

Yeah, yeah. Like I ate too much, but like invigorated. Yeah. And you can actually train yourself to do this very simply too, rather than just taking it slow. You can pay attention. Yeah. And just start out, this article suggests

by taking a slice of apple and removing all distractions and all that and eating the slice of apple and just closing your eyes and paying attention to every aspect of it. It's very interesting. Yeah. It's all just basically training yourself to pay more attention.

I like that. One thing I didn't ever consider was medicine and prescription drugs, especially in clinical studies. They've identified more than 250 scripts that will alter your taste sensation. And you might not even see it listed on the side effects, but you might not even realize it. But your taste buds have been dulled,

especially if you're older, elderly take a lot more pills. And a lot of times they have a harder time tasting and for other reasons as well. Right. But a lot of it could be due to medication. Yeah. Did you ever see that Simpsons where Marge is cooking pork chops

and everybody's complimenting it? And she's like, thank you. You might say the extra ingredient is salt. I did not. I think it's the least that goes vegetarian one. But that's a really good point. There's probably an extreme, but there's a lot of people out there who are in ruts

and who aren't adventurous. And I feel so bad for people who aren't willing to point to a food and say, that looks weird. I've never had that before. Let me try it. Right. Instead they say, that looks weird. You, I'll never touch that.

Because they're missing out on a whole world of stuff. Not just with that particular dish, but maybe the spices in it that go with other dishes that lead you to other dishes. Or I've never tried this nation's cuisine before. Yeah. I don't want to eat Indian food. It smells funny.

Yeah. It's like, oh man. You're missing out on so much. Yeah. It's sad. Of course there are certain, I don't get super adventurous with certain animals and stuff, but that's a different deal.

Oh, because of cruelty? Yeah. Just, you know, I might not want to eat short breads. And I don't think I'm like missing out on something. You're not. I think personal taste comes into play as well. So you've never had short breads? No, like they're a lot of.

Sweet breads, I'm sorry. Yeah, well, it's the same. We were both saying short breads. Yeah, short breads, disgusting. You know, fruitcake. Sweet breads. Sweet breads. Some of the brain glands of glands, I think, right?

Lamps and offal and brains and organ meats. I'm just not a big fan of. Yeah. And I've tried them enough to know I don't need to try them more. Boom. There you go. You tried them.

That's the key. But many I have not, because I don't need to. That's what you're saying. You've had enough tripe to know you don't want stomach. Yeah, I had a tripe taco once. Did you? Yeah. Yeah.

It's a thing. Although it's something that I've got a great example. I tried tongue before, and I'm like, holy cow, I really like tongue. I tried cheeks before. Tongue freaked me out. And well, it depends on how could you tell it was tongue. Yep.

You're not supposed to be able to tell its tongue. Had that texture. Oh, yeah. No, it's supposed to be much more chopped up than that. Like, you don't want the extra. You want the stuff that's inside. No, I just. I think you had poorly prepared tongue.

No, this is good stuff. Well, I've never had it where you could tell it was tongue. Yeah. You know what I mean? But I tried it, and I'm like, holy cow, tongue's great. Same with cheeks. Cheeks are great. They're probably the tastiest part of any animal.

And you know where I learned that? Well, from your own personal taste. Well, I first heard about eating cheeks from Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, but as far as it being the best part of the animal. Right. That's your personal taste. No, no, it's objectively true. We should make that clear.

But the point is here, is that had you never tried tongue, you wouldn't know you didn't like it. And you'd just kind of be bereft for not having tried it. I'd be super bereft for not having tried it, because I do like it. But we're adventurous. And that's the point. Go be adventurous with your food.

And if Indian food is the threshold of your adventurousness. I'm going to officially disagree. Oh, I don't understand how you can. Eat what you want to eat. Everyone doesn't have to be like you. No, no, no, no, no, that's fine. Like, if you don't want to be adventurous. Oh, I disagree with that.

Then don't be. I feel bad for you if you're not adventurous with food. Yeah, I don't think you should take pity on someone for liking what they like. No, no, I don't. And knowing what they don't want to try. But I think a lot of people who don't want to try something, if you look at their diets, they're probably pretty limited.

You know what I mean? It's not expansive in just this stuff like Ophol and tripe. I'm not big on. Yeah, but that's OK, too. Whatever, sure. I'm not going to come to your house and make you eat anything. But I do feel bad for you, because I think you're missing out on some really

great sensory pleasure. I think the people that aren't like that will say, you know what, don't feel bad for me, because I'm great. And I'll say, T.S. for you, I feel bad for you, and there's nothing you can do about it. I'm just always very conscious about putting my stuff on other people and saying, I can't believe you're missing out on seeing that movie.

I'm not doing that. I'm saying, I pity them. That's all. And I'm not like a foodie either. Like, I hate foodies. I think foodies are annoying. It's not at all what I'm saying. I'm just saying, from personal experience,

when I've been adventurous, nine times out of 10, it's paid off. Well, that works for you. That's great. Cleansing the palate is a big deal, especially if you're a taster. You've got to neutralize it. And they say a lemon wedge and orange segment could do that. Which explains why they give you orange segments at the end of a Chinese meal sometimes.

Never understood it. I thought it was just supposed to be a sweet treat, but I guess it's to cleanse the palate before your dessert or whatever. Yeah, and that also explains sorbet, too. Because it's usually like a citrusy. Oh, very fruity. Yeah, it's usually citrusy.

So I guess that's why I always knew it was for cleansing the palate. I just never understood how I did it. Or they say, and I hate the word tepid, especially with water. Do you? Like moist? Tepid water is just, I don't know. I like cold water.

But tepid water, they say, can be a good palate cleanser as well. And you mentioned salt earlier. I'm a big advocate for salt. But the proper amount, of course. Yeah, and salt, I've found, you can use not just as a seasoning, but almost like mechanically. I have this great new secret for guacamole. My guacamole is probably the greatest guacamole

anyone's ever created. Oh, do you make it in moco hete? Yeah, sometimes. But the first step I found, I recently figured this out, cut the onion, and put it in the bowl or the moco hete, and salt it, salt the onion, and let it sit there. And the salt starts to macerate, or I guess break down, because I don't know if macerate specifically

is sugar and vinegar. But it breaks down the structure of the onion and really lets those enzymes out, so you can really taste the onion. It's a great first step, and then do the same thing with the tomatoes. And let the tomatoes and onions sit there salted for a little while.

And before you move on and make the rest of the guacamole, dude, it's like a brand new day. Yeah, I make a good guac. It's very popular in the household. And you know what's a great substitute for tortilla chips? Radishes. For guacamole, it's a great sub. Yeah, I like my tortilla chips.

Sure. I'm a traditionalist. I mean, I can dip anything in guacamole and like it. Yeah, you know, give me a piece of it. Dirty thumb. Give me a cauliflower floret, and I'll dip that in there. What do you say a dirty thumb? Yeah.

A farty honeycomb. Has this episode totally gone off the rails, or is this good stuff? No, it's totally gone off the rails. It has it. Sorry, debate is just like, what do you mean? I mean, should we just go back and edit it out? No, that's up to you.

Why is it up to me? Well, because you were the one taking the hard line. So? I stay and buy it? Well, great, then leave it. So anyway, salt is the right amount, like an under-seasoned meal with no salt is not good. You want salt.

Sad. And if you don't use a lot of salt at home, you wonder why restaurant food always tastes better. It's because they're salting their food correctly. But too much salt is no good. And if you use too much, you need even more. And then it's a problem. Yeah, it's better, I think, not to cook with a lot of salt,

but to start to add it a little bit at the end, like when you're making like a stew or something like that, because it's easy to over-salt it, and then you're totally screwed. And then I've never figured out why this is true, but there's finishing salt, which is basically just salt, but applied like right before the meal is served. So if you take a steak and you just sprinkle

just a little bit of salt on it before you serve, it does something magical that goes way beyond just adding salt to a steak should. And I don't understand what it is. It's delicious. Yeah, but I mean, there's something to it for sure. I'm from the South, so I eat too much salt. Yeah.

Salt and butter. I have a good taste for it. I'll just get a salt lick, like a horse. I have it mounted on my dining room wall. Yeah. Well, speaking of eating too much salt, apparently the average human needs something like 1,500 milligrams a day,

and Americans eat between 2,000 and 8,000 a day, which is nuts. Yeah. And this article points out that quitting salt for a week and quitting sugar for a week, and just saying I'm not gonna eat anything with this stuff for just a week. It might seem like a lot by Wednesday,

but just make it through the rest of the week, and you'll basically recalibrated your palate. And all of a sudden, junk food tastes cloying, but you can really appreciate the more subtle sweetness of some stuff or more subtle saltiness of other stuff, and you really appreciate salt rather than bombarding your tastes with too much salt or too much sugar. Yeah, yeah.

It's definitely an exercise worth doing. Well, and all that packaged garbage food that we talk about is just loaded with sodium. And sugar. Yeah. Like even a can of soup. You'll get like sodium content on just a can of soup. Yeah, it's true.

Terrible. Sad. You got anything else? No, man. It's always good to quit something that you're addicted to for a week just to make sure you can do it. Yeah, I agree.

Unless it's good deeds. Unless it's tongue or cheeks. Just eat that anytime you can. Okay? I'm ready. I liked your good deeds thing, that was good. No, you should quit that for a week too. Cheat people poorly.

Yeah. See how it goes. Just do dream smashers. If you want to know more about food tasting, type those words in the search part, HowStuffWorks.com, and since I said search part, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this Butte Detail.

This is from Chelsea in Butte, Montana. Okay. And we've talked a lot about evil. Can evil be in from Butte? It said, really stood out to me how frequently you guys commented on evil growing up in the rough Butte community and how it affected his personal presentation.

Here are a few things that might help you understand all this. Okay. Number one, nobody calls it Butte Montana. It's called Butte America. What? What about that? Butte, number two, Butte was a huge mining town

that saw tremendous growth, wealth, and decline, and is still very much tied to its mining past. Number three, Montana's political campaign contribution laws were, in large part, passed in response to the Copper Kings, and the wealth resulting from the copper mining operations. Also, the Montana Capitol Building had electricity before many parts of the country.

Fun fact. Number four, Butte has an incredible history tied very closely to the history of unionization. Number five, finally, Butte had and still has a very Irish population. You don't go there for St. Patty's Day unless you're there to party hard. Oh, yeah, sure.

Didn't know that. Butte America? Yeah, and that weird, huh. So in short, Butte's history is very much still tied to its current identity. It's still a very scrappy place, but that being said, some of the best and most loyal people I knew, I know grew up in Butte.

I hope this help clarifies how evil became who he was. Please keep making podcasts forever, so I never run out of content to binge while at work. That is Chelsea. Thanks, Chelsea. That was an awesome email. Chelsea from Butte America, Planet Earth. Why do they hate Montana?

I don't know. Maybe it's just its own thing, beauties. I guess, yeah. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K Podcast. You can hang out with me at Josh underscore Clark. You can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant,

or you can hang out with the both of us at facebook.com slash stuff you should know, right? That's right. Send us an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to, Hey Dude, the 90s called, on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts.