Banking on Seed Vaults

These cryogenic storage facilities are a newfangled way to accomplish an old goal: preserving seeds for later study and use. Anney and Lauren explore the science and history behind seed banks and vaults.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hell them, and welcome to say we production of I
Heart Radio. I'm Anni Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And
today we're talking about seed banks or vaults. Seed vaults. Yeah,
I'm into it. Uh. And this was inspired by a
recent episode Lauren and I nerded out. I think it's
peaches for our love of gene banks. And after that

(00:30):
we heard from a listener named Renee, who works for
the National Plant germ Plasm System at the National Laboratory
for Genetic Resource Preservation in Fort Collins. Very cool. Yeah,
oh yes, I I love hearing from all humans, but
when science humans right in it's it's perhaps particularly exciting

(00:53):
because I'm like, oh man, we a if it's not
hate mail, then we're vaguely doing our jobs and and
be um. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I I love
it when the science humans are interested in the cultural
side and vice versa. It makes me happy. Yeah yeah.
And Renee did say, whenever the beautiful day, when this

(01:19):
pandemic is over, you can do tours. Oh cool. Yeah,
so yeah, that's so awesome and definitely want to devail
one day. Yeah all right, yes, And there there are
quite a few seed banks around the world. I'm sure
a lot of them do tours, so maybe where you
are they're still open. UM. And the seed banks you

(01:41):
come up in a lot of our episodes, So uh,
big topic, big important topic when it comes to food.
It certainly is um, which brings us to our question
seed banks what are they? Well? Uh need bank is
a place where seeds are kind of scientifically tupperwared for

(02:05):
future study or or other use. Um. Using more words
than that, um, it's a It's a type of bio
repository where the seeds of plants are cryogenically frozen to
maintain seed viability, like you could grow it later, um,
thus both preserving a genetic record of the evolution and

(02:25):
the diversity of particular plants that humans use, and also
preserving literally preserving those seeds so that they could be
revived to grow a plant in the future. And that
brings us to a sub question, which is how how

(02:49):
well Cryogenic freezing is a process where you reduce the
moisture in a fresh sample of a living thing, um
and then store it at a coal temperature, And if
you do it right and maintain that low temperature, you
can later rewarm and rehydrate the sample and in the
case of seeds, literally bring them back to life um

(03:12):
or bring them back to the potential for life which
they have. Yes, uh like, like you can germinate and
grow a plant from seeds treated like this. And the
moisture thing and the low temperature thing are both key,
Like like you know what happens to foods when you
stick them in the freezer, How they can get like
mushy sometimes when you warm them back up. That's because

(03:35):
water expands as it freezes, you know, um, and it
can burst sell walls, which you don't want if you
want the thing to live again. Um. So, low moisture
is good, and the low temperatures help prevent some chemical
reactions from happening, Like like you know how sesame seeds
or sunflower seeds that you forgot in the back of

(03:56):
you're covered taste off after a while. Yeah, that's because
fats degrade over time, especially at warmer temperatures. And both
low moisture and low temperature help prevent microbes from you know,
eating the samples. I'm simplifying, but that is basically why

(04:16):
cryogenics helps. Second sub question. We have a second sub
question or your second question, and it is why well, uh,
historically speaking, it's just interesting to see what plants have

(04:39):
been like and how they've developed. But more practically and
the reason why seed banks exist really is that as
farmers and researchers develop crops that have desirable traits for
a particular time and place, um you know, the the
ability to grow in drier or wetter conditions, or in

(04:59):
a certain type of soil, or to resist some specific
kind of pest or pathogen, or for certain flavors or um,
or for structural integrity so that you can you know,
ship the produce long distances. Whenever you do that, you're
you're honing the genes of that plant, which is great
for for the purpose that it's being bred for, but

(05:20):
maybe someone in the future might want to grow that
plant at a different soil condition or with different flavors,
or you know, for canning instead of shipping, or maybe
maybe honing it for those purposes turns out to make
it vulnerable to new pests or pathogens that come around
down the line. So having a record of a genetic

(05:40):
strain um and of different honings of that strain for
other purposes on the farm, next store or across the world. Um,
it becomes extremely valuable because it lets you reintroduce genes
that you have bred out of your strain. And this
is especially important and valuable in these are modern times

(06:01):
for a couple of different reasons. Um First, and perhaps
most presently, because of the way that big commercial agriculture,
influenced by globalization and the Industrial Revolution, changed the way
that we grow our crops um. You know, we we
went from every farmer doing what worked best for them

(06:23):
on a fairly small scale, to these huge plantations where
you know, it's like you're you're thinking of it like
a like a factory. Um. The farm becomes a factory
where it's the most profitable to produce one type of
one thing and to produce the most of it that
you can as reliably as you can. And that's called

(06:44):
mono cropping. And it's great in that it helps you
feed the planets continually growing population, especially when you're talking
about staples like rice and wheat and corn. But it's
also problematic for a bunch of reasons. It tends to
be us environmentally friendly because growing a bunch of different
things together actually helps with soil quality and pest control.

(07:07):
But more directly, pertinent to our conversation today. You've honed
this plant down to one strain, and if you're a
big enough producer, you're growing just this one strain all
over the place and ending out your competitors and buying
out other farms and using their land to grow your
strain to the point that other strains and that valuable

(07:28):
genetic material that they contain can be lost. And this
can happen for for non capitalism related purposes as well.
Sometimes this one strain is valuable to to too many
people just because of the wildly high yield that it
produces under a range of conditions. But at any rate,
it's in the long run bad for all of us

(07:49):
UM because like if if one of those new pests,
or say a global change in climate crops up, it
can ruin this crop and it's bad for humanity, like
in that that crop is part of our food supply,
and it's important that we're able to keep eating food. Yes,

(08:11):
it's the thing that we both enjoy and kind of
need to do. Uh. And it can be a really
big problem UM because to feed our growing population UM,
we may need to grow in the next thirty years
more food, animal feed and biofuel than we currently do
in order to support humanity on this planet. Um and

(08:36):
and we're not even truly supporting ourselves today. Um. Over
a hundred million people worldwide are severely food and secure,
to say nothing of the millions of millions more who
are food and secure at at less dire levels. Yes,
and those are some pretty big numbers. Yeah. Um, So

(08:56):
it's really cool that seed banks preserve the genetic diversity
of plants. In conclusion, Yes, that is the versions and
I should say here that's not the only way to
preserve genetic diversity um. And not all plants create seeds

(09:17):
or or seeds that are amenable to this type of storage. Um.
And there are all kinds of other ways to to
preserve this stuff, botanical gardens, collections of tissue samples, collections
of DNA. And one in the downside of seed banks
in particular is that because the expression of genes in
a growing plant depends on the environment that that plant

(09:39):
is raised in. Uh, just preserving old seeds doesn't necessarily
mean that we'll be able to get them to grow
in strange new environments. UM. But in general, seed banks
are just really good at what they do, and so
they constitute about of these types of conservation efforts around

(10:00):
the world as of today, and that is a good
segue into our number section. Yes. Yes, from seventy two
through seven point four million seed samples have been preserved
in about one thousand, seven hundred and fifty seed banks globally.

(10:23):
Of those samples, about one point five to two million
are thought to be unique, all unique. According to the
Millennium Seed Bank, one in five plants he sees faces extinction,
which is another just kind of adding on why this

(10:43):
is important. Uh. Yeah, And since the nineteen hundreds, over
of fruit and vegetable varieties previously grown have been lost
have gone extinct. Um. Just for example, in the eighteen hundreds,
American apple farmer, we're growing some seven thousand one varieties
of apples and today only three hundred of those have

(11:08):
survived extinction. Um. Yeah, yeah. And and we are a
food show and and a lot of the seeds preserved
at these banks aren't necessarily food. Um. So there are
about two hundred fifty thousand known plants species in the world,
and about two hundred of those are cultivated for food.

(11:30):
But but among those there are hundreds of thousands of
millions of varieties of these different things, and so most
of what is preserved in seed banks are food crops.
There's others that are animal feed or for bio fuel
or um or that are otherwise related to what we do,
like a like like wood for timber for construction, and

(11:53):
any other number of things. But but a great number
of them are our food plants. Yes, yes, and a
surprisingly long history of this, yeah, yes, um, And we
will get into that right after we get back from
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and

(12:20):
we're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. So by
most accounts, the oldest recognized seed bank in the world
is the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry and it dates
back to eight out of St. Petersburg, Russia, and it
was the brainchild of biologists Nikolai Vavilov. So he was

(12:44):
a plant breeder and because of that, probably other things,
he understood the importance of crop diversity. And he went
on to map eight centers of crop diversity, which was
really fascinating to read, but not specifically related to this, however,
you want to check it out. It exists. In Favolov

(13:05):
wrote the Centers of Origin of cultivated plants. However, Vavilov
came from wealth, and he wasn't exactly a friend of
the Communist Party, and in nineteen forty he was arrested
and hit with treason and espionage charges. Yeah, a really
really tragic story. Amazing thinker within all of this discussion

(13:27):
about about diversity of crops. But yeah, didn't didn't turn
out so great for him. Now, for eleven months he
was tortured and interrogated. When his trial finally arrived, he
was found guilty in five minutes and sentenced to death
by firing squad. That later was changed to twenty years
in prison. But Aavlov died of starvation within two years. UM.

(13:51):
And just the other side note about this place. During
World War Two, researchers protected the seeds, the seeds at
the Vavlov Institute of Plant Industry from rats with rods
and did not use them to feed the thousands of
starving soldiers. They protected the suits, they kept it up. Yeah,

(14:11):
the idea of seed banks is way older than that, though,
at least going back to the sixteenth century, and probably
even before of that. Some people argue you could include
gardens um themselves in this whole conversation and the back
yeah to three thousand years ago, to ancient Egypt and Messopotamia.
So depending on where you lie on that school of thought. Um.

(14:36):
During the sixteenth century, botanical gardens served as areas of
academic study, specifically for medicinal plants. One of the first
was the University of Pizza in fifteen forty three, and
other Italian universities followed suit pretty soon after that. With colonization,
explorers would bring back new crops. We've talked about that

(14:57):
all the time. For these gardens, not only were these
plants used for study, but they were foundational for growing
globalization of trade for products like chocolate and coffee. This
is also when researchers and growers started experimenting with breeding
crops to produce desirable treats. Are I guess experimenting more

(15:18):
in the like scientific way that we think of it?
Just oh, this, these two are good. See if we
can see if we put them out there and if
something good happens. Yeah, because of course, of course, farmers
had been doing that for literally ever. Yes. Yes. In
Missouri Botanical Garden was established one of the first botanical

(15:38):
gardens in the United States for colonists coming to the
New World, um seed preservation was a top priority. Thomas
Jefferson once said, the greatest service which can be rendered
to any country is to add a useful plant to
its culture. Uh. Yeah, that whole dude. Gosh, that whole dude.

(16:01):
During the Civil War, in eighteen sixty two, Congress established
the Department of Agriculture for the purpose of gathering quote,
new and valuable seeds and plants and to distribute them
among agriculturalists in the U s. D A put into
place the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction huh uh,
and twenty million seed packages were sent out a year

(16:22):
two farmers. In the nineteen forties, regional seed banks were
established across the US, focusing on specific crops like corn
or potatoes. A decade later, a sort of national reserve
of seeds was established in for Collins, Colorado. The history
of seed banking starts in earnest in the nineteen sixties,
when governments in geo's private and international organizations started investing

(16:47):
heavily and conserving plant diversity, with a particular focus on
agricultural crops. And this uh, this is what's called the
green Revolution and leading leading up to it, of course,
you you had a lot of work UM in UH
in early like like genetics that was like, oh, jeans
are a thing, cool, um. But specifically, what's going on

(17:10):
here is that by the late nineteen fifties, researchers were
looking at the growth of the global population along with
the distribution of wealth among that population. UM, you know,
the continued stratification of the very wealthy from the very poor,
along with the population just exploding. Land was becoming more

(17:33):
scarce and therefore more expensive and UH. By the nineteen
forties and and up through the nineteen fifties, researchers were
increasingly aware and and warning that famine was going to
kill hundreds of millions of people in developing areas of
the world over the next two or three decades alone.

(17:54):
Because basically, the world had gotten to a point where
the companies and the nations that could afford to create
solutions to famine didn't have the monetary or intellectual UM
like like research science incentive UM to do so, and

(18:14):
so on the whole they weren't. It's not to say
that none of them were there. There was some early
work by like the Rockefeller Foundation, for example, UM that
was that was doing some good out there but UH.
But based partially on that UM, a few international organizations
were founded to help drive the creation of those solutions

(18:36):
UM and furthermore, to incentivize them among among the wealthier
nations and companies that you know could could stand to
to to profit from them. Early research was in those
grain staples corn and wheat and rice UM, and a
lot of work was put into creating these crop strains
that could produce more food on less land and it

(18:59):
were UM which is YEA. As populations doubled over the
next few decades, serial staple production tripled UH with only
an increase in land use of so hazza UM. And
that meant that that despite these growing populations, food prices

(19:20):
and hunger decreased but UM. But this also encouraged the
ever larger use of ever fewer strains of some of
these crops. Right. The National Academy of Sciences compiled a
report in nineteen seventy two about the vulnerability of US crops,
and it found that sevent of the corn crop, for example,

(19:43):
came from only six varieties of corn. A study conducted
in three found that since nineteen o three, as reported
by the New Yorker quote readily available. Varieties of cabbage
dropped from five hundred and forty four to twenty eight,
carrotts dropped from two hundred and eight seven to twenty one,
Cauliflower varieties fell from one hundred and fifty eight to nine,

(20:06):
and varieties of pairs fell from twenty six hundred and
eighty three to three hundred and twenty six. So those
are some pretty massive drops. Yeah, Okay, I I did
want to talk about this because I didn't know it
was a real thing. I thought this was a Seinfeld joke. Um,
there's a whole joke in Siginfold about this. So the

(20:28):
Man and the Biosphere Program are the M a B
program was launched in nineteen seventy one and it falls
under the jurisdiction of UNESCO and since its inception, they
are now six hundred and twenty one biospheres and one
seventeen countries and the goal of these biospheres is to
use the relationship between humans and their environment in order

(20:50):
to preserve resources. So the Seinfeld episode is one of
my favorite, very favorite Seinfeld episodes, called the Blood and
that Yes, and George jokes that Elaine was chosen to
represent New York and the other the newest biosphere experiment.

(21:10):
But I also got to confuse with something called Biodome.
Was that okay? Yeah, alright, So so Biodome was a
film starring Polly Sure it was not. It was not.

(21:32):
I mean it was a fictional film. I thought, like
I had this vision in my head that it was
like a sci five thing. Oh no, No, this was
like like he gets like kind of stuck in the
scientific experiment of of a of a biosphere, and like
the researchers just have to deal with them. And have

(21:55):
you seen this film? I never saw this movie, but um,
but in in looking it up, I have come to
realize that that it had cameo appearances from celebrities such
as Kylie Minogue, UM and Rose mc gowan. And also

(22:15):
it was the first time that they that Tenacious D
appeared on screen as such together. Okay, none of this
is making any sense to me. I My brain is
like faltering to process this. What this is? You gave

(22:37):
me a little Yahnie and don Hanny Osmond in our
last episode, and now I got today's just D and
Paul Shore in the research Dome experienced. Yeah, it was.
It was a kind of a whole cultural phenomenon that
a lot of people were It was making big headlines

(22:57):
in the nineties because, uh, some some science humans and
some like non science humans would would either volunteer or
be chosen or whatever to to go hang out, like
be sealed into these domes for a while and kind
of see what happened. I guess there was like the

(23:19):
real world, but with more science on the same page. Okay, wow,
I was not expecting a tenacious reference to come up
in here, you know, neither was I. And I thought
for a second it might have been Carrot Top, not
Polly Shore. But oh my god, wow, all right, I

(23:43):
might have to look this up. I don't know. It
sounds like the very nineties type of comedy movie. Yeah.
From all the trailers I remember seeing, it was very slapstick,
very goofy. I think that even like like middle school,
high school, Lauren felt somehow above this film. So alright, alright,

(24:07):
I still I've got to know. I've got to know. Yeah,
I did. On the other side of this, I think
it was The Tight Knave, which is a movie I
loved as a kid. I think that movie ends what
they find like Earth too, and it's basically a big
seat fault, like it has all this. Oh yeah, I
think there's some movie ins that way where they find

(24:29):
like a backup Earth and it has um. And I
suppose Water World was also in a small way about
a very similar theme. Another film like Cultural Touchstowe I missed,
but I have heard a lot about it. Oh wow.

(24:51):
Oh I hope that this is on your list of
terrible movies because it is truly a terrible movie. Okay,
And I feel like you would enjoy the watching of
it and a very popcorn and box of wine kind
of way. Oh enough said, I am into it. You

(25:14):
sold me. People are like, watch this excellent award winning film.
Watched this very bad movie, but you'll like it. Okay.
There's like a lot of of of of what are
they called? Are they jet skis? The things? Yeah, I've

(25:36):
seen the live action show at Universal, so I got
some kind of image in my head. They well, they
use jet skis. How do I know if they actually
do any movie? Oh yeah, no, they use they use
a lot of jet skis. It's you know, no agriculture,
but lots of jet skis. That's what the film is
basically about so they preserved the important thing, the chips. Wow.

(26:02):
This this was a cultural tangent I was not expecting
in the seed bank episode. Uh, but you're welcome everyone.
There's some variety of things to try out there. Maybe
if you're looking for entertainment. Yep, something for everyone. Uh.
Perhaps not a good thing for everyone, but hey, alright,
okay back to the seed fall. Yeah, we have the

(26:28):
Seed Savers Exchange, which was founded in and their mission
is too because they're still around the day um conserve
and promote America's culturally diverse but endangered food crop heritage
for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds
and plants. And nowadays they are one of the largest
seed banks in North America and they manage several seed

(26:51):
bank locations outside of their headquarters in Iowa. Then the
slow food movement, very briefly the gan in the ninete eighties,
prescribing neo gastronomy and a slower, more thoughtful approach to food.
But in in two thousand three, members of Slow Food
International created the Slow Food Foundation for Bio Diversity. The

(27:14):
nineteen eighties is also when community seed banks started popping
up the Convention on Biological Diversity took place in nineteen
ninety three. And then the Millennium Seed Bank that we
mentioned earlier, located in Wakehurst, England. The Millennium Seed Bank
Partnership was started by the Royal Botanic Gardens in two

(27:35):
thousand and has gone on to preserve ten percent of
wild plants se sees, posting over one billion seeds from
one hundred and thirty countries. Their goal was to be
home to one fourth of the global Bank of plants.
And I went on this whole like, well did they
do it? And I was trying to find it everywhere
I forgot It's still still work in progress. Believe it

(27:59):
or not, it is, Oh gosh, so maybe we'll check
back in. And then in February two thousand eight, Fall
Barred International Seed Vault open up its doors for storage.
And this is also known as the Doomsday Vault. Although

(28:20):
the founder pretty much he's known as the founder Carrie
Fowler prefers Library of Life, which is also good. Also,
they're they're both really nice. Yes, yes, so okay, get this.
This seed Bank is located inside a frozen Arctic mountain

(28:40):
in Norway, a location that can survive pretty much whatever
is thrown at it, from earthquakes to bombings. Um. It's
meant to be this kind of global backup system. Seeds
provided from seed banks all over the world are kept there.
Black box protocols are used for the sees, the seed
packages won't be opened or tested, and no one person

(29:03):
knows all the vault codes required for jury. It is
a serious place, y'all, um, and a really cool one. Literally, sorry,
um high Uh, it's kept a negative eighteen degrees celsius.
But yes, it's built into this mountain in a permafrost
climate zone like eight hundred miles that's third kilometers north

(29:27):
of the Arctic circle, um, so that it hypothetically can
keep cool even if it loses power, even for a
long period of time. UM. A recent deposit of seeds
included samples from the Cherokee Nations seed Bank. They have
their own seed bank as well, UM, including their oldest
and most sacred corn variety, which like they brought with

(29:48):
them on the Trail of Tears. It's a it's a
it's a really it's a really fascinating place. And I
think we could probably do an entire episode just on,
just on on on any of the There are like
so many little seedlings of other episode ideas in here.
But anyway, yes, and if you are really impatient you
want to know more about that. Right now, there is

(30:10):
an interview with the founder on fresh Air. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and it's it's really interesting. I think he said that
if you look up the closest town to there to
this seed bank, it's literally home to almost every like
furthest northern bathroom for this northern bar, like it's up there,

(30:33):
it's up there, um and and just hearing the logistics
of having people there uh and building it was fascinating
mm hmm. In recent years, wars have led to the
destruction of seed banks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, with
researchers scrambling to establish new seed banks in their stead

(30:53):
and then hurricanes like Maria have also been a problem. Yeah,
climate change in general has been adding wrinkles to the
to the operation of seed banks. Back in melting permafrost
flooded access tunnel at Small bard Um, luckily the water
refroze before it got into the actual vault. But yeah,

(31:17):
they've spent some twenty million dollars over the past three years,
like waterproofing everything and upgrading the cooling systems, because yeah, yep, yep,
it is very important and very fascinating stuff going on
in this world of seed banks. Yeah yeah. And although

(31:38):
I didn't read anything specifically about it, maybe I wasn't
using the right search terms, or you know, I just
didn't look specifically for it. But I really wonder how
much of the fear of nuclear war and the Cold
War played into the original development of seed banks, and
and and the conceptualization there. I would make a lot

(32:01):
of sense. Um, I feel like I want a geography
question just by why were they digging and into this
huge mountain and putting stuff in there in eighth grade?
Just by being like what what around? What time was this? Oh? Yeah,
probably yeah, um. And certainly there are a bunch of

(32:22):
really we we mentioned some of the big sea banks
in here, but there are a bunch of them doing
really cool stuff. And some of them are both global
but pretty specific to where they are. Um, So if
you're interested, you can look that up there. There are
a lot of them. Oh yeah, yeah. And if you
have a particular interest in any one of them and

(32:44):
really want to uh to hear us talk about it,
then you know right in and let us know. Yes,
and speaking of we do have some listener mail for you,
but first we've got one more quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,

(33:10):
thank you, and we're back with snor. It's like, oh, okay, okay,
I thought it was so clear, but apparently my my
small closet space isn't the best breaking a dough. I

(33:32):
was like, is this a mushroom? We weren't talking about mushrooms,
but I like mushrooms. Okay, yeah, which mushroom is dome adjacent?
It's true? Sure, thank you, thank you. And this first
topic is the first listener mail fits in with well
a lot of what we've been talking about, but some
stuff I wasn't even expecting us to talk about, but

(33:54):
we did. Bobby wrote, if I may suggest a topic
food or radiation. So I worked at Sandy a National
Lab as an undergrad. And why I was there The
Gamma radiation facility was being used to radiate oranges for
different companies in a huge lead lined room with a
huge cobalt sixties source. Also, we did experiments in undergrad

(34:16):
where we would I radiate strawberries and compared them over
two weeks than a month to non irradiated strawberries. It
was still fresh. I think people get really nervous about
food irradiation, but it's a great way to keep food
from spoiling without using pesticides and is used commercially. So yes, yes,
that oh wow, yeah, oh that that sounds that sounds

(34:40):
super fascinating. Um It's not something I've particularly looked into before,
and also sounds like a terrific headache. But that that
that fun that I get the specific headache whenever I
try to talk about radiation. So it's so cool and no,
I I it genuinely is really really fascinating. Um, so

(35:04):
yeah adding it to the list. Thank you. Uh. Stephanie wrote,
I have been a huge Saver fan since the very
first episode of food Stuff. I love learning new tidbits
of food trivia, and your side tangents are always delightful. However,
none delighted me quite as much as when you shared
during the Funky Green Onion episode. When I saw it
come up in my queue, I thought to myself, Oh,
I wonder if they'll talk about far fetched. But my

(35:26):
expectations were low because I figured leaks were one of
those this needs its own episode situations. When you started
to bring up Pokemon, I couldn't believe it. My wish
was coming true. I have always thought far fetched and
his leak were completely adorable. I regularly referred to him
as leak Bird, which makes my husband roll his eyes
every time, and I like to imagine him using his
leak to make himself soup at the end of a

(35:48):
long day of battles. Though I was a bit horrified
to learn that the duck and the leak on its
back both go into the soup in the original proverb.
It was really cool to find out the inspiration behind
one of my favorite pokemon. Okay, so so many of
you have written in about this. We love it. Um.

(36:09):
We will be reading more of them over the coming
we um. But Okay, I have learned through some of
these that there are a ton of food based Pokemon
like a lot um, and we are always happy to
grow on these ner tangents and bring up Pokemon whatever possibility. Superinducer, Andrew,

(36:32):
I'm counting on you. If we miss one, you've got
to let us know. Uh. But yeah, I'm we are
so happy to go on these tangents, and I was
very thrilled myself when you brought it up completely. Yeah, yeah,
maybe I And we've we've gotten requests for like overall,

(36:56):
like for food of Pokemon or like food and Pokemon
maybe because it's it's a weird little universe, uh, with
some strange things that you can eat and some strange yeah,
strange critters. So apparently there's one poulty geist and it's

(37:21):
a pot of tea with a poulter Geist in it. Guys,
are you telling me we got to talk about that?
You can't give me that piece of information not expect
me to spend way too long researching it. Yeah, oh
that's beautiful. Oh my heck, okay, yeah, just just the

(37:45):
just the different puns in different languages alone is enough
to make me want to look into all of this. Okay,
two solid episode ideas right there. Yeah, yeah, thank you both, Yes,
thank you so much. And uh, we would love to
hear from you listeners if you would like to email

(38:09):
as you can. Our email is Hello at savor pod
dot com, or you can get in touch via social media.
We are on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at savor pod
and we do hope to hear from you. Savor is
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
Heart Radio, you can visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

(38:31):
Thank you as always to our super producers Dylan Fagin
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way