Ask Gastropod: Bubblegum, Meal Kits, and the Real Truth About Rooibos

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What do bubblegum, rooibos tea, and meal kits have in common? They’re all topics that puzzle and fascinate you, dear Gastropod listeners. This episode, we're getting to the bottom of your most pressing culinary questions! Such as: Are meal kits really better for the planet than buying and cooking dinner from scratch? Can all the rooibos tea in the world really come from one mountain range in South Africa? And what the heck is bubblegum flavor, anyway? Join us this episode for the scoop on meal kits, a tale of tea-drinking babies, and a peek behind the scenes at the Willy Wonka world of bubblegum flavor development from a real-life bubblegum scientist.

Episode Notes

Brenna Ellison

Brenna Ellison is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.

Rebecca Bennett

Rebecca Bennet is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Global Center for Preventive Health and Nutrition at Australia's Deakin University.

A rooibos plant in flower. The needle-like leaves are dried and steeped to create the famous tea. (Image credit: Winfried Bruenken)
Annique Theron and her daughter, who Theron claimed to have cured of colic by adding rooibos tea to her milk.

Boris Gorelick

A senior research fellow with the Institute for African Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Boris Gorelick is also the author of The Story of Rooibos, published by the South African Rooibos Council.

Gwendolyn Graff

A former bubblegum scientist for Wrigley, Gwendolyn Graff is now a confectionary consultant with Bellis Food Solutions.

Fantasy flavors in the wild: cans of "cherry bubble gum" soda that Nicky spotted while traveling in Kenya. (Photo by Nicola Twilley)

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology, and Economics

This episode of Gastropod was supported by a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Public Understanding of Science, Technology, and Economics. Check out the other books, movies, shows, podcasts, and more that they support here.