Foodiness diet products are just that- foodiness! This week on Let's Get Real, Erica Wides is taking on supposed 'diet foods', and telling you why it's best to just eat real food. Find out why butter is on trial in New York City schools despite its health benefits. Hear about low-calorie yogurt and fat-reduced cheese, and why these won't help your waistline, but actually hurt it. Why do Americans trust corporations as opposed to historical health evidence? Erica challenges the idea of 'diet water'; why does water need to be 'diet' even though it already doesn't contain calories or fat? Hear about Americans' sweetness addictions, and how we can all escape the 'foodiness rabbit hole' with the aid of a simple carrot. This episode has been sponsored by Cain Vineyard & Winery. Thanks to Obey City for today's musical selection.

"Foodiness makes people fat, then provides them with a falsely-advertised product to fix the problem." [14:10]

"This isn't the Third World; we have free clean drinking water, and two-thirds of the world doesn't have that." [22:45]

-- Erica Wides on Let's Get Real

This week on A Taste of the Past, Linda Pelaccio talks with Sheilah Kaufman, author of The Turkish Cookbook: Regional Recipes and Stories.The Ottoman Turks controlled areas from Egypt to Austria, and all of the foods of these regions are incorporated into the Turkish palette. Tune in to hear how history and conquest has shaped Turkish cuisine; here's fish from the Aegean, pistachios from Anatolia, and bananas from the Mediterranean. Listen to Linda and Sheilah discuss the home cooking traditions in Turkey, and why Turkish food is so easy to make. What do yogurt, coffee, and tulips have in common? They all originate in Turkey! This program is sponsored by White Oak Pastures.

"The Turks were culinary plunderers. Where ever they conquered, they went looking for the best ingredients and the best recipes."

"In Turkish cooking, there are no unusual ingredients. You can go into any supermarket in this country and find what you need to make very easy Turkish dishes." -- Sheilah Kaufman on A Taste of the Past

The end is near on this episode of Let's Get Real. Erica Wides is talking about the apocalypse, and how our entire food system is reliant on the grid. When a blight destroys all of our crops because of a lack of genetic diversity, how are we going to eat fruit snacks or yogurt in a tube? Solar flares, crop failure, and irradiated food are all very possible, if not probable, causes for the end of society as we know it. What to do next? Erica gives some helpful tips on how to survive an apocalypse (hint: eat your next door neighbor). This program has been brought to you by Whole Foods.

"The point is that even my culinary students who sign up and pay a lot of money to got to school to have me teach them how to be chefs are utterly clueless as to where their food comes from. It's like going to medical school and being shocked that medicine actually has something to do with human bodies." -- Erica Wides on Let's Get Real