Brain Food

My mom used to tell me not to play with my food, but she never explicitly forbade me to do experiments with it. So I was psyched when the Food Network asked me and a few of my Popular Science colleagues to guest host a TV show all about food and science.

The show is called Food Detectives, starring Ted Allen (of Top Chef and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy fame), and it's now in its second season. Researchers from Popular Science provide the scientific research to back up the experiments we do on-camera.  We try to get to the bottom of myths and old wives' tales about food, like, is there any truth at all to the five-second rule? Does ginger really cure motion sickness? And how long does it take the body to digest a piece of chewing gum?

I've been on a few episodes and other PopSci staffers like deputy editor Jake Ward and editor-in-chief Mark Jannot make regular appearances. The PopSci - Food Network partnership was forged last year, after Ted Allen wrote a story about molecular gastronomy in Popular Science's "future of food" issue. In a happy coincidence, the Food Network called a TV production company called Brainbox, which specializes in creating fun and educational programming, and asked them to come up with a TV show concept that married food and science. While researching the concept, executives at Brainbox read the "future of food" package and called PopSci's PR manager to see if we had any in-house food experts. Jake Ward (who actually went to cooking school) and I (an avid cook) auditioned for the show by creating an explosive from Oreo cookies. I guess the producers liked our MacGyver-like ability to blow stuff up with sugar, because we got the gig!

So, last week, we shot the final episodes of season two, which will air in April. I had just arrived in New York after a work rotation in Stockholm, so I had to overcome a bit of jet lag to get through my lines, especially by the end of the long day. A usual Food Detectives shoot lasts about 10 hours, and we do multiple takes of each scene, shooting from several angles. Ted Allen is an incredibly sweet guy, and great fun to work with, but sometimes the experiments we do are a little gross. I don't want to give away the plot of any episodes that haven't aired yet (the Food Network wouldn't like that so much), but I will say that an upcoming show deals with rotten food. During the filming of one segment, Ted and I spent several hours standing inches away from a counter piled with moldy bread, rancid cheese and rotten ham. All in the name of science!

U.S. audiences can watch Food Detectives on the Food Network each Tuesday at 9 pm EST.