How Real Optimists Think & Butter Secrets Most People Miss

When was the last time you sighed? Probably not that long ago. We tend to think of sighing as something we do when we’re frustrated, tired, or relieved. But scientists have discovered that sighing plays a much deeper role in keeping your body functioning properly — and your brain actually has a built-in mechanism that triggers it. https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-and-stanford-researchers-pinpoint-origin-of-sighing-reflex-in-the-brain Some people naturally seem to expect things to work out, while others brace for disappointment. Is optimism simply a personality trait, or is it something you can learn? Psychologist Deepika Chopra — often called “The Optimism Doctor” and author of The Power of Real Optimism: A Practical, Science-Based Guide to Staying Resilient, Curious, and Open Even When Life Is Hard (https://amzn.to/4b9EG4S) — explains that real optimism isn’t about pretending everything is fine. It’s a mindset grounded in science that can improve resilience, decision making, health, and even longevity. Butter seems simple. It’s just butter… right? Not even close. The butter you buy at the grocery store hides a surprising amount of history, science, and culinary nuance — from why it’s shaped into sticks to why some butter is salted and some isn't. Anna Stockwell, New York–based recipe developer, food stylist, and author of The Butter Book ( https://amzn.to/47gj6u8), explains what actually makes butter different from one brand to another, when premium butter is worth it, and how understanding butter can dramatically improve the way you cook. Many people use mouthwash every day as part of their routine. It seems like a healthy habit. But there’s growing evidence that regular use of some mouthwashes may come with an unexpected downside — one that most people never consider. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7125030 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS POCKET HOSE: Text SYSK to 64000 for your two free gifts with the purchase of any Pocket Hose Ballistic hose! DUTCH: If your pet is still scratching and you’ve tried everything at the pet store –it’s time to stop guessing and go prescription. Support us and use code SYSK for $40 off your membership at https://Dutch.com RULA: Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that’s actually covered by insurance. Visit https://Rula.com/sysk to get started. QUINCE: Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last! Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.dom/sysk ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! SHOPIFY: See less carts go abandoned with Shopify and their Shop Pay button! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ EXPEDITION UNKOWN: We love the Expedition Unknown podcast from Discovery! Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today on Something You Should Know, Why You Sigh A Lot More Than You Think You Do, and Thank God You Do, then Understanding Optimism and How to Be More Optimistic.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  People don't really understand this, but optimism is not a personality trait. It is a trainable psychological skill. And it is something that can be learned, and I look at optimism like a muscle.

• 2:11Mike Carruthers?

  Also, some important information if you use mouthwash. And everything you need to know to be a better butter cook and a better butter buyer.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Salted butter tastes really good. So if you want to have butter on your toast, it's nice to use a salted butter. Also, if you're using butter in savory cooking preparations, like finishing a sauce or adding butter to your pasta, that extra salt is only going to make everything taste better.

• 2:39Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:22Mike Carruthers?

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• 4:09Speaker 03

  Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life today. Something you should know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  When was the last time you let out a big sigh? Probably more recently than you think. And that's what we're going to start this episode talking about today. Hi, I'm Mike Carruthers. Welcome to Something You Should Know. So, human beings actually sigh about once every five minutes. That's roughly a dozen times an hour. And it's not just an emotional reaction to frustration or relief. Scientists have discovered that sighing is a built-in maintenance system for your lungs. You see, inside your lungs are millions of tiny air sacs. And over time, normal breathing causes some of them to collapse.

• 5:07Mike Carruthers?

  A sigh, which pulls in about twice the air of a normal breath, pops those sacs back open and keeps the lungs working efficiently. In fact, researchers at Stanford identified a specific neural circuit in the brainstem whose job it is to trigger sighs automatically. Without that mechanism, those air sacs would gradually collapse and breathing would become less effective. So sighing isn't a weakness or exasperation. It's your brain giving your lungs a reset. And that is something you should know.

• 5:45Mike Carruthers?

  Optimism has a bit of a reputation problem. For a lot of people, the word sounds like wishful thinking, pretending everything will work out, forcing yourself to stay positive, or ignoring the hard parts of life. And when things are actually difficult, that kind of optimism can feel very unrealistic, even annoying.

• 6:07Mike Carruthers?

  But what if real optimism has nothing to do with blind positivity? What if it's actually a psychological skill, something grounded in real science that helps you stay flexible, resilient, and open even when life is uncertain or painful? My guest says optimism isn't about denying the dark. It's about learning how to see your way through it. Dr. Deepika Chopra is a psychologist, also known as the optimism doctor. She studies resilience, emotional well-being, and how people recover from difficult experiences. She is a recurring guest on The Today Show, and she's author of the book The Power of

• 6:49Mike Carruthers?

  Real Optimism: A Practical Science-Based Guide to Staying Resilient, Curious, and Open Even When Life is Hard. Hi, Deepika. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm so happy to be here.

• 7:03Mike Carruthers?

  So what is optimism to you, someone who studies it? How do you define it?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Basically, I think a lot of people have this notion that being an optimist is someone that is experiencing bliss 24/7, or always looking through the world with rose-colored glasses, immediately seeing silver linings, and just always seeing the world with that half-glass full. And, you know, a lot of times, I think optimists get this rap of not being rooted in reality. And that just couldn't be further from the truth. Someone that is truly optimistic is someone that is deeply and mindfully aware of the roadblocks and the setbacks and the less-than-ideal situations.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  And the caveat is, they just see those setbacks as something that is temporary and something that they have the ability to overcome or persevere, even if they don't know how or when. But that is mainly based on personal historical resiliency and having, you know, gone through effectively their hardest days, all of them thus far. And I also really equate optimism to this idea of curiosity. So even if you're not really sure how things will turn out, just being curious as to, you know, how they will be different than they are now, but at the very same time, holding space for hope.

• 8:32Mike Carruthers?

  It does seem, and I've certainly been in this situation myself, that where I didn't feel particularly optimistic. So I know what that feels like. There's this rush to the worst case. Like it's when something goes wrong, you think the world is ending. Or if something looks like it's going wrong, you look at what the worst thing that could possibly happen, and that becomes your reality.

• 9:01Mike Carruthers?

  But it could turn out better. In fact, when you look back, I think for many of us, things never worked out as horribly, or seldom worked out as horribly as you thought. And often, things work out okay.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  That's right. And I think that there is a lot of reasoning for that. So from an evolutionary standpoint, we were actually built to be more in that world of pessimism and worst-case scenario. You know, a long, long time ago, our ancestors who were running away from saber-toothed tigers had to imagine and play out the worst-case scenario so that they would survive. And then that got passed down. But what we know about today's modern world, we definitely still have predators. They don't look the same as saber-toothed tigers. But what we know about the modern world and how we live today, chronically and consistently imagining worst-case scenario is not helping us survive or thrive.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  And we have to do a more intentional job of coming up with different scenarios. And that sort of brings me to this place of, and I think people don't really understand this before, but optimism is not a personality trait. It is a trainable psychological skill. And it is something that can be learned. And I look at optimism like a muscle.

• 10:24Mike Carruthers?

  But do you think there are people who are just naturally optimistic? Or that they train themselves to be optimistic? Is it a temperament?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  So it's, there is a genetic component to it. But the good news is, and there's varying research, that the most that we've ever seen, you know, allotting a genetic component to it is about 25%. So the majority and the rest of it is actually something that is learned.

• 10:52Mike Carruthers?

  To which I'm sure people have said to you, but if you're looking at other scenarios, you're not looking at the worst-case scenario, you're ignoring the possibility of a worst-case scenario, and it is a possibility, and you need to look at it because if you can handle the worst-case scenario, then you can handle anything better than that as well.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  So, that's so interesting, and you know, a lot of what I talk about, one of the best ways that you can actually increase your optimism is through something that we call sensory-based visual imagery, or visualization, and a lot of people will look at that, or people that practice it and say, "Yeah, of course, you just constantly imagine, you know, the best-case scenario, what you want, and you put that out there into the universe." And I know a lot of people talk about this idea of manifestation, but actually, what a lot of people are missing is, when we do the real sensory-based visual imagery work, and when we're talking about real optimism, as well as imagining how you want something

• 11:53Speaker 01

  to go, I also have people, in their visual imagery, imagine all the different setbacks that could happen, and how they may behave in those, so that they are more prepared. We cannot ignore reality, and that's just it. None of us are immune to struggle, no humans are immune to, you know, the setbacks and the worries, and so, I always say, optimism doesn't deny the dark, you know, real optimism, the way we're defining it, doesn't negate the dark, it just gives us tools and a way to see within it.

• 12:26Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I know you said that it's not a character, or it's not a personality trait, but it seems like it is, because I know plenty of people that seem to be very pessimistic, that they just, you know, "Everything is hard, why does it never work out for me, why is it..." And it seems like that's who they are.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Well, they have absolutely, there is that small bit that is predisposed, but it really is mostly about what they've been exposed to. And so, of course, and I also want to say that optimism, like, I don't believe anyone is an optimist or a pessimist. Optimism really lives on a continuum, like so many other things. And it depends, like, for me, I'm more naturally optimistic in, you know, various aspects of my life, like global issues, or when it comes to even stuff that's like professional and work-related, and, you know, even little, little moments like missteps or mistakes, or when things don't go so, so

• 13:32Speaker 01

  well, I can see and hold hope that this is, this is temporary, and something's going to change. But when it comes to health, my Achilles heel, I run so pessimistic. And partly, that is something that I believe I was probably likely predisposed to, but the majority of it is, I have a collection of evidence through my life, and the way that I've looked at certain circumstances that have happened to me, with me, around me, and I've now formulated this self-belief that I, if something is going to go a little bit wrong health-wise for me, it's going to go a lot wrong. And this is sort of my work in where I use the tools to help me.

• 14:14Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, I think I have that, too.

• 14:18Mike Carruthers?

  I think, yeah, every time, every time I get like a, something goes wrong, I think, oh, God, this is the end.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yes, it does borderline on hypochondria, and sometimes a little neurotic. And you know what is, is the issue is, a lot of times when I've gone to that direction, I've actually been validated, because I now tell myself, oh, well, if I wasn't so anxious about it, and I didn't go to that level, I wouldn't have gone to the doctor, and I wouldn't have found X, Y, and Z. And, and there are plenty of, of times and experiences where my mind jumped to those worst-case scenarios and literally Not only did nothing occur, but something better might have even happened, you know, health-wise. And you just, it's a cognitive bias. And I know that's one of mine, and it's sort of what we talked about at the beginning of this.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  You know, you can have five experiences that just go right by you, but one that just cements because it really, it really glues itself to a thought or a belief you already so strongly feel. And your brain loves to collect evidence to make whatever you think is true, more true. And then you blow that up and you highlight that, and that becomes again, part of your identity. So for me, that's where my real work lies.

• 15:37Mike Carruthers?

  I'm sure you've heard people say things like, "Yeah, but you don't know my life." You know, it's one thing to be optimistic when most of the time, things are going well, but I've had some really tough times in my life, and that's why I have a more pessimistic view of the world.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you know, I think that when I see, when I'm speaking to like a large audience of people, and I'm really describing what real optimism is, I see so many people, just like their shoulders come down, and they say, "You know what? I actually think I am a real optimist, so much more than I ever thought I was." And I think we're just defining it incorrectly. Because again, right now, we're polarizing it and sort of being like, "Well, if I've been through really hard things and bad things happen to me, then it's understandable why I'm a pessimist. And only if, you know, good things happen to me, I can be an optimist." But again, we only cultivate our optimism through the perseverance of our struggles. That is where it is cultivated.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  So I would say, "Yeah, I know you've been through really hard things, myself included." And I'm sitting here today, the circumstances don't change, and I still don't wish upon myself any of those terrible things, but I have gotten through them, and things did change within them. So all I know at this point, right now, which is a very real optimism type of view and mindset to have, is not that I know what the future holds, or that things are going to be amazing and wonderful and better all the time. It's that I truly know that I can get through hard things. And that is like a very, very big pillar of being a real optimist.

• 17:23Mike Carruthers?

  You know, one of the things I've wondered about is, is one of optimism's biggest enemies, worry, and I want to get your thoughts on that. This episode is brought to you by Pocket Hose, the world's number one expandable hose. You know what I've always hated about garden hoses? It's how they manage to get all twisted and kinked up right where the water comes out, right at the faucet. So you turn on the hose and it's like trickle, trickle, nothing. The new Pocket Hose Copperhead actually fixes this problem with something called the Pocket Pivot. This thing swivels 360 degrees, so the hose moves with you instead of tying itself up in knots.

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• 19:07Speaker 04

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• 19:33Mike Carruthers?

  So Deepika, I think people who have trouble being optimistic in any situation get that way partly because they worry a lot. They worry about what's going to happen and that, you know, you are what you think about all day long. And if you worry all the time about the worst that's going to happen, that becomes who you are.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that is why, and that's very true. And I also would say that we are not immune to worry. And when we care about something deeply, we worry. And so I never want anyone to feel that we are trying to come up with a life without worry. And in fact, this sounds really counterintuitive, but I literally have people, myself included, schedule worry time into their day. So hear me out, because yes, I am telling you to worry, but I'm telling you to put it in a container. And so exactly what you said, when you have worry thoughts all day long, which the majority of us do, and we live in the type of environment and

• 20:37Speaker 01

  world where that makes a lot of sense. And so it is really important to contain the worry. So, you know, you start sort of smaller, which means multiple worry sessions a day. I am working my way up to one 15 minute worry sort of period at a day in the day, every day, that now I have realized is a good time for me to worry. And when the worry thoughts come by, which they do all day long, I'm very used to it now. My brain is trained to ask, like, is this something that needs immediate attention right now? Or can I put it in my container? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna save it for, for my worry time. This really

• 21:18Speaker 01

  helps with not becoming paralyzed. And that is what is happening, either numbing out or being paralyzed because, or being heavily distracted, which makes a lot of sense because we have a worry thought almost all day long that comes in every few minutes. And we have to still show up and be the people that we're being. And I think the reason why this topic and these tools are so important right now is I think a lot of us globally are in this collective worry, heavy uncertain space.

• 21:53Mike Carruthers?

  It would seem that because you had talked earlier about how we're kind of wired to... Worry and think about the negative and the worst that could happen that that given that that's the case that we need to make a particularly stronger effort to find the good things that we that we tend to dismiss.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. We absolutely do. And when I was a kid, obviously, there was Mr. Rogers, and he used to always talk about looking for the helpers. We have to actively look for people and humanity and things that are going well, that are inspiring, that put us in a place of awe, that bring us joy. We absolutely need that to continue to move forward. It's it's like survival and we have to actively seek it out because, like we talked about in the beginning, I don't have to remind people to worry. You know, we're going to do that anyway. Our brains are trained to do that. But I do have to remind people to seek out, you know, moments that bring them joy.

• 22:51Mike Carruthers?

  And give me an example of how how would you recommend I do that?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Well, I do this thing and I actually keep something that I call a joy list. And again, I love these really simple, practical, you can start it right now. You know, whenever you are experiencing joy, whatever you might be doing, like you stop and you just say, okay, this is joy. I'm feeling joy. What is it that I'm doing right now? And you jot it down and you will come up with these tiny things and bigger things that live on this list. And the great thing about this keeping a joy list is because when you need it the most and you sort of need a moment where either you have, you know, a call got canceled and you have two minutes to spare.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Instead of scrolling or doing something else, you can say, oh, maybe I can do something on my joy list. Or when you're feeling at a place when you're in a negative loop and you can't necessarily spin out of it. And it's hard to come up with what you might need to do or want to do. But it's very easy if you just remember you have a joy list and you scan through it and something will pop out at you that you can do in that moment. And it's just a proactive, mental health care tool.

• 24:05Mike Carruthers?

  Have you ever seen anybody who's worked with anybody who's really fairly pessimistic and and turned it around?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. So many. This is sort of, I'm getting into now, something that some people might find, I don't want to say controversial, but just different than what they maybe have heard. I don't believe in blanket statement, generic affirmations. And the research really supports that. You know, for people that truly need the affirmation, when you say something out loud in front of a mirror that you don't truly believe, at best, it doesn't work. At worst, it's actually very detrimental to them. And so, the idea of visual imagery is really powerful because of our brain and these things that we have called mirror neurons. And the

• 24:56Speaker 01

  brain actually can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. When you are imagining something, especially if you're using all your senses, your brain actually thinks that you are doing it. And so, it starts to think that this is something that is a reality and could be a possibility. And the big key takeaway here is, is that you don't always get what you want, but you most always get what you expect. And so, the real work is closing the gap for people between the want and the expectation. So, I worked with this client and, you know, he held a really strong belief for many reasons, after many years, that he is unlovable and

• 25:41Speaker 01

  undeserving of being in a relationship or undeserving of love. In the past, he had definitely tried many things and of course, had been someone that has tried to look in the mirror and just say, "I am lovable. I am loved." But he had forty plus years on him to evidence to him and his brain picked back up all those, those pieces of evidence when he did that to show him, "Wait, that's not true. And here's all the reasons why and you don't believe that." And so, not only did it not help, but it was now making him feel shameful and setting him back even more. And so, I actually, this was a humbling case for me because I had used this idea of visual imagery by just asking people like, let's imagine being in a relationship.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  And they could do it, but he was so cemented in his framework that when I asked him to do it, he actually just laughed at me and was like, what do you mean? Like, I can't, like, I'm not, I can't imagine being in a relationship. Like, there's no way. And so I sort of shifted the way in which I asked him. And I just asked him, like, who's the first? I let two sessions go by and I asked him, who's the first person that you're going to tell when you're in a loving and respectful relationship? And he just immediately said, my mom. And I was like, oh, well, where are you when you're telling your mom? And, you know, what does the room look like? What is she wearing? Can you notice any sounds? What does it smell like?

• 27:08Speaker 01

  And he was able to go right back to this particular place and even what was cooking on the stove that his mom usually made. And now he had this whole imagery of telling his mother about being in this relationship and feeling respected and loved and reciprocal. And, you know, it didn't change circumstances, but what it did was it allowed his brain to actually now think this might be possible instead of this is never going to happen. And when our brain feels like something is possible, it actually will put forth the effort and energy to come up with solutions and actions to problem solve. Because if it doesn't think something is possible, it will not.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  And so using visual imagery and some of these other tools, even if they're really small and some of these things are really big, you really can change the self-limiting beliefs, but it takes work. It's not about just asking for something and expecting it to fall into your lap.

• 28:05Mike Carruthers?

  Well, clearly, you know, optimism is much more than wishful thinking and hoping for the best. I mean, there's a real practical science to it. And I appreciate you explaining it. I've been speaking with Deepika Chopra. She's a psychologist and author of the book, The Power of Real Optimism, A Practical Science-Based Guide to Staying Resilient, Curious, and Open Even When Life is Hard. There's a link to her book in the show notes. And Deepika, thank you for sharing this.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

• 28:37Speaker 04

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• 29:37Mike Carruthers?

  Butter. Butter is everywhere. It melts into sauces, it bakes into cookies, it crisps up vegetables, and it somehow makes almost everything taste better. It is one of the most familiar ingredients in the kitchen. But what exactly is butter? Is all butter basically the same? Or are there important differences most of us never think about? And if butter plays such a big role in cooking, what should we actually understand about it that we probably don't? As simple as butter seems, there's a lot going on inside that little stick in your refrigerator. And here to explain it is Anna Stockwell.

• 30:21Mike Carruthers?

  She's a New York-based recipe developer, food stylist, and writer, and she's author of The Butter Book, which not only includes some really cool recipes, but also reveals just about everything you might want to know about butter. Hi, Anna. Welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  Hi Mike, thanks for having me.

• 30:39Mike Carruthers?

  Sure. Well, I love this topic because I mean, who doesn't interact with butter like on a fairly regular basis? And I would bet if you ask people, "What's butter? How do you make butter?" Most people don't know. So what is butter and how do you make it?

• 30:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I strongly believe that everyone should try making their own butter at least once in their life. Full disclaimer, I do not normally make my own butter. It takes a lot of time. It's a little bit messy. But the process of making butter is really fun and it gives you an understanding of what butter actually is. And it's good to know how it's made.

• 31:17Mike Carruthers?

  And how do you make butter? What's the recipe?

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Just agitate cream until the fat and the liquid separate. And then you get all the excess liquid out and you're left with butter. That's the most simple explanation of it.

• 31:33Mike Carruthers?

  When you agitate cream, like you don't talk to it and get it upset, what do you mean you agitate cream?

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Shake it, or spin it around in your food processor, or in your blender, or in your stand mixer, or you can use one of the old fashioned butter churners where there's like a paddle in it and you just churn the cream with the paddle. So all of those are forms of quote unquote agitation.

• 32:00Mike Carruthers?

  If you were to make butter right now, if I said, "Okay, let's make some butter, Anna," how long would it take us to make something? How long would it take to get to the point where I could then spread that on my toast?

• 32:12Speaker 02

  Well, if I can use my electric stand mixer, we can have it done in 10 minutes.

• 32:16Mike Carruthers?

  Really? Wow. I always thought it was-

• 32:19Speaker 02

  We're doing it by hand, hand cranking it. You know, it might take more like 20 minutes, maybe half an hour.

• 32:24Mike Carruthers?

  So where, how far back does butter go? Do we know when it started? Who figured it out? How they figured it out? Do we know like the early history of butter, or it's too old?

• 32:35Speaker 02

  It is one of the oldest manmade food items. We have evidence of butter as far back as 4,000 BCE. There was butter fat found in pottery from that year. But- We believe that butter was being made and used long before that time. Probably during the Neolithic period, sometime between 9,000 and 8,000 BCE. In Central Asia, there were nomadic herdsmans who were carrying yak milk on their long journeys in in animal skin flasks. The milk would get agitated as they traveled and the

• 33:19Speaker 02

  fat would separate from the buttermilk. And what was left was butter. And so they used that yak butter. And so that's how butter was originally invented, as far as we know.

• 33:34Mike Carruthers?

  When you think about butter, I mean, it's in everything. I mean, imagine a world without butter. I can't, I can't imagine it.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't want to live in a world without butter, that's for sure.

• 33:47Mike Carruthers?

  How did it become so ubiquitous? How did it get into everything? Is it because, is it just because it's so versatile and it does so many wonderful things? Or it had a good PR agent? Or like, how did it, how did it become so popular?

• 34:01Speaker 02

  Butter is a natural byproduct of milk. When you let the cream separate from the milk, then you have all of this extra cream left over. And butter is a really great thing to do with that cream. And it makes the cream last longer because you separate all the liquid out of it. You're left with this fat product that is more shelf-stable than just plain cream. It doesn't go bad as quickly. So I think it just was a convenient way to preserve this dairy product. So I think that's how it became so widely used. And then in like the history of cooking,

• 34:46Speaker 02

  butter, especially in Western cooking, is so integral to so many of the things that we bake, especially. That we just, you know, we can't, there's so many things that we can't even imagine baking without butter.

• 35:02Mike Carruthers?

  Well, and you, you mentioned that it's very popular in Western cooking. How popular is it everywhere else? Is it really a Western thing or is it everywhere?

• 35:14Speaker 02

  So butter is everywhere. Um, in some cultures, traditionally, it's clarified into ghee, which makes it even more shelf-stable than butter. So if you're in a hot climate and you don't have a refrigerator, you can't really keep butter around for long. But if you heat it for a very long time until all of the liquids completely evaporate, you're left with this clarified butter substance called ghee. The difference between ghee and clarified butter is that ghee is cooked a lot longer so that the milk solids caramelize

• 35:57Speaker 02

  and they give us this nice sort of like nutty funky flavor. Clarified butter that's used in traditional Western cooking is not cooked as long, so it's not caramelized. You're just simply skimming off the milk solids when you melt the butter and it has a more kind of pure, clean butter taste. They're both delicious, they're just different. So ghee you can keep, or clarified butter, either you can keep in a jar on your shelf for a long time, for like a year, and it doesn't go bad. And so in, for example, Indian cooking, ghee is used instead of butter because in a hot climate,

• 36:41Speaker 02

  you don't have to worry about your butter going bad and it is still a really delicious cooking fat.

• 36:48Mike Carruthers?

  When I was growing up, everybody, it seems, kept butter in the refrigerator. But then I heard, well, you don't really need to keep butter in the refrigerator. If you're, you know, you can leave it on the counter for quite some time. If you're going to use it fairly quickly, it doesn't require the refrigerator and then you can spread it on toast and do things where it's not so hard. And that was kind of like a revelation. It's like, wow, this is so much better. And we, we leave our butter out, um, because we use it up fairly quickly. But we don't refrigerate the butter we're using right now.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Me neither. I love room temperature butter. It's so much more easy to work with. It spreads more easily on your toast. You can safely keep a stick of butter out on your counter. Better if it's covered. You can safely keep a stick of butter covered on your counter for up to a week.

• 37:43Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, right. And you're right. It's like, it's like, wow, this is so much easier. It's so much nicer. It's not that hard, hard thing. And is butter butter? Like, if you go to the store, there's lots of different butters at very different prices. Do we know, like, you know, is it, because it would seem that butter's butter, but I don't know.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Yes and no. You should be buying and using different types of butter for different use cases. And let me explain that. So unsalted sweet cream butter is what you think of when you think of like just butter from the grocery store. And sweet cream means that the, it's made from cream that's not fermented. Cultured butter is butter that's made from cream that has been fermented and it has more of a savory cheese-like flavor. It's really delicious. I love cultured butter as my table butter to put on toast, to cook with. But these days cultured butter is more of like a specialty item. It's not the norm.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Back in the olden days, before mechanical cream separation, before pasteurization was invented, all butter was cultured butter because it took a long time for the cream to separate from the milk. And during that time, ambient bacteria would get into the cream and it would start to ferment. And you would just get that natural cultured flavor. So that's why it's called sweet cream butter now, because it's not cultured. So unsalted sweet cream butter is like the go-to butter that you should always have in your fridge. And you can also keep back up in your freezer for like up to a year.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  And that's what you want to use for any standard baking recipe. For eating and putting on, you know, for having what I call table butter that you would serve with dinner, that you would put on your bread, that you might spread on top of your steak or your chicken. I prefer to use a European style cultured butter. What European style means is that it's a higher fat content than traditional American butter. It has a little bit more flavor to it. If it's cultured, it has that nice like savory funk to it. It's just a more interesting savory ingredient.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  It's also usually more expensive, so it's a specialty product. It's not something that you're going to use to like bake a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies with.

• 40:19Mike Carruthers?

  But if you did use cultured butter in your chocolate chip cookies, would you notice a difference? Or it's just an expensive butter that that doesn't make much difference in a batch of chocolate chip cookies?

• 40:31Speaker 02

  So there's a lot of other flavors going on in chocolate chip cookies. So they might mask out the nuance of the flavor of the cultured butter. So I don't think it's worth it to use it in that case. In other cases, though, like in shortbread, where the ingredients are so few, I love using cultured butter because you do notice the difference. Similarly, in pie crust, anything that where it's just a few ingredients so that the flavor of the butter is very noticeable, you will be able to taste that slight interesting flavor of the cultured butter in there. That's a fun thing to experiment with. I have a recipe for cultured butter shortbread in the book.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  And it's it's really delicious.

• 41:17Mike Carruthers?

  So if I took butter from the supermarket, all the same, you know, sweet cream, unsalted butter and all the different, you know, the supermarket has their own brand and there's some name brand butters. And I I put them on a piece of bread and put them in front of people and put them in or put them in front of you. Could you say, oh, yeah, well, that one's different than that one? Or or or is butter butter?

• 41:43Speaker 02

  So I have done this many times now in my research. And you can usually you can tell the difference. Every butter has a slightly different flavor and it has to do with how the cows are fed. How the butter is made, where the cows live. Like, one of my favorite butters is Kerrygold Irish butter. It has a really distinct flavor because of how the cows are fed. So you think of Ireland, you think of those green rolling hills and it's a very moist damp climate. So the grass is always very verdant and the cows are fed primarily or exclusively on that grass.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  And for grass-fed cows, they are consuming more, all of this fresh grass, which means that their milk contains more beta carotene, which is what gives that butter that yellow color. It also gives it that interesting grassy flavor. Supposedly, it's also better for you. Yeah, that Irish butter tastes completely different than a American sweet cream butter because of how the cows are fed, because of where they live. All of these things affect the final flavor of the butter.

• 43:02Mike Carruthers?

  See, I never, I never knew this. And, and so why, because when you go in the supermarket to buy butter, my supermarket has their own brand of butter and, and that's what I usually buy. But there's always salted and unsalted butter. And what's the difference and why do they salt butter? Or are they taking salt out of butter?

• 43:22Speaker 02

  So salt is added to butter. Traditionally, salt was added to butter to help preserve it because when you have salt in food, it keeps fresh longer than when you don't.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  These days, it's just about a flavor preference. Unsalted butter is easier to bake with because you can control the exact amount of salt in your recipe. So I always use unsalted butter for baking recipes. However, salted butter tastes really good. So if you want to have butter on your toast, it's nice to use a salted butter instead. Also, if you're using butter in savory cooking preparations, like finishing a sauce with butter or adding butter to your pasta, or

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Cooking steak in butter, like you're butter basting your steak or you're butter basting your scallops, that extra salt is only going to make everything taste better. So I often cook with salted butter when I'm making savory foods.

• 44:24Mike Carruthers?

  And so what is margarine?

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Margarine is a product made with oil that is mechanically whipped so that it resembles a butter texture. There's lots of different types now. Originally, margarine actually was invented in France, and it was called oleomargarine, and it was made with beef tallow and milk. The milk was there to try to replicate the flavor of butter, but this is before refrigeration was common, and they were looking for a cheaper alternative to butter. It didn't take off in France, but the patent was sold to an American dairy

• 45:11Speaker 02

  organization that started mass producing oleomargarine. Eventually, they stopped using beef tallow and they started using oil instead. And then there was this whole period of time where there were butter wars in America, where the dairy farmers were fighting with the margarine makers and trying to repopularize butter because margarine became so popular because it was cheaper, it was more shelf stable. It's hard to argue with cheaper and lasts longer, but butter tastes better. So they developed all these laws, like margarine

• 45:54Speaker 02

  had to be, in some states, margarine had to be dyed pink, so that it wouldn't be confused with butter, and it was a whole thing.

• 46:05Mike Carruthers?

  I remember my grandmother, I just have this faint memory of her calling margarine oleo, and I thought, well, why is she calling it oleo?

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Because that's what it used to be called, oleomargarine, and then it just got shortened to margarine.

• 46:20Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you certainly can taste the difference. I mean, if you do a side by side comparison, they don't taste anything alike. But but it seemed, well, there was also the this concern over the the health problems of butter and that margarine was supposed to be some sort of better version health wise.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Yes, we know that that is not the case these days.

• 46:42Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 02

  Unless you have a reason that you cannot consume dairy.

• 46:48Mike Carruthers?

  Why is butter sold in sticks? And and and sometimes they're little stubby sticks and sometimes they're long skinny sticks.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  So that has to do with which coast the butter is made on. So East Coast butter is long, thin sticks. And West Coast butter is short stubby sticks. They're both four ounces per stick. It has to do with the equipment that was traditionally used to make the butter. The East Coast dairy industry and in the Midwest as well used this butter forming tool that made the long, thin sticks. And then California dairy came along later and used a different newer machine that made short stubby sticks. That's that's really all there is to it.

• 47:38Mike Carruthers?

  What else about butter do I not know that would be really interesting to know that we haven't talked about yet?

• 47:45Speaker 02

  I think that one of the most interesting things you could do to develop your palate and understand your own taste preferences is to buy a couple of different brands and types of butter next time you're at the store and do your own little taste test. See which types you prefer, see which kind tastes better. You might be surprised that maybe the butter that you've always bought out of habit isn't actually your favorite butter. I know that I personally discovered new favorite brands of butter as I was doing research for my book. And it was really fun to have an opportunity to taste all these different types of butter from different places in the world and notice the flavor differences.

• 48:28Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I think most people like butter and like what butter does to other foods. And, you know, it it sure seems to be in almost everything.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  It's in a lot of things, that's for sure. And it makes a lot of things taste so much better. When I was in culinary school, I went to a traditional French culinary school in New York City. And I remember one of my instructors, he was an old retired traditional French chef. And, well, I cannot mimic, I cannot mimic his perfect French accent, but his motto was, "Well, if it doesn't taste good, just add more butter." And it usually does work.

• 49:09Mike Carruthers?

  Well, from our conversation, what I've learned is I'm not much of a butter connoisseur. And maybe I should be. So this has been really interesting and eye-opening. I've been speaking with Anna Stockwell. She's a recipe developer, a food stylist, and author of The Butter Book. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Anna, thanks for sharing all your butter knowledge.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Thanks so much for having me, Mike. It's always great to talk with you about butter.

• 49:39Mike Carruthers?

  How often do you use a mouthwash? Because you see, some antiseptic mouthwashes don't just kill bad bacteria, they can also wipe out beneficial bacteria in your mouth that helps to regulate your blood pressure. Here's how that works. Certain oral bacteria convert nitrates from foods like leafy greens into nitric oxide. And that's a molecule that helps relax blood vessels and keep your blood pressure in check. Some studies have found that strong antibacterial mouthwash regularly can disrupt that process. And in some research, it has been linked to small increases in blood pressure and even a higher risk of hypertension.

• 50:23Mike Carruthers?

  Now, that doesn't mean all mouthwash is dangerous. Dentists still recommend it for specific issues like gum disease or after dental procedures. But for everyday use, many experts say that brushing and flossing and a healthy diet, it's all you need. And that is something you should know. This podcast, Something You Should Know, is produced by Jeff Havison and Jennifer Brennan, the executive producer.

• 50:51Speaker 04

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• 51:18Speaker 06

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• 51:47Mike Carruthers?

  There is Ken Williams. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today. There's something you should know.