This episode is brought to you by Just Egg. You can't have plant-based breakfast without a plant-based egg. You can get started with a free sample. Just head to J-U-T-S-T-slash H R N. With our growing season just around the corner, we're sowing seeds of knowledge and empathy on this week's episode of Meet and Three through four unique stories.
I'm always shocked at how aggressive people are with their language. We're surrounded by seeds that have already adapted to live with us, and they're actually already kind of living in the future because cities are hotter and they're more polluted and they're more fragmented, and these are the plants that can deal with that. Tune in to Meet and Three, available wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network, like from whenever to whenever. Heritage Radio Network.
Great. You doing alright? Yeah. You enjoying the uh the sweet, sweet freezing weather we just got for a year. Yeah, why would anyone want to be anywhere else?
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad that you're your usual sunny self. That's awesome. Uh John back from his uh grand jury duty. How you doing, John?
Doing great. You got your you got your fill of uh watching uh murders and kidnappings on uh videotape, have you? Yeah. Yeah. Faith in humanity restored.
Yeah, ready for cooking issues to come and bring them back down. Yeah, you said it was like horrific, right? In terms of like what you're exposed to on the daily. Yeah, it's pretty crazy the crimes that you know happen in the city and in such like popular places right in the middle of the day. It's it was uh sober sobering.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh we got uh Matt in his uh you're you're permanently Rhode Island Heidi Hode hold, right? Yeah doing it.
Yeah, all right. So if if we have time, which we won't because we have like a panoply of amazing guests today, but uh I have more updates on uh the vacuuming bread trials, but we probably won't have time. So I'm gonna get right into it today. Uh we have three special guests. Uh first, long time uh, you know, coming on the show, friend of the show.
Uh Ariel Johnson, Dr. Ariel Johnson, uh flavor flavor chemist. How do you like to describe yourself right now, Ariel? What's your favorite like author? Besides about to be failed author.
Um, I'm joking. Um I usually say I'm a I'm a flavor scientist or a food scientist. Flavor scientist. I like that. I like that, but like not like a most people who are flavor scientists are more or they're flavorists.
I think flavor scientists might be a title that I invented. I'm not I'm not sure, but it I think it best encompasses what I've done. Right. You know how to use technology, but you're not a technologist. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I can pretend to be one, but mostly my uh my job is to study and talk about flavor. Yeah, well, welcome back. Uh it's good to be. Thanks for having me. Yeah, good good to hear you.
Good hearing. Uh and also you might know her uh also now as uh good Good Eats uh Chief Science Officer, which is also a good title. Did you come up with that? I um no, I didn't. I think uh uh Alton, like many of us, likes Star Trek, and I believe that's either the same or close to uh Spox designation on the Enterprise, so I'm not complaining about that, certainly.
Yeah, you were a pro pro Nemoy? Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Where do you fall on the George Tikay uh William Shatner spectrum?
Uh I mean, how like how can you really choose? But uh I think I'm more of a tokay person. Yeah, so you don't like the uh you don't like the all right. Well we can't. All right, all right, all right.
And uh, of course, also longtime friend uh Harold McGee on the line. How you doing, Harold? I'm very well, thanks. How about you guys? Doing all right.
So the last time we had on was you know, unfortunately for Maria Guarnicelli's uh uh memorial show, but then also we had you on about your new your new book, Nosedive. How's that going? Going well, I hope. Uh yeah, it's it's now new-ish, uh, but doing pretty well, getting some good reviews, and um and so we'll see about sales. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you know. Uh whatever. Uh so the uh so the reason I have you two on is because we've gotten a lot of questions uh recently on cold COVID and uh old faction, right? So I mean everyone's thinking about COVID all the time. Uh but a lot of people, especially for cooking and in this show in particular, um, you know, they're asking, well, look, you know, I I've lost my sense of taste or my sense of smell because of COVID, and you know, what can I do about it?
Is it permanent? Is there any way to cook around it, etc. etc.? So I thought, you know, the two of you would uh be perfect for the show, especially because Harold, I'm allowed to say that you had an osmia as a result of like years ago, right? Or no?
I'm not it's too late. I already said it. We could have cut it out. But yeah, Harold also has uh an interesting perspective because he is a food guy author who also suffered from anosmia, which means la lack of smell. We'll get into the technical stuff uh later.
But I brought a special other guest who's his first time, I've known him for I've known him for like probably 30 years or something, but it's his first time on the on the program. Uh live from Harvard, we have Sandeep Robert Data, who will now be called Bob because that's what I've called him since I've known him. But he is an olfactory scientist at the Harvard at the best lab name ever. What's the name of your lab, Bob? Uh the data lab.
How sweet is that? Because it produces data and his name is data. How sick is that? Is that the best name for a lab that's ever happened? Ariel, what do you think about that?
That that is that is quite quite the serendipitous name, definitely. Yeah. And just so you guys get a feel for kind of who Bob is. So, like, uh I don't what am I am I allowed to say any almost anything about you or not, Bob? You're pretty like Go for it, man.
Go for it. It's all you. So, like, uh, you know, so I actually know Bob through his wife Eliza, who, because Eliza and I were friends in college. I turns out I went to college with with Bob, but I I didn't know it uh at the time. Anyway, so like we became friends later, and especially because I found out he was a big food guy, not just an MD PhD with his own lab at Harvard, because he didn't have that at the time.
But he used to throw a yearly party instead of a birthday, he would have an I'm not dead party. And this is how I learned about Bob's kind of love of food, because every year he would have this blowout crazy party where he would cook for days and invite people in to celebrate the fact that he was not dead. Right? Right? Still not.
Still not dead. Uh well, because he had a particularly horrible like medical procedure and you know, problem that you know could have gone either. Let's just say it could have gone either way, right, Bob? Yeah. Thankfully it didn't.
Yeah, yeah. So we'll have him back on again. If you guys ever want to know about the perils of not paying your cryo bill. Like Bob's story on not paying your cryo bill will put you in tears. No matter how bad badly off you are, you should always check your mail.
That's my advice. Especially if you have important stuff in a deep freezer somewhere. Oh no. You might want to. All is well that ends well.
All as well that ends well. It turns out that the people who were uh who are threatening to turn off the switch on Bob's cryogenic uh stored products also was lazy. And so uh it all is well that ended well on that one. Also, uh little known fact about Bob, uh Bob went to high school with uh Snoop Dogg. Drew that, true that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh wait, did you grow up in Long Beach or what? Yeah, I grew up in a town next to Long Beach called Lakewood. Um so yeah, so I basically am uh you know, I I kicked around the LBC all growing up, basically. Yeah.
So I didn't tell you this. We just had our high school reunion, Snoop Dogg through the after party. I gotta tell you, it was exactly exactly Snoop Dogg came, slick Rick came, color me bad. Remember? Ah, what a sex, you up and it was incredible, incredible.
It sounds incredible. See, I'm just trying to give you guys a flavor for who's gonna be talking to you. All right. Uh one last thing I'll give this is the cooking issues crowd, especially will like this. You told me a story once that, like uh, you were at your your house, you were a small child, your grandma came over, I think it was your grandma, came over to your house and was like, What's wrong with you?
And the first thing she did is to your parents. What's wrong with you is she dug a hole in the ground and built a tandoor. True or false. This is what you told me. A hundred percent true.
And that was the best food I've ever eaten. She would like, she dug the clay out of our backyard. I mean, so she was in her 70s, hand built a tundor and just killed it for the entire time she was living with us. It was it was an incredible. I mean, that's that's that's like that's like grandma plus plus right there.
Grandma Plus Plus. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, nice. Uh, well, because what what region was she from originally? From the Poon job.
Nice, nice. Anyways, uh, all right, so that's enough of pre-stuff. Now we're gonna give a word of warning. Since we have three people who like know all the fancy words, let's try to stay away from some word salad when we're talking about this stuff. All right, let's keep it, let's keep it on the on the on the normal.
Like uh, I'll give you an example. I was reading an interview in in advance of this that uh Bob gave to one of his uh Harvard cronies over there, and they were talking about COVID and smell, right? And he's giving kind of a normal interview, like, you know, hey, baby boo boo, and he's like, he's like, you know what? Sustentacular cells, they're more important than you think. It's kind of like the like, you know, like glial cell important.
And I'm like, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. First of all, I don't want to hear anyone say sustentacular unless they're saying, How you doing? Hey, sustentacula. Like, for those of you that for those of you that uh aren't hip to sustentacular, as I was not, you know, before, you know, not before 8 a.m.
this morning, uh, you could just say support cell. You there doesn't need to be a word sustentacular, where you take, I don't know, tacular and add it to sustain and get sustentacular. What the heck is it with that word? They're spectacular cells that sustain things. They're freaking like he's spectacular.
Like, like how high was the scientist who came up with that name when they did. But the front fact you know, they were first named sustenazing, right? And that didn't work out so well. Oh my god, sustentacular. Oh my god, such a word salad.
All right. So the one, like, so we'll just get it straight. Are we gonna use anosmia, perosmia? That word that means I can't taste. What's that one?
Well, that would be a goosia if you can't taste, but anosmia is you can't smell, and perosmia is you can smell, but it's messed up. All right, all right. Now, I got Bob on not just because he's an old factory scientist, and by the way, Bob spent many years uh seeing like whether he could look at images of rats shrugging and then figure out what was going on in their brain with a camera, right? That with a visual camera and then a camera that looked inside their actual brain while they were alive and developed a microscope to do this. Is this a true story or am I making this up for it?
No, this is this is a true story that work is ongoing, and uh it's pretty cool. I'll tell you about it later. It's not too small. And here, well, one one more thing before we get into it, because that's again the the flavor. I like to tie this back to things, even people who haven't had the COVID.
Here's some career advice from what Bob did uh as a as a younger researcher that I think is great career advice. I think Ariel, you're especially gonna enjoy this. Um he went to work for uh a famous uh person's lab at uh Columbia University for uh it was postdoc, right, Bob? Yep, yep. All right, so he's doing his postdoc for, and so he convinces this this guy to build a fantastically expensive new microscope.
And the name of the microscope was it, two photon microscope? Yeah, it's a multi-photon microscope. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
And so how much that sucker cost? Uh you know, the laser to power was a quarter million dollars. Okay, okay. So, and that was hey folks, that's just the laser. We're not talking about like the optics.
The light bulb like quarter million dollars for one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so we're talking like lots of money, not to mention like, you know, all the rats that Bob was going through left and right. By the way, no illegal way to kill a rat in New York City.
Anyway, um the so what he did, and this is the genius for all of you growing up. I know that a lot of people who are when they're younger, they're worried that they're gonna go work for someone, like for us, it's probably in a restaurant or in hospitality, and they're gonna give all their good ideas to the person who's getting all the credit, right? Bob did the reverse. He gave his all, he built like a great microscope, but since no one had built them before, he learned a lot about building this particular kind of microscope with somebody else's million dollars, right? Became the guy who knew how to build the million dollar microscope, and then got to build one that was like twice as good when he moved over to Harvard and got his own lab.
So this is good career advice. Am I right, Bob? It's all yeah, it's good career advice. Always spending someone else's money is good advice. Spend someone else's money first, don't worry about giving up the idea.
Instead, learn on somebody else's nickel and then become the heavyweight, no? Easy peasy. Yeah. That is that yeah. You like that area?
I thought Ariel, you were that. Yeah, no, I mean, it's uh uh there's also the skill in finding someone who will give you that money. Um but uh and until then what I've usually done is built built things out of garbage and scrap and then been the first person to uh you know those things. Air Ariel Ariel and I have a secret business idea that I think that Nastasia and John know about to build something out of garbage uh for people. But yeah, it should be fun.
You've been very patient about my uh my ever extending book deadline. But uh but yes, we have to Oh, I'm I'm familiar with ever extending book deadline. So anyway, so none of those reasons is the reason that Bob's on the show. It's not shrugging rats, although I'm sure it's related. But uh Bob and a number of people in his lab, it it last March, March 2020, were some of the first people to realize that uh people who were um uh getting COVID in in the first outbreak were having problems with old faction and did some of the early research.
So you want to talk about what ooh, nice. Bob, you want to talk about about what you what you learned and what you know? Yeah, sure. So uh let me start by saying uh we still haven't figured it out. So it's been a it's been a year into the pandemic, and I think uh a bunch of us are still wondering and still working on on this problem, which is a which is a big problem, I think even bigger than we realized.
So just to kind of step back and talk about some numbers briefly, I'd say the most recent data suggests that if you get COVID, about 80% of you are gonna have a change in your sense of smell. Uh some of you lose entirely, for some of you you'll lose partially, but like you know, the vast majority of people who um go ahead and get COVID get some sort of anosmia or perosmia, a loss of their smell or a diminution in their cell in their sense of smell. Um and then of those, you know, for most people it comes back pretty quick, two to four weeks usually. But there's definitely a bunch of people, 30% maybe who go on for longer. Um, and so, you know, I think uh what that means, right, is that there are millions of people now across the globe who are kind of dealing with this as an issue.
Uh, and so as a consequence, a bunch of us are trying pretty hard to figure out what's going on. Uh, and I and I think, you know, as I said, we still don't know, but I think um the the ideas we have now uh kind of go like this that um it's not the cold. You know, you get the cold and your nose gets stuffed up and your mucus changes and you know you can't smell, and then you get better from the cold, and then you get your sense of smell back, right? That's what happens to all of us. And it's pretty clear now that's not what this virus is doing.
This virus is doing something totally different, um that is that's kind of changing our ways of thinking about what's important when we, you know, to the function of our ability to smell. Uh, and as Dave kind of mentioned, you know, the thing that we initially thought was um that maybe the virus goes up into your nose and infects a part of your nasal cavity called the olfactory epithelium. I'll try to keep the longest words to a minimum, but it's like a part of the inside of your nose that's responsible for detecting odors, it's responsible for selling, for smelling. And you know, really I'm a neurobiologist, right? So, like I care about the brain, I care about neurons and process information, and that's what that's what you know wakes wakes me up in the morning.
And the olfactory epithelium is filled with these neurons, which are just like the cells in your brain, except they live in your nose. Uh, and these neurons are responsible for sensing smells in the world. So you take a sniff, right? You get all these small molecules that are that are volatile, that they're coming off of your food, they're coming off of everything in your environment. You know, they come into your nose and they interact with these neurons in your nose, and then your neurons, you're gonna love this.
These neurons actually communicate with your brain because they have these little bits of wiring, uh, which are called axons, that actually poke through holes in the base of your skull. So you have these tiny little holes that like separate your nose. You know, you have this bone that separates your nose from your brain, right? So to prop the front of your brain up and not let it fall into your mouth. Uh and into that little bone, which is called the crypoform plate, there are like a bunch of these little holes.
And this wiring goes from the neurons in your nose through these holes in your skull into your brain, basically. And so, like the initial idea was well, maybe what's happening is the virus is coming in, you're getting infected, uh, and that that virus is infecting these sensory neurons, which are responsible for smell, messing up the neurons, and that's why we all lose our sense of smell. It looks like that idea is not true. Uh, it looks like instead there are other sorts of cells that kind of prop up and feed the olfactory sensory neurons in your nose. And these are the support cells that Dave was mentioning.
Um sustentacula, the spectacular sustentacular cell. And it looks like those are the primary cells that are getting infected. That's what it seems like. At least you know, everything's subject to revision. This is science, like we're not, there's no dogma here.
But the data that we have currently, both in animals and in humans, is that like when you get infected, these these support cells that are the responsible for kind of maintaining your olfactory sensory neurons get infected. And then there's probably some local inflammatory process that effectively shuts down uh the ability of your sensory neurons to work. And so you kind of like a light switch, lose your sense of smell when the sustentacular cells stop working. And then when the infection clears, for most people, right? Um the sustentacular cells get better, the inflammation, the local inflammation goes away, and all of a sudden your sensory neurons start working again, and now all of a sudden you can smell.
Um, which is it's better news that it's not messing with the neurons, right? Yeah, it's definitely but yeah, for in most people. But David, you know, one of the things to keep in mind is that there is this relatively large fraction of people that uh lose their smell for longer. And we think in those cases, the neurons are probably being messed with. That like denied support from the support cells for a while, um, if the support cells are really hit hard, the neurons go on to die.
Um, and uh, you know, that can cause a prolonged sense of you know, loss of your sense of smell, but it but also creates other issues. We talked just a little bit about parosmias, right? So anosmia is the loss of smell. Parosmia, uh, as Ariel was describing, uh, is when different uh smells smell wrong, and they often smell um really funky and unpleasant. So you'll smell a flower and it'll smell like sewage, for example, which is horrible.
And actually, when you have perosmias, you know, lots of patients who have perosmates now have trouble finding something to eat. And so we don't really that's why we're here, because we have a bunch of people asking how to fix this or what's going on, they want to know. Yeah, yeah. So so as I started, like if we know little about how COVID causes anosmia, we know even less about how COVID causes parosmias, but there are some ideas. So, one interesting idea um comes from the third type of cell that's in your olfactory epithelium.
So there's these neurons that detect odors, there's these support cells, there's a third kind of cell called a stem cell. So in me and in you and in everyone, when we breathe in and out, what we're basically doing is breathing in a bunch of garbage in the air, right? Pollutants, pollen, viruses, particulates, cigarette smoke, toxins, like just like day in, day out, this olfactory epithelium is bombarded with all sorts of toxic trash. And the reason why we have nose hairs and we have mucus is to like help prevent that crap from you know damaging our neurons. But inevitably, our neurons are damaged and actually they die.
Uh just as part of the normal wear and tear of your olfactory epithelium. So there are these special cells called stem cells that actually rebuild the epithelium when it's damaged. So they regenerate neurons. Now that that process kicks into high gear when a virus like like the coronavirus, you know, really damages your olfactory epithelium. So what has to happen in order for that neuron, that new neuron that was just made to repair your epithelium, what has to happen for that thing to work?
Well, you have a new neuron that's born in your nose. So obviously it has to be able to detect odors, but also it has to send one of those wires up through one of those holes in your brain, in in your skull, and it has to go to just the right place in your brain. And so that's hard. Like that's a huge there's a huge distance between your nose and this part of the brain that like that information has to go to. Um and so it takes a long time for that process to actually occur.
And then often when the wiring, the axon enters the brain, at the beginning, it's actually in the wrong place. And so one idea about perosmius is that it actually kind of reflects a process of repair and recovery. Your neurons are getting rebuilt, they're getting rewired, and you know, that information is going to the brain, but it's not quite going to the right place. And confronted with this kind of weirdness, your brain turns that into like a nasty smell. And the idea is that over time the wiring will refine itself and the axons will increasingly go to the right places.
Uh, and then the perosmus will go away and you'll recover your sense of smell. So that's that's just one idea. There's probably more going on than we know. Um, but that's the that's the current predominant theory. Wait, so the theory is eventually your brain will integrate it in the same way that it used to, or you'll just get used to the new integration and you're you'll tell yourself that it doesn't smell like gasoline anymore.
It smells like whatever. We think it probably is going back to the way it was before, but part of what's definitely happening, and this kind of touches on what we can do to help patients, right? Part of what's happening probably is also your brain is relearning uh, you know, what smells are. Um and so, you know, I don't know that you've heard about this thing, but like the one clinical thing that has you know some evidence to support it to help with folks who are anosmic, hyposmic, meaning they have kind of less of a sense of smell or perosmic after um after COVID infections is this thing called smell training, where basically you take a bunch of purified or essential oils, and there are a lot of websites actually online that can help kind of guide you through this process. There's one particularly good one called AbScent, uh A-B-S-C-E-N-T, um, that sells kits and has guides for how to do this.
Basically, you smell various uh smells or essential oils, you know, throughout the day whose identity is known to you. So you smell lavender, you smell peppermint, you smell this, you smell that, and you just remind yourself, oh, this is peppermint, this is lavender, um, you know, this is apricot, this is peach. And you just do that over and over and over again. And it's thought through this kind of repeated smell training, your brain relearns what smells are uh and helps to reintegrate the new information as it's coming in from your nose as your nose repairs itself. Harold, did you have did you do something like that when it happened to you?
What when you want to talk about your story about uh going through this pre-COVID? Yeah, it was uh very different uh because I mean it would it was uh similar in the sense that I woke up one morning, I I made myself a cup of coffee, and after a minute or so realized that I actually wasn't smelling it. Wasn't uh I was tasting it, but I wasn't getting any of the the pleasant smells. Um and then I noticed uh through the rest of the day that I wasn't smelling anything, and that lasted for uh several weeks. And um I didn't have any symptoms.
Uh I didn't have any uh I didn't have a cold. Uh everything else seemed normal. So that was scary because I was in the middle of writing a book about smells, and uh so I got in touch with um friends of mine at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, you know, asking them what could I do. And they basically said uh at the time, and this is maybe six, seven years ago, uh just hang in there and uh usually it comes back, but sometimes it doesn't, and you won't know until uh it does or doesn't. And I didn't uh actually think of training, you know, trying to trying to exercise those muscles because I didn't really know what was going on.
Um so I just uh you know crossed my fingers and uh it was a really unpleasant few weeks because uh I wasn't getting any pleasure from food um except you know taste, and so I was I was you know upping the hot sauce in everything just to get some kind of sensation. Um and stopped going out to restaurants because there was no point, uh, stopped drinking wine um because there are cheaper ways to enjoy alcohol. Uh and it uh and uh even just you know, walking into my house or going out of my house, you know, and you you get a blast of fresh air, and you kind of uh you know, just get a sense of the the environment, uh all that was gone. It was it was really upsetting. Uh so anyway, I mucked out, it it came back eventually and gradually.
Um so yeah, it's it's not a not a nice experience. Well, you say you didn't train, but I remember I saw you like we hung out like when you were coming out of it at one point, I forget what we were doing, and you were doing kind of A-B testing. You're you know, you were you're you were talking, you were making mental notes of what something smelled like before versus now. I mean, you probably didn't even notice it, but that's kind of like the way that you operate. So maybe you know, you your natural way of being was helpful in terms of helping you get your smell back.
Because I remember you being like, you know, bring it up, look, take it down, bring it up. You know what I mean? Yeah, I would I was certainly testing myself every day and multiple times during the day, hoping, you know, for some sign that uh something was coming back. Uh and I would try everything, um, you know, bad smells, good smells, but but I wasn't, you know, um uh smelling something and then thinking that smell, uh, you know, th trying to make the association. I was just it was kind of a uh uh an A-B test in the sense of is it there or not?
And does it smell right or not? Yeah. And then not to freak the listeners out uh even more, but I saw a study that says that more people have uh olfactory deficits as a result of COVID than they know. In other words, that the odds that you have a deficit and don't know that you've been somewhat impacted are quite high. Is that accurate?
Uh yeah, absolutely. People are really lousy at, believe it or not, reporting their own kind of self-sense of smell, right? They're not really good at that. So if you ask folks, you know, the prevalence of COVID associated changes in smell are like at 60, 65%. But if you test them, it's more like 80s.
And as more objective testing kind of makes its way into the world, you know, given the pandemic, you know, that number could even rise. So yeah, I think it's it's it's um people's lack of self-insight into their sense of smell that might be under underrepresenting uh how badly this this the virus is really infecting that this particular sense. And uh lastly, on this kind of like nuts and bolts aspect of it, um I saw some data that uh country by country the reported rates are different, but that's probably almost certainly just the way it's being reported, right? Yeah, and actually um you'll not you'll get a kick out of this. Um, you know, initially a lot of the reports had women getting an osmia much more than men, but that's just because women are much more insightful about their sense of smell than men are.
Um when you objectively test them, they're basically the same. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the initial report people were really wondering whether there was a sex difference. Because it was like 30-60, right?
The original data was like 30-60. Yeah, and that all washes out with objective testing. Okay. Oh, sorry. Uh well, that's really interesting.
And like what you said before about people not being good at reporting their own uh like decline in smell sensitivity. Um I mean, it definitely gives with like what I've experienced training people to do sensory analysis and uh the sort of like general uh uh what one paper put it is humans are extraordinarily good at distinguishing smells, but extraordinarily bad at describing smells, um, although that's generally linked to like experience and and culture. So uh the difference in men and women makes me think um, you know, since perfume and like scented body products are marketed so heavily to women, that like maybe culturally they tend to be uh, you know, more more trained and attuned to noticing these like differences in smell. Well, so speaking of that, Ariel uh and testing, so Mike Baston wants to know what kind of what are the what are the objective tests that they use uh rather than just your subjective perception of it. Well, I mean, you know, technically speaking, no perception is truly subjective.
Um, I mean, it's going to vary person by person, but like for the most part, uh a glass of wine is not going to smell subjectively to somebody like a cheeseburger. Um, so uh which I know I I am uh you know belaboring a sort of pedantic pedantic point, but um I don't know how they test in a in a medical context, in um doing a sensory analysis of of wine or uh uh whiskey cocktails or rum, which is what I've I've done. Um I mean we we train people not in the ability to physically smell things, but in the ability to name the smells that they're uh they're smelling, and we always do that with uh physical references. So if if they say celery, we give them some you know, fresh celery, celery seed, dried celery, and they have to tell us which one aligns with what they what they mean when they say celery, for example. Yeah, one of the studies I saw was actually using the commercially available smells of uh the nez duvent.
Oh yeah, the nez duvan. Uh yeah. That's uh those things stink, man. Those things stink. Well, I mean, you you're if you're you're smelling smell molecules and concentrations that like no human is really supposed to or finds in nature.
Um but but yeah, the uh the the nez duvent is a is uh one example of trying to standardize these these references because it's based on like specific blends of molecules. Right. Well, I know there's some researchers who are trying to come up with the smell kits for people to test themselves at home in a in a more objectively verifiable way based on kind of easy to purchase odorants. Any of you guys like that? Uh oh, I've heard of that.
Um I I mean I'm just spitballing here, so um Sandy, please correct me if I'm like talking outside my discipline too much. It sounds like it could be kind of analogous to uh to like testing for concussions, where it's like much better to have a baseline uh baseline reading or baseline test to compare to rather than trying to figure out from scratch, like post post-trauma um if something has happened. You know, that's completely true. You know, my buddy Noam Sobel at the Weitzman Institute came up with a kind of clever solution to this, which is he wrote up uh a phone-based app where you just go into your kitchen and you pick five kind of canonical smells. And he has a long list of like a hundred you can pick from, you just have to find five of them.
Toothpaste is one of them, I think. Uh not that that's my kitchen. Um and then you just measure them, measure your perception of them longitudinally. Yeah. And so it's thought that like it's the delta, it's the change that really is indicative.
Because you know, human perception, as I'm sure you're aware, is so varied and so individualized. You know, what's normal for me is very different from what's normal for you. And so this kind of longitudinal testing ends up being really important. Very cool. Uh all right.
So you talked a little bit uh about well, we'll we'll go to this one first on treatment. So Jim wanted to know, other than uh steroids and platelet stuff, is there any thoughts on uh stem still stem cell therapy for fixing uh fixing this problem in the future? Like how how many years away are they from being able to fix this like that way? Well, you know, like like I said, um, there are stem cells in your nose that repair your epithelium, and so people have long been fascinated with that because um a thing that maybe you guys don't know is that, or maybe you do know, right? Is that like your brain isn't very good at repairing itself precisely because it doesn't have very many stem cells.
There's a very small population of stem cells in your hippocampus, for example. Um, but that's then you know, that's basically it, um, except for your nose, which continuously regenerates these neurons. And so people have actually been taking nose tissue and like putting it in damaged spinal cords, for example, to try to see whether the stem cells from your nose can rebuild other parts of your nervous system. Um, my buddy Brad Goldstein at Duke has actually done this for smell in animal models. So you can damage the olfactory epithelium of a mouse, and then you can transplant back into that mouse some new olfactory stem cells.
It turns out that works. It actually repairs the epithelium. Um, as far as I know, this has never been tried in a human, and so this kind of work is going to be several years off before it'll it'll help us. Um, but it's a thing that in principle could work, and I think it's a subject of active research. How many years do you guys, this is not related to COVID?
How many years until like the average high school student can CRISPR themselves up and turn themselves into a glow in the dark, rave rave party person? I mean, I know a guy that sells kits for that. It's coming. I I I'd wait. I don't know.
I'd wait. Yeah, I I haven't I haven't tried it. I just uh I mean if I was gonna CRISPR myself, it would be a glow-in-the-dark, like huge like patch right in the middle of my forehead, so I wouldn't need to worry about a headlamp, and then when everyone turns the lights down, I'll still be able to see. You know what I mean? There's an artist, I'm gonna look up his name who made a rabbit glow in the dark somehow.
Um Dave, wait, Dave. If if I if I could CRISPR in photosynthesis into you, you wouldn't take that. Right. I like eating so much. I don't need sugar injected, you know, into me.
You know, and then uh I don't know. I mean, it'll be a good use of my extra carbon dioxide, and nostalgia tells me I have enough of it, right? Yeah. Um, and and I'm gonna want a specific answer to this. Nicole wrote in, I know we've touched on it, but do they have any information on the frequency of uh full versus partial recovery?
Uh, and does it come back the same? She's personally panicked and dying to know. Um my understanding is that when people recover, they feel pretty normal. And I think the data are still emerging about rates of recovery and and the nature and the course of the recovery. I mean, we've only been in this pandemic for a year, and I'll just remind you like this is the biggest olfactory crisis, perhaps humanity has ever faced.
I realize it sounds kind of ridiculous, but it's true. No, it's totally true. Right. I mean, new onset anosmia is extremely rare, right? Um and so now all of a sudden we're just confronted with this and we're learning about it as we go.
Well, the question I have then is like also uh, you know, because this disease is also impacting um, you know, people like, for instance, in nursing homes disproportionately, and they're having they have trouble typically eating and enjoying what's going on anyway. Are we going to see more people dying from lack of nutrition over the next like uh year because they just don't want to eat anymore and they're already in a compromised position? Yeah, I mean, there's really three things here. One is that smell is essential to sense danger, right? So on like there's actually a family of nine, I think, in Texas, where eight of them were in osmic and there was a fire in the house, and none of them noticed, except for the one person who wasn't an osmic who dragged the other eight out.
So, like that's a real thing. The the nutrition thing is absolutely an issue. Um it's an issue, you know, as you get older, as we were just kind of implying, you know, people begin to lose their sense of smells and sense of smell. And if you look at people in their 80s, lots of them are functionally inosmic. And that goes with a change in nutritional status.
I actually want to focus on a thing that Harold was bringing up. Um, you know, he was describing his personal experience with anosmia, and basically he was describing feeling blue. And I think lots of people who have lost their sense of smell um have that sense that they're kind of uh floating in the world and a little bit emotionally out of sorts. Um, and that is in a sense to be expected. Your sense of smell is very directly connected to the emotional and memory centers in your brain.
And when you lose your when people lose their sense of smell, it's actually a known risk factor for depression. And so for your listeners, I really want to emphasize that if that's how you're feeling, it's it's like kind of expected, it's part of what happens to people when they lose their sense of smell, and you should seek help. Um, you know, it's uh it's um I think one of the things that um the medical community is gonna face is a lot of depression that's related to people with prolonged loss of their sense of smell. And it's important to be be really aware of that and sympathetic to that. Um speaking of uh going back to age and training and sense of smell in general, so if training helps you with COVID-related uh, you know loss of smell, whether entire or partial, could training help everyone as they as they're getting older to train their nose to constantly be aware.
Is being aware of smells around you gonna keep your sense of smell longer? Is there any data on this? Uh I don't know of any data. Ariel, do you know any data? Uh no, I was I was just trying, I mean, it's a super intriguing question.
I was just trying to uh think of if I knew any papers that talk about that. Um, there's any I don't know any specifically, but I do remember reading uh that in fact you can uh to some extent um uh improve older people's um uh what acuity or just you know appreciation of that uh sense by getting them to use it in a in a kind of focused con uh conscious way. Um so I think there there is there have been studies like that done. I don't know how big, uh how long ago, uh but um yeah, I I think uh I'm I'm certainly thinking as I turn 70 that I'm going to be um exercising my sense of smell as much as I can. Well, I mean because that because I know there's data on cognition, right?
People who like you know relatively challenge their brains, like tend to keep their cognition uh in better shape longer, right? So maybe the same is true for smells, who knows, right? Yeah, I mean, it's totally reasonable. And actually, you know, the part of your central brain that's responsible for processing smells and assigning them to perception and maybe uh helping you make decisions based upon smells, that part of your brain is super plastic. It's really, really flexible.
And so I can imagine that working it out would be really helpful as you get a little. Just egg is now the fastest growing egg brand in the United States. Bring more plant-based consumers in your doors with easy to use just egg. You can get started with a free sample. Just head to J U.S.
slash H R N. That's J U. S T slash H R N. Made from plants. Just egg is a better egg for you and for the planet.
It's healthier with no cholesterol and less saturated fat. And it's more sustainable. Just egg uses less water and generates fewer carbon emissions. Most importantly, it's delicious. For our listeners who operate a food service establishment, you can get a sample for free.
Head to J U.S. H R N. That's J U.S T slash H R N. Just Egg makes a delicious plant-based addition to any menu. It's available as a liquid scramble.
Great for omelets, frittators, stir fries, and French toast. There's also a frozen pre-baked folded version that's ideal for filling breakfast sandwiches or topping salads. Chef Jose Andres calls Just Egg mind blowing and bonapetit. Says, it's so good I feel guilty eating it. Put the fastest growing egg brand on your menu.
Get a free sample of just egg for your restaurant at J U.S T slash H R N. Are you longing for a trip to Mexico? Do you want to taste mascal straight out of a wood fired clay pot still? And a palenque of Puebla? Well, we can't help with that.
But we can offer the next best thing Agave Road Trip in a box. This set of ten samples of rare heritage agave spirits will transport your heart with the warmth of liquid Mexico. Get your set at agavefestival.org and then join Agave Road Trip Podcast co-host, Chava and me, Lou, for an online tasting. Agavefestival.org is the break you've been looking for, or as close as you're gonna get. Alright, now I'm gonna read the question that started it all, and then you guys can have at it.
We've talked uh we've talked around it, but the reason I decided to have you all was we got a question from uh Jill Kabika via email. Uh I'm sure I mutilated your last name. I apologize, Jill. Um, my friend is about three months post-COVID, and suddenly a new devastating side effect has surfaced parasmia. It started when he thought his jar of peanut butter had suddenly horribly gone rancid.
So this is later. And by the way, I'll say also my wife, Jen, now every once in a while has like what she calls like flashback phantom smells, where she smells gasoline all of a sudden for no reason, nowhere near a uh a gas thing. It started when he thought his jar of peanut butter has gone horribly rancid. Over the next 48 hours, many other foods he encountered also exhibited this rancidity. Several others with this after effect have been described, uh have described their new taste encounters to be horrendous mixes of feces and rotting garbage.
Uh, have been advised by doctors that this could potentially last up to years. Now, right there, she's making me think sulfurous compounds, right? Feces, garbage, sulfurous, and nitrogen compounds. Well, well, yeah, but oh yeah, so yeah, I was gonna say, uh, keep reading, cause also nitrogen, but you uh Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Here is a list of foods that trigger this smell from my friend. Anything with nuts, alliums, garlic, and onions, so there's your sulfur, right? Uh meat meat that is breaded, which is interesting, breaded meat, uh grilled, blackened or or fried meats, I guess or foods, chocolate, uh, and acidic candy, which isn't particularly aromatic, which is interesting. Uh things that do not trigger dumpster mouth, which is I guess a good term.
Can you guys use that professionally going forward? Dumpster mouth. Uh-huh. You have to give it to Jill though. Like you have to, you know, quote her as dumpster mouth.
Uh things that do not uh trigger the dumpster mouth, salmon, sausages, donuts, bagels, thank goodness. By the way, if we have time, which we won't, Bill De Blasio toasting his bagel. I mean, you could toast a bagel at home if you like, but you're the mayor of the New York. What? Okay.
Uh I mean, come on, people, you're the mayor of New York City. Come on. You don't eat pizza with a fork here, and you don't want to come on. Uh it is one of the one of the ceremonies of state that you have to observe, regardless of personal preference if you're the uh Yeah, he's like, I want a whole wheat bagel with extra cream cheese toasted. You're like, you're the mayor of New York.
No, you don't. No, you don't. Everything untoasted scallion, obviously. I mean, geez, Louise. Anyway, uh so tomato soup and most dairy.
Um my friend would like to get back to enjoying meals and keep the nausea slash vomiting to a minimum. This has been affecting both his physical and mental health, uh, as we were saying, mental health. Uh, is there anything you can find or think of that's similar in process or chemical makeup amongst the trigger foods that he can avoid, or any research uh you can find to help someone suffering from this, redevelop their sense of taste. Thanks in advance. And for Nastasia's notes, uh Jill is 30, female, single, and a home cook that has almost new no gadgets, but still enjoys food science and restaurant industry shop talk.
She's a former server. Uh and I'm gonna piggyback on what you're gonna answer for this and also say is uh is there any relation between this kind of uh kind of taste and smell transference and what happens to some women when they're pregnant and smells that were formerly fine or now intolerable. That's an interesting question. I don't have an answer for that right now, but um, I mean, Harold, Dave mentioned this. Harold, but let me know if this stood out to you too.
Like immediately, um, I mean, obviously, a lot of these nasty smells come from the mired reaction, especially in a view of the like breaded grilled meat. Um, you know, and then the uh the the alliums, that's obviously like a sulfur thing. Um I was stuck a little on the nuts, but the nuts have like tons of pyrazines in them. So I mean it makes me immediately think like sulfur and nitrogen heteromolecules. Um, you know, we mentioned flowers earlier, those can have indols, which have nitrogen and aminoacetophenone, which also have nitrogen.
Um I mean, just from my own like lab work, uh, I know that we we humans tend to have like very low thresholds to many sulfur and nitrogen compounds. Um, so they are molecules that we're already pretty physiologically sensitive to already, um was my like initial takeaway. Ariel, you know, um there's been a little bit of work done formally now exploring this hypothesis that there are specific odorous triggers for parosmia. Oh, okay. And you have it exactly right.
So muscle salt is exactly the conclusion of the paper, which is that sulfurs and nitrogens are the things that are driving it. And actually, the fact that they're specific triggers is precisely why we think we have an incomplete understanding of what's going on with parosmia. If it was just like miswiring and regeneration of your of your olfactory system, you might imagine that should affect all smells equally or in some equally distributed way. But the fact that like you know, sulfurs and nitrogens are the culprits mainly. Coffee's a big offender.
Lots of lots of people can no longer famously, I mean, obviously a lot of like nitrogen pyrazines and pyridines from the myard reaction, but like some of the main odorants are like sulfur-containing ferrinones from cysteine. Yes, yeah, well, like it like the like uh the well-known if it doesn't have the skunk, it doesn't smell fresh, you remove the skunk from coffee and it doesn't smell fresh anymore. True story, people. Um one question quick I had real quick. Sorry, but so Bob, the training before, does that also, if you keep smelling smells that smell like dumpsters, does that help rewire your brain to have them not smell like dumpster anymore?
Yeah, I don't know, I don't know about that actually. I think the spell training has always been focused on pleasant things. So I think that's I think that's actually a really good question. And it's it's worth wondering whether or not people can habituate to the dumpster smells, right? That's also a uh uh an important question question worth asking.
Yeah, I mean like adults can habituate to like plus cheese. So uh Harold can habituate to Surstroming. I was just gonna mention that uh uh I think the paper that Bob is referring to uh on uh MedArchive from um from the UK, uh that actually took coffee apart into its components and then had people uh suffering post-COVID um smell the individual components, and sure enough, it's the sulfur compounds and the pyrazines that they respond to. But the other weird thing that this uh paper reported is that um uh a number of people in their study found or find the smell of uh excrement uh not excremental. Uh it's kind of you know, biscuity, I think is the term that they used.
And they found that those people did not respond to indole, scatole, both of which are nitrogen compounds, and uh or to cresol, which are the main components in in uh smelly components in excrement. So it's uh it's really puzzling and and complicated. Wait, but they they normally could smell poop as poop, but post-COVID now poop is biscuit. That's right, yeah. So so dumpster is is maybe not the right term because uh yeah, good things smell dumpsterish, but dumpster itself smells nice.
Well, I mean, since uh since feces is mostly dead bacteria, I wonder if there's some kind of like you know, when you age champagne on leaves, you get that like biscuity smell. I wonder if maybe people are just smelling like uh uh yes, cellular proteolysis. Um is that biz is that biscuity smell related to the mushroomy smell? Uh mushroomy taste? Um I mean, mushroom-y would probably be from like an eight-carbon aldehyde or ketone and biscuity.
I mean, that's biscuity is often also aldehydes, but like smaller ones, just off the top of my head. Um let's hit some of these more questions. Uh this is a this is a not COVID-related, but from uh Dylan Hoyer. Uh so uh you did an interview on Heritage uh Harold, and it left uh left Dylan wondering if smells are created from pre-existing molecules, can we ever create truly new smells? Well, uh I think that's something that people are are making uh concerted efforts at uh and have been for a long time, uh especially in the perfume business, where you know people are uh trying to come up with molecules that are you know cheaper to make than uh extracting natural components, but give something like the uh a similar effect.
And there are uh molecules that per perfumers use that are said to smell like uh like the seaside, like the ocean, uh a single molecule, not not the the ensemble that you actually get when you do go to the ocean, but a single molecule that kind of captures that whole experience. So I would say yes. But I wonder whether Dylan meant also like what does it mean to have something be new? Like how how can you dream of something you've never experienced in the real life? Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, uh yeah, and that's that's different. Uh how how we would perceive a molecule that our uh our olfactory receptors can detect but have not detected before. That's that's a good question. How how we would respond to that. Well, and I also I think maybe on uh on top of novel molecules, um, since mixtures of molecules, I mean, can't take on like synergistic qualities.
Uh it's probably possible to make a mixture of molecules that you smelled before that smells like nothing you've ever smelled before. Just integrates differently? Uh yeah, I mean, because you process, okay, so you process like individual odor molecules as like a uh an odor image, like a like a spatial activation of, I want to say, and apologies I'm not a neuroscientist, glomer you lie, um, brain cells on the brain cells on the ball. Uh brain cells. And it makes a uh it makes a spatial pattern.
Anyways, so if you smell a lot of molecules at once, it also makes a pattern, so your brain just like remembers that pattern. So things like um, I mean, things like chocolate or lavender or wine, like there's no one molecule in them that smells like that. It it it's a it's a like blended and possibly synergistic thing. Um I mean, I'm this makes me think back to there was a yeah, there's a paper a few years ago about olfactory white. Um, so you know, there's like white noise and and white color, which is like both of them are made by like mixing a lot of um, you know, wavelengths.
And they were trying to make mixtures of odorants that smelled the smell equivalent of white noise. Um, and they it's it's been a while since I read it, and I don't think in the paper itself they listed what was in the mixtures, but it always made me wonder is if like people were smelling that thing over and over again, would it then was it the unfamiliarity that made it like a uh a white, a white smell or um something inherent in it? Because generally like things that you sense or smell more often like take on more nuance to you. Um and so by that I mean like that could be an example of of making a mixture of things you have smelled that uh creates a truly new smell, at least to you. Speaking of neutral white, Ariel, is there or is anyone here know of like so like genemic acid, you take it, it knocks out your sense of sweet.
Is there like a t is there a temporary smell knockout other than just holding your nose? Is there actually like some sort of like you can take something and experience this for like half of an hour without fear of of uh being permanent or no? Not that I know of, but I would kill for such a thing. We there just isn't. I would love to be able to like um you know turn on an off the old factory system at will.
And that's that's not a that's not a problem that's been solved. Yeah. Yeah, besides I mean, we just use nose clamps, but uh Yeah, but that's you know it's not perfect. Yeah. Yeah, it's just diminishing.
Yeah, yeah. Uh Andrew Hyatt wants to know, I'm curious on thoughts on how to improve the ability to distinguish smells, picking out notes and wine, for example. So this dovetails, I guess, with the with the training, but any specific advice? Anyone? I can jump in.
Um yeah, I mean, like really, and you know, uh Harold touched on this too. It's really just about practice. I mean, you know, there is like uh natural variation in sensitivity. People express different amounts of different olfactory receptors in in their olfactory epithelium um their nose. Uh you know, that's sort of a baseline.
But I'm and I haven't read any like empirical data on this. I'm I'm pretty convinced that most people who like work very creatively with with smell, um, whether that's like perfumers or somaliers or or chefs and stuff like that, uh much more about like what you choose to pay attention to than any sort of like innate uh innate sensitivity. And um, so I mean in terms of like specific advice, I usually just uh well, like sometimes I steal ideas from like uh sensory science and sensory descriptive analysis, which is literally just like smell four different versions of like celery or grass or chocolate and like pay attention to the differences. Um, and you know, other than that, just like smell as many things as you can and pay attention to what you're smelling. And it's really just I found like a process of time.
I mean, you know, I I had like professionally work on food and smell now. Um, but when I started out at like when I started grad school at like 22, um I was in I was in the wine department uh at UC Davis and you know I signed up as a panelist for some of these sensory analysis things, and I like I could not smell oak. Like I could not detect oak in wine. It did not like exist for me. Um and then after like maybe a month of like smelling the same samples every day, it all of a sudden like slid into focus.
It's like, oh, that's oak. Um you can't leave UC Davis without uh being a steel drink, right? This is oak and you hate it, right? Is that what they do? This is oak and you hate it.
That's UC Davis, no, in a nutshell or it depends. Sometimes sometimes it's oak chips. No, actually, I have a a couple people in my uh in my lab were specifically studying the flavor chemistry of oak barrels and like what got extracted into wine at like different toast levels and stuff. Um post levels. Yeah.
Uh Bob, do you do any trigeminal stuff at the up at the harbor or no? Uh no, we we don't. Others do, but but yeah, but it's it's is it's important to consider it all this because it looks like taste and chemisthesis are also affected by the virus, right? Right. So like I've heard that I I don't know.
So tr trigeminal, by the way, to D-word salad pain foods, pain foods. Well, pain pain and touch foods, because it's like uh like astringency is trigeminal also. Right. So here's a question that you I'm gonna throw at you guys, is why I asked. Uh I dealt with a little bit last week, but uh Spencer Roberts wants to know um about Sichuan peppercorns.
Uh they they they blow it, they blow his taste buds out, right? So the question is, is there any way to to speed up tamping that down? I know it's a different set of receptors than uh than do with you know deal with kipsation, but like is there a is there a way to kind of uh unnumb yourself at a at a fast rate? Is there a a milk equivalent? Well, uh I've never uh made an effort to find something like that.
And I'm not aware of any um, you know, it's it's uh uh an odd set of sensations that uh that you get from uh Sichuan peppercorn. And so I think there there's a lot of interest in it, uh and you know, figuring out what what ion channels are being hit and that kind of thing. But when it comes to dealing with it practically, I haven't seen any information about how to, you know, extract the uh the compounds from your uh from your tissues faster than otherwise. Yeah, I mean Yeah, I mean I think I think a lot of or for the most part people people eat, you know, Sichuan pepper or mala food specifically for that sensation. Cause they want to have it for a while.
But um Carol, maybe you know the latest, yeah. I thought that uh like Sanchul hit potassium channels, right? And inhibited neural transmission as a consequence. So you could you could probably actually screen for an antagonist for uh for an antagonist with that effect if you wanted, right? So if someone was really eager to reverse their Sanchual mouth and have several million dollars in a lab.
I think I think it's an achievable goal. I'm not certain anyone would do it, but I think it's achievable. Well maybe you could do it. Maybe you could do it for me. Maybe by the way, by the way, I know this is a like like totally a a cheap shot, but like I like flavored some flavored oils, right?
Ones that weren't overused in the early 90s I like, right? So like obviously I can't deal with truffle oil just because you used to walk into a restaurant in the 90s and it was like poo oh Jesus. But like uh I like I like and it's probably all fake I like the different uh Sichuan peppercorn oils both green and red. It's an easy way to cheat that flavor if you want to like dose it because you can't buy decent actual Sichuan peppercorn easily and then it's so hard to dose and it changes over time. If you use the oil it's easy peasy.
Am I a bad person? For that reason. I was like wait what? I mean no right you're not sure no I don't I don't think I mean I don't think you're a bad person. I also I mean I don't know how they make it I wouldn't imagine that they'd use like purified hydroxy alpha Sanchuol the way that they use like that one whatever ketone or something from truffles to make fake truffle oil.
Um but you could always check the you could check the label and if the label says like uh natural flavors instead of Sichuan peppercorn then that's a there's a there's not there's not a lot that I can understand on the label. You know what I mean? There's not it's not one of those situations. You know what I mean? It's it's not one of those stitches.
So Ariel while I have you here's two two quick ones for you. This you're perfect for it. I don't know why they wanted my thoughts on it. They really want your time for like one. I don't know who it was came from the chat room I think last week.
I came across a blog post about creating quick garums by using freeze dried pancreas to celebrate the enzymatic activity and was curious about uh someone's thoughts on it. How about yours since they're actually informed. Oh yeah well I mean I I saw I saw that question um my friend uh Jason White who's taken over the Noma fermentation lab um after David Zilber after me and Lars uh was experimenting with that a few years ago. Um I think he was using actual like whole pancreas um but uh I I did not I don't think I got a taste of what he was doing. But um I mean he was saying it worked like super fast.
Pancreas. I don't I don't I mean I think we need a different name for that than Garum. I mean even what people like carum kind of makes sense like in internally or like as as like one example um to call these like protealized protein sauces. But for the most part like ne okay so garum or garum garum garum and liquamin were these uh Roman Roman fish sauces actually like very close to non pla. And those you get funky and umami flavors from letting the digestive tracts of fish essentially uh digest and protealize the tissue of fish.
So you let it let it sit for a very long time with a lot of salt and uh the proteins turn into free amino acids, and there's lots of smells too. Um so most of the like neogarums that people are making now, uh, they don't actually use fish digestive enzymes. They're using koji. Um that's like a Japanese aspergillus or research inoculated uh moldy rice that has a lot of proteolytic enzymes. It's a mum.
So that's already, I mean, that's already like a step away from garum. It's probably actually closer closer to like the original Chinese Jiang that that first used some of these mold starters. Anyways, so if you're going to uh to a step further to pancreas uh dissolving dissolving protein, I don't know, maybe that does take it a step closer to original Garum. Um but yeah, I mean I think I think the interesting takeaway with that if you can get the pancreas or the enzymes uh is usually those fermentations take like a year or two at room temperature. At NOMA, we would speed them up in like a 60 degree Celsius room, and it would take about 12 weeks.
Um you'd get a lot of like browning reactions with that just from the the time and the free amino acids and and sugars. But uh I know that the the pancreas enzymes you can do it in like a couple days. Um it's nothing that happens in a couple of days tastes the same as something that happens over a month. Yeah, true, but what I'm saying is that it's like a a different thing with different potential to optimize flavor-wise. Yeah.
Right, right. Uh, which is cool. Like it doesn't need to be the old thing. It's uh it's a new new thing. Um, but it's it's cool that other people are trying out uh some of the stuff that Jason was experimenting with.
Yeah. And then uh quick what? Oh, well, real quickly, Ariel, real quick, quick, super quick. Difference between uh sweet mash and sour mash, uh introduced uh acidity to keep bacteria production down. Brian Leonza wants to know we're probably too late.
But wait, okay, yeah. Sorry, I'm just looking at this question. Cyramash uses introduced acidity to keep bacteria production down. Isn't it bacteria that produces the sour mash? Like isn't it like a lactic acid bacteria?
It was it's been a long time since actually. I would guess we'll have a whiskey per we'll have we'll have uh someone who like worries about sour mash on the case. Increased production of more varied bacteria responsible for an increase in different esters. Um I mean it's possible. Like if you have if you esters are like molecules that combine an organic acid with an alcohol.
So like uh all fermented alcoholic beverages have a bunch of esters in them. Um and if you have like organic acids, which are also fatty acids and alcohols around together, they will just spontaneously form if you have high enough amounts of both into esters. Um I know this is important for for rum. Um some of the more like bacterial rum fermentations like Jamaican rum get super high esters this way. So it's definitely possible, but um this would be a question deserving of a lit review that I have not done.
All right. Uh Alex Staherski wrote in, I'll get this one real quick. What are the differences chemically between white and pink grapefruit juice? Since white grapefruit juice is almost impossible to find now. Is there a way to via acid adjusting to make pink grapefruit juice taste more like white?
Thanks, Alex. So first of all, Alex, there's no such thing as just pink and white. There are different varieties. Uh pink pink grapefruit is pink because there's lycopene in it. And when you clarify pink grapefruit juice, it goes yellow again.
But it also turns out that the pink varieties that we typically get are bred to be sweeter and less acidic. So what you want is a smaller, typically more acidically, you want a variety, a cultivar, that is m more more bred for acidity, something like a Duncan. So yeah, you can jack it with acid. I could try to look up uh what it is. I used to know off the top of my head what the acid balance in grapefruit was, but the color is just because of excess lycopene, which I think doesn't have much of a taste effect.
Uh uh Harold Ariel, any any thoughts on the taste effect of the of the pinkness? Uh not offhand. No. Yeah. I mean, I mean it's a it's a carotenoid, yeah.
And uh carotenoid breakdown products can be very lovely. Yes. Um so it's possible that that that contributes in in a kind of background way to the aroma of uh of a pink grapefruit. Agreed. Fair.
Uh but in essence, also they're bred to be s like the ones that we get are bred to be sweeter, and so they're not gonna have the high acidity for use in like cocktails like a Duncan would have, right? You know Duncan's anyway. Wait, is white grapefruit impossible to find now? Like I just saw some oro wonkos at my not the same though. I mean, I think what Alex is talking about are the old school, typically smaller, very tart grapefruits.
Well, an oral blanco is like a back cross back with a pomelo or something like that, I think. Right. It's a different, it's a different McGill. Okay. Whereas like you you you can get them, but the thing is, you know, I mean, good good grapefruits are I think difficult.
Uh, you know, Nastasia had access to good grapefruits because your dad grows them, right, Sas? Yeah. Delicious. Yeah. Awesome.
They are delicious. I've had them. They're very good. And uh back when uh Jen, my you know, my wife Jen's dad uh used to live in Arizona, he used to get amazing white grapefruits off of his tree, and I would just eat them by the by the bushel. But um, yeah, I think just most people don't want a sour variety anymore.
Um, and also uh grapefruit quality uh really changes on storage like a lot, like a lot lot, and maybe the pink ones are better at holding some of their characteristics longer than some of the uh older variety white ones. I don't know, and maybe that's why you don't see them as often. I don't know. I mean, carotenoids can act as antioxidants, or like that's what they're evolved to do. No, yeah, that's why uh Ronald Reagan says that ketchup is uh a healthy vegetable, right?
Lycopene, same same thing. Yeah. I do sorry, this is not science-related at all. I do just have to interject. But like, I mean, I'm uh I'm a northeasterner.
I grew up in Boston and then like moved to New York, and like the thing that blew my mind the most when I moved to California for grad school was just that like, oh yeah, I have a citrus tree in my backyard, and everyone treats that like it's totally normal, and it's like completely mind-blowing to meet it. It's not normal. Like, you can just go and pick a lemon um or a grapefruit, and I'm still incredibly jealous of that. Um, but needed needed to shout out how like totally bizarre and wonderful. That still is to me.
Nastasia left that to come back to this post. Yeah, I mean, I guess she must like us a lot. Yep. That is I don't know. I don't know about that.
All right. So uh let's get our last licks in before uh Matt shuts shuts us off. Uh we'll go, we'll go, we'll go around, we'll go around the table. Uh any uh last uh COVID anosmia, like places to go, places to think, Bob. Anything uh any last licks you got here?
No, it's a good discussion. I just think it's this is a problem we don't understand. We gotta keep working on. Yeah. And uh, you know, you can follow uh Bob at uh what has it?
Is it data underscore lab? It's just one word datalab.org with two T's. Two T oh two T's. It's still the best name of any lab ever. It's also my favorite character from Star Trek The Next Generation.
Um it's too bad that you decide to go into this and not like data science. Then you could have been like data lab, data scientist, data. Like you could have been like all all data data all the time. Uh but anyway, yeah, we'll we'll have you back on to talk about the horrors of not paying your cryo bill and uh other fun things. Uh at some point, Bob, thanks for so much for being on.
Thank you. Um Ariel, you got anything for me on the way out? Oh, well, I mean, I I as a person tend to harp on about paying more attention to smell, and you know, it's it's a uh it's a it's a shame that it's come in such a like distressing uh you know container, distressing like experiences for people for this anosmia now. But it is like super fascinating that we, you know, Americans at least tend to tend to think of smell as either like something that's kind of like dirty and gross, like you can smell garbage, or something that's like the pleasurability of it makes it frivolous. Um, but it's uh it's just really cool in like a metaphysical way um to have this demonstration of like not only the important functionality of smell, but like how important the like hedonics and pleasure that we get from smell is for normal human functioning.
Um that's a cool takeaway for people, even if you don't get a nosmia. Yeah. Harold Harold, what do you got for me? I would uh recommend that that website that Bob uh mentioned, Absent, A B-S-C-E-N-T.org, which is based in the UK, and uh just lots of really good information um about about smell and problems with smell and things to do about problems with smell. All right.
And and the from the three of you, just as a takeaway for a too long didn't listen, like it's terrible. You should get help, but it's 99% of the time it's going to come back. Is that accurate, or it's most likely going to come back eventually? It might just take a long time. Or am I not am I being too too rosy?
Yeah, I think we I think the important thing, David, is there's no evidence at this point to suggest that it will not come back. So most people are getting better. Some people still have it even from the beginning of the pandemic. But at this point, we don't know, we don't know what's gonna happen. But there's no reason to think it's inevitably not going to come back.
So people should keep up helping. Ah, very spoken like a true doctor. There's no reason to think it won't come back. Spoken like a true doctor. This is why we have Bob on.
Thanks, guys. Cooking issues. Cooking issues is powered by Simplecast. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network. Food radio supported by you.
For our freshest content, subscribe to our newsletter. Enter your email at the bottom of our website, heritage radio network.org. Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter at heritage underscore radio. You can also find us at Facebook.com slash Heritage Radio Network. Heritage Radio Network is a nonprofit organization driving conversations to make the world a better, fairer, more delicious place.
And we couldn't do it without support from listeners like you. Want to be a part of the food world's most innovative community? Subscribe to the shows you like, tell your friends, and please join the HRN family by becoming a member. Just click on the beating heart at the top right of our homepage. Thanks for listening.
Whether you're a homeowner creating your dream space or a pro managing multiple projects, discover a new way to shop at Ferguson Home, where great ideas become stunning spaces. Visit FergusonHome.com to explore the best selection of bath, kitchen, and lighting products. Or book an appointment at one of our showrooms where you can experience products firsthand and get personalized expert support every step of the way. Bring your vision to Ferguson Home, where it all comes together. Shop top brands like La Cornew or find your local showroom at FergusonHome.com.
Timestamps may be off due to dynamic ad insertion.