This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode, Monsanto or MonSatan? How—and Why—a St. Louis Startup Became a Hated Herbicide Giant, first released on May 3, 2022. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

CHORUS: Monsanto is the devil, cast him out. We gotta cast him out. Monsanto is the devil! Cast him out.

PODCAST HOST: Glyphosate has emblazoned Monsanto with an aura that makes people refer to them as Mon-Satan.

PROTESTOR: Just say no to Monsanto!

CYNTHIA GRABER: For a lot of people around North America and around the world, Monsanto has become a bad word.

NICOLA TWILLEY: For those of you who are not familiar, Monsanto is the biggest herbicide company in the world. They sell the stuff that farmers use to kill weeds all over the globe

GRABER: We’ve talked about weeds before on Gastropod — and by the way that is indeed what you’re listening to, this is Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history, I’m Cynthia Graber.

TWILLEY: And I’m Nicola Twilley. In our first weed episode, Buried Treasure, we told the story of the world’s longest-running plant biology experiment, the Beal Seed experiment. It’s designed to show how long weeds can survive in the soil and the answer is: basically forever.

GRABER: In the episode, we also took a more philosophical and historical look at what weeds are, and how humans have both decided what constitutes a weed and also kind of created them over the millennia.

TWILLEY: That episode we told you that weeds have been the bane of farmers’ lives for centuries. But although weeds were definitely a pain in the arse back when the Beal Seed experiment started in the late 1800s, since then we’ve managed to turn them from a familiar frustration into a truly wicked problem.

GRABER: This episode, we’re telling the story of the dawn of the age of herbicides, the dawn of the chemicals we’ve created to wipe those weeds out all together. Or so we thought.

TWILLEY: It’s a tale that involves contaminated cranberries and the Vietnam War, but also, at heart, it’s the story of a scrappy startup that has become one of the most hated companies in the world.

GRABER: But is Monsanto really evil? Are the herbicides they make toxic—are they bad for us as well as weeds—or are they miracle chemicals, something we truly need to feed the world?

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This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode, The Big Apple Episode, first released on November 10, 2020. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

SOHAM BHATT: Ok. So welcome to Pine Hill Orchards. This is a multi-generational apple farm in Colrain, Massachusetts. I like to start in here, because not only is this smell something that’s just beautiful and hard to describe in words.

CYNTHIA GRABER: Can you describe it?

BHATT: You know, every time I come in here, I get hit with… Well, the obvious notes, it’s like ripe apples. But also underneath that is a sweetness and a floral almost rose-like smell. Years and years of apple juice in every corner. And apples kind of ripening in here have like, imprinted the whole space with this aroma.

GRABER: It probably won’t surprise you listeners that in honor of the fall, we are celebrating with an episode about apples!

NICOLA TWILLEY: Which our listener Soham Bhatt, who you just heard waxing lyrical about apple smells, has been campaigning to get us to make for years now. We, of course, are Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. And I am Nicola Twilley, lover of good apples.

GRABER: And I’m Cynthia Graber, and we are also going to be tasting some amazing ciders this episode. As much as Nicky loves apples, that’s how much I love cider! The alcoholic kind, of course. The other kind is just cloudy apple juice.
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This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode, The Great Gastropod Pudding Off, first released on May 6, 2019. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

TOM GILLIFORD: I’m Tom. I’m from the Great British Bake Off once upon a time, many years ago. What year? 2016, I think, which was the last one that was on the BBC.

SELASI GBORMITTAH: My name’s Selasi. I’m making spotted dick and I was on 2016 Bake Off.

YAN TSOU: My name is Yan.

CYNTHIA GRABER: What year were you on?

TSOU: So the UK, I believe it’s series 8 and in the US I believe it’s series 5. See I’m blushing already. This is why—it’s a face made for radio.

NICOLA TWILLEY: OH MY GOD. Tom. Selasi!

GRABER: Yan!

TWILLEY: Yan!

GRABER: It was really hard not to fangirl excessively.

TWILLEY: I was like a schoolgirl meeting the Beatles. It was overwhelming.

GRABER: Yes, we are huge fans of the Great British Bake Off here at Gastropod.

TWILLEY: And so imagine our delight—and by delight, I mean sheer unadulterated ecstasy—when three of our favorite Bake Off stars agreed to take part in the first ever Great Gastropod Pud Off!

GRABER: That pud, if it’s not totally obvious, it’s short for pudding. And we right now are freaking out so much we haven’t introduced ourselves—
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This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode Crantastic: The Story of America’s Berry, first released on November 7, 2017. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

LINDA BURKE: These are fairly small ones but you can see. Right in there—that opening there—you can see where the cranberries are.

CYNTHIA GRABER: Don’t—I think I’m going to sit as I uh…

NICOLA TWILLEY: Oh I see, I see.

GRABER: Oh yeah.

TWILLEY: Just little. It’s not very spectacular. I hate to complain. And also I think because the bushes are so dense.
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This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode Cork Dork: Inside the Weird World of Wine Appreciation, first released on February 28, 2017. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

BIANCA BOSKER: Robitussin, freshly molded dildo, peppered raspberry, white raspberry, red raspberry, black raspberry. I don’t know what the difference between all those things are, if they even exist, but they evoked it for someone. You get burnt hair, plum, cow shit…

NICOLA TWILLEY: I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I actually have a good sense of what freshly molded dildo smells like. Maybe I need to live a little.

CYNTHIA GRABER: I’ve been stuck on that since Bianca mentioned it in her list of wine descriptions she’s heard. Yes, those are all words people have used to describe the flavor notes they’re getting in a glass of wine.
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