Should You Really Eat That?
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Native foods: Bush lollies, medicinal source, climate-change tool
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whether you call them traditional foods, native ingredients, bush tucker or something else, what’s harvested here is unique. Australia’s a “mega...
Salt: Slug repellent, history shaper, chip enhancer
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From Persian blue salt to Murray River pink salt and every colour in between, sodium chloride has been essential for millennia. The Great Wall of Chin...
Olive Oil: Lamp fuel, criminal swag, pharmacy staple
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For thousands of years, we’ve used olive oil for everything: from lighting lamps to chasing bugs out of our ears. In Australia, the oldest olive tre...
Butter: Bakery essential, insult inspiration, wedding gift
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Not that long ago, butter had its health-villain era. Margarine reigned and fridges were stocked with ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ and al...
Soy: Traditional craft, miracle crop, male threat?
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is soy “the most dangerous food for men?” This question was posed by a viral Men’s Health article and, like the #soyboy insult, it plays into mo...
Chocolate: Food of the gods, romantic gesture, dog poison
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 18th-century France, the royal pharmacist treated Marie-Antoinette’s headaches with chocolate. This sweet even appeared in European hospital pres...
Season two trailer: Should You Really Eat That?
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It can be tricky trying to consume the ‘right things’, and the forces that shape our diets go far beyond what’s supposedly ‘good for us’. On...
Seafood: Cooking inspiration, mercury magnet, cultural storyteller
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our taste for seafood goes back a long time. We’ve been snacking on shellfish for more than 100,000 years. And the foods we gather from the ocean (w...
Cheese: Calcium source, place marker, vegan inspiration
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our love of cheese is so vast, it can be plotted across the planet. From Gorgonzola in Italy to Oaxaca in Mexico, many places are famous for their wed...
Coffee: Caffeine hit, productivity booster, wedding custom
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, people drink coffee – whether it’s sweetened with condensed milk in Vietnam or spiced with cinnamon in Mexico. It powers us thro...
Tea: Scandal water, life saver, yum cha essential
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tea is the most-consumed drink on the planet, second only to water. Originally consumed for medicinal reasons, a well-brewed pot also helps with break...
Bread: Historic staple, riot-starter, loneliness cure
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The oldest bread that still exists today was baked 14,500 years ago in Jordan. We’ve eaten this staple for a long time, but rejecting bread because ...
Rice: Dietary staple, daily greeting, and nutritional villain?
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When dietitian Susie Burrell named white rice as something she’d never put in her shopping trolley, food writer Lee Tran Lam was intrigued... and a ...
Introducing Should You Really Eat That? A new podcast that makes sense of food confusion
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It can be extraordinarily confusing keeping up with what foods are ‘good’ for you. Should you actually put olive oil or salt in your coffee as rec...