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How Food Cravings Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
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Speaker 1: Charles W. Bryant. It sounded like the nursery rhyme? Did
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Speaker 1: it was? It's a new one. How's it going, Chuck? Oh,
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Speaker 1: you know, dude, it's Friday. We're all ready to uh
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Speaker 1: trip the light fantastic this weekend? Do you know that
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Speaker 1: means dance? Right? Uh? Yeah, I don't dance. I don't
0:37
Speaker 1: need the town brown dread while I'm a Weeen fan,
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Speaker 1: so you paint the town brown. What is the name
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Speaker 1: of the god that Weeen worship that tells him to
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Speaker 1: get wasted? The book nish? Is that what it is? Well,
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Speaker 1: that's their little symbol, the little guy with a spiky hair. Right,
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Speaker 1: But there's like a god that they listened to that
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Speaker 1: commands them to just get wasted that Yeah, how about
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Speaker 1: this listeners? What is the name of the god that
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Speaker 1: ween answer to? Yeah? Godwin Satan was the name of
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Speaker 1: their first album. Yeah, so so, Chuck, Yes, I could
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Speaker 1: go for a sloppy Joe right now, man, I haven't
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Speaker 1: had a sloppy Joe since I was a kid. You haven't,
1:19
Speaker 1: you poor bastard, like the manwich kind any kind of school.
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Speaker 1: It's sloppy Joe. It's like barbecue sauce and catch up
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Speaker 1: with some ground beef on a bun and get better
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Speaker 1: than that. Not since my mom was like cooking for
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Speaker 1: me as a kid, have I had a sloppy Joe?
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Speaker 1: I've never made one myself. Let me give you a
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Speaker 1: little little secret here, sloppy Joe, fish taco, sloppy Josh.
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Speaker 1: Is it not yet? We're not out of work yet? Um,
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Speaker 1: insert fish taco into sloppy Joe and thank me in
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Speaker 1: the morning. Wait, put a fish taco in the sandwich
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Speaker 1: itself with the beef and everything. That's the weirdest thing
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Speaker 1: I've ever heard of. Just try and let me know
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Speaker 1: what you think. Grant key that after you have a
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Speaker 1: fish taco sloppy Joe, you will end up with the
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Speaker 1: food craving for it at some point in Yeah, that's
2:06
Speaker 1: a great set up, thanks buddy. Food cravings. Food cravings,
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Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about, right. Do you think that's
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Speaker 1: what I prepared for Yeah, same here. So chuck, Um,
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Speaker 1: you've had a food craving, right, If so, you're part
2:20
Speaker 1: of the seventy percent of males in North America who
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Speaker 1: have had one in the last year. I found that
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Speaker 1: to be staggering. I thought everyone has had a food
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Speaker 1: craving like once a week. Yeah. The stet on women
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Speaker 1: was much more. Um, I guess in in my wheelhouse, right, yea,
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Speaker 1: but what thirty percent of men don't have a craving
2:40
Speaker 1: in a years? Who are like, I'm not answering that question.
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Speaker 1: I'm going ercent. You and I both know that everybody
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Speaker 1: knows that everybody's had a food craving in the last year. Well,
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Speaker 1: that's what I couldn't determine if it was an actual
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Speaker 1: classifiable food craving or just like, oh, I'm hungry for
2:55
Speaker 1: a burger. Or maybe they thought that slim gims don't count.
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Speaker 1: That's that accounts for slim gyms aren't food, they're slim jims.
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Speaker 1: That's a good one. Uh yeah, Josh se say yes,
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Speaker 1: and women all say yes. And women in North America
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Speaker 1: and Europe particularly like the sweet stuff. Yeah, I think
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Speaker 1: chocolate is the most highly reported UM food craving women
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Speaker 1: in North America. We need to specify because it appears
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Speaker 1: that um food cravings are also culturally specific. Yeah, so
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Speaker 1: women in North America like the chocolate, but say women
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Speaker 1: in Egypt like, let's say, a meat stuffed eggplant. That's
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Speaker 1: pretty specifically. Christen Conger wrote this and it's a great article.
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Speaker 1: But I love that she actually said that they will
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Speaker 1: crave a meat stuffed eggplant, which actually sounds kind of good.
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Speaker 1: And I'm not even hip on eggplant, but I would
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Speaker 1: eat that stuff exactly, wrapping and bacon, stuffing with meat um,
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Speaker 1: or put a fish taco on it, I'll leave it.
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Speaker 1: Even a milk steak, although I've just recently found out
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Speaker 1: what that is. Was that right, I believe? So yeah,
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Speaker 1: we haven't gotten any corrections because one from the nineteenth
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Speaker 1: century is still around, they can correct us. So chuck um. Actually,
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Speaker 1: food cravings we talked about how they're different in North
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Speaker 1: America and in Egypt for example. There there they appear
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Speaker 1: to be universal. However, while the food craving may differ,
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Speaker 1: or the food that has crave may differ, the food
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Speaker 1: craving is is pretty much a universal human trait because
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Speaker 1: we all have a brain. Uh, well, let's talk about
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Speaker 1: there's two different kinds. There's a stomach craving, which accounts
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Speaker 1: for hunger, and then there's a food craving, which we'll
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Speaker 1: get to in a minute. It's like all mental, right,
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Speaker 1: you have to have a brain. Yes, actually you have
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Speaker 1: to have a brain for both. But let's talk about
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Speaker 1: like regular old hunger. Like, what is that, dude, That
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Speaker 1: is the stomach telling the brain by way of the
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Speaker 1: vegas or veggics I think vegas vegas nerve basically saying
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Speaker 1: I'm hungry, I need food to live, Sophie. Right, it's
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Speaker 1: pretty much as simple as that. It is. Uh. And
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Speaker 1: this hormone grilling, which has made an appearance uh incorrectly
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Speaker 1: in a previous podcast. I said grilling um tells your
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Speaker 1: stomach or tells your brain that you're not hungry any longer,
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Speaker 1: actually does the opposite. Yeah, I know, I'm an idiot.
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Speaker 1: It's a it's a hormone that is actually um emitted
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Speaker 1: by fat tissue, right, and it travels up the vagus
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Speaker 1: nerve to the hypothalamus and says, dude, I'm I'm hungry,
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Speaker 1: and it triggered. It's triggered when your blood sugar and
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Speaker 1: insulin levels start to decline, which is just awesome. I
5:40
Speaker 1: love the human body. I think it's like about as
5:42
Speaker 1: fascinating as it gets. Yeah, I like the brain in particular,
5:45
Speaker 1: and I think articles like this everyone knows how much
5:48
Speaker 1: we love the brain and studying the brain. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: look for a an audiobook on the brain from Chuck
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Speaker 1: and I little spoiler teaser, But it always amazes me
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Speaker 1: that the brain is so complex and then the rest
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Speaker 1: of the body is almost like just a big dumb,
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Speaker 1: functioning group of organs compared to the brain compared to
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Speaker 1: the well, yeah, but I mean that's like comparing like
6:11
Speaker 1: it together eight Dodge Colt to like, you know, um,
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Speaker 1: a Bugatti, A Bugatti, Thank you. I don't know where
6:19
Speaker 1: that came from. So okay, So the grilling travels up
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Speaker 1: the vagus nerve hits the hypothalamus, which the hypothalamus also
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Speaker 1: provides some other um function management like sex, drive, thirst, sleep, sleep, yeah,
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Speaker 1: things like pretty smart, Yeah exactly. It's like it's the
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Speaker 1: party part of the brain, right. Um. So the hypothalamus says,
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Speaker 1: all right, we're hungry, and uh, we're going to release
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Speaker 1: neuropeptide y and this is just all right. It stimulates
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Speaker 1: our appetites, right, um, So what have we eat? Yes,
6:54
Speaker 1: we're eating the sloppy joe fish taco combo. And as
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Speaker 1: we eat, something else starts to happen because it just
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Speaker 1: can't keep on like this, or you would just keep
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Speaker 1: eating and eating and eating. So your body has to
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Speaker 1: do the reverse almost and say you can stop eating now.
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Speaker 1: And it does this by um, in a couple of ways.
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Speaker 1: The first things that happens is, uh, fat tissues expel leptin,
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Speaker 1: and son of a gun, I am never going to
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Speaker 1: get growling. Growling is released from in the stomach. Leptin
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Speaker 1: is released in the fat tissues. How did you say?
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Speaker 1: I did? I did? I'm just a big dumb animal. Well,
7:27
Speaker 1: so hold your emails, folks. We will get this all
7:29
Speaker 1: right by the end of this thing. Maybe Okay, hate growing.
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Speaker 1: So Lepton gets going and tells our brain basically that hey,
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Speaker 1: you're satisfied. You're you're not hungry anymore, you're satiated. You
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Speaker 1: do not need to keep eating. Right, But this doesn't
7:44
Speaker 1: take place like immediately. No um. And actually, my half
7:48
Speaker 1: oconow and girlfriend taught me that the Japanese have a
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Speaker 1: little rule of thumb called hara hatchi bo nice funny
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Speaker 1: that mean. It means basically, um stop when you feel
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Speaker 1: about full, and it works like a charm. Actually, well,
8:01
Speaker 1: you don't see a lot of obese Asian people too,
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Speaker 1: and they live forever to Yeah, we should follow that
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Speaker 1: that model. So u Lepton actually does this by turning
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Speaker 1: down the production of the narrow peptide y and cranking
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Speaker 1: up the production of pro opio melanocortin. I was hoping
8:18
Speaker 1: you take that one. That was an excellent pronunciation, buddy.
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Speaker 1: I had to literally sound it out and spell it
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Speaker 1: out very yeah, but it worked. And that is an
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Speaker 1: apptite suppressant in the bloodstream. So that basically says, uh mind,
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Speaker 1: the hypothalamus monitors the insulin blood sugar, and then everyone's happy,
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Speaker 1: we're eating, we're satisfied, we're full. Right, So there there
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Speaker 1: you go, we're alive. Right. Yes, So that accounts for
8:43
Speaker 1: normal hunger, right, that actually does begin in the stomach.
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Speaker 1: Crazy enough, right, that's how you have hunger, and that's
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Speaker 1: how your brain tells you that you're not hungry. But
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Speaker 1: that doesn't account for food cravings. Food cravings are pretty
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Speaker 1: much all mental or at the very least. They're all
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Speaker 1: brain centric, right, Yeah, And it's not hey, I need
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Speaker 1: to eat and stay alive, it's hey, I really really
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Speaker 1: want that sloppy Joe with the fish taco. Well, I
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Speaker 1: don't know about that, but that's mine hunger that you're
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Speaker 1: talking about, which accounts for the craving, right. And one
9:10
Speaker 1: of the reasons, um that it's it's I guess worth
9:13
Speaker 1: writing an article about researching and podcasting is that it's
9:17
Speaker 1: kind of curious. It's a little bit of a mystery
9:19
Speaker 1: because they're not really essential for survival. Uh, there was there.
9:24
Speaker 1: I actually thought this for a very long time and
9:27
Speaker 1: probably will continue to do so because I don't give
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Speaker 1: up my views very easily. Um, but I tended to
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Speaker 1: think that food cravings where the body's way of saying, um,
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Speaker 1: you need more iron, so you really really want to
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Speaker 1: steak right now? Debunked whatever, debonk care. It's a good
9:45
Speaker 1: way to live life, and I'm going to live it
9:47
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, But scientists have largely debunked that, basically
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Speaker 1: saying it's really not you're it's not you saying that, oh,
9:53
Speaker 1: I need a particular nutrient to keep me healthy. And
9:56
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it was debunked was because
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Speaker 1: most food crave things are for really rich fatty foods
10:03
Speaker 1: trying calories. And do you know why we crave those, Josh,
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Speaker 1: Why because they are loaded with chemicals called opioids. That
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Speaker 1: is true. And this is a this is a depressing
10:14
Speaker 1: moment for me, by the way, Like I've lived like
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Speaker 1: this for years. Uh. Opioids what they do? They bind
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Speaker 1: to your receptors in the brain and they bring you
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Speaker 1: the like feel good feelings. They do actually, um, the
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Speaker 1: the the same processes followed for um, drugs do drugs?
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Speaker 1: It actually follows the same um, I guess mental process
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Speaker 1: or brain pathway. Excellent, Chuck, thank you. I was flailing there,
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Speaker 1: um that that drugs do. Right, Yeah, I thought that
10:42
Speaker 1: was interesting. So you've got you've got let's let's just
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Speaker 1: use chocolate. It's just so easy. It's a good go to.
10:48
Speaker 1: So you you you eat a little chocolate. Let's say
10:51
Speaker 1: it's the first time, and uh, the opioids that are released, um,
10:56
Speaker 1: actually form part of your memory of eating chocolate. You
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Speaker 1: have a sensory memory that is very very pleasant associated
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Speaker 1: with eating chocolate. It gets filed away by what part chuck? Uh,
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Speaker 1: is that the hippocampus. Yes, it is. Uh, it's a
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Speaker 1: short sensory data and puts it into long term more
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Speaker 1: short term memory. UM. And when we see chocolate again,
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Speaker 1: we say, oh, yeah, chocolate, that makes me feel pretty good. Yes. Right,
11:27
Speaker 1: So there's there's one aspect of the craving. It's psychological
11:31
Speaker 1: based on long term memory. And it also stimulates the
11:36
Speaker 1: caught eight nucleus and UM. Basically that helps control the
11:41
Speaker 1: dopamine reward system and dopa. Bean is another feel good
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Speaker 1: chemical in your body. Right, what's your favorite, like drop
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Speaker 1: dead favorite? What would be your last meal you're on
11:54
Speaker 1: death row? Let's say not a stretch would be if
11:58
Speaker 1: you're really thinking about this all that I really like? Um,
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Speaker 1: the Porterhouse steak at Kevin Rathbun's, Oh very specific. Have
12:09
Speaker 1: you had it? Dude? Awesome? Yeah? Or um there is Uh,
12:14
Speaker 1: there's this fried chicken at Watershed. Have you had that?
12:17
Speaker 1: I've never had their famous fried chicken. You should go
12:19
Speaker 1: Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights and after six if you make reservations.
12:23
Speaker 1: They can't guarantee the chicken. I know I've been. They
12:25
Speaker 1: can't guarantee it's good. Or no, they can't guarantee it'll
12:28
Speaker 1: be there. We can give each some chicken, but it
12:29
Speaker 1: might be gonna be pretty crappy. Yeah, I've heard about
12:31
Speaker 1: that for years. It's definitely worth it. One of those
12:34
Speaker 1: two probably would be my last meal, I think my
12:36
Speaker 1: I don't I can't get super specific, but I think
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Speaker 1: my favorite last meal would be like a big fried
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Speaker 1: seafood platter. Oh yeah, with like fried shrimp, fish and
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Speaker 1: clams and scallops and hush puppies and French fries and
12:52
Speaker 1: cole saw. Oh man, we should go to Long John
12:57
Speaker 1: Silver's after this, Long John Silver's, where the fish and
13:00
Speaker 1: the chicken are equally good and tastes much the same. Yeah,
13:05
Speaker 1: so do I so chuck um. We've talked about the
13:08
Speaker 1: reward system, right, And actually there's a study in two
13:11
Speaker 1: thousand and four where people were jammed into the Wonder
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Speaker 1: machine and as to think about food. It's actually the
13:17
Speaker 1: F m R I, which is the wonder Wonder Machine. No,
13:19
Speaker 1: that's the Wonder machine mr an m r I. It's
13:23
Speaker 1: it's worthless unless it's got that little F attached to it.
13:26
Speaker 1: So they jammed some people in the Wonder machine and
13:28
Speaker 1: say think about food, and then the people started thinking
13:30
Speaker 1: about food, and like you said, the caught a nucleus,
13:33
Speaker 1: the insula, and the hippocampus all. So, but it's very
13:37
Speaker 1: clear that like our reward system is triggered when we
13:40
Speaker 1: think about food. So that's that explains part of food cravings. Uh.
13:44
Speaker 1: And we also said that it's linked to the same
13:46
Speaker 1: neural pathways as drugs and drug addiction, which also accounts
13:50
Speaker 1: for food addiction. Yeah, it's just a milder version. We
13:54
Speaker 1: also said that um memories like the sense memory. Remember
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Speaker 1: the chocolate chocolate makes me when I eat it, so
14:00
Speaker 1: I want to chocolate, right, Yeah, reinforces all that. That's
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Speaker 1: part of it too. But um or where did the
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Speaker 1: food cravings come from? I guess is my point? Why
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Speaker 1: if I am to make one? Josh, you know what?
14:13
Speaker 1: You know where the starts? Dude, I know you do.
14:16
Speaker 1: It starts in the womb. You pronounced the bee. No,
14:21
Speaker 1: I just did that as a joke. It actually does
14:24
Speaker 1: happen in the womb. And they found in studies in
14:26
Speaker 1: studies that in utero a fetus can distinguish between different
14:31
Speaker 1: flavors that are passed to them through the amtiotic fluid
14:35
Speaker 1: um and that remarkable. It is remarkable, chuck um. And
14:38
Speaker 1: although I'm not entirely certain how they figured that out. UM,
14:42
Speaker 1: there have been studies on um post birth children UH
14:47
Speaker 1: and their tastes for food, and a lot of it.
14:49
Speaker 1: Apparently it comes from uh their time in the womb
14:53
Speaker 1: and whatever their mothers eating while they're nursing. Right. Yea.
14:57
Speaker 1: They found that UM mothers who eight lots of garlic,
15:01
Speaker 1: or who ate a steady diet of garlic, their babies
15:03
Speaker 1: nursed longer. I know that crazy um possibly to try
15:07
Speaker 1: to figure out what the heck this taste is. Yeah,
15:09
Speaker 1: I love that because garlic is tough to miss. It
15:12
Speaker 1: comes out everywhere, and I imagine garlicy breast milk would
15:15
Speaker 1: throw the baby for a loop to the point where
15:17
Speaker 1: they're like, what is this? Oh? I can tell you
15:19
Speaker 1: it throws you for a loop? Yea. Uh, God, garlic
15:22
Speaker 1: is just the best in anything though, it is and
15:24
Speaker 1: really good for you too. Have you ever had a
15:26
Speaker 1: whole roasted garlic roasted just squeezed out onto like a
15:30
Speaker 1: piece of bread, the whole thing, like the whole bulb. Yeah, dude,
15:33
Speaker 1: what you I do it all the time. I cut
15:34
Speaker 1: off like half of it and drizzle it with some
15:37
Speaker 1: olive oil and take it in some foil. Uh. No,
15:40
Speaker 1: I just throw it, throw it on like a oven. Uh,
15:43
Speaker 1: like a cookie sheet, wrap it and foil and twist
15:45
Speaker 1: the top and just you don't even need the cookie sheet.
15:47
Speaker 1: You just throw it in there on the rack and
15:49
Speaker 1: it just it goes. It's awesome and great for it.
15:52
Speaker 1: Have you ever taken garlic pills? I don't like them.
15:54
Speaker 1: I'd rather eat like the garlic bulb. Well I would too,
15:57
Speaker 1: but garlic pills are weird because you'll take like a
15:59
Speaker 1: garlic pill in the morning because it's good for you,
16:01
Speaker 1: and like in the morning, you you feel like you're
16:03
Speaker 1: burping up like Italian food and by afternoon's coming out
16:07
Speaker 1: of your breasts if you're nursing, yeah, or your skin purse. Yes. Sweat, Yeah,
16:11
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I mean with my sweat. You don't
16:14
Speaker 1: want to be around me on a hot day after
16:15
Speaker 1: I've had some Lasagnia Brothers. Not good. Oh, I know
16:18
Speaker 1: it's not. I was getting hungry and now I'm revolted
16:21
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. Yeah, this just took a real
16:24
Speaker 1: nose diet, didn't Yeah. Um, so chuck, you're saying we're
16:27
Speaker 1: first exposed to taste in the womb. Um. And also
16:31
Speaker 1: apparently we carry these on right, those memories stick around,
16:36
Speaker 1: those sensory memories, and that's the beginnings of establishing our
16:39
Speaker 1: food relationship basically, and it can also be established by
16:42
Speaker 1: the mother. Apparently, studies have shown that, um, I should say. Hey.
16:46
Speaker 1: At least one study has shown that women who have
16:50
Speaker 1: um more adventurous diets have children who have more adventurous diets. Um.
16:55
Speaker 1: I think you could say, well, maybe that has to
16:57
Speaker 1: do with the way they're raised, probably, but it it
17:00
Speaker 1: could go either way. Yeah. You know another thing I
17:03
Speaker 1: thought was cool how you said it was kind of
17:04
Speaker 1: like the same thing as a drug addict seeking drugs,
17:08
Speaker 1: Just like that you need more and more to satisfy you.
17:11
Speaker 1: Like so, just like a crackhead might need more crack
17:15
Speaker 1: to get high as they progress in their drug career
17:18
Speaker 1: or hobby. If you eat chocolate, just that little bit
17:22
Speaker 1: of chocolate isn't gonna do it. If you keep eating,
17:24
Speaker 1: You're gonna need it more and more to satisfy you. Yeah,
17:27
Speaker 1: pretty cool, it is unless you have a chocolate addiction. Yeah,
17:30
Speaker 1: that's true, or a crack addiction. Um so, chuck, what
17:34
Speaker 1: do you do when you do have a chocolate addiction,
17:36
Speaker 1: you eat chocolate, you do um personally No, No, okay,
17:41
Speaker 1: I thought you meant me. You know what I'm saying.
17:43
Speaker 1: You know you like anybody? Sure, you're not a chocolate addict.
17:46
Speaker 1: I know you're hard on yourself, but you're not. No.
17:48
Speaker 1: I like chocolate, but it gives me the heartburn too,
17:50
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a fine line I have to walk. Um.
17:53
Speaker 1: Jerry thought that was funny. Laugh. Uh. So they they've
17:58
Speaker 1: they've this is something that people have been paying attention to, luckily,
18:02
Speaker 1: although they still haven't quite cracked the code. It turns
18:05
Speaker 1: out the body is a little wonky when it comes
18:07
Speaker 1: to food cravings. Um, when you have a lot of
18:12
Speaker 1: fat tissue, this is weird to me. You emit a
18:15
Speaker 1: lot of leptin, which is the thing that lowers appetite, right,
18:18
Speaker 1: suppresses appetite, But it's in fatty tissue. So the more
18:21
Speaker 1: fat you have, the more left in you have. So
18:22
Speaker 1: that's that should mean strangely, Uh that the fatter you are,
18:27
Speaker 1: the less you should eat. Not true, No, it's the opposite. Yeah.
18:30
Speaker 1: The for some reason, as the body mass index increases,
18:34
Speaker 1: meaning you get heavier and more fat on you. Um,
18:39
Speaker 1: you actually eat more, which doesn't seem odd really if
18:44
Speaker 1: you think about that, but what you know, you're putting
18:47
Speaker 1: out more leptin. Yeah, and it nothing we found, like said,
18:52
Speaker 1: why this happens. It's just is it just one of
18:54
Speaker 1: those things in the human body that we can't account for.
18:56
Speaker 1: Do you know another cool thing, Josh? What that if
19:00
Speaker 1: you try to diet or quit eating a certain thing,
19:03
Speaker 1: like let's say you're a lady and you have like
19:05
Speaker 1: a big chocolate thing. The more you if you say
19:07
Speaker 1: I want to cut down on eating chocolate, you're gonna
19:09
Speaker 1: crave it more. They did a study in two thousand seven.
19:15
Speaker 1: If you're trying not to, you're gonna crave it more. Right.
19:18
Speaker 1: It's the imp of the perverse. Remember we've talked about
19:21
Speaker 1: that the more you try to push a thought from
19:23
Speaker 1: your head, the more you're gonna think about it, because
19:24
Speaker 1: not only are you thinking about keeping it out of
19:27
Speaker 1: your head, it inevitably floods in and you push it out.
19:30
Speaker 1: So really, what you're doing is engaging on the cycle
19:34
Speaker 1: of um, constantly obsessing about this one thing. Let me
19:38
Speaker 1: let me try something here, Josh. Whatever you do for
19:41
Speaker 1: the next ten seconds do not think about a sloppy
19:44
Speaker 1: joe with a fish taco on it? All Right, what's
19:47
Speaker 1: the first thing that just popped into your head? You wanna? No? No,
19:51
Speaker 1: what is it? Donald Duck? Really? Is that your go to? No?
19:57
Speaker 1: That's an odd go to. No, it's not my go to.
19:59
Speaker 1: I read an article on it and somebody said, whatever
20:03
Speaker 1: you do. Um, you know, for the next sentence, don't
20:07
Speaker 1: think about Donald Duck. That was kind of my introduction
20:10
Speaker 1: to the imp of the perverse. So that's why I
20:13
Speaker 1: thought of Donald Duck. I'll tell you what I didn't
20:15
Speaker 1: think of, and I think ten seconds is past. I
20:17
Speaker 1: didn't think of a sloppy joe with the fish taco. No,
20:19
Speaker 1: I don't believe you. I think you thought of Donald
20:21
Speaker 1: Duck eating a sloppy joe without a pint, right, Like
20:24
Speaker 1: I never wears pants. Yeah, it didn't even wear a
20:27
Speaker 1: diaper or something or was that? Did you know? And no,
20:29
Speaker 1: he just that was just his duck bottom. Um he
20:33
Speaker 1: who was banned in Finland. I think because they didn't
20:36
Speaker 1: wear pants or they had to put pants on the
20:39
Speaker 1: one they two. That's good stuff, Josh. I think people
20:42
Speaker 1: are learning a lot here. I think we have gotten
20:45
Speaker 1: really far off topic, I think, so, so should we
20:47
Speaker 1: reel it in here? Yeah? Um, if you have a
20:51
Speaker 1: food addiction and you have food cravings, people who didn't
20:56
Speaker 1: deny themselves every food craving managed to lose the most weights. Yeah,
21:01
Speaker 1: they said. The trick is to get into it occasionally
21:04
Speaker 1: to reward yourself, but to just keep that all in check, right,
21:07
Speaker 1: and how it works. And you're big on the calorie restriction,
21:10
Speaker 1: So what do you think about that? Um? I've found
21:14
Speaker 1: that just not eating I don't eat breakfast or lunch,
21:17
Speaker 1: to just eat dinner. Um. And I found that after
21:22
Speaker 1: probably a week or two of really just doing it hardcore,
21:25
Speaker 1: you just don't even think about it any longer if
21:28
Speaker 1: I stop and think about it, Like right now, I'm
21:30
Speaker 1: hungry because I stopped and thought about it, but I
21:33
Speaker 1: don't think about it. I think you know what I'm
21:35
Speaker 1: hungry for, chucky sloppy chat with a fish taco. That's right. Uh?
21:39
Speaker 1: Should we talk about weird food cravings? Yeah, like ladies
21:43
Speaker 1: when they're pregnant. Yes, which I was interested to read
21:47
Speaker 1: about this actually because I've always wondered, like, what gets
21:50
Speaker 1: somebody who say never like cheese before to suddenly like
21:54
Speaker 1: cheese once she becomes pregnant or something. Right. Um, well,
21:58
Speaker 1: it has a lot to do with the hormone that
22:00
Speaker 1: are going berzerko when you get pregnant, right, especially estrogen. Yeah,
22:05
Speaker 1: and it also has to do with their sense of
22:08
Speaker 1: taste and smell really become honed when they're pregnant, So
22:12
Speaker 1: something like um, maybe really pungent like coffee and cigarettes
22:17
Speaker 1: is even more of a turn off than usual, which
22:19
Speaker 1: is probably a good thing if you're pregnant, right, don't
22:21
Speaker 1: you think. Yeah, I think coffee and cigarettes is probably
22:25
Speaker 1: bad for pregnant person. Pregnant woman, and the cravings focus
22:29
Speaker 1: on like really sweet and really salty, really spicy. It's
22:32
Speaker 1: kind of the extreme, it seems like, right, so chuck. Um, Yes,
22:36
Speaker 1: pregnant women have strange food cravings pickles and ice cream whatever. Yeah,
22:41
Speaker 1: it is, and science has hasn't really figured out exactly why.
22:46
Speaker 1: But yes, it probably does have to do with the
22:48
Speaker 1: hormonal search. Um there is. I used to work in
22:51
Speaker 1: a gas station up in Athens, and people yes too,
22:56
Speaker 1: which one. Well, I worked at the Golden Pantry, so
22:58
Speaker 1: I didn't like pump gas, but I worked in that
23:00
Speaker 1: little food mark. I didn't punk same here. I worked
23:03
Speaker 1: at the Magnolia station on Atlanta. It's pretty funny. Yeah,
23:06
Speaker 1: both gas guys who knew um and uh, we sell
23:11
Speaker 1: white dirt and people came in and bought it by
23:14
Speaker 1: the bag full. I don't know what that means. It's
23:17
Speaker 1: white clay and they would eat it really, yes, is
23:21
Speaker 1: that what you sold it for to consume? Yes, I
23:25
Speaker 1: don't even know what you're talking about. It's really weird.
23:27
Speaker 1: People chew it and eat it and ingest it and um,
23:30
Speaker 1: actually it was a real big hit among pregnant women too. Well,
23:33
Speaker 1: I do know what you're talking about. What it's called pica, Yes,
23:38
Speaker 1: and specifically in this case, eating dirt of any kind
23:41
Speaker 1: is called geophagia, right, And there's also one called patophagia,
23:45
Speaker 1: which is eating ice, yeah, which I've heard of it before. Um.
23:48
Speaker 1: Apparently people who have iron deficiencies in amia um eat
23:51
Speaker 1: ice a lot. But you're not getting any iron for
23:54
Speaker 1: the ice or from the ice, but they think that possibly, Um,
23:58
Speaker 1: there's apparently, um discomfort in the tongue when you have
24:02
Speaker 1: an iron deficiency, and the ice alleviates that, which is
24:05
Speaker 1: why they crave. That makes sense, isn't that weird. Yeah, well, Pike,
24:09
Speaker 1: just specifically, I guess we should say, is craving a
24:12
Speaker 1: or ingesting a non food item, or guess just the craving,
24:15
Speaker 1: and then if you act on it, then you're you're
24:17
Speaker 1: carrying out the craving, right. And actually, if you have
24:19
Speaker 1: a weird food craving, you should actually probably see a
24:22
Speaker 1: physician because it could mean like an iron deficiency or
24:25
Speaker 1: some other problem with your your body, right, unless you're pregnant.
24:28
Speaker 1: Don't be alarmed if you're pregnant and you want to
24:30
Speaker 1: eat some dirt, because that's actually kind of common about
24:33
Speaker 1: women actually feel this this way. Ice. And the other
24:37
Speaker 1: thing that I thought was weird was this geofagea you
24:40
Speaker 1: were talking about is more common here in the South. Yeah,
24:43
Speaker 1: oh yeah. You don't find too many people who eat
24:45
Speaker 1: white clay up north? Why not? I don't think there
24:48
Speaker 1: is white clay available up north. It's weird. Well, that's
24:52
Speaker 1: food cravings in a nutshell, in a huge nutshell on
24:57
Speaker 1: a man, which bun. Yeah. Thanks to Christen Conger for
25:00
Speaker 1: writing a really good article for us to podcast on.
25:03
Speaker 1: So I just want to finish up by getting this
25:05
Speaker 1: really clear. You take a sloppy Joe and you take
25:08
Speaker 1: like just the corn tortilla fish taco. That's that's open
25:11
Speaker 1: face and just put that on top and face it's
25:14
Speaker 1: a taco. Man. Well, it's not a taco until you
25:17
Speaker 1: hold it and roll it up right. You've put it
25:19
Speaker 1: in full and rolled up, half over, doubled over, and
25:23
Speaker 1: then put the bunt of the sloppy Joe on top
25:25
Speaker 1: and go to town with the meat and everything. Yes,
25:28
Speaker 1: just that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. That's pike
25:30
Speaker 1: a esque. Well, if you want to know more about
25:33
Speaker 1: pike food cravings or anything your brain can come up with, you,
25:38
Speaker 1: just type some words into the handy search bar at
25:40
Speaker 1: how stuff work dot com and you'll be taking care
25:44
Speaker 1: of straight away. And since I said the handy search
25:46
Speaker 1: bar at how stuff works dot com, that means it's
25:49
Speaker 1: time now for a listener mail, Josh. I'm just gonna
25:54
Speaker 1: call this, uh, Henry Hill exposed. Remember we did our
25:58
Speaker 1: podcast recently on the Witness Protection Program. We talked about
26:03
Speaker 1: famous gangster Henry Hill basis of the film Goodfellas and
26:08
Speaker 1: My Blue Heaven. In My Blue Heaven, and we had
26:10
Speaker 1: a guy right in that has met Henry Hill and
26:12
Speaker 1: here's what he has to say. And I think he's
26:14
Speaker 1: from England because of all the weird things he said.
26:16
Speaker 1: He say, cheers at the bottom. Yeah, of course I've
26:19
Speaker 1: met Henry Hill and ex entrepreneur and that's in quotes.
26:22
Speaker 1: I don't know what that's supposed to mean. And myself
26:25
Speaker 1: brought him over to England to do an after dinner
26:27
Speaker 1: gentleman's evening type speech. I don't know what that is either. Uh.
26:32
Speaker 1: He was also on the local TV promoting a book.
26:34
Speaker 1: I think he was an absolute nightmare. He decided that
26:37
Speaker 1: the Witness Protection program was not for him, probably because
26:41
Speaker 1: he'd been kicked out of it a half a dozen times,
26:43
Speaker 1: and he was going to travel far and wide to
26:45
Speaker 1: help kids from a life of crime, not noble. The
26:50
Speaker 1: problem was when you have a world famous gangster doing
26:52
Speaker 1: an after dinner speech, the paying guests don't want to
26:54
Speaker 1: hear him telling them stay out of trouble and behaved.
26:57
Speaker 1: They want to hear him talk about Jimmy the gent
26:59
Speaker 1: and the lift Anza heist. Naturally, his minder was his
27:04
Speaker 1: UK agent and it was the first time they had
27:06
Speaker 1: ever met in person. We had a v I P
27:09
Speaker 1: dinner uh drink afterward with a special drink and a
27:14
Speaker 1: posh club in Liverpool, and Henry decided he kept to
27:17
Speaker 1: keep wandering off trying to chat up the girls. Sadly,
27:21
Speaker 1: he'd also have been a little too keen on this
27:23
Speaker 1: imported product. He could hardly string two words together, so
27:26
Speaker 1: it sounds like he got bombed and was hitten on checks.
27:29
Speaker 1: That's the American translation teen keen. Uh. Still for someone
27:34
Speaker 1: who's killed as many people as he has, he was
27:36
Speaker 1: a nice bloke and despite this sounding wrong, an example
27:39
Speaker 1: of the maxim that you should never meet your heroes.
27:42
Speaker 1: Not that he was my hero, but I couldn't think
27:44
Speaker 1: of another way to put it. Uh. Lastly, he had
27:47
Speaker 1: to take him to dinner in a cab and we
27:49
Speaker 1: did a quick tour of the Yellow Submarine, the Cavern
27:51
Speaker 1: Club and other famous Beetles landmarks, and he said that
27:55
Speaker 1: he would like to sing on stage at the Cavern Club.
27:57
Speaker 1: And when I chuckled, thinking he was joking, guess what
28:00
Speaker 1: he did the you think I'm funny gag. He did
28:05
Speaker 1: that to him and he said it was the scariest
28:07
Speaker 1: thing you'd ever seen. Cheers, chaps, Jazz. Just in case
28:11
Speaker 1: we weren't sure he was from England. Cheers Chaps, Chaps
28:14
Speaker 1: from Jazz cheers to you, Jazz, thank you for that story.
28:17
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. Actually, it kind of went back and forth,
28:20
Speaker 1: like I would have not liked to have hung out
28:23
Speaker 1: with Henry Hill. I would love to have hung out
28:25
Speaker 1: with Henry Hill. That happened like five times. Sure, I
28:27
Speaker 1: feel like I'm about to vomit. Okay, Well, if you
28:30
Speaker 1: have a cool story about Henry Hill or any other
28:33
Speaker 1: former gangster celebrity unicorn you name it, send it in
28:37
Speaker 1: an email to stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
28:47
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
28:49
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
28:53
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot
28:55
Speaker 1: com home page Brought to you either Reinvented two thousand
29:01
Speaker 1: and twelve Cameray. It's ready, are you