A Seat at the Table with Anthony Bourdain (Part 2)

Part 2 of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s interview with chef Anthony Bourdain is all about cooking and eating, from molecular cooking to food safety to the new “Nose to Tail” movement.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist with the American Museum of Natural History, right here in New York City, where I also serve as director of the Hayden Planetarium. And I've got with me, you've seen him before, you've heard him before, Eugene Mirman. Eugene, thanks. You've invited us to your Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, which is a great thing you've got going over there in Brooklyn.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 0:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks for having us be a part of that.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Thanks for being with us.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just recently, we did a show with you, and our name was on the poster. That was great. Yeah, it's been on a poster before.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Well, welcome to posters.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very cool.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  I'm gonna make you a star, Neil.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you. So, this show's about nutrition, and we're featuring my interview with Anthony Bourdain. You might have seen him with his television show on the Travel Channel. He's gonna have a TV show that's, in fact, he's gonna move to CNN and do a food show.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  He'll be like Anderson Cooper in the middle of a food disaster, picking up food, going, "Why?"

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I said, "I couldn't do this just with Eugene," although Eugene is a bit of a food expert, because you're a voice on Bob's Burgers.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, so he's got some food expertise.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  And I got a D in chemistry, so I bring that also to the table.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so, but I had to bring in a little more expertise, just no offense here.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Not offended.

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Down the street, we've got New York University, a great institution, one of the jewels in the crown of New York, and we have Professor Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition. Thanks for joining us on StarTalk Radio. Thank you. So, Anthony Bourdain, you certainly know the guy, and you've heard of him. I've heard of him. Yeah, yeah, and so, we've got a clip of my interview with him, filmed previously, but we talked about just being in the kitchen, as a place to experiment, what kind of gadgets are available. When we come back, I want to talk about sort of food science, and the science of the kitchen, and what that means to you. Let's check out my first interview clip with Anthony Bourdain. What do you think of all the gadgets that help people cook food? They make great infomercials.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  In almost every case, they're completely worthless. The salad shooter. Do you really, you know, the ultimate salad delivery system? I mean, is cutting lettuce so hard? You know, something that will cut onions for you is completely insane as far as I'm concerned. There is no better, a good, two good knives. A serrated knife for bread and maybe tomatoes and a good quality chest knife is all you need. And a cutting board, a couple of good heavyweight pans. And there's very little that you can't do.

• 2:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you distinguish between tricks? And I don't mean it in a circus sense, but just secrets versus 10 years of doing it. Because you serve a food to someone and say, what's your secret? As though you can just tell that to them and then tomorrow they can do exactly what you made. At what point you say, look, I've been at this my whole life.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  There are no secrets. This is the, the secret of the restaurant business and professional cooking is there are no secrets. It is a mentoring business. Chefs spend their whole lives learning stuff. And then because of the nature of the business, every few months, teach everything they know. Invest time they don't have in teaching somebody everything they know. So that they can maybe have a Sunday off and that they could count on a crew. It's a military hierarchy. There are no secrets. There are no secret recipes. There are no secret techniques. Everything that you learn in the kitchen, you were either told, open source by your immediate superior. And that's been shared with everybody in the kitchen. Or you have learned it over time painfully. Uh, you know, the ability to tell when a steak is cooked by listening to it in the pan

• 3:54Speaker 02

  or on the grill or determining that a piece of fish is probably ready to come out of the pan just from the sound of it. Uh, these are things you learn. Through repetition, and that is the great secret. It's that this is how professionals learn. This is how home cooks should learn. People shouldn't be intimidated by recipes. They should understand that professionals learn through getting it wrong, getting it wrong, getting it wrong, getting it wrong, starting to get it right, eventually getting it right until it became second nature. It's repetition, repetition, repetition. You learn all of these things, even if you don't understand the science behind why your stew is transforming, why it's becoming thick as it cooks longer, why your egg scrambles,

• 4:39Speaker 02

  why the steak gets dark on the outside when you expose it to heat. You may have no understanding of the science behind that, but you instinctively, of course, through repetition, understand it, you learn to use it, and you count on it.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, you've used two words in our conversation as fluently as any scientist that I know. First, E. coli just rolled off your tongue.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And tectonic shift rolled off your tongue. So what is your science background?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  High school science.

• 5:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  High school science.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  High school science, but...

• 5:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you liked it, I guess.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  I did, but, um, you know, people talk about things in kitchens like, you know, what's happening? Why is my steak getting brown? You know, the caramelization of protein, the Maillard reaction, you know? It's kind of cool to know. It helps you out.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm betting you didn't learn caramelization of sugars in high school chemistry.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  But you must have learned it real quick. First time you stick your finger in some, you learn it on a cellular level. How come that's hotter than water? I hadn't counted on that.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's way hot.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that interview, I just became so enchanted by him. I felt like I've known him my whole life during that interview. So we're back in the kitchen. You like the kitchen.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  I love the kitchen.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why? It's the one place you can do legitimate science experiments, and no one will fault you for it.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And if you're really a good cook, you keep notes on what you're doing.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A lab book.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  You keep a lab book.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  If Iran tried to build a nuclear weapon in a kitchen, no one would be so upset.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  So if your cake fails, you try it another way.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I'd be curious if on her shelf of cookbooks, she's got lab books of what fail cooking experiments, successful ones. So is there some experiment you remember most that you discovered yourself?

• 6:35Speaker 03

  Well, it's just anything that you make. You just keep making it until it works.

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think it's interesting if you cook protein, it sort of changes.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, what was he saying when you would burn your finger if you touched sort of?

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you need him to tell you that you'd burn your finger?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  No, but he said faster than water.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry, I don't know science.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, sorry.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Physicist.

• 6:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if you melt sugar and it's liquefied, it's at a higher temperature than boiling water. And it sticks to your finger.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  And if you look at chefs, you look at their arms and they've got blisters and cuts all over them.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Because they've been fighting food for years in a hot kitchen.

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yeah, so like, for example, you know, egg goes from liquid to this fluffy form because you're heating the proteins. I mean, it's an interesting sort of consequence of it.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  Cream whips. Because you're beating air into it.

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right. I mean, I love it. I love it. When we come back, more of my clips with Anthony Bourdain. And I've got Eugene Mirman and the good professor of nutrition, Marion Nestle. See you in a moment.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Startalk Radio, we're back. Find us on the web at startalkradio.net. You can listen to us three ways. You can download the podcast on iTunes and our website. You can find us in the airwaves, Startalk Radio Radio. Also, we are on the Nerdist channel under YouTube. Check us out, you'll see us in video form. I've got Eugene Mirman, Eugene, thanks.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thanks, and the good professor, thanks for agreeing to help out on this interview. I interviewed Anthony Bourdain, and I didn't know very little about him, and I got so...

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, do you ever watch his show?

• 8:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did, you know, he's channel surf and all the food folks.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  He's wonderful.

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's, it's great, it's great to learn about, and he's got a new show on CNN where he travels the world, and he gets paid for that.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  Yes, I think most of the people on CNN... It's a good...

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I guess, yes, they are paid, of course.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Or their skills is just to travel around eating things.

• 8:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And eating things, and he's just actually pretty slender, so he's watching what he eats. So, in my next clip with him, we talk about the molecular food movement, something I was, I was unsure what that meant, but it's all the rage, and let's find out where that takes us.

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm reading recently about the molecular food movement, where if you have enough power over molecules, just create the food from a molecular kitchen. What do you think of that term?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's an unfortunate term. It's treating ingredients in new ways. It's manipulating pre-existing ingredients into unusual forms. And I guess the father of this movement was a guy named Ferran Adria, a great chef, a great restaurant, one of the most enjoyable meals I've ever had in my life, where, uh, called El Bulli in Spain, 50 cooks cooking for 50 diners, never made a profit, considered by many to be the best restaurant in the world. What Ferran explained what he did like this, he said, he's asking a basic question. Here's a truffle in this hand, here's a perfectly ripe peach. The truffle's $1,500.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  The peach is a dollar. Which is better? Which is better? This is rarer, it costs more money, but is it more delicious than a perfectly ripe peach in season or a pear? So, he started asking, what if I treat the pear like the truffle? I do everything I can, experimentation in science, if I trick you, would you think you're eating a truffle? If I serve it in a way that you were forced to value it, that draws the eye, that change the texture, what can I do to this, to change its value, its perceived value, to surprise you, to take you someplace you haven't been before, but then bring you ultimately back to something that, at the end of the day, tastes like a delicious, delicious pear? So...

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, they used a lot of natural, mostly natural ingredients like agar-agar, the stabilizers, various processes to either intensify flavor, to trick the mind into, you know, eating a strawberry that doesn't look like a strawberry, or an apple that looks like and feels like caviar in the mouth. That can be fun and exciting in the hands of somebody as talented as Ferran, and it could be a long miserable night in the hands of somebody who read about him and thought it was a cool idea and started doing ghastly and terrible things to food, sheerly to dazzle.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, yeah, why is that different from I go to the cheap deli and they've got the crab salad, but it's fish made to look like crab?

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Ferran would agree with you, absolutely. There is nothing different. It's a technique and a process, just like making ham. A leg of pork is a good thing, but as it turns out, if you pack it in salt and then, you know, hang it and age it and smoke it, it becomes even more delicious. So it's basically taking that same engine, whether we're talking a sea leg, as it's called, that fake crab, or the making of ham to an extreme degree.

• 11:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but at least that's still using natural ingredients or ingredients available to them. It's not really coming out of the chemistry lab.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  This is not chemistry lab.

• 11:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so molecular movement is not a bad name.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  It is a modernist cooking that understands and refined and expect, that, you know, they spent a lot of time in workshops or laboratories figuring out, why doesn't egg scramble? What process is happening already when you agitate and beat proteins?

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, proteins get all.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Right, so what can we do? How can we play with that process? So we're not talking about introducing chemicals. In almost every case, most of the stabilizers or things like, these were extracts of or natural ingredients that are used elsewhere in other cultures. So it's not chemistry class, but it certainly does look like a laboratory. One of his more famous dishes is the spirified olive, which is essentially the extract of the best olives, turned into juice, and then dropped into a solution treated with a substance, a natural substance, which causes it to basically spirify into a liquid sphere, contained only by itself. So you pick up something very delicately that looks like an olive and it explodes into liquid. It's thrilling and delicious.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's like the essence of olive turned into a bigger olive?

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Just as delicious as the original olive, but with excitement, surprise, wonder, and you know, fifty courses of this, it's really like taking off to the moon.

• 13:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're, you're, you're looked stunned by this description of the essence of olive turned into an olive.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  I've had one.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've had one, and what is it?

• 13:19Speaker 03

  It's like having a mouthful of olive oil.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ew!

• 13:22Speaker 03

  Good olive oil, mind you, but still olive oil.

• 13:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like best ever olive oil?

• 13:26Speaker 03

  Could be.

• 13:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so then what's

• 13:27Speaker 01

  But little, but not as thick or as thick?

• 13:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, pretty much just tastes it like olive oil.

• 13:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you take the essence of an olive, that's oil, right? That's what olive presses do.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Well, I'll go home and drink some olive oil and be like, that.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  And you'll save yourself a great deal of money.

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So are these chefs gone awry? Is this like?

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Oh, I think they're having fun. It's boys with chemistry sets.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Murdering people.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's chemistry sets up. They get to play with all this really cool equipment. They get to play with liquid nitrogen. What could be more fun than?

• 13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want liquid, I want a liquid nitrogen nozzle in my kitchen.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  See, there you go.

• 14:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've always wanted that.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  I think you probably could have one, right?

• 14:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I could probably rig that, actually, now that you mention it.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  So if you had

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Liquid nitrogen is very cool. It's nitrogen like in, in the air. In case you didn't know, seventy-eight percent of the air you breathe is nitrogen. If you cool it enough, it will liquefy. But now it's like raging boiling because it boils. Yeah, it's, it's boiling at a very cold temperature.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  What happened if you sprayed it on a fish?

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you would instantly freeze the fish.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  And then if, and then you microwave it, would it be delicious?

• 14:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Freeze it, then microwave it, then you have a mushy fish, right?

• 14:33Speaker 01

  All right. I'm trying to see how well you know science you've

• 14:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so, no, I've never tried that, but I think that's what would happen if you did this. So, uh, maybe there, there are things that a chef could still do to food that these boys with toys haven't yet devised.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Well, they're working on it.

• 14:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're working on it.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  Lots of them working on it.

• 14:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, but don't, wouldn't it help if they knew? The chemical properties of fat versus protein versus carbohydrates?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Some of them might. I don't know why you're assuming they don't.

• 15:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I'm asking, what in your experience, do chefs have the kind of...

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Some do, some don't.

• 15:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do chefs have the nutrition knowledge that you have? I mean, you're an expert, of course, but do they have your threshold of knowledge that you think everyone should have?

• 15:12Speaker 03

  I don't think so. They have knowledge about cooking. That's what they're doing, and they're trying to take what little science they know and apply it.

• 15:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would they be a better chef if they knew more of what you knew?

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Possibly. Possibly not. Because so much of cooking is about taste and flavor and getting a feel for how you deal with the ingredients.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you concern yourself much with taste?

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  You think people should eat moderately different things?

• 15:36Speaker 03

  Things that are delicious.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that they enjoy it. She's not trying to get everyone to eat weird, like, paste that is neutral of calories.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  I think healthy food should be absolutely delicious.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  That's how you'll convince people.

• 15:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but the stereotype is that the healthy food is nasty and it's like taking your medicine.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  I don't think that is anymore, actually. I think that's changed.

• 15:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Says a man who's a voice in Bob Burgers.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  My...

• 16:00Speaker 01

  That's not an argument.

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is... It is, at this moment, I'm invoking it as an argument. Go.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  My idea of a really great chef is somebody who can make vegetables absolutely delicious, so that's all you want to eat.

• 16:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, that's an interesting chef's challenge.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Take a meat eater and have him fall in love with vegetables.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Many, many chefs can rise to that challenge without any trouble at all.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  It's true. Just go to Blue Hill.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Blue Hill is not a bad place to start.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you know about Blue Hill?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. I've had carrots.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  They start out with little, tiny spiked carrots and radishes.

• 16:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Remind me, Blue Hill has their own farm or something, is that right?

• 16:42Speaker 01

  It's really delicious.

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They control all their own vegetable products, if I remember that correctly.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Just because I'm on a cartoon with the word burger doesn't mean that I eat only burgers.

• 16:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm just... I didn't mean to like offend.

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm curious about something. When people eat, different foods react to their systems differently. You know, some people get indigestion. I mean, you study the chemistry of people's reactions to food?

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Well, one of the things that's really fabulous about the human digestive system is that it can take anything and turn it into calories and nutrients.

• 17:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Really, anything. And if there are some people who are sensitive to certain foods and have food allergies and other kinds of problems, but most people just-

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Even tofu?

• 17:26Speaker 03

  Even tofu.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Just making sure, just curious.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Most people can take anything that was, that used to be alive and that's edible. And turn it into-

• 17:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like a calorie factory.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Wood?

• 17:38Speaker 03

  A wood calorie factory.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Wood?

• 17:39Speaker 03

  A wood would be hard.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  But some people could.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  That's not digestible.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I want to talk about eating wood in a minute.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  For that, you need termites.

• 17:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sure, exactly. When we come back to StarTalk Radio, more on our show on nutrition. We'll be right back.

• 18:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. I got Eugene Mirman and Professor Nessel. Nessel, the verb or the net?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  The verb!

• 18:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The verb, excuse me. Two Nessel, yes. We're talking about nutrition. We're featuring my interview with Anthony Bourdain. And we were coming out talking about, could you eat wood? Now, of course, termites eat wood. And they're having a field day doing so, because they have the digestive enzymes that can get calories out of wood.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  They have bacteria in their intestines that allow them to do that.

• 18:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Those bacteria, okay.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  We have bacteria in our intestines that can handle food fiber, but I don't think it handles wood very well.

• 18:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. But actually, it doesn't digest the fiber, it just passes it through, right?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  It digests some of the fiber. The bacteria can digest some of the fiber-

• 18:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some of the fiber.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  And turn it into little volatile fatty acids that get absorbed, etc., etc.

• 18:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we can eat like, so lettuce, we can eat, but not like oak leaves?

• 19:02Speaker 03

  It would be difficult.

• 19:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It would be difficult.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Would it be poisonous or just unpleasant?

• 19:06Speaker 03

  I don't know whether oak leaves are poisonous or not.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  I'll tell you in a few days.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Why don't you do that? Why don't you do that experiment and be sure and take notes?

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but think about a future. If there's a food shortage in the world and we managed a way to eat something first that allowed you to digest wood. Because wood has calories in it. It's got energy. That's why you can burn it in a fireplace.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's just not available to the human body.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As an energy source. So, we can imagine a day where you can digest wood.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  And what would we do with all the jokes about food tasting like wood chips?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  We would have to swap them out for another object or plant.

• 19:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, some food that tastes like wood not on purpose.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  Tastes like sawdust.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yes, which is still wood.

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In my interview with Anthony Bourdain, I talked about sort of the animal aspect of eating meat. I mean, if you can eat meat, it's a dead animal. Okay?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 20:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Agreed, okay. Not a debatable topic. But what does it mean to eat something that's been completely, where its origin is completely concealed from you? It's just a burger. It's just a...

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Oh, I see. Not like a farm-to-table kind of thing, but more of like, just like buying a big pile of meat or finding it.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Would you go out and kill the animal if you knew that's what you were about to eat? Let's find out what our conversation says.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Punch an animal out and murder it with my fist.

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe it's more true in America than in other places, but particularly in the carnivorous realm, we shield ourselves from the animal itself. We buy a chicken, you don't see the feet.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You don't see the head. It's just packaged and it's just a piece of meat. Is that a good thing? You're probably going to say it's a bad thing.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  It's a terrible thing.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But why? Why do you even care?

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Okay, for a whole lot of reasons. It's always good to know where your food came from. It's only fair and just. My friend, Fergus Henderson, was a pioneer of what's called the nose-to-tail movement. He says, "It's only polite." You know, if you're going to kill an animal, or more often, have an animal killed for your restaurant or your kitchen, it's only polite to eat as much of it as possible, to not waste. People should understand where their food comes from, how it was raised, what the impact might be on their, on society as a whole in that process. But I think also, just as sentient, caring people... A decent person would prefer that their animal is raised reasonably happy and

• 21:37Speaker 02

  and killed with a minimum of cruelty.

• 21:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if before everyone ordered their cowboy steak.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they said, "Go outside, find the cow that you want us to slaughter, look it in the eye and pull this trigger and shoot it."

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Honestly, I think that's an experience, the more people who are, who can do.

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cow with big eyelashes, you know.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Uh, it is something I've done. When you travel this world, you meet your dinner frequently. It's difficult. When you've killed your first pig, you really start to abhor waste, disrespect to the ingredient. I'm a lot more careful about how I cook my pork now. You know, I understand something died for that pork chop, okay? I think you become a better citizen of the world and a more rounded person when you have seen that process and you've made some personal decisions as part of that. But it's, it is a life-changing thing and I think everyone should take part in it.

• 22:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think that's deep. Do you agree?

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 22:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's philosophically enriched outlook on the food that you, that you confront.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Many people don't eat meat because they can't bear the idea of either raising animals for food or killing animals for food. People who do eat meat, if they're thoughtful at all, have to come to terms with what that means. And his coming to terms, obviously, is he, he wants to respect. It has a lot of respect in it. I think that's a philosophical position that'll, that a lot of meat eaters have these days. I want my meat raised humanely.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  I know I'm going to be killing it, but I want it at least raised humanely.

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My one little part of that, that I do for myself, when I'm eating a shrimp, I eat the shrimp with the shell.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 23:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I figure the shrimp gave its life, I'm gonna eat its shell as well. But, plus it's chewable anyway, it's not like a lobster shell. But also.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  I eat the lobster shell because I'm a little better than that.

• 23:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But also, when I cook a lobster, you know what I do? I just, I remove the... The claw rubber bands before I put it in the

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, doesn't everyone do that?

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I don't think so, because I

• 23:49Speaker 01

  You would boil rubber bands with your food?

• 23:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I want the lobster to have one last chance to bite me before it goes in. I see. Right, it's just, it's just, it's a

• 23:57Speaker 01

  I guess I selfishly do the same thing because I don't want to boil a bunch of rubber bands. So it's good that we're both good people, but me

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back more about eating animals and some of them even carry diseases, when we come back to StarTalk Radio.

• 24:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Radio, Neil Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. I've got Eugene Mirman, comedian extraordinaire, love your stuff Eugene, thank you. And Professor Marian Nessel, recently authored a book, this Why Calories Count. Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics, awesome, and it's not your first book. No. It's not your first rodeo. No. You've been writing about this stuff for a while, so thanks for being on. We're talking about nutrition, we're talking about food, talking about cooking. And in this segment, we're talking about slaughtering animals, some of which might have some disease that you want to avoid. And it includes interview clips that I conducted with Anthony Bourdain. Let's get right to at the top of this segment, my interview with Anthony Bourdain,

• 25:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  where we just come out of talking about slaughtering animals, facing them in the eye, if you really want to appreciate what you're eating. And the fact that animals are a source of disease in the world, let's find out.

• 25:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some pathogens in our culture are directly traceable to viruses that hopped from animals that we either farm or eat or, how does that, does that scare you sometimes? I'm thinking of avian flu or mad cow disease or even AIDS with contact with the rest of the apes.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  You know, I think exercising reasonable caution, the same way you would if you travel around rural America, is a useful thing to do wherever you go. I mean, the days when I would eat way as far out of my comfort zone, you know, as a daredevil, just so that I could tell friends that I drank, you know, live cobra blood. I don't do that anymore. I guess I would advise people against. I generally

• 26:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You used to do that.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Early on, I was so grateful to be traveling. I didn't think this whole TV thing would last. I'd never been anywhere. So yeah, when I was in Vietnam, I made sure to get the live Still Beating Cobra heart and drink its blood just so I figured when it all ended, six months later, at least I'd get a free beer telling that story, you know. Um, I, I, I long ago changed the way I travel to be much more interested in the typical everyday thing. I think if you use the same philosophy, people always ask me, do you get sick? Just stomach problems from traveling around, eating all that street food? Always ask yourself, is this how your average person eats? You know, is the place busy? Uh, it's generally not going to be a concern. If you're aware that avian flu has become a, a, a concern in the area.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, you know, undercooked poultry is probably not going to be a good idea. You'd have to, you will have to think about those things. Uh, if there's mad cow around, you know, maybe, you know, calves' brains at a dodgy pub would, would, would not be your first option. But I, I, I think if you familiarized yourself with what's going on, as any cautious traveler should, and don't take unreasonable risks. Um, you know, eating brains or spine in a, uh, in a, in a mad cow area would be a bad idea.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're just using common sense.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, just like, they're not drinking the water in Russia from the top. You shouldn't either.

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do as the natives do.

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Marion, uh, how much attention do you give in your profession to not only nutrition of food, but the hazards that the eating of food can bring you when they're contaminated?

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Oh, I actually have a book. It's called Safe Food, The Politics of Food.

• 27:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Practicing safe food.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  That, that, uh, safe food, exactly.

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, I, I, you know, E. coli, botulism, P. A.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, the, the Centers for Disease Control says 48,000 people in America get sick with food poisoning every year. And there's 125,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. Those are the standard figures.

• 28:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you do to avoid this?

• 28:19Speaker 03

  I try to, when I'm traveling, I try to eat food that's been cooked.

• 28:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cook the food.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Cook the food. Oh, cooking does wonders.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  And never a sandwich that you find on the ground. Never eat a ground sandwich in Russia, they always say.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Well, not more than five seconds.

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But wait a minute, so, alright, so you cook the food, but also cooking removes some of the nutrients from food, isn't that right?

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, but not seriously.

• 28:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  You know, it'll kill a couple of the more dicey ones, like vitamin C and folate. But the others will be fine, and you will be so much better off eating cooked food in places where the water's dirty, that you'll be grateful that you did.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so that's, but how about, how about the pathogens that are not organic? That, like, like mad cow disease, isn't that just a folded protein or something?

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a folded protein. That's pretty rare.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Hey, what's a folded protein? You guys are like, "Yeah, it's a folded protein. Oh, yeah, we know, that's what it is." Because everyone knows what that is.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  It's a misfolded protein. That makes it even worse.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 29:19Speaker 03

  There are proteins in your body, that's, and this one happens to get into the brain, and it's bad, and it's folded wrong, and it makes others fold wrong, too.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Uh-oh, and then your whole brain folds wrong, and what a folded brain is a dead brain.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  It's really bad.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  That's what I say.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's bad.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  It's bad. You don't want to get that, but it's rare.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you definitely don't want to get fold-brained.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  It's rare.

• 29:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, yeah, avoid the fold-brain. And it's something that cooking the food would not prevent.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  No.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So avoid eating the brains of other animals.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Excellent. Sorry. Sorry.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back to StarTalk Radio, more with my interview segments with Anthony Bourdain. We'll see you in a moment.

• 30:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, and we're coming into our final segments on this program where we're featuring my interview with Anthony Bourdain.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, Professor, you've been commenting on this. It's been great, just fleshing out what we're Trying to explore what it all means. We came out of that segment talking about folded proteins. You didn't know about a folded protein?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  No, and I'm willing to bet a lot of people missfolded. Everybody knows about like a perfectly folded protein. It's the misfolded proteins that catch most of them.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The origami protein where they messed up the third, the third standard form.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Which is a danger that is unlikely and can't be avoided by cooking.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Both of those things.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Great, so I'm not afraid.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Don't need animal brains.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how good is cooking at killing viruses as opposed to bacteria?

• 31:03Speaker 03

  It's fine.

• 31:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll do that too.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Cooking is really helpful if you're trying to kill bacteria and viruses and...

• 31:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it could be one of the greatest contributors to our longevity.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  It could.

• 31:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fact that we started cooking food back when fire was tamed by cavemen.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yes, if you boil a person with the common cold, you will kill the common cold. The question is how, what's to find that perfect temperature before they die?

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that's kind of what your body does when it raises its temperature is fighting bacterial infection. So you were not completely

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Wrong.

• 31:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  crazy with that suggestion.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  But I want to boil people to kill the virus.

• 31:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But in fact, your body sometimes doesn't know how high to bring the body temperature and it can kill itself.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a fever, yeah, yeah.

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I spoke with Anthony Bourdain about food in interesting, more exotic places like food in space.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  What island?

• 31:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What astronauts eat?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Name one person who's ever been there.

• 31:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mars or we're gonna go someplace to food at high altitude.

• 32:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Latest afternoon, I'm gonna be speaking with the space station astronauts and I'm gonna ask them, important inspired by this conversation, I'm gonna ask them, since it is an international space station, do they ever get together and swap each other's foods?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Well, they do. I've spoken to some astronauts about this and it's really interesting what happens to the palate at altitude and in outer space. Apparently, you know, if you have a stash of hot sauce, you're the go-to guy in outer space. They crave spice and like chili sauce, Tabasco, some kind of good spicy relish, seasonings.

• 32:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something to keep in mind, if our next mission to Mars, would you volunteer to be their chef?

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Um.

• 32:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Order buys an asset on it.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Really be interested in going to Mars. Now I ain't cooking. I had 28 years of it. Somebody else can bring the food. I'll bring the hot sauce.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could be the spice man, I guess, how to make the food better.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Well, and it's, you know, airline food tastes so differently on the ground and at altitude. They have to completely reimagine it for what it's going to taste like up there. So I think I'd be well, given my experience in Southeast Asia, I think I'd be a good choice for the master of condiments.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Marion, I'm intrigued by that. I mean, I conducted that interview, but it didn't hit me until just now. That if your taste buds, your brain taste bud connection changes according to altitude. You need a different cuisine at every stratum.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  It's why money tastes so good eating in Aspen.

• 33:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I mean, so Ed, what do you, what is, what do you know is known about eating at altitude?

• 33:40Speaker 03

  I don't think it's, I don't think the reasons for it are known. It must have something to do with the loss of oxygen.

• 33:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  There's just less oxygen.

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Less oxygen, and even in, on a, on an airplane, that is not pressurized to sea level. It's pressurized at much lower, which puts less stress on the fuselage, because if they pressurize the cabin at, at,

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Sea level.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sea level pressure, then seals begin to give and it's, it's.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  No, I thought at first you were like, you were talking about seal the animal.

• 34:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, sorry, sorry.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  You don't know how planes work. You think they're powered by seals, oh boy.

• 34:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, and in the space station, the same thing. So, so they might up the oxygen level to the same per breath, but the total air pressure is going to be less. And we know you can survive in lower air pressure. So that's, that's fascinating.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  Things don't taste as good and it's harder to boil water.

• 34:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, well, it's so, well, hard to cook an egg. You can boil the water. It won't cook the egg because it boils at a lower temperature.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you can do that.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, it's.

• 34:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everybody knows that.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  I don't spend a lot of days boiling eggs in high altitudes, but sure, I've heard the thing.

• 34:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, so what happens is as you go to higher altitude, there's less air pressure on the surface of the water.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so the water's trying to evaporate itself, and at sea level, and it's fighting all these air molecules, you go to lower air pressure, water's popping up willy-nilly, and so the temperature of the water boils is lower. Now you want to cook your three-minute egg, the egg says, "I'm ready for 212," but you only give me 180. So your three-minute egg becomes a five-minute egg.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Sounds like you shouldn't be poaching eggs in space, but you should be making omelets on a nice hot pan, right?

• 35:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so we need a whole new cookbook for your very, for your various altitudes.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  For the amount we're trying to get to Mars, we haven't thought about how we're going to cook on the way there.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  You don't have to feed robots.

• 35:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, we just give them sunlight.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we should re-engineer humans so that we can run on sunlight.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  That would be terrific.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  I would love a helmet that absorbs solar energy.

• 35:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But then it's not as tasty, the whole of food traditions of our world would be gone. We've got to start wrapping this up.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Professor Nessel, thanks for coming. And Eugene, and your book is out, just came out a few months ago.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Why Calories Count.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why Calories Count, I'm all over that. And Eugene, are you going to read her book?

• 35:54Speaker 01

  I am. I'm actually totally excited to read your book. You should have brought a free copy for me, and I'll get it on iTunes or something.

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that was great, I want to publicly thank Anthony Bourdain again for granting us that interview, and he was such a great guy.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Hi, Anthony, I like your stuff a lot.

• 36:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he was

• 36:11Speaker 03

  I like his food.

• 36:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was so frank and honest, and he was such a great guy. Now, you've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Give a shout-out to NSF, or NIH people, excuse me. NSF all the way. I am Neil deGrasse Tyson, as always, bidding you farewell and to keep looking up.