What You’re Eating Podcast

Vanilla and chocolate — two of the most beloved flavors in the world — have been linked since the beginning. Both the vanilla bean and the cacao pod were first cultivated thousands of years ago in what is now Mexico, where later the Aztecs would use vanilla to make the bitter cocoa in their sacred chocolate drink more palatable. Today, these two flavors, in both natural and artificial form, dominate our dessert options, from ice cream scoops to the sweet snacks in grocery aisles. But the modern chocolate and vanilla industries both extract wealth from communities in the Global South, and these products come with all the environmental and social problems of a system that leaves smallholder farmers in poverty. How can we reconcile our love of these essential flavors with their often-problematic production?

For well over a century, the hot dog has been the quintessential dirt cheap, flavorful, all-American meal — a kind of meaty blank slate on which to slather your regional preferences, like slaw, chili, relish or onions. But can a person who cares about what they’re eating and the impact their food has on the environment — and animals, and meatpacking workers — eat a hot dog in good conscience? How about four or five hot dogs…every day? In this episode, we speak to a writer who did just that, all to tell us the story — good, bad and ugly — of this handheld feast.

Why does the oyster — amorphous, slimy, hidden in a shell that’s craggier and more unwieldy than that of a scallop or a clam — capture so many food-lovers’ hearts? What exactly is an oyster? Why are most of the oysters we eat farmed? And why, unlike other farmed seafood, are they considered such a benefit to their environment? In this episode, we head to the farm — the oyster farm — and talk to various experts to understand more about this beloved and very sustainable bivalve.