92 – There Is Such Thing as a Free (School) Lunch

Trailer - Introducing Bite: Join acclaimed food and farming blogger Tom Philpott, Mother Jones editors Kiera Butler and Maddie Oatman, and a tantalizing guest list of writers, farmers, scientists, and chefs as they uncover the surprising stories behind what ends up on your plate. W by Bite

2 min listen

8 - Michael Pollan – Magic Mushrooms: You know Michael Pollan from his blockbuster book The Omnivore's Dilemma or his most recent title, Cooked, which was adapted by Netflix as a documentary series. But the celebrity author hasn't always been so obsessed with what people eat. "Before I start by Bite

51 min listen

20 - 5 Cookbooks That Wowed Us in 2016: By all accounts, 2016 was a bleak year—except when it came to cookbooks. This year bore such a bumper crop of cookbooks that Bite host Tom Philpott had trouble choosing his favorites. After careful consideration, he’s come up with five that make perfect by Bite

29 min listen

5 - Amanda Cohen and Adam Danforth - Meat and Veggie Showdown: We're bringing together a professional vegetarian and a professional carnivore. And not just any vegetarian—Amanda Cohen is the chef-owner of the celebrated restaurant Dirt Candy on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Without braising a single pork belly since by Bite

30 min listen

2 - Marta Zaraska - Zebra Meat and Vegan Butchers: More than two million years ago, early humans started eating meat. Now considering the harsh climate they inhabited, where every day was a fight for survival, you’d think people turned to eating animals just to stay alive, right? Think again. As journali by Bite

32 min listen

6 - Bill Marler - Outbreak!: This week, we talk to a guy who deals with food gone bad. Tainted hamburgers, sour burritos, salmonella-laced chicken: Food poisoning attorney Bill Marler confronts the aftermath of foodborne illnesses. Since gaining a reputation through his litigation d by Bite

32 min listen

7 - Monica Jain - Fishy Business: Our guest Monica Jain is the founder of Fish 2.0, a competition that connects seafood businesses with investors. The conference places emphasis on social and environmental impacts in an attempt to spark responsible innovation in the industry. Monica give by Bite

26 min listen

14 - The Science of What Kids Eat: Are babies better off on baby food or whole foods? Should they eat all organic? Does a mother’s diet during pregnancy affect her kid’s tastebuds? What’s the deal with alcohol? To try and answer questions like these, parents often have to weigh outdated, by Bite

39 min listen

26 - The Science of Why People Don’t Believe in Food Science: When Atlantic journalist and physician James Hamblin investigated the world of gluten-free products, he found a $23 billion industry of "detox courses," custom blood tests, and specially formulated foods—but no medical evidence that avoiding gluten is go by Bite

24 min listen

21 – The Secret Lives of Chefs: Why do so many chefs get tattoos? That’s just one question we asked this week’s guests, journalist Isaac Fitzgerald and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, the duo behind the new book Knives and Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos. Also on this we by Bite

29 min listen

30 – Sex, Drugs, and Oysters: What It's Really Like to Work at a Fancy Restaurant: In Stephanie Danler’s novel Sweetbitter, it takes Tess, a 22-year-old waitress new to Manhattan, about three months to master the art of balancing three plates on one arm. In the same amount of time, Tess adapts to a life of champagne and cocaine-addled by Bite

24 min listen

25 – Is Your Favorite Restaurant Standing Up for Immigrants?: Tom and Maddie pay visits to owners of “sanctuary restaurants”—eateries that are standing up for their workers’ rights as the Trump administrations vows to crack down on illegal immigrants. Penny Baldado—who owns a café in Oakland, California, famous for by Bite

26 min listen

9 - Andy Bellatti - The Politics of Health Advice: It may not surprise you that food corporations will say pretty much anything to get us to buy their products. They often promote messages like “exercise more” to divert attention from their high-fat or sugar-laden foods. In this week’s episode we talk to by Bite

25 min listen

10 - Tunde Wey - Cooking While Black: Nigerian chef Tunde Wey talks us through some of the paradoxes of cooking while black, wowed us with anecdotes from his two-week stay at a migrant detention center in El Paso—where the chicken wings are apparently pretty good—and tantalized us with the f by Bite

28 min listen

24 - Somali Refugees Make Better Pancakes: Maddie pays a visit to a mother-daughter team of Somali chefs in Oakland, California. Before arriving in the United States, Halimo and Fatuma lived in the largest refugee camp in the world, in Kenya. There, they used UN rations to concoct Somali delicaci by Bite

22 min listen

15 - What American Food is Missing: Dine out in any major American city, and you'll notice plenty of restaurants paying tribute to immigrant cuisine: taco stands, Ethiopian joints, Jewish delis, Vietnamese cafés. But there’s one striking omission to this melting pot. "There should be resta by Bite

24 min listen

4 - Saru Jayaraman - The Tipping Point: Did you know that servers and other tipped restaurant workers survive on wages as low as $2.13/hour? That’s the tipped minimum wage, which has remained measly in many states since the early 1990s—and it’s keeping people in poverty. Our guest on this week by Bite

33 min listen

12 – You’re Eating a Lie: Many of the most delectable ingredients, from parmesan cheese to extra-virgin olive oil to tuna sashimi, are deceiving you. Food fraud affects up to 10 percent of the global food supply, and it poses a risk to your health, your taste buds, and your walle by Bite

29 min listen

18 – Eat Like a President: In this episode, we talk to Sam Kass, who served as the Obamas’ personal chef until early 2015. In addition to whipping up sweet potato fries and other family favorites, Kass directed the First Lady children's health effort Let’s Move!, and served as the by Bite

34 min listen

1 - Brian Wansink - Choose Your Plate Wisely: Professor Brian Wansink is an expert in eating behavior and the director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab. Brian reveals some of the fascinating insights from his research, like how you can better arrange your kitchen to avoid eating too much. by Bite

23 min listen

3 - Bettina Elias Siegel - Cafeteria Confidential: Think back to the days of mystery meat, tater tots, and suspicious-looking Jello—we’re taking you inside the school cafeteria. Today’s guest, Bettina Elias Siegel, is an intellectual-property lawyer obsessed with school food. Her blog, The Lunch Tray, di by Bite

24 min listen

16 - What Fox News Missed in Chinatown: Manhattan's Chinatown recently made headlines for being the target of an offensive segment on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show. Fox missed the real story: the truly special place it occupies in the US food scene. Navigate the narrow, bustling sidewalks Mott by Bite

34 min listen

19 - Top Chef's Tom Colicchio Talks Trump: A question that some people might be asking right now: How can you think about food at a time like this? But actually, food has everything to do with the election of Donald Trump: On this episode, Tom Philpott talks to Tom Colicchio of TV’s Top Chef, abo by Bite

27 min listen

29 – This Simple Advice Completely Changed the Way I Eat: Writer and chef Samin Nosrat distills cooking into four basic elements: salt, fat, acid, heat. In this episode, she reveals secrets about using one of them to transform what you cook—and her advice changed how Maddie was tasting food for the days followi by Bite

25 min listen

33 – Inside Silicon Valley's Race to the Best Fake Meat: Scientists and entrepreneurs have taken vegetables to a whole new level by devising futuristic proteins that may finally be tasty enough to convince carnivores. Jenny takes you on a tour of a few of these start-ups and their plans to scale up, and then h by Bite

20 min listen

31 – Everything You Love About Food Means Nothing to This Guy: In this age of food porn, gourmet Instagram feeds, and restaurant pilgrimages, what’s it like if you’re just not that into food? On this week’s episode of Bite, Tom talks to Vox cofounder Dylan Matthews, the soylent-loving, cooking-averse political journ by Bite

20 min listen

22 - You Don’t Get Fat For the Reasons You Think: Avoid potato chips. Watch less TV. Run more. Get surgery. You’ve heard dozens of reasons about why people get fat, and what they should do about it. But today’s guests have some theories about obesity that might not sound so familiar. Biochemist and auth by Bite

24 min listen

13 – Can Fast Food Be Healthy?: Tom and Kiera talk to Chef Daniel Patterson about his journey from high-end restaurants to the world of fast food. Jenny checks out an app that connects Silicon Valley's homesick foreign tech workers with food from their homelands, and Kiera wonders: Is by Bite

34 min listen

40 – She Packs Your Brussels Sprouts and Lives in Fear: Elena thought she had finally found freedom. She graduated high school and got a steady job in a vegetable factory. Then, in a matter of minutes, everything turned upside down. Mother Jones’ Becca Andrews brings us this story out of Tennessee. Then Top C by Bite

17 min listen

28 – What a Cool New Podcast About Shipping Can Teach You About Coffee: That cuppa joe you just sipped? Its long journey to your cup was made possible by shipping containers—those rectangular metal boxes that carry everything from TVs to clothes to frozen shrimp. And there’s a whole host of characters whose lives revolve aro by Bite

31 min listen

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92 – There Is Such Thing as a Free (School) Lunch

92 – There Is Such Thing as a Free (School) Lunch

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