Always Hangry

Razor Blades in Apples, Candy Corn Conundrum & Pumpkin Spice Everything

Has anyone ever actually found a razor blade in a Halloween apple? George Duran and food and wellness writer Karla Walsh dig into America's favorite Halloween scare: where the razor-blade apple hoax stories came from and why an apple is a terrible place to hide a blade anyway. Plus the cases that were real: a California dentist who handed out candy-coated laxatives, and a Long Island woman who gave dog biscuits and ant poison to teens she thought were too old to trick-or-treat. Then it's "Treat or Trash?" : Sour candy in a toy toilet with a plunger? (Real.) Candy scabs inside a fake bandage? (Real.) Liquid candy in a urine-sample cup? (Sadly, real.) Pickled eyeballs and used-tissue chews? (George made those up.) After the break: candy corn. Karla is fully Team Candy Corn; George thinks it's sweet, chewy wax and has receipts. They cover how it started as "Chicken Feed," the wax and glaze that give it that shine, Brach's new candy corn perfume, and a candy corn round of Treat or Trash where hot dog, hamburger, green bean and roasted turkey flavors all turn out to be real. In the second half, creative director and Creative Briefs host Jon Racinskas explains how pumpkin spice went from spice trade to pumpkin pie to Starbucks' 2003 latte, why "manufactured scarcity" keeps us coming back every fall, and which pumpkin spice products, from Spam to scented trash bags, have gone too far. Plus his pick for the next seasonal obsession. Key Takeaways The razor-blade apple is mostly myth. Sociologist Joel Best (University of Delaware) has tracked "Halloween sadism" reports since the 1980s and found no substantiated case of a child killed or seriously injured by a stranger's tampered treat. Most reports he followed up were hoaxes. The scare had a paper trail. Razor-blade reports spread in the late 1960s, and a 1970 New York Times piece, "Those Treats May Be Tricks," warned that the apple from a kindly neighbor might hide a blade. Apples are a bad hiding place. George's case: a cut apple browns fast, a slit big enough for a blade can't be hidden, and the fruit would be visibly off by the time it got home. Real tampering was rare and strange. In 1959 a California dentist, Dr. William Shyne, handed out about 450 candy-coated laxatives; around 30 kids got sick. In 1964, Helen Pfeil of Long Island gave out steel wool, dog biscuits and ant poison to teens she considered too old for trick-or-treating. George hands out instant ramen as a Halloween treat. He says he's the most popular house on the block. Gross candy is a real category. Kidsmania's Sour Flush (sour powder in a toy toilet with a candy plunger), Flix Candy's Box of Boogers and Lick Your Wounds candy scabs are all real. Candy corn started as "Chicken Feed." It's credited to George Renninger of Philadelphia's Wunderle Candy Company in the 1880s; the Goelitz company, now Jelly Belly, began making it in 1898. Yes, it's waxy. Candy corn gets its shine from a confectioner's glaze (shellac), and some recipes use carnauba wax. Candy corn now comes as perfume. Brach's released Ode to Candy Corn, a $22 limited-edition fragrance with vanilla, spun sugar and honey notes, in fall 2026. It sold out fast. Yes, these flavors are real. Brach's Turkey Dinner mix (2020) had roasted turkey, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, ginger glazed carrot and sweet potato pie; its Tailgate mix (2022) added hot dog and hamburger. Pumpkin spice is four spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. McCormick sold the blend as pumpkin pie spice in 1934; Starbucks launched the pumpkin spice latte in 2003. Scarcity is the strategy for seasonal pumpkin spiced flavors. Jon's take: a PSL in June wouldn't sell, because the appeal is nostalgia tied to a season. Warmth matters. Jon thinks pumpkin spice products that last are warm and multisensory, which is why he doesn't expect the Slurpee version to stick. Pumpkin spice has gone everywhere. Spam (2019), Nissin Cup Noodles (2021), Hatfield bacon, Pringles (2012), Kraft Mac & Cheese (2020), 7-Eleven's Slurpee (2024), Hefty trash bags, cat litter, deodorant, Dawn dish spray and Trader Joe's hummus. What's next? Jon's bets: a spring lavender latte, and "deep fried" as a flavor, pointing to Oreo's new Deep Fried cookie. People & Companies Mentioned George Duran — Host, Always Hangry; chef and TV personality Karla Walsh — Food and wellness writer, Level One Sommelier; recurring Always Hangry co-host Jon Racinskas — Creative director and filmmaker; host of the YouTube channel Creative Briefs Joel Best — Sociologist, University of Delaware; leading researcher on Halloween candy-tampering myths The New York Times — Published "Those Treats May Be Tricks" (October 1970) Dr. William Shyne — California dentist who handed out laxatives to trick-or-treaters in 1959 Helen Pfeil — Long Island woman behind the 1964 steel wool and ant poison incident Jelly Belly — Maker of the vomit-flavored jelly bean (formerly the Goelitz Confectionery Company) Kidsmania — Sour Flush candy Flix Candy — Box of Boogers Lick Your Wounds — Candy scabs in refillable bandages Bon Appétit — Cited by George for a 2013 gross-candy roundup (unverified — see checklist) Wunderle Candy Company / George Renninger — Credited with inventing candy corn Brach's (Ferrara) — Candy corn maker; Ode to Candy Corn perfume, Turkey Dinner and Tailgate candy corn Walgreens — Exclusive retailer of Brach's novelty candy corn mixes American Chemical Society — Source George cites on candy corn's glaze McCormick — Released pumpkin pie spice in 1934 Starbucks — Pumpkin spice latte (2003) Hormel (Spam), Nissin (Cup Noodles), Hatfield, Pringles, Kraft, 7-Eleven — Pumpkin spice food products Hefty, Special Kitty, Native, Dawn — Pumpkin spice trash bags, cat litter, deodorant and dish spray Trader Joe's — Pumpkin spice hummus Oreo — Chicken & Waffles and Deep Fried limited-edition cookies Links Guests Jon Racinskas — jonracinskas.com , https://www.instagram.com/jonracinskas/, Creative Briefs on https://www.youtube.com/@Creative_Briefs Always Hangry Website — https://alwayshangrypodcast.com Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/AlwaysHangryPodcast YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@AlwaysHangryPodcast TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@AlwaysHangryPodcast

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'90s Diet Disasters, Cabbage Soup & Asian Food Beyond Takeout

Remember when eggs were the enemy, jelly beans were a "fat-free snack," and a seven-day diet told you to eat eight bananas and drink eight glasses of skim milk in one day? George Duran and food and wellness writer Karla Walsh go back to the '90s, when the food rules were loud, confident and mostly wrong. They play Good Food or Bad Food — bagels, cottage cheese, avocados, nuts, butter and egg yolks — and argue about whether anyone should ever eat half a bagel. George runs through the egg substitutes that replaced the yolk (from Egg Beaters to nut-based "eggs") and makes his case for just eating an egg, while Karla defends tofu scrambles and refuses to borrow eggs from her neighbors. Then it's the Food Guide Pyramid, the SnackWell's frenzy, and a round of SnackWell's or Snack Not-Wells against a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. Plus: the cabbage soup diet, day by day, and how it went viral decades before social media — by photocopy and fax machine. In the second half, Matt Slonim — a New Yorker who spent nine years in Seoul and now lives in Bangkok — explains why the Asian food most Americans eat is only the tip of the iceberg, why he's a genuine fan of American Chinese food anyway, the Japanese instant noodles you make with cold water, and the two countries he'd pick for a trip built around eating. Key Takeaways The '90s got a lot backwards. Avocados, nuts, egg yolks and butter were treated as villains for their fat; bagels and fat-free snacks were treated as health food. The pyramid was built on carbs. The 1992 Food Guide Pyramid put 6–11 daily servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta at its base, with fats, oils and sweets at the tip. Margarine's halo didn't last. Margarine was pushed as the heart-healthy swap for butter until research showed many margarines carried trans fats that were worse for the heart. Dietary cholesterol isn't the main driver. Karla notes saturated fat matters more for blood cholesterol — and an egg has only about 1.5 grams of it. Much of the egg's nutrition is in the yolk. Fat-free became a license to overeat. That's the "SnackWell's effect." In the game, two SnackWell's Devil's Food cookie cakes beat a Krispy Kreme Original Glazed on sugar (14g vs. ~10g), though the donut had more calories and sodium. Karla knows her labels. She guessed the Krispy Kreme calorie count within 10 calories. The cabbage soup diet was absurd day by day. Unlimited soup plus a rotating cast: fruit with no bananas, a baked potato with butter, then eight bananas and eight glasses of skim milk on day four, then beef and up to six tomatoes. It went viral before the internet. George traces how the diet spread through photocopies and fax machines; a Washington Post reporter who tried it for a week reportedly lost six pounds and couldn't face her leftover soup. Two kinds of "global" food. Matt separates food made for local tastes from food immigrants make for other immigrants — the second is as authentic as it gets. American Chinese food is its own cuisine. Matt is a fan, but takeout is designed to be simple and doesn't represent China's range. Many key Asian ingredients aren't available — or aren't good — in the US. New York trained his palate. He first ate jellyfish at Ollie's on 42nd Street, not in China; Queens is where he learned to eat widely. The next wave is instant food, but don't hold your breath. Japan now sells instant noodles made with cold water. Matt doubts it will catch on in America. Where to eat in Asia. For pure flavor, Thailand ("like learning a new color"); for understanding the whole region, start in China. People & Companies Mentioned George Duran — Host, Always Hangry; chef and TV personality Karla Walsh — Food and wellness writer, Level One Sommelier; recurring Always Hangry co-host; wrote a '90s food-trends piece for Food Network Matt Slonim — New York–born food and culture writer, DJ and brand strategist helping brands enter the Korean market; writes the Words with Bones Substack; Seoul bar co-owner; now based in Bangkok Good Culture — Cottage cheese brand George and Karla can't keep in stock Nutri-Grain (Kellogg's) — Karla's '90s "healthy" snack bar I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! — Margarine-style spread and butter spray SnackWell's (Nabisco, later Back to Nature) — Fat-free Devil's Food cookie cakes; brand discontinued in 2022 Krispy Kreme — Original Glazed donut used in the SnackWell's game Egg Beaters, Better'n Eggs — '90s egg-white products still on shelves JUST Egg, Simply Eggless, Yo! Egg, WunderEggs (Crafty Counter), Neat Egg, Ener-G Egg Replacer — Modern egg alternatives George names Washington Post, Times Leader, Los Angeles Times, Time — Publications George cites for '90s food coverage Judith Weinraub — Washington Post reporter who tried the cabbage soup diet in 1996 Food Network — Where Karla's '90s food-trends piece ran USDA Food Guide Pyramid (1992) Ollie's (42nd Street, NYC) — Where Matt first ate jellyfish Nissin — Maker of Japan's cold-water Cup Noodle (the noodles Matt describes) Seinfeld — The "muffin top" bit George riffs on Links Guests Matt Slonim — Words with Bones on Substack — https://mattslonim.substack.com Matt Slonim on TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@wordswithbones (confirm handle) Karla Walsh — The Best and Worst '90s Food Trends, According to Nutritionists (Food Network) — https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/diets/90s-diet-and-nutrition-trends (confirm this is her piece)

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Side Dish: Pistachio Secrets from Nichols Farms' Jeff Nichols

Side Dish is a little different from our regular episodes: no co-host, no rants, no games — just one focused conversation with someone who really knows their food. For the full Always Hangry experience, check out our other episodes. Ever wonder why the pistachios you grew up with turned your fingers red? George Duran sits down with Jeff Nichols, vice president of supply chain and grower relations at Nichols Farms, a family-owned grower in Hanford, California, that's been farming for more than 60 years. Jeff walks George through a full year in a pistachio orchard, why most shells split open on the tree all by themselves, and the surprising machine — borrowed from another crop — that sorts open nuts from closed ones. Then the confession George didn't want to hear: the real reason those old-school red pistachios were dyed. Plus why a new orchard takes more than a decade to pay for itself, how eating pistachios in the shell can cut how much you eat, what happens to all those empty shells, the hardest part of growing organic, and how flavors like Cocoa Cookie and Hot Honey get made. This episode is sponsored by Nichols Farms. Links https://nicholsfarms.com/

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Fridge Crimes & Chocolate Secrets

George Duran opens the fridge with Delish food editor and recipe developer Taylor Ann Spencer, and it is not pretty in there. They start with the Eat Me First trend, where you give soon-to-expire food its own labeled bin, and George admits his version of that bin is the back of the fridge. From there: the foods we forget most, whether bread and potatoes belong in the fridge at all (they disagree), and George's habit of plastic-wrapping every pepper he buys. Then Taylor Ann tells George that eggs should be stored pointy end down. He does not take it well. They also get into the "ADHD fridge" idea of moving produce to the door and condiments to the crisper, fridgescaping (including Fridgerton, Hobbit and Beetlejuice themes), and the restock videos that turned a mini fridge into a full-time career. After the break it is fridge technology: knock-to-see-through doors, cameras that log what goes in and out, a fridge that pre-cools before you usually open it, and the 1950s features we somehow lost, like a door that opens from either side. In the second half, chocolatier and TikTok favorite Konstantin Zsigo of Park Lake Creamery in Bath, Michigan explains how chocolate is made, why cocoa butter is the expensive part and what big brands use in its place, why he does not think European chocolate is automatically better, and what happened to Dubai chocolate once the big manufacturers got hold of it. Guests Taylor Ann Spencer, food editor and recipe developer at Delish. Konstantin Zsigo, chocolatier and co-owner of Park Lake Creamery. Order at konstantinzsigo.com, follow at @konstantinzsigo on TikTok. Key takeaways We eat what we see first, which is the whole idea behind an Eat Me First bin or shelf. Store eggs pointy end down and off the door, where the temperature swings the most. Freezing is the best way to keep bread. George refrigerates his; Taylor Ann does not. Smart fridges are now doing Eat Me First for you, logging what goes in and flagging what has been there too long. Cocoa butter is the costly ingredient in chocolate. Cutting it, often with palm kernel oil or the emulsifier PGPR, is how big brands hold prices down. Konstantin's view on sustainability labels: you cannot verify them yourself, so it comes down to trusting the brand. Most people who say Dubai chocolate is overrated have only had the mass-produced version. People, companies and sources mentioned People: Taylor Ann Spencer, Konstantin Zsigo, Kaeli Mae McEwen Appliances: LG (InstaView, ThinQ Food, AI Fresh, Signature), Samsung (AutoView, FlexZone, AI Vision Inside, Bixby), GE, Philco, Kelvinator (Foodarama) Chocolate: Hershey, Cadbury, Nestle, Kinder, Reese's, Snickers, Fix (Dubai), Costco Organizations and outlets: ReFED, Love Food Hate Waste NZ, Realtor.com, Delish, Food Research International, Starbucks, Park Lake Creamery

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Hack in the Box, Froyo 3.0 & Author of "Picky", Helen Zoe Veit

Why do we love hacking a box mix? George Duran and Delish food editor Taylor Ann Spencer — writer of the Mostly Vegetarian newsletter and proud user of "condimental meat" — dig into the strange history of cake mix, from Bisquick and the first dehydrated gingerbread mix to Betty Crocker's gelatin-spiked Color Vision cake, Campbell's tomato soup cake, diet-soda cakes and a tuna-filled Bisquick ring nobody asked for. Taylor shares the boxed mac and cheese trick her dad taught her, George lays out the three upgrades that actually make a box mix better, and they play a round of Grandma or TikTok. Then it's Trend or Trash: frozen yogurt is on its third comeback. From Bloomingdale's Forty Carrots to TCBY, Pinkberry and today's around-the-block lines in New York, George asks why froyo keeps coming back — and how a cup ended up costing as much as a cocktail, with melted-butter dips and caviar on potato chips. Plus a game of Froyo or Fo-Yo: squid ink, Fireball and french fry flavors are real. Peanut butter and pickle is not. In the second half, historian Helen Zoe Veit, author of Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History, explains why kids weren't always this fussy — 19th-century children happily ate bitter greens, organ meats and even coffee — and what parents can borrow from the past: protect mealtime appetite, keep offering the family meal, don't panic about a small reward, and season kids' food the way you'd season your own. Key Takeaways Hacks are about feeling clever. Taylor's read on the box-mix obsession: it's the combination of cleverness, ease and convenience. Cake mix is older than you think. Bisquick hit shelves in 1931, and P. Duff and Sons patented a dehydrated gingerbread mix in 1933. Modern mixes rely on emulsifiers. Commercial cakes and mixes use food-grade emulsifiers and surfactants for volume, texture and shelf life. The best box-mix upgrades are simple. Brown butter, espresso powder in chocolate cake, and freeze-dried fruit ground into powder for color, acidity and concentrated flavor. Taylor's mac and cheese trick. Make a well in the cooked macaroni, pour the cheese powder in the center, then fill the empty packet with milk — Midwestern thrift that also happens to be the right amount. Retro hacks keep coming back. Tomato soup cake doesn't taste like tomato — it's a spice cake — and chocolate mayonnaise cake is basically eggs and oil. Cottage cheese cookie dough and pancake cereal are the TikTok-era equivalents. Froyo has died twice. The '80s TCBY wave and the 2000s Pinkberry/Red Mango wave both collapsed under too many stores. Froyo 3.0 is Greek-style, premium-priced and drawing long lines. Fat plus salt plus sweet hits the bliss point. That's why butter-dipped froyo and potato-chip toppings work — and why TikTok melts entire tubs of margarine for views. Kids weren't always picky. Helen found no record of kids as a group being picky eaters until recently — and abundance isn't the explanation: well-fed 19th-century kids weren't picky either. Hunger is a tool. Past kids came to meals hungry — less snacking, more chores and outdoor play. If dinner is an hour away, "go play, I'll call you" is fine. Small rewards are okay. Helen pushes back on the rule that dessert should never be contingent on dinner; a little incentive can help a child try something new. Season kids' food. George's secret weapon for fish is good European butter; Helen adds that parents aggressively under-salt children's food. The food industry isn't on your side. Helen notes that about two-thirds of an average American kid's diet is highly processed — but kids don't need "fun" food to be happy. Pickiness is learned — and unlearnable. Protect appetite, present family foods again and again, and treat it as teaching a child to love food. People & Companies Mentioned George Duran — Host, Always Hangry; chef and TV personality Taylor Ann Spencer — Food editor at Delish; recipe developer, food stylist; writes the Mostly Vegetarian Substack newsletter Helen Zoe Veit — Historian, associate professor of history at Michigan State University; author of Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History (St. Martin's Press, Feb. 24, 2026) Delish — Where Taylor develops recipes, including a vampire poke cake General Mills / Bisquick / Betty Crocker — Bisquick (1931), Betty Crocker's first mixes and the Color Vision cake P. Duff and Sons — Pittsburgh molasses company behind the first patented cake mix (1933) Procter & Gamble Pillsbury — Pillsbury Bake-Off Campbell's — Tomato Soup Spice Cake, a.k.a. "Mystery Cake" Jell-O / Cool Whip — Poke cake Hellmann's — Chocolate mayonnaise cake Ritz — Mock apple pie made with crackers Weight Watchers — Message boards behind the diet-soda cake trend H.P. Hood — Massachusetts dairy that created "Frogurt" Bloomingdale's / Forty Carrots — NYC café serving frozen yogurt since 1975 TCBY, Red Mango, Pinkberry, Yogurtland, Menchie's, Orange Leaf, 16 Handles — Froyo chains across its three eras Mimi's, Birdie's, Myka — Froyo 3.0 shops I Can't Believe It's Not Butter — Melted and used as a dip in the TikTok froyo trend Links Guests Taylor Ann Spencer — Mostly Vegetarian on Substack — https://taylorannspencer.substack.com Taylor Ann Spencer on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/taylorannspencer Picky by Helen Zoe Veit (St. Martin's Press) — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250402677/picky/

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Celery Jell-O, Baby Food for Adults & Glitter Maple Syrup

"Low fat" might be the most fattening words on the bag. George Duran and recurring co-host Karla Walsh open with a brand-new study out of Turkey. People ate noticeably more of the exact same snack when it was labeled "low fat" or "high protein." Then they walk the fake-healthy aisle: veggie straws that are mostly potato starch "fruit" snacks that are basically jelly beans spinach wraps that are really just green tortillas rice cakes, which George insists double as home insulation There's also a round of Trend or Trash on protein cookie dough. And a crash course in label words that mean far less than you think: natural, multigrain, farm fresh, plant-based. (Oreos are plant-based.) Then comes the food-flop hall of shame: Olestra-powered WOW chips and their infamous warning label Ore-Ida's bright-blue Funky Fries (George bought them, and he has a story about what happened next) Pepsi A.M., Crystal Pepsi and Life Savers soda Gerber Singles: pureed beef burgundy in a baby-food jar, marketed to adults who live alone Jell-O's 1960s savory line, including celery Karla, from the Midwest, explains that anything made with Jell-O counts as a salad there, strawberry pretzel salad and cookie salad included. George is not convinced. In the back half, Laura Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok Maple in Fairfax, Vermont, takes George from tree to pancake: It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. She explains what reverse osmosis actually does. She explains why dark syrup isn't just "cooked longer." George had that one wrong. She shares the story of the one IHOP that serves the real stuff. She explains why an opened bottle belongs in the fridge. She names the one flavor experiment that should never be repeated: wasabi. She introduces Sparkle Syrup, maple with edible glitter that turns a cocktail pearlescent. Key Takeaways Health labels make us eat more. In a 2026 study of 60 adults, participants ate about 67g of a snack labeled "low fat," 61g labeled "high protein," and 50g with no label. The snack was identical in every case. The health halo is real. One virtuous word on the front of the package makes the whole product feel healthier. Read the nutrition panel, not the marketing. Veggie straws are mostly potato starch, potato flour and cornstarch. The vegetable powder is there for color. Fruit snacks nutritionally resemble candy more than fruit. Corn syrup, sugar and modified starch follow close behind the fruit puree. "Multigrain" does not mean whole grain. The FDA has no formal definition of "natural," and "plant-based" covers potato chips and Oreos. WOW chips were a hit before they were a punchline. They sold roughly $347 million in their first year, until the "abdominal cramping and loose stools" warning caught up with them. Gerber Singles (1974) put beef burgundy, sweet-and-sour pork and "blueberry delight" into baby-food-style jars for single adults. They vanished within months. Jell-O once sold celery, mixed vegetable, seasoned tomato and Italian salad flavors. Karla says savory aspics are quietly making a comeback. In the Midwest, if it has Jell-O in it, it's a salad. That includes strawberry pretzel salad, cookie salad and Snickers salad. Maple sap is only 1–3% sugar. Reverse osmosis concentrates it to about 16%, and boiling does the rest. Vermont producers need about 40 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup. Birch needs roughly 100. Tapping doesn't hurt the tree. Some sugarbushes have been producing for over 200 years. Darker syrup isn't cooked longer. It usually comes late in the season and carries more minerals and complexity, so the maple flavor is stronger. Real maple is thinner than pancake syrup. Corn syrup is what makes the fake stuff thick. IHOP serves real maple syrup in Vermont. The Vermont location got special permission, because nobody there would eat pancakes without it. Organic maple is mostly about the forest. Because there are almost no inputs, certification comes down to how the land is managed: erosion, runoff and biodiversity. Refrigerate maple once it's opened. Unopened bottles keep on the shelf for years. Use maple like soy sauce or Worcestershire. A touch rounds out savory dishes without making them sweet. Laura uses it constantly in Asian cooking. Sparkle Syrup is maple with edible pearlescent sparkles. In a cocktail, it turns the drink shimmery. People & Companies Mentioned George Duran: Host, Always Hangry Karla Walsh: Food and wellness writer, Level One Sommelier, recurring guest co-host Laura Sorkin: Co-founder, Runamok Maple (Fairfax, VT) Eric Sorkin: Laura's husband and co-founder, who came up with Sparkle Syrup Runamok Maple: runamokmaple.com Dicle University (Turkey): Source of the 2026 health-claims snack study FDA: No formal definition of "natural" Frito-Lay / Procter & Gamble (Olestra): WOW chips; Pringles also made Olestra versions Ore-Ida / Heinz: Funky Fries (2002) PepsiCo: Pepsi A.M. (1989), Crystal Pepsi (1992) Coca-Cola: New Coke (mentioned) Life Savers: Life Savers soda Gerber: Gerber Singles (1974) Jell-O: Savory salad flavors (1960s) Welch's: Fruit snacks IHOP: The Vermont location that serves real maple Links Runamok Maple: https://runamokmaple.com Runamok Sweet Black Cherry (2026 contest winner): https://runamokmaple.com/products/sweet-black-cherry-infused-maple-syrup The health-claims study (PubMed): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42664557/ Always Hangry: https://alwayshangrypodcast.com · Instagram, YouTube and TikTok: @AlwaysHangryPodcast Karla Walsh https://karlawalsh.com/

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Deadly Eating Contests, Fake Croissants & Truffle Truths

A man once ate 57 cow brains in fifteen minutes. Another ate the leaves off 74 feet of stinging nettles. A third downed 49 raw garlic cloves in five, and reported that the garlic got stronger every time it came back up. George Duran opens the show by dragging Karla Walsh through the strangest corners of competitive eating history — the first recorded pie-eating tournament in Toronto in 1878, where contestants knelt in front of raspberry tarts with their hands tied behind their backs and won a nicely bound book for it; the 1909 Manhattan Fat Men's Club contest where a 380-pound former alderman put away 275 oysters, eight pounds of steak and eleven cups of coffee; and the 1899 Welsh rarebit championship in Nutley, New Jersey, where three quarters of a gallon of melted cheese earned a man a beer mug. Then the mood turns. George walks through the medical case files: the doughnut challenge in Denver that killed a 42-year-old man while bystanders assumed the choking was part of the act, the ghost pepper burger that tore a hole in a man's esophagus and collapsed his lung, the single Carolina Reaper that constricted arteries in a man's brain, and a case published this year of a pizza contest that over-distended a stomach until it perforated. Karla's conclusion: listen to this episode before you sign the waiver. After the break, it's fakery from the bakery. A TikTok creator films what looks like a Costco delivery arriving at a Times Square French bakery moments after she pays $12 for a pistachio croissant. A Long Island vegan market discovers its "house-made, gluten-free" doughnut is wearing Dunkin's sprinkles. A 60-year-old Biloxi institution pleads guilty to selling more than 29 tons of imported frozen fish as Gulf snapper and grouper. Plus the escolar problem hiding behind the words "white tuna," and a round of Michelin Impossible, in which George reads absurdly elegant descriptions of supermarket junk food and Karla identifies them with unsettling accuracy. In the second half, Paolo Montanaro — second-generation truffle man and CEO of Tartuflanghe in Alba — explains what a real truffle actually tastes like, why almost all truffle oil is one synthetic molecule doing the work of hundreds, why white truffles can't be farmed and black ones can, how long a truffle really lasts after harvest, the color test that tells you whether the truffle being shaved onto your plate is mature or a prop, and why the world's truffle hunters swapped pigs for dogs. Key Takeaways Competitive eating is older and weirder than the hot dog era. The first recorded pie-eating tournament was a charity fundraiser in Toronto in January 1878, won by Albert Piddington at the Grand Opera House. His prize was a handsomely bound book. Karla's response: she'd rather just buy the book. The Fat Men's Club numbers are real. At the Manhattan club's East Third Street clubhouse in 1909, former alderman Frank Dotzler ate 275 oysters, eight-plus pounds of steak, twelve rolls, three pies and eleven cups of coffee. He won $50 — roughly $1,800 today. A beer mug for three quarters of a gallon of cheese. The 1899 New Jersey Welsh rarebit championship in Nutley went to Conrad H. Ray, described by the Chicago Daily Tribune as a man with a large mouth and a hungry look. The nettle championship started as a farmer's bet. Guinness traces it to 1986, when Dorset farmer Alex Williams produced a 15-foot-6 nettle and promised to eat any longer one. Somebody found one. In 2025 Michael Hobbs stripped and ate the leaves from 74 feet of nettles in an hour. Nettles are safe cooked; these people aren't cooking them. Blanching or drying neutralizes the sting. Raw, in quantity, it's mouth and throat irritation and an unhappy stomach. 57 cow brains, 17.7 pounds, 15 minutes. Takeru Kobayashi's record — by George's math, about 12,100 calories and 249,000 mg of cholesterol. George's own cow-brain trauma is a childhood memory of coming home from a lesson on the nervous system and lifting a pot lid to find one bubbling away. 49 raw garlic cloves in five minutes. Oliver Farmer won the first World Garlic Eating Competition in Dorset in 2013. Four to nine cloves is enough to cause serious gastrointestinal distress; doctors have documented genuine garlic burns. The deaths and injuries are not hypothetical. Travis Malouff, 42, choked to death in 2017 attempting a half-pound doughnut in 80 seconds — witnesses didn't intervene fast enough because distress and effort look identical in an eating challenge. A ghost pepper burger tore a 2.5 cm hole in a man's esophagus. Emergency surgery, a collapsed lung, 23 days in hospital, home with a feeding tube. One pepper, one brain event. A 34-year-old man who ate a single Carolina Reaper developed thunderclap headaches; imaging showed several cerebral arteries had temporarily constricted. They returned to normal. Stomachs can and do rupture. A case published this year: a 44-year-old man's stomach perforated immediately after a pizza-eating competition, requiring emergency surgery and intensive care. He survived. The $12 croissant. A TikTok creator filmed a delivery of what appeared to be Costco croissants arriving at a French bakery near Times Square whose own website advertises house-made pastries. The bakery denies it, saying the pastries come from its own Coney Island production facility and that it reuses incoming boxes. The allegation is unproven. The "D" gave it away. In 2024 a Long Island vegan market flagged a supposedly vegan, gluten-free doughnut decorated with D-shaped sprinkles. An at-home test found substantial gluten; the state opened an investigation and the supplying bakery later recalled its baked goods over possible undeclared wheat, soy and milk. 29 tons of it. A famous Biloxi seafood restaurant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to misbrand seafood and wire fraud, admitting it sold roughly 58,750 pounds of cheap frozen imports as premium local Gulf species between 2013 and 2019. One in five fish is not what the label says. Oceana DNA-tested 449 samples across 24 states: sea bass was mislabeled 55% of the time, snapper 42%. One in three establishments sold at least one mislabeled item. "White tuna" is usually escolar. A deep-water fish whose wax esters humans don't digest — which produces exactly the consequences you'd expect. George's broader point: American palates aren't trained to catch the swap, so nobody complains. Michelin Impossible works. Karla nailed the Twinkie, the M&M and "a tempered milk chocolate medallion filled with a lightly salted roasted legume praline." She has an unfair advantage: as a food editor she was barred from using brand names, so she wrote in generic descriptions for a living. A truffle doesn't taste like one thing. Paolo describes a mix of garlic, mushroom, mushroom honey, linden flower and violet. Most truffle oil is marketing. Synthetic versions carry one dominant molecule instead of the many that make up a real truffle's aroma — and they're often so overpowering they're hard to digest. The price tag is buying the word "truffle." White truffles can't be farmed. Tuber magnatum — the Alba truffle — is the only variety that can't be cultivated. That's the entire reason it costs more than everything else. Black truffles, however, can be grown. Soil analysis, sterilization to remove competing spores, inoculated trees, truffle water worked into the ground — and after roughly a year you'll find very small truffles on the roots. Tartuflanghe washes around a thousand pounds of summer truffle a week and returns the spore-rich wash water to the forest. The clock is brutal. White truffle keeps about 15 days from harvest, summer truffle about 21. By the time it clears customs and reaches a US restaurant, seven to ten days may be all that's left. Truffles smell in order to be eaten. The aroma exists to attract insects that will spread the spores. A truffle that doesn't smell is either immature or twenty days old — and if it's the latter, it'll feel soft. Color is the tell. Summer truffle should be nut-coloured. A white truffle that's completely white isn't ready; it should run yellow to brown. A black winter truffle should be fully black. Paolo's advice: ask to see it and smell it before it's shaved. Bigger costs more for no good reason. A single 100-gram truffle might run $500; five 20-gram truffles of identical quality might run $350. Why pigs lost the job. Truffles carry a compound resembling a boar pheromone, so a sow digs because she thinks there's a pig down there — which means wrestling her away from the find. Dogs hunt because finding a truffle earns a biscuit. They're playing. People & Companies Mentioned George Duran — Host, Always Hangry; chef and TV personality Karla Walsh — Food and wellness writer, Level One Sommelier, recurring Always Hangry guest co-host; former food editor; https://karlawalsh.com/ Paolo Montanaro — CEO of Tartuflanghe, second-generation truffle producer from Alba, Piedmont; https://tartuflanghe.com Tartuflanghe — Alba-based truffle company founded in 1975 by Beppe and Domenica Montanaro; ~150 products including Truffle Perlage, truffle chips, truffle salt and truffle powder Takeru Kobayashi — Competitive eater; holds the 57-cow-brain record (17.7 lbs / 15 minutes) Albert Piddington — Winner of the first recorded pie-eating tournament, Toronto, January 1878 Frank Dotzler — Former alderman; winner of the 1909 Manhattan Fat Men's Club eating contest Conrad H. Ray — Winner of the 1899 Welsh rarebit eating championship, Nutley, New Jersey Alex Williams / Michael Hobbs — Originator (1986) and 2025 champion of the World Stinging Nettle Eating Championship, Dorset, England Oliver Farmer — Winner of the first World Garlic Eating Competition, Dorset, 2013 Travis Malouff — Died in 2017 attempting Voodoo Doughnut's Tex-Ass Challenge in Denver Voodoo Doughnut — Portland-based chain; suspended its eating challenges after Malouff's death @tallbrowngirlll (Sreenitya) — NYC TikTok creator who filmed and posted the croissant video Costco / Kirkland Signature — Warehouse retailer whose packaging appears in the video Cindysnacks — Huntington, Long Island vegan market that raised the doughnut alarm The Savory Fig — Long Island bakery accused of reselling Dunkin' doughnuts; later recalled baked goods over undeclared allergens Dunkin' — Brand whose D-shaped sprinkles identified the doughnut Mary Mahoney's Old French House — Biloxi, Mississippi restaurant that pleaded guilty to conspiracy to misbrand seafood and wire fraud Oceana — Ocean conservation nonprofit behind the seafood-fraud DNA investigations New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets — Investigated the Savory Fig complaints Journal of Emergency Medicine / BMJ Case Reports — Sources for the ghost pepper and Carolina Reaper cases Twinkie, Oreo, Ritz, M&M's, Reese's — Michelin Impossible answers

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Brown M&Ms, Death Row Dinners & Biggest Wine Myths

Why is your bag of Doritos 86% air? What does a rock star's backstage snack list actually say about them? And what would you order if you knew it was the last thing you'd ever eat? George Duran sits down with Brooklyn-based artist and food photographer Henry Hargreaves, a New Zealander who describes himself as a sociologist who happens to work in food. They start with Waste of Space, the series where Henry vacuum-sealed convenience store snacks to measure exactly how much of each bag is nitrogen: Chex Mix came in at 56%, Fritos 64%, Pringles 66%, Doritos 86%. George runs through the snack industry's official excuses for “slack fill” — nitrogen flushing, settling in transit, packaging headspace, cushioning. Then it's Band Riders, Henry's photo series built from real contracts leaked by venue staff. Axl Rose wanted Wonder Bread and Dom Pérignon. Mariah Carey wanted Cristal and bendy straws. Busta Rhymes wanted fried chicken, Guinness and Rough Rider condoms. Lady Gaga wanted cheese that was neither smelly nor sweaty, served on ice. And Van Halen wanted M&Ms with every brown one removed — which turns out to have been a deliberate quality-control tripwire buried in a 53-page technical rider, not a tantrum. In the back half, the tone shifts. Henry's No Seconds series recreated the final meals of executed prisoners: Timothy McVeigh's two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream, John Wayne Gacy's bucket of KFC, and Victor Feguer's single olive with the pit left in — a request Henry calls a full stop at the end of a life. What Henry found across all of them was the same thing: comfort food. Finally, Stephen Finch — founder of Vagabond, the UK's most-awarded self-pour wine bar group, now opening its first US location in Nashville — explains why wine is the most intimidating consumer category there is, why the more expensive bottle isn't necessarily the one you'll like, why screw caps might actually beat cork, and how a wall of argon-sealed dispensers lets you taste a hundred wines before committing to a single glass. Key Takeaways Your chip bag is mostly gas. Hargreaves' Waste of Space measurements: Chex Mix 56% air, Fritos 64%, Pringles 66%, Doritos 86%. Cape Cod was the worst offender he tested at 87%. The industry calls it "slack fill." George runs the four standard defenses past Henry: nitrogen prevents oxidation, chips settle in shipping, machines need headspace, air cushions the product. Henry accepts the first and rejects the rest. Vacuum sealing doesn't destroy the chips. Counterintuitively, Henry found sealed chips survive better — there's no room for them to bounce around and turn into Doritos dust in transit. Contract riders reveal true artist personalities. What began as basic technical requirements evolved into elaborate food, drink, and backstage demands—offering an unfiltered glimpse into an artist's real character. The brown M&Ms were an engineering safeguard. Van Halen's 1982 rider ran 53 pages of staging and load-bearing specs. Brown M&Ms in the bowl meant the promoter hadn't read it, which meant the rigging might not be safe either. The same rider also asked for one large tube of KY Jelly. Henry's question stands: if the promoter got the M&Ms right and missed that, what does that tell you? Henry thinks musicians get unfairly vilified for riders. Asking for something specific isn't the same as throwing a fit when you don't get it. An outsider's perspective on American executions. As a New Zealander, Henry found state-sanctioned execution surreal enough to investigate — which is how No Seconds started, after he read about a Texas prisoner being denied his final request. Last meals are almost always comfort food. Not gluttony, not spectacle. People reach backwards, toward childhood. Henry's own pick: granola with fruit and yogurt. A single olive said more than a banquet. Victor Feguer, executed in Iowa in 1963, asked for one olive with the pit still in it, hoping an olive tree would grow from his grave as a sign of peace. The pit was found in his suit pocket afterward. But since it was a brined pit, it was not destined to grow. Wine is arguably the most daunting consumer category that exists. Grapes, regions, producers, styles, vintages — Stephen Finch argues most of us default to either familiarity or price because we have no other tools. Quality and preference are different questions. More expensive generally does mean higher quality. It does not mean you'll like it. Finch's advice: like what you like, then learn why, and the confidence follows. At the bottom end, you're buying marketing. Industrial wine is a brand plus a process engineered to produce an identical liquid every year. Europe tastes free and sells cheap; America charges for the tasting. George's three years in France versus the US model, where the vineyard costs more than the shop down the road. Finch's read: it's a genuinely great experience, so American producers priced it like one. Screw caps aren't a downgrade. Cork allows micro-oxygenation; a screw cap is closer to hermetic. Depending on the wine, that can be an advantage. Bag-in-box is technically excellent packaging and Finch has one at home. European appellation rules made sense historically and can now be a brake. Wine was the primary export of many regions, so regulating it protected the name. However, California's lack of rules produces a mosaic worth learning from. Vagabond puts 100 wines on a self-pour wall, grouped by style rather than region or grape, available by the sample, the glass or the bottle. Argon keeps the open bottles fresh on the machine. People, Companies & Works Mentioned Henry Hargreaves — New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based artist and food photographer — https://henryhargreaves.com Waste of Space — chip bag air-to-snack ratios — https://youtu.be/izaJ2INQNoE Band Riders — real musician contract riders, shot as Flemish-style still lifes (a collaboration with stylist Caitlin Levin and typographer Lorenzo Fanton) — https://henryhargreaves.com/Band-Riders No Seconds — recreations of death row final meals — https://henryhargreaves.com/No-Seconds Also referenced in passing: his sugar-in-soft-drinks work and the series extracting physical iron from breakfast cereal Stephen Finch — Founder of Vagabond Wines — https://www.vagabondwines.co.uk/ Vagabond Wines Nashville — Self-pour wine bar and restaurant, founded London 2010; US debut in Nashville's Gulch at 1000 Division Street, opening late 2026 — https://www.instagram.com/vagabond.nash/ Also referenced Snack brands cited — Doritos, Fritos, Pringles, Chex Mix, Cape Cod Musicians cited from Band Riders — Van Halen, Axl Rose, Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Billy Idol Brands cited from riders — Dom Pérignon, Cristal, Wonder Bread, Guinness, Rough Rider, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, M&Ms Miller High Life — Henry's pick for both his hypothetical rider and his last meal Murray's Cheese — West Village cheesemonger KFC The Lord of the Rings — Ronnie Lee Gardner's requested viewing; also a point of national pride for Henry Prisoners referenced in No Seconds — Timothy McVeigh, Ronnie Lee Gardner, John Wayne Gacy, Victor Feguer, Ricky Ray Rector

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Deep Fried Everything, MRE's and Everything You Wanted to Know About Oysters

What happens when you deep fry a MacBook, plate a military ration like it came out of a Michelin kitchen, and ask a doomsday prepper what's for dinner after civilization ends? George Duran sits down with Brooklyn-based artist and food photographer Henry Hargreaves, whose work turns food into a mirror for how we consume everything else. They get into Deep Fried Gadgets (and the one detail almost everyone missed), the strangest things Americans have actually battered and fried at state fairs — deep fried butter, deep fried Coca-Cola, pickle-topped Oreos — and a few new deep-fry ideas courtesy of ChatGPT that George is genuinely tempted to try. Then it gets darker and stranger. Henry's Ready for Dinner series took him inside the pantries of doomsday preppers: the man growing tilapia and lettuce in a closed-loop ecosystem, the New Yorker with a bathroom full of water tanks waiting out a West Coast volcano, and the Hasidic prepper keeping a flock of rabbits he's technically not allowed to eat — unless his life depends on it. Plus, Henry's From MRE to Michelin project on the military's Meals Ready to Eat, why the world's best-funded military serves what he describes as tasting like "eating death," and why sealed World War II K-rations now sell for over a thousand dollars. In the second half, chef, food historian and Market Price mobile oyster bar owner Willow Hubsher cracks open everything most of us get wrong about oysters — why they're more like wine than seafood, what actually separates East Coast from West Coast, how a bad oyster and a dangerous oyster are not the same thing, and the one mental switch that makes shucking stop being scary. Key Takeaways The gadgets were never real. Henry built models of the iPhone, iPad and MacBook for Deep Fried Gadgets — partly thrift, partly because nobody wants to know what a lithium battery does in a deep fryer. Deep frying is a storytelling device, not a stunt. The series was about our relationship with technology mirroring our relationship with food: constant, excessive, a little unhealthy. State fairs have gone further than you think. Deep fried butter (Iowa, 2011), frozen ranch dressing balls, deep fried Coca-Cola (Texas, 2006), pickle-topped Golden Oreos (Indiana), panko-fried Jell-O, and bacon-cheddar mashed potatoes on a stick in Tulsa. Putting it on a stick "gives it legitimacy." Preppers weren't all who you'd expect. Henry interviewed people with wildly different apocalypse theories — and COVID lockdowns handed many of them a victory lap where they suddenly felt vindicated. The best prepper setup wasn't freeze-dried at all. One had a fully circular ecosystem: fast-growing tilapia whose water byproduct fed a lettuce crop. Tilapia and greens until the clock runs out. Food fight on the battlefield: Henry found the American MRE consistently among the least edible he sampled across militaries, despite the US having the world's best-funded military. The French and Russian rations were noticeably better considered. Ration collecting is a real market. An unopened early WWII K-ration runs about $395; a sealed supper unit $880; a complete dinner unit $1,000; a three-piece set around $1,400. The notorious "omelette with ham" — nicknamed the egg brick or the vomlet — was discontinued and became a collector's legend. An oyster isn't fishy. Willow describes it as "kissing the ocean" — salty, briny, ocean water with a bite. Steamed clams are far fishier. Oysters are terroir, like wine. Salinity, location, and weather events during the oyster's lifetime — a freeze, drought, deluge or hurricane — all shape flavor. Part nature, part nurture. East vs. West is oversimplified but useful. East Coast reads brinier (currents come up from the Caribbean); West Coast reads more metallic with a cucumber-melon finish (currents come down from Alaska). US East Coast oysters are best October through March; West Coast has less seasonality. Every oyster at a raw bar is alive. Stored properly, an oyster keeps three to four weeks from its harvest date — Great South Bay oysters were shipped alive to Buckingham Palace in the 1700s, before steam engines. A bad oyster and a dangerous oyster are not the same thing. Rot you can smell; parasites and bacteria you cannot screen for by taste or smell — which is exactly why pregnant women are advised to skip them. Don't purge oysters. Never submerge them in water — unlike mussels, they can drown. About 98% of oysters you'll encounter are farmed. Shucking is leverage, not force. Think crowbar, not knife. Willow's three criteria: it's open, it looks pretty, and you didn't hurt yourself. Toppings should be acid. Willow is a purist on a good winter oyster; otherwise lemon or a mignonette (any real vinegar plus a chopped allium). People & Companies Mentioned Henry Hargreaves — Brooklyn-based artist and food photographer; series include Deep Fried Gadgets, Ready for Dinner, From MRE to Michelin, and Food Scans; https://henryhargreaves.com Willow Hubsher — Chef, food historian, oyster expert; owner of Market Price, a mobile oyster bar in Brooklyn offering private parties, pop-ups and shucking classes; https://www.marketpricebk.com Market Price (Market Price BK) — Brooklyn mobile oyster bar and shucking-class company founded ~3 years ago, grown out of rooftop oyster-and-wine tastings National Geographic — Network behind the Doomsday Preppers series; a producer friend warned Henry off interviewing preppers Bridgford Foods — Producer of the shelf-stable pepperoni pizza MRE introduced to the US military in 2018 Coca-Cola — Subject of the deep fried Coca-Cola sold at the Texas State Fair (2006) Oreo (Golden Oreos) — Base of the pickle-topped fried Oreos at the Indiana State Fair ChatGPT / OpenAI — Asked to invent new state-fair deep-fry concepts (avocado toast, cottage cheese, kimchi, tuna tartare, and double-fried french fries) CivicScience — Source of the 2025 survey cited: 35% of Americans stockpile for a doomsday scenario; 77% of those expect to be affected by a disaster within a year Reuters — Source cited for ~7 million US households able to survive independently for at least 31 days State fairs referenced — Iowa State Fair, Texas State Fair, Indiana State Fair, Tulsa State Fair Links Guests Henry Hargreaves — https://henryhargreaves.com Henry Hargreaves, Ready for Dinner — https://henryhargreaves.com/Ready-for-dinner Henry Hargreaves, From MRE to Michelin — https://henryhargreaves.com/From-MRE-to-Michelin Market Price (Willow Hubsher) — https://www.marketpricebk.com Market Price on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/marketpricebk Market Price on TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@marketpricebk Always Hangry Website — https://alwayshangrypodcast.com Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/AlwaysHangryPodcast YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@AlwaysHangryPodcast TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@AlwaysHangryPodcast

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Eating With Your Hands, Terrible Food Names & the Truth About Indian Cuisine

Is it ever okay to eat with your hands at a restaurant? George and Karla Walsh set the rules, rebrand the world's worst food names, and Chef Vivek Surti of Tailor Nashville explains why "curry" doesn't actually mean anything. George Duran and Karla Walsh open the fine-dining rulebook and start crossing things out. Which foods are you allowed to pick up with your hands — and who decided that? There's a list. It involves bones, buns, edible wrappers, and one very firm position on tomahawk steaks. Then: the science on whether touching your food actually makes it taste better, how the fork went from scandalous foreign object to table standard, why China went a completely different direction, and the international cuisines where eating by hand isn't a lapse in manners — it's the point. Plus a cautionary tale about a finger bowl that mysteriously emptied itself. After the break, the rebrand segment. Head cheese contains no cheese. Rocky Mountain oysters are not oysters. Imitation crab is not crab. Spotted dick is not what you're worried it is. George pitches replacement names, Karla judges them, and a strong case gets made for calling prunes "dried plums" from here on out. Finally, Chef Vivek Surti of Michelin-recommended Tailor in Nashville joins to answer the Indian food questions people are too polite to ask. Why is nearly every Indian restaurant in America serving the same handful of Punjabi dishes? What does "curry" actually mean? Would he eat street food in India? And is it okay to pick up the lamb chop with your hands at his own restaurant? Takeaways: Eating with your hands isn't a lapse in etiquette — in many cuisines it's the correct method, and there's research suggesting direct hand contact genuinely changes how food is perceived. The fork is a newcomer. It was condemned as decadent when it arrived in Europe and didn't take hold in America until the 1800s — humans have been eating with their hands for far longer than with cutlery. China's cuisine and its utensils evolved together: food cut into bite-sized pieces in the kitchen removed the need for a knife at the table. Restaurants signal permission. Wet wipes, hot towels, bibs, shell crackers, gloves, and finger bowls are the kitchens telling you to go ahead and use your hands. A lot of food names are actively working against the food. Head cheese, blood sausage, and imitation crab all describe delicious things in the least appetizing way possible. Sorghum is one of the world's oldest cultivated grains — gluten-free, drought-resistant, and used in everything from flour to syrup to biofuel — and George's only complaint is the name. American Indian restaurant food is overwhelmingly one regional style. Vivek Surti estimates 90–99% of it descends from Punjabi cuisine, largely because that's what British diners preferred and what first-generation restaurateurs could sell. "Curry" is a blanket term with no real meaning inside India. Ask an Indian chef to "make curry" and the honest answer is a question back. Companies and people mentioned Vivek Surti — Chef and owner of Tailor, Nashville, Tennessee. Michelin-recommended, South Asian American / "first generation American" cuisine, tasting-menu only. James Beard Foundation semifinalist, Best Chef: Southeast. Located in Germantown. — https://www.tailornashville.com/ Karla Walsh — recurring co-host; food and wellness writer — https://www.instagram.com/karlaswalsh/ Charles Spence — Oxford experimental psychologist and gastrophysicist; author of Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating Adriana Madzharov — sensory marketing researcher, Stevens Institute of Technology; author of the 2019 hand-contact study Maid-Rite — Iowa-founded loose meat sandwich chain Manwich — canned sloppy joe sauce brand (Hunt's) Also referenced: Journal of Retailing; International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science; Smithsonian magazine; Japan National Tourism Organization; MICHELIN Guide

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Your Food Isn’t Expired! Plus: The Unwritten Rules on Sharing and Busted for Eating Weeds!

Summary One gluten-free guest can derail a dinner party. One meatball can derail a friendship. George Duran and food writer Karla Walsh lay out the unwritten rules of sharing plates, expose what "best by" actually means, and meet the forager New York City arrested for eating a dandelion in Central Park. Show Notes There is an exact number of appetizers a restaurant will bring to your table, and it is never the number of people sitting at it. George Duran and Des Moines food writer Karla Walsh open this one on the social minefield of shared plates: which fries are legally yours (curly, apparently, forever), why high-end restaurants insist on serving five of something to a party of six, and what to do about the single remaining croquette that everyone is staring at and nobody will claim. George lays out his rules — everyone gets one before anyone gets two, double-dipping is fine if your fork behaves, and if you take the last bite you have to say so out loud. Karla, who is more reasonable, mostly agrees. There's also a 20-year grudge over a friend's birthday bill that has never been resolved and probably never will be. Then the label on the yogurt. California's new date-labeling law took effect this July, which means "sell by" is gone from consumer packaging in the state and everything else has to say either BEST if Used by or USE by. George explains what those two phrases actually mean, why almost none of these dates are federally regulated, why brown ground beef is fine, why vacuum-packed chicken smells like that for about nine seconds, and why you should absolutely not wash it. Then a game called Taste It or Waste It, in which Karla learns her hot sauce has years of life left in it. Also: George's standing theory that cereal companies deliberately refuse to put zippers on the bag. And then the man who sees dinner where you see a lawn. "Wildman" Steve Brill has spent more than forty years teaching people to identify edible plants across the Northeast, and he became internationally famous in 1986 when undercover park rangers — posing as a married couple, on his own tour — arrested him for eating a dandelion in Central Park. He tells the whole thing: the hidden walkie-talkie, the handcuffs, the fingerprints taken for the city, the state, and the FBI, the judge who wanted it out of her courtroom, and the part where the city dropped the charges and then hired him. He also explains, without much sentiment, what happens if you eat the wrong mushroom. Nothing here is food safety advice. When in doubt, throw it out. Takeaways: Some foods are not shareable and pretending otherwise is how friendships end. Curly fries are the clearest case. Restaurants plate appetizers in threes and fives because odd numbers look better, which means they are mathematically hostile to a table of four or six. "Sell by" was never for you — it's stock rotation. "BEST if Used by" is quality. "USE by" is the safety one. Only that last one is telling you not to eat it. Brown ground beef is a chemistry story, not a spoilage story: myoglobin oxidizing to metmyoglobin. Smell and texture are the real tells. Foraging isn't reckless, it's just uncommon — Brill's rule is 100% certainty on identification, every time, no exceptions. Companies and people mentioned "Wildman" Steve Brill — Forager, naturalist, environmental educator, author — wildmanstevebrill.com Foraging with the "Wildman" — Brill's foraging app, 250+ plants — wildmanstevebrill.com/mobile-app Karla Walsh — Food, wellness and lifestyle writer; Level One Sommelier (Court of Master Sommeliers) — karlawalsh.com · IG @karlaswalsh · newsletter What's Good Also referenced: California AB 660 (Irwin), effective July 1, 2026 — standardizes food date labels, bans consumer-facing "sell by" USDA — safe minimum internal temperature for poultry, 165°F; guidance on mold on hard cheese; color as a freshness indicator FDA — infant formula is the only food product with a federally required date label Drexel University — consumer research on discarding food near package dates NYC Parks Department — Brill's 1986 arrest and subsequent four years as a Parks naturalist Mayor Ed Koch, Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, former Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, New York Daily News, Associated Press All-Bran, Shredded Wheat, Rice Krispies treats

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The Fancy Food Show: I Ate the Future of Food. It Got Weird.

Every year, thousands of new food products launch in the United States with one goal: to become the thing you can't stop eating. Some of them solve a real problem. Some of them are cotton candy that tastes like salted butter. George Duran spent two days at the Summer Fancy Food Show at the Javits Center — 2,300 exhibitors, 32,000 people, and a tote bag that ended up heavier than a Costco run. He ate jam with electrolytes in it. He ate oatmeal flavored with garlic and miso. He ate goat cheese that had turned purple. He was handed an entire burrata, for himself, by an Italian man who would not take no for an answer. This is a walk through the show floor with the people actually making this stuff: a candy maker chasing adult nostalgia, a jam guy who'll happily tell you electrolytes are just salt, a founder who made tofu shelf-stable so you can carry it on the subway, and a company using fungi to build a better ham. Not every one of these products needs to exist. But every one of them says something about what we want food to do for us now — be fun, be healthy, be fast, and surprise us. Sometimes all four at once. Takeaways Cotton candy is being reformulated for adults — Morganne Wheeler's Cirrus 9 Candy sells salted butter, lychee, Madagascar vanilla, and New York maple syrup, betting that nostalgia plus a grown-up flavor profile beats plain pink sugar. "Electrolytes" is marketing for salt. Jesse Linevsky of Jesse Jams says it out loud: potassium chloride and sodium chloride, that's the whole secret. The Fancy Food Show is trade-only — no public tickets. 2,300 exhibitors, roughly 32,000 people, and buyers from Whole Foods and H-E-B deciding what lands on your shelf next year. Every health buzzword is now stacked on one label. Good Journey Donuts is gluten-free, low sugar, non-GMO, keto, and high fiber — at some point a cookie starts sounding like it's applying for a grant. Savory oatmeal is a real category play. Gamsa Foods is selling sesame-garlic oats built on Korean juk and Chinese congee, and Ruby Saens says the toughest test market — 50-plus shoppers in rural Arkansas — took to it immediately. Olive oil is now a wellness shot. Katerina Mountanos of Kosterina says her customers started doing it before the company made a product for it, and TikTok did the rest. Sampling is the one thing a trade show can't move online. Leanna Salamah of the Specialty Food Association is blunt about it: with food, you have to put it in someone's mouth. Mushrooms are coming for the deli counter. Prime Roots is making turkey, ham, salami, and bacon out of fungi, aimed at flexitarians rather than vegans. Companies and people mentioned Morganne Wheeler — Founder & CEO, Cirrus 9 Candy — https://cirrus9candy.com/ Leanna Salamah — SVP, Marketing & Communications, Specialty Food Association — https://www.linkedin.com/in/leanasalamah/ | https://www.specialtyfood.com/fancy-food-shows/summer/ Jesse Linevsky — Founder, Jesse Jams — https://jessejams.us/ Michelle Adams — show attendee since ~2000 Caroline Dai — Founder, TofuGo Snacks — https://www.tofugosnacks.com Kristoffer Quiaoit — Co-founder, Good Journey Donuts — https://goodjourneydonuts.com/pages/about Katerina Mountanos — Founder, Kosterina — https://www.kosterina.com/ Ruby Saens — Gamsa Foods — https://gamsafoods.com/ Lucas Prado — Founder & CEO, Beest Snacks — https://www.beestsnacks.com/ Ryan — first-time attendee Alex Coenen — President, LaClare Family Creamery — https://www.laclarefamilycreamery.com/ Sashi Kumar & Brittney Lim — Co-founders, Tamarind Heads — https://tamarindheads.com/ Stefano — SCP Global Import — https://www.instagram.com/scpglobalimport/ Krista Arland — CEO & Founder, Your Grandpa's Old Fashioned — https://www.yourgrandpasoldfashioned.com/ Kimberlie Le — Founder, Prime Roots — https://www.primeroots.com/en-us Eric — Chief Marketing Officer, WISEcode — https://wisecode.ai/ Also referenced: Whole Foods H-E-B Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Entenmann's Bon Appétit Food & Wine CNN

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Costco Sells Caskets?! Plus: Brunch on Trial & the Truth About Farmed Salmon

George Duran and food writer Karla Walsh open the fridge on the stuff nobody says out loud. First up: the genuinely unhinged things Costco has sold in bulk — gold bars, six-foot nutcrackers, 72-pound wheels of Parmesan, buckets of apocalypse food, and yes, caskets💀💰 (buy one, get a free divorce certificate, apparently). Then brunch goes on trial. Is it a real meal, or just an excuse to charge $20 for eggs the head chef was too hungover to cook? George has a theory. In "Trend or Trash," Dubai chocolate gets the treatment, followed by a round of "Dubai or AI?" — where Karla has to guess which absurd chocolate mashup is real and which one ChatGPT invented. Finally, aquaculture scientist Dr. Stefanie Colombo (Dalhousie University) settles the farmed-vs-wild salmon fight for good — including the part where modern salmon farms use underwater cameras and fish facial recognition. Grab a snack. Stay hungry. Takeaways Costco has sold some genuinely deranged things in bulk: gold bars, six-foot nutcrackers, 72-pound Parmesan wheels, apocalypse-food buckets, and actual caskets. George's brunch theory: you're overpaying for eggs the head chef didn't even cook — he's hungover from Saturday night, so the underlings are on brunch duty. America's brunch scene has produced a Bloody Mary with a whole lobster hanging off it, one topped with an entire fried chicken, and a $2,000 lobster frittata. "Dubai or AI?" proves the internet has tried Dubai-chocolate everything — burgers, wings, ramen, even pickles — and most of it is real. The farmed-vs-wild salmon panic is mostly myth. Dr. Stefanie Colombo makes the case for "farmed AND wild": similar nutrition, better availability, smaller footprint. Salmon farms run on tech you wouldn't expect — underwater cameras and biometric "facial recognition" that IDs individual fish by their freckle patterns. Links referenced in this episode alwayshangrypodcast.com Companies, people mentioned mentioned Costco, Dairy Queen Whole Foods Cinnabon Auntie Anne's Dalhousie University Aquaculture Nutrition

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Buffet Psychology, AI Food Scams & the Future of Candy

George and Karla dive into the wild world of buffets in this lively episode of The Always Hangry Podcast, revealing how these all-you-can-eat feasts can morph people into buffet beasts! They chat about the psychology behind buffet behavior, like how diners with heavier BMIs tend to attack the buffet with chopsticks while lighter folks take a more strategic approach. The conversation takes a humorous turn as they discuss the latest food scams, including folks using AI to get refunds on takeout by doctoring food pics. Plus, George introduces a special guest, Michael Rosenzweig, who’s shaking up the candy scene with his innovative, health-conscious snacks made from konjac. So grab your favorite snack and get ready for a fun-filled exploration of food quirks and trends! Takeaways: Eating chicken wings can be a guilty pleasure, especially when faced with a pile of bones. Buffets seem to change how we eat, often leading us to overindulge on various dishes. Studies show that people with higher BMIs eat faster at buffets using chopsticks, which is a curious observation. The psychology behind buffets suggests that variety can lead to overeating due to a fear of missing out. New food trends, like protein-infused snacks, are becoming increasingly popular, appealing to health-conscious consumers. Innovative products, such as slurpable jelly snacks made from konjac, are adding a fresh twist to the candy market. Links referenced in this episode: www.pacpacsnacks.com alwayshangrypodcast.com Companies mentioned in this episode: DoorDash Walmart Pack Pack Snacks Cargill Blue Bell McDonald's Trader Joe's Kardashians Cold Stone Kit Kat

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Yak Filet & Cat Meat Confessions! Plus: The FDA's Gross Food Secrets & The Great Gnocchi Debate

This episode goes deep on exotic meats and the strange lengths people go to for food — starting with a website that sells, wait for it, opossum tail (just the tail). George and Feel Good Foodie's Yumna Jawad work their way through yak filet mignon, giraffe hot dogs, zebra sausage, and George's own unwitting run-in with cat meat at a childhood baseball game. From there, they get into the FDA's official "food defect levels" — the surprisingly specific amount of mold, insect fragments, and rodent hair the government allows in your ketchup and spices — before tackling the eternal restaurant question: is it ever okay to send food back? The back half brings in Nocca founders Nicholas Wooller and Alessandro Sitá to talk gnocchi, Italian-American cuisine, and whether Cheetos-flavored gnocchi is a crime or a vibe. Takeaways: Exotic meats are legal to sell in the U.S. as long as the animal isn't endangered and it's processed through an approved system — which is how yak, zebra, giraffe, and lion meat end up for sale online. Food is a love language: in Yumna's Lebanese household, "are you hungry?" was how her parents said "I love you." The FDA's food defect levels handbook permits things like up to 1,250 insect fragments per 10g of ground oregano, or 11 rodent hairs per 10g of ground sage — before a product gets pulled. George's take on restaurant menu language: "whipped," "aioli," and "chiffonade" are just marketing markup on mashed potatoes, mayo, and thin slices. Yumna sends food back for real problems (wrong temperature, wrong doneness, allergens) but not for minor stuff like a slightly overcooked side. Nocca's founders talk building a modern food brand around gnocchi — including a preservative-free, shelf-stable version developed with university research — and how far Italian-American cuisine has drifted from its regional roots. Links referenced in this episode: exoticmeatmarkets.com alwayshangrypodcast.com Companies and people mentioned in this episode: Feel Good Foodie https://wildforkfoods.com/ exoticmeatmarkets.com https://www.nocca.co/

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Costco Samples Gone Wild! Plus: Food Crimes & Olive Oil Myths

George Duran and Karla Walsh kick off a deliciously wild ride on the Always Hangry podcast, diving into the zany world of Costco food samples, dietary quirks, and the hilarious lengths people go to when it comes to food. They explore the cult-like following of Costco, where samples can skyrocket sales by a whopping 2000%! George shares some eyebrow-raising anecdotes about the most bizarre things sampled at Costco, from lemon crème to even wet dog food, leaving listeners in stitches. They also tackle the serious side of dietary restrictions and the myths surrounding olive oil, ensuring that no topic is left unturned. So grab your favorite snack and join them for a fun-filled chat that’s bound to tickle your taste buds and your funny bone! Finally, George sits down with Alexandra Devarenne of the Extra Virgin Alliance (EVA) to bust some of the biggest myths surrounding olive oil. From how to choose a quality bottle at the supermarket to whether you should really cook with extra virgin olive oil. Alexandra shares practical tips that will change the way you shop, store, and use one of the world's healthiest ingredients. Takeaways: In today's episode, they delve into the quirky world of Costco food samples, revealing just how much those tiny bites can boost sales by a whopping 2000%. They share hilarious stories about bizarre food sampling experiences at Costco, including some truly outrageous items, like wet dog food and even toilet paper! They discuss the challenges of accommodating various dietary restrictions, sharing amusing anecdotes about friends who seem to have more food rules than a game of Monopoly. The conversation touches on the ethics of food sampling and the fine line between tasting and stealing, prompting some lighthearted debates about supermarket morals. They also explore the science behind why free samples can trigger a sense of reciprocity, compelling shoppers to buy what they taste, even if it’s just a tiny chip of something. Finally, they wrap up with a fun game about drizzling olive oil on unexpected foods, proving that culinary experimentation knows no bounds, even if it involves ice cream! Guests Karla Walsh — lifestyle & food writer Alexandra Devarenne — Extra Virgin Alliance · Next week: George sits down with feel-good foodie Yumna Jawad. Links referenced in this episode: yahoofinance.com alwayshangrypodcast.com https://www.aboutoliveoil.org/extra-virgin-alliance Companies mentioned in this episode: Costco Yahoo Finance Better Homes and Gardens Travel and Leisure Allrecipes Eating Well Bon Appetit Whole Foods Extra Virgin Alliance

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Welcome to Always Hangry

Food isn't complicated. People make it complicated. Always Hangry is a new food comedy podcast where chef and TV host George Duran calls out the weird, frustrating, and totally ridiculous ways we all behave around food — Costco sample chaos, restaurant etiquette, grocery-store habits, and all the things we do that somehow make perfect sense until you actually think about them. No recipes. Nothing precious. Just the conversation you'd have after a couple of drinks when someone finally says the thing everyone's thinking. New episodes launch Tuesday, July 21st. Follow Always Hangry wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss the first bite.