Celery Jell-O, Baby Food for Adults & Glitter Maple Syrup

Karla Walsh: 00:00:00

Oh, have you had strawberry pretzel salad?

George Duran: 00:00:02

What the hell is what.

Wait.

Strawberries and pretzels, and then you call it a salad.

Karla Walsh: 00:00:07

Correct.

Don't knock it till you try it, George.

George Duran: 00:00:09

That's disgusting.

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.

On today's show, we're exposing the foods that love to dress up as healthy.

Then we're looking back at some of the biggest food flops of all time.

And later on, we sweeten things up with a deep dive into maple syrup.

Joining me now on the podcast is the only person on earth that actually enjoys eating flaxseed, the ridiculously healthy Karla Walsh.

Karla Walsh: 00:00:43

Oh, my gosh, I do enjoy flaxseed.

I also have listened to your interstitial ad.

I also like pineapple on pizza.

So I don't know if you're still willing to chat with me.

George Duran: 00:00:54

I'll have the pineapple on pizza, but the flaxseed.

What is it with the flaxseed?

I mean, it just gets stuck in your teeth, and it kind of feels like you're just eating some sort of, like, bird seed.

Right?

Karla Walsh: 00:01:03

That's fair.

I usually do the ground kind because the dietitians that I've talked to say that you like, your gut system can't really break through that shell easily.

So ground, mix it into some bran muffins or a smoothie.

George Duran: 00:01:13

The problem is that a lot of these brands just throw in, like, a couple flaxseeds in there, and they just start labeling it as, like, super healthy.

And why not put flaxseed in a Snickers bar and call it a day?

Karla Walsh: 00:01:23

I know, I know.

It's like the protein Doritos.

It's like, what is the definition of healthy?

George Duran: 00:01:28

I don't know.

a new study published in July: 2026

Earlier this year, researchers at Dikler University In Turkey gave 60 adults snack foods, but changed the way those snacks were labeled.

One group was told the snack was low fat, another was told it was high protein, and a third group was given the same snack with no health claims at all.

The catch?

They were all ideal identical.

And guess what happened?

Karla Walsh: 00:01:58

I bet the people with health claims ate more.

George Duran: 00:02:00

Exactly right.

The participants in the low fat group ate an average of about 67 grams.

The ones in the high protein ate 61, and the ones with no label ate 50 grams.

Karla Walsh: 00:02:10

This is so fascinating.

Humans are unique butterflies.

George Duran: 00:02:14

I do that myself.

Who wouldn't do that?

If it says it's low fat and high protein, like, you're just like, I feel good about this.

And you just keep eating more.

And it doesn't necessarily mean that it's better for you or you should be eating that much.

Karla Walsh: 00:02:23

Right, right.

If you're at the frozen yogurt shop and it's like a non fat yogurt compared a regular yogurt and you're filling your cup, I could see it be easier to fill in more.

George Duran: 00:02:33

Researchers call this the health halo effect, where words like low fat, high protein, organic, whole grain can make consumers perceive an entire product as healthier, regardless of what else is in it.

Karla Walsh: 00:02:46

It's so interesting if you.

You got to really look at the nutrition info rather than reading this flashy front of package claims.

I think there's been some conversations about, like, banning, you know, certain claims.

George Duran: 00:02:56

I feel like food manufacturers are trying to make us feel that we're eating healthier foods just to not make us feel guilty about it.

So.

Karla Walsh: 00:03:04

Yeah, and to potentially eat more.

Right.

Like, the more we eat, the more money they make.

So maybe that too.

George Duran: 00:03:10

Exactly right.

Here's a list of the foods that pretend to be healthy.

Veggie straws.

Let's start right there.

Often made mostly from potato starch, potato flour, corn starch.

Similar refined ingredients.

They may contain vegetable powders for color or flavor, but usually not enough vegetables or fiber to make them nutritionally comparable to eating actual vegetables.

I mean, how do these guys get away from calling it veggie straws?

Karla Walsh: 00:03:35

I know.

Do they use like beet juice or something to.

Or carrot juice to dye them different colors?

George Duran: 00:03:40

It doesn't matter.

There's if.

Even if they did, there's barely any beet inside of it.

And they're calling it veggie straws.

And yes, my kids love it.

And they literally think that they're eating vegetables as a serving.

Karla Walsh: 00:03:52

Undeniably delicious, though that's true.

George Duran: 00:03:55

The same thing goes with the gummy fruit snacks made prim primarily from concentrated fruit juice, corn syrup, sugar, and starch.

Despite the word fruit, they often contain little whole fruit or fiber and nutritionally resemble candy more than the fresh fruit.

Welch's fruit snacks list fruit puree as their first ingredient, but the exact percentage of fruit by weight is not publicly disclosed by the company.

The next major ingredient is corn syrup, sugar modified cornstarch.

You can't call a fruit snack fruit.

Karla Walsh: 00:04:26

Yeah, it's kind of more akin to A jelly bean it sounds like, than actual fruit.

George Duran: 00:04:31

And putting pictures of fruit on the packaging as well.

Karla Walsh: 00:04:33

I know that does make your.

I mean, especially for children, like you make that connection.

It tastes like fruit.

There's fruit on the package.

George Duran: 00:04:40

Spinach or tomato wraps is another one.

The color can make them look like vegetable heavy, but many of them are primarily refined flour tortillas.

The amount of spinach or tomato may be quite small.

So they are not necessarily more nutritious than regular wraps.

Karla Walsh: 00:04:52

Yeah, yeah, that's so true.

It's often a color thing.

What is up with this?

George Duran: 00:04:56

We eat with our eyes.

Karla Walsh: 00:04:57

Yes.

It was so true.

George Duran: 00:04:59

Rice cakes, they are low in calories, but plain rice cakes are also relatively low in protein, fiber and micronutrients.

They can raise blood sugars relatively quickly and may not be very filling on their own.

And they're apparently wonderful for home insulation.

That's all I could really see.

Karla Walsh: 00:05:13

Oh wait, people use them for home insulation.

George Duran: 00:05:16

No, I threw that in there.

Karla Walsh: 00:05:17

Oh.

I have seen people use them for pre workout snacks, you know, with a little bit of protein because they do raise your blood sugar.

George Duran: 00:05:24

They still taste like home insulation to me.

Karla Walsh: 00:05:27

I'd rather have a slice of toast, personally.

George Duran: 00:05:29

Let's do trend or trash now.

The trend or trash is protein cookie dough.

Have you seen this?

Karla Walsh: 00:05:34

I have seen this, yes.

George Duran: 00:05:36

Typical versions use protein powder, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, nut butter sweeteners and chocolate chips.

Have you had a protein cookie dough?

Karla Walsh: 00:05:44

I have not had it.

I would try it.

I think there are other ways that I would probably prefer to get protein.

Would you try it?

George Duran: 00:05:50

They look great on TikTok.

Karla Walsh: 00:05:52

I mean, it's like, I know it looks delicious.

George Duran: 00:05:54

I would try it.

I would try anything.

I think it's just people trying to post videos for the likes.

Karla Walsh: 00:05:59

Yeah, I will withhold judgment on that one until I actually get to try it because the, the components are things that I find delicious separately like cottage cheese and nut butter and things.

George Duran: 00:06:07

I'd probably just, just pick out the chocolate chips and eat those instead, which defeats the purpose.

I know, I know.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:06:13

Oh my gosh.

George Duran: 00:06:14

We're not really good at labeling unhealthy foods properly.

In fact, there are a lot of terms that we mentioned this before, like the term all natural.

Natural.

Apparently the FDA has no formal regulatory definition of natural.

And at the end of the day, everything is natural, I guess.

Karla Walsh: 00:06:29

Right, right, exactly.

And like you see all of these brands that say like tout the fact that they're gluten free when the product never included wheat.

George Duran: 00:06:36

Another term is multigrain.

It simply means that there's more than one type of grain.

Those grains can be all refined.

So multigrain does not mean whole grain.

Farm fresh, Another term I hear everywhere.

Farmhouse farm fresh.

Usually imagery rather than nutritional information.

It doesn't necessarily tell you where the ingredients came from.

Plant based is another term that everybody likes to use.

It doesn't mean made primarily from vegetables.

Potato chips are plant based.

Oreos are plant based.

Karla Walsh: 00:07:03

And now I'm gonna look at the grocery aisles in a whole new way.

George.

George Duran: 00:07:06

Well, nothing wrong with that.

Alright, let's take a quick break.

Up next, food flops so bad they should have stopped stayed in the test kitchen.

Then we get sticky with the sweet truth about maple syrup.

We'll be right back.

All right.

Welcome back to Always Hangry.

Karla's with me here.

So you know those wow chips.

This was back in the: 1990

Late: 1990

Karla Walsh: 00:07:49

Yep, I definitely remember.

George Duran: 00:07:51

Frito Lay launched wow versions of lays, Doritos, Ruffles, and Tostitos made with Olestra, a fat substitute designed to deliver the taste of regular chips with less fat.

At first, the product was a massive success, generating roughly $347 million in sales in its first year.

But there was one problem.

Packages required to carry the warning that it could cause abdominal cramping and loose stools.

Did you ever taste it?

Karla Walsh: 00:08:16

Oh, yeah, I totally ate these.

Yep.

I remember the Ruffles kind and like the sour cream and onion.

Yeah, I don't know if I have a gut of steel or if I just ate a reasonable portion, but I never noticed any side effects.

George Duran: 00:08:28

Me neither.

I ate a lot of Pringles with Olestra.

Karla Walsh: 00:08:30

Oh, yeah, they had Pringles too.

George Duran: 00:08:32

So here's a list of foods in the US that have flopped.

Ooh.

Karla Walsh: 00:08:36

Okay, I'm ready.

George Duran: 00:08:37

In: 2002

The company even tested at one point a Froot Loop flavored french fry, although that never made its stores.

Relax.

Karla Walsh: 00:08:56

Oh, God.

George Duran: 00:08:56

Do you remember these fries?

Karla Walsh: 00:08:57

Yeah, I didn't see the colored fries.

No, I totally missed this.

George Duran: 00:09:00

I ran to the store when I heard about them and I bought them because I was just amazed.

Karla Walsh: 00:09:06

You've tried them?

George Duran: 00:09:07

Of course I have tried them.

Are you kidding me?

Bright blue french fries.

I have to try them.

And they tasted just like regular fries.

But for some reason, what in blue makes green?

Because it was green afterwards.

Karla Walsh: 00:09:21

Yellow.

You didn't give Us a warning on that one, George.

George Duran: 00:09:25

Alarming, Alarming colors coming out of my body.

And I'm really glad they stopped those, because my kids would have loved that, too.

Karla Walsh: 00:09:31

Wow.

Okay.

What other food flops have we seen?

George Duran: 00:09:34

Pepsi is known for some food flops.

In: 1989

Its slogan was the taste that beats coffee cold.

But the idea never caught on, and product quickly disappeared.

Karla Walsh: 00:09:50

Yeah, I feel like the soda world is ripe for food flops or drink flops.

I mean, New Coke, Crystal Pepsi.

There's all sorts of these Crystal Pepsi,.

George Duran: 00:09:59

If you don't know.

By the way, in: 1992

That was a huge campaign back then.

It got a lot of attention at first, but then sales quickly faded, and the executive behind it later called it the biggest career failure of his life.

Another soda that flopped dearly was Lifesaver Soda.

In the early: 1980

The drink reportedly did well in taste tests.

But once consumers saw the Lifesavers name on the bottle, many apparently thought of it as liquid candy rather than a refreshing soft drink.

The product lasted only about a year.

Karla Walsh: 00:10:39

I would totally taste it.

Yeah.

Especially if it was, like, the red or the orange.

George Duran: 00:10:44

The orange.

Come on.

Karla Walsh: 00:10:44

Orange ones.

Yeah, I. I think.

I don't.

They have a green one, too.

I like the green one.

George Duran: 00:10:49

No.

Karla Walsh: 00:10:49

Who?

George Duran: 00:10:50

Nobody likes the green Lifesavers.

Come on.

Oh, come on.

The white and the green one are the worst.

Karla Walsh: 00:10:56

I'll take your green Lifesavers.

George Duran: 00:10:58

I'll take your orange ones.

Karla Walsh: 00:10:59

Perfect.

George Duran: 00:10:59

In: 1974

They came in flavors including beef Burgundy, creamed beef, ham casserole, Mediterranean vegetables, sweet and sour pork, and blueberry delight, all packaged in jars that looked remarkably similar to Gerber baby food.

The idea was convenience for single adults and college students.

Gerber Singles quickly died months later.

Karla Walsh: 00:11:32

I, as a single individual, I am extremely offended you would eat that.

No, I would never eat that.

Oh, my gosh.

That is just, like, so rude to assume that we don't deserve real food.

I mean.

George Duran: 00:11:46

I mean, don't we kind of do that already with those pouches?

Like, the runners have those pouches and we do that kind of.

Karla Walsh: 00:11:52

It's kind of reminiscent of that Willy Wonka where the gumdrop tastes like an.

George Duran: 00:11:56

Entire meal, and then you turn into a ham casserole.

Karla Walsh: 00:12:02

She's turning into a blueberry, George.

George Duran: 00:12:04

I know, but Gerber's selling the ham casserole flavored.

I used to love eating the Gerber banana.

Karla Walsh: 00:12:11

Oh, when you were had little kids.

George Duran: 00:12:13

No, no.

As a teenager.

That we would buy those and eat those, because it just was so, like, banana y.

If that's even an adjective.

It was so good.

Just do me a favor.

Go to the supermarket and buy yourself a Gerber banana compote, or whatever they're called baby food, and taste it.

It's so good.

There's, like, this little acidity to it.

It's really smooth and processed and a lot of really nice banana flavor to it.

Karla Walsh: 00:12:38

Okay, I will give this a try.

I mean, I've had the frozen banana, like, ice cream deal, so no.

Is it.

It's more direct banana flavor than that.

George Duran: 00:12:47

Think of it as the vanilla custard, but it's a banana custard.

Karla Walsh: 00:12:52

Okay, George.

I say the next time that we record together in person, I'm bringing us banana Gerber food, and we have to try it live on air.

George Duran: 00:12:58

In: 1964

Karla Walsh: 00:13:11

Okay, this sounds gross, but I feel like aspics are having, like, a bit of a comeback.

Like the savory jello thing.

It's coming back.

George Duran: 00:13:18

It is.

The ads encourage people to mix it in ingredients like carrots, olives, and celery inside of it, then top the whole gelatinous creation with mayo.

Are we having a mayo thing with aspic, too?

Karla Walsh: 00:13:29

Oh, my God.

This is so Midwest.

Yes.

This is taking me back to, like, potlucks.

I would not put it past anyone.

George Duran: 00:13:36

What is that jello thing that's inside the buffets that I see all the time in the Midwest?

Karla Walsh: 00:13:40

Oh, have you had strawberry pretzel salad?

We often call it salad here when it's made with Jell O.

George Duran: 00:13:45

What the hell is.

What.

Wait.

Strawberries and pretzels.

And then you call it a salad.

Karla Walsh: 00:13:51

Correct.

So the base, it's like a.

It's a casserole.

It's like a dessert casserole.

And it's like a pretzel crust base, and then, like, strawberry.

You know, like the frozen, saucy strawberries that are very sweet.

You mix that with, like, a strawberry jello and let that solidify, and then it's usually a layer of cool whip and Then you slice it into squares and it is like a delicacy here.

Don't knock it till you try it.

George.

George Duran: 00:14:13

That's disgusting.

Karla Walsh: 00:14:14

Have you had cookie salad?

George Duran: 00:14:16

Oh my God.

Go on.

Karla Walsh: 00:14:19

So you take a container of Cool Whip and for cookie salad you mix it with the fudge stripe cookies and often like Granny Smith apple chunks.

And then snicker salad is the same thing, but chopped up.

Snickers.

George Duran: 00:14:30

The jello I don't understand and I never understood why is there gelatin here in the salad bar?

Karla Walsh: 00:14:34

Yeah, it's often like Jello with pineapples mixed in or something like that.

George Duran: 00:14:39

We're still living in: 1964

Karla Walsh: 00:14:41

That means you gotta come hang out in the Midwest a little bit more, George.

George Duran: 00:14:44

I think Jell O is getting to be very like kind of a higher scale, you know, refined food item right now, right?

Karla Walsh: 00:14:52

Yeah.

It's had many different eras, you know, like Jello shot era.

And now it's like having this renaissance.

It's kind of like reminding me of ramen a little bit.

Is that like people once thought of it as this thing and now it's being transformed into new and different formats, giving them a glow up in terms of their reputation.

George Duran: 00:15:09

And who doesn't love jello?

Karla Walsh: 00:15:10

I mean, it is a very pleasing kind of thing to watch and like.

George Duran: 00:15:14

Texture as long as you don't put pretzels on it.

Carla, thank you so much for being on the show.

I hope I have increased your appetite tenfold.

Karla Walsh: 00:15:22

Oh my goodness.

I have learned so much today.

I'm already looking forward to trying the banana baby food.

So I hope you're ready.

George Duran: 00:15:28

I'm ready.

As long as you don't give me any of that salad, I'll leave that at home.

Good.

When we come back, things are about to get sticky.

Cause we're tapping into maple syrup with the folks at Run Amok Maple.

Stay tuned.

Welcome back to Always Hangry.

Today we're talking about something most of us happily pour all over our pancakes without without ever stopping to ask where it actually comes from.

Laura Sorkin is the co founder of Run Amok Maple in Fairfax, Vermont, and has taken maple syrup to whole new level.

Laura, welcome to the show.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:16:26

Hey, George, nice to be here.

George Duran: 00:16:28

For someone who doesn't know this in a very concise short way, can you tell me how maple syrup goes from being in the tree all the way onto my pancakes?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:16:36

The very simple explanation is we collect the SAP and boil it down to maple syrup.

But there's a whole lot more that happens in between that point A and point B.

George Duran: 00:16:44

And tell us more about the SAP.

The SAP is like a.

A clear, watery liquid, right?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:16:48

Yeah.

So when it comes out of the tree, it's roughly.

It's between 1 and 3% sugar.

So it's going to look a lot like water.

So we'll bring it down to the sugar house, put it through a reverse osmosis machine, which takes out a lot of the water, but that only brings it up to about 16% sugar.

And from there, we'll boil it down to maple syrup.

George Duran: 00:17:07

I love that there's something called a sugar house.

That sounds like Willy Wonka ish a little bit.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:17:11

You know, in Vermont, sugar is an adjective.

It's a verb.

It's a noun.

We have a sugar house.

We're sugar makers.

Sugar is synonymous with maple up here.

George Duran: 00:17:21

I know that the real way to make maple syrup, or what we used to do, is literally boil it.

I mean, we burn a fire and boil it.

But what is reverse osmosis?

Exactly.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:17:31

So reverse osmosis is when you're removing water from a liquid substance.

A lot of municipalities will use it for their water systems.

We use it pretty much in the opposite way.

We want to take the water out and have what's left behind, which is that sugar and the minerals and all that great flavor.

George Duran: 00:17:48

So once that goes through that reverse osmosis process, that's not maple syrup right away.

It's more of like a thicker syrup.

And then you boil it to caramelize it.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:17:55

Exactly.

So what you're left with is concentrate, and then you boil the concentrate down to maple syrup.

George Duran: 00:18:00

Can you tell us why maple trees give out this kind of SAP, or I should say this water?

Why in the wintertime, what's going on with the tree?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:18:09

It has to do with physics, essentially.

And there's a lot of trees that will give SAP.

It just so happens that maple trees will give SAP that has this.

This delicious flavor to it and the 2% sugars.

But you can actually tap a birch.

You can tap walnut.

You can tap a lot of different trees.

George Duran: 00:18:26

Are there people doing, like, birch syrups and walnut syrups?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:18:30

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

I don't know too much about walnut syrup, but I know in Alaska, there's a lot of people that will do birch syrup for us.

Here in Vermont, it takes about 40 gallons of maple SAP to make maple syrup.

Birch syrup.

I believe it's a hundred gallons of birch SAP to create birch syrup.

So it's.

It's very prized.

You know, obviously, it takes a lot more Work to boil down that much, and you just don't see it quite as much.

George Duran: 00:18:57

Tell us more.

The process on how you bring that syrup from the tree all the way down to your sugarhouse.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:19:03

When the weather starts to get cold, we start tapping.

We have a lot of taps here.

So it takes about 16 people, roughly six weeks to eight weeks, depending upon the weather, to tap that many trees.

It's all done by foot.

I mean, that's why maple syrup is so special.

It is.

It is a wild, crafted food.

It is hard.

It is among the most fit people you will ever run across.

Our tubing system runs throughout the entire sugar bush, and it all draws down to the sugar house.

George Duran: 00:19:30

How long does an average maple tree give you this SAP?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:19:34

Oh, it can for the life of the tree.

We get that question a lot.

Like, does it hurt the tree?

It doesn't.

There are some sugar bushes that have been in operation for over 200 years.

You put a hole in the tree, and then at this end of the season, you take the tap out.

And so the tree is going to heal itself.

It wants to heal over that hole.

So the next year, you actually have to look for a different spot on the tree.

But you'd be surprised.

I mean, trees are always growing.

They're growing in girth, they're growing in height, and you can always find another spot to put in another hole on the tree.

George Duran: 00:20:03

Got it.

Okay.

I'm seeing a lot of grade A, grade B maple syrup.

What does that actually mean?

Because I want A, not B.

But B is sometimes good, too.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:20:12

Well, so the grading system has changed.

It used to be fancy grade A and grade B, and they decided that that was a little too confusing for consumers, but now they are all grade A.

And so it is grade A light, grade A medium, and grade A dark.

George Duran: 00:20:27

Yeah.

And of course, darker maple syrup means that it's just been cooked longer.

I mean, you're kind of just reducing it so it's even darker.

Caramelized.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:20:34

No, no, no.

George Duran: 00:20:35

Oh, what am I getting wrong here?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:20:37

It's okay.

It's a common misconception.

Darker syrup is often produced at the latter end of the season.

It's darker because it has just a little bit more in it.

It's got, quite honestly, like, the tree has got a little bit more bacteria going on in it and a little bit more minerals coming out.

So it's just.

It's got more going on, and so you get that stronger maple flavor.

George Duran: 00:21:01

A lot of us grew up with pancake syrup, which clearly is not maple syrup.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:21:06

Dare to even mention.

Yeah, I can't even say the name.

George Duran: 00:21:10

I have met people who actually prefer it, and that's got to be something nostalgic, that they prefer the high fructose corn syrup over real maple syrup.

How do you tell people who.

When you walk into a diner, you see them eating the drink, using the pancake syrup or serving the pancake syrup?

What is your reaction when you watch somebody serving pancake syrup?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:21:29

People who are accustomed to the fake stuff find real maple syrup not essentially thick.

And so they're.

They're always confused, and they're like, you know, I don't.

I don't like this.

It's not a thick syrup.

But that's just because there's a lot of corn syrup in the fake stuff.

George Duran: 00:21:47

Yeah.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:21:47

Real maple syrup, therefore, will be not as thick as the.

The fake stuff.

But if you're used to the fake stuff, no judgment.

George Duran: 00:21:58

Okay, that's fine.

I won't tell my kids.

I'm kidding.

They like maple syrup.

My wife is from Vermont.

That's all they have is maple syrup.

They don't dare touch the pancake syrup.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:22:06

Fun story.

The International Pancake House up here, generally speaking, they use the fake stuff nationwide, but they knew that in Vermont, nobody would come to the restaurant unless they put out the real stuff.

So the one up here had a special dispensation to use real Vermont maple syrup with their pancakes, because otherwise they just wouldn't even bother opening the doors.

George Duran: 00:22:27

Fun.

The organic label on maple syrup, I mean, are there organic trees?

Like, what is this label for?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:22:34

What people don't realize is that for organic certification, at least 50% is how you treat the land.

It's not just your inputs, but it's making sure that you are mitigating for soil erosion, and you're making sure that nothing is running off into waterways and you're encouraging biodiversity.

So with maple syrup, there hardly are any inputs.

It's just SAP that's boiled down to syrup.

We're not putting anything additional into that.

So what that boils down to is how you treat the land.

But if you're talking about a sugar bush, you're talking about thousands and thousands of acres.

So this makes a really big difference.

It's letting it.

The forest be a natural forest, and that's what organic certification means for maple syrup.

George Duran: 00:23:17

How do you store maple syrup?

Because some people say refrigerated or you don't have to.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:23:22

It needs to be refrigerated.

If you haven't opened that bottle yet, it can sit on your Shelf for years and be absolutely fine.

But once you open it.

Yes, definitely put it in the refrigerator.

George Duran: 00:23:30

Yeah.

You have these flavors that are extraordinary.

And when I say flavors, I don't mean, you know, the artificial flavors that you just pump in there.

You are really using true flavors.

You have things like barrel aged, smoked, but then black cherry, pineapple, upside down, ginger, some spices in there.

How do you incorporate these flavors in maple syrup without using any artificial products?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:23:53

So when we first started out, we realized there was a lot of maple syrup around and we wanted to differentiate ourselves a little bit.

And we definitely were not the first to do barrel aged or infused maple syrup.

And we found that maple syrup is actually very complementary to a lot of different flavors.

And we started having a lot of fun.

I will say that there are a few things that did not work.

Don't ever put wasabi in maple syrup.

It is disgusting.

It is so bad.

George Duran: 00:24:19

When I was there, you guys were making the banana one, but you use like real bananas.

There's no, like, you know, scents or anything you're using, right?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:24:26

Oh, yeah, yeah.

There's no need.

I mean, nature's already provided the perfect flavors.

Like, you don't, you don't need to go the chemical route with things.

George Duran: 00:24:34

Yeah.

What are some creative ways to use maple syrup besides your pancakes and waffles?

What do you guys recommend?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:24:40

So maple syrup is kind of like adding a little bit of a sweetener in the same way that you would add like soy sauce versus salt or Worcestershire sauce versus salt.

It's not just salty.

It's got some complexity to it, some background, and it gives the whole thing just a lot more oomph.

Same thing with maple syrup.

If you're going to add the tiniest bit of sugar to something, try it with maple syrup.

And again, you're not aiming to make things sweet.

You're just, you're aiming to sort of round out all those flavors.

And so I use it all the time, especially with something like Asian cooking.

George Duran: 00:25:15

Can you tell me how you put sparkles in maple syrup?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:25:18

Sure.

So I give full credit to my husband Eric for that one.

He saw glitter beer years ago and he's like, huh, I wonder what it would look like to put some sparkles in maple syrup and how that would turn out.

So he bought some of this food grade edible sparkles and we put it in and it just suspended beautifully and it just makes it look like gold.

George Duran: 00:25:42

It looks like a snow globe.

I mean, the kids love it.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:25:44

It's so fun.

And it's, you know, of course, it's great for kids on pancakes, but it's also great in cocktails.

That was something that I wanted to mention with cooking, too, is that putting maple syrup in a cocktail is also great, but putting sparkle syrup in a cocktail, you get that pearlescent effect.

George Duran: 00:26:03

Absolutely.

Anything special in store in terms of flavors from Runamuk this year or later on this year?

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:26:08

Well, so every year we have a flavor contest, and this is one that we put out to our customers, and we say, you come up with the next flavor and we will make it.

And this year's winner was Cherry maple.

George Duran: 00:26:21

Wow.

Fantastic.

You have the best job on earth.

There's no doubt to it.

Like, who doesn't love maple syrup?

Real maple syrup.

Laura Sorkin, founder of Runamuk Maple, thank you so much for being on the show.

Really appreciate it.

You can find Runamuk maple syrup in stores nationwide and [email protected] thanks, Laura.

Sorkin, co-founder of Runamok: 00:26:40

Thank you.

George Duran: 00:26:41

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.