Hack in the Box, Froyo 3.0 & Author of "Picky", Helen Zoe Veit
Why do we love hacking a box mix? George Duran and Delish food editor Taylor Ann Spencer — writer of the Mostly Vegetarian newsletter and proud user of "condimental meat" — dig into the strange history of cake mix, from Bisquick and the first dehydrated gingerbread mix to Betty Crocker's gelatin-spiked Color Vision cake, Campbell's tomato soup cake, diet-soda cakes and a tuna-filled Bisquick ring nobody asked for. Taylor shares the boxed mac and cheese trick her dad taught her, George lays out the three upgrades that actually make a box mix better, and they play a round of Grandma or TikTok.
Then it's Trend or Trash: frozen yogurt is on its third comeback. From Bloomingdale's Forty Carrots to TCBY, Pinkberry and today's around-the-block lines in New York, George asks why froyo keeps coming back — and how a cup ended up costing as much as a cocktail, with melted-butter dips and caviar on potato chips. Plus a game of Froyo or Fo-Yo: squid ink, Fireball and french fry flavors are real. Peanut butter and pickle is not.
In the second half, historian Helen Zoe Veit, author of Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History, explains why kids weren't always this fussy — 19th-century children happily ate bitter greens, organ meats and even coffee — and what parents can borrow from the past: protect mealtime appetite, keep offering the family meal, don't panic about a small reward, and season kids' food the way you'd season your own.
Key Takeaways
- Hacks are about feeling clever. Taylor's read on the box-mix obsession: it's the combination of cleverness, ease and convenience.
- Cake mix is older than you think. Bisquick hit shelves in 1931, and P. Duff and Sons patented a dehydrated gingerbread mix in 1933.
- Modern mixes rely on emulsifiers. Commercial cakes and mixes use food-grade emulsifiers and surfactants for volume, texture and shelf life.
- The best box-mix upgrades are simple. Brown butter, espresso powder in chocolate cake, and freeze-dried fruit ground into powder for color, acidity and concentrated flavor.
- Taylor's mac and cheese trick. Make a well in the cooked macaroni, pour the cheese powder in the center, then fill the empty packet with milk — Midwestern thrift that also happens to be the right amount.
- Retro hacks keep coming back. Tomato soup cake doesn't taste like tomato — it's a spice cake — and chocolate mayonnaise cake is basically eggs and oil. Cottage cheese cookie dough and pancake cereal are the TikTok-era equivalents.
- Froyo has died twice. The '80s TCBY wave and the 2000s Pinkberry/Red Mango wave both collapsed under too many stores. Froyo 3.0 is Greek-style, premium-priced and drawing long lines.
- Fat plus salt plus sweet hits the bliss point. That's why butter-dipped froyo and potato-chip toppings work — and why TikTok melts entire tubs of margarine for views.
- Kids weren't always picky. Helen found no record of kids as a group being picky eaters until recently — and abundance isn't the explanation: well-fed 19th-century kids weren't picky either.
- Hunger is a tool. Past kids came to meals hungry — less snacking, more chores and outdoor play. If dinner is an hour away, "go play, I'll call you" is fine.
- Small rewards are okay. Helen pushes back on the rule that dessert should never be contingent on dinner; a little incentive can help a child try something new.
- Season kids' food. George's secret weapon for fish is good European butter; Helen adds that parents aggressively under-salt children's food.
- The food industry isn't on your side. Helen notes that about two-thirds of an average American kid's diet is highly processed — but kids don't need "fun" food to be happy.
- Pickiness is learned — and unlearnable. Protect appetite, present family foods again and again, and treat it as teaching a child to love food.
People & Companies Mentioned
- George Duran — Host, Always Hangry; chef and TV personality
- Taylor Ann Spencer — Food editor at Delish; recipe developer, food stylist; writes the Mostly Vegetarian Substack newsletter
- Helen Zoe Veit — Historian, associate professor of history at Michigan State University; author of Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History (St. Martin's Press, Feb. 24, 2026)
- Delish — Where Taylor develops recipes, including a vampire poke cake
- General Mills / Bisquick / Betty Crocker — Bisquick (1931), Betty Crocker's first mixes and the Color Vision cake
- P. Duff and Sons — Pittsburgh molasses company behind the first patented cake mix (1933)
- Procter & Gamble
- Pillsbury — Pillsbury Bake-Off
- Campbell's — Tomato Soup Spice Cake, a.k.a. "Mystery Cake"
- Jell-O / Cool Whip — Poke cake
- Hellmann's — Chocolate mayonnaise cake
- Ritz — Mock apple pie made with crackers
- Weight Watchers — Message boards behind the diet-soda cake trend
- H.P. Hood — Massachusetts dairy that created "Frogurt"
- Bloomingdale's / Forty Carrots — NYC café serving frozen yogurt since 1975
- TCBY, Red Mango, Pinkberry, Yogurtland, Menchie's, Orange Leaf, 16 Handles — Froyo chains across its three eras
- Mimi's, Birdie's, Myka — Froyo 3.0 shops
- I Can't Believe It's Not Butter — Melted and used as a dip in the TikTok froyo trend
Links
Guests
- Taylor Ann Spencer — Mostly Vegetarian on Substack — https://taylorannspencer.substack.com
- Taylor Ann Spencer on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/taylorannspencer
- Picky by Helen Zoe Veit (St. Martin's Press) — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250402677/picky/
Transcript
Peanut butter and pickle.
Frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:You made that up?
George Duran:I sure did.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I was gonna say no way.
George Duran:Yeah, I was pregnant when I made that up.
Welcome to the Always Hangry podcast, where we break down the way we eat.
The good, the bad, and the completely ridiculous.
I'm your host, George Duran.
Today we're hacking the box.
The weird history of box mixes, why we love them, and the hacks that make them better.
Then frozen yogurt is back again.
We're talking Fro Yo's third comeback, whether it's actually healthier than ice cream and the wildest flavors out there.
And later on, we're talking with Helen Zoe Veit, author of Picky, about why kids stopped eating what adults ate and started surviving on nuggets and buttered noodles.
Joining me today is a delish food editor, recipe developer, stylist, and has written about everything from food science to nutrition and.
And also publishes the weekly substack newsletter, Mostly Vegetarian.
Kaylor Ann Spencer.
Welcome to Always Hangry.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Very nice to be here.
George Duran:What exactly is a mostly vegetarian like?
Does that mean you can never have bacon or sometimes?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Well, it kind of means that, honestly, vegetarian is like the standard, the go to.
Okay, but what if I just need bacon in that potato salad?
George Duran:Oh, I like that.
Cause I like vegetable forward foods.
But when you add a little bit of, like, pancetta to something, it, like, it just elevates it, Right, Exactly.
Taylor Anne Spencer:My father used to call it condimental meat, and this was in the 90s.
George Duran:I like that very much.
How much of your day is testing and eating recipes and building recipes at Delish?
I mean, that's got to be a large process, right?
Taylor Anne Spencer:It is.
Developing recipes and being on set are the two most important things.
George Duran:How long does that for you to, like, research and to develop that one specific recipe?
Taylor Anne Spencer:This is a really simple example.
I developed our banana bread recipe, and then we wanted a banana nut bread recipe.
And I literally took my existing banana bread recipe and was like, let's add walnuts, because why wouldn't you?
George Duran:You hacked it?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yeah.
George Duran:It's like hacking with a cake box mixes that people are hacking with that.
It's like a.
Except you didn't use a cake box mix.
No.
Have you heard, like, a lot of the hacking with the cake box mixes?
That's a big thing right now, right?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Oh, I mean, I've done it.
George Duran:It's huge.
Why are people so infatuated with cake box mixes, you think?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Well, I think people are infatuated with hacks, and I think it's this sense of cleverness, but also ease and convenience.
George Duran:That's exactly it.
In fact, commercial baking mixes go back further than most people realize it.
In: However, in: Taylor Anne Spencer:Did you say soap?
George Duran:Soap in cake.
Yes.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Wait, come again?
George Duran:Yeah.
They discovered that a microscopic amount acted as a surfactant, helping cake stay fluffy, preventing them from falling, and even letting manufacturers cram in more sugar.
It actually worked.
It worked so well.
Actually, we still use this process.
We stopped calling it soap.
Modern commercial cakes and cake mixes commonly use food grade emulsifiers and surfactants to stabilize the batters and improve volume, texture and shelf life.
Taylor Anne Spencer:But there's still soap in the cake.
George Duran:Yeah.
What?
I mean, there's always chemicals everywhere and just there's a tiny, tiny little bit of kind of something like a surfactant.
It's called.
And there's soap.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that.
George Duran:It's clean cake.
Very clean.
Yeah.
By the late:And by the late 40s, there was more than 200 regional cake mix companies.
But guess what women were complaining about with those cake mixes.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I think I do know this one.
George Duran:Go ahead.
Taylor Anne Spencer:They felt like they weren't actually b.
George Duran:That's exactly right.
They wanted to experiment and add their own ingredients to it and bake a little bit more.
That's where Pillsbury had the Pillsbury Bake Off.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Oh, yeah.
George Duran:What box mix do you buy usually in Hackett?
Taylor Anne Spencer:I don't make box cake mixes on a regular basis just because, honestly, as a recipe developer, I'm cooking what I need to be developing at the moment.
George Duran:It sounds like you don't have children.
Taylor Anne Spencer:No,.
Taylor Anne Spencer:No.
George Duran:Hence the time you have to make cake from scratch.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Exactly.
George Duran:Is there a box mix or any sort of mix that you never follow the recipes in the back and you're like, I'm gonna just add the ingredients.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Well, it's not cake.
George Duran:Go on.
Taylor Anne Spencer:It's Mac and cheese.
That's a box mix, right?
George Duran:Yes.
Very good.
So you just like, kind of zhuzh it up and just like, whatever I'm gonna add to it.
You're talking about the powder.
Mac and cheese instant.
Go on.
Taylor Anne Spencer:It's the first thing I learned to cook.
George Duran:Oh, fantastic.
Taylor Anne Spencer:My father taught me how to make Boxed Mac and cheese.
And he taught me to use oil.
George Duran:Yes.
Taylor Anne Spencer:And then you take the cheese packet, you make a little well in the center of the cooked macaroni, and you pour the powder into the center of the well.
Then you fill up that packet with milk.
This is Midwestern, like thrift, but that is also the right amount of milk.
George Duran:That's a fantastic hack.
That's amazing.
Taylor Anne Spencer:So I have literally never read the box, like the back of the box on Mac and cheese.
Wow.
George Duran:Here's a list of some of the weirdest cake mix hacks that has ever existed.
Betty Crocker's Color vision cake.
In:Three tablespoons went into the batter, and the remaining gelatin could even go into the frosting.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Actually, I have done this with a cream cheese filling.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Oh, excellent.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Excellent.
Not crazy.
George Duran:Olga, you gotta listen to this next one.
Campbell's tomato soup cake.
Taylor Anne Spencer:This is a thing, though.
This is a thing.
George Duran:Yes.
Taylor Anne Spencer:People love it.
George Duran:Campbell came out with a tomato soup mix.
In the:In fact, Campbell still publishes a semi homemade version today.
It's called Conversation cake.
Because you serve it and you say you made it with a can of tomato soup.
And the conversation starts, what the hell am I eating here?
Taylor Anne Spencer:I mean.
Or you serve it to people and you're like, what is in this?
George Duran:Yeah.
And where is your nearest bathroom?
Taylor Anne Spencer:I mean, I'm not gonna judge.
Cause I haven't had it.
But I've heard that it's pretty darn good.
Really?
It's very retro.
But this is a thing that is coming up in baker's circles.
Yes.
George Duran:It's a hideous color.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I think that this is not the color that it has to be, honestly.
George Duran:Wait, it's tomato soup.
It's gonna come out like this brick red color.
It literally looks vintage when you bake it.
Taylor Anne Spencer:It does.
Taylor Anne Spencer:And that's the kind of cool part.
But if you think about it, like tomato, kind of fruity.
And if you put molasses in the cake, you're going in a spice direction.
I think that that was the direction of this cake originally.
So you don't taste tomato.
George Duran:And it's almost like buttermilk has a little acidity to it.
It might work all right.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Especially in the can.
Like, extra.
George Duran:I'll wait for you to try it first.
Taylor Anne Spencer:You're like, no.
George Duran: In:Poke it repeatedly, Pour liquid jello in the holes, refrigerate it, and cover it with cool whip.
Tell me more about poke, because you have a great poke cake recipe called vampire poke cake on delish.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yeah.
George Duran:Do you literally poke with your finger?
Taylor Anne Spencer:No, I usually use the end of a wooden spoon.
I mean, I think your fingernail would get really kind of gross if you were just like.
Because you have to poke it many times, so.
George Duran:But not if you lick it and then you put it back in.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Who are you serving this cake?
George Duran:My children.
My children.
Who would do that?
There used to be a syndicated newspaper columnist named Heloise.
She was very famous.
She published a chocolate sauerkraut cake.
Yep, that's right.
You take the box chocolate cake mix, then fold in chopped rinsed sauerkraut.
Apparently it adds moisture and a little bit of chew.
Who is going to ever make this today?
I mean, nobody likes sauerkraut, but to put it in chocolate cake.
What on earth does this taste like?
Taylor Anne Spencer:I have seen this done on a reality baking TV show, and the judges said it was delicious.
But if you think about it like, sauerkraut is like a fermented, funky thing.
George Duran:Yeah.
A fermented, funky cake.
No, thank you.
Diet soda cake.
By the early:It all sounds disgusting.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I mean, my coworker did this.
Yeah, she said it was okay.
George Duran:Okay.
Okay is not enough for me for cake.
It's not worth the calories.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I just think that you're replacing the most natural part of a cake made with a box mix with an unnatural thing.
George Duran:Bisquick had a tuna ring recipe.
A savory cake.
In:This is a fantastic idea to never, ever make.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I am so horrified.
I literally have no words.
Stop it.
George Duran:It is a savory cake made out of tuna.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Who was asking for this?
George Duran:Yeah, cats were asking for it.
Here's a list of what to add to cake mixes to make it even better.
Very simple.
Brown butter.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yep.
George Duran:Espresso powder and chocolate cake.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Sure.
George Duran:The best chocolate cakes have espresso powder inside of it.
Here's a really good one.
Freeze dried fruit powder.
Huge.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Interesting.
George Duran:It's the best.
You take freeze Dried strawberries.
You grind them into a powder that adds not just color, but just, like, the acidity and truly very concentrated strawberry flavor to whatever you're cooking.
All right, we're gonna play a little game.
It's called Grandma or TikTok.
Okay, I'm gonna tell you some of these hacks.
Is it something invented in your grandma's age, or is it, like, a TikTok invention or something that's been highlighted during TikTok recently?
Okay, try to guess what it is.
Mayonnaise cake.
Grandma or TikTok?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Grandma.
George Duran:It definitely is grandma.
That's right.
Chocolate cake using mayo for or.
gg oil has been printed since:Hellman's made a big thing out of it.
And believe it or not, Hellman's still has and recommends mayo in your cake.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I mean, a lot of people do.
I've heard some of the best bakers today are like, chocolate mayo cake.
Like, it's the thing.
George Duran:I'm not doing that.
Taylor Anne Spencer:It's eggs.
George Duran:Pass.
No, but there's, like, there's a little tanginess to it.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yeah, I don't know.
So there's tanginess in sour cream, too.
George Duran:Cottage cheese, cookie dough.
Grandma or TikTok?
Taylor Anne Spencer:TikTok it is TikTok.
George Duran:Very good.
Cottage cheese blended with maple syrup, vanilla, almond, flour protein powder, and chocolate chips.
Big TikTok trend.
Huge onion boil.
Grammar.
TikTok.
Taylor Anne Spencer:TikTok.
George Duran:Correct.
Very good.
I would have thought onion boil.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I did one.
George Duran:Oh, you have.
Oh, gosh.
Tell me what an onion boil is.
Go ahead.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yeah, so you take your onion, you peel it, you make, like, crisscross slits into it, hollow out the center, and then you stuff the center with spiced butter.
You wrap that baby in foil.
Maybe you slather a little bit more butter all around it before you wrap it in foil.
And then you bake it until it becomes, like, meltingly tender.
George Duran:Ooh, potato candy.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Grandma.
George Duran:Yes, it is.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Irish thing.
George Duran:Is it really?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
George Duran:Mashed potatoes and powdered sugar becomes candy dough.
Usually spread with peanut butter and rolled.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yeah, that's crazy.
It's really hard to do.
George Duran:Well, Vinegar piece.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Oh, that's grandma.
George Duran:It sure is.
God, you know this so well, because.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I know all of the weird stuff that they used to do in the South.
George Duran:Mock apple pie.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Oh, that's.
That's grandma.
George Duran:Sure is.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Saltines.
Yeah.
George Duran:Yes, saltines.
That's right.
Apple pie made with crackers instead of apples.
its version beginning in the:And finally, pancake cereal.
Taylor Anne Spencer:That's TikTok.
George Duran:It sure is.
TikTok.
Who else would invent a pancake cereal?
We are very inventive this day and age, but nothing has changed.
Taylor Anne Spencer:No.
In fact, it's coming around again because that cottage cheese cookie dough could have been Grandma.
George Duran:Amen.
All right, let's take a break.
Up next, frozen yogurt is having another moment.
But why does fro yo keep coming back?
And is it really the healthy dessert we've always been sold?
And then I'll sit down with author Helen Zoivik to find out why my children and yours too, are picky eaters.
We'll be right back.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Back.
George Duran:Welcome back.
We're with delish food writer and recipe developer Taylor Ann Spencer.
Taylor Ann, we have a segment on the show called Trend or Trash where we take a look at trends and discuss if they're worthy of being called Trends or Trash.
Today's Trend or Trash is frozen yogurt, also known as froyo.
Of course.
In the early 70s, H.B.
Hood in Massachusetts experimented running yogurt through a soft serve machine.
served the first Fro Gert in:But shortly afterwards, Bloomingdale's restaurant had 40 carrots.
I was at 40 carrots yesterday, coincidentally.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Really?
Yeah.
Wait, that's the name of the cafe.
George Duran:Or whatever it's called, 40 carrots.
And they have baked goods, but they're known for their frozen yogurt.
And it is delicious.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I'm going.
George Duran:I did not know that.
They were the first frozen yogurt ever.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Really?
George Duran:It's tangy, it's creamy, it's delicious.
And you could keep eating as much of it as you want because it's, you know, it has no calories.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Of course not.
Yeah.
Is that what they told you?
George Duran:Yeah.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Good marketing.
George Duran:In the 80s, we had TCBY, you know TCBY, right?
Yeah.
There are still 125 TCBYs out there.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Oh, I know.
It's like a current thing.
George Duran:By the 90s, competition explodes and frozen yogurt appears pretty much everywhere, from Baskin Robbins to convenience stores, making dedicated shops less special.
And this is where frozen or died a little bit.
But around:But there were just too many stores.
And again, it died.
And then come today, we have Froyo 3.0.
It has exploded.
And all you see today, at least in New York City, and I'm sure in a lot of cities out there.
Lines to eat.
Greek frozen yogurt.
I will not stand in line for this.
Taylor Anne Spencer:No.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Well, I think that comes down to the psychology of whether you are or not a line person.
You are not.
I'm taking it.
George Duran:Well, my shoes, I don't have that support.
I'm not standing in line.
No, I'm not.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I'm not either, for the record.
George Duran:No, no, no.
I mean, you got like, red mango around the corner.
Like, I'm good.
And 40 carats.
There was nobody at 40 carats yesterday.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Oh.
George Duran:So, no, I'm not standing in line.
But I am curious about tasting it.
So maybe I'll go, like on a Monday morning and I'll check it out.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I mean, do these places have off hours?
George Duran:Nope, they do not.
So I'll just stand there until they open.
Oh, have you seen the butter dipped frozen yogurts?
Taylor Anne Spencer:I have not, but I've seen the butter dipped cones in general.
George Duran:Now they're having the frozen yogurts and then they dip it into melted butter and they serve it.
And the butter just kind of adheres to it and kind of solidifies.
And so you're eating like.
Yeah, you're eating like a butter shell.
Talk about non fat yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I have so many questions.
George Duran:Destroying it.
And then the big thing.
I went down the rabbit hole on TikTok.
My God.
People are taking their frozen yogurts or ice creams like you said, and dipping it in I Can't Believe it's not Butter.
They're melting the whole plastic container of I Can't Believe it's not butter in the microwave and dipping the ice cream in it.
And why?
For views, obviously.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Obviously.
How could I forget?
George Duran:I mean, look, if you had salt to anything and then you add fat to something that's sweet already, like, it's going to be delicious.
Taylor Anne Spencer:You're just bumping up.
You're hitting your bliss point.
George Duran:Mimi's mic, Birdies, mitos.
They charging, like 15 to $25 per frozen yogurt.
25 Bucks for a freaking frozen yogurt?
I saw one that was serving potato chips and caviar on their frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Okay.
Potato chips.
I'm so down with, like, give me a potato chip, Give me a French fry.
Yes.
George Duran:How much do you think it would cost for you to get a frozen yogurt and buy a bag of potato chips and one little teaspoon of caviar?
It's like maybe three or four dollars.
Five max.
They're charging 25 for it.
Taylor Anne Spencer:That's Crazy.
George Duran:Enjoy it.
Have fun with that.
We're gonna play a little game called fro yo or fo yo.
I'm gonna tell you the names of flavors, and you're gonna tell me if these are real flavors that we've invented today with frozen yogurt.
Or did I just invent that out of the blue?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Cool.
George Duran:Here we go.
French fry.
Frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:That's the thing.
George Duran:That is a thing.
16 Handles.
It contained real chopped french fries, and it was intentionally made.
Salty.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I mean, I'm down.
George Duran:Goat cheese and fig frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Ooh, I think you made that up.
George Duran:I did make it up.
Oh, my gosh.
Taylor Anne Spencer:It sounds like it should work, but I'm like, I feel like nobody's gonna put goat cheese.
George Duran:I was trying to throw you off.
Squid ink frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:You.
George Duran:It's real.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Is it real?
George Duran:Yep.
16 Handles.
Yes.
16 Handles made an actual limited edition of squid ink food Froyo.
Taylor Anne Spencer:What?
George Duran:Peanut butter and pickle frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:You made that up?
George Duran:I sure did.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I was gonna say no way.
George Duran:Yeah.
I was pregnant when I made that up.
Black garlic honey frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I think that's you.
George Duran:It is.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Okay, that's face.
I feel like black garlic.
I feel like the populace does not know enough.
Like, it's not mainstream enough yet.
George Duran:Not yet, but tomorrow's coming.
Tomorrow.
Yeah.
Black garlic Grape fireball.
Frozen yogurt.
You know the alcoholic drink that's super cinnamon?
Yeah.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Are you kidding?
I feel like you made that up.
George Duran:It's real.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Is it real?
Taylor Anne Spencer:I was really hoping it was not.
George Duran:Sixteen handles.
That's right.
They made a super cinnamon forward.
Inspired by things like hot tamales and big red, they made a fireball frozen yogurt.
Taylor Anne Spencer:I need to go to 16 handles.
Clearly.
George Duran:Yeah.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Like these crazy flavors.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Yeah.
George Duran:I had no.
I've never been to one, and I'm dying to go.
Why don't we go right now?
Taylor Anne Spencer:Done.
George Duran:All right.
Thank you so much for being with us.
Taylor and Spencer, you'll join us for the next episode.
Taylor Anne Spencer:Thanks for having me.
George Duran:All right, up next, we're talking with Picky author Helen Zoivight about why kids are so picky in the first place and whether we help make them that way.
Stick around.
Welcome back to Always Hangry.
Today we're talking picky eaters.
More specifically, whether kids were always this picky or whether we actually taught them to be.
My guest today is Helen Zoe Veit, a historian and the author of Picky How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters.
In history.
Helen, thanks so much for being on the show.
Helen Zoe Veit:Thank you so much for having me.
George Duran:One of the things that your books does is to say that kids are naturally picky eaters.
Are kids really naturally picky, or have we just spent like the last hundred years teaching them how to be picky?
Helen Zoe Veit:Well, it's complicated.
I don't know if we.
I'd say that we've taught them to be picky.
There's no record of kids as a group being picky eaters until really recently.
This can be shocking for people because today we just hear it's part of our culture that kids are biologically picky.
That's just how it is and how it has to be.
But when you look around the world or when you look in the past, you don't see any groups of people, until recently thinking that kids were naturally picky.
So this whole book is a look at how did this happen?
How did kids suddenly in large numbers, start becoming picky eaters?
Who.
George Duran:Who is to blame here?
Helen Zoe Veit:I think there are a couple of factors at play.
One is that I think some kids do come out of the womb really eager to eat and try lots of food.
And some are.
Are more sensitive, some are more cautious about what they eat in the past.
What became clear, though, is that those same kids who might be really cautious today, when they were presented in a positive way with family meals, they were given that same food over and over again when they came to their meals hungry.
And crucially, when there weren't alternatives, even the most sensitive or cautious kids learned pretty quickly to like the foods of their families.
George Duran:I feel like that keyword hunger is maybe the answer to everything, because at times with my kids, when they're hungry, they will eat practically anything.
And maybe that's the problem.
Are we giving them too many snacks throughout the day and not making them hungry enough?
Helen Zoe Veit:Yeah.
This answer is actually complicated too, because when people today hear that kids in the past weren't picky, they assume, oh, it was because of scarcity.
However, what becomes clear when you look at history is that that's just not a good explanation.
The US Was the most abundant country in the world in the 19th century, and certainly there were poor kids, and poor kids were not picky.
But neither were the rich kids, the kids who had plenty of food and plenty of choice.
They weren't picky either.
However, this does not mean that hunger wasn't an issue.
In fact, I came to think that hunger is, in fact, really important because even the wealthiest kids or the best fed Middle class kids, they were coming to their meals in the 19th century with a good appetite.
They were not snacking much, as you said.
There was relatively little eating between meals and they were getting lots of exercise, they were doing more chores, they were walking more, they were playing outside more and more.
Hunger is really important in helping us to take an interest in new food.
If you know you're going to sit down to dinner in an hour and your child says they're hungry, it's really okay to say, that's great.
Your appetite's going to really help you learn to love the meal.
Go and play and I'll call you when dinner's ready.
George Duran:Can you tell us some of the weirder foods that the kids were happily eating all day long?
Helen Zoe Veit:When I was first doing this research, I started keeping an inventory of all the vegetables and that kids, you know, were mentioned as loving.
And I, you know, I started keeping the list and it just got so long.
It became silly.
It just became this horticultural inventory of all the vegetables that existed at the same time.
Kids were eating all kinds of species of animals, like all kinds of wild, you know, seafood and shellfish and birds and also, you know, squirrels and possums as well as all kinds of organ meats.
And they loved coffee.
Helen Zoe Veit:So.
Helen Zoe Veit:So really, there's you.
It was just incredibly diverse the kinds of foods.
And let me just repeat this, not just the kids were, you know, ingesting, but that they were actually loving.
George Duran:I feel like my kids were not picky eaters until the moment they started going to school.
Does peer pressure have anything to do with this too?
Helen Zoe Veit:Yeah.
So much is the larger culture.
I really think we live in a culture of pickiness.
And so that's one of many factors that kids start to get exposed to.
Is you, what do their classmates or their friends, what's in their lunchbox?
What are they doing?
George Duran:Yeah, am I doing a disservice to my children by either forcing them to take a bite, bribing them, or making dessert a reward?
Helen Zoe Veit:We've been told a lot of things about how to feed kids.
We're told never to push foods too hard.
We've been told never tell a child to empty their plate.
Never make dessert contingent on eating your vegetables or finishing dinner.
We're told in so many ways we're going to mess our kids up.
But there are, I think, some practices that can result in better outcomes than others.
I think it's perfectly okay to give kids a little reward for eating.
This can be, you know, a really positive incentive for kids to try something that might, you know, be new to them, that they might not already know how to like.
George Duran:Yeah.
And I have a secret weapon that I tell everyone because I often get the question, how do you get the kids to eat fish, for example?
And my secret weapon is butter.
Good quality, your European butter.
If I can roast a fish and they're like, I don't like fish when I slather butter all over it, they will eat that.
Helen Zoe Veit:I completely agree.
And also salt.
I think a lot of parents really aggressively under salt their children's food, but a reasonable amount of salt that makes it taste just as delicious as you would want it to be as an adult eater.
You can season your children's food.
George Duran:Can we point a little bit of blame to the food industry here too?
Because, I mean, dinosaur shaped nuggets, colorful cereal, highly ultra processed foods.
I mean, this is kind of their fault a little bit too.
And it's not just that we are generations into these picky eaters.
Parents are still eating like this too.
I have met people who eat like that and they're not allowed to come into my house for dinner.
What are we doing here and can we go the other way?
Is there hope here?
Helen Zoe Veit:Most food producers, you know, most industrial food producers, your child's health and happiness is not number one on their list.
They want them to buy, they want you to buy the food no matter what happens with it.
And right now, American kids are eating more highly processed food than anybody.
Two thirds of an average American kid's diet is highly processed.
But you know, the good news is kids don't have to have this kind of food to be happy.
We've sort of been told like, you're never going to get your child to eat food unless the food is fun.
George Duran:If you were to give a parent really good tip as someone who's expecting their first child, on what to do the moment the child is born and throughout their youth.
What are some of the greatest tips you would tell them to do at this point in today's modern ultra processed society?
Helen Zoe Veit:One is to be confident that kids really are capable of eating much more diversely and happily than we've been told as a culture.
That confidence, if you can cultivate it in yourself.
And I think that's one of what, that's one reason the history is so important, that really knowing the history helps so much to help you stay the course.
Because there are so many pressures that are going to force you away from it.
When you know your child is starting to eat meals with you, try to protect their mealtime appetites.
Some hunger, having a good appetite, what, you know, cultures in various ways call having a bon appetit, is a really powerful tool in helping a child learn to love food.
Also conceptualize it as learning to love food.
You are really their teacher.
You can teach them to like things even if they reject a food.
Even if they reject it multiple times.
Keep trying.
We know that throughout human history, children were learning to like the meals of their family when, you know, they were lovingly presented with it over and over and when they weren't given alternatives.
George Duran:Yeah.
I always found it interesting that in the English language, we didn't have a phrase like bon appetit.
Bon appetito.
Helen Zoe Veit:Yeah.
George Duran:I don't know what to tell my kids.
Like, eat up.
Go start eating.
Helen Zoe Veit:Yeah, It's a beautiful reminder, I think those kinds of phrases about, you know, like to say, really, before a meal, I hope you're hungry, just because I know how much hunger helps people love food.
I mean, I came to think that this whole book about picky eating was a book about pleasure and how the pleasure of eating has just been devalued in American food culture for more than 100 years.
And one of my biggest hopes as a scholar and just as a person is that we can get children and parents and everybody else back to a relationship with food that's more grounded in pleasure.
George Duran:Yeah.
But on the flip side, you have to admit that globalization, being able to travel in cheaper means getting access to all the these international ingredients through Amazon, for example, at least kids are eating more sushi today than they were, you know, 15 years ago, 20 years ago.
Helen Zoe Veit:Yeah, that's.
I mean, that's one of these things.
Even as I would say, kids are getting pickier and pickier today.
When I was a kid, nobody thought that sushi was a kid's food.
And now you see that kind of routinely.
Like, you know, you see kids in sushi restaurants.
Seaweed is now, you know, a pretty common snack for lunch boxes.
You know, all these ways that we've got these new foods that are almost kids foods now, that would have been totally surprising to people a generation ago.
George Duran:Amazing.
Well, thank you so much, Helen.
Zoe Veit, author of How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History.
It's now available nationwide in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.
Helen, thanks so much for being on the show.
Helen Zoe Veit:Thank you so much for having me.
George Duran:That's the end of our show, but the hangry never stops.
Find [email protected] and follow always hangry podcast on social for clips, chaos and everything.
We couldn't fit into this episode.
I'm George Duran.
Till next time, stay hungry.
