The Sevan Podcast - #60 - Sam Apple

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Author of Ravenous @sevanmatossian @samapplebooks The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.com Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Sevan's Stuff: https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=en https://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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In a bathroom? It doesn't look like that. That's unfortunate that it looks like that. I'm picturing a craftsman style house. That's the window. Your neighbor lives too close to you. So every time you sit on the toilet and that window, that screen's open, you can look over into their house. But that's just my imagination. Yeah, that actually would be pretty funny if I did it in the bathroom. I'm tempted to try it one of these days. But let me ask you one important question. Is it possible for me to not see myself when

I talk? That is a great question. You could put a piece of duct tape on your screen. I don't know what the long-term effects would be on your computer. I don't know how to do that. That's a great question. I see there's this plus button. Can I click this plus button? Go for it. Oh, yeah.

That just made me. So now you've started with the, you've already opened up a bag of worms. Why, you don't want to look at yourself? Well, now my daughter pointed out that whenever I see myself, I make my mirror face. I always tease my wife about her mirror face too. She does this thing with her lips. Yeah, that's what I do too. Oh, crazy.

I can't not do it. I've tried. I'm like, what's up, baby? You need a kiss? Who are you kissing? Sam, do you like this? What do you mean? This podcast and interviews, and do you like doing this?

I guess you could say promoting your book. I like podcasts. I don't like, you know, I tweet about myself all all the time now and I feel like a total narcissistic prick. So I don't like that, but I do. I like talking to people. It's a hard transition. About a year and a half ago, I started talking to my Instagram. Do you do Instagram? I couldn't find you on Instagram. Yeah, I just joined – well, technically joined a while ago, but I just posted for the first time a few days ago. And I started talking, and it's really, one, because I don't like the way I look.

I don't find myself attractive. So I always just go to this place, not in a bad way, like I'm okay with that. But then I'm always like, well, if I don't like the way I look, why would anyone else want to look at me? But then I just had to get over that hump. I'm just like, okay, I just have to share this, and I think it adds value to people's lives. And it worked out okay. No one ever DMed me, hey, you're ugly as shit.

Just point your camera at the flowers and just talk. Yeah. See, my problem is I only like the way I look if I'm making my mirror face. Otherwise, I find myself horrendous. If I see you do that, I'm going to lean into my camera and give you a kiss, so watch out. All right. Am I too dark, speaking of appearances? No, I would actually say you need more sun. You look like you haven't been in the sun in a while. No, I do have another light i can put on here if you think i need it no but i was um it's funny you say that because i was actually thinking

as i was watching your other interviews i was like oh this guy needs a um a beauty light like i have this light i got on amazon for like 99 and it's a circle light and it's supposed to make me attractive yeah yeah i do i have a like a small15 version that I can turn on if you think it would help. You look fantastic. You look fantastic. Cool, cool. A friend of mine named Emily Kaplan reached out to me and said, hey, you should check out this book, Ravenous, and if you like it,

I can get you an interview with the author. And Emily's really smart, and I know the people she rolls with are smart. Do you know her? Does that name ring a bell? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's been helping me sort of get word out about the book. Oh, okay. I haven't met her in person, but I'm a big fan.

And her husband's smart times too. So when she said that, I was like, okay. But I was scared to death because what is she going to do, bring Thomas Seyfried on here and he's going to say a bunch of shit and I'm going to be like, huh? So, but I am 16 chapters into Ravenous. I listened to it on audiobook. that is the book that you wrote um it is i'm it's riveting like it's like it's the kind of book where every time i'm listening to an audiobook and i drive a rant a van for a living with three little boys in the back from event to event to event. And, um, I,

they're my boys. And anytime someone talks, I pause it. And then I re I hit the button on the, um, Apple audio book to rewind it 15 seconds. And I just, I don't know how you are with compliments,

but it is the, it is one of the greatest books that I've ever read. I am hugely into biographies. I don't know if you would call it a biography. Um, is it a biography? Well, first, I just want to say thank you. I mean, that's tremendously flattering. I really appreciate that. I'm, you know, I don't know if I'm good with compliments, but I appreciate that. I don't, I actually don't call it a biography. Other people do. But that's never how I envisioned it,

because my goal wasn't to capture every aspect of Warburg's life so much as to use his life as a frame to tell a story about cancer. But ideally, I hope that it functions like a biography, but it's not comprehensive in the way a biography might be. And how did you stumble upon Otto Warburg? How did you first hear his name? Yeah, I'll answer. By the way, we haven't officially started, have we? Always.

We started. We are six minutes in. Okay, wait. So everything I've been saying has actually been part of the podcast. Yes, our bathroom talk, your mirror face. Okay. All right. Now that I know that we're on, I have to... People like you because you're vulnerable already. People love you already. You're vulnerable already. Okay. All right. I thought this was like the green room chat. But anyways, Warburg.

By the way, everyone always thinks that. That's how all my podcasts start. 10 minutes in, someone's like, so we're going to do this? I'm like, no, what are you talking about? We're doing it. Yeah, it's actually a really good trick. Okay. So your question was about how did i find out about warburg yeah it's like what the otto warburg the book ravenous is a is it's a little too simplistic to say this but it's about a nobel prize winner otto warburg um who lived in germany during world war one and world war two he's born there son of a great physicist and or just a remarkable life and an insane contribution insane contribution to the world and i'm just wondering i i remember how i first heard about him and i'm super curious how you first heard about him yeah i'm actually curious about how you heard about him as well but

i uh you know i've been interested in metabolism really really. You know, I read stuff by Gary Taubes and others and, you know, became interested in diet and carb, sugar, metabolism, insulin, the whole story that I'm sure you know well and a lot of your listeners probably do. But, you know, I had never really thought about cancer as being a part of that sort of cluster of metabolic diseases. So it just sort of piqued my curiosity. And then, you know, I saw in one article mention of Warburg, you know, it's just one sentence. And I Googled him and started to read about his story and, you know, about his experience in Nazi Germany. And, you know, about his experience in Nazi Germany. And, you know, my first book was actually about a wandering shepherd who goes through the Austrian countryside singing Yiddish folk songs. And it's all about sort of Austria's story after the war. So suddenly once I saw, you know, Warburg's story and this Holocaust story, you know, I realized that, you know, this larger story had everything that

I was interested in at the time, you know, the history, the Holocaust studies, and then all the metabolism and cancer research that I was interested in. So it just struck me as an opportunity to put all my interests together when I read about Warburg. And, you know, I'm still, even after writing about him for five years, I'm still sort of fascinated by him as a character and still sometimes feel like I haven't entirely figured him out. And I think that's what you want as a biographer of sorts, is, you know, as a character who fascinates you,

that feels like a mystery. Are you Jewish? Yes. In one of your interviews, someone said something. I can't remember what they said, but they said the conversation went somewhere about how you didn't want to, you were struggling with the fact because you didn't want to say anything positive about Hitler just because of the, he's not a good guy.

Does this ring a bell? But I want to tell you in the book, I saw no bias. And I don't think there ever needs to be a bias about characters. And when I read it, I thought everything was just matter of fact. You were never like, and then the despicable tyrant Hitler entered the room. I mean, it was never like that. It was so refreshing just to read it as just journalism. Like, I didn't get a hint of that, by the way.

I thought whatever you did or whatever you had to push down or hide or bury, you did an amazing job at that. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I think what you're referring to, if I remember correctly, I said that because I'm just so fundamentally, as I hope everybody is, just, you know, repulsed by every aspect of Nazism to say that Nazi Germany made progress in the context of cancer science is, you know, just makes me uncomfortable to say anything of that nature. But, you know, it is true that there were important, you know, discoveries about cancer during the Nazi period. And it's not entirely surprising either, because they inherited, you know, one of the best scientific establishments in history, you know, German science was at the top of the world. And even though, you know,

they immediately chased out a significant percentage of their greatest scientists, you know, those who were left were still at the top of the cancer world, and they were obsessed with cancer. So, you know, it's not surprising that they made some progress, you know, those who were left were still at the top of the cancer world and they were obsessed with cancer. So, you know, it's not surprising that they made some progress, you know, particularly in the context of prevention and screening. 15, 16 years ago, I started working for a company called CrossFit, which was founded by a gentleman named Greg Glassman. I don't know if you've ever met Greg, but he has a ginormous brain. I often refer to him as part Einstein, part Tupac, and part Ernest Hemingway. He is a tour de force of a brain. And he would always talk about Otto Warburg. I would hear that name come out of his mouth over

the 15 years once a month really wow i didn't know and yeah i've never met him and the and the line in your book that really stuck with me and i shouldn't say there were a lot of lines was when you referenced the fact that warburg discovered that cancer cells consume 10 times the amount of glucose as regular healthy cells. And that was really my takeaway of everything Greg would say. Greg Glassman would say also about auto Warburg that, that, that should have set the whole world on fire in my opinion, when he said that,

like, yeah, yeah, no, I'm just like, it really is. Yeah. Yeah, really. I mean, he first discovered this in 1923. So, you know, initially, you know, first, you know, there's always that period after a big discovery where, you know, people have to confirm that it's true. You know, people have to confirm that it's true. And, you know, it took some years, but eventually, you know, it really did. I wouldn't say set the world on fire, but it was understood to be kind, it was, you know, completely forgotten about, you know, to the point that, you know, it's not in, even in, you know, cancer textbooks and,

and, you know, famous books about cancer and, and, you know, the hallmarks of cancer is this famous paper, which sort of captures, comes out in 2000, metabolism. They later did a revised edition like 10 years later and acknowledged warburg but um you know just completely disappears but at the same time this new diagnostic technique emerges the pet scan where what it does is just you know it finds cancer in the body by just looking at where where in your body you're taking up extra glucose so it's just you know, it finds cancer in the body by just looking at where in your body you're taking up extra glucose. So it's just, you know, just this incredibly fundamental thing about cancer. And, you know, it just absolutely disappeared for decades. And, you know, there were a few, you know, scientists here, scientists there that remained interested, but almost no one. And it really didn't, you know, start to come back until the late 90s.

almost no one. And it really didn't start to come back until the late 90s. For everyone who's listening to this, I would say most of the people who listen to my podcast are obsessed with fitness or movement. They're either involved in it or they like watching it. And they take their health as a premium. This book is kind of like... It reminds me of the movie... Sorry to compare it to this. There was a movie called Little Buddha with Keanu Reeves many, many, many years ago. I don't know if you saw it,

but they weave two stories at the same time. They weave the story of looking for the modern-day Buddha, the reincarnation of the Buddha, but then at the same time as the movie is going, they're telling the story of like looking for the modern day buddha the reincarnation of the buddha but then at the same time as the movie's going they're telling the history of buddha and so there's at least two maybe ten stories in your book being told simultaneously and it reads the whole time although you're learning all of this stuff that's like very powerful i think if you're a parent and you haven't read this book, that's a huge mistake. I think there's a tons of things you need to know in there, um, that will make you

able to raise your kid better than how you were raised. Um, but, and that's my bias. Cause I raise kids like 24 seven. That's like my passion, my three little boys. Um, but, um, But there's also sort of this super intense pressure. It's not super intense, but there's tension in the book because the whole time you're just wondering, is Otto Warburg going to get killed? When is Hitler going to come for him? And you do a good job of balancing the two, telling the story of the setting that he's living in, basically avoiding getting snuffed out by these Nazis, but then also at the same time being singularly focused on pushing forward with his research. And a lot of people get focused on his arrogance and things like that.

None of that stuff really bothered me or was a focus of mine because I just think great people, if you're not a great person, you just don't understand great people. Like they're not normal. They like, like Elon, right? Elon Musk. Like, yeah. Like I can't imagine Jeff Bezos is normal. Like you don't, the first guy who climbed Mount Everest isn't normal. Yeah. Yeah. I would even go further than that to say that, or, you know, I guess this is what you mean, maybe, but you have the right tool, he didn't just move on to the next thing. He sat down and invented the tool that he needed

to measure certain metabolic processes. So he just assumed greatness. But, you know, he also grew up in a house that was filled with Nobel Prize winners. So that was, you know, just his assumption that he was going to be part of that community. And, you know, he was intent on making a great discovery. He believed that he would, and he did.

But I do think that, you know, his narcissism, particularly after the war, you know, undermined him a bit. And that's, you know, part of the reason for his downfall is just that, you know, he started making more and more extreme statements. I think, you know, part of it was sort of post-traumatic stress after the war, and he was getting older. But he just kept it in check a little more after the war, I feel like, would have helped his case. Sam is not understating that he was in a home surrounded by geniuses if he were imagine if sting was your father the musician and every day you know crosby stills and nash were there the rolling stones came over i mean

his house literally was like that the the um one of the first times i i heard about warburg is um greg gave me a letter he said said, hey, read this. And I read this letter. And I didn't know who was writing the letter. And you talk about this in your book. And the letter is coming from a man writing to another man. And he's like, basically, I knew that the letter was to Otto Warburg. And the letter said, hey, buddy, you need to get off the front lines of World War I. You have a lot to contribute to this world. And as they get to the bottom of the letter, it says, Sincerely, Albert Einstein. And I'm like, holy shit.

Can you imagine being a soldier out on the field of war and all you want to do is fight and defend your country, and Albert Einstein tells you you're too smart to be fighting on the front lines? Yeah, it's really incredible. You know, Einstein was very close with Warburg's father, who was an incredible physicist and, you know, helped provide experimental proof for some of Einstein's theories. So he said that, you know, Einstein, Warburg's father was his favorite physicist. He really loved him. So Einstein wrote that letter to Warburg, you know, I think as a

favor to Warburg's parents. And what I love about it is that he knew enough about Warburg to flatter him that, you know, if he was going to get him to get out of the war, he had to tell him how great he was and how important he was. So it was the perfect letter to get Warburg to come home. And then, you know, sure enough, Warburg listens or seems to listen. You know, we don't have his response, but he does, in fact, return from World War I. You know, it's in 1918, shortly before the end of the war, but it's possible that Einstein's letter saved his life. And then, you know, five years later, he makes this incredible discovery about how cancer cells use glucose. So I like to think that, you know, Einstein has a role in this story,

too, that if not for Einstein, maybe we don't get Warburg's discovery. And, you know, I'm sure somebody would have made the discovery in a matter of time. But, you know, nevertheless, you know, I think Einstein is a hero in this story as well. Would you say that Warburg was the godfather of photosynthesis also? I wouldn't use the word godfather, partially because I never used the word godfather. But he deserves to be better known for that as well. I would say that he made revolutionary discoveries in terms of understanding photosynthesis,

in terms of modern science, you know, sort of taking the new understanding of energy that came from Einstein and his own father and using that to, to understand photosynthesis as opposed to, you know, kind of the older methods that have been used to study. He sort of modernized the study of photosynthesis. Have you read David Epstein's book, Range? No.

Have you heard of that book? No. So I read that book right before I read your book. I don't want to misrepresent it, but it's kind of like a Malcolm Gladwell-type book, like a pop psychology book. It's a fun book. It's a great book.

And basically the premise of the book is, is should you be a specialist, or should you have a wide variety of skills? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did hear about that. It's a great book and basically the premise of the book is should you be a specialist or should you have a wide variety of skills oh yeah yeah i did hear about that it's a fascinating book and it goes the opening paragraph or the introduction basically compares tiger woods who had a golf club put in his hand at 10 months versus roger federer the tennis player who played all the sports and then finally in his 20s specialized in tennis or something like that i might be mischaracterizing it but i think i have the spirit of it right and then it goes into musicians talks about jazz musicians who are formally trained versus those who aren't and then scientists and

basically says all this stuff so when i was started reading your book i had that bias right that was like freshman right and in your book there's a there's a there's a woman. I think her husband died of cancer, and she was wealthy. And she offered to basically fund the Warburg research empire, but she said it had to be specific in cancer research. And I believe his response was, Ma'am, I can't do that because the person who finds the cure for cancer will not be a cancer specialist and then yeah just now you said something

interesting to me about how he was innovative if he needed the tool to measure something and that tool didn't exist he would also just start focusing on creating the tool. Right. Does any of that resonate with you? That like, hey, it was really his broad scope of understanding the world and his access to all of these other scientists. Oh, the book also goes into the detail about how Nobel Prize winners, they're different than other scientists.

Like the vast majority of them spend half their time doing their science and the other half playing music or painting. Or they're not like, they're not one other scientists like the vast majority of them spend half their time doing their science and the other half playing music or painting or they're not like they're not one trick ponies they have like two or three things that seem disconnected that they're that they're crazy passionate about yeah um so what's the question did you see Warburg as an eclectic man? Did you see any artist's side in him? Did you see what made him innovative? What made him different than the other scientists? That he was able to connect things and that he realized that a cancer researcher is not going to become – a specialist in cancer research is not going to be the one to find the cure for cancer.

Was there anything else that you saw that validated that? Yeah. I mean, he was interested in a lot of things. He was very well read. He was an equestrian. He rode horses every day, played music. He grew up in this German environment where they expected excellence, and he went to a school where he had to learn Latin and Greek. So he was very cultured. But as a scientist, he was very, very influenced. He studied biology and biochemistry

or his work was in biology, biochemistry, but he was very influenced by the physics of his father and Einstein and saw himself really as someone who took physics and applied it to biological processes. And I think it explains a lot about his work and how he saw the world. through a time when Einstein and Max Planck and the other people that were in his house growing up were sort of reducing everything to universal laws and fundamental principles. And he saw, you know, when he's studying photosynthesis or respiration, you know, that these, you know, they work in opposite directions, but it's all, you know, fundamentally linked. You know, he didn't see one time he was talking about photosynthesis and respiration. He said, you know, it's really just the same stuff. And, you know, people were amazed that he was doing discoveries in two different fields, but he didn't see it that way. But, you know, it gets into an interesting debate. You know,

a lot of people push back against fundamental principles in biology, say, yes, it works for physics and for fundamental chemistry. But when you start getting into biology, it's too messy. You can't reduce things to, you know, simple principles. And there's some truth to that. I'm sympathetic to that argument. But I think that the pushback is sometimes too strong that the embrace of complexity and understanding cancer, which is an extraordinary complex disease, is important. But at the same time, when you embrace complexity in that way, you're overlooking the role of, you know, glucose or, you know, these excess glucose consumption. Like, how is that missed? you know glucose or you know these excess glucose consumption like how is that missed you know warburg himself said that you know these endless stream of what he called miscellaneous

discoveries um you know has a way of blinding us and and i think that's true um so finding you know finding the right balance is important but i think you know maybe i veered a bit from your initial question but i think um you know i think what really made him unique as a thinker is always thinking in terms of physics he also you know just being a narcissistic jerk like later in his life when he was being introduced to biochemist one guy a mutual friend was introducing him to a biochemist but uh he had to introduce the biochemist as a physicist because he thought warburg wouldn't talk to the guy if he told him he was a biochemist. This is a weird question.

Is he your friend? Is Warburg my friend? I mean, I know he's dead, but I hear you call him a narcissistic jerk with a smile, the way maybe like my wife might call me a narcissistic jerk. But you've spent so much time with him. Yeah. You've invested so much into him. Yeah. I wanted him to be my friend.

I think he was my friend at the start of the process. By the end of it, it was tough. You know, to me, you know, as a Jew and as somebody who, you know, grew up and learned about the Holocaust and became, like many Jews, you know, a big part of my understanding of history and a big part of my identity that, you know, Warburg is a very complicated figure in that context. You know, he clearly, you know, was repulsed by the Nazis. And, you know, I love that he provoked the Nazis again and again. And I don't blame him for staying, you know, as I talk a lot about in the book, He had a lot of good reasons to stay in Nazi Germany, and he didn't see what was coming, but many people didn know, if I had been trapped in Nazi Germany, I don't know if I would have been brave enough to do more.

So it's hard to judge from history. But I just never got the sense that he was able to escape his narcissism. I never got the sense that he really felt the horror of what happened even, you know, after the war when he would have been able to to understand it you know shortly after the war he just kind of moved on and like many germans just tried to kind of sweep it away and um so you know i just i struggle with it but you know what in a way i felt like i had to forgive him for some of his, you know, behavior for being so narcissistic. And the way that I was able to do that, I think, is because, you know, a lot of people, the scientists who did seem more honorable and decent, like Hans Krebs and David Naufman and some of these other Jewish guys, they continued to really like Warburg after the war and to be his friend. So I thought, you know, if they could put up with him, I can too. But I just wish that, you know, he had been at least a little bit more of a champion for the Jewish people. But he, you know, it's just not how he was wired. And, you know, he didn't, he had a Jewish father, but he didn't grow up Jewish. So he didn't see it as part of his identity, you know,

for many German Jews, and particularly like a half Jew like Warburg, the real shock was like, they're persecuting us. We're not even Jewish. You know, he didn't see it that way. So, you know, I wanted things from him that maybe I could rightfully expect of him. But, you know, there were other scientists like Fritz Haber, who, you know, they told him to fire all his Jewish employees. And he's like, all right, I'm out of here. And he leaves, you know, Warburg was just kind of willing to kind of look the other way as long as they didn't interfere with him too much. So that that was my struggle. But the narcissism doesn't bother me that much. Because, you know, I kind of find it amusing. And as you said that, you know, it's part of his greatness. There's no escaping that. Has anyone talked to you about making this into a movie?

No. I hope that will happen. Waiting by the phone. It's a great movie. It's an amazing movie. If it was made 20 years ago, I could see Ben Kingsley playing him. I mean, it needs someone who can do the whole thing. But, man, it should definitely be a movie.

Yeah, that'd be nice. I wonder if you see this parallel. And maybe you're going to be like, of course I see it. I don't know how you're going to react to this one. I see it as whatever the year was, 1923, that this guy, I'm going to really simplify this, this guy sees that sugar is the cause of all cancer, at least as I read it. That's just my interpretation, and I'm okay if I'm wrong, but I'm still going to stick with it. He sees sugar as the cause of all the maladies going on.

I know your book talks about the other things that they were concerned about, like chemicals and tar and all the things popping up on the scene. And here we are in 2021. And I'll go back a little bit. So when I first started working for CrossFit 15 years ago, Greg was always saying, hey, we are just about to go into a tsunami of chronic disease, and it's all caused by sugar. And even 15 years ago, he would say dementia and Alzheimer's is type 3 diabetes. He basically had everything pinned on added sugar, refined carbohydrates and added sugar. He would tell us nonstop that. CrossFit preached that from the mountaintops.

would tell us non-stop that crossfit preached that from the mountaintops and if people would have listened to him no one would even know that we we would have never had this what i call the so-called pandemic if we had a society that wasn't obese we would have no idea that this was even here this would just be nothing it would my opinion. This would be just something that came and went. It wouldn't have – and when I read your book, I'm like, it's identical. It's identical to what happened in the world in the 20s, that basically people were eating like shit. A sickness started growing. And I think today 600,000 people a year die of cancer just in the United States. Does that number sound right? Yeah. Yeah. Around 600,000.

And I don't want to say every single one of them is caused by cancer, but there were some fascinating, I think it was in your book, some fascinating statistics on mice in like chapter 14 or 15, where basically, you know, i don't know if i have the numbers right but you feed 50 mice regular food and then 50 mice um regular food plus as much sugar as they want and and the discrepancies and who gets cancer and who doesn't is like i'm sold yeah yeah yeah the parallel of your book and i and i don't i guess i'm avoiding the politics of it because i don't know your politics, but do you see the parallel between what was happening in Nazi Germany and cancer and diet and the lack of recognition of what seems so obvious to what's happening right now

that like everyone's looking for a solution over here when the solution is right here? When you say what's happening right now now are you talking about like pandemic related stuff or all the all the so people are trying to put masks on people are trying to do lockdowns and quarantines people are trying to look for a medical intervention like vaccines one hey if you if you like you can go to the cdc website and that 95% of the people who have died are 78 years or older with four or more comorbidities, and the other 5% there's no data on. So I'm just going to say 100%, right? And then you start looking at what the comorbidities are, and they're all dietary related.

99% of them are something that occurred because you ate too many calories, probably too much refined carbohydrate sugar. And so but but no one's addressing that. When I say no one, it just doesn't get any. I've never like when Trump got covid, I didn't see him say, OK, I'm going to go on a diet, lose 60 pounds or, you know, we're spending trillions of dollars on a vaccine. And I don't hear biden saying free steak and broccoli for everybody you know what i mean yeah i feel like this boris johnson uh i was gonna say boris johnson actually did do that yeah he actually said yeah i'm just struggling and and i'm struggling with the fact that this like as

i'm reading your book and then and then the laws that were in place and sort of the segregation that was sprouting up in germany and just i i just see like politically scientifically financially i just see this as i read your book i'm like holy shit this is the whole thing happening all over again um yeah i mean it on class i don't mean it on but everything except for what it really is hey the whole thing happening all over again. Yeah, I mean... Blaming it on class, blaming it on... Everything except for what it really is. Hey, just change what you shove in your mouth.

Yeah, well, I guess there's two pieces to what you're saying. I certainly agree with the part that being metabolically unhealthy is a huge risk factor for COVID, and it's an obvious one, and it's outrageous that we're not talking about it more. The second part of what you're saying, if I understood it correctly, is making analogies between now and what's going on in Germany in the 30s. That I don't think I'm on board with. It just makes me uncomfortable to make any analogies to Nazi Germany. But, um, yeah, so, so I wouldn't say that I'm on board with that, but the metabolism part of it, you know, it does just, you know, really from the beginning, I started following

the research on, you know, who was actually having the worst outcomes from, you know, COVID. It was very obvious that it was people who were metabolically unhealthy and you know even now it's almost never talked about so um you know i think it's a huge part part of the story that needs to be discussed more and people and people fixated on the correlates the correlates like being age or skin color or race like Like these are, I feel like these are just distractions from like, hey, save the rhetoric or the correlates for after this is all done. But if you're saying old people are dying at a higher rate,

then you also have to acknowledge the fact that they've also been practicing, and they don't do this, they've also been practicing poor lifestyle choices for a longer time. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, you see this in the cancer world all the time, too. There's all this discussion of disparities in cancer outcomes in different minority groups. And it's a hugely important topic. But then you look at the conversation, and they're often not talking about metabolic health, which is the obvious sort of signal here is that often people who are less privileged and have a poor diet and have poor metabolic health, and that could explain away so much

of the disparities, whereas people are talking about all these different aspects of urban life when the biggest factor, the metabolism, is right there. I imagine it is like you and I are standing on a railroad track, and there's a train coming. And I'm Armenian, by the way. And the driver of the train is yelling racial slurs at me for being Armenian. And I turn to you and I say, I can't believe this driver is yelling racial slurs. And I start getting really fixated on that. Meanwhile, you step off the track and you're saying to me, hey, Sevan, why don't you step off the track? We'll let him pass and then we'll talk about it.

And I feel like I'm so fixated on the guy yelling, the conductor that I just get run over by the train. And it's a, um, it's just hard. It's hard. It's hard to watch. It's, it's hard to watch. And I was fortunate enough to, uh, be, be around CrossFit where, you know, I knew the tsunami was coming. It took me 15, by the way, I don't eat added sugar or refined carbohydrates. I finally made the leap about a year and a half ago. Have you ever heard of a diet called the carnivore diet? Yeah. So I basically used that diet for a month to put myself into ketosis.

And as soon as I went into ketosis, my sugar cravings went away, and I started craving fat. And then I started reintroducing vegetables again and I made the leap. It was crazy. Yeah. That was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I'm pretty, you know, maybe not as strict as you, but I'm pretty low carb myself and certainly rarely have added sugars unless my kids are literally shoving them into my mouth because they're so annoyed with me. You look lean and mean, Sam Apple. Sam, where were you born? Houston, Texas.

And how old are you? 45. Boy, you look young. And your dad was a writer. Yeah, still is. Sorry, still is. Yeah, still is. Sorry, still is. Yeah, great writer. I don't like to tout my own books, but I will happily tout his.

He's a great American writer. Max Apple. And so you were born in Houston, Texas, and where is home now? Philadelphia suburbs. And what do you do? What's your day job? I teach science writing at Johns Hopkins. Well, science writing and sort of general fiction and nonfiction writing.

I teach both, but I'm mostly involved in the science writing program at Johns Hopkins. It's a master's program. Highly recommend it to anybody out there who's interested in becoming a science writer. And how long have you been doing that? I've been doing that for about a year. Prior to that, I was teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. And, you know, I still do freelance writing. And, you know, the book, of course, was a big part of my work over the past five years.

I want to tell you, so I didn't read this book. I listened to the audio book. But I bought it so that I could, I almost forgot to show it, so that I could show it off on the podcast. And my mom came over to the house the other day and I won't shut up talking about it. So she's like, hey, can I borrow that? I'm like, of course, as soon as I use it as a prop on the podcast. And to be honest, like I said, i think i was on chapter 16 and how many chapters are in the book um i think uh 22 okay damn i was hoping you were going to say like 18

i can say i was close to the yeah sorry it's funny you haven't even gotten to all the metabolism sugar stuff that all comes at the end um last night i went and read the reviews on amazon and and when i say the reviews i always just read the bad ones and it has mostly five star reviews and it's so funny because i went to the two star review there's one two star review and it's like you know like when people give something a one-star review because it showed up broken and you're like yo that that's like that's not reviewing the product yeah and the only bad review about the book is so clearly that the guy who was um do you read the reviews yeah i i shouldn't but i usually do the review on amazon is the guy it's because there was something in the book that he wanted that wasn't in there. And I just find that like that's not a bad review.

If you were looking for a recipe on how to bake vegan bread and Sam didn't put it in the book, that's not his fault. That doesn't make it a bad book. That means that you were looking in the wrong fucking book. Yeah, it's very frustrating. And just, you know, it's human nature that you focus on the bad ones more than the good ones. But, you know, it's just, it's part of the bargain if you're going to write a book and put it out there

and, you know, ask people to read it. You know, I just accept that that's part of the process. You have to deal with it. I realize I'm making a presupposition here. When did you realize it was a good book um i feel arrogant and even even responding to that but um happened to your inner auto warburg yeah yeah yeah i think for me it may have been that, you know, I weave kind of what you might call a mini biography of Hitler throughout the book. I wouldn't call it a biography, but, you know, just little snippets about Hitler. And I think for me, that was a turning point, you know, that I saw that I had a way to tell Warburg's story and also to tell a little bit of Hitler's story

and then to show how they collide. It just felt like a more complicated project. I didn't know if I could pull it off, but this, you know, what I call a braided narrative where you have one story and then another story and weaving them together, you know. So to me, it was like realizing that I could do that and then, you know, it took a tremendous amount of trial and error. But once I felt that that the stories came together and that the structure of the book was fundamentally sad, then I started to feel good about it.

So even before it came out, for other people started reading it, you gave yourself some internal validation. Yeah, I think I did. You know, you have to be a little bit of a narcissist to be an author, I think, and you have to, you know, trust your instincts. But, you know, certainly was always accompanied by a lot of doubt, you know, like horrible periods of intense doubt that, uh, you know, never fully goes away. But, you know, after I finally started to get, you know, some responses to, to people I showed it to at the end of the process and they really liked it, then, you know, then I started

to feel more confident. It's always tricky because you know, that your friends aren't going to tell you it's a terrible book and you look for for the little signs of whether or not they really mean it. But I've had enough people say it that I feel good about it. It is, how many pages is this book? Well, you said it was 22 chapters. Is there a longer version? Is there a version that's 40 chapters and your wife read it and is like, Yo, Sam, you have to cut um chapters no but there was a lot of stuff in the

in the early drafts that um you know didn't belong in the book and uh that i cut out and then i thought i had cut almost all that stuff out but then i you know gave it to my editor who uh was really great and and he cut you know, a bunch of other sections at the, I think a big challenge for me is, you know, I've been doing a lot of magazine writing. And so initially I thought I had to start every chapter with like a really engaging story of some kind that would draw the reader in. And I did still try to do that, but I sort of forgot about the fact that this is not a magazine article, it's a book, and that each chapter has to flow naturally into the one before. So I had

to go back over the whole thing. And, you know, I had spent months, if not, you know, over a year, probably working on these elaborate introductions, and I ended up cutting most of them because they broke the narrative thread. Like, you know, I had like three pages about the assassination of the, you know, Archduke of Austria, and I got it down had like three pages about the assassination of the you know archduke of austria and i got it down to like three sentences yeah that's painful um i've made a lot of documentary films and you and it's a two hour and 15 minute masterpiece and then you see people yawning until you cut 45 minutes of it and it's it's um another analogy might be in the garden you plant three fruit trees really close to each other and they're your three favorite trees but six years later the one

in the middle has to go or else it's going to kill all of them yeah it's just like oh shit how am i going to do that yeah yeah it's a very painful process we you know in my writing workshops we call it killing your babies and it's never, it's never easy to do, but, uh, it's usually, usually necessary. Um, and even, even the stuff that I keep, you know, I end up going over and over and over again, you know, so much of the writing is just rewriting. Why did you become a writer? Was it because your dad was a writer? Why did you become a writer? Was it because your dad was a writer? I think that, I don't think it was because of that, but that, you know, made me realize that it was a possibility.

You know, to a lot of people, it might seem like, you know, an unlikely career choice. But I always knew, you know, seeing my father do it, that, you know, it was an option. But I didn't set out to do it. If anything, you know, he was, you know, an acclaimed writer, um, and, you know, it was a little intimidating to, to go into the field. Um, you know, actually Warburg, I think went into biology and biochemistry because, you know, his father was an acclaimed physicist and that was his way of distinguishing himself. So I like to joke that my that my uh my great rebellion was going into non-fiction because my dad was a fiction writer primarily um but but really it was because i you know i got to to college and um i started getting good feedback uh on the papers that i wrote and i took a creative writing class and got good feedback and you know feedback felt good and

you know i wasn't especially great at anything else. I went with it. What was his response when he read the book? My dad's? He loved it. That, to me, mattered more than anything. You asked me before, when did I know it was good? I would say when I was glad that I did it or when I was fully satisfied with it was when my dad read it and responded because he tells me the truth.

I showed it to him at an early stage, so I still had time to revise it. He didn't suggest many changes. He thought it was really working, so that was enormously gratifying to me. We are incredibly close. He lives a few blocks from here. And, you know, he, my mother died when I was relatively young. So I was really raised by my father, very close relationship. So it's very meaningful to me that he read it and liked it. Do you have siblings? I do. I have three sisters, an older sister, and then two younger half-sisters.

And your dad, wow. Your dad basically raised all you guys. Yeah, well, he raised my sister and me, my older sister and me, and then he later remarried and raised two additional children with my stepmother. Is your sister a writer also? She is. Yeah. My older sister, Jessica Apple, is actually a great writer and runs a diabetes magazine

called A Sweet Life, which everybody should check out. It's really good and fascinating stuff about low-carb nutrition. And she knows more about a lot of this stuff than I do. So, you know, A Sweet Life, check it out. So your two worlds kind of collided with this book. Yeah, it was very interesting because it wasn't coordinated. We didn't, like, you know, get into it at the same time. We just both became interested in it. You know, clearly, you know, something in our like, you know, get into it at the same time. We just both became interested

in it. You know, clearly, you know, something in our disposition, you know, lends itself, I guess, to me about it. I just followed my interests and we ended up in the same place. Yeah. What a cool thing. She must be so excited. It's like, it's like you finally stepped into her world her brain all yeah now whatever you guys hang out and have dinner you talk now you have like a ton to talk about right yeah yeah yeah you know all we all we do is is talk about metabolism you know it's annoying for everybody else in the family um i noticed on your twitter that you've become a little bit somewhat of a uh i only looked at i I don't know, looking back a couple months, but you've become somewhat of an activist. I was wondering if you were like that before.

The specific things would be like the things around chocolate milk, what kids are being fed. Some of those tweets, I was like, wow, he's really going out there. I mean that shit is dangerous to say now. Yeah, yeah. I feel – Dangerous isn't to say now. Yeah. Yeah. I feel dangerous. Isn't the right way. It can get you punished. Get your hands left. Yeah. It's, it's kind of tricky because, um, you know, as a, as a journalist, you know, sometimes I do stories where I really have to be entirely unbiased and, you know, I don't like to show my hand too much or show my, you know, opinions, but I've kind of decided that, you know, when it comes to metabolism stuff,

you know, that it's pretty clear already where I stand. And, you know, the sugar stuff is just so outrageous. You know, we now have 55 U.S. representatives calling for more sugary milk in schools. I mean, it's just disgusting. And I feel like if it makes me an activist to speak out against that, then I guess I'm an activist. Or maybe just a good dad. Maybe you're just a good father. Yeah, I think about it like I wouldn't want my kids to do it, so why should these kids who rely on these government lunches have to do it? You know,

it's really so upsetting. So, you know, I try to present myself in most contexts as a journalist who's just telling stories, but I guess I am slowly stepping into the activist role a little bit. How many kids do you have? I have three kids. Oh, holy cow. And how old are your kids? Yeah. They are 15, 12, and 12. Oh, you have twins. Yeah. So I have a six-year-old and two four-year-olds. Oh, wow.

So yeah, very, very similar. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, it gets easier. How many books have you written? I've written three books for adults. And how many books for kids? Two, but I'm not talking about those as much. You don't want to talk about them or you're not talking about them? Yeah, I prefer not to.

Okay. I did – to talk about them or you're not talking about yeah i prefer not okay i i did i i shouldn't have brought it up i don't know why but i said for adults it's my fault i did i did i'll finish on this and then i'll leave you alone i did buy the book and i think it arrives today on amazon the saddest toilet in the world no man you went there you went there all right it's a great it's trying to avoid an amazing title for a book i can can't wait. That's like – that is – I can't wait. Okay, I'll leave you alone. I'll leave you alone. Yeah, I will say now that you went there that it's actually – well, all right.

I'll just let it go. But I just don't want that to distract from the seriousness of my other messages. But it is fun to do. No, I don't think it does at all. of my other messages, but it is fun to do. No, I don't think it does at all. And I watched all of your interviews, and I have to tell you that as much as I'm interested in the book,

I'm more interested in you as a person. It's just how all my interviews go. I'm just like, what the heck makes Sam Apple tick? Yeah, well, you're good at trying it out because I've said more in this interview than I planned to or that I usually do. And I watched the CBS interview and I was very, very frustrated with – they never even mentioned the word sugar, I don't think, in the interview. I think they said something about Otto was focused on the consumption of nutrients that the cancer cells consume or some shit like that. I'm writing the assault book, working out, watching this with my headphones on, and I think I got a better workout because it got me angry. Yeah, well, I think they cut that part when I was talking about it,

but later when it gets to Lewis Cantley, the cancer researcher, I think they got the sugar in that part of it. I think so when you need have you met thomas seyfried and gary taubes and all these guys and and yeah taubes i know quite well seyfried i just interviewed once okay and did you look at his book um cancers and metabolic disease like so do you pick that up open i mean? I mean, it's like a paperweight. It's huge. Do you open that up and try to actually read that? Yes, but it's a struggle for me as well.

Certainly, when I was first getting into this topic, it was a big struggle for me. But over the years, as I learned more and more of the science and the jargon, it became easier. But yeah, I'm a journalist, not a scientist, and I still, you know, spend a lot of time struggling with scientific papers like the rest of us. How long did it take you to write this book, Ravenous? Five years. Wow. And how many times do you think that it died in those five years,

that it didn't make it to the finish line, that it didn't make it to this? Do you mean like how many times did I have moments of profound doubt that I wouldn't be able to finish? Yeah, like did you ever set it down for a month and then were like, oh my goodness, how am I going to start this up again? Yeah, yeah. I would say there were three or four times. There's always a little bit of doubt, but there were a few three or four maybe minor panic attacks you might caught where like, fuck, I don't understand this or it's not coming together. Sorry, am I allowed to curse?

All you want. It only makes me look better because that's like my biggest criticism from people who listen hey dude easy on the f-bombs yeah okay so i like it when you do it all right um yeah so there were there were those moments where i thought you know or i feel like i I had a full handle on the science and then a new paper would come out, which would, you know, put the science into a different perspective. And, you know, so there were panic attacks where I felt like it died. You know, interestingly, one of the moments where I really started to get panicked was, you know, I had written this whole end of the book. to get panicked was, you know, I had written this whole end of the book, I guess you haven't gotten to that part yet, but you know, where I talk about sugar causing cancer by way of its effect on insulin and elevated insulin actually being, you know, the key factor. But then as I

was writing the book, some new research came out or came to my attention about sugar actually causing some cancers directly without the influence of insulin. So even though in a way it supported my case against sugar, it was like a different mechanism, which I had to sort of wrestle with and, you know, raise some questions about, you know, my whole hypothesis. But I think that, you know, after doing more interviews and more research, I think it all holds together. But it just showed that, you know, the science is always evolving.

And, you know, at some point I just had to accept that no matter what I write, there's going to be a new paper next month, which is going to raise questions about it. So it's kind of a snapshot of where the science is now is how I try to think about it. I'm not a journalist. I'm more of just like a big mouth but when when people i one of my fallbacks arguments is like hey maybe i'm wrong maybe maybe uh you can eat sugar and you can't eat refined carbohydrates but what i'm saying won't hurt you so so like i i know as a journalist you want to have that integrity and get everything, you know, spot on. But the truth is, is that, like you said, like anything you're saying there, it's not going to hurt anyone. You're not telling people, hey, running across the freeway as a pastime is a great pastime. why in the end I focused on prevention rather than, you know, some people talk to me about or read the book expecting it to be like talking about how you can use the ketogenic diet to

treat cancer. You know, I think there's a lot of exciting stuff coming out around that. And, you know, I'm optimistic, but I didn't want to go too far in that direction because the science is just too early and you could get harmed if, you know, if it's the wrong kind of cancer, you do it incorrectly. So I really focused on prevention for that reason. Awesome. How, how do you manage, um, a wife and three kids? Were you working on more than one book simultaneously? Did you publish any other books or were you working on any other books when you were doing this? Just the children's books, but nothing else. Okay. So simultaneously. Yeah. I mean, I also worked on magazine features and stuff, but no other serious books.

And so you're working on a bunch of different projects, and then you're also a professor, and you're also a husband, and you're also a son, and then you also have three kids. How? I don't get how that works. Well, yeah, it's funny that you say that because I always have that how question when I see all these doctors writing books. Like, how the hell are they doing that? You know, they're working full-time.

And when I wrote Ravenous, I was only teaching part time at Penn. Now I'm teaching full time at Johns Hopkins. So that made a big difference. But, you know, beyond that, it's, you know, just drinking tremendous amounts of coffee and really having a deadline, you know, it's such some writers just, you know, sit down and write their books and then turn it over to the publisher. I had a deadline and I had to get it done. So, you know, that that helped a lot without that. I don't know that I would have finished and it did, you know, did take me five years. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like I was burning through.

Did you have any mourning when it was done or Or was it all adulation? And like, was it like giving birth to a baby? Or like, thank God, or we like, actually enjoyed being pregnant? I mean, the writing is laborious and difficult. But there were times when it was also really exciting, particularly, you know, sort of becoming something like a historian for the first time and the excitement of digging through archives and making discoveries. So I missed some of that. But I didn't, I wouldn't say that I mourned it. You know, I think when I sort of dabble in fiction, and I get more of that feeling when I finish a fictional story where I sort of kind of become obsessed with an imaginary world or a character. And then I finish and I kind of miss it a little bit. But with nonfiction, there's so much research and fact checking and stuff that I didn't sort of have that type of emotional connection to the writing process in the same way that I do with fiction.

But, you know, I do miss the excitement of digging through these archival letters and finding exciting things. When I saw Tim Noakes congratulated you. Yeah, yeah, he's been really supportive. I'm very grateful for that. Did you know him during the entire time you were writing the book? No, I still don't know him at all. He's just like this very generous stranger on Twitter.

I mean, I know he's a famous scientist and a very influential figure. I'm just very grateful that he keeps tweeting about it. Yeah, if Tim Noakes tweeted something to me like, hey, Seb, on a great podcast, I'd ride that high for a month. Yeah, yeah. That was awesome to see. Yeah, yeah. That was awesome to see. Yeah, yeah. He's been really generous.

I'm really grateful. There's an interview you do. It's on YouTube. You're reading from one of your books. It's kind of funny because it's one of my other favorite subjects, too. And it's about circumcision. Wow, you're covering everything. Wow.

What book is that from? It's from my second book, American Parent, which is about the first year of my son's life. And what I decided to do for that book is to sort of do a journalistic account of raising my son during the first year. do a journalistic account of raising my son during the first year. And then along the way, interview all sorts of parenting experts and look into the history of parenting practices and to try to kind of weave the two together, weave my experience in with the history of science. So, you know, you were asking me about the structure a little bit of ravenous. I think that was kind of a warm up for this, finding ways to kind of blend two different

types of narrative together. And it was also my first time really starting to write about science a little bit because I started looking into why we believe certain things about how children turn out and how they're raised. So the book wasn't widely read and I'm still kind of bitter about that, but I do think that uh you know really prepared me to write ravenous in a lot of ways is that is that um I'm gonna show you how dumb I am right now um is that book available in audiobook American uh no sadly no yeah I hope so that one day how am I gonna going to read it? I have friends. Whenever I tell them I'm reading this book,

they're like, shut up. You don't read. I'm like, okay, so I'm listening to this book. Yeah. Nah.

Um, what did you know? Um, so, so that's, um, when you read that, that's a true story.

That story you're telling in that, in that reading of your book is a true story. You actually went out and searched for your moil and found him and stayed the night at his house. Yeah, yeah, it's a true story. It's actually kind of fascinating because I mentioned before my father is a fiction writer. He's a humorist, a satirist, and one of his more famous short stories is about a guy who is stuck in, he's doing a type of therapy, which was popular in the 70s and maybe 80s, where you try to go back to your birth. It's like a form of psychoanalysis where you go farther and farther and back to your birth. And the character can't get all the way back to his birth because he's stuck on the eighth day.

That's the name of the short story, The Eighth Day, his circumcision. And I swear to people. Understandably so. Yeah. So my father's written this story and then I hadn't thought about that because when he wrote that when I was a little kid and I hadn't really read a lot of his fiction as an adult. And then I had this idea, well, if I'm writing about all these different practices related to childbirth, and, you know, why not write about circumcision as well, because I was having a son and we're Jewish. And, you know, I wanted to investigate the history. So I thought, you know, I'm interviewing all these experts, why not interview my own mohel? Because I knew he was still alive. But then I realized, you know, I was acting out my dad's short story.

And my dad's story, the guy goes and talks to his mom. I hadn't even thought about it until after the fact. I'm sure, you know, it influenced me. But it was really, you know, life imitating art. And so, yeah, I went and hung out with my mom. He's a great guy. He's over 90 now, but still not circumcising, but still going strong. He's over 90 now, but still not circumcising, but still going strong.

Was it, was it, did you see any absurdity in the fact that you were asking him if he met, if he remembered? I mean, there's some in that it's a, it's a, the piece you read, it's like seven minutes long and I was just dying laughing because of just the absurdity. You're asking him if he remembers you and then to try to refresh his memory, you showed him a baby picture of yourself. And to me, just all babies. Was that what I mean? Did you really think and I wasn't couldn't even tell if it was a true story. So that story, did you think anything about what you were doing was absurd?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I. Or did you do it because it was absurd? Well, I mean, both. I was writing a mostly serious book about child rearing, and I'm interested in circumcision in terms of this very strange practice, like how this became such a central part of Jewish religion and history. And so the absurdity wasn't driving me to do it, but I appreciate the absurdity in the book. I hope, you know, it is meant to be funny. So, you know, I recognize the absurdity, but, you know, that wasn't the goal in itself.

But, you know, if I can weave in some absurdity along the way, you know, I also write in my spare time. You asked me other things I do. I write little humor pieces like for McSweeney's or I did one for the New Yorker, Shouts and Murmurs. I enjoy those little kind of humor pieces. Have you seen the movie? I think it's called American Circumcision. No, I haven't seen that.

It's on iTunes. You should check it out. I think it's on iTunes. Maybe it's on Netflix. I can't seen that. It's on iTunes. You should check it out. I think it's on iTunes. Maybe it's on Netflix. I can't remember. But I saw it. I promise you a lot of people will not want to watch it. It's a big dose of just reality.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure I want to watch it. But it's fascinating. It's fascinating. It is really, really fascinating. But it's fascinating. It's fascinating. It is really, really fascinating. My favorite part is also when you ask them, when you talk about where do, where do foreskins go? Like you're looking for the graveyard for foreskins.

And he basically said he just throws it on the ground and stomps it on the ground with his cow. Yeah, that's kind of depressing. There's got to be some, there's got to be something illegal, medical, medical toxic waste. Yeah. Yeah. I to be something illegal, medical, toxic waste. Yeah, yeah. I love, too, that they call – he had done a lot of East Coast transplants, so they called him the Yankee Clipper. That was his nickname in Houston where he was circumcised.

I'm so surprised that this interview ended up here. I didn't see that coming. Oh, some of my favorite topics are circumcision and overconsumption of sugar. Yeah. Yeah. There was a story I wanted to share with you that I thought you would find fascinating. I wish I would have said it when we talked who are who are experts won't find the cure for the right cancer it's gonna have to be someone who has a can see the bigger picture and it was

a story that um greg's told me before but basically the the tabasco company the company that makes tabasco sauce they put out a contest for um they wanted they wanted to sell more tabasco sauce so they were looking for a slogan or something and they basically put out a contest with all of their employees saying hey enter this contest and tell us how we to sell more Tabasco sauce, so they were looking for a slogan or something, and they basically put out a contest with all of their employees saying, hey, enter this contest and tell us how we can sell more Tabasco sauce. What can we do? And so all these people turned in all these submissions of different ads and campaigns and catchy slogans and tunes, and then the winner would get a million dollars. Well, the winner, and I think you're old enough to remember this.

I'm 49, and I remember. Well, the winner, and I think you're old enough to remember this. I'm 49, and I remember. The winner, his solution to selling more Tabasco sauce was to make the hole in the top of the bottle. And it had nothing to do with marketing. Because do you remember as a kid, you'd shake it out, and you couldn't get it out? And then now, if you shake it out now, you can just turn it upside down, and it pours out. And so I was remembering that story as i was reading your book and that was one of the things i was like oh my goodness

yes this is like someone just thinking just totally out of the box yeah and uh and they got the solution so i i kind of tied that to um to auto warburg what is uh what's next for you um i'm not sure. Yeah. Do you get to retire from teaching when this thing becomes a movie? I really love teaching, so I don't think that I will,

but maybe do a little bit less. But I feel like I need a little bit of a break. You know, this is just a really intense process. I do have some ideas about, you know, another sort of project that would combine some of the metabolism stuff with another interesting historical character. But I might take a little break to work on fiction as well. I've had a few novels I've never had a chance to finish, so I might sit down with one of those. I'll have to see.

Ravenous, it came out on May 25th. I didn't realize how recent it was, by the way. Yeah, yeah, just a little more than a month. And the audio book came out at the same time? recent it was by the way yeah yeah it's just just a little more than a month and the audiobook came out at the same time yeah um i can't recommend it enough thank you um you have great reviews from jason fung gary taubes tim notes um all rock stars emily kaplan um there's congratulations i mean and and more importantly what resonates with me as a little Armenian boy, the fact that your dad liked it. There's nothing that makes me more happy than making my mom proud.

Yeah. I'm in the exact same. My dad doesn't even know what I do. But, I mean, he's a great guy, but just doesn't know. But my mom, my mom is my rock. Yeah. And thanks for your time. Yeah, no, thank you.

This is a lot of fun. I really appreciate it and appreciate your kind words on the book. Sure. All right. Take care.