Learn which is healthiest: fresh, canned, or frozen vegetables; how iodized salt accidentally increased the American IQ; and how you can apply to participate in a new NASA-backed study to help scientists learn about the effects of space travel. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Canned and Frozen Veggies Are More Nutritious Than Fresh Ones — https://curiosity.im/2InV7yF How Iodized Salt (Accidentally) Increased the American IQ — https://curiosity.im/2IsdpyH This Space-Travel Simulation Study Wants You to Stay in Bed for Science — https://curiosity.im/2IlpKEZ If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn which is healthiest: fresh, canned, or frozen vegetables; how iodized salt accidentally increased the American IQ; and how you can apply to participate in a new NASA-backed study to help scientists learn about the effects of space travel.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/fresh-canned-and-frozen-vegetable-nutrition-staying-in-bed-for-science-and-iqs-on-iodine
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn which is healthiest: fresh, canned, or frozen vegetables; how iodized salt accidentally increased the American IQ; and how you can apply to participate in a new NASA-backed study to help scientists learn about the effects of space travel.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Canned and Frozen Veggies Are More Nutritious Than Fresh Ones — https://curiosity.im/2InV7yF (Ashley)
The next time you go to the grocery store, you can stop agonizing about whether you should buy your vegetables in a can or in the produce aisle. Because I’ve got news for you: a lot of the time, canned — and frozen! — produce can have many more nutrients than their fresh counterparts. In case you’ve heard rumors that fresh produce is always healthier, here’s the science. The moment produce is picked, its nutrients start to degrade. When you pluck a fruit or vegetable from the tree, bush, or vine, you’re taking it away from its food source, so it starts using up its own nutrients to stay alive. The produce you find in the grocery store may have taken days or weeks to get there, and in that time, there could’ve been major changes in its nutrients. And fresh produce is also usually picked before it's ripe so that it doesn’t spoil before it gets to its final destination in your local grocery store, so it doesn't even contain all the nutrients it could have if it’d been picked when it was ripe. On the other hand, canned and frozen produce is processed right when it's ripe, so its nutrients are locked in and don’t get much of a chance to degrade over time. So why do canned and frozen produce get such a bad wrap? Well, it's true that canning and even freezing can expose fruits and vegetables to some amount of heat, which can destroy nutrients. But compared to the natural degradation that fresh produce experiences, that nutrient loss is usually pretty minor. The biggest losses are in water-soluble vitamins like vitamin B and C. But other nutrients, especially antioxidants like polyphenols, hardly degrade at all in the freezing and canning process, and many are higher than in their fresh counterparts. Of course, processing always leaves room for unhealthy additives like sodium, and produce you eat the same day you pick it is obviously healthier than any alternative. But in general, there's no need to avoid canned or frozen produce. When it comes to fruits and vegetables, the amount you eat is more important than the form they take. If you prefer fresh produce, great. But if grabbing 'em out of your pantry or freezer is the way you know you'll eat your veggies, do it knowing that you're not missing out on the nutritional benefits.
How Iodized Salt (Accidentally) Increased the American IQ — https://curiosity.im/2IsdpyH (from Saturday) (Cody)
Let’s move from the produce aisle into the condiment aisle — mmm, delicious. Back in the day, your average salt shaker didn’t contain iodine. And when it was added in the 1920s, it came with a peculiar side effect that could change the way you see salt forever. Here’s your history lesson for the day. In the 1920s, the United States had a serious problem with a condition called goiter. It involves painful swelling of the thyroid gland that often results in a large, visible bulge on the neck and throat. It's a very unpleasant condition, and its chief cause is iodine deficiency. Before companies began iodizing salt, the amount of iodine in your diet would have been determined almost entirely by where you live. Live by the sea? Great news: You're practically swimming in the stuff. But in the Midwest, prehistoric glaciers leached the iodine out of the soil many years ago. So to fix this problem, salt manufacturers in the U.S. started adding iodine to their table salts. And the goiter problem was solved almost overnight. But something else changed, too: the average IQ of people in iodine-poor areas increased by 15 points as a direct result. Researchers figured this out by looking at military records of recruits born in the 1920s. They didn’t have actual IQ scores for every recruit, but back then, the recruits with higher scores were sent to the Air Force, and the ones with lower scores joined the ground forces. By comparing goiter rates and test results from around World War I with those from World War II, they were able to see a clear connection between a reliable source of iodine and a rising average IQ. Iodized salt: making us smarter for about a hundred years. Now that’s a new way of looking at an a-salt on the senses
[INDEED]
ASHLEY: Today’s episode is sponsored by Indeed.
CODY: When it comes to hiring, you don’t have time to waste. You need help getting to your shortlist of qualified candidates, fast. That’s why you need Indeed-dot-com.
ASHLEY: Post a job in minutes. Set up screener questions. Then zero in on qualified candidates using an intuitive online dashboard. And when you need to hire fast, accelerate your results with Sponsored Jobs. New users can try for free at indeed-dot-com-slash-podcast.
CODY: That’s indeed-dot-com-slash-podcast. Terms, conditions and quality standards apply.
This Space-Travel Simulation Study Wants You to Stay in Bed for Science — https://curiosity.im/2IlpKEZ (Ashley)
NASA is looking for volunteers for a space-travel simulation study. The good news is that you can simulate the space-travel experience simply by lying down, according to the leaders of this forthcoming study. The bad news? Well… the study isn’t quite as cushy as it might sound. This study is a joint operation between NASA, the German Aerospace Center, and the European Space Agency. And they want to study the effects of prolonged bed rest on women at a lab in Cologne, Germany. You’ll be lying down for a lot longer than your typical Netflix binge: I’m talking 60 full days of total bed rest. No bathroom breaks. Participants have to lie down even while they eat, bathe, and use the restroom. And they won't even get to lie flat! Space travel makes bodily fluids move towards the head, so to better simulate space travel, participants will have to lie in beds that are slightly tilted, with their heads lower than their feet. If this sounds like senseless torture, though, it's not. The study exists partially to understand the toll that bed rest (and, by extension, space travel) takes on the body, and partially to test something called a short-arm human centrifuge. It’s a new technology that generates artificial gravity by whirling people around at high speeds, and it could help prevent muscle atrophy in people on bed rest — or in astronauts. So for every day of this bed-rest study, participants will spend 23-and-a-half hours in a tilted bed, and the other half hour in the centrifuge. And again, this will go on for 60 full days. Participants will also eat carefully calibrated diets that won't make them gain weight but will, at times, include pancakes. This is specifically mentioned in recruitment materials. After that's done, they spend 14 days in astronaut rehab, stretching and relearning how to stand up. Since this study is taking place in Germany, the scientists are only looking for German-speaking women, ages 24 to 55. But for their 2-month stint, they’ll get a cool 16-thousand-five-hundred Euro, or about 18-thousand-five-hundred U.S. dollars. And it’s a public service, because if the centrifuge works, it could save astronauts loads of time, since right now they actually play sports for most of their days in space just to combat muscle atrophy. All in all, this could be the perfect vacation for the right person. [ad lib]
CODY: You can read about today’s stories and more on curiosity-dot-com! And if you want to support this podcast, you can sign up to make a one-time or monthly contribution on our Patreon page. Special thanks to some of our existing Patrons: Steve Guy, Ryan Day, SARE-jee-oh Mor-EH-no, Braeden Johnson, Mark McCullough, Bob Buckley, and Kari Greenwalt.
ASHLEY: Join us again tomorrow for the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m [NAME] and I’m [NAME]. Stay curious!