Gastropod
Episodes
Delivery Wars
05 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Big tech is changing every aspect of our world. But how? And at what cost? Gastropod is excited to share the first episode of a special four-part Land...
The Milk of Life
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
No matter what your diet’s like today, we all likely started life eating the same thing: breast milk, formula milk, or a bit of both. But both of th...
Poultry Power: The Fried Chicken Chronicles (encore)
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Juicy, crispy, crunchy...fried chicken is undoubtedly delicious. But it's also complicated, in ways that go far deeper than the science behind that pe...
Guest episode: Montréal by Not Lost
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gastropod is excited to present this guest episode of Not Lost, called Montréal: Voyage Voyage. When both his popular culture podcast and long-term r...
Reinventing the Eel
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Aristotle thought they were born out of mud. A young Sigmund Freud dedicated himself to finding their testicles (spoiler alert, he failed). And a lege...
Monsanto or MonSatan? How—and Why—a St. Louis Startup Became a Hated Herbicide Giant
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A chemical that kills the plants you don’t want—weeds—and keeps the plants you do—food!—seems kind of like magic. After all, weeds are the b...
The Way the Cookie Crumbles
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, enjoyed a nice cup of tea and biscuits, or somehow scarfed a sleeve of Oreos, you will know th...
Black Gold: The Future of Food...We Throw Away
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For a few weeks in 1987, trash was temporarily headline news: a barge filled with waste that would no longer fit in New York City's overflowing landfi...
Gum's the Word: A Sticky Story
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s sticky, it’s breath-freshening, and, according to the FDA, it’s technically food—this episode, we’re chewing on the science and history...
Déjà-Brew: How Coffee Got Bad, Then Worse, and, Finally, Good Again
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If you hopped in a time machine for a cup of coffee from a 17th-century London coffeehouse, you would probably be a bit disappointed by their stale, b...
Grounds for Revolution: the Stimulating Story of How Coffee Shaped the World
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
About 400 years ago, a dark and mysterious stranger arrived in Europe and sent the jitters—really, shock waves—through society. That newcomer was ...
The Fortune Cookie Quest
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
No dish of General Tso's, chow mein, or beef and broccoli is complete without a fortune cookie at the end. In fact, factories churn out an estimated *...
Guest Episode: Graveyard Cookies and Dollhouse Crimes
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gastropod is excited to present this guest episode—actually, two episodes—from the podcast Atlas Oscura: one all about the Spritz Cookie Graveston...
Mango Mania: How the American Mango Lost its Flavor—and How it Might Just Get it Back (encore)
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mangoes inspire passion, particularly in India, which is home to hundreds of varieties of the fruit. They are celebrated in Indian music, poetry, and ...
Guest Episode: Scents and Sensibility
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gastropod is excited to present this guest episode of Outside/In called Scents and Sensibility. Once upon a time, potpourri was a popular way to fresh...
Your Mystery Date
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Allow us to indulge our inner aunties: We’ve set you up on a really hot date this episode—with one of nature’s sweetest fruits, the date! Adored...
The Most Interesting Oil in the World
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s a little riddle for you: What’s all around you, but can’t be seen, smelled, or tasted? Hint: It’s in your Oreos, Nutella, instant noodl...
Are Plant- and Fungus-Based Meats Really Better than the Real Thing?
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Move over, beef: there’s a new burger in town. Plant-based meats are sizzling hot right now; in 2020 alone, the alternative meat industry saw a reco...
Guest Episode: The Doorbell by Nice Try!
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This week we're bringing you an episode from Nice Try! Nice Try’s second season, Interior, is all about the lifestyle products that have been sold t...
Balls *and* Brains: The Science and History of Offal
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s pretty rare to find organ meat on the dinner table in most American households today, but 90 years ago, the earliest editions of The Joy of Co...
Trick or Treat: Soul Cakes, Candy Corn, and Sugar Skulls Galore!
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you live in the U.S., chances are, your first hint of fall isn’t a russet-colored leaf landing on the sidewalk—it’s the orange-wrappered cand...
Buried Treasure: Weeds, Seeds, and Zombies
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve ever engaged in mortal combat with a patch of ragweed, dandelion, or crabgrass in your garden, you might understand the twin emotions of r...
The Barrel That Could Save A Forest
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bourbon has to be aged in barrels, by law; whiskey usually spends years in barrels, by custom; and between 20-30 percent of wine spends some time in o...
Tofu for You: Meet the Cult Leader, the Spy, and the Pioneering Woman Chinese Doctor Who Brought Tofu to the West
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For a lot of Americans, tofu conjures up images of bland, squishy cubes: a sorry alternative to meat. Even in Asia, where tofu was born, the soybean w...
The Great Gastropod Pudding Off (encore)
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Four bakers, one evening, and one challenge: Who can steam the best spotted dick? On this week’s action-packed episode, Tom Gilliford, Selasi Gbormi...
It's All Going to Pot: the Science and Economics of Edibles
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you thought it was high time for us to get into the weeds with cannabis science and economics, then you’re in the right place: Welcome back to pa...
Baked: How Pot Brownies and Pate de Fruits Fueled an Edible Cannabis Revolution
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Edible cannabis products are hot right now: Snoop's got some, Willie Nelson's got some—even Martha Stewart's making fancy French-style gummies. In s...
The Bottle vs. Tap Battle Finale: Alkaline H2O, Lead Pipes, and, Yes, Water Sommeliers
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As promised, it's time for the final splashdown in the battle of bottled vs. tap water. When we left off last episode, bottled water had staged a mira...
Bottled Vs. Tap: The Battle to Quench Our Thirst
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, bottled water is ubiquitous and cheap: every single second of every single day, more than a thousand people buy and drink a plastic bottle of w...
Chocpocalypse Now! Quarantine and the Future of Food
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve dropped hints and left clues—and now, at long last, Gastropod’s very own Nicola Twilley has published her first book! Co-written with her ...
Guest Episode: Immune Boosting, Is It a Bust? | Science Vs
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Internet influencers have been pushing “immune boosters” during the pandemic — claiming they’ve got just the pill, berry, or brew to rev up ou...
Guest Episode: How Much Water Do You Actually Need a Day?
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Guest Episode: Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter. Think you know how your body works? Think again! Dr. Jen Gunter is here to shake up everything you thou...
First Class Fare
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Like most people around the world, you probably didn’t do much flying this past year. Maybe you miss the bustle of airports and the joy of seeing fr...
Guest Episode: How To Save a Planet
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Guest Episode: Does climate change freak you out? Want to know what we, collectively, can do about it? Us too. How to Save a Planet is a podcast tha...
You're Wrong About Prohibition
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For most of us, Prohibition seems like a peculiar American experiment—a doomed attempt by straight-laced religious conservatives to ban alcohol, and...
So Hot Right Now: Why We Love the Chile Pepper
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps no other plant is as entwined with pain and pleasure as the chile pepper. But why does it burn—and why on earth do we crave that uncomfortab...
Easy A: The SuperRad Story of Home Economics
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you grew up in the U.S., you might remember home economics class as the source of deflated muffins and horrifically distorted sewing projects. You ...
Where There's Smoke, There's ... Whiskey, Fish, and Barbecue!
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As anyone who’s spent time by a crackling campfire or a barbecue pit can attest, the scent of smoke is unmistakable—and surprisingly mysterious. S...
Phage Against the Machine
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you thought food poisoning was just a matter of the occasional stomach upset from a dodgy shrimp or two, the CDC has some unsettling numbers for yo...
Guest Episode: Mission: ImPASTAble from The Sporkful
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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Why Thai?
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s hard to imagine the American restaurant landscape without Thai food: Tom yum and pad see ew are practically household names, and pad thai is th...
Hot Tips
16 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you live in the United States, you’re familiar with a curious mathematical ritual that takes place at the end of every restaurant meal—it’s t...
TV Dinners
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cue the dramatic music, it’s quiz time: Can you identify the people behind these catchphrases? “Yum-O!” “Pukka!” “Bam!” “Peace, love, ...
The Brightest Bulb
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine, for a moment, a world without garlic: garlic-free garlic bread, tzatziki sans Allium sativum, a chili crisp defanged. If this sounds like the...
Like Water in the Desert
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past century, we've transformed the arid lands of the American west into year-round, well-irrigated agricultural powerhouses. Today, fruits, ...
The Magic Cube
24 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You could call it the Swiss Army knife of the kitchen: bouillon is a handy ingredient, whether it comes as bottled brown gloop, or a cube wrapped up i...
The Big Apple Episode
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There’s nothing more American than apple pie—or is there? We might prescribe an apple a day and call our largest city the Big Apple, but this lege...
The Hangover: Part Gastropod
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Morning fog. Gallon-distemper. Busthead. These are all names for alcohol's age-old after-party: the hangover. But, aside from being a physical (and pa...
Snack Attack!
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
To snack or not to snack? And what counts as a snack, anyhow? Plus the great meal vs. snack smackdown: is grazing good, or does eating between meals l...
This Spud's For You
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Fried, roasted, mashed, steamed: it's hard to imagine life without the crispy, fluffy comfort blanket of potatoes. But until the late 1500s, no one ou...
Moo-Dunnit: How Beef Replaced Bison on the American Plains—and Plate
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Saddle up, folks: Today’s episode involves the cowboys' lullabies and meat riots that helped make beef an American birthright. With the help of Josh...
What the Shell? Cracking the Lobster's Mysteries
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Consider the lobster roll: tender chunks of lobster bathed in butter or mayo, sandwiched between two slices of a squishy bread roll… Have we caught ...
Guest Episode: Rocky Road with Science Diction
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, Gastropod is bringing you a guest: Science Diction, a bite-sized podcast about words, and the science stories behind them. They answer q...
Shatter-Proof: How Glass Took Over the Kitchen—and Ended Child Labor
17 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Cheers! The lively clink of glass on glass is a must for any festive gathering, whether you’re sipping champagne in a flute or lemonade in a tumbler...
The Most Dangerous Fruit in America
03 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's the epitome of summertime: there’s nothing like a cold, juicy slice of red watermelon on a swelteringly hot day. But, once upon a time, waterme...
Dig for Victory
16 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve seen the news: vegetable seeds are selling out. All that quarantine ennui has combined with anxiety about the gaps on supermarket shelves to ...
Shared Plates: How Eating Together Makes Us Human
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We love eating dinner together with friends and extended family, and we miss it! But why does sharing a meal mean so much—and can we ever recreate t...
Pizza Pizza!
19 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At last, an episode on pizza! But that raises a tricky question: what exactly is pizza? As it turns out, the original pizzas from eighteenth-century N...
Eating the Wild: Bushmeat, Game, and the Fuzzy Line Between Them
05 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's a safe bet that your recent media diet has included the words "wet market," "zoonotic disease," and "pangolin," as experts take a pause from disc...
Eating the Rainbow: Or, the Mystery of the Orange Oranges, the Red M&Ms, and the Blue Raspberry
21 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From stripy fuchsia beets to unicorn doughnuts, the foods available today on grocery store shelves and in cafe displays are more brightly colored than...
A Tale To Warm The Cockles Of Your Heart
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You might have heard of Molly Malone, selling cockles from a wheelbarrow in Dublin, or of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, with her cockle shells and prett...
White vs. Wheat: The Food Fight of the Centuries
24 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
White or whole wheat: while today the question is most frequently asked at the sandwich counter, the debate over the correct answer goes back literall...
Licorice: A Dark and Salty Stranger
10 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Licorice is a polarizing candy: there are those who pick out the black jelly beans, those who think Twizzlers are better than Red Vines, and those who...
To Fight Climate Change, Bank on Soil
25 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Our glaciers are melting, our forests are on fire, our harvests are increasingly decimated by either floods and drought. We are in a climate emergency...
Move Over Gin, We’ve Got Tonic Fever
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Just a few decades ago, gin & tonics were considered rather stodgy and boring, the drink of suburbanites at the golf club. Today, the century-old drin...
The United States of McDonald’s
28 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
McDonald’s is mind-boggling. According to Adam Chandler, author of the recent book, Drive-Thru Dreams, it sells roughly 75 burgers every second and ...
Dinner Plate Invasion: Lionfish, Tiger Shrimp, and Feral Pigs, Oh My!
13 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Across America, feral pigs are on the rampage, wrecking fields of crops, hunting local wildlife to extinction, and even attacking humans. In the Unite...
Meet the Queen of Kiwi: the 96-Year-Old Woman Who Transformed America’s Produce Aisle
17 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The produce section of most American supermarkets in the 1950s was minimal to a fault, with only a few dozen fruits and vegetables to choose from: per...
Are Insect Guts the Secret to the Most Delicious Kimchi?
03 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This side dish of spicy, bubbly, funky pickled vegetables is such a staple in Korea that no meal is considered complete without it—but, recently, ki...
Menu Mind Control
18 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At its most basic, a menu is simply a way for a restaurant to communicate its offerings and their prices to its customers. But, perhaps even more impo...
Of Ghost Foods and Culinary Extinction
05 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The earliest humans favored juicy, meaty mammoth at mealtimes. Ancient Romans loved their favorite herb, silphium, so much that they sprinkled it on e...
Tiki Time!
22 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Tiki bars are hot these days: you can enjoy a fruity tropical drink while surrounded by faux-Polynesian décor in most major cities around the U.S. an...
What’s CRISPR Doing in our Food?
08 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve probably heard the hype: CRISPR will revolutionize biotech, cure disease, resurrect extinct species, and even create new-and-(not-so)-improve...
Happy Birthday to Us: Gastropod Turns Five
24 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We launched Gastropod in September 2014, which means we’re turning five this month, and that’s approximately 100 in podcast years. We’re celebra...
Celebrate Mexico’s True National Holiday with the Mysteries of Mole
10 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is an excuse for margarita-fueled partying. But in Mexico, that date—the anniversary of a military triumph over ...
Running on Fumes: Strawberry’s Dirty Secret
27 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, we tell an age-old tale: an innocent young berry heads west to make its fame and fortune—but sells its soul in the process. In order f...
Omega 1-2-3
13 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Based on all the hype, you’d be forgiven for believing that the fish oils known as omega-3s are solution to every problem. Heart disease, dementia, ...
Meet Sharbat, the Ancestor of Sorbet, Syrup, Shrub, Sherbet, and Pretty Much Everything Else Cool
06 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Many of you won’t have heard of sharbat, the delightfully tangy, refreshingly icy Persian drink. But most of you will have tasted at least one of it...
Super Fry: The Fight for the Golden Frite
19 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Shoestring, waffle, curly, or thick-cut: however you slice it, nearly everyone loves a deep-fried, golden brown piece of potato. But that’s where th...
Eat This, Not That: The Surprising Science of Personalized Nutrition
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This episode, we’ve got the exclusive on the preliminary results of the world’s largest personalized nutrition experiment. Genetic epidemiologist ...
Guts and Glory
21 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean when your stomach rumbles? How do our bodies extract nutrients and vitamins from food? Does what you eat affect your mood? Digestion...
BONUS: Introducing Science Rules! with Bill Nye
16 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We interrupt our regular programming to bring you news of a new podcast you might like. Bill Nye is on a mission to change the world—one phone call ...
The Great Gastropod Pudding Off
06 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Four bakers, one evening, and one challenge: Who can steam the best spotted dick? On this week’s action-packed episode, Tom Gilliford, Selasi Gbormi...
Potatoes in Space!
23 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Today, a half century after Neil Armstrong took one small step onto the surface of the Moon, there are still just three humans living in space—the c...
The Curry Chronicles
09 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Curry is, supposedly, Indian. But there is no such word in any of the country’s many official languages—and no Indian would use the term to descri...
The Bagelization of America
26 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Today, it’s a breakfast staple, but, as recently as 1960, The New York Times had to define it for readers—as “an unsweetened doughnut with rigor...
Can Diet Stop Alzheimer’s?
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Every three seconds, someone in the world develops Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a devastating disease: millions of people, as well as their caretaker...
Seeds of Immortality
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When seeds first evolved, hundreds of millions of years ago, they not only revolutionized the plant world, but they also eventually sowed the path for...
Pick A Pawpaw: America’s Forgotten Fruit
26 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1916, agricultural experts voted the pawpaw the American fruit most likely to succeed, ahead of blueberries and cranberries. But today, most people...
Eating to Win: Gatorade, Muscle Milk, and… Chicken Nuggets?
12 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ancient Greek Olympians swore by beans to give them a competitive edge. Japanese sumo wrestlers rely on a protein-rich soup called chankonabe to get i...
The Secret History of the Slave Behind Jack Daniel’s Whiskey
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 1866, Jack Daniel’s became the first registered distillery in the United States; today, it’s the top-selling American whiskey in the world...
Sweet and Low (Calorie): The Story of Artificial Sweeteners
15 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, ads for treats sweetened with substances like Sweet’N Low, NutraSweet, and Splenda have promised what seems like a miracle of modern sc...
Dirty Tricks and Data: The Great Soda Wars, Part 2
18 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past five years, more than forty cities and countries around the world have passed a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. These soda taxes are d...
Souring on Sweet: The Great Soda Wars, Part 1
04 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Public health researchers agree: the evidence is clear that Americans consume way too much sugar, that sugar contributes to weight gain, and that risi...
The Truth is in the Tooth: Braces, Cavities, and the Paleo Diet
19 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Brush, floss, and forget: chances are, you only think about your teeth when they cause you trouble. But teeth have tales to tell, such as how old we a...
Who Invented Mac and Cheese?
13 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The warm, gooey dish, a childhood staple across North America, is many things to many people: a mainstay of African-American Sunday dinners, according...
How the Carrot Became Orange, and Other Stories
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of years ago, in what’s now Afghanistan, people unearthed the tangled, gnarled roots of Queen Anne’s Lace—a ubiquitous, hairy-stemmed ...
The Incredible Egg
23 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
We love eggs scrambled, fried, or poached; we couldn’t enjoy a quiche, meringue, or flan without them. But for scientists and archaeologists, these ...
Espresso and Whisky: The Place of Time in Food
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why does fish cook so fast? What’s the “wasabi window”? And can you really make 20-year-old aged whisky in six days? This episode, we’re looki...
Why These Animals?
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the West, when it comes to which meat is for dinner, we nearly always choose beef, pork, or chicken. Yet cows and pigs are only two of more than fi...