Is Your Cinnamon Fake? Where Does Kefir Come From? Plus: Why Is Citric Acid In Everything? Ask Gastropod!
12/16/202543 min
The season for holiday baking is upon us, and before you spice up your cookies and pies, you’ll probably want to know: is most of the cinnamon on grocery store shelves actually fake? That’s one question we’re investigating this week on behalf of you, dear listeners, in the latest installment of our popular Ask Gastropod series! This episode, we've got the scoop on what's real when it comes to cinnamon—because your buns deserve the truth. We're also putting our detective hats on to figure out where in the world kefir comes from, in an epic tale tha...
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First 90 secondsRosemary Cline0:01
[music] My name's Rosemary Cline, and, um, after listening to the show for a little while, I was up one night and I was thinking, "I think I have an idea."
Nicola Twilley· Host0:13
Rosemary's big idea? Citric acid.
Rosemary Cline0:16
Because I feel like most people don't consider all the citric acid that's in everything. It seems quite the ubiquitous ingredient, and I was just really curious about how it came to be in everything.
Nicola Twilley· Host0:29
[laughs] Rosemary, your curiosity is our mission. You're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. I'm Nicola Twilley.
Cynthia Graber· Host0:38
And I'm Cynthia Graber, and this week we are taking your questions for our latest installment of Ask Gastropod. Citric acid is something I honestly had never thought of before, but before we start investigating, here's another burning question.
Hannah0:50
Hi, Gastropod team. This is Hannah from Garner Country, South Australia. I've heard every kefir grain can be traced back to its origin in the Caucasus Mountains a really long time ago. I've also heard that kefir grains themselves can't be reproduced in a lab, so what we buy in the shops might not be real. Is that true?
Nicola Twilley· Host1:07
All great questions, and we are going to get to the bottom of them this episode. But that's not all.
Cynthia Graber· Host1:13
It's the season where people are doing a lot of baking, and one of our listeners was confused by the cinnamon options in the store. Why is only one of them called true cinnamon? Are the other ones fake? What's going on? What's the difference?
Nicola Twilley· Host1:24
I guess we're going down the cinnamon rabbit hole, too. Our pies and cookies and buns need