Jessica Wynn
Appearances
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
But labeling food packaging with the company name and content information, that's a relatively new package. Back in the 1660s, the phrase, let the buyer beware, became popular because inferior quality products were sold to uninformed customers. So eating packaged food was a risk.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Now labels contain a great deal of information intended to protect and instruct the public, but even in the 1800s, it was just some food in a container, and you might get pretty sick if it wasn't the right kind of container. So reputable merchants who knew this, they began to mark their food packaging with their identification.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Official trademarks were then pioneered in 1866 by the Smith brothers for their cough drops that were marketed in large glass jars.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It wasn't. It was actually a really huge idea. And then, I mean, the Industrial Revolution had opened up trade and a need for better packaging, so they all had to be labeled. And the packaging, it had to be durable and easy to produce.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Food preservation was also a top priority during this time because there was new transportation methods meant for food, and the food was traveling further and more often. In 1890, biscuits were the first products that were individually packaged and sold by the National Biscuit Company, known as Nabisco.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Memorable. They made the first packaging to preserve crispness by individually wrapping the cookies and then putting them in the tin. So packaging was advancing for beverages, too, when the bottle cap was invented in 1892. Food packaging also contributed to overall public health. In 1933, a new era of plastics began with the creation of saran wrap. This allowed for airtight food packaging.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And then the Tetra Pak was invented in 1951. This paperboard-based package, it revolutionized Europe's dairy industry because it could store liquids without refrigeration. And the box shape, it was easy to stack and ship. And then Coors pioneered the use of aluminum cans in 1959. And in 1963, the first ring pull for beer cans was introduced.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, everything was soldered. Again, you'd probably have to just break the top of the glass or smash the top off.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I'm not sure when this, like, I think this screw top actually came after the actual one you need an opener for today. But it was a funny order in which we discovered the convenience of opening these containers we were making.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
For sure. And the sound of opening a plastic bottle when you open a soda, that arrived in 1973 when the first plastic bottles that contained carbonated drinks were invented. This became the cheaper alternative to glass.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. And the huge profits of the food packaging market. Design, production, and distribution of packaging materials was valued at $456 billion, with a B, in 2022.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It sure is. And it's projected to grow to over $700 billion by 2030.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. There's plenty of regulations. And they put everything into three simple categories for the food packaging, primary, secondary, and tertiary. And the difference between them is the layer of protection the product has while being transported from point A to point B. And all the materials used are evaluated, glass, metal, plastic, cardboard, paper, cellophane.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
We could, but I think most people are already aware of how problematic plastic is in the world. I think it's something like they say we consume a credit card's worth of plastic every week. Maybe we don't, but that plastic ends up in the oceans and then the fish. I know you've done a ton of episodes on this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So basically without a corporate renaissance, plastic is here and there's a lot more to food packaging than just plastic.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, we're just screaming into the void, kind of. I hate plastic. I try to avoid it, but it's the most common packaging used in the food industry. Because of its physical and chemical makeup, plastic can be used with pretty much any food. Plus, it's a low-cost material. So until a cheaper, more effective form of packaging is created, plastic is here.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Right. Like we said, glass is risky. It shatters. It leads to lost products. And it's heavy to transport. It requires a ton of heat to manufacture. So the carbon footprint of glass is actually really enormous. Plastic eliminates a lot of these business concerns.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Metals are actually some of the best food packaging materials. Tins started the trend of metal packaging, but aluminum is what drives it most in today's world. The best thing about aluminum cans is they're easily recycled, and it's best for transporting food items. It's the best at keeping out bugs, moisture, and air, and you can use it for wet and dry food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Like I said, it's the most recyclable, but it's really expensive. So our food costs would skyrocket. And it has the need for protective layers to avoid corrosion and reaction to acidic foods. And that can cause foodborne illness. So plastic is also safer. Metal also takes a lot of carbon to extract, manufacture, transport, and plastic. You can make clear or opaque.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Metal's never transparent, so there's kind of no good option.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, makes you feel like a better cook, maybe. I don't know. It's definitely something that has to be considered when marketing in other countries. Legend has it that decades ago, Gerber could not figure out why its sales were like zilch in the African market.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And it turned out communities with the lowest sales correlated with the lowest literacy rates because in those communities, people were relying on the picture of the label to know what it contains since they can't read.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And no one wanted to give Mashed Baby a try.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
But I don't know. I have to say mashed baby. It could be quite delicious depending on the flavor profile.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Too far, Jordan. But the point is good packaging. It's so much more than just protecting food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, Jordan, of course size matters. Any other answers? Just trying not to make you feel insecure. And this is true in food packaging, too. Like optimizing package size ensures less food and packaging waste, and that can reduce transportation costs. So if restaurants and grocery stores can purchase smaller packages, they'll require fewer trucks and ships to transport their goods.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
That means fewer emissions, less congestion on the roads and waterways. And then we get food that's cheaper.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Smaller is better, Jordan, whatever you need to cope. But smaller is actually better for you. Like when it comes to packaging, think about it. An apple is healthier than the cookies that are in a plastic sleeve, in a tray, in a box. There's no packaging, but the produce section is also regulated.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Like those stickers on the fruit, they must be non-toxic and edible just in case somebody adjusts it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, totally. Every word is regulated. And think about it. There's so much information about the food on any given package.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Most people wouldn't understand all of it if you did read the whole container. There's the nutrition label. There's the serving size, the ingredients, portions, the art, the font, the recycle signs, the weight, the expiration, address of distribution. Most containers have websites now. Many have QR codes. Then there's dietary certification symbols.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
For many consumers, food labels are a primary source of information about the foods they eat. So it's important these labels are trustworthy and that companies are held accountable for the claims printed on their package. We're fortunate, right? We trust food packaging. We rarely face foodborne illness like those buyer beware days.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
But when President Zachary Taylor died in 1850 after consuming contaminated fruit and milk at a picnic, the demand for labels assuring the public they won't die from eating, it was a top priority. And Taylor's cause of death actually led to the 1862 creation of the United States Department of Agriculture, the USDA, which got to work on strict guidelines for food processing and packaging.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
But it wouldn't be for 128 years till a recognizable nutritional facts panel was mandated on all food products. But people just wanted a package to let them know it was safe.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Thanks, Jordan. Do you know what the deal is with those tabs and lids that are impossible to pull off of everything from toothpaste to cream cheese to spaghetti sauce?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course not. But as consumers' trust grew in packaged food, the amount of packaged foods increased. So until... The 60s, Americans prepared the majority of their meals at home. But then after kind of the revolution of plastic, packaged foods were everywhere. So the USDA mandated that a list of ingredients be placed on all packaging.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And in 1990, the USDA mandated that all food companies were required to make consistent claims and include a detailed standardized nutrition facts panel on all food packages.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I know. The 90s seems like it was 10 years ago always. But yeah, there were minimal label requirements in the 40s. It just got more strict in 1990. So what is printed on food packaging? It had already been to the Supreme Court in 1973, and that led to requiring nutrition facts be printed if the packaging made any health claims.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, correct. And any food packaging that made claims about preventing or curing a specific disease, they're actually considered an illegal drug. So you couldn't sell them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
What would that package look like? Ingredients. Mind f***ery.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
The fact we don't read the labels is proof of how much we trust the food packaging industry, the FDA and the federal government.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Exactly. And labels, they're not always ignored. People still don't want to get sick. But the point is, consumers were being fed information about what they were being fed, and it was a selling point. Nutrition labels have, are, and will be debated forever as we prove and disprove things about what we put in our bodies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, my gosh. I know. I couldn't agree more. Like food manufacturers were eager to respond to the customer interest. And so they used new undefined claims on food packaging, like extremely low and saturated fat in order just to catch consumers' attention.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So in 1984, when the good old Kellogg company began a labeling campaign using the back panel of a high fiber breakfast cereal to link fiber consumption to a possible reduction in the risk of certain cancers, food packaging as a marketing tool was a bit out of control. There was just an absence of regulatory action.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
See, you don't even see the package and you're still drawn in.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, your pious diet. A variety of foods can lower risk of cancer, but it's more complicated than just eating a breakfast cereal, obviously. So packaging with those kinds of claims, it's irresponsible misinformation. And food packaging was scrutinized by the FDA after this, and the words printed on packaging is... like really closely monitored.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It's like any good market, the food packaging industry, it changes with consumer demand. And the surge in consumer interest in nutrition in the 20th century definitely fueled what the food packaging industry looks like. And the packages that the labels were printed on, they also changed accordingly. So the consumer could be able to understand the labels on the package if they choose to read it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
No, it's absolutely true. Food companies did whatever they could because that was just it. They could put those words on there without any repercussions, whether they were true or not. So now every word's looked at.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It's so gross. You get it on your fingers. It's just so frustrating. But it's wild to look at the evolution of food packaging and how it got to this point of getting into physical altercations with our containers. Like any good podcast, though, we can start from the beginning and see how we got to this overpackaged world.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And the FDA, it tries to require food packaging now to clear up nutrition confusion, help consumers choose healthier diets, and give food companies an incentive to improve the nutritional quality of their products. The USDA and the FDA strongly believe that consumers need help to eat healthy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
That's really surprising, actually. But the information is there. But even if the strict rules on what the nutrition labels can print don't stop the marketing value of what the rest of the package says. So it's definitely a science. Like FDA research shows that graphic presentations like pie charts and bar graphs, they're not easy for consumers to comprehend.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So percentages are found to be easiest for people to understand, which is why the nutrition label looks the way it does. The FDA worked with graphic experts to design the nutrition label. It took into account research on comprehension, legibility, and literacy. So everything written on the nutrition label is very deliberate.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
The calories and serving size, you'll notice, are printed in larger, bolder font because it's the easiest correlation for nutrition. us dummies to understand.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It also depends on all those other things out there, if you even know what that all means. So food manufacturers are always playing with words on packages that will increase their sales. But it makes the FDA have really specific definitions for terms like free, low, light, reduce, less, high, even the word healthy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
The current definitions for all of these claims, like anything on packaging, on FDA-regulated food, it can be found on their website. And I will tell you, it's a lot of information, even to just skim over. But the FDA is constantly attempting to combine the psychology of selling with the science of health.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And it makes for really weird mental gymnastics of deciphering what's said on food packaging. It started as a way to preserve and transport food, but each package is like a little billboard advertising what's inside.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It is 100% a business choice, because think about it. Printing the nutrition label on the front would be bad for sales.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So then you have the front of the package, and that's what we see first. And within seconds, it can influence a purchase. This has made the front of packages a battleground between public health advocates and food manufacturers. And because research has shown that positive labels like health stamps or those check marks or whatever that can overrate a food's healthfulness,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Public health advocates support initiatives for warning labels like stop signs to highlight low nutrient foods like those ultra processed snacks. So all front of package labels in the U.S. are voluntary. So you can put whatever you want on there. So food manufacturers use it to highlight or hide nutrition information that will increase their sales.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
But if warning labels became mandatory, the pressure on manufacturers to improve nutritional quality would definitely increase. Research finds that consumers believe a food marked with a health claim is healthier than a product that doesn't. So if the front of those fruit roll-ups has like a low-carb, heart-healthy stamp, then of course you'll think that pure corn syrup is healthy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh yeah, like definitely to hide them. They have to put what the FDA requires on the package somewhere. And what the FDA requires is ingredients, allergy information, and dates, like the sell-by, best-by, use-by dates.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
In Canada, they've started printing on the cigarette, like the paper that wraps the tobacco. It's like pretty much like you're dying or it says like crazy stuff on the cigarette itself while you're smoking. Wow.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
That's actually spot on. But we're going to go further back, like all the way back. There was a time when food was eaten just where it was found. And nature provided the first food packaging with things like shells, gourds, leaves. They were used like Tupperware. So over the centuries, humans got creative by hollowing logs, weaving grass, and using parts of animals they didn't eat.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, but there's actually several countries, like including Chile, Brazil, South Africa, they've mandated front of packaging warning labels. And studies on the efficacy of these show that consumers understood and trusted the warning signs. And every item they tried this on lost sales, like dramatically.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So it turns out people respond more quickly to negative information, including mostly that which causes fear.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Right, of course. Kosher refers to Jewish dietary law, but those labels are not just useful if you're Jewish. Kosher labels on food products are also useful to vegetarians, vegans, the lactose intolerance, and other dietary restrictions. So kosher symbols are printed on all packaging, but it kind of looks like the periodic table. So if you don't need to know, it's probably overlooked.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. There's actually six basic kosher symbols. So the O with the U in it, that means it's kosher, but not kosher for Passover. The O-U-D indicates dairy. O-U-D-E means dairy equipment was used. And then there's symbols for meat, fish, Passover. It's a lot.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I think a lot of that is like poison candy myth. But there are unfortunately documented incidents that would probably bum us out to discuss. But regardless, like we must be able to trust our food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, totally. And what we're conditioned to notice. Food packaging also involves the psychology of recognition. And a lot of research goes into packaging design, like packaging's purpose. So it grew from protecting food to informing consumers to increasing sales.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And food companies work really hard to make well-designed logos and packages that evoke positive emotions, create a sense of trust, and establish a strong connection with consumers. It really plays an influence on our purchasing decisions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Maybe. Packaging affects so much emotion you aren't even aware of. I can get sad opening a package.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yes. Okay. Yes. Or like those tabs that frustrate us and we can't open the package. And I will start to imagine an elderly person who's alone and they're trying to open what I'm struggling with and it breaks my heart. Like,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Grandma just wanted to open the ketchup, but she had to get a knife because the plastic tab under the lid won't pull off. And now she's cut herself.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Sure. I mean, food packaging 101, like simplicity is the most important thing. And food packaging, it strives for immediate recognition among consumers. So a good logo will be easily incorporated into all marketing materials like packaging.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Like animal fur was made into fabric. Then that fabric was used to wrap food and make bags, probably for hiding from other hungry animals and humans.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And color psychology is the most important thing. Different colors conjure different emotions, and studies prove red and yellow stimulate food cravings. So it's no coincidence so many food packages and logos are red and yellow. Think the McDonald's arches, Ritz crackers, Doritos.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I know. I know, and red and yellow are everywhere in them. And like you said about the Doritos, think about how many other snacks and sauces and chips are orange. Orange is a blend of red and yellow, and we perceive it as more appetizing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, it does matter to some extent, but mostly just our packages are shaped the way they are for stackability. Like the shapes and symbols printed on packaging, they promote the brand or health benefits. So like that checkmark or that heart shape on a package is communicating things to a consumer.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
The typography and font play a role in our eating habits, too, like how words and letters are written. captures our attention, it sends different messages, and a lot of it is subliminal. According to research, consumers make a subconscious judgment about a product in less than 90 seconds of viewing it, and 62 to 90 percent of them base that assessment solely on color.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Color registers much faster than text or the complex graphics or those nutrition labels. The colors chosen for our food packaging have intended subliminal messages to attract customers. Think about the bright colors used for children's foods and drinks. And then softer colors, they're more appealing to older consumers. Colors like green or blue help to portray healthier options.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And these links between colors and the influence they have on human emotion and behavior, it's really well established. It's similar to how like neurons fire when we're hungry, that the color red enhances the appetite and stimulates a physical response. Our brain processes yellow the fastest, so it grabs attention. And studies show yellow actually releases serotonin.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh my God. Yeah, right. And as crafts got more sophisticated, then fabrics were turned into baskets. And by around 8,000 BC, humans were storing food for future meals.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So on a subliminal level, that might make consumers feel good about what they're buying. In a scientific study researching orange juice packaging, it was found that orange packaging led consumers to expect a higher level of fruit juice content compared to the same beverage in white packaging.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, sure. You'll see red and yellow the most next time you go to the market, I bet now. But blue is the most unappetizing color. Besides blueberries, the color blue is almost non-existent in natural food. And the thought of it, like through evolution, that might make us think of mold.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Right. Yeah, there's Cool Ranch Doritos and then there's Oreos. So there's definitely exceptions. Blue is a complicated one because there was a study in the 70s where people lost their appetite and got sick when served a steak that was dyed blue with food coloring, despite it being perfectly edible. But all colors have positive uses. So...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I bet it was through these studies they figured out blue implies water and freshness, so it can be good for like bottled water or milk or seafood. White packaging makes people think that the product does not contain many ingredients. And brands also see benefits of using black to portray a sense of luxury, like think like Monster Energy drinks or Jack Daniels.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, food packaging is indeed subliminal advertising. And food packaging reaches us young. Like targeted marketing raises serious concerns when it comes to our children. Food marketing to children, it's not just bright colors, right? It uses childish lettering, cartoon characters, celebrity photos of sports people, and references to fun and play.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Like theoretically, if a company wants to start building brand recognition and loyalty early, it can aim at three year olds. That's when it's been found we can start to remember brands. So products with children targeted elements on the packaging are found to be higher in fat, sugar and salt in comparison with foods targeted to the general population.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Totally. I cannot find a good answer to this. Like food packaging strategies should be focused on limiting promotions of unhealthy food to children. But it seems the healthier the food, the more boring the package, even if it's for kids. It's like inexplicable. I really wish I had a good answer as to why this is.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I think they passed that in like the early 2000s. I don't know if it was because it was making kids buy crappy foods or if it was a choking hazard. I'm not sure exactly why, but for whatever reason, the FDA said no more toys. But McDonald's, of course, has a loophole and they still have toys in their Happy Meals. I guess there's ways to get around it. I don't know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I know, we'd starve, but it's all we would be doing. And so maybe it was like that free time that humans had that let them discover ores and compounds. Because by about 5000 BC, humans were using metals in a variety of ways, including pottery. And this led to storing food in vessels like bowls, vases, pitchers, things like that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I think technically it's not pre-packaged. I don't know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Plus, it's complicated for children's products because it is. It's marketing to the kids and the parents. But have you noticed products for your kids, they're on the lower shelves?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, for sure. I mean, what do they say? You never get a second chance to make a first impression. That's why high quality food packaging is essential. In the context of like customer satisfaction, food products with eye-catching packaging simply have an aesthetic advantage in the market. And as consumers browse more and more online on Instacart and
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
food delivery sites, packaging is more important than on the supermarket shelves. Companies can significantly increase the sale of items just by their packaging.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, we just don't think about it. And one trend food packaging must stand out in now is social media. 40% of consumers share images of food packaging on social media. This means that creative food packaging can touch on those emotions and psychology via posts and photos.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course, another complicated issue. It's all trial and error right now. Nothing that's been tried has been the solution. So unpacking the environmental footprint of food packaging, it's really involved. And from the plastics that encase our groceries to the coatings on our to-go coffee cups, the choices made in food packaging, they have far-reaching consequences.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And we just haven't found a perfect eco-friendly solution.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, because it's tiring to talk about. Plastic packaging has become synonymous with convenience, though, even though it comes at a great cost to the environment. My opinion? We have been convinced.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
We, the consumers, are the problem and need to recycle and bring a bag instead of food manufacturers and water bottle factories and other big corporations taking accountability for the materials that they foist on us. What can a person do grocery shopping? Hey, excuse me, do you have any food sustainably grown and walking distance that have had no contact with plastic? It's an impossible thing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So we know plastic food packaging pollutes the oceans and microplastics enter the food chain and end up back on our plate. But we need to eat.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know if I'd call us meat sacks. I'll take it as a compliment, I guess. What can consumers really do but complain? The environmental concerns that surround traditional packaging material is slowly shifting towards sustainable alternatives within the food industry.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And these alternatives, including biodegradable and compostable materials, they do hold promise in reducing the ecological footprint of food packaging. It's just, it's really expensive. And shoppers also, they need to be educated. They need to understand the benefits of eco-friendly packaging and be willing to support businesses that make environmentally responsible choices.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Like, I might like the plastic packaging more, but you just have to weigh the options.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah, of course. Beyond the ecological concerns, many food packaging materials contain chemicals and they can migrate into the food that they encase. And that raises concerns about their impact on our health. But consumers have the right to know what they are exposing themselves to when purchasing packaged foods. It's just really hard to sift through all the B.S.,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
For both the manufacturers, the consumers, and the FDA, regulatory agencies around the world monitor and then ban the use of certain chemicals in food packaging as they find out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Or to have a bag to carry around all the fruit you just picked. Around 100 AD, paper was invented in China to record history, and then it morphed into wrapping foods. So over the next thousand years or so, the technique slowly spread around the world.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah, for sure. But at least there is a call for action and awareness in our quest for convenience. We can't overlook the profound consequences of the packaging choices we make.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Innovations are making food packaging that increase the shelf life of food products. Technology is actually playing a major role in new food packaging.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
You have come across it, though. Those little gel pads or things like it in the food packages that keep our food fresh, don't eat, they're really high-tech and new. And tracking devices ingrained in packaging are being used. It's just not ready to be used by consumers yet. But 21st century innovations in nanotechnology are used for demands for global and fast transport of fresh, safe food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
My guess is absolutely, yes. Packaging protects food from environmental influences like heat, moisture, oxygen, and on and on, prolonging shelf life. We've always put things in the food to preserve products. Think of hops, like that's where IPA comes from. So When the British colonized India, they wanted their British beer. The only way to get it there preserved was to pack it with hops.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And so it became India pale ale. And so that's why we have hoppy things. It was just a preservation technique. But now we can put things in the packaging itself to preserve food. And these new tracking systems enable tracking through the food supply chain from the source to disposal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, man. Active and intelligent food packaging is happening. And it's not to tell you just where the package is, but the quality of the contents. So active packaging, it interacts with the food and the environment to increase food preservation. Developments in active packaging have led to advances in everything from delayed oxidation and microbial growth to odor and aroma emitters.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Intelligent packaging, it's designed to monitor and communicate information about the food quality like ripeness and temperature. These smart devices can be incorporated right into the packaging material or attached to the inside or outside of a package. And the FDA is recognizing this and it's researching all these technological advancements. Then it'll probably be more prevalent on the market.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
But Walmart, Home Depot and other retail outlets, they already use radio frequency identification. So it's likely to become very prominent for tracking and tracing produce and other perishables.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I'm telling you, absolutely yes. You can find the beginnings of this in the meat industry where there's these oxygen scavengers that are embedded into the packaging and they remove the oxygen so it keeps the meat better, fresher, longer. There's like absorbent pads that are in use to suppress microbial growth.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I know, it seems weird, but the first known use of paper packaging in Europe wasn't until 1300. And paper packaging wasn't used here in the United States until the 1800s.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And there's all kinds of tech tricks that can be incorporated into our packaging to make the food last longer. They're all being put into use.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know. I'm going to wait for a Harbinger candy or something.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It's not a bad idea. I would rather scratch and sniff something.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
That actually open the milk container or whatever, right? It might save us a step.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
But there's actually a company called Fresher Longer, and they're testing storage containers that allegedly contain silver nanoparticles infused into the packaging to stop the growth of microorganisms. There's just so much research and testing happening.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, absolutely. The smart packaging goal is not only shelf life extension, but it aims to reduce food safety risks that are associated with improper storage and cooking.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I'm not sure the number, but of course, yeah, it's a threat. And so using these radio frequency identification systems, they're called RFID, you could use those wirelessly. And they're tags that store data, transfer it to a reader, and then that data is decoded. The tags remind me of when we tag our pets, if those tags not only were telling us where our pet is, but the health of our pet.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, you'll know everything. But like those AirTags, they're pretty expensive. So RFID tags, they're still too pricey right now for use on individual packages. And there's actually privacy concerns. So currently those tags, they can be read by any compatible reader. So whatever data is on them is vulnerable to hackers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
A shipment could get rerouted, purchasing info stolen, or depending on the kind of package being tracked, access to VIP locations or hotel rooms could be authorized. So the guidelines for the ethical use of the RFID, they need to be established.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I didn't know you were a Swiftie, Jordan.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, for sure. Like I said, Walmart and Home Depot, they've been testing the technology. And then there's others that advocate this RFID tech, like the U.S. Department of Defense, major retailers like Albertsons, Target, Tesco. They're all for it. And RFID technology, it also provides security and safety benefits for food companies through tracking the origin of supplies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
For example, and I don't know how I feel about this, but a small California winery uses RFID to track its barrels and then uses the data to make sure their product is being sold at its highest integrity. It's kind of like spying on a restaurant or bar.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Eating on demand, I guess. I don't pop it in your pocket, maybe. It wasn't until the 1840s that paper bags were first manufactured in England. And in 1852, the bag making machine was invented in the United States. And then paper bags got really high tech in the 1870s when glue was used to seal them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's a good point though. Smart packaging will affect customer service. And with RFD technology, the package, it becomes intelligent. And get this, it will even be able to communicate with your appliances and identify information related to the storage of your packaged food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
These outstanding tracing abilities of RFID tags to individual food products, they can let manufacturers audit every single phase of a product, monitoring correct handling, transportation, storage, delivery, and consumption.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I know. And it kind of crept into our lives unnoticed, too. Remember those Coors cans and the mountains turned blue when it was cold enough to drink?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
That's right. It seems so gimmicky, but that was really high-tech things being tested. I mean, the RFID system, it has some technical weaknesses, but it's really exciting. And nanotechnology innovation could potentially raise food safety and food quality.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So the research of nanotech for food packaging, it began in the 90s, like before the Coors Gans, with this cool luminescent protein spray that glows bright bound to E. coli or salmonella. More recently... Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have used nanosized carbon tubes and they coat them with strands of DNA to create nanosensors with abilities to detect odors and tastes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, I think it's possible, but do we want our packaging to taste test our food? I don't know. I'm for it right now, but we will have to wait and see.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's for the best, I assure you. And you had some pretty fresh dad jokes this time. That was fun.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, they're delicious. But those bags, like that design, it's called the gusset design. And I'm personally against them. Not against the goldfish, of course, but the bags themselves. It's just bad packaging. It tears easy. Things go stale. I have never opened a Pepperidge Farm bag successfully. Right.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Cinched cloth pouch would make more sense. And cloth bags were preferred until commercial cardboard boxes hit the scene in England in 1817. Before the cardboard boxes, it was wooden barrels and crates that were common packaging in the Middle Ages. They were used for water, rum, dried foods, traveling long distance. And in medieval Europe, food items were displayed and sold out of the barrels.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So shoppers who bought in small quantities, they had to bring their homemade wicker baskets, bottles, pitchers or whatever when purchasing food in the marketplace.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I bet you spilled some, though. I mean, look at you. I can open paper bags without machinery over there. Anyway, by 1900, shipping cartons made from paperboard, it's started to replace wooden crates and barrels because they were lighter and cheaper.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, no. You're just not going to let that bag thing go.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Moving on. The Kellogg brothers, they moved along the advancement when they created their health food cereal in 1863. And they put the cereal in a box and then that box was put into a waxed bag, which was tied around the box. And the waxed bag had the Kellogg brand name printed on it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Sure, super cool story, but let's try to focus here, Jordan.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
People were just figuring it out. It quickly changed to the packaging we know today, of course, the bag on the inside of the printed box.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Oh yeah, and scholars think that glass was first used as food packaging in Egypt around 1500 BC. The ingredients and mixing process for glass are actually still pretty much the same as thousands of years ago. It's just the molding techniques that have developed exponentially.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
And the first of those was the blowpipe, which was invented around 300 BC by the Phoenicians, and it allowed for round containers. So that changed packaging a little bit. Though glass has always been colorful, clear, transparent glass wasn't discovered until the first century. So what was in the package was now visible. And the faster these glass containers were made, the more they were used.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
By 1889, the automatic bottle making machine was invented. And today, one of those machines produces 20,000 bottles a day. The U.S. makes like 27 and a half billion glass bottles for food packaging in a year. That's 75 million bottles a day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It's kind of dangerous how it shatters. That's why food didn't move around that much. And then metals were tried. Gold and silver was too valuable for common use. But then people tried cheaper metals. But that freaked people out because they had a fear of getting poisoned.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, you can thank Napoleon. Metal cans were mostly used for tobacco historically, but in 1795, Napoleon contributed to the advancement of food packaging by offering 12,000 francs to anyone who could preserve food for his soldiers. And voila, a French chef found that food sealed in tin containers was and sterilized by boiling could be preserved for long periods.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
So sealed cylindrical cans were developed and metal packaging was now trusted.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Punching down. So tin was the first metal used for packing food, but its major disadvantage was and still is corrosion. That's why tin is coated with protective layers when used for packaging. And the metal containers that developed, though, they allowed printing the brand name on the package for the first time. Then a few decades later, in 1825, aluminum was discovered, but it was expensive.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Like adjusting for inflation, it came in at $545 per pound. But when they, I guess, figured out it was so available, the prices steadily declined and aluminum hit around $14 a pound in 1942. Then aluminum foil broke on the food packaging scene in the early 1950s, and the aluminum can made its debut in 1959.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Actually, a fun aside, it was until 1866, a hammer and chisel was the only way to open a metal can because they were all soldered together. Then a metal tear strip was added. But it wasn't until a decade after that, in 1875, that the can opener was invented.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
I know, that's funny, but it's really sad, actually. Then we come to the material that we are all most familiar with today, plastic. So it was discovered in the 19th century, and most plastics in the beginning were reserved for... military and wartime use. The first major impact plastic had in food packaging was when foam was created in the 1950s.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
This allowed for insulation and cushioning for shipping products safely.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
Totally agree. And there's so many different types of plastics you could probably do shows on. But during the Civil War, there was actually a shortage of ivory. And since pool balls were made from ivory, the billiard ball manufacturer... They offered a $10,000 reward for an ivory substitute. And it took a few years, but a New York engineer created a new plastic material called celluloid.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
That was in 1870. And celluloid, it had to be carved and shaped just like ivory. Eventually, celluloid was replaced with cellulose acetate, or we know it as cellophane. And that was manufactured by DuPont starting in 1924. The commercial use of cellophane didn't really become a staple in food packaging until the 50s.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
It's good. I remember celebrating hard to open like a CD.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1082: Food Packaging | Skeptical Sunday
That's why CDs went out of fashion.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
This is the, how many licks does it take to get to the center of the lollipop question? I mean, it really depends on your biology, but it is possible to get a hangover from anything fermented. Personally, I can have a sneezing fit if I just smell an IPA. I think a lot of people get that allergic reaction and it turns out that's a natural response to hops for most people.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Do you ever get stuffy after you have a pint or something? And Science and history tells us our species survived because if we put a plant in our mouth and it was bitter, we'd spit it out because it signaled it was poison. So all those hop heads out there, they probably wouldn't have lasted.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
They probably would have popped a bitter berry in their mouths and not made it very long thousands of years ago.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, we have allergic reactions because our primal brain is like, wait, this might be poison.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, so sulfites, they're not like congeners. They're not byproducts of fermentation at all. They're preservatives that we add to tons of food, not just wine. So let your friends know to order the sulfite-free guacamole and chips if they're that sensitive to it. It's a buzzword, but... If you are sensitive to sulfites, it's definitely a thing. They can give you a headache.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
But skipping them in your wine, it's not going to save you from any kind of hangover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, the sideways movie, all of that? Yes, exactly. It seemed like we could just slap a with antioxidants label on a wine bottle and get to pretend it's health food. But the thing is, those antioxidants, they're not coming from the ethanol. Antioxidants are a gift from the grapes. So it's just a marketing scam.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I've seen articles about the healthiest wines, but there's no evidence antioxidants in wine do anything. You could just go eat some grapes. Less fun. Less fun. But there's no need to spend the evening stumbling through a vineyard. Alcohol is a known carcinogen and no amount of antioxidants is going to make alcohol healthy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
If that were true, tobacco companies would be selling antioxidant-coated cigarettes. Everybody should just hold off on raising a wine glass to their health.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Well, prevention is more effective than dealing with hangovers the next morning. But you can take some multivitamins or Advil before you go to sleep. That might cut down on some aches and pains. Drinking top shelf instead of cheap liquor, that also might lessen the pain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Revealing some of your habits there? Yeah. How do you know that?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So there's a big difference in the distillation process from grain alcohol to some really fancy tequila. And so because top shelf alcohol goes through way more distillation, it removes a lot of those congeners and other impurities. So more distillation is what makes top shelf drinks taste, you know, what we call smooth.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, yeah, exactly. People make hangovers this binary problem, but they're just like any other medical condition. You can have mild, moderate, or severe hangovers. So it's a really complex physiological process that occurs when we consume alcohol. And the main mechanisms involved include five very familiar effects we've already touched on.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Dehydration, nausea, fluctuating blood sugar, inflammation, and just crummy sleep.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Dehydration is a confusing one, though, because alcohol is a diuretic, so it makes you pee more, which leads to dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance. That's why your head's pounding and your mouth's dry the next morning.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
When you're hungover, your body is just in complete revolt and it's trying to process the poison that we poured into it. And alcohol just messes with everything. So first off, understand it suppresses this thing called vasopressin, which is a hormone whose job it is to tell your kidneys to hold on to water.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So you just drain yourself dry and that contributes to all the thirst and fatigue and headaches.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, right. And so many people think hangovers are just dehydration, but it's really your least worry. There's a lot more going on than that Gatorade can handle. So there's also a thing called oxidative stress, which is a lack of antioxidants. This is why people confuse the antioxidants in wine as a good thing, but that's a misunderstanding.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
There's no balance there between what you lose and what wine has in it. So... You also get inflammation. But the real culprit is acetaldehyde and it gets accumulated in our bodies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So when your liver breaks down alcohol, it creates acetaldehyde, which is a toxic substance. And that's what causes our nausea, our vomiting and some of the inflammation. So it's the body teaching you a lesson in the worst way possible. There should be a simpler name for it so that we can be more connected to it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. It's the thing that makes you swear off drinking as you're hugging your toilet. But it's short lived. It's a short lived byproduct. And it makes itself known while it's around, inflaming everything, the liver, the pancreas, the brain, most of our organs. And it just causes so much discomfort.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I bet. I'm trying to be nice, but alcohol just messes with so much. And like we said, it puts that blood sugar on a roller coaster ride. So since our liver is overwhelmed metabolizing the alcohol, it can't do its job controlling our blood sugar.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. That's what makes drinking so dangerous too. So first it makes our blood sugar spike and that's party time. And then our blood sugar crashes. That's when the hangover comes in and crashes the party. That's what leads to the fatigue, the weakness that can make us pass out, also contribute to those headaches. It gives us stomach pain, gastrointestinal irritation, and
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
That makes us not really know which end to put on the toilet. It's like your body's in a constant state of chaos the moment it has to handle alcohol.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I'm definitely not. I actually haven't had a drink in years, but wow, I could recall moments of begging any higher power to help my hangover pains. Those headaches, those heaves, those humiliations, like, no thanks.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. I mean, it's scary. It's just all part of the way alcohol causes inflammation. Generally, in life, we need inflammation. It's a complex biological response to tissue infections, and it's like the weapon our bodies have to fend off all kinds of infections. But alcohol-induced inflammation, that's an immediate response to alcohol.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
It's our body just yelling to our immune system like, hey, something's not right. It's why our noses turn red, our cheeks get flushed. So that warm feeling your drink gives you, it's really your insides in panic mode. And let's not forget, a hangover messes with your sleep. So alcohol suppresses REM sleep, which means even if you do pass out, you're not getting quality rest.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Exactly. And your body is trying to heal, but the alcohol that's still in your system, it just won't let you. So this is what contributes all that fatigue and irritability. And we don't always connect that to that daily glass of wine with dinner. But science tells us even a few drinks a week will mess up our sleep. So people might fall asleep faster after drinking alcohol, but...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Like you said, like your sleep's fragmented. You wake up at weird times. You tend to wake up earlier. We're all out of whack.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
It just depends on who you are. Genetic factors play a big role in our hangovers. So some people like Ron Swanson, they're just built better to process alcohol while it hits others harder. So your metabolism, your age, weight, gender, all of it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
plays into how severe your hangover is so when someone claims they don't get hangovers their genes are doing them a huge favor by just quietly processing their alcohol it's still doing damage inside but they're just not getting those tangible effects
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, people really want there to be some magic formula, like we can beat the system by following some weird drinking rules, but there's just no evidence the order you consume drinks matters. It's just a fun thing to say.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, when you try to bring logic to drinking, you just sound drunk. Here's the thing. Hangovers are nature's way of telling you you consumed poison. Nothing's going to reverse that. Definitely not a late night beer. But drinking patterns can make a little bit of a difference, so... If you've ever drank, you probably realized it hits you differently when you drink on an empty stomach.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
The amount of alcohol, of course, matters. The type of alcohol you have and just your overall health. These patterns all influence the severity of a hangover. And in general, the more alcohol a person drinks, the worse the hangover will be. And this is true regardless of if you drink beer, wine, tequila, or any kind of combination. Your Jäger bomb you had earlier.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
There's a lot of stuff. Hangovers are a really tricky study. And there's a doctor, Dr. Jason Burke, who founded Hangover Heaven and is a Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Gross. I mean, I guess I admire that commitment and I will prepare to stop recording when you have to go lay down for a second.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, you know, I have my vices. Don't worry. But I get it. Drinking is really fun. When we overdo it, it's also really painful. And the hard truth is alcohol is poison. And it's a poison so addictive that despite knowing it's going to make us feel like crap, we just invent products and remedies to feel like we're battling against it instead of just not drinking it in the first place.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I wonder what happens at customs when you come home with it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I'm not really certain, but I guess the thinking is that a stronger fermented food will combat the fermented drink. But I don't know for sure. But if you think that all sounds gross, for a long time, there was another less appetizing hangover remedy that was highly trusted called rabbit dung tea.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, it's real. So good old American cowboys, they knew that any good manure has a lot of healthy nitrogen, potassium and minerals. And they also believed that those were the things good for a hangover. So they figured, hey, why don't we just steep some bunny poop in hot water and guzzle it? It was really popular practice in the Wild West. Oh, this coffee smells like shit.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, for sure. Drinking, it has a beautiful and rich tradition, but we just don't talk about the aftermath. A few drinks and bam, you wake up in a stranger's backyard with a sprained ankle. No idea how you got there. I've heard.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
There's no scientific evidence coffee can do anything for a hangover. And actually, caffeine is found to worsen those symptoms. So caffeine is another diuretic, which means it further dehydrates you. And caffeine actually narrows your blood vessels. It also raises your blood pressure. And this will just amplify that pounding inside of your head.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Drinking water is a better choice, but it doesn't give you that momentary jolt that we get from coffee.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, like I said, it's been a long time since I drank, but I've been there. I can remember the agony of very specific nights in my 20s. And I think the worst was I woke up on a plane once after a debaucherous night in Vegas. To my surprise, I'm just sitting in a puddle of red wine. I didn't remember ordering. And next to me is this just horrified businesswoman.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, hair of the dog, it's really interesting because, yes, having an alcoholic drink in the morning after a night of drinking will help you avoid hangover symptoms. But you're not curing anything. You're not cheating the hangover. You're just stopping your blood alcohol from returning to zero. And when our blood alcohol returns to zero, that's when the hangover symptoms really kick in.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So you can keep drinking, but you'll eventually face those hangover symptoms. Okay. So that actually works then from the sound of it. Yeah. I mean, it might temporarily minimize your symptoms. I just want to stress this, not recommended.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Not only is there no concrete evidence that more alcohol will always help you feel better, it could also indicate a sign of dependency.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So internal medicine specialists, they'll tell you that you're only overwhelming your liver more, which is already working over time. And it turns into a vicious cycle that there's actually a name for. It's called alcoholism. I see.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
The whole idea of hair of the dog just comes from medieval magic talk.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
It was a real thing in medieval Europe. People believed that if you were bit by a rabid dog, you should place hair from the rabid dog on the wound to help it heal. I guess they had a big problem with rabid dogs in medieval times. This idea was based on the philosophy that like cures like, which dates all the way back to ancient Greece.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So over time, the saying morphed into the idea that more alcohol will fix a hangover. Spoiler, this only delays the hangover until your blood alcohol level is at zero.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Drinking in moderation is just, unfortunately, it's another bullshit saying, just like hair of the dog. So study after study from Harvard to Northwestern to Oxford all show that no amount of alcohol is safe. And moderation, it's all just marketing spin.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Well, you're in good company, Jordan. I mean.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, for sure. Anyway, there's just so many variables into what creates the severity of a hangover. And those moderation studies, they've been manipulated with just unreliable control groups.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, it's actually become known that, you know, studies show scam. So in 2018, the New York Times exposed several alcohol studies that were conveniently funded by the alcohol industry. And these ended up with so much flawed data because they didn't factor in how they chose the non-drinkers in the control groups.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
And she's trapped as I barf and I'm warning her my head's going to explode when the altitude changes at landing. And I could go into so many details, but you get it. Everyone who drinks gets it. I got home from that short flight and I was what I can only assume clinically dead for two days. I was definitely praying for death. I don't know. What's the worst hangover you remember?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
And it turned out that the people, they were either already sick as hell for reasons that have nothing to do with drinking. They were former drinkers who already have bad health effects from all the drinking they did, or people who can't afford drinking, which... I guess their assumption was they're going to have bad health because they're lower income.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
But these studies, they're just so irresponsible because people who label themselves moderate drinkers, they're out there thinking a glass of wine is a heart attack prevention strategy. But the reality is if the control group wasn't manipulated, the studies would show zero health advantages to being a moderate drinker.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So subsequently from the New York Times article, all these studies were shut down and it just shows no amount of alcohol is good for you. The moderation thing, you know, in your own experience, have you ever had a hangover after just one drink?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, it is. And it's just so hard to predict. But we do know hangover symptoms peak. When we stop drinking after the blood alcohol gets to zero, we do know that the symptoms can last for 24 hours or so. And so the higher you get your blood alcohol level, the longer it will seem like your hangover lasts.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. And the only thing coconut water is going to do is hydrate you enough to accept that you did this to yourself. Sports drinks, they're just marketing in disguise. We discussed this in the episode we did about hydrotherapy, which was number 1046. So technically, these companies can say their drinks help with dehydration and electrolyte imbalance because they contain sodium and potassium.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So it might satisfy an instant craving in your taste buds, but your organs are doing all the hard work balancing your electrolytes and other things. So research has not found any correlation between drinking those Gatorades and things that are heavy with electrolytes and the severity of hangovers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So in most people, your body quickly restores the electrolyte balance on its own once the effects of alcohol subside. So your body really has this whole restoration thing down and throwing some vitamin water at it. That's fine if it makes you feel better, but your body's just going to say, look, I'll take care of the physiology. You deal with the consequences of your poor decisions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. I mean, our bodies aren't stupid. We know when we've been poisoned. So you can throw all the antioxidants and Gatorade at it you want. The coconut water, it's not going to save you. So we just need to stop pretending there's some magic cure because there isn't one. You just got to ride it out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, sure. It'll help your headaches, probably. But however, acetaminophen, which is in Tylenol, can cause liver damage on its own. And it's worse when combined with alcohol. So as long as it's not a habit, a pain reliever is fine, but you just have to watch your liver.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, definitely both painful and dangerous. Don't forget, during a hangover, like that next day, we have all kinds of lingering effects of the alcohol. It messes with our attention, our decision making, our coordination, even things like that. So if you're consistently hung over, you might want to stop and think about the damage you're doing long term.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
We've mentioned a lot of them, right? You know, sipping liquids, eating fatty foods, just going back to bed and letting your body recover if you can. So a person just has to wait for the body to finish clearing the toxic byproducts of alcohol out. And we need to rehydrate. We need to heal our irritated tissue and restore... you know, are immune and brain activity to normal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So there's no way to speed up the brain's recovery from alcohol use. No amount of coffee or showers or greasy foods are going to rush the process.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Think about it. If someone had the cure for a hangover, they would be wildly famous and wealthy and just known for these huge breakthroughs.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Right, exactly. So those ads and products, they're just modern day snake oil. People buy into them because they promise you can drink as much as you want and still feel fine the next day. But the science behind these, it's all smoke and mirrors. And I do wonder, too, like how much of it's psychosomatic. Yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, sure. And people buy them because they're desperate for the relief, right? But studies haven't found any natural remedies that consistently improve hangovers. Some of these best-selling hangover cures, they're supplements, they're pills, they're drinks. And they're natural, but that doesn't always mean they're safe.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So these products might help you with a headache or your body aches or nausea, but no more than taking Tylenol. In fact, the main ingredient in a lot of them is acetaminophen. So you're just buying expensive Tylenol.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's actually recorded. So the Hangover Cure products market, which is a thing, its size was valued at $2 billion in 2023, and it's expected to grow to almost $7 billion by 2032. Thank God. That's almost 15% growth. So the market is definitely counting on drinking alcohol. and hangovers to stick around.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
But when you mix it with the alcohol, it's a whole different kind of hangover. Yeah, I know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So drinking a jar of pickle juice after drinking, that's a Polish tradition.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
It's become pretty popular in the States as people take a shot and then pickle back or whatever. Yes, a pickle back.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, yes. And the theory goes that naturally fermented pickles, think of the roll mops, they're full of probiotics. So pickles also contain electrolytes, and that's thought to maintain the fluid balance in our bodies. Just like anything else you're eating, it might bring you some comfort if you like pickles. But let's be real. If you just rest and hydrate, you'll feel better without the juice.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I always thought it was because you buy pickles. What the hell do you do with all that leftover brine?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, if it's too much to handle drinking all the pickle juice, there are herbal remedies that'll probably go down easier. There's ginger and peppermint tea, which people say helps with their nausea. There's milk thistle that is supposed to help your liver function. But I bet taking these homemade remedies is awesome.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. According to Puerto Ricans, rubbing a slice of lemon under your armpits before a drinking session will prevent dehydration and headaches. The idea here is that the body's going to absorb that hydrating citrus juice, which also cleanses away the toxic effects of alcohol and is going to deliver those vitamins to your system.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
You know, I'm wondering now when you go to a resort, it's a trick. They're playing on tourists. Exactly.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, it gets weirder, though. So ancient Egyptians and Greeks, they wore carefully selected plants on their heads to avoid hangovers. Some cultures just cast a spell over their beers before drinking them. Or we could do as Athenians did, who... They preferred a frog drown in their alcohol before they drank so that they wouldn't get hungover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So we talked about the Brits inventing brunch, but traditionally their go-to hangover cure was tomato juice and raw eggs. Okay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
And there's always a little bit of science here. Like the egg yolk contains amino acids. That's thought to help expel alcohol toxins. Meanwhile, the tomato juice is rich in those antioxidants we love and other vitamins. So there's nothing wrong with eating this. There's just no evidence it does a damn thing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
There's another weird belief that's pretty popular right now that activated charcoal can be taken in pill form. That's a real thing, though, right? I've heard of this. We should see. It says it'll trap the toxins and chemicals that alcohol releases into the bloodstream. But activated charcoal, it is a favorite of wellness enthusiasts. But I assume this is just going to be a wellness trend.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
The science shows it only absorbs toxins in your stomach, not in your blood. can actually make you feel worse because it's soaking up other nutrients your body needs. So I don't know all the facts about the activated charcoal, but the little bit I read, I would stay away from taking the stuff for probably anything, but especially a hangover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it doesn't work that way. Unfortunately, the alcohol is metabolized through the liver. So exercising ends up being this really subjective remedy, right? It depends on which kind of hangover you have. Is it just fatigue and anxiety? Then maybe, you know, a run could give you a little boost of energy. But if you're nauseous and you have a headache, exercise might worsen your hangover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
And that's even if you can drag yourself out of bed to go work out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. I mean, it's the same. If you're hungover, you're already dehydrated. So just like exercise, it's really subjective if it'll give you any relief. And it's certainly not a cure, but if it makes you feel better the day after, just monitor yourself.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. I was going to say, of course, anything that messes with our blood sugar or dehydrates you gives us any of those symptoms. That's a hangover. So weed, sure. Caffeine, even if we just have crummy sleep, like anything that throws off our system can give us a technical hangover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Right. I mean, you have kids, if they have a crazy night of eating sugar, like they're probably still a little weird the next day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
But, oh, I wanted to tell you there's a Hangover Cure playlist on Spotify that claims to have brainwaves that will make you feel better. But it turns out the playlist is like a couple hours long. So it's really just the time that you're laying there listening that's healing you. definitely not a cure for poison, unfortunately, no matter how good that mixtape is.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So a hangover, it's the price of admission to a lifestyle with alcohol, and there's no getting around paying that in full. So if you're going to drink, find the fun and comfort attached to all the hangover stuff.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, that's it. Hydrate, give your body time to recover. That's really the best you can do. So everything else, it's just a comforting distraction. And it's like we said, it's not about curing the hangover. It's about surviving it. So just lean into what makes you feel best.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
When you're hungover, you just know it's an awful feeling. And like I said, you pray for death, but nobody rushes to the doctor or the ER to get a diagnosis or treatment when they're hungover. You just know the symptoms are so familiar to every drinker.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, yeah. You're thirsty. You're tired. You have a horrible headache. Plus, you're cranky and sensitive. And it's often coupled with regret, like maybe the urge to fake your death and move to Cuba after you scroll through all those drunken messages on your phone.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Symptoms can be more low-grade, too, like less obvious. And there's a good chance most people listening have been technically hungover and just not realized it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Seems silly, right? But since the first fruits developed like 80 million years ago, living creatures have been getting drunk. Fermentation started when overripe fruit mixed with yeast in the air, and it created the first natural alcohols. So for animals, the high sugar content of an overly ripe fruit signaled high nutrition, leading to inadvertent intoxication among early species.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
But since at least 10,000 BC, humans have been purposefully mixing fermented beverages and imbibing them. There's even studies where there'll be two watering holes out in, I don't know, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Somewhere where watering holes are. One will have very little water. One will be overflowing. And researchers saw these animals going to the ones with small water and figured out that it's because that one was closer to a fruit tree. So the water in there was fermented. So even wild animals are just naturally attracted to alcohol.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
We've always loved to drink. The Greek cult of Dionysus, for example, they worshipped their wine-creating god by drinking too much. Meanwhile, the rest of Greek and Roman civilizations weren't exactly teetotalers either. There's not much scholarship tracing the first recorded hangover, but knowing humans today, it's a fair assumption that the day after hangover afflicted them then, too.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Oh, of course. It's definitely studied. A hangover refers to those symptoms we talked about. that we experience after we drink too much. There's obvious ones like the thirst, the headache, the nausea. The more subtle ones are anxiety, irritability, and increased blood pressure. So we feel hangovers differently each time we drink, and the symptoms just vary from person to person.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
It's believed we humans evolved to drink ethanol. So there's a theory called the drunken monkey hypothesis that suggests basically our ancestors developed the ability to consume ethanol to get the nutrients from the rotting fruit when other fruit was scarce. So it's like we're hardwired to get a little tipsy. Plus, alcohol gives you a nice little euphoria boost. So it seems like a win-win.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Lying on the floor of the uncomfortable cave.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Maybe have like some nice fermented fruit snack that takes the edge off. I don't know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Didn't work out that way because we... really like alcohol but it hasn't changed the effects when it hits our bloodstream so it only takes about five minutes to reach your brain and that's when the magic happens or maybe the mayhem depending on your perspective but the effects peak in about an hour and And after that, your liver goes into overdrive, just trying to deal with the alcohol.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
And this throws so many things in our bodies out of whack. And then it takes hours for us to fight it and recalibrate.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
You probably were hungover technically.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
So you might not wake up with the headache, of course, but you're not taking your blood pressure the next day after drinking. So you just don't realize what your body's going through. Like not sleeping well, that's a hangover. And meanwhile, your liver is working overtime, breaking down the alcohol and your kidneys. On top of that, alcohol is a diuretic. So your kidneys go into meltdown mode.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
They can't function properly. So boom, you have all these hangover symptoms, whether you realize it or not. Your entire body is working to process and eliminate the alcohol. So this means various factors can be responsible for your hangover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Alcohol is the main culprit in our hangovers, but there's other components of alcoholic beverages that can contribute to your symptoms and make a hangover worse.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, definitely just not alcohol that causes us pain. So there's stuff in our drinks like additives, sugars, congeners, and they make your hangover even nastier.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Congeners are non-alcoholic compounds, but they're byproducts of fermentation. So they give alcoholic drinks their taste and their smell, but they're also what makes your hangovers worse. It's sort of obvious when you look at darker spirits like bourbon, they have way more congeners than clear spirits like vodka, which have virtually none.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
The congeners party really hard in our bodies. And if you have a big sensitivity to them, they can make you feel hungover even after drinking non-alcoholic beers. Why are there still congeners in non-alcoholic beers?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1131: Hangover Cures | Skeptical Sunday
Because there's trace amounts of alcohol in NA beers, and along with other byproducts that it creates, like acetate or additives like hops, non-alcoholic drinks, they cause hangover symptoms. Most commonly, it seems to be a headache, but anything fermented can make us experience hangover symptoms. Kombucha, kimchi, it just depends on our personal chemical makeup.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it really is. It's wild. And the brain processes sound so quickly that it influences all our other perceptions and thoughts. So if you hear a loud noise, your brain is already prepping you to react before you've even fully processed what's happening.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, our brains are constantly processing rhythms and patterns and sound. And that helps to make sense of our surroundings and our emotions. So think about when noise messes with your sleep. If you've been feeling unusually cranky or tired, probably don't need a therapy session, but you need a break from the chronic noise exposure.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It just leads to fatigue and that increases our anxiety and that can cause mood swings. So noise pollution disrupts our emotional and mental health, but people normalize it and think you just have to deal with it. So if you ask somebody in really loud areas to just deal with it, that's equivalent to telling somebody stuck in traffic, like, just drive faster. It's not a solution.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It's just like anything. And each person's affected a little bit differently depending on our personality.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course. And not just a part. Like, it's not a mystery why New Yorkers are so loud. People from cities are louder than rural or suburban people because they have to talk louder over the noise of urban life. And New York City is really loud. Yeah, that's true. Noise pollution isn't just creating loud New Yorkers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It's impacting our health and in more serious ways than just giving you a headache.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It's impossible to ignore how noise pollution affects our hearing. That's the obvious one. And research, yes, shows that constant exposure to noise drives hearing loss, tinnitus, but it also causes high blood pressure and even heart disease.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Estimates suggest that chronic noise exposure contributes to around 48% thousand cases of heart disease in Europe each year. And it's also linked to conditions like type two diabetes, obviously sleep disruption, stress, memory impairment. There's emerging research suggesting a link to dementia, but that one's still being investigated.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, it should be a crime to play any Bon Jovi recorded after 1989.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It's not just blaring music, though. There's so much more to it. And starting in the 70s, U.S. agencies, they listed noise pollution as, quote, a growing danger to the health and welfare of the nation's population. The European Environmental Agency, they report that noise ranks second only to air pollution as the environmental exposure most harmful to public health.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
My doctor doesn't talk to me about noise. I would think if a patient like mentions noise as a stressor, especially if they have any cardiovascular issues, I guess a doctor may suggest personal noise mitigation strategies and stress reduction techniques. But I'd be surprised if it's ever presented as like the serious cause of any ailment. That would be interesting to see.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Do they even talk about that in medical schools?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Are you relaxing though? It's jolting your adrenaline and you're probably trying to mask out all the noise pollution that might cover your EDM. So scientists see that, surprise, surprise, constant exposure to noise does the opposite and it messes with your body's stress hormones.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
We all are, right? It's basic biology, though. When someone experiences a stressful noise, the body's amygdala sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus, which then signals the adrenal glands to release adrenaline and causes a stress response.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
No studies suggest that. And it just might be my observation, but I do the same thing. I blast music with a fast beat and it definitely increases my pace when I'm running. But that's probably because the stress response that the noise creates, it's turning on that fight or flight mode and we're already running. So we'll have to do more research on the connection between music and exercise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, and there's different parts of our brain processing it. We might really like this song, but there's a part of our brain that just is hearing noise and wondering what's wrong. Listening to music has so many variables, but stress, anxiety, other mental health problems, they're linked to not just music, but all the sounds of life.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Hey, Jordan. I hope this episode serves as a public service announcement to ban leaf blowers everywhere.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Have you ever turned down the music in your car or told somebody to stop talking so you can concentrate on parking?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And it's not just that they're ruining your concentration. People get embarrassed about noises too. There's all kinds of sound barriers people put in bathrooms and things so that the sound, people don't hear each other.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I haven't, but I think I know where you're going with this.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know. It causes a lot of laughs in the house. I mean, when we examine why we feel that way, why we do that, though, it's not that mysterious. We have this finite amount of attention to divide between vision and hearing to make decisions. And so when we turn down the radio in the car, we see better.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know, I guess when you have music playing in the bathroom, you can focus on what you're doing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. Noise pollution is everywhere. We adapt to and normalize the sounds of life without realizing the negative impacts it's having on our health and the environment. And humans really underestimate what life's noise is doing to our brains and bodies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
You can relax more. Yeah, maybe. What we're doing is either way, if we're turning it up or down, we're just adjusting the noise pollution in our immediate environment. So those beached whales, they're starting to make a lot more sense of how they can get confused. And when noise pollution is out of our control and makes it difficult to sleep, then there's this domino effect.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And it's causing problems that are giving us that high blood pressure and heart disease. And like we mentioned before, it also causes hypersensitivity to sound, which leads to hearing loss and tinnitus.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's complicated. We aren't all actively suffering because we're highly adaptable, but it is affecting us. And our ancestors definitely had better hearing than we do. So if someone time traveled here from any time pre-industrial revolution, they'd be driven mad. They'd be running through the streets with bloody ears because of just how noisy the world is today.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And it could also affect us the opposite way. If we went back in time, it might be too much quiet for us to handle. There's accounts from people who spend time at the Arctic Research Center, and they always mention how freaky that deafening silence is. But there's 30 million people in the U.S. who are exposed to dangerous sound levels every single day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And the constant exposure to high decibel environments, that can lead to what is called noise-induced hearing loss, NIHL. And around 25% of Americans, whether you realize it or not, are experiencing hearing issues linked to NIHL. So sounds at or below 70 decibels, that's the safe zone. But sounds above that, they can be harmful, even if it's just for a short time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course. For scale, 85 decibels, that's like your alarm clock, but lower than the lawnmower. And then when you get further to 110 decibels, that's when you're at a rock concert or that jackhammer is going. There's this great decibel app called Decibel X. Oh, yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, yeah. It's so fun to pull it out and just see where you're at. Because sometimes I think something is so loud. And it's not. It's just disrupted this quiet place. Vice versa, if you're somewhere loud and you're used to it, you're like, oh, shit, this is a lot louder than I thought. So it depends on what we are doing or concentrating on when noise happens.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Well, sounds are a huge part of the environment, right? Like you might not hear that tree fall in the forest, but the sound of it definitely disturbs some wildlife. Acoustic biologists study this all the time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
But noise pollution is actually the number one cause of hearing loss worldwide. It surpasses age-related hearing loss. So the next time someone says, turn it down, they could be saving you from a future of What'd you say? What?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
If you really start to look at the biology of it, I don't know how that would be possible because it's all about those little hairs that actually are getting the vibrations. And as we get older, I mean, we naturally lose those.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Whatever makes it clear. My eyes are trash. I would, I'm all in for bionic eyes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
You do have hearing loss. It's impossible to avoid. Like you don't have a volume knob on your daily life. The AirPods are not helping. And it's a serious problem in every workplace. Studies show that noise decreases productivity.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
So if your boss is yelling at you from across the office or just a really noisy environment, you can say like, hey, it's scientifically proven that shouting is actually lowering your performance. Maybe you'll get a quieter office. I don't know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Acoustic biology is the study of the crucial role sound plays in how animals, including humans, interact with their environment. For instance, a deciduous forest sounds different from a pine forest, and those sounds change with the seasons. It's like each environment has its own unique soundtrack. There's this fascinating professor at Dartmouth, and she just studies crickets specifically.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I know, but when you're a kid, it sounds so good loud.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I think we're safe maybe at the levels we're working at right now with our headphones, but I don't know. 50% of teachers, they experience vocal damage because they're talking over classroom noise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, muting the student's mic during the pandemic was probably a blessing for a lot of teachers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Nearly 20% of noise-exposed workers have hearing impairment. Occupational noise pollution, it's a big health hazard. And kids are particularly vulnerable to this too at school. So chronic noise, it impacts their psychological development, their stress levels. It even is shown to cause learning delays. So if you're trying to concentrate on homework and that leaf blower is going off,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
That noise pollution can be impairing cognitive function, which is why some believe leaf blowers lower your IQ.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I know, but that's what all experts point to. So excessive noise, it can even affect babies' ability to understand sounds and develop language skills, just like those birds that are confused and can't do their original songs. Babies learn a lot from the sounds around them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
God, those poor little things. They should definitely be wearing ear protection. Probably whenever they go out. Maybe all of us should. Because traffic noise can damage your hearing. Just walking down the street. So if anybody ever says that they want flying cars...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
point out to them that they exist, they're called helicopters, and you don't want them in every driveway because they are insanely loud.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
They were like headphones. It would be nice, though, if we traveled to outer space where there is no sound. Perhaps that would help. But here on Earth, studies show living under those helicopter and plane flight paths, they have serious health effects. Like I used to live near a hospital. And when the helicopter came, it rattled this whole crummy apartment.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I was lucky to not live there too long, but the neighbors who had lived there for like years, I think they were a little more high strung than they should be. Like living under a flight path is proven to increase stress and anxiety that elevates blood pressure. It can cause chronic tension headaches. It's found to take years off the lives of people who live under them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I was shocked reading these studies. They even show that suicidal ideations are higher in people who live in prolonged exposure to aircraft noise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And she says this world of sound, it's something we're only just beginning to understand. It's like trying to understand a foreign language with just a few words.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Right. Yeah. But unfortunately, usually it's low income neighborhoods that are bearing the brunt of noise pollution. And they're typically located near the flight paths, the highways, factories. So moving is probably not an option.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
and factor in like the disparity of health care for those communities, it's easy to conclude that noise pollution disproportionately affects the poor and there's just not much they can change. All jurisdictions have restrictions on airport noise with stricter limits at night and things, but That does really nothing if your house rattles every time a plane takes off.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, for sure. That happens. In 2022 in Tokyo, residents won a whopping $22 million in compensation for health issues caused by persistent noise pollution from two U.S. military bases.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
No, no. It was about the constant industrial noise and the artillery blasts were affecting the locals health. Yeah, that'll do. So loud. Yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
So the EPA and this old piece of legislation called the Noise Control Act, they're at the heart of a noise pollution lawsuit here in the United States.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, for sure. So last June, this anti-noise advocacy group called Quiet Communities, they sued the EPA for not doing its job. They said that they were supposed to be limiting the sounds people are exposed to in everyday life and argue that the EPA is failing to enforce this Noise Control Act of 1972. which that's what it was all supposed to be doing, just protecting us from harmful noise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And so the group is now waiting to hear if it'll be able to argue the case in front of the district court in D.C.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Pretty much. The federal effort to control noise, it started out well. It had really good intentions. And that noise legislation was passed in 72. Then the EPA set up the Office of Noise Abatement and Control, and they quickly got to work studying noise, making regulations, including one to limit noise from garbage trucks. That was like their mission when they first started.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I think so. She's dedicated her life to the sounds they make, but it's not just the crickets. They're just part of a much larger picture. The whole ecosystem has its own symphony, and noise pollution disrupts that symphony, affecting animal communications, behavior, even their breed patterns.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
That was how it started. Yes. Scientists have been sounding the alarm for years, but it wasn't heard over all the noise because that was 72. In 1981, the Reagan administration, one of the first things they did was rescind the garbage truck regulations. They defunded the noise abatement office and claimed that local governments should handle it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Back to the state. Yeah. It's such a bummer because the studies back then, they were on top of it. They showed harmful effects from noise pollution. They showed there was heart disease and learning disorders and just beginning to accumulate all this evidence. So they were on track to consider noise limitations on things like jackhammers, lawnmowers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, chainsaw, anything like that we would buy would have been a lot quieter. And a major piece of the program was the education of the public. Quote, we would have avoided a lot of damage, said Charles Elkins, who headed this office from 1975 till it was closed in 81. The office remains defunded to this day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Quantifying the exact impact here is challenging because of the poor measuring and monitoring.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
The U.S. hasn't funded noise control or any kind of research since the 80s. So if you live within earshot of an interstate highway, if your child's school sits next to train tracks, if your neighbor's out there wielding the gas powered leaf blower, like you're just out of luck. It's somehow socially unacceptable to be the neighbor asking to turn it down.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
The Noise Control Office was defunded, but the act is still there and it requires federal entities to report their noise levels and considers noises above 80 decibels to be excessive. So this does give the EPA the authority to regulate noise from major sources like construction equipment, vehicles like motorcycles, but it's just not enforced.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, motorcycles are so loud and motorcycles and rock bands, they have destroyed a lot of young people's hearing. And since 1982, there has been a federal regulation requiring motorcycles to have EPA approved mufflers at all times. But lack of funding and resources, it's really challenging for communities to enforce that. and mitigate any noise impacts.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
That fear your kid has experienced from his motorcycle, it's not crazy. It's a totally natural response.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
You're not alone. Even the heartbeat of caterpillars speeds up when exposed to loud sounds. I mean, noise adversely affects all wildlife on land and in the sea.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, every dog or people with PTSD, like when they hear that, what that triggers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
There's this terrific documentary that demonstrates how noise is used to create threat and fear in animals to drive them away from fields and cities. So it's like that same idea when music's blaring outside businesses to deter loiterers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Hey, no bad press, right? Noise is an expression of power, and that's been well understood for millennia. So those motorcycles and cars with an extra loud roar are stereotypically seen as a symbol of power and masculinity.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And at the local level, it's difficult to keep the roar to a minimum. In 2022, after six years of activism, a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers finally went into effect in Washington, D.C. It's frustrating because on a national level, a federal body like the one Reagan cut
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
could have researched the damage from leaf blowers, identified alternatives, sponsored the development of quieter electric leaf blowers, and phased in regulations so we weren't all suffering from this noise every day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
They have the thing that becomes blood.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Madness when there's a guy on one end of the block blowing it north and then there's a guy on the other end of the block blowing it south. It's like, what exactly is the point here?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, it's so true. There's this growing awareness of the issue, mostly in Europe, where studies are linking noise pollution to broader environmental impacts. In the United States, we should be assessing the decibel levels of everything from household appliances to traffic to those leaf blowers. But it's just not happening. And I will say the activists in D.C. worked really hard.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It might be if he's close enough to the water. The impact of noise pollution on wildlife is worse than you think. Animals rely on sound for hunting, communication, navigation, and sound travels five times faster underwater. So it's crucial for ocean animals, even deep sea species, to hear natural sound without disruption.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And I think it was in either Vermont or New Hampshire. They're the only state that's outlawed leaf blowers. We just need to get it on the ballot because I think it would be such an easy thing to get rid of. You know, good start.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Everything you said, you just nailed it. We know this is happening. Like just in 2021, a French study found the effects of noise pollution even more damaging than air pollution.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Don't get me wrong. All pollution created equal, I guess. But air pollution is a massive problem, of course, and that causes respiratory issues, the whole deal. But There's a lot more going on with noise pollution. And in just this past July in 2024, a bunch of scientists, research groups and the U.N. put out statements calling for more noise regulation. But without federal action here in the U.S.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
and without funding, progress is so limited, like really limited in the U.S.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I did a scan of the document and the bill completely fails to mention the word noise at all.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. So major environmental organizations have not stepped in to do research or push for policies as they have for air and water pollution. And the reason suspects Dennis Hayes, who is like a legendary environmentalist. He created Earth Day. Oh, wow. Yeah, he's cool. He says that... The whole reason is money.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
So people are inclined to donate to environmental organizations and they're expecting to adopt a cuddly panda and save the whales and plant trees, not fight highway noise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Exactly. So he said, quote, when considered on a national level, noise just doesn't compete against other environmental problems or emotional intensity. And I think that's so important. And the irony is just that, like many sources of noise pollution come from people who claim to care deeply about the environment. They're recycling, they're composting.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
But yeah, I mean, there is this growing movement against noise pollution, but I think people just aren't aware. So it's so slow going. And implementing these measures to reduce noise, like adding it to the infrastructure bill so things are quieter, adding it to traffic management and urban planning is
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Imagine a whale trying to chat with its mate or its baby while a helicopter hovers above. Jet skis skip by and a ship is glaring its horn. It's chaos. And this makes it difficult for whales to use echolocation, which is that thing when animals like whales, dolphins, bats use it. They emit a sound and use the sound waves and echoes to detect the distance, the size, and the shape of nearby objects.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
This could all have positive impacts on climate change by reducing emissions from transportation and just relieving a bit of stress on animals and humans.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Unfortunately, it's just not feasible for individuals to tackle noise pollution on their own. And of course, there are those personal things we can do like earplugs or soundproofing, but broader policy changes are necessary. And as our cities grow, so does the noise. So it's time we start thinking about solutions like better urban planning and noise regulations.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
In India, they built this highway through the Pench Tiger Reserve, which is a really famous reserve. It was the setting of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. And it incorporates underpasses and overpasses to protect animals. And they built this four meter high steel wall, which forms a noise barrier to protect animals from noise and light pollution.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
We need comprehensive strategies like that. It'll result in better urban planning, stricter noise regulations, more investment in research is so important. As we have it now, the future of noise pollution regulation, it's really uncertain. But increased advocacy and research, it could help tune out this often overlooked issue. But in the meantime, that's just it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
The solutions to noise pollution are straightforward. We just have to get those regulations enforced. design quieter machinery, outlaw leaf blowers, people, and maybe, just maybe, learn to keep our own volume down.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, thanks for listening to the sound of my voice.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
So when that's interrupted, they get confused. And this leads to beached whales.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It's more like the whales and other sea life are wondering when these noisy neighbors will be evicted. Within three years, 88 dolphins and whales beached in Maharashtra, India alone. That's just one area. Yeah. And the numbers of whales stranded on beaches, it grows and grows. And it's because of noise pollution.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It's not really an absurd theory. Human activity has increased. So there's more ports. There's more shipping activity. There's seismic surveys. There's mine blasts. And as the ice melts in the coldest parts of the world, around the Arctic and Greenland, places like that, Cruise ships now cross daily. This is all very noisy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
The narwhal whale, the one that's like the unicorn of the sea with the horn, that is facing extinction as noise levels increase in their previously undisturbed habitats.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, all the studies say absolutely. But not just whales and sea life, like the din of this urban noise. It's messing with animals on land, too, causing a lot of disruption to birdsongs, which affects their breeding and their territorial behaviors.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
So if you live among mockingbirds like I do, you hear it during their mating season in the spring when their calls have now started to sound like the car alarms and the truck backup beeps. And they love to sing at night. So I probably wouldn't notice that if they did it during the day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
That sounds awesome, actually. But that's just how it's going for a lot of species. During the coronavirus lockdown, we had this rare opportunity to study changes in bird songs because things were just a lot quieter everywhere. A lot of studies done during that time found that the pandemic's noise reduction led to many positive changes for birds.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
There was an increase in bird sightings all over the world. Bluebirds were previously having fewer chicks and nobody could really figure out why before the pandemic. Their population surged during the shutdown. Robins changed communication patterns. They went from singing at night back to singing at daytime.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Birds who nest in chronic exposure to loud construction sites, they always are shown to have massive feather loss. But during the pandemic, when the construction stopped, all their feathers returned.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
In Mumbai, there's a lot of studies there. It's just populated so loud. And so bioacoustics are heavily studied there. They're gauging the impact noise pollution has on vocal behaviors in the populations. And they will do so much to be heard. Like they'll sing in a higher pitch. They will delay nesting because mating calls are hard to hear over our low frequency human noise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
And some studies are showing that noise pollution prevents birds from learning their species typical songs altogether. They just might never mate.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know if noise is what's creating human incels, but a 2020 study in the UK found that bat activity and their feeding behavior are negatively affected by traffic noise. And this makes sense because bats use echolocation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
It's no crazier than like whales and birds dying because of the ships and the construction sites. There's just so many connections to how noisy we humans are and climate change. There's many sources of noise pollution, like traffic from fossil fuel powered vehicles and all the industrial activities that we do. They're significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I know. Nobody's making this connection. We're just not aware. And we absolutely need to make it a part of the conversation. If it's noisy, it's disrupting the environment and the climate. And the activists who are shouting through the megaphone to save the trees should be aware that noise pollution is responsible for stunted plant growth, diversity. It's contributing to climate change.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
So noise pollution... It can significantly affect what's called the phytohormone content of plants, which is an important part of their stress response. So these sound vibrations are literally changing the cell walls of plants, and that's reducing the number of seedlings that germinate.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it is proven for sure. In cell plants. I don't know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
There was a study conducted on the impact of noise pollution on plant growth within urban community gardens. And so these researchers, they made two identical setups with the only variable being one garden contained traffic noises and the other contained just natural noises.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
After only six weeks, the average plant height for the natural noise group was about 104 millimeters, and the traffic group, only 65.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know, but that would be a really fun taste test to set up. It could, the noise is affecting so much. And on top of the plant effect, urban sprawl and deforestation, they remove natural sound buffers. And things that we use to deal with climate change, like our air conditioners, our generators, that's all adding just more noise, like multiple sources of noise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
The transportation, the fossil fuel extraction, it's all contributing to global warming. So noise pollution, it's just aggravating the climate crisis in our cities, in our forests, underwater. And it's causing grave harm to animals and even leading to species loss.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
I know, right? Like, it's not tangible. So we don't think about it like we think about plastic. It's intense noise pollution. It's damaging whole ecosystem. And that comes with the potential of extinction. What do you think it's doing to us humans? You know, any neuroscientist will tell you that sound has shaped the evolution of the human brain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's loud. And there's a neuroscientist, Seth Horowitz, and he'll explain that vibration sensitivity is found even in really simple life forms. So it's critical for our survival, whether it's detecting predators or finding food. Our brains evolved to be incredibly sensitive to sound because it's such a crucial source of information. So That's why we don't go downtown.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
The sounds of Skid Row are not very appealing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. In a way, sound travels through almost anything, right? Air, water, even the ground. So when we talk about hearing and sound, we are really focusing on the vibrations. So even deaf animals are affected. You go to a concert, you feel that in your chest when there's like heavy bass. It penetrates everything, everywhere. And it's processed by the brain much faster than visual information.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1079: Noise Pollution | Skeptical Sunday
Yes, light travels faster than sound, but Horowitz says our brains hear things 20 to 100 times faster than we see them.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But the second ingredient, that caramel color, and it has nothing to do with caramel, it's just a nice name describing the color of the chemicals that make soda brown. And it contains sulfates and aspartame, which trick your brain into thinking you're getting sugar. And as we've said, that's a problem, because when the sugar never arrives, your body has a stress response.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So I try not to think about the bone density issues with all the Diet Coke. Obviously, I just drank it. I know. It's all about that fizz, Jordan. Because there's no flat version of Diet Coke. Like, that just wouldn't sell.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, of course. The most common fake food is hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenated oils are used to improve the texture and shelf life of many processed foods. But they're linked to health risks because they're so high in trans fat content, which contributes to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Yet they're still sitting on all the supermarket shelves. And the same goes for processed cheeses.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh yeah, high-tech food, there it is. Maybe some portion of the product is cheese, but often it's a very small amount of natural cheese that's added to a ton of additives that increase the shelf life of whatever cheese product.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
In 2016, the CEO and some executives of Castle Cheese Inc., who make a lot of the Parmesan we shake on our pasta, like I'm sure you know the container, it's got like green sides and a red top. They were convicted for selling fake Parmesan, Romano and other cheeses. Their cheeses were cut with wood pulp, but the container said 100% real Parmesan.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Nein, der echte Argument in diesem Fall war, dass, seit Hühner natürlich Woodpulp essen, es als Essen bezeichnet wird.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Give me one more example. Termites. Yeah, it's fine. But wood pulp is processed into cellulose, which food manufacturers use as a declumping agent in our foods. I don't know how they figured that out. Whenever you see cellulose in your ingredient list, you're most likely having a little sawdust.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ich weiß, die FDA sagt, hey, nur 5% kann Woodpulp sein, okay? Und nehmt es nicht hin, nur um den Gewicht zu erhöhen, damit ihr mehr Geld verdient, okay? Und die Food-Companies sind so, okay, gut. Aber all das kann so schwer zu beweisen sein. Egal, die Castle Cheese Company, sie wurden nicht verurteilt, Woodpulp zu verkaufen. Sie wurden verurteilt, ihre Produkte zu verurteilen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
If you test any of those cans labeled Parmesan in every supermarket, I'd be shocked if you found any actual Parmesan. Like usually they're using other cheaper cheeses. I don't know how they get away with it, but they do because the FDA requirements for food are confusing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I wish there were more, but FDA recognizes food fraud, but that doesn't have anything to do with healthy ingredients or ingredients at all. If food doesn't make us sick almost immediately or kill us, the FDA is totally happy. Making us sick long term seems to be perfectly fine.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, try these pharmaceuticals we make. Yeah. But what they do have a problem with is the FDA has a classification of economically motivated adulteration, which is when companies profit by leaving out or substituting an expensive ingredient. And this happens all the time. Like I would bet everyone listening right now has been a victim of economically motivated adulteration at some point.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it turns my stomach. Some people also into that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And if you think horse is bad, wait until you find out about the bogus extra virgin olive oil racket the Italian Mafia has going on.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, the agro-mafia. It counts for 15% of the mafia's income.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
That sounds fake. I know, the Scorsese farm film. Coming soon or something.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Wow. Wow. And it was worth over 13 million euro. The mafia was taking adulterated, low quality Spanish and Greek oils and were exporting it as primo Italian EVOO.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, hey Jordan. Also, weißt du, wie gesund es ist, in einem Supermarkt zu shoppen? Nein, was ist das? Steck dich an die Perimeter. Also, denk an es. Alles, was auf einer Eile ist, ist wahrscheinlich verpackt, aber die Perimeter ist, wo wir frische Früchte, Vegetable, Fleisch und Fisch finden. Also, aus den Eilen zu bleiben, verhindert viele falsche Füße.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I know. Food is scandalous. And oil is the most faked food in the world, with milk and honey coming in second and third. There are honey launderers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
There's a lot of deliberately watered down milk. This food fraud is so extensive that the National Institutes of Health has kept a food fraud database since 1980. Wir werden einfach verletzt, wenn wir all diese teuren Zutaten kaufen. Es gibt Saffron, der ca. 1.500 Dollar pro Pound auf der günstigen Seite ist.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Und es kommt in so einer kleinen Menge in der Fotobagge oder in diesen kleinen schwarzen Baggen oder so. Es ist alles nur für die Show, weil wenn getestet wird, ist es meistens Kornsilke oder Kokonuthusk, rot-grün.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Absolut. Es ist auf einer großen Ebene. Ich liebe es, dass Jen ein B-Keeper war. Hat sie den Mann konfrontiert?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I think they actually list the first ingredient as corn syrup. Like at least they're letting you know.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I'm sure that was corn syrup. And people who don't have the information Jen has, they're buying it and just getting sweet and thinking it's delicious. Like the corn syrup is often the first ingredient in honey, which it surprises us of how delicious honey is. People just don't know. Yeah. The biggest bummer for me, though, is coffee.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
When you buy it just ground, it's often mixed with barley, legumes and twigs.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But as climate change reduces, like the coffee acreage, it's going to make it all worse because we drink a lot of coffee. And buying whole beans is going to definitely be the best option because the ground stuff will end up being more lentil than coffee bean.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, ja, du bekommst echte Kaffee, Knob.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ich meine, das sind nur ein paar Beispiele von Fake Foods, die wir bekommen können. Und es gibt einige Fake Food Firmen, die gute Intentionen haben. Und sie versuchen, die Probleme des Wachstums, der Gesundheit und des Tierwohlfahrts zu beantworten, wie pflanzliche Mehl.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, you nailed it. These products are just a joke on the health conscious. Food companies realized like, hey, a lot of people aren't eating meat or cheese. So what if we process the shit out of plant derived ingredients like soy and pea protein, emulated the taste and texture of animals and sold it at a ridiculously high price?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, people who didn't eat meat were eating so much fresh food, like they didn't need the food company's help of buying all this processed stuff. And the health benefits of the meat alternatives are definitely not worth it. According to the National Institutes of Health, all meat imitations they tested, they are high in protein and fiber.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Gimitation sausages and milks, they have lower total unsaturated fat compared to animal-based products, which that's all good, but... All Imitation Dairy has lower protein than animal-based dairy. And we don't really know as much in the States, but the Nutri-Score system, which is, it's like a color labeling system on foods in the EU and UK.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
All their foods have, they're like little traffic lights on the labels for calorie, fat, sugar and salt. So it'll be... Green for A, which is the healthiest, and then goes down like light green, yellow, orange. And then the worst for you is when it's red.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And all imitation cheeses, whether it's the really fancy Voile, or whatever you think you're buying, they're all labeled a bright red E. So it's just the additives and processing used to make these imitations are being found to have negative effects on our health. But we need to do a lot more testing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, es ist ein ziemlich breites Spektrum. Also Fake Food bezieht sich auf Imitation oder synthetische Nahrung, wie jede Nahrung, die den Ausblick, den Geschmack, die Texturen oder den Nahrungsprofil von natürlichen Nahrungsmitteln mimiziert. Denk an Nahrungsmittel mit hydrogenierten Ölen, Additiven, Artifizierten Süßigkeiten und Geschmacks.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, there's so many documented cases of exactly that. People buy a McDonald's Happy Meal and then they check in on it a year later and there's no change.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And that's because all processed foods are dry as a bone. And natural foods have moisture, so they mold. And when you eat a McDonald's hamburger, they're fooling you that you think it's moist. There's sauces and hamburgers. Yeah, it seems like with the plant-based meats, animal welfare slash ethics are the reasons to add that fake meat to your diet, not for your health. Yeah, totally.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But it's confusing since the health food market is now overrun by big food companies passing off ultra-processed foods as healthy choices. Impossible Meat is impressive. It's really popular right now, but it's more modern chemicals than food. And the creator, he's really clear that it was never meant as a health food, that it's meant to reduce industrial farming, period.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
They did a study on the safety of impossible meat and they found the burger's key ingredient, the thing that gives it its meatiness, which is called soy leg hemoglobin, is safe for human consumption. But what the consumption is doing to our health is really debated.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, for us, it's not that great, but if It could completely replace animals or even if it just replaced cows. It would slow greenhouse gases and habitat destruction by incredible rates. There's no slaughter, there's no hormones, there's no antibiotics, but it is built on commodity agriculture and ultra-processed foods, so there's a huge health trade-off. These products are just questionable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
They solve one problem, like regarding animal welfare, but they create a ton of health issues. Okay, so Fake Meats, not the best choice.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's a really bumpy road. The one good thing is that it does lead to innovation and food technology. So food companies are continuously improving taste and texture, which is great. But it's the nutritional profile of fake foods that needs to be advanced in the processing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Lab-grown meat is cultivated from animal cells. So it does start with an animal. And they take the animal cell in a lab setting. They cultivate it. And it's a sustainable alternative to conventional meat production. But there's a lot of testing that needs to be done on lab-grown meats. Most are in the developmental stage. There's two main companies working furiously to get them on the market.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, and that word shows up a lot in our ingredient lists. There's also plant-based meat alternatives, molecular milk, processed cheese, lab-grown meat. They're all fake foods.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
They do eliminate animal slaughter, but again, the health pros and cons are really questionable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh mein Gott, das ist mein größter Wunsch, weil ja, natürlich kann Krankheit durch einen industriellen Farm verbreiten, aber die Art, wie diese Vats funktionieren, es sieht fast aus wie eine Brühe und du legst ein paar Zellen in einen der Tanks und dann bleibt es nur mehr und mehr und die leere Vat ist komplett voll mit Kekse in fünf Tagen oder so etwas.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, and it's just so vulnerable to disease and I would think in those kind of facilities it would spread even faster.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, they use a lot of antibiotics in lab-grown meat. There's a lot of pharmaceutical techniques being used. And so that's a big reason not to eat industrial farmed meat, right, is all the antibiotics that they give the animals. But they're putting even more in the lab-grown stuff.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
You're not killing an animal, but it's weird Frankenstein. Yeah. It's really bizarre. Like depends on who you ask, though, because governments see it only the positives in it. But eventually, when the technology improves, be a cheaper way to feed the masses. The U.N. wants the U.S. government to promote lab grown and plant based meats, but they are prohibited. Natürlich. Ja.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Es ist die Milch aus dem Zukunft, sicher. Ein wirklich komplizierter Prozess, die Moleküle zu manipulieren. Ein riesiges Prozent von dem, was wir essen, wird entdeckt. Und wir machen das mit der Verwendung einer Kombination von synthetischen Ingredienzen, Additiven und verschiedenen Prozesstechniken.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's called just eat an apple. Go old school.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Of course. And I get really frustrated with the almond controversy because that whole campaign was started by dairy farmers in California. And their big argument was, it takes so much water to grow an almond tree, which if you think about it rationally, like it's bullshit. It doesn't take any more water to grow an almond tree than any other tree. That's not the problem.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And it's just a baseless argument. But anyway.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I've heard it was kind of this manipulation by Big Dairy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I'm not saying almond farming doesn't use a ton of water, but it's not any higher than any other farm as far as I've read. And I think it was like a smear campaign because a lot of people are buying almond milk.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Dairy companies have a lot of lobbying power.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, interesting. Yeah, plant-based foods typically have a lower environmental footprint compared to animal-based foods, but they still make an impact. Almond trees still need water, but plant-based requires less land typically, less water, less energy, and it definitely generates fewer greenhouse gases.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
They reduce the demand for factory farmed meat, dairy and eggs, which some big food companies are upset about. But we're just duped into thinking that these plant-based products are automatically a healthy choice. It's just a false equivalency.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Fake Foods versuchen also, die sensorische Erfahrung eines echten, frischen Lebens zu replizieren, ohne die gleichen Ingredienzen oder Produktionmethode zu benutzen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, und Fake Foods, sie bieten absolut Möglichkeiten für Menschen mit Allergien. Wer Laktose-intolerant ist, ist ein tolles Produkt zu haben. Sie könnten wahrscheinlich nicht Milch trinken, ich weiß nicht. Aber nicht nur für Allergien, wie Fake Foods, die Möglichkeiten für Vegetarier, Veganer oder glutenfreie Diäten erweitern.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Aber alle die Additiven, die wir benutzen, um das echte Ding zu simulieren, haben alle negativen Effekte auf unsere Gewicht und Gesundheit. Das ist die bottom line.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
We just need to mitigate these concerns. Like the industrialized production of fake foods, for example, relies a lot on palm oil, which contributes to environmental degradation big time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, absolut. Das Prozess der Pflanze zerstört Ökosysteme. Es ist wirklich schlecht. Aber die Ölpalmen, natürlich, weil sie indigenisch sind, wie um die Äquator in Afrika. Wenn es lokal aufgewachsen ist, produziert es diesen rot-grünen, wirklich leckeren Liquid, der hoch in Antioxidanten ist. Und weil es so eine effiziente Frucht ist, haben wir massiv Ölpalmen produziert, überall in Asien.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Und dann senden wir sie zu einem Öl-Refinerie und wir strecken all ihre Nahrung aus durch Ultraprozessing. Es scheint, dass das große Problem ist, dass Fake-Food günstiger ist als non-fake-fresh-Foods. Yeah, produce is enormously expensive. We're mistaken when we think people are making bad choices by not buying fresh fruits and veggies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's not like the whole world just stopped having willpower of how to eat and got fat. There's something going on with the food we're eating. And for many people of low income, ultra-processed food is all that's available. Like a lot of people live in food deserts.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
In Food Deserts, they're disproportionately found in high poverty areas. There's about 40 million Americans that are living in places considered Food Deserts. So, stores like 7-Eleven or the Dollar Store are supplying those communities with their food and there's zero fresh options. There's just no access. And it shows in the weight and health of these communities.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
We are like processivores. And compared to animals of our size, we have... Tiny jaws, tiny teeth and tiny intestinal tracts. So humans develop techniques and tools to make food easier to chew and digest, like mashing and cooking, using grinders and knives, salting and curing, smoking, anything that makes food edible and delicious.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It makes no sense that food options aren't equally available.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
We just adapt to it. But there is a movement to eliminate food deserts, but it takes people investing in these poor communities. Tiffany Haddish grew up in the food desert of South L.A. and she's made it her mission to change food options and food quality in that neighborhood.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So more than five years ago, she launched Diaspora Groceries and she opened a market in the neighborhood that has fresh, healthy choices where she grew up.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I know, but why aren't there more community gardens? In Philadelphia they have a neighborhood farmers market and it's all raised beds so you don't have to use the soil in the city and that feeds a neighborhood in Philly. But it's like, why aren't things like that everywhere?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Any place you see a garden, like a community garden, it's Just long waiting lists. So one market's not going to change it, but at least Tiffany Haddish is setting a good example. Like we had more people giving back to their communities. So it'll be interesting to see how it affects the neighborhood.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But even if you do have access and can afford fresh produce, you also need to have a kitchen with energy and appliances and a knife and a cutting board and the time to cook. And you'll need to make food in quantity and So, if you can't afford fresh food, you better be able to afford healthcare, which is a really crappy trade-off. The problem with fake foods, it's not just the cost.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's both the cost and the availability. So instead of investing just in synthetic substitutes, we should be focusing on improving access to fresh, nutritious ingredients for everyone. We have to be careful that as the innovation and competition increase affordable food options, that those options aren't 100% fake.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It might be, if we're not careful, but processing isn't going anywhere. And the reason you process food is not because there's anything wrong with it in its natural state, but because there's more money to be made when you process. There's a lot of money being made in the food industry, but it's not going to the farm end of things. The farmer gets less than 15% of your food dollars.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
The money goes to food processors who are benefiting from the fact that we're overproducing. Wow, I had no idea. That's huge money. I know. It's crazy. What? Yeah. Aber ich denke, es sind etwa 15 Firmen, die alle unsere Kalorien machen. Und ca. 75% dieser Kalorien kommen aus den sechs Top-Firmen, die Gras und Öl produzieren. Yeah, it's wild.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, poor diet has overtaken tobacco as the leading cause of early death globally. The primary cause of diet-related disease, including obesity, is the rise of a diet of industrially produced, ultra-processed foods. This is all driven by profit incentives. So agriculturalists need to work with economists. We need to treat food companies like we've been treating the tobacco companies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, wir sind ein paar Zentimeter auf der Zeitung weg von Nikotin-Flecken für Frühstück. Oh Gott, ja, mit einem Fake-Watered-Down-Sawdust-Milch.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I know, I wish we could all have that luxury, but when is your farmer's market open?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I have one stand I go to like specifically for bok choy. I don't know what it is, but it's like a treat. It would be awesome if our food system aligned with our values and farmers markets were more available. But the food industry is just dominated by a very few big and powerful companies. And those companies are not in control of their business model. Their investors are.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Like CEOs at Dannen and Pepsi that proposed making foods better for people, they were voted out and replaced. The food companies have just made it clear what their motives are, and it is not public health.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
We just need a cultural change. We have to come to regard food companies like tobacco companies because their money is dirty. And ultra-processed foods need to be in national dietary guidelines. Policymakers and industry leaders must start prioritizing public health and sustainability and social equity all across food production. We need marketing restrictions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Like Mexico has ruled that no tiger on the cover of frosted flakes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Mexico passed a law insisting on the removal of all cartoon characters from labels. And that law also said that your warning label has to be bigger than your logo. That's kind of genius.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, and it's effective in guiding the consumer to healthier choices. Mexico has seen a lot of sales of these popular products. Whether you're pro-fake or anti-fake, the future of food, it sounds like it's a topic we must all digest.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course. There's processed foods like we process them when we're cooking, but they're not the same as ultra-processed foods. So this is super, super important to understand. Processed foods are what we've always done and any kind of processing changes how our bodies metabolize the food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But we've known since the 70s when it was found through studies that the body reacts differently to eating a whole apple versus eating a mashed apple versus eating just the juice. And the only time it doesn't spike our sugar is when we eat the whole apple. It's that balance of the fiber and the sugars our body needs. So whole foods are what our bodies are designed to digest.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I know, and ultra-processing affects our body's reaction even more.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ultra-processing is when we eat things that have never been in the human diet before, like modern chemicals. Es gibt eine geeignete, einfachen Definition für ultraverpackte Füße. Es ist in Plastik verpackt mit mindestens einem Ingredient, den man in einer Standard-Küche nicht finden würde.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. And our food is labeled around what we all think of as the components of nutrition, right? Salt, sugar, carbs, fat, protein and fiber. But research shows food is more than that. It's what we do to the food, like how processed it is, that matters. In 2019, a hypothesis was tested where researchers designed two diets and they tested two groups.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
One group was fed 80% of their calories from ultra-processed foods and the other 0%. It was the same sugar, the same carbs, the same fat, same everything. The ultra-processed foods group, they ate an average of 500 calories more a day.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So the studies suggest that there's something else about ultra-processed foods that drive people to overeat, because calorie for calorie, the diets were exactly the same.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, das ist es absolut. Wie Tiere sind alle zu dem Futter, das sie brauchen. Und Menschen sind nicht anders. Das ist, wie wir überleben. Aber Geschmack ist wie die Natur's Language of Nutrition. Und Geschmack-Moleküle sind, wie der nützliche Wert des Lebens zu unserem Gehirn kommuniziert wird. Okay, so what do our bodies then end up doing when they get new molecules?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it gets confusing because when our taste buds send a message of, say, orange flavor to our brains, our body prepares for vitamin C. But if it's an artificial orange flavor with no vitamin C, the body doesn't know what to do with the information. When we fool our brains like this over and over, the brain and the body's ability to metabolize food, it goes all out of whack.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, absolutely. We all burn the same amount of calories a day pretty much, but We absorb these ultra processed foods very quickly. So we eat them really fast and we get the calories faster than our bodies can realize we're full. And then when you have sweetness without sugar and smoothness without fat and savory without protein, it's just messing with our taste buds.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Like we evolved to have an incredibly balanced diet. And so when you keep fooling your brain, it's just trying to balance things out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Das ist hundertprozentig wahr. Es ist viel Profit. Und wenn du wirklich die Ingredientenliste lesen beginnst, wirst du einen Pattern bemerken, wo der erste Ingredient typisch ein Commodity-Crop ist, wie die vordersten vier sind Fleisch, Soja, Mehl und Korn. Und dann gibt es ein Commodity-Öl, wie Pumpe oder Sonnenblumen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, well, they grow so much of it for the farm animals that the leftovers are what's thrown into the human food supply. And then they're processed down into powders of fat, protein and carbohydrates. And these powders are low cost. They're really easy to ship and they store for a long time. So all they need is a ton of additives to reconstitute. And then you can turn the powders into anything.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Additives are definitely mysterious. There's about 5 to 15,000 additives in our diets. But the reason we don't know how many are actually used for sure is that for some reason the FDA just doesn't keep a list.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, sie sind wie eine magische Potion. Sie emulsifizieren und stabilisieren die Füße. Sie verbinden diese basic Ingredients zusammen. Und dann schaffen sie Texturen, die gepresst, gebraten, gebacken oder was auch immer sind. So, they say we taste with our eyes first. You know anything about that? Yeah, absolutely. That's what gets us salivating the first time we look at it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But we don't know how healthy what we're looking at is when we're fooled behind all the packaging. So the artificial flavor and color, it can come from natural compounds, but most are entirely synthetic chemicals that we're just happily ingesting because it makes the spicy chip red.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, my guess is yes, but we can only really look at the additives that have been specifically tested, right? We don't know what they all are, but countless research shows that various additives are linked to mental health disorders, attention deficit disorder, cardiovascular disease and cancers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It just slowly crept in. Instead of not making foods that were harming our guts, there's just a whole new market for products for good gut health. And food companies put things like kombucha and probiotics on the shelves. Das ist wahr. Also anstatt zu sagen, hey, wir sollten Essen machen, die dir den Fisch in den Mund geben,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Dekreieren von Zucker ist eine gute Idee für jeden auf der Welt, sicher. Und Artificial Sweeteners sind sugar- und kaloriefreundlich, das ist großartig. Aber Studien linken sie zu Gewichtsgänse, schwerem Blutgewicht und erhöhten Bedürfnissen. Also brauchen wir Zucker, richtig? Aber unsere Gehirne brauchen eine Balance von süß und Kalorien.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Also zu süß oder nicht süß genug, das beeinflusst das Körper, die Möglichkeit zu metabolisieren, diese Kalorien. Within a decade of artificial sweeteners hitting the market, type 2 diabetes and obesity, which was basically unheard of in the past, became leading health problems in the United States.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1116: Fake Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, gross. Yeah, that's just it though, like diet sodas have so many people hooked. Look at the ingredients in a diet coke, which everybody loves to say that it has no fat, no sugar, no salt, but what are we drinking? So, the ingredients are, the first one is always listed as carbonated water, that's fine.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
In 1918 haben die Bananen-Arbeiter versucht, zu schießen, aber die UFC hat ihre Anforderungen für Jahre ignoriert, bis sich all dieser Bananen-Drama zehn Jahre später in Kolumbien in dem, was als Bananen-Massaker bekannt wurde, gebraten hat.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Definitely a brown spot in history. The UFC set up one of its plantations in Magdalena, Colombia, which is a hot tourist spot along the Caribbean coast today. Oh, that is dark. It sounds like everybody had a banana job.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
It was twisted. And since UFC owned everything, workers couldn't just pack up and find another job. So they organized again and on October 6, 1928, Colombian banana workers handed the UFC a list with nine demands.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Gute Idee. Ja. The UFC didn't like that and they refused to negotiate. So in a classic corporate move, they said, hey, you're subcontractors, not employees, nothing to discuss.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Exactly. And to make things worse, the Colombian government passed new laws, making it even harder for workers to protest. So when they finally went on strike on November 11th, 1928, the situation escalated quickly. The strike grew into the largest in Colombia's history. The government panicked, arrested hundreds and called in the military to silence the strikers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it turns out the Colombian military was on UFC's payroll. So they sent 700 troops to confront 30,000 striking workers in the so-called Banana Zone. And get this, according to the US State Department, there was talk of sending US warships to back them up. All over bananas.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
It got ugly. The workers, they sabotaged the railways, crippled the banana trade. They became a revolutionary threat, which scared the living daylights out of the authorities. So on December 5th, they told the protesters there'd be negotiations. Thousands of workers gathered, thinking it was for peace talks. But the banana cops got nervous and a Colombian general declared a state of siege.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, wow. This is like some Game of Thrones type of scene, right?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Oh yeah, but the death toll depends on who you ask. The Colombian government said 47 people died, but every other account puts the death toll at around 3,000. I think it was really brutal. And to send a message, the military left nine bodies in the workers' village, one for each of their demands.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, some historians argue that the political instability in Colombia today and the whole drug trafficking nightmare can be traced back to UFC's colonizing grip on the banana trade. And as for the UFC's founder, our friend, Miner Cooper Keith, He died a few months after the massacre, but that didn't stop UFC.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
So I would like to introduce you to our next banana character, Sam Zemery, also known as Sam the Banana Man, or the guy who took UFC's corruption to places even darker.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, definitiv. Wir sollten das Skript für sicher schreiben. Dieser Kerl wurde 1877 in Russland geboren, aber er wurde in Alabama geboren. Und Sam war einfach besessen mit Bananenbooten in seinem lokalen Flur als Kind. Und als er wuchs, sah er eine Goldmine in dem, was die Reibs heißt, die verletzten Bananen, die weggezogen werden. Wow, so we're talking about a teenage brown banana baron here.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. In 1903 hat Sam, der Bananenmann, ein Kontrakt mit der UFC gegründet, um Rippen in Süd- und Zentralamerika zu verbreiten. In 1905 hat er seine eigene Firma in Honduras gegründet, die Koya Melfrut, und hat die Infrastruktur dort kontrolliert.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
It is. And when the Honduran government tried to limit the foreign land ownership and raise taxes, Sam wasn't having it. So in 1911, he took drastic measures and went full banana scarface. He hired a mercenary, you'll love this name, Lee Christmas, to overthrow the democratically elected president of Honduras.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
It worked out really well. He succeeded. The Christmas guy toppled the government, put in a puppet leader and Sam got everything he wanted. Land, tax breaks and power. He was running the whole country of Honduras as one big banana plantation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, wild. Sam dominated banana diplomacy in Honduras and Nicaragua. He ended his contract with UFC in 1913. And then his company and UFC, they just played dirty with each other for years. So fast forward to after the Banana Massacre in 1928, Sam the Banana Man's ships were raided and found to have loads of weapons on board, which was never really explained in my research.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
The US State Department intervened to stop the banana drama and negotiated a merger that let UFC swallow up Sam's company.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
He got 30 million dollars, which would be 500 million today. He got a seat on the board of directors and this made him one of the richest people in the United States. But less than a year later, the stock tanked with the Great Depression. Sam was furious and literally stormed into a UFC board meeting, declared himself the new managing director of operations.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
And by 1938, he was the president of UFC.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I think he was a crazy genius. But if we fast forward by 1954, UFC was fighting another battle and this time in Guatemala. The new president there was Jacobo Arbenz, and he wanted to redistribute land not being used and land owned by foreign companies, and UFC was not having it. They had 600,000 acres in Guatemala, which is about a quarter of the country.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
And they weren't using most of the land, they were just hoarding it. The Guatemalan government offered like 1.2 million for the land, but UFC wanted 16 million. And the US Secretary of State and the CIA Director, which at the time were brothers, by the way, the dullest brothers of airport fame, I guess, they advised President Eisenhower that President Arbenz is the problem.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
And the Secretary had ties to UFC, the CIA Director owned UFC stock, so it's a whole tangled web.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Oh yeah, they backed a coup called Operation Success.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
The goal of the operation success was to overthrow Arbenz. Sam the Banana Man published a book accusing Arbenz's land reform plan of being a communist plot. And in 1954, if you just whispered the word communism, people would lose their minds. So it was a branding win.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
And by June of 1954, UFC-backed forces, think about this, a banana company's forces, invaded Guatemala using UFC boats and American planes, calling it a liberation war against communism. And thousands of Arbenzes supporters were rounded up. And it took just 12 days for the president to flee the country. It was another banana queue in record time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
And just like that, Guatemala was in chaos that lasted decades. But it was a success for the UFC.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
So, who knew fruit companies were so connected to the federal government? I guess all you need is a ton of money.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
UFC said, hey, let's get rid of Fidel. So, yada, yada, yada. That's how we get to the Bay of Pigs invasion on April 14th, 1961.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I am so ready. Who doesn't love a good banana, right? But it turns out bananas have a shady side.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yes. The CIA totally invaded Cuba. And UFC's banana boats were the ones transporting soldiers and arms. And a hundred ships known as the Great White Fleet that were regularly used for transporting bananas and tourists started ferrying troops, weapons and ammunition to overthrow Castro.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Correct. And Fidel caught up the Soviets for backup. And boom, we're in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
It's so crazy. And UFC and all these dirty dealings, it left them pretty vulnerable after that. But they still had a lot of power in Central America into the 1970s. The ripple effects from these coups, it's still haunting the region today.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I know, or shopping at the store Banana Republic.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
But marketing genius allowed that. It's like eating at Heart Attack Burgers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
It's a pretty offensive term for countries that are politically unstable, have a wealth gap and are run by foreign companies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
The OG of this is the banana industry countries. In fact, in the 70s, several Latin American companies So this is OPEC, but for bananas. So did they take over the banana trade completely? Well, they did have help from Hurricane Carmen in 1974, which wiped out a bunch of banana plantations in Latin America, mostly Honduras, and that sent UFC just spiraling.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
They lost 70 million dollars, what would be 450 million today. And in the company chaos uncovered a bribery scandal with the Honduran government. And consequently, in 1975, the then CEO of UFC, Eli M. Black, he just jumped to his death from his 44th floor office window. All right.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Okay, so this is not about health. Korrekt. Es geht nicht um eure Gesundheit. Die einzigen gesundheitlichen Nachteile sind, dass sie hoch in Karben sind. Also vielleicht verpassen Sie sie, wenn Sie auf einem Keto-Kick sind. Und sie vermischen sich nicht gut mit ein paar Medikamenten, aber das ist kaum die Schuld der Bananen. Es ist rar, aber manche Leute sind allergisch.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, or he slipped on a lot of corruption, I think. What's super weird is he jumped with his briefcase and it scattered documents everywhere that proved he bribed the president of Honduras for lower export taxes on bananas. This became known as Banana Gate.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
So it's not just the UFC that's problematic. Yeah, there are other fruit companies. So Del Monte Foods and Dole, they both have rich histories, but just not in bananas. Del Monte formed in 1886 as a premium coffee brand, expanded into canned peaches and Hawaiian pineapples, eventually rebranding as the Del Monte Corporation in 1967, and they have ongoing human rights violations facing them today.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Mittlerweile begann Dole in 1899 mit einem Hawaiian Pineapple Plantation und sie revolutionisierten die Produktion. Aber Dole befindet sich heute mit vielen öffentlichen Krankheiten, z.B. E-Coli-Erkrankungen 2005, 2006.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Both companies remain major players in the fruit and vegetable industries, but we'd have to do an episode on pineapples for those tales.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
And there's other banana massacre type stories in the Philippines, Mexico, all over Latin America, where workers face intimidation from the military because of their banana union activities. Like there's human rights abuses that are rampant in the banana industry. The profits for these companies are not reflected in the workers' wages or benefits, but they are paid in actual currency now.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, the fruit that keeps on giving, I guess.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
But when the skeletons finally started spilling out to the public, UFC figured a fresh logo would make people forget about all the coups and massacres and paramilitary ties. So in 1990 they rebranded Chiquita Brands International.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Chiquita translates literally to mean little girl or little lady. So they changed their name to little lady banana. Cute for marketing, I guess.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Richtig. Miss Chiquita war UFC-Maskott, aber die Firma war die United Fruit Company bis 1990. Miss Chiquita wurde in den 40er-Jahren gegründet, um die Reputation der UFC zu wechseln, aber diese Brandung hat sich nicht gut gegründet. Die UFC-Chiquita-Banana-Ads waren über das Exotische, und sie haben die latinamerikanischen Frauen in Weisen ausgedrückt, die Sexismus und Kolonialismus schreien.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Okay, it's like they thought, what if we made a fruit sexy?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Right, but the character's first introduction was weird. In 1946, UFC put out a racist animated short called Chiquita Banana and the Cannibals.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's like a cartoonish stereotype of an African man shown cooking an Englishman over a fire. And then this Chiquita Banana Lady interrupts singing, if you'd like to be refined and civilized, then your eating habits really ought to be revised. And she suggests a recipe for banana scallops as an alternative to cannibalism.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Es ist weniger als 1% der Bevölkerung, also ist das Weltliebe von Bananen wach. Und von all den Verbrechen, essen wir nur einen typischen Bananen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Incredibly, when I went to the Chiquita Company website, they nostalgically have an image from this early ad with text celebrating the shorts.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, like the cookbooks and baby food, it was all about distracting from the horror show behind the scenes. But the 90s name change to Chiquita did not deter the company from continuing to pull strings in Colombia, and journalists unpeeled the facts of Chiquita and her ties to paramilitary groups in Colombia.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Oh yeah. And Chiquita likes inexpensive land. Unidas. But to operate safely, they started paying the Autodefenses Unidas to Colombia or the AUC, which in English means the United Self Defenders of Colombia. And they were a far right paramilitary drug trafficking group that came to power in the 1980s.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Not only in bed with extremists, in 1998 investigations in the US and Colombia uncovered Chiquita bribing Colombian officials for use of their port while funneling millions to several paramilitary groups. The AUC were designated as terrorists and there was just no way Chiquita didn't know that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Chiquitas Payments helped these gangs maintain control over the land and suppress union activity. The AUC's banana division of the group funded by Chiquita was responsible for numerous human rights violations and murders. Wow. Over 100,000 people were displaced by the violence in Colombia's Yoruba region between 1995 and 2006, all thanks to Chiquitas dealings.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Well, in 2003 Chiquita testified to the U.S. Department of Justice that, yeah, they knew the AUC was designated a terrorist organization, but they were being extorted by the group. And in 2004 Chiquita sold its Colombian operations. In 2007 zahlten sie einen 25-Millionen-Dollar-Fonds an die Justiz-Departement, aber kein Geld ging an die Gefühle und keine Exekutiven gingen in die Gefängnis.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
In der Zwischenzeit hat Columbia zehn Chiquita-Exekutiven für die Finanzierung der AUC beurteilt. Und die Firma befindet sich auch mit mehreren Beurteilungen für Terrorismus, Kriegskriege, falsche Todesfälle. Aber es ist, als ob Chiquita seit über einem Jahr aus der Justiz ausgelaufen wäre.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, wow. Oh, wow. 17 Jahre von Litigation. Ein Jurist in Florida gab das erste Set von Schwestern und ihren Familien Gerechtigkeit, mit Earthrights International reporting, Quote, ein Jurist hat den Bananen-Giant Chiquita Brands für die Finanzierung der AUC, einen brutalen paramilitären Todesquad im Namen des Bananen-Gesetzes, gefunden. Aber niemand wurde in die Gefängnis gesetzt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, das ist wahr. Bananen sind ziemlich sexy. Sie sind wie das Fastfood der Natur, serviert in biodegradablen Wrappers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Chiquita musste acht Schwestern-Familien, ein Total von 38 Millionen Dollar, bezahlen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, and these court cases don't even address other problems of the banana trade, like missing and murdered union leaders, child labor, which is out of control in Nicaragua, and inhumane treatment of women. Like, the banana game is vicious. Also, we can pay 69 cents a pound at the store. I mean, it's one banana, Michael. What could it cost?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Billions, with a B. There's over 100 billion bananas eaten worldwide every year. And they've been around forever. Evidence of bananas dates back to 6th century BCE in Papua New Guinea, but likely thousands of years earlier in Asia and northern Australia.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Right, they do. Child labor is rampant across Latin America and the Caribbean. So, Workers are making peanuts while big banana rakes in billions. Nothing has changed even today? Exactly. Workers get a fraction of the retail price, while companies dodge unionization and lower wages with short-term contracts.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Unfair trading practices mean supermarkets pay low prices, which forces fruit companies to pay even lower wages. And working in the banana trade is so bad. There's a traditional Jamaican work song about how bad it is that we all probably know, that Deo Banana Boat song that was made famous by Harry Belafonte.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ich meine, ein Acht-Fuß-Bund würde wirklich schwer sein. Und dieser Junge singt, er will den Tally-Mann als Bananen zählen, weil er so müde ist, von diesem Bananen-Plantation-Alltag zu arbeiten. Hör zu den Lyrics.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ich meine, der Punkt ist hier, wo Bananen kultiviert werden, gibt es arbeitende Arbeiter, nicht zu erwähnen, eine verwandte Umgebung. Hey, have a banana and ignore the blood on the peel. We covered it in toxic chemicals. So what are they using on these things? Und Monokultur ist, was ist das? Monokultur. It's like the ultimate soul-sucking farming method.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
You just grow the same exact crop year after year and it strips the soil, killing biodiversity and basically leaving the land trashed, dry, cracked. It's like ecological destruction at its finest. And on a huge plot of land, only one crop is grown and nothing else can survive. And the thing with banana monoculture is it's like the banana equivalent of having no immune system.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
So like we said earlier, this means that one disease, one little fungal pathogen can wilt the Cavendish out of existence. And guess what? There is a fungus and it is wiping them out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. In fact, they were considered exotic in the West for a long time. There's some debate about when they first made it to Europe. In the 1500s, Magellan even wrote letters home describing bananas as, quote, like a really long fig.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Don't be too upset though. The extinction thing is a good headline, but it is a bit dramatic. Bananas will not disappear. We bred the Cavendish and we'll just breed another one more resistant to disease. Why don't they just breed more varieties now? Money. Okay. The reality is it's expensive to introduce other banana varieties.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
The entire global banana infrastructure is designed around the Cavendish. Everything from how they're harvested to how they ripen during transport. And so replacing it would just be a logistical nightmare. And that's the real problem.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, well, there's a very long chemical name for it, but we can just call it TR4. And it started hitting bananas in Asia in the 90s and has attacked the banana industry, but it's slowly spreading across the globe. The whole banana industry has been bad for the environment, bad for the people growing them, and now bad for the fruit itself. The whole thing's absurd.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, ich meine, Bananen, sie werden gegründet und kultiviert, um Profite zu maximieren und nicht gute Bananen zu sein. Ja. These chemicals are usually applied by aerial application or crop dusting.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's estimated that only 15% of the agrochemicals actually land on the crop. The other 85 lands on workers, their homes and other food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Richtig. Und weil die Regulierungen anderer Länder anders sind, ist eine der ökologisch genannten Agro-Chemikalien in der Nahrung von Bananen, Dibromochloropropan oder DBCP, die in den USA seit 1979 verabschiedet wurde, aber sie ist immer noch in Lateinamerika verwendet.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Numeröse Gesetzgebungen wurden von Arbeitern gegen Bananen-Giants gebracht, die beurteilen, dass sie ernsthafte Krankheiten haben.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, sicher. Ja, du solltest nicht. Die Agrochemicals, die in der Bananen-Kultivation genutzt werden, verletzen die Regenwälder, die die Pflanzen brechen. In der Tat, vor etwa zehn Jahren gab es eine Studie von spektakulären Kamen, die wie kleine Krokodile sind.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Und sie leben nahe Bananen-Pflanzen in Costa Rica. Sie haben Tränen von Pestiziden in ihrem Blut gefunden, insbesondere DDT. Und das wurde in der Region seit Jahren nicht genutzt. Ja.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
But DDT is a persistent pollutant, so it lingers in places that it hasn't been used for decades. And it was really popular in the banana industry before. And that and other chemicals, they get into our water.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. And bananas have a big thirst for water, so they account for a huge amount of water use and contamination. Since they require a constant level of moisture, like neither too much or too little, banana fields have channels for irrigation and drainage, which sounds fancy until you realize it's just an elaborate way to cause serious soil erosion.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, long fig hammock doesn't quite work either.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
As a result, agrochemicals and silt are delivered into adjacent waterways. In the Caribbean, where plantations are located along the coasts, this kind of runoff has caused considerable damage to estuaries and coral reefs.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
But yeah, as Europeans colonized tropical regions, bananas became more and more desired. But transporting them pre-refrigeration was obviously pretty tricky.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, das ist richtig. Ja, das ist viel verpassterter Frucht. Ich weiß, dass ich mich überraschen werde, das zu fragen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Was für eine existenzielle Frage. Organische Bananen können Arbeiter sein, die nicht von schrecklichen Chemikalien ausgesprochen werden, aber sie verbessern typisch nicht die Werte oder andere Arbeitsbedingungen für die, die auf den Pflanzenschaften arbeiten. Und was zahlt der Konsument? Echt nur Frieden.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Die Chancen, dass keine Chemikalien überall, wo Ihre Banane wächst, aufgelöst werden, sind unglaublich. Minimal. Plus, I don't know if you've ever done an episode on this, but the chemicals are labeled organic. So is your banana.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, Fairtrade is not as straightforward as it sounds. Fairtrade works on certifications and some certifications treat workers' rights like optional perks. Congratulations, you're a banana worker, but sorry, you don't get any benefits.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
And unfortunately, some prominent certification systems consider workers' rights to be voluntary elements by the company, not just basic standards that need to be upheld. Fairtrade is like a badge for trying and it's a bummer, I know, but Fairtrade is really just, it's a marketing strategy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, you can. It's a really hard find and that's just how it was set up. Baker, Preston, Sam the Banana Man, they weren't doing environmental impact studies, right? They were just making banana bucks. And as far as money, it's a testament to the history that it's equated with making money.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
So much money in bananas that it's actually in crypto today. Like just when you thought this couldn't get crazier, there is banana coin. And it's a cryptocurrency peg to the export price of bananas. Because, of course, that's what we need.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know how that works. I wish I was smarter about that stuff, I guess. Every banana coin represents just over two pounds of bananas grown on an ever-expanding plantation in Laos.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I know. I mean, it's not all bad, though. Like, we love bananas and bananas have made their way into beauty regimens. There's banana-based face masks that have become popular in recent years. Additionally, using bananas on acne-prone skin can be beneficial because it's anti-inflammatory properties that can soothe blemishes and irritation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
So we're just constantly learning new things about our little fruity friends.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Glücklicherweise brachten die 19. Jahrhunderte Steamschiffe, Straßen und Refrigeration, sodass die Luxus-Bananen mehr zugänglich geworden sind. In 1870 schickte ein Mann namens Captain Lorenzo Baker die ersten Bananen aus Jamaika nach Philly, um das Bananen-Empire auszulösen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
So, I found the food empowerment project strives to inform people about where their food comes from so we can make the most ethical choices possible. But for many, bananas are just a reasonably priced fruit that contains beneficial nutrients. But buying conventional bananas contributes to both environmental and human rights abuses. You just can't get around it. But I still want to eat bananas.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I know. We all do. And there are brands to look for, like Equal Exchange, Coleman, Earth University. There's a few others, but it turns into a banana scavenger hunt. I wish we could ask the grocer, hey, could you stock ethical bananas? I'm trying to save the world here, one fruit at a time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
We've been making all these puns, but it is worth discussing bananas in pop culture. They are our most comical food. And when we first shocked the idea of this episode, remember, like our texts were just a pun battle. Bananas have been used in pop culture forever.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Bananas are a symbol of cultural identity in Latin American countries. For example, there's a Puerto Rican artist, Francisco Aller, and in his paintings, bananas represent national pride. Und natürlich gibt es die phallische Form, den visuellen Element, der ihnen ein gutes Thema in Film, TV, Kunst macht. Indy Warhol hat oft die Bananenform als Sexobjekt benutzt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
It's very funny. They are used in comedy, right? And memes. There's the dancing banana icon. That's a big widespread meme. There was a French dancer and singer who was pretty popular, Josephine Baker. And she wore a banana skirt costume in 1927. She did a review, which became... A symbol of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. And recently, Beyonce, Rihanna, they've paid homage to
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, Bananas are indeed bananas, to prove your point. But hey, at least they taste good and they make us laugh while we battle the ethics of the whole thing. Every time we put a banana in that morning smoothie, though, we're blending this history of coups and scandals and human rights violations with a little bit of that entertainment.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I also have a new substack called Where the Shadows Linger, but it's all fiction. I have a short story collection coming out.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Baker machte Wälder. In 1876 nahm er einen Bananen-Tree an die Weltmeisterschaft und es war ein Hitsch. Ungefährdend war es überschattet von etwas, was sich als Telefon bezeichnet hat. Aber trotzdem hat er genug Buzzer gegründet, um den ersten kommerziellen Bananen-Farm in den USA, in Florida, zu bauen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Die Plattform, die wir vor Shopify verwendet haben, hat regelmäßig Updates gebraucht, die teilweise dazu geführt haben, dass der Shop nicht funktioniert hat.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Dies führte zu der Erstellung der Boston Fruit Company, die in 1899 die United Fruit Company wurde, die jetzt Chiquita ist.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Wait, so just three men monopolized the banana trade. And the term banana baron makes it really hard to take these guys seriously, but I'm guessing they made hella bank. Ja, Bananenbank. Del Monte und Dole, diese Fruchtfirmen waren da, aber sie fokussierten sich auf gebratenen Gemüse und Pineappeln. Niemand hat mit der United Fruit Company und ihren Bananen beschäftigt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
This UFC is way more crazy than a cage match. In 1871, as Baker's Bananas were making waves in Philly, this guy named Minor Cooper Keith... Okay, does not sound like a real name at all, but continue. Minor Cooper Keith, he left Brooklyn for Costa Rica because his uncle... Oh, tell me his name was Major Cooper Keith. I'm not sure, I'll have to check on that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
But anyway, he was also involved in the railroad industry and he brought Miner and his brothers to help build a railroad through the raw jungle. They had no experience, just thought, let's build a railroad through the Costa Rican wilderness.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Great. I mean, back then, Central America had virtually no infrastructure. Building a railroad through the mountains, rainforests and volcanoes of the jungle to the Caribbean coast was a monumental task. Scorching heat, torrential rain. Costa Rica threw every disaster at them and it was a nightmare.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Aber was hat das mit Bananen zu tun? So, by 1874, Miner's uncle, his brothers and about 5,000 workers were dead from the harsh conditions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Minor was left alone to run the show, but was out of money and had to figure out how to feed his remaining workers. So what does a guy do?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
How can we not? Es ist tatsächlich nicht eine schlechte Idee. Sicherlich eine bessere Idee, als zu versuchen, eine Rennbahn durch den Wald in den ersten Ort zu bauen. It was a fruitful venture. By 1890, forget about passengers, his trains were exclusively used for banana transport. Exporting bananas was way more lucrative than any passenger fare.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Die Plattform, die wir vor Shopify verwendet haben, hat regelmäßig Updates gebraucht, die teilweise dazu geführt haben, dass der Shop nicht funktioniert hat.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Miner was raking it in. And of course, as any good colonizing businessman does, he wanted more than just money. He wanted power and prestige. So he married the daughter of a former Costa Rican president in exchange for negotiating his father-in-law's debt with English banks. Er war ein großer Bananen-Baron, alle respektvoll und so weiter.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Und jeder hat einfach vergessen über diese 5.000 toten Arbeiter, eine Verletzung des Prozesses, glaube ich.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, sure. And meanwhile, the banana business stateside was booming. The United Fruit Company monopolized the banana trade. They built infrastructure and became incredibly powerful.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Absolut. Und diese drei Jungs, die die UFC fuhrten, kontrollierten alles. Miner kündigte die Straßen in Südamerika, Preston hatte eine Steamship-Fleet und Baker hatte Plantationen in den Westindien und im südwesten USA. Also machten sie Verträge mit Unternehmen in Kolumbien und was jetzt Panama ist und nahmen das Bananen-Business von null Profit in 1884 ab. Wow. Let me get this straight.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yes, and they didn't just grow bananas, they made bananas cool. They lobbied doctors to tell moms to give their babies bananas. They put out cookbooks with banana recipes. They spread banana fever across America. The demand skyrocketed and that's when the banana boys needed more land.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, definitely. And they were smart. But here's the kicker. They needed endless land because they were growing bananas like clones to speed up production.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
This led to the development of the disease-resistant Cavendish, the same variety we eat today, but also the cause of the destruction of a lot of tropical forests.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Ja, und die UFC dann, sie waren kraftvoll. Um die lokalen Regierungen glücklich zu machen, hatten sie gefordert, Infrastruktur in Plätzen zu bauen, die keine hatten, um Landrechte und exklusive Verträge zu bezahlen.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Die Regierungen rationalisierten das, indem sie sagten, dass die Lokalen von der Infrastruktur profitierten, aber wirklich die UFC brauchte die Infrastruktur, um ihre Operationen zu runtern.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, was this dishonest or just good business?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, and the banana business was powerful, like I said. The UFC built Central America's Telegraph Communications Network. They built a railroad that stretched from Mexico to Guatemala to El Salvador, controlled ports all over the Caribbean, and even took over the postal service in Guatemala.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Locals there called the UFC company El Pulpo, which means the octopus, because they had their slimy yellow tentacles in everything.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
Sure, but the conditions were downright criminal. Like workers lived in filthy dorms on the banana plantations. They paid their workers and company coupons that could only be spent at UFC stores. No actual currency was paid and they couldn't do anything about it because the banana guys were everywhere.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
I think that was the norm at the time. Let me just stress, the working conditions were horrific. Bananas grow in hot, humid weather, including monsoon season, and workers wade through rain and mud daily. So banana bunches are really heavy. Like we're talking carrying up to 100 pounds for 14 hours a day with no pay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1125: Bananas | Skeptical Sunday
The conditions were so bad that the life expectancy for men in Central America started to drop. And not just for plantation workers, but for the entire male population. All because of bananas. And how long did this go on?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it can be legitimate. And you can buy anything on eBay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So that's when having empathy gets a little more complicated when regular products are faked. Like counterfeit balsamic vinegar.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I know, I know. It's so much work. Yeah, I mean, it might not be real. Those same counterfeiting practices used with wine and bourbon, they're used with balsamic vinegars. So we trust with our eyes. And if we see that label and that seal intact and there's a dark liquid inside, we trust it's balsamic. But traditional balsamic vinegar is aged for years and must meet strict standards.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Hey, Jordan. Can you believe counterfeiting food is a massive, multibillion-dollar industry?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
With so many balsamic products on the market, it's really easy to get duped. So you look for, quote unquote, grape must in the ingredients or the designation Aceto Balsamico Traditionale. If it's just labeled Modena, it might be a cheaper diluted product.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, we could blame the Italians, but it's everywhere. And we can thank the Italians for giving it a head start. The Andrangheta, a powerful Italian mafia group dating back to the 1800s, they've made food counterfeiting a global racket. And they've been active in the United States since the 1950s, initially with those mislabeled olive oils.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But they've also made a name for themselves in the fruit and vegetable industries in South America, Asia, and Australia, using food as a front for drug trafficking. So they're reported to be operating in most of Europe, the Americas, Australia, West Africa, and Asia.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, you can eat a good diet there. But the stories are endless of fraud. And the stories where our food is used as a front just go on and on. In 2008, there was the infamous canned tomato bust. And it still holds the title, the biggest ecstasy bust ever. There were 15 million tablets of ecstasy worth half a billion dollars found stashed in cans of tomatoes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, the tomatoes were legit, but they were definitely tossed out with the pills. This case just shows how sophisticated these guys are and how entrenched they are in our food. And it's hard to fight. So countries have to share intel and beef up enforcement if they want to keep up.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Italy's got entire units just trying to protect their precious food heritage from these crooks, especially the Enrangheta.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
That's the lawyer in you, but it won't make you feel better that everything we eat is susceptible to being counterfeited. So from basic staples like milk and bread to high-end products like truffles and aged bourbon, counterfeit foods are everywhere. Essentially, if you eat food, you're being lied to.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, that's the thing. Food fraud is so complex and widespread and it can be dangerous. Mislabeled products can pose serious ethical dilemmas. The ecstasy in the tomato, if they didn't catch that, and then who knows what could have happened with the tainted tomatoes. But a lot of times pig meat is found in beef products.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And this is problematic for people with dietary restrictions or religious beliefs.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I'll say if anyone understands counterfeits, I would think it'd be God.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Right, but it's also about health issues. So honey is a particularly sneaky product because counterfeit honey can be cut with harmful substances like corn syrup. There's a lot of chemicals that are hard to pronounce that can be in there, and that can affect people with allergies or diabetes. So about 10 years ago, there was a case where cheap honey from China was relabeled as premium honey.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And the way they were shipping it, it contaminated honey. And then that was sold at a discount to unsuspecting buyers. And our Homeland Security, they even ran an operation called Project Honeygate. So this operation addressed the honey issue, and they had someone pose as an employee at a honey supplier to get inside the beehive.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's amazing. But for a whole year... They infiltrated a company called Honey Holding, which is one of the biggest honey suppliers in the U.S. I know. Yeah. Food companies don't really have great originality.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And then so they were investigating the counterfeiting and the testing that they revealed one container was contaminated with chloramethanol, which is an antibiotic that the United States has banned.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it sounds terrible. And this led to the Al Capone of honey laundering being busted in 2011 for allegedly smuggling cheap honey with this antibiotic in it from China and then relabeling it as expensive white Korean honey. So it's just another example of how deeply organized crime can penetrate legitimate industries.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are chewing on fresh honeycomb and like developing these palates to distinguish between honey and corn syrup. Americans do consume more honey than anyone else in the world, which they it's nearly like 400 million pounds a year. But about half of that is used by the big food companies in cereals, breads, cookies, lots of our processed food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So we don't consume a lot of it raw. And after U.S. beekeepers accused these Chinese companies of selling their honey at artificially low prices... The government imposed taxes, import duties, which tripled the price of Chinese honey. So since we're no longer importing so much of it, it's just opened the market to counterfeit that specific kind of honey.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But you are. So am I. And so is everyone listening.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I know, but take a really close look at them. Look at their beady little eyes, those smug upturned noses.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
That bears hiding something, Jordan. And in fact, there's countless reported cases of honey that's just sucrose or beet sugar or just straight up high fructose corn syrup, which is, again, dangerous if you have allergies or diabetes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, of course there is. Seafood fraud is a major concern. So often cheaper fish is labeled as more expensive varieties. Chilean sea bass was called Patagonian toothfish until the 1970s when, just like your reaction, the industry changed the name to make it sound more appetizing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But the thing is, it never is bass. It's cod. And it's hard to find any that actually come from Chilean waters. So what we're buying here in the States is usually just cod caught in the Arctic. But they list it on menus in a pretty font. And we pay a lot for the idea of this Chilean sea bass.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Maybe not. But there's also a problem with escolar, which is a fish that is often passed off as white tuna. Escolar is particularly bad because it contains histamines and that can cause like serious digestive issues. Think really unpleasant side effects.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Counterfeit food is a deliberate deception that can have no effect on us or enormous consequences. So it's really subjective. They can involve mislabeled ingredients. They can be outright fraudulent products, imitating brands or types of food, and in some cases pose serious health risks. Counterfeit food is like those fake Rolexes, but for your taste buds.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, A lot of the research I have read uses the phrase anal leakage.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
You have more real fish than you think.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Escalar is flat out banned in Japan and Italy because of those health risks.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Most likely they're passing it off for tuna. Tuna is the most frequently counterfeited seafood. And because there's a demand for raw tuna, the health risks, they're dire. In 2015, an investigation uncovered that some tuna is often injected with nitrates to make it appear fresher.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Nitrates are preservatives, and they turn brown or gray meat bright red. Ew, gross. Yeah, it's a trick of the tuna trade to make old tuna look new. Or any meat you buy that you want it to look really red, they inject it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's so gross. But we taste with our eyes first and we want our tuna and ham and tar, whatever, to be bright red. So when brown tuna loins go through a machine that injects nitrates, the meat oxidizes to regain its color. And now the recolored tuna can be sold as fresh.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Gross. Probably is. But this practice can cause allergic reactions, even food poisoning, the dreaded anal leakage. In 2017 in Europe, there were over 400 cases of poisoning due to nitrate spiked tuna. leading to a major crackdown. So Europol, which is like their CIA, their European crime fighting organization.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Right. Yeah. But they mobilized 11 different countries and they worked together. And in 2018, they seized a record 131 tons of counterfeit tuna. 80 people were arrested in connection to the tuna tampering.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I know it's senseless and they caught that operation. But unfortunately, these injections are continuing somewhere because tuna is seized on a regular basis. And there's other seafood practices that hurt your wallet more than your health, because often fish are gorged with water to increase their weight and that makes them more expensive.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And you're not going to like that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Never eating again. In a study conducted between 2010 and 2012, the ocean conservation organization called Oceana, it found that of the 1,200 samples taken, every single sushi restaurant in New York City that they tested carried mislabeled fish. Every single one.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So not only does this mean the customer overpays, but the fish on the plate is one you might have never ordered. Like snapper is up there with tuna being counterfeited. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, they used DNA barcoding to analyze samples of red snapper from restaurants, seafood markets, and grocery stores across North Carolina.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And over 90% of the grocery store samples were mislabeled. And the mislabeling rate for restaurants and seafood markets was 100 percent.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I have news for you. Even that oregano is often counterfeited. But yeah, that was rough. Before it was legal, pot smokers inhaled a lot worse than oregano, I bet.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, scallops, they actually could be anything. Rays, skate, shark a lot of times, like any variety of fish that's been sectioned up by a cookie cutter.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. We could just leave the ocean alone for a while.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Just learn where your food really comes from. If you're trying to choose between Colombian or Peruvian coffee grounds, you're fooling yourself. You're just wasting time in the grocery store aisle.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, hot brown water. Ground coffee can be mixed with All sorts of brown powders. Like often it's coffee husks, but it can be roasted corn, twigs, even ground up toasted parchment paper.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
The little stickers on our fruit, they have to be edible, according to the FDA. And so does the parchment. A lot of food's wrapped in in case we ingest it. So the companies are like, I have all this parchment paper. Yeah. I guess we'll just, it's a cheap way to bulk up the product. This is why buying whole beans and grinding them yourself is the best way to avoid a lot of coffee crimes.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's delicious toasted paper, I guess.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
There's currently a crackdown, though, on fake Starbucks coffee beans. This is happening in Chinese markets. And horrifically, a fake soluble coffee bean product recently made its way to some small retailers in Germany. And it contains dangerous amounts of glass and plastic shards. There's not a lot of information. This is a really new investigation into these specific beans.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Why? Why would you do that, Ed? Prison is really uncommon for these kind of crimes, though. Like, the biggest caviar con artist was actually busted after 23 years of the authorities trying to catch him. This was a couple years ago, but the judge declared it a victimless crime because no one got sick, so he didn't do any time. So...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It seems the caviar he was selling was still pretty good, but like any rare, covetable food, counterfeit caviar is rampant. And just a side note I want you to know that I learned while writing this is that some of the best and real caviar is actually coming out of Kentucky.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, when I was in college, let's just say my friend purchased what was most likely a bag of white paint chips and it burned.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, but apparently if you're into caviar, you're missing out. The caviar from the Ohio River in Kentucky, it's known as bluegrass caviar. It's sourced mostly from paddlefish and it's different. It's not like expensive caviar, which has large, big beads that pop in your mouth. The bluegrass caviar is delicate and creamy and it doesn't really have a hard pop, but it's still real caviar.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, Jordan, milk might be your drink of choice. But again, it's just a prime candidate for food fraud. So I don't know if you remember this, but there was the great Chinese infant formula debacle of 2008.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, yeah, melamine. And over 50,000 infants were known to be sickened from it. And, like, really tragically, six infants died from the milk tainted with melamine.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's the type of plastic that's used to fake higher protein content. And yeah, since that disaster, I mean, you'd think the milk would be made safer, right? But there's actually been more reports of melamine in milk. So it's like trying to fix a problem, but we're just adding more of the same problem. And... Unfortunately, the melamine is not the only thing showing up in milk.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
We've seen cases of milk contaminated with detergent and hydrogen peroxide because it makes it that bright white that we look for. So if you're going to drink milk, buying from a local farmer is the best and safest thing to do.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I don't know. Yeah, maybe, but juice.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I know, right? I'm still going to drink it. That was the thing. But the liquid that's supposed to be this refreshing juice is often a bottle of mystery. So I don't think you'll be surprised to find that the food fraud database, which is also a real thing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But it's a really good analogy for counterfeit foods. We're expecting something real. We pay for that authenticity. But if our senses don't catch the fraud, like the burning sensation from that oregano, we might never know. And someone is pocketing a few extra bucks.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Shows, don't look it up, you'll be more upset, shows most juices are blended with other juices.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, but sometimes it's, again, it's a money thing. Like a lot of times when pomegranate juice is tested, it has zero traces of pomegranate. And grape juice, it's just like the wild, wild west of labeling. So grape juice is the main culprit because once a dark liquid is in that sexy bottle, it's kind of anyone's guess what it is.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Meat is a whole other can of worms.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. So the stuff from school cafeterias has caused many nightmares. But in real life, mystery meat is way scarier than your high school stew or whatever. Meat fraud includes all sorts of industry sins. And the most prevalent seem to be horse meat masquerading as ground beef. and fox meat that pretends to be lamb.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Thankfully, most, and I will say most, not all, most of this happens outside the United States, but it's still really unsettling.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it doesn't it? The horse meat discovery exploded in late 2012 when horse DNA was first detected in beef in Ireland. But then they realized it wasn't just a local issue.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
chowing down on it. And authorities at first, they thought it was this isolated discovery. But beef prices started to drop around the world and it quickly expanded into a global scandal. So it turned out that horse meat was being sold as beef and put in products like burgers, lasagnas, raviolis.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And the horse meat labeled as beef affected products sold from Singapore to the Caribbean to all over Europe.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
There's that show Bob's Burgers, that cartoon. They have a whole episode about serving horse meat. And it's really interesting, actually, to see how it happens and it makes things cheaper. But it's just become such a common issue. It's entered pop culture.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's all about our global food supply chain. It's enormous and opaque, which makes it a playground for fraudsters. They can operate in this vast market without much chance of detection. Plus, high value products are prime targets for counterfeiting. And the higher the value of the product, the more tempting it is for fraudsters to get involved.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I think there was a huge outcry. It just wasn't happening in the States at the time. But the scale was enormous. So Tesco, which is the large UK supermarket chain. They reported sales of beef fell 50% after the discovery was reported. And investigations traced the problem to a complex network involving Dutch and Belgian traders who were manipulating meat labels to disguise the horse meat as beef.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So it was like a massive international game of hide and seek with labels. And it was all orchestrated by someone named Jan Fenn.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, one guy, Jan Fenn, he set up this elaborate system for handling and distributing fake meat products. So he had warehouses full of frozen horse meat, multiple businesses, and just hired teams that changed labels daily. And he made an estimated $2 million a year profit.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's wild. And then this mislabeled horse meat, it's sold to manufacturers who think they're buying beef. And then they distribute millions of ready-made meals like Stouffer's frozen meals and stuff to hundreds of supermarkets all over the world.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's possible. Don't think about it. But globalization has made it easier for food products to cross borders. And that complicates tracking and regulations. So in 2019, there was a scandal in France. So this was just like six years after the horse meat scandal.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Fifteen hundred tons of minced meat, which was meant for charities, was found to contain horse, pig and other like meat byproducts, but zero beef. Another supply chain mess across Europe. And this one tied back to counterfeiting happening in Poland.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And because of this, since 2020, the Polish veterinary authorities have gotten involved and they work with the Polish government to eliminate this practice.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, exactly. And even if you're skeptical, unless you have a chromatography set in your kitchen, how can you be sure of what you're eating?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Right. It's just a chemistry lab test. But it would be helpful because, unfortunately, the public is not given the full picture. So products get recalled, but many people have no idea what they've consumed. I hear products are recalled, and I don't know. I don't think about it when I go to the grocery store.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, absolutely. And for consumers, it's about immediate health concerns and losing trust in the food system. But honestly, our relationship with food is insane. Like I see people buying blue Dorito dusted cupcakes at the And I just wonder what people are paying attention to when they eat.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I know. And it really affects our wallets without us realizing it. So like saffron, it's the world's most expensive spice. And what does saffron taste like, Jordan?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Right. That's my point. It comes as those fine little red threads. Sometimes they're in those old school photo bags for some reason. I don't know, make it look extra fancy. But if it seeps out a little red into whatever we're cooking or our tea or whatever, then we're satisfied. But real saffron is made from the stigma of the saffron crocus, and it costs upwards of $2,000 a pound.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But it's expensive for a reason. It takes 150 flowers to make a single gram of saffron. But if you're a food fraudster, it only takes an onion and some orange dye to make the powder sitting on the clearance shelf.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, for sure. Vanilla is the second most expensive spice, which makes it ripe for the faking. If vanillin is listed, it's synthetic. It's fake. Same with any like added sugars like the high fructose and corn syrups. That's a red flag. And don't even get me started on cinnamon. Like most cinnamon sold in the United States is actually cassia, which is it's another wood product.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's made from bark of evergreen trees and it's not true cinnamon. So cassia is easy to confuse with real cinnamon, even like the whole barks and stuff, but especially once it's ground. So sometimes you think it's cinnamon. It's It's often the cassia or like other fillers. So we can find food fraud all over the spice rack.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's a range of players. If you can exploit gaps in food regulations and oversight, then you can manipulate the food market to your advantage at any scale. So we're talking everyone from individual criminals like your friend's oregano dealer to large corporations, organized crime groups, and even entire mafia networks.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Unless it's a thousand percent like picked from your garden and ground, everything on your spice rack probably has sugar as an ingredient. We just don't notice it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
These spices are deceptive. Like black pepper, another hotbed for fraud. So it's often mixed with papaya seeds, juniper berries, or other fillers. So going whole peppercorn, always better to try and avoid the issues.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
All right. Who has the space? It's tough. There are efforts to enforce stricter regulations. There's a call for more robust testing and verification procedures. Like manufacturers, they do perform thousands of self-checks each year, but transparency is definitely lacking. And only the most dangerous frauds are reported to authorities.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So many other issues remain hidden, relying on the goodwill of manufacturers.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And it takes courage on any level to be a whistleblower. They're usually brave factory workers or journalists and prosecutors who work hard to bring these issues to light. But it requires stringent regulatory measures. And honestly, with how the food supply chain works, there has to be better communication between all the borders for stronger enforcement.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I wish I had better news, but at the end of the day, we should be reading the ingredients and looking out for words like aroma or essence. Added sugars and sneaky ingredients like vanillin, they're common tricks. So just buying whole foods is a safer bet. After all, how can you just fake an orange?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, my God. Totally. And counterfeiting leads to big economic losses. It harms brand reputations. But Here's the catch, like the counterfeiting, it has to be discovered and publicized. So the profit margin from fake foods, it often outweighs the losses for the companies. And food fraud, it'll undermine the trust in the food system.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So sometimes that's why it's not reported, but it can pose serious health risks. So it is like this weird balance. It damages the reputation of genuine products and raises broader issues of transparency and regulatory enforcement. So Italy likes to pride itself on being at the forefront of the fight against fraud. They have a special unit that they created called the National Gastronomic Heritage.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yes. Its efforts are focused on olive oil, developing a unique surveillance system that allows the controllers to follow in real time all the producers of extra virgin olive oil down to each delivery. This meticulous control is equivalent to putting the entire production of Italian olive oil under administrative supervision.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But it's having dismal results because in May 2021, the consumer protection magazine Salvagente tested 15 bottles of oil from major brands and none were 100 percent extra virgin.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
As technology advances... So do the methods of thrusters.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Advances in food packaging will tackle the problems in some ways because there'll be better detection power. However, even though increased awareness, better technology for detection, and more stringent regulations are steps in the right direction... Fraudsters are known for staying a few steps ahead. The mafia is smart. And so it's a continuous effort.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And while the outcome's uncertain, I do think a little bit of progress is being made.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Exactly. I think we just have to surrender to the lie. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But eating more whole foods, there's just no trick. It just comes down to being informed. So buy your meat from a reputable supplier. Find a butcher you trust. Check labels carefully. Be skeptical of vague or misleading information. Trust your senses. If food looks or smells off, don't eat it. That's a big one.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. We just have to support the transparency, which means getting behind the rigorous tracking and verification systems. So we have to research and favor brands and suppliers that provide simple information about their sourcing and production practices. It's on us. We have to discipline ourselves to have discriminating food shopping practices.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's actually a thing called agro mafia and it's a 16 billion dollar year industry. So food and agriculture are ripe for mafia infiltration because those sectors are less technologically advanced and often involve small-scale competition, which makes them vulnerable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And it's just so difficult because we can only buy what is sold online.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I mean, a lot of those scenes were in a restaurant, right? Like, the mafia has infiltrated the entire food chain from farms to restaurants. They buy up the cheap farmland, livestock, markets, and even restaurants, laundering money through what's become a leading industry in Italy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Exactly. The agromafia's reach extends from production to packaging, transport, and distribution. So the value of this criminal enterprise has almost doubled in recent years, from $12.5 billion being reported in 2011 to over $22 billion by 2018. And it now represents about 15% of total mafia turnover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, that's right. It's a highly profitable venture with profit margins as high as 2000 percent. So compared to drug running or robberies, what we think of as the mafia, this is way less dangerous and it's more lucrative. So the mafia's involvement is all about exploiting vulnerabilities.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Drugs and food, they ship well together and restaurants provide a perfect front for laundering money and conducting criminal business. So our food is deeply entwined with crime, but it's easy to overlook when we're just hungry.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It's actually worse than you might think. Mafia syndicates have turned food fraud into a massive profitable enterprise. And according to the Observatory of Crime in Agriculture and the Food Chain, that's a real Italian commission battling food crime.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
It probably sounds nicer in Italian. The mafia has infiltrated the entire food supply chain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Right. That's what it sounds like. But all of Italy's major crime syndicates have rooted themselves so deeply in every part of the food chain. It affects the path that our food takes around the world. And this web of crime leads to other things.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So according to Professor Umberto Santino, who's a mafia historian from Palermo, the mob's interests in the agriculture industry extend to, quote, human trafficking, money laundering, extortion, loan sharking, illegal breeding, backstreet butchering and baking. There's burial of toxic waste on farmland. It's an integrated cycle, a full package of systemic interactions.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And the fraud can start anywhere in the world. So when crops are destroyed somewhere, organized crime steps in to fill the gap. And that's when counterfeit products start flooding the market.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Crops are destroyed. Organized criminal activity flourishes when farms face bad weather and a hurricane comes or a drought, whatever it is.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Absolutely. Like this year's heat wave in California destroyed Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. So I can guarantee everybody that counterfeit Cabernet Sauvignon will be on the rise.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, olive oil fraud is rampant. That's where it all begins. And many consumers have lost their virginity, figuratively speaking, when it comes to genuine Italian olive oil. Cheap oils are blended with a splash of real extra virgin olive oil, and then a high-end label is slapped on the bottle. So this is being battled constantly. Take Operation Yellow Gold, for example. Yeah, yeah, perfect.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
In Puglia, traffickers were caught producing counterfeit olive oil. They were using rapeseed oil and selling it as extra virgin. The operation was so advanced, it infiltrated international markets, including restaurants in Switzerland and Germany. And they made millions of dollars off the scams.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, unfortunately, it's tough. Most olive oil that claims to be quote-unquote from Italy, it could have been imported to Italy, re-exported, and then imported back. So there's ways to get around these weird labeling laws, and it's just nearly impossible to tell without testing. So the best you can do is visit the Italian countryside and stock up directly if you're up for being...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
The olive oil connoisseur weirdo with a cellar.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, olive oil is a big issue. The mafia's influence definitely spans beyond that, though. So there's a big counterfeit cheese market.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, in fairness with the plastic stuff, it's yes and no. A plastic... is simply any material that can be molded into a desired shape. And processed cheese does fit that definition. But no one I can find is like grinding up plastic bottles and slapping cheese labels on them. What happens is cheeses are melted, they're blended, and they're reshaped and then often mislabeled.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
So there was a major scandal in 2016 that revealed many Parmesan cheeses labeled as 100 percent pure contain significant amounts of cellulose, which is a wood product.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it was a real eye-opener. Yeah, it's disgusting. So for years, though, consumers were being duped by these domestic imitations of Italy's famous Parmesan. And instead of the real deal, which only has salt, rennet, and pure hormone-free milk from cows fed a natural diet, many of these Parmesan products were using lower-quality milk, additives, and sometimes, Jordan, up to 20%. Wood.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's the mafia. And their operations are incredibly sophisticated. So the fraudsters use advanced methods to avoid detection. And there's just a need for better international cooperation. So countries have to work together and share information to tackle this effectively. But there's just so many products to track. There's honey, maple syrup, cinnamon, wine.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
They're all really frequently counterfeited.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, yeah, it's never ending. Wine fraud's a multi-billion dollar industry. And experts say that around 5% of wines sold are fake, which is a lot considering how much How much wine we drink. And often it involves passing off just average wine as a prestigious label or selling lesser vintages as high end ones to fetch high prices.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, and neither can we, because I'm sure that we've probably celebrated something with a bogus wine, but we still got the requisite buzz. So unless you're a serious wine collector and you're stocking your cellar with, like, back vintage Chateau Lafitte, this isn't likely to be a problem you actually care about. We get ripped off on a $15 glass of wine, whatever.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
But if your $2,000 bottle is bogus.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Right. Stuff like that gets missed by average consumers. And it's just so easy to be fooled, especially with how accessible just fake labels are these days. And it's not just wine. Counterfeit alcohol in general is a huge problem.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
Right. But this problem goes like way beyond a disappointing cocktail. The bourbon community is especially up in arms and it's a competitive world with thousands of people vying for just a few barrels. So there's even a push for like anti-tampering measures to combat bourbon counterfeiting. But the sad truth is the counterfeits are out there.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And if the bottle is sealed and it looks legit, consumers are not satisfied.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
I guess it's subjective. There's a famous story where four Wall Street, I imagine, douchey businessmen were served an $18 bottle of wine when they had ordered a $2,000 bottle of wine. And like a young couple at the table near them got the $2,000 bottle. So it was switched. And the young couple was just like, yeah, our wine's OK. And the businessmen were raving about how great their wine was.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1088: Counterfeit Foods | Skeptical Sunday
And it's just a classic case of tasting with our wallets. I mean, it was an embarrassing accident, of course, but it speaks to your point about empathy. If those businessmen had ordered that bottle from eBay as collectors, would you feel more bad for them?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, exactly. And then the United States Public Health Service was paying attention and they took McKay's research and sprinted to investigate this Colorado brown stain that was appearing in bauxite Arkansas. And this is interesting because bauxite was owned by the Aluminum Company of America or Alcoa. And it's important because a toxic byproduct of aluminum manufacturing is fluoride.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So Alcoa denied contaminating the water supply for years. But test after test found, of course, lots of fluoride in the water around their facility. So in 1931.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, yeah. Capitalism was strong then, too. McKay persevered, and he took water samples from all these towns where the brown stain was experienced. And his 30-year quest finally just confirmed that high levels of waterborne fluoride was in all the samples and was causing this staining of tooth enamel.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Well, one mystery often ripples into others, right? So when the research took off and fluoride studies were finally being done by the NIH, the Dental Hygiene Unit, their first task starting in 1931 was to to develop an accurate way to measure fluoride in drinking water. That took a couple years.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And then when they had the right tools, a critical discovery found levels of up to one part per million in drinking water did not cause brown stain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Well, yeah. I mean, researchers understood too much fluoride caused the stains, but the teeth were resistant to decay. So they wondered whether adding fluoride to drinking water at the exact right, safe, balanced amount would help fight tooth decay. But this hypothesis would need to be tested. So... That was 1931, you know, early 30s.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
But it wasn't until 1944 that the City Commission of Grand Rapids, Michigan, voted to add fluoride to its public water supply. In 1945, Grand Rapids became the first community in the world to fluoridate its drinking water.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
When the National Institute of Dental Research was started in 1948, they took the reins of all this fluoride research and launched a 15-year research project to monitor the rate of tooth decay among Grand Rapids' almost 30,000 schoolchildren. So dentists, yeah, dentists went in and they examined the kids once a year to document the effects of fluoridation.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And after 11 years into the study, cavity rates in children had dropped over 60 percent.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I know, absolutely. I mean, fluoride promised to revolutionize dental care, making tooth decay for the first time in history a preventable disease. So, yeah, it was great. Water fluoridation flowed into other towns and cities and transformed dentistry into a prevention-oriented profession. Today, it continues to be dental science's main weapon in the battle against tooth decay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Right. And it's true. I mean, according to the CDC, the amount of fluoride in toothpaste doesn't provide the level of protection needed to fight tooth decay alone. Together, fluoridated water and toothpaste work to provide maximum protection.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Warning, kids are stupid. Yeah, they try to eat it and then they get sick. I mean, there is a little bit of risk, but those warnings are found on anything that isn't meant for consumption. So toys have the same warning pretty much, but toothpaste isn't required to have a nutrition label listing, you know, calories and things because it's not food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So it has that warning label because of the active ingredient is this non-food called fluoride. And if you overconsume it, it can make you sick. Now, the warnings, they lean towards kids because they're most likely to snack on yummy toothpaste, right? So...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
There's a maximum fluoride content that is mandated in our toothpaste, and the American Dental Association puts their seal of acceptance on any toothpaste with fluoride so consumers can know it meets the ADA standards for safety.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
We need to know that. Yes, it's important.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
To earn the seal from the ADA, the toothpaste has to contain fluoride, have no artificial sugar, and it's re-evaluated every three years to maintain the approval. I don't know about toothbrushes, so... We'll look that up. They don't change a lot, so I don't know. I don't think they have fluoride in the bristles.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Unfortunately, there's actually chemicals and synthetic ingredients allowed in toothpaste, but that's a separate concern. Also, another side note is... You know, while we're talking about the packaging, I came across a conspiracy a bunch of times in my research that claims the different colors on the bottom of a tube of toothpaste mean something about the chemicals inside.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And I just want to be 100% clear for anyone that might believe that those colors mean something. They are solely for the machines that seal the seams of the tubes. Yeah.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
OK, so, yes, consuming large amounts of fluoride from dietary supplements or dental products can make you sick. And in extraordinarily rare cases, you could die.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I don't mean to take it lightly, but it's just that rare. You would have to be taking shots of mouthwash for days and eating toothpaste pies, you know? But fluoride in high doses is a poison. And as we know, with anything, the dose makes the poison. So if you ate a spoonful of that fluoride gel they use at the dentist, you would definitely barf.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, it feels so good when you lick your teeth afterwards.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Right. Hey, Jordan, thanks for having me back on Skeptical Sunday.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
No, no, I love mine too. I love mine too. So what people are worried about, which goes beyond the staining of the teeth, is is the major hazard of fluoridation, which is called dental fluorosis, which also known as Colorado brownstain. So in the United States, the amount of fluoride that's added to drinking water is at a level that comes with just such a low likelihood of fluorosis.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And severe fluorosis occurs in less than 1% of the entire world population. And its highest occurrence is in children, which makes sense because the theory is, like we said, they're probably going to eat more toothpaste than adults and drink more mouthwash.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, severe fluorosis can lead to pitting in tooth enamel, which is just more damage to your teeth, but that's also extremely rare. You know, the levels of fluoride are closely monitored. In fact, for the first time in over 50 years, in 2015,
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
The United States lowered its recommended levels of fluoride in drinking water because there's just so much on the shelves at the grocery stores and in our food. And a lot of people freaked out about that because they were changing the fluoride levels, but it shouldn't alarm people. It should... Comfort people to know our fluoride levels are paid close attention to and adjusted.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, well, fluoride is a mineral, and it occurs naturally in water, soil, air. It's found in a lot of our food. We just absorb it all the time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And it should make sense when looking at those shelves of products with fluoride that we don't need as much in our water.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Right. Right. And if you don't want fluoride in your toothpaste, you do have options. You know, there's Tom's, there's Arm & Hammer, there's Bites. They all have fluoride-free options and they're readily available. Bites? Never heard of that one. Yeah, they're getting more and more popular. It's all about the packaging. They're these little tablets you chew on and they foam in your mouth.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And so they just come in a glass bottle. So it's eco-friendly packaging, no plastic tubes. But you can get those as well with or without fluoride.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Ooh, green, fuzzy teeth. People, they associate fluoride with dental care and it's in the water, but we need to understand it's found in our food. I mean, depending on the water source of Mountain Dew, there could be fluoride in there. And because it's a mineral, it can be present in our soil and water that we use for our crops.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So it's thought that the food with the highest content seems to be brewed tea. I'm not sure why that is, but... Even if you only use distilled water for cooking and drinking, you'll still absorb fluoride from food.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
No, that's impossible. The distillation process effectively removes fluoride and a bunch of other contaminants.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, you can distill it out. Filtering it, like if you're thinking of a Brita or something, I don't think that's possible. I couldn't find... any filter or cartridge that can successfully remove fluoride 100%. And those activated carbon filters, they're ineffective at removing fluoride. And any product you see that makes those claims should be verified.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, for sure, it can be. I mean, fluoride strengthens tooth enamel, making our teeth more resistant to acid, and it stops cavities from forming. So fluoride can even help to rebuild our tooth's surface. And water fluoridation, that is adding it to the public water supply, provides frequent and consistent contact with low levels of fluoride, and this prevents tooth decay. It's amazing.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
But if people have some extra money, you can install something to filter out fluoride at home.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
You know, reverse osmosis water filtration, it is the best, but it can be pricey. The other option is steam distillation. And it's understandable that people want those things because they're freaked out and they think something... is being forced into their body. So if people are concerned, it's a good option.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
You can look up how much fluoride's in your tap water, decide what you want to invest, and then filter it out. But here's the thing. The money you're spending filtering out fluoride will be spent at the dentist filling cavities.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Well, I don't know. Have you seen a rise in your own cavity rate since you got that?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Maybe. Maybe not. Ask your dentist today.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
There was a study in 2018 that showed a surprising cause of cavities is reverse osmosis. Oh, great.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
It was just one study, but these researchers recognized that, of course, these filtration systems are used to remove chlorine and other contaminants and improve the taste and smell of water. There's some specific filter that I don't really quite understand that'll put good fluoride back in.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So if you filter out the bad stuff and you don't make up for the good fluoride somewhere in your lifestyle, you're likely to get more cavities.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, no pun intended there. For every dollar spent on water fluoridation, it saves the consumer about $38 in health care, according to the CDC. And without fluoridated water, your dentist bills will be a lot higher because you'll have more dental problems. And then, as we know, when your teeth have problems, that affects a lot of your organs.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
It can affect your heart, your kidney, just your overall health.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Adding fluoride to the water is one of the less expensive ways to prevent tooth decay. I don't have all the economics behind that.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
We should get into the fluoridation business. It's definitely cheaper than treating tooth decay, though. And in 2015, the Cochrane Review, which is like the gold standard for high quality, trusted science research, they released data from 2015. 20 observational studies that spanned from the 1950s to the 90s.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And it showed water fluoridation reduces the risk of decay and fillings as well as a premature loss of baby teeth by significant amounts. And the authors concluded that water fluoridation is effective for reducing cavity rates in both primary and permanent teeth in children. I mean, there's just savings there, especially if you have kids.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I think there needs to be more studies on that because I could only find one study involving pregnant women that found fluoride transfers from the woman to the fetus. And this study gave 800 mothers a milligram a day of fluoride during the last six months of pregnancy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Then they examined the children when they were three years old and just came up with no significant difference in the children's cavity rates. So the Cochrane Review concluded that there's no evidence that shows fluoride supplementation in pregnant women prevents dental cavities in their offspring or causes any harm.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course. I mean, I get that. But there's several studies that show even in communities with fluoridated water, fluoride in breast milk is very rarely detected. So it's just non-existent and it's hard to measure. So pregnant women don't seem to absorb it the same way. So I think if you're worried about it with your baby, the thing to look at is actually just baby formula.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Well, fluoride is the 13th most abundant element in the Earth's crust. So when water moves through spaces between rocks, fluoride just dissolves naturally into the water. The amount varies depending on where in the world your water comes from. So natural fluoride levels range from barely perceptible to over 10 parts per million.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
The fluoride levels in infant formula, whether they're milk or soy-based, they'll vary depending on, of course, the water source you use to make the formula itself.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. And it's just I mean, my personal opinion is, of course it does. But we just don't have a conclusive scientific answer because of the lack of studies. There's some evidence that shows that. You know, the addition of fluoride prevents cavities in adults. And from 2004 to 2006, an observational study was done of 4,000 Australian adults over the age of 15.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
That showed a 10% lower rate of fillings, cavities, and decay in the adults who had the fluoridated public water. Then Australia did another smaller study, and that showed even lower rates. So these findings point to fluoridated drinking water preventing cavities in children and adults. But we just need more studies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, bottled drinking water rarely has fluoride added to them, but it can naturally be present depending on the water source. The thing is, unless the label makes a claim about the product's fluoride content, there is no requirement to list the amount of fluoride in bottled water on the label.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, sure. I mean, first, let's be clear. The fluoride in our water and our dental products is not a medicine. A U.S. court decision ruled that fluoride is a nutrient, not a vitamin, and definitely not medication.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. I mean, nutrients, vitamins and medication are distinct scientific categories, and that means that their roles are legally defined, too. So nutrients come from foods. That's our carbs, our fats, our proteins. We get vitamins from our food, but the vitamins are things we don't make ourselves, and they play various roles like acting as antioxidants and supporting our immune function.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So unlike nutrients and vitamins, medications are things that are designed to treat or prevent diseases. And they are all regulated by health authorities. And there is zero evidence fluoride interacts with any vitamin or medication. But it's a nutrient and not a medication because it's a mineral.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Right. And I've seen that too everywhere. And it's really strange because tons of research and studies show that fluoride does not increase the risk of cancer or other serious health problems for that matter. People also claim it contributes to diabetes and heart and kidney problems. But the National Cancer Institute, among several other institutions, endorse fluoride as safe and effective.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Careful epidemiological studies have failed to support associations with either cancer or any of those other conditions. There's just zero evidence.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it seems like it should affect our bones and nails, but it makes sense. But clinical trials, they've actually had conflicting findings about fluoride doing enough to prevent bone fractures. So one study showed a significant reduction in fracture risk. Another study found no change in fracture rates or bone density at all. So it's unclear.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
We know our bones absorb it, but is it doing anything? It doesn't seem like it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. Well, I mean, again, it depends on the water supply, but many countries add fluoride to their water supply. The British government very recently announced a new expert review of fluoride to strengthen the legislation around fluoridated water. They want to get more of their water fluoridated. And the evidence that fluoride protects against cavities is just overwhelming and not up for debate.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I know it's hard to conceptualize, but it is not a lot. 10 parts per million is the same as 0.009 milligrams per liter. If you want to think about it in a more solid way, one ppm is comparable to one inch in 16 miles. So, yeah, not a lot. But fluoride, it's everywhere. It's in all our water sources. It's in rivers, lakes, surface water. But it's really, really trace amounts.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
But for some reason, in England and Wales, less than 10% of the population receives fluoridated water.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Every stereotype's rooted somewhere, I guess. But unfortunately, the fluoridation proposals are really opposed there by people who see fluoride as an unjustified hazard. And the debate raises both scientific and ethical questions in every country. You know, there's there's different problems in countries that are in what's called the natural fluoride belt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And that extends from, you know, like Turkey through China, Japan and the Mideast, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. That's like the whole fluoride belt. The rates of fluorosis are high there. So what they're actually debating is defluoridation. And that's okay for their location and their products and their treatments that are available. This doesn't discount fluoride.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
It makes a stronger case for it to be leveled, but people might... hear a piece of that information and think, you know, we should be taking it out. But it's just a regional thing. It's actually neighborhood by neighborhood, water source by water source that we need to look at.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, experts just objectively agree on the rationale for fluoride. There's several alternative dentists that don't recommend fluoride, but the oral health benefits, they're not debated. It's the implementation of fluoride that's questioned. And when experts ask questions and pose hypotheses, that information can get distorted by the time it gets to the public, like with the fluoride belt.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
But there just aren't enough studies being done to back up or disprove anybody's skepticism.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Right. But we do know what fluoride is and its use is quite transparent. The CDC, they have a website that lists fluoride levels in tap water by county.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, like any conspiracy theory, I guess, those fluoride-related ones, they come from a kernel of truth because exposure to higher levels of fluoride over a long period of time can not only cause dental fluorosis, but lead to a condition called skeletal fluorosis. And that's when... Fluoride builds up in the bones and it gives you joint pain or weak bones.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
But that is so rare that only five cases total ever have been reported in the United States. So it does occur in places with naturally high levels of fluoride. But again, it's still pretty rare even over there. And from this, people have wondered if fluoride then is contributing to arthritis or... osteoporosis or some other kind of problems that they want to blame something on.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, we mature. But I mean, of course, and we should be asking the questions, but we also need to be understanding the studies that back up those questions. So if it's a balance of fluoride intake that's best for our teeth, you know, it might be the same for other conditions. But many experts consider evidence of these claims to be weak and coming from flawed studies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
But all of this gray area confusion does lead to a bigger point about fluoride studies.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Well, pro-fluoride side, they can demonize those who question fluoride, and it makes it difficult to get funding for those kinds of hypotheses. On the other hand, the anti-fluoride camp has convinced many communities to deny the benefits of water fluoridation to millions of children and adults. And then those people suffer higher cavity rates and dental bills.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So community health programs, they need to be based on scientific evidence, not arguments or feelings.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course. We all need to practice more stoicism or at least let people know the variables involved with fluoride. Like it depends on our age, our sex, our location.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, it's a balance. So we add it to reduce cavities among the population. That's it. I mean, fluoridation, it's not actually required in any community in America. And the Safe Drinking Water Act prohibits the EPA from mandating the addition of any substances to our drinking water. But every town just votes on it.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, it couldn't hurt, but... It's not just a matter of understanding that fluoride is too high in some parts of the world. It's also understanding that our fluoride consumption, it's being observed and being corrected all the time.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
That Cochrane review in 2015, they concluded that early scientific investigations on water fluoridation, which were mostly conducted before 1975, are now deeply flawed. which of course people are, then they think fluoride's totally wrong, but it wasn't because it was flawed research or some kind of mind control.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
It's what we talked about earlier that no way in 1901 or the 20s or the 40s or even the 60s could somebody have imagined the availability of fluoride we have today. The early studies just didn't account for the subsequent widespread use of all these fluoride-containing products.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, which wasn't the case. But when you talk about water, I mean, there's just something so personal about our water. And people take the sanctity of their water really seriously. And most people who do worry about the water fluoridation, they aren't conspiracy theorists. They're just concerned because they think a harmful chemical is in the water supply.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, yeah, come on. Adding anything to the water supply sounds like some movie plot, but it's just not the case here. It's easy to spin, though, right? I mean, experts hesitate on publishing findings that might criticize fluoride. Of course, because no matter what side you're on, that's bad. And there was a really controversial study, kind of the most famous one that came out in 2019.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
The reputable medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, they published this study that suggested a link between fluoride, pregnant women, and the IQ of their children. It was really scary. And it warned pregnant women, hey, like, just watch your fluoride consumption.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I know. The author of that study, Christine Till, said, you know, quote, I think this message could be easily misconstrued as us saying don't drink fluoridated water. We're not saying that. We don't want to stir up controversy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course. But it's, you know, you'd have to read the whole article to understand what they're saying. And, you know, like a lot of information, people, they're not reading the study and they just assume the worst from what twisted facts they hear.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So there's this noted anti-fluoride group called the Fluoride Action Network, and they posted links to over a dozen media reports of the study with misleading headlines. They issued their own press release two days after the study ran, claiming that to continue fluoridation in the name of dental health is a huge disservice to the children of this country.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And by the time that fluoride reaches humans, it's absorbed into the blood through the digestive tract. And then it collects in areas with high calcium content like our bones and teeth. It's estimated to reduce tooth decay in children by 40 to 70 percent.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
It was just such a hyperbolic reaction and really dangerous.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Of course. And that's just human nature. And we see that in the fluoride debate. Like when environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine proponent and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. tweeted a CNN story covering that JAMA study, someone tweeted back that, you know, fluoride's this byproduct of aluminum and we've been conned for years to put it in our water and we've all just been drinking poison.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Right. But RFK agreed with that response and it went viral and people trust who they feel is right. Not the most reasonable explanation. Like on InfoWars, the right wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, he devoted a segment to the study and just wrongly claimed that fluoride brain damages babies and lowers your IQ. And then immediately after, plugged water filters sold on his website. So my skepticism of the skepticism is pretty high.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Oh my gosh, what is wrong with gay frogs? But anyway.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
It's tough because, you know, like we said, people are listening to what they want to hear. In response to all this misinformation about the JAMA study, public health groups like the UK's National Health Service and the CDC and the ADA, they all got together. They all put out statements about
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
fluoridation of public water supplies as being the single most effective public health measure to help prevent tooth decay. But I mean, there was a lot of damage done from the article already.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. And as the tenor of the public debate over fluoride, you know, has slowed necessary research into this health program that affects millions of us, you know, it gets just so confusing. But experts agree that the hypothesis that fluoride is like a neurodevelopmental toxicant. Sure.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Like, let's give that some serious consideration, but let's not, you know, confuse that with support for banning fluoride. Researchers know they have to walk on eggshells around the topic of fluoride to the point that the editorial note of that JAMA study said the decision to publish this article was not easy. I mean, research shouldn't be that crazy.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, I'm not concerned, but definitely there's something to study, of course. As less and less fluoride is required in our water supply because more and more is on the shelves, there could come a time when it might make sense to stop adding it. But right now, there's a lot of inequity in that solution.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Well, fluoride works in three different ways. It reduces the ability of plaque bacteria to produce acid. It strengthens tooth enamel. And it's absorbed into the crystalline structure of tooth enamel, making it harder for acids to attack our teeth. I mean, fluoride is objectively effective in lowering cavity rates in children. And there's a lot of evidence it does the same for adults.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, I just mean that it's really subjective to where you live. So a lot of people say removing fluoride would have negative dental health effects in vulnerable communities. And what I mean by vulnerable is like there was a 2019 study that removed fluoride from Juneau, Alaska's water supply.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And what happened was there was a staggering increase in cavities in the children there that were under six. They say it costs an estimated $300 more per child a year for the dentist.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And the study says that this is probably because, and this makes sense to me, that Juneau, Alaska's, their market shelves, they have a much more limited selection of foods and dental products than we do on the mainland.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. I mean, like I said, it's water source by water source, really. You know, starting in 1901, McKay and his colleagues, they did really deliberate, diligent research. And, you know, fluoride's a medical discovery that should be marveled. It should be celebrated. And it is just objectively one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So, you know, fluoride health, it can be achieved through supporting more research, understanding what that research is and just discussing fluoridation practices that are optimal for everyone's oral health.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
But there's just not as many studies on adults, so it's unclear how much it actually helps our teeth. Regardless, no matter what our age, our teeth are always in either a state of demineralization or remineralization. And cavities occur when bacteria feed on sugars in your mouth, creating acids that erode your teeth by dissolving your tooth mineral. That's demineralization.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And then remineralization, that's what fills in our small cavities and involves the construction of crystals from minerals.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, they'll be happy. These crystals are actually legit. And they stack together like Legos and they just make our teeth strong. So this happens naturally just in regular mineralization. And it results in an inorganic mineral substance called hydroxyapatite. And hydroxyapatite, it creates these super physiologically strong bonds that wouldn't otherwise naturally occur in nature.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So even though fluoride and hydroxyapatite have different chemical bonds, they're producing similar results.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, incredible, right? I mean, about 80% of the fluoride consumed is absorbed in our gastrointestinal tract. And then about half of that is stored in our bones and teeth. Children, they store more like 80% because they're still developing. And then the rest of it, it just shows up in like our plasma and saliva and urine. It's everywhere.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
There's over 214 million Americans that live in communities which supply fluoridated water. So it's like 75 percent of the population.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
No, no, because it's not mandated. So it's just most people are voting for it. But the U.S. Public Health Service, they have fluoride recommendations for different variables, like places without fluoridated water, they recommend should use some kind of fluoride supplement. And places people are expected to drink more water, like warmer climates, have less added to their water.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
In 1986, the EPA established the maximum allowance, which is four milligrams per liter in public water supply to prevent overexposure while still preventing these cavities.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Sure. I mean, I get that. But people are all over the place with what they don't like about fluoride. And I think a lot of it is misinformation and ignorance to what fluoride is and does. Remember the movie Dr. Strangelove?
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I mean, that's an extreme example. But in that movie, General Ripper claimed that not only that, but that water fluoridation was destroying our precious bodily fluids, which is a reference to this conspiracy that water fluoridation is a a plot to weaken America and make it susceptible to a communist takeover.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I have come across occasional communist conspiracies about fluoride that still exist, but they're pretty fringe.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Sure. I mean, right now there's a major lawsuit in California to get fluoride completely removed from the water. That's still pending. The case was brought by a group who claim any level of fluoride is harmful, but it At the same time, there's a major lawsuit in Buffalo, New York, where the city is being sued for damaging their children's dental health by not putting enough fluoride in the water.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
So it's just this wide divergence about how safe people feel with having fluoride in drinking water. And it's confusing because... If fluoride exceeds a certain threshold, it is actually poisonous. And that sounds really scary. But, you know, we control fluoridation levels so they are at the healthiest amount to decrease tooth decay without making us sick.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
For obvious reasons, there are strict rules about our water supply.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
It wasn't quite that drastic. It was more of a slow ride. So fluoride was discovered in 1901, and it took decades to prove to the world that it's a scientific revolution in preventative care and minimizing tooth decay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah, of course, it's a public health worry. But Jordan, your smile is beautiful. Like tooth decay used to be an out of control problem. I mean, since no one was keeping a great track of cavity rates, it's hard to say exactly. Some studies say that before fluoride was understood, tooth decay and cavities were 50 to 70 percent higher. Others say around 20 to 40 percent.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Either way, it was a way more common thing for people to be missing a lot of teeth and often be toothless by old age. But yeah, thanks to fluoride, it's way more manageable.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Yeah. I mean, that's a whole different thing. Let's keep it light. Let's focus on the fluoride here.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Okay, first, let's just point out that fluoridation is such a minor part of water's journey. There is way more concern about getting things out of our water supply. How we got to fluoride as an additive, it's actually a pretty good detective story. So in 1901...
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Frederick McKay, he graduated from UPenn Dental School on the East Coast in Philly, and he headed to Colorado Springs to open up a practice. And when he got there, his mind was blown because his new community was just filled with people who had gross, gnarly brown stains on their teeth. He actually wrote that it looked like chocolate candies were stuck on everyone's teeth.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Oh, God, no. I mean, he never saw anything like it in any academic books or new dental literature. And the residents there gave him two theories. They thought it was either from drinking cheap milk or eating too much pork. I don't know why.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
Sounds science-y. I mean, whatever it was, everyone had it, so they just normalized it, and they called it Colorado Brownstain. Ha!
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
What a coincidence. Gross. But this guy McKay, he spent the next several years researching the bizarre condition and presented all his findings at the Colorado Dental Association convention. There was this researcher there at the convention who was pretty well known and did not believe McKay. So
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
He went to Colorado Springs and ended up writing, quote, one does not have to search for Colorado brownstain for it is continually forcing itself on the attention of the stranger by its persistent prominence.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
My gosh. Yeah. This led to discovering other areas of the country that were suffering from Colorado brownstain.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
You know, like anything else. This was before the weed thing, but by 1915... A hundred years or so. Yeah. McKay, his research showed that the stained enamel was rooted in childhood and because the kids' teeth aren't calcified. So if you're an adult, it's not going to happen to your teeth because our teeth are calcified. So people like McKay, who were new to town, they were not at risk.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
And the weird thing is that Colorado brown-stained teeth were surprisingly and just inexplicably resistant to tooth decay.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I'm from Philly. I can't say anything. McKay dug deeper and deeper into this theory that there was an ingredient in Colorado Springs water that was causing this, but it was just a hunch.
The Jordan Harbinger Show
1073: Fluoride | Skeptical Sunday
I see where this is going, I think. His hunch restored healthy, unstained teeth in the children of Oakley, Idaho, where a new pipeline had been built for the community. Children started to have these brown stains on their teeth. And then when McKay convinced them to abandon the new water source, within just a couple years, children were back to having healthy, unstained teeth.