Grapefruit: One Strange Mother Pucker

This large citrus fruit features tasty tart and bitter flavors – but watch out, because it doesn’t mix with some medications. Anney and Lauren explore the history and science of grapefruit.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Production of High Radio. I'm
Anne Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we're talking
about grapefruit. Yes, something several of you listeners have suggested
recently because of some articles that have come out about
how grape fruit interacts with certain medications. So thank you
as always for the suggestions. Yeah, yeah, um, and I

(00:30):
used to hate grape fruit. It used to be on
my list of at the time it was then six
things that I didn't like, but now it's been moved off.
I love it, um. Yeah. And I'm on a bit
of a grapefruit kick, especially I used the fresh juice
and cocktails. Yeah. Yes, I do feel like it's a

(00:54):
quote New Year's food and we are, believe it or not,
approaching a new Year. I know. I already had to
plan OUTTI and I was like, oh no, that's weird. Nope, yep,
I know. Um, because grape fruit has been so frequently
associated with weight loss, it's certainly the first thing I
think of, and I think of grape fruit. Um uh.

(01:15):
And I gotta say, if you're doing a resolution other
than make this year better than twenty twenty, more power
to you. You're doing better than me. My therapist even
said she's advising people to make really a low key resolution.
I think that that's a really good of your therapist
to be doing. I'm very happy that that's what's up.

(01:36):
Um uh see, I totally When when you were saying, like, oh,
like like a grapefruit is more of a New Year's thing,
maybe I was like what why? But then now that
you mentioned the diet thing, I'm like, oh, yeah, I
just don't associate it with them with dieting. I know
that it is like considered a diet food and certainly
has been part of fad diets. But um, but I

(01:58):
grew up eating grapefruit for breakfast because it was delicious. Um.
And uh and yeah, I have more associated with that
and with them and with cocktails yeah than with anything else.
So um. But yeah, that medication thing is a whole thing.
That's the thing that I learned about. Um. We'll we'll
talk about it more a couple of times, um throughout

(02:22):
the rest of this episode. But we've done we've done
other citrus fruits before. Um, we did the orange for sure.
What else have we done? Did we do lemons or limes?
What have we done. We did lives, Oh there you go. Yeah,

(02:43):
And I feel like great fruit came up in a
few episodes, but probably in our Orange one, and I
think in our Fad Diet one, because I told Lauren,
I was like, have we already done great fruit? But
I would have remembered this medication thing because it's fascinating,
So oh yeah, it really is. Yeah, which I guess
brings us to our question. Yeah, grapefruit, what is it? Well,

(03:08):
grapefruit is a large type of citrus fruit with both
the sweet and bitter flavors, sort of like softball sized,
maybe maybe six inches across. That's oh, I didn't look
up the conversion. What maybe like a fifteen centimeters. Sure,
let's call it that. Umu and citrus fruits are vehicles

(03:28):
for individually wrapped drops of juice. Really, I mean you
could call them that, sure, certainly, just it's I yeah,
I guess, I guess that's what it is now, suckers,

(03:48):
um power. As I often say, we are the music
makers and we are the dreamers of the dreams. Um
grape fruit botanical name Citrus ex paradasey um. Grapefruits grow
on evergreen trees that that usually are grown to about

(04:11):
twenty ft or six meters tall, but can reach over
twice that. UM. There are a semi tropical tree. They
do better in warm um rainy climates. UM. They've got dark,
glossy green leaves, and they bear these pretty white flowers,
either alone or in clusters. That UM, when pollinated, will
develop this fruit with like a greenish skin that ripens

(04:31):
to a yellow to pink color. UM. That skin is
thin and full of these heavily scented, very aromatic oils UM.
And then under that contains this layer of spongy white
pith that's technically edible but is super bitter um and
and acts as a cushion for the many tiny vesicles
inside UM. And vesicles is the fancy word for for

(04:54):
those little membranes with just to drop a juice in them, UM,
that are further protected by these outer membranes UM in
in these segments. Uh, sort of like a like a
juicy three dimensional pie. All right, Yeah, I like that.

(05:15):
I like that. You know, I'm a big fan of pie. Yes,
Citrus are the three D pies of the fruit world. Um.
Uh that that juice and therefore the flesh of this
fruit UM can be kind of clearish to pale yellow
to pink to ruby in color. Um. And the flavor

(05:35):
of the juice is is sort of sweet heart and
and floral. Um. A little little bit of bitter in
there too. Yeah. And the fruit segments or the juice
from it can be eaten or drank plain and raw,
but you can also use them fresh and salads as
a flavoring and stuff like mixed drinks or baked goods
or dressings, um or in marinades for various proteins, or

(05:57):
cooked down into jams or candies. The peel can also
be eaten or pressed for its oil. Although it is
it is more bitter and more floral flavored than the fruit,
So a little bit goes a long way there. Um.
And speaking of yes, so what about the nutrition. Uh,
grape fruit is pretty good for you. Um. It's got

(06:18):
a good smattering of vitamins and minerals. Vitamins A and
C and potassium are are up there. And um, if
you eat the pulp, that's some good fiber. Um. They
are sugary, but perhaps less so than many other fruits. Overall,
I'd say it's a good punch of flavor for a
low caloric load. Um, they'll they'll help fill you up, um,
but to keep you going, it should be paired with
some some protein and fat and um. There is a

(06:40):
lot of medical research about grape fruit out there, but
a lot more needs to be done. Some research has
indicated that great fruit may help control blood sugar levels
and also lipid levels in the body, both of which
may help control body weight and also certain conditions like
diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Um. However, you should not eat

(07:06):
or drink grape fruit products if you're on certain medications
because grape fruit contains these compounds that can mess with
your body's uptake and break down of those medications. Like basically,
if you're taking any daily med you should probably google
about it um or ask your pharmacists or healthcare provider.
But um, yeah, more more on that, More on that

(07:28):
later on. Yes, yes, um. And numbers was it's kind
of hard to come by. I feel like I got
catfished by this one article that promised me it was
all great fruit numbers, but it was all orange numbers,
and like different got pretty righteously outraged. So we don't
have much. But the US is the largest producer of

(07:48):
grape fruit. Primarily these grape fruit are grown in Florida
and California, so you force with the grape fruits consumed
by Americans are red grape fruits. And yet the numbers
are a little bit sticky. I saw conflicting numbers and
a couple of different place aces, and it's sometimes like
difficult to separate out um the fruit numbers overall from
the juice numbers from the process to juice numbers from

(08:12):
the oil numbers. I I'm not I'm not sure. I'm
not sure what specific statistic the article that you got
the primarily grown in Florida number was looking at. UM,
I've I've seen that China is the largest producer overall.
I think that they're the largest exporter. But this is

(08:33):
also um a vaguely personicity UM fruit crop that can
really be affected by weather conditions. UM, if you get
too much or too little freeze going on, UM, it
can it can really mess up mess up your your
grape fruit crops. So so yeah, UM, in short, uh,

(08:54):
it's it's a little bit complicated, and I didn't spend
the time today to unentangle it. So uh, sorry about that.
If if, if all you needed to know in this
world was who produces the most grapefruit? I you know,
I'm letting you down, or you're giving somebody an excellent

(09:17):
vengeance quest. You're gonna a whole life is going to
be defined by them. One day they listen to this
food podcast. We're determined to get the number of grape
fruits and they didn't get it, and it shapes their
whole future. So maybe it's a gift you're giving. You know,
if this, if this kicks off your vengeance quest, then

(09:38):
you're welcome. Uh And and I'm sorry about the monster
that I have made you into. I feel the grapefruit
number monster. I feel like the food podcast Batman right now,
I'm like, oh no, I'm as deadily creating my own enemies. Yeah.
But you know, then you're gonna have to work together

(09:59):
to get to the bottom of the great fruit numbers,
and you'll forge to like grudging relationship where you know
you need each other, you don't like each other, but
you guys that the talents and skills you each have. Yeah,
I think it'll work out. Yeah, Yeah, eventually there will
there will be weird fit written about us. It'll be terrific.

(10:20):
Um So yes, I'm excited. Now Great Fruit Food Podcast
Batman fan fiction. It needs to exist. If it doesn't already,
just the shame. We're gonna put a pin in that
for now, Yes, just for right now, because because we

(10:40):
do have some history for you. But first we've got
a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. So great
fruit is actually not that old. I almost never get

(11:02):
to say that, especially with like a fruit. I mean
sometimes the you know, something invented in a labor but
with the fruit, with the fruit, yeah, it's usually like, well,
this has been around for millions and millions of years
and it's been yeah, harvested by humans for most of
that time. And yeah, yes, um, and the ancient citrus

(11:27):
ancestors of grapefruit do go back to six million years
five million years ago, really really old. But the great
fruit itself only goes back to the eighteenth century or
maybe the fifteen century somewhere, and there we'll talk about
why it's confusing in a second. So young. The grapefruit

(11:48):
story is wild and weird. It was a hybrid, the
result of chance breeding of an East Asian sweet orange
and the Javanese pamelo on Barbados, and Barbados itself is
kind of add in the story to given the most
direct ancestor, the pomelo most likely originates from Malaysia or Indonesia.
At the time, citrus girls already knew that these plants

(12:12):
hybridized naturally, so many girls took great care to prevent that,
but still others didn't really care. Um. And all of
this is part of why the early history of the
grapefruit is so murky. The word grape fruit itself wasn't
recorded in the existing written record until the eighteen thirties
of the discovered written record. UM. Prior to that, it

(12:34):
may have been referred to as shadduck, the word for pomelo.
So again, confusion, confusion all around, yeah, all around the grapefruit.
In seventeen fifty, Griffith Hughes panda history of the fruits
on Barbados, including a tree he dubbed the Golden Orange

(12:55):
that produced quote the forbidden fruit. In his words, um,
the most delicious he all them. Many storims believe he
was describing grapefruit, while others they conducted this really intense
historical citrus research. UM and they believe that the golden
orange was the great fruit and the Forbidden fruit was

(13:15):
actually something else. Really yeah, and speaking of let's look
at the name, because the name adds a layer of
confusion to this whole thing, right, I've never really thought
about this before, but when people pointed it out, I
was like, oh, yeah, it's kind of weird. Um. Conventional
wisdom has long suggested that the grape and grapefruit comes

(13:36):
from the fact that grapefruit grows in bunches, similar to grapes. Yeah. Yeah,
Like I said earlier, though, those flowers sometimes grow in
clusters and so on, clustering flower trees. Uh you get
these yeah, Like it's not like a bunch like in
like like grapes would grow in, but it is like
a weird cluster of these giant heck and fruit. So

(13:59):
sure I can see the resemblance. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Um. However,
not everybody buys that. Um. Some people suggest that the
grape part of this name actually comes from the description
of a fruit on Barbados, most likely the grape fruit,
but we don't know for sure. From Dutch physician Wouter
Shootin in sixteen forty four, he wrote that the fruit

(14:20):
tasted quote like unripe grapes. A Jamaican plantation owner and
enslaver named John Lunan echoed this sentiment in eighteen fourteen,
claiming great forgot the name quote on account of its
resemblance and flavor to the grape. However, if you're listening
to this, you're scratching your chin. You may know grape
fruit doesn't really taste like grapes, And in fact, there

(14:41):
weren't vine grapes on Barbados until at least six possibly
much later than that, meaning that the people writing these
comparisons of grapefruit too grape may have actually never dried grapes.
Huh yeah, So I guess we'll chalk that one up
to mysteries of history. Uh. Also, of note, great for
it was already associated with health at this time. The

(15:05):
grape fruit wasn't grown commercially in the US until the
nineteenth century and Florida, where it quickly went from something
kind of like an oddity, maybe ornamental, to an essential
cash crop for farmers. Historians frequently give credit to the
introduction of the grape fruit to mainland America to frenchman
Odette Philippe in the eighteen twenties, he settled in what

(15:26):
would become St. Petersburg, Florida, and set about erecting massive
grape fruit plantations because it was his favorite fruit. Philip
may Or may not have been a black person, but
he also owned enslaved people and definitely was not wanted
in the area by the local indigenous people's um. Not
too long after, in eighteen sixty two, Kimball Chase Atwood

(15:49):
moved south of Tampa Bay in Florida after making his
fortune in the insurance company Insurance World I Guess in
New York City, and he planted sixteen thousand and grapefruit trees.
One of his workers discovered a pink grape fruit growing
in nineteen ten, as opposed to the typical grapefruit that
was yellowish white on the inside typical for the time.

(16:12):
This led to the production of the ruby red grapefruit
in in Florida, an enormously popular variety that catapulted Outwood
to the top of grape fruit producers, and still at
the time, the grapefruit was often regarded as a luxury. Yeah,
definitely am but before refrigeration techniques um uh and and

(16:33):
and all of those those uh means of distribution. Um Uh,
citrus was expensive. I mean you had to you had
to ship it, you had to make sure that it
arrived safely. It doesn't really ripen after it's been picked,
so you you have to you have to strike this
balance between picking it when it's ripe and um and
then getting it to the place that it needs to

(16:54):
be before it's you know, no longer good. Right. And
I've read articles about how the citrus industry helped make
Florida what it is today, which I thought was fascinating.
Um So during all of this, during this time, a
cold winner decimated much of the citrus industry in the
Carolinas in Georgia, so people moved south into Florida. Um

(17:18):
if they were going to grow citrus fruits. Um. Towards
the end of the century, railroads allowed for a transportation
of citrus fruits out of Florida to all around the country.
And this was such a big industry. One of the
rail lines was called the Orange Belt Railway. Yeah. One
of the one of the details that always sticks with

(17:39):
me in uh in Laura Ingles Wilders books is that
like they would sometimes get an orange in the stocking
of there and it was so fancy we talked about.
I still think it's fair we did in our orange episode.
I I it made me really appreciate just how spoiled
I am in terms of if I want an orange,
I can get one probably anytime year. Yeah, yep. Or

(18:02):
a grape fruit go ahead, or a grape fruit by
grapefruit most likely introduced by Spanish missionaries was introduced in Texas. UM.
That's when the first recorded instance of a groove was
we know of anyway. UM. A developer named John H.
Sherry was convinced citrus was the future of Texas, a

(18:23):
future he believed was possible thanks to new irrigation techniques.
He grew white seated grape fruit over sixty acres in
nineteen fourteen and had his first shipment ready to go
in nineteen twenty. Sometime around nine nine, a pink grapefruit
tree was discovered, and that led to the birth of
the Texas red grapefruit industry. UM. Sherry is known by

(18:44):
some as the father of the citrus industry, a claim
I did not have time to fact check for a voracity.
I do think it's funny anytime we do UH an
episode on a food thing that's sort of in the
United States, at least generally associated with a certain state.
I feel like there's always one other state that's like, wait,

(19:06):
but don't forget about us, because a lot of my
search results were specifically about Texas, and Texas is great
fruit industry and its history with that, which I thought
was really great. Um. So as grapefruit became more common,
people were kind of perplexed as to how to eat them.
Companies stepped in touting the benefits of their products with grapefruit,

(19:30):
and early twentieth century cookbooks mainly featured grapefruit and sweet
confectionery recipes or as an ingredient in salads. However, most
people ate it had with a dash of sugar, sometimes
topped with a cherry. I guess if you're feeling fancy. Um.
The first iteration of the grapefruit diet, which is generally
a very restrictive, low calorie diet that involves grape fruit

(19:54):
and is considered unsafe largely considered unsafe, was recorded in
the nineteen thirties. It went on to inspire a weird
al Yanka Vic parody to the tune of zoot Suit Riot.
By the nineteen forties, the US was exporting about eleven
million cases of great fruit and almost half a million
canned sections. Between and ninety six, the US produced two million,

(20:18):
two hundred eighty five thousand tons of great fruit, and Jamaica, Israel, Trinidad, Brazil,
and other parts of South America um also became significant producers.
During the World Wars, Companies like Morton Salt purported the
deliciousness of great fruit sprinkled with salt in American ad campaigns.

(20:40):
At ninety six, Morton's ad in Life magazine proclaimed grapefruit
taste sweeter with salt. This was in part due to
sugar rash ng during the Wars, the grapefruit growers were
worried about sales of the fruit people couldn't douse them
in sugar. In nineteen nineteen, the Florida Citrus Exchange ran
an campaign that posited the grapefruit quote need no sugar

(21:03):
and never should have much. Yeah. A nineteen forty three
Morton's ad turned to the combo into a patriotic duty.
This combo of salt and grapefruit quote vitamin rich grapefruit
of Victory Food Special is one of the fruits. Uncle
Sam advises you to eat. The campaign was effective enough
that it went on beyond the Wars. It went into

(21:24):
the nineteen fifties after sugar rationing had ended. Huh. Yeah,
they weren't the first to promote this. Morton's Wasn't Um,
a national advice column printed in nineteen eleven, recommended the
salting of grapefruit, and people wrote in voicing their support
for this practice, including this quote. I think you will
find that many Southerners always salt their grapefruit, and apparently

(21:47):
this is still a thing in the South. This isn't surprising.
It reminds me with like salting watermelon. But I had
never heard of it or seen it. Yeah, I oh gosh,
Now now that you mentioned it, I'm like, I think
my grandmother probably salted her grapefruit. Um. But uh, but
maybe I'm not a little memories who knows however, either way, Um,

(22:09):
there is actually some science there because salt um uh
diminishes our ability to taste bitter flavors, uh like like
in our on your on your tongue or in your mouth. Um.
It kind of blocks up some of the bitter flavor
receptors that you've gotten there. So when you salt your grapefruit,
it will taste sweeter because of that diminished capacity taste bitter. Um.

(22:34):
Salt can also make volatile compounds, you know, like like
odors in your food more volatile um. It like helps
unlock them from water, so you may experience more of
the fragrance of grapefruit um as you're eating it if
you've salted it. So noted. If I want to make

(22:55):
a situation more volatile salt, throw some salt. See what
happens there? You go? Uh. Simultaneously, this great fruit Americans
were eating itself was changing throughout the decades, becoming sweeter, redder,
often seedless. Grapefruit was Florida's most profitable export crop in night.

(23:20):
About a decade earlier, Mexico got in growing grapefruit as well. Um.
The lime and grapefruit diet drink Fresca was introduced in
nineteen sixty six. Apparently President lb J was really into
it and bullied people into drinking it and used it
as kind of a power move. Okay, I didn't know
that this was intended as a diet drink. I'm like,

(23:44):
has the formula changed, because now it's like as as
chock full of sugar as any soda. So well, you know,
I wonder if it's that thing of like anything that
has fruit in it, he is more and not necessarily
at all, especially the sugar level. H I don't know

(24:06):
for another day, yes, but I do want to tell
him my Fresca story. I'm gonna I'm gonna try to
tie it up in a neat boat because it's one
of my better stories. Okay, here we go. I was
visiting my cousins in Florida for the first time, and
I was nine years old, and they stuck me in
to see they rated our film Air Force One. Okay,

(24:26):
it highly disturbed me, and I was alone in the
hotel room. Even though my cousins were supposed to stay
with me. I was younger, like pretty decently younger than
all of them, and you know, you you don't want
to hang out with your younger cousin. So I was
watching Angels in the outfield and I saw this white
vand combined spray this gas, and I thought terrorist because

(24:48):
I've just seen this movie that right, And I was like,
I'm gonna tie what do I do? I know I
want to get drunk. So I went to the refrigerator
and there was a six pack of fresca and I
thought it was beer, so I drank all six of
them and then I ran outside, screaming, we're all gonna die.
I ran past my parents the hotel room, my parents

(25:08):
and my aunt I'm cold stand in and I was
running by their window and I fell in a drainage
pipe and broke my ankle. And that's my fresco story. Well, Annie,
I'm really glad that it was fresco and not beer,
but I've never had a fresco since I'm I'm I'm

(25:35):
sad that you broke your ankle and that you were
experiencing a moment of fear. Um, but I'm glad that
you can laugh about it now. Oh yeah, yeah, my
cousin's gotten huge trouble. I've never seen air Force one
again either, And in fact, I left me with a
lingering fear of Gary Oldman bangs over me to this day. Wow. Yeah,

(25:59):
I mean, I mean, that's that's that's that's acting for you.
That's acting. You know, Gary Oldman is good. But all right,
forget that. Let's talk drug interactions. Oh yeah, yeah, we're
good at them. Uh So In a London, Ontario lab,
in clinical pharmacologist David Bailey discovered great fruits truly bizarre

(26:27):
impacts on certain medications. He later said of the discovery, quote,
the hard part about it was that most people didn't
believe our data because it was so unexpected. A food
had never been shown to produce a drug interaction like
this as large as this. Ever, he was testing a
blood pressure drug and particularly if it had any negative
effects interactions with alcohol. Yeah, because because alcohol lowers blood pressure,

(26:53):
and this medication also lowers blood pressure. So he wanted
to see whether adding alcohol to the medica asian would
lower blood pressure, like too much because that can lead
to a passing out. Stuff like that. Yeah, bad times, right,
bad times. And to do to test this, he wanted
to do a double blind study, meaning no one would
know that they were in the group with alcohol or not.

(27:16):
Um So he needed to hide the taste of the
alcohol to keep it from the participants um which group
they were in, the group testing the alcohol and the
group not testing it. According to him, his wife got
the idea to hide the taste of alcohol with great
fruit juice, and it was the only thing that worked.
In his telling of the story, they tried a bunch
of things. Great fruit juice worked, so one group got

(27:39):
straight up great fruit juice while the other got great
fruit juice with alcohol. Both groups displayed about four times
higher the drug levels in their systems than what was
expected given the actual dosage. After isolating out other variables,
the only thing that could explain it was the grape
fruit juice. So Bailey decided to perform an experiment on himself,

(28:02):
since the drug he was testing wasn't dangerous at high levels.
Sure enough, the combination of the drug and grapefruit juice
produced five times the amount of the Druggnast system then
should have been present. Follow Up tests produced the same results.
Bailey eventually got to the bottom of it. Um Basically,
very very basically, it evolves an enzyme in the small

(28:23):
intestine that breaks down things too inactive forms, which drugmakers
take into account when calculating dosages, and a compound called
four ran o'coumerans, something that grapefruit has a lot of.
This compound shuts down those enzymes so that the body
has to produce a new ones, a process that can
take up to twelve hours. This means that all the

(28:47):
careful dosage calculations drug breakers did are gone. They're out
the window because they made those calculations expecting those enzymes
to be functioning properly. Just a cup of grapefruit can
do this. Yeah yeah, very very small amounts of grapefruit
juice can can shut down enough of those enzymes in
your body. And everyone has a different amount of these

(29:09):
enzymes to have an effect on certain drugs that you take,
because yeah, yeah, drugmakers just assume that those enzymes in
your small intestine are going to affect some of that drug.
So so yeah, so you can wind up with too
much of a drug entering your blood stream. Um And

(29:30):
the same enzyme is also found in the human liver
and large enough doses of grapefruit can affect its function
there too. Um So that not only are is more
of the drug going to be entering your blood stream
because the enzymes and your small intestine just kind of
like let it all, let it all out. They were
just like, yeah, sure, go be free. Um But furthermore,

(29:52):
when it gets to your liver, those enzymes are shut
down there too, so um so, so the drug will
will will last longer in your system. Um, it's not
going to get broken down and flushed out of your
body um as quickly by your liver. So it's not
only a stronger effect, but it's also going on for longer. UM.
And you can also uh wind up with too little

(30:17):
of a drug in your system because of grapefruit, because
there are these other compounds and grapefruit that can block
the action of some chemical transporters. And these are the
proteins that allow certain compounds to get into your cells um.
And and this this applies to some medications like UM like,

(30:38):
for example, the allergy medication allegra um. Grapefruit will make
it less effective because it prevents it from getting into
your cells. UM. Other fruit juice is going to have
the same effect. Uh, it's it's wild. Wow, it is wild.
Grapefruit messes with over a hundred drugs, including some extreme

(31:00):
of common ones, varying from being a perfectly safe interaction
to an incredibly deadly one. UM. While there are no
real numbers, it is a safe gut guess that eating
great fruit has killed papal um. And I know two
people personally who stopped having great fruit for interactions with
your medication. Yeah yeah, And I was thinking of like

(31:21):
you know, and you just have the medication bottle and
has the like glass of presumably alcohol and like a
big X over it. What if we had like a
grape fruit on there. No, do not take with grape fruit,
which apparently is already a thing in Canada. It is
also in like the fine print of medication labels in

(31:42):
the United States, like you know that kind of like
mini booklet that you get kind of kind of like
stay back to your to your dread bag, your a
little little packet. Yeah, yeah, it will be in the
fine print in there. But I mean, if you like
me and just go, oh sure whatever, um uh, don't
do that. Um that should you should read that stuff.

(32:05):
But but be um. Yeah, I didn't include a list
of all the medications it can affect in here, because
it can affect like certain groups of medications, but not
every medication within that group, because the mechanisms through which
they work are different. Um that the molecules are different.
And so really the best thing to do, um, if
you're a savvy Internet human is to just google the

(32:26):
name of the medication and grapefruit and the Internet should
tell you. But if you have any concerns about any
medication ever, don't take my advice, ask your ask your
pharmacist or or other healthcare provider. Um uh because it
really it really UM depends on the drug in question
to know how dangerous this can be. For For some drugs,

(32:49):
it's it's a direct effect, like lowering your blood pressure
so much that you that you might pass out um
um or UM or may be suppressing an immune response
too hard for too long. UM. For other drugs, it
can be a secondary issue of like creating UM like
a like a like a build up of that drug
in your system to the point that it could cause
damage UM well, first of all to your muscles and

(33:12):
liver because they're the ones kind of dealing with it UM,
but secondarily to your to your kidneys as they wind
up working over time to to flush this stuff out,
so so bad times all around UM and can Yeah.
For for example, a lot of U S s R
I S selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors UM can be affected
by that. So if you're on anxiety or depression meds,

(33:35):
definitely watch out for that. UM. That's why I am
one of those humans who had to really cut back
my grapefruit intake, and I'm mad about it because I
love grapefruit. Um, because because I Hi, Hi, I'm on
a I'm I'm on like kind of a lot of
lexapro u because it helps with anxiety and depression and
I love that, um and uh, but I don't want

(33:55):
it to go wonky. So so I just choose to
not to not do to not do grape fruit related stuff,
and um, just say no to grapefruit. When I'm like
going through a cocktail list, like, I'll get like a
little bit palpably angry. I'll be like, why did you

(34:15):
put that delicious ingredient in there? Also, I know I
shouldn't really have not much booze while I'm on this medication,
but like in small doses, it's okay. You can kind
of manage it anyway. Um. Oh wow. Well, the most
dangerous experience I had with a grape fruit was also
my cousins. We were trying to they were trying to

(34:36):
teach me how to play golf, and I was using
a grapefruit and I swung and I you were using
a grapefruit, is it? Yeah? Well, they're just trying to
get me to hit it because I kept missing smaller,
get something bigger. But then I got juice in the
eye and it career wow so so yeah so uh

(35:06):
so broken ankle and uh and next golf career are
But I still love you grapefruit. Um, I highly recommend
to anyone who's interested. I mean, like, like we say frequently,
you never know where the research will take you. Fascinating
and the headlines are hilarious, like oh yeah, the bizarre
grapefruit messing with your drugs or whatever. It's really fun.

(35:30):
So recommend yeah, yeah, take take it, take it into
due consideration. Uh, don't don't hate grape fruits with golf clubs,
and don't take them on top of medication without checking first. Yes,
one of those is more important than the other, but
I feel like both are worth saying. In the meantime.

(35:52):
That's that's pretty much what we have to say about
grapefruit for today. It is Um. 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, thank you, and we're back with them.

(36:20):
This is a sour, puckery face the normal I guess
that would be more in the back of the throat. Um. Yeah,
I gotta work on my voice, my vocal work. But
you know we're all getting there. We're all getting there,
desert a rope. As Thanksgiving approaches, I can't help but
think about Annie's tradition of cheese giving, and it brings
to mind a story I'd like to share. At the

(36:41):
beginning of twenty I had a mountain of New Year's resolutions,
but sadly, given COVID lockdown, most of them have fallen
apart except what turned out to be my favorite. My
boyfriend and I decided was going to be our Year
of Cheese with the gold eat lots of different fancy
cheeses as off as possible. We started the project on

(37:02):
New Year's Day with a cheeseboard made up of those
little two dollar and discards from the fancy cheese counter
at Whole Foods, along with a detailed rating system for
the tasting so we could keep track of what we liked.
This worked out fantastically and we were so into it
that all through January and February we tried a new
cheese once a week every week, with no sign of

(37:24):
slowing down. Well fast forward through and all its stresses
and our New Cheese of Session turned into a real
comfort project, something to look forward to and all the
uncertainty and isolation. We got engaged back in March, and
since it happened during our year of jeese, we took
a picture of my newly blinged hand reaching into a

(37:45):
plate of extra cheesynchos to make it Instagram official, quite
the feat since I'm not left handed. And then once
it became clear that COVID would be pushing our original
wedding date, we threw together a cheese the aimed zoom
elopement ceremony in our living room, complete with cheese themed bunting, altar,

(38:08):
cheese earrings, cheese pins, and my close friend even sent
us a package of fancy cheese in the mail to
serve as our cheese plate wedding meal. Photos of the
event were only iPhone quality for obvious reasons, So when
I had our elopement announcements made, I had my best
friend do an artistic rendering of what our wedding wood
I have looked like in Cheeseland. My husband Brian in

(38:30):
a suit made of Swiss cheese with palapeno buttons, and
me and a gooey cheesy veil and chess both of
us sharing a plate of nachos as it should be
both of us in our happy places. Oh my gosh,
that is glorious. Um a congratulations. Yes, it sounds like
y'all have both really found like a worthy partner. Um. Yes,

(38:54):
uh that's that is so sweet. It is sweet. It's amazing,
and it sounds like your year of cheese has been
a real success. So I much much applaused to. Yes,
the invitations respectacular, all the pictures of spectacular. So thank
you so much for sharing that. Congratulations. Yes, more cheese

(39:16):
in your future, A beautiful, a beautiful future of cheese together. Um,
Heather wrote, I started your burger episode and got about
ten minutes into it when I had to pause to share.
Welcome to Halifax Burger Week, usually in late March. For
a week, dozens of restaurants in Halifax will coax people

(39:38):
out of their houses in dreary. Nova Scotia winters with
the promise of delicious burgers. If you can think of it,
someone has put it on a burger. This event is
thrown as a fundraiser for feed Nova Scotia, the local
network of food banks, with a portion of sales donated
the brunt of COVID's first wave hit us here in March,
causing a postponement in this year celebrations, but did take

(39:59):
place in October of this year over ten days when
restaurants reopened. My fiance and I only made it to
one spot this year as we're not eating out as much,
but got to at least five of them last year.
I know people who ate at least twenty different burgers
over the week. Pro tip were stretchy pants. To give
you an idea of the scope of Burger Week, I

(40:20):
have included a link to this year's Burger Passport. The
passport is usually released a couple of weeks beforehand, and
it's crucial in planning a strategy for the week. I've
also attached some pictures of past burgers, including a doughnut burger.
Burger Week last year coincided with a local gourmet donut
shops birthday, so is born. The birthday burger a bacon

(40:42):
cheese burger with chipotle sauce with a glazed donut sliced
in half for a bun, complete with a candle. It
shouldn't work, but it does. We have several places to
get a good burger here anyway. But for a burger lover,
this week is better than Christmas. It's been growing in
popularity every year in the restaurant, to have been getting
more and more imaginative. Oh that sounds amazing. That's wonderful. Yes,

(41:09):
I love it Burger Week. I did get a burger
after we did that. We did Oh good, good good. Hey, No,
I think that's I think that's important. I don't think
I have since then. I think I got distracted by
some other food craving. But anyway, I'll get around to it. Yes, yes,

(41:30):
it was. It was wonderful. Um. Thanks to both of
those listeners for writing in. If you would like to
write to us, you can or email is hello at
savor pod dot com. We are also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
savor pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
to my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

(41:53):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always,
tour superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
are coming your way h