Buttering Up Julie Van Rosendaal
01:02:50 Share

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Right now, we are having a snowstorm in Calgary. By the time you hear this podcast, the Jan Arden podcast with Adam Karsh, my very, very wonderful engineer, producer, sidekick, Julie Van Rosendahl is joining us from her Calgary home. Adam has already said it's going to be 29 in Toronto today and they're looking for a

snow. Basically, it's looking very Christmassy. All my plants are covered with throw blankets, basically. It's quite depressing. But Julie was saying just before we went on air that this is quite typical of Alberta, southern Alberta for the long May weekend is freaking a snowstorm. May long. It's a tradition, right? People go camping, they get hopeful, they get snowed out or rained out or slushed out.

It's pretty out there, you know, and it'll turn to rain and the plants need moisture and all that. But it's, it's typical for me. You were reading my mind. Cause my mom would go, well, the farmers are going to be really grateful that it's. And one thing I will say about the snow and I've learned this about the farmers is that snow, unlike rain is a kind of a slow release. It's really kind of the best possible scenario for,

for this time of year to really give the ground a soak

Because it doesn't evaporate, it doesn't blow away, it doesn't dry up, it sits on top of the ground. So for all of you people listening, welcome to Agriculture Today with Jan, Julie, and Adam. That's a good silver lining. As long as it doesn't drop to minus 20 and freeze everything again. Or as long as it doesn't snow. I mean, we have had a lot of dumps of snow early in the fall that have destroyed trees and plants, right? Oh, yeah.

I know all the little green leaves are trying to come off. I worry about that too, when you get those kind of really strange snowfalls in June, when we have some pretty mature leaves out on the trees and they snap branches off. That really is disheartening. Yeah. Anyway, welcome to the podcast. I feel like I haven't talked to you

Adam in a long time but I just spoke to you last week Julie you've been you've been doing stuff the last month we we haven't talked to you so it's great to revisit you and and I we'd be remiss Adam and I to not ask you right out of the gate of where we're at with the butter oh we've talked about butter gate uh we promised people updates we never got to it because time restrictions and

Explain, just kind of give us a brief update on what Buttergate was for our listeners and where it's at now. People are like, not Butter again.

Yeah, this sort of took up the first quarter of my year was this look into the texture of butter. People had started saying early last year, what's going on with butter? Why can't I spread it anymore? And people were asking me on Twitter and, you know, people were talking about it and noticing that it was firmer at room temperature, right? You know, when I was a kid, I remember walking past the butter dish and taking a finger swipe of the butter and just licking my finger because it was so soft. And

And so it was something I'd kind of started paying attention to. I stopped writing recipes with ingredients that said butter at room temperature because at room temperature wasn't necessarily soft enough to beat into your cookie dough or whatever. So I kind of dug into it in February. There was like a polar vortex. And so I hunkered down as we were all doing anyway. It was my COVID project. And

And I went and bought a whole bunch of butters and I had them all laid out on my countertop. I was poking them. Everyone was poking their butters and sending me pictures of their butter poking. Anyway, so I did some research into, you know, bovine nutrition and the digestive system of ruminant animals.

And, you know, and someone on Instagram, because I posted everywhere, I posted my theories and what I was looking into. As you do. As you do, right? And so someone messaged me who I don't even know. I don't know who it was. And they said, you know, I worked in logistics for the livestock feed industry, which is massive, by the way, not surprisingly. I can't fathom. Right. And so, yeah.

They said there'd been a lot of supply chain disruptions, especially with food ingredients that are coming from overseas like molasses and palm fats. And I was like, wait a second, palm fat. So palm oil and palm kernel oil are, you know, well known in the food processing sector for sure. Very high in saturated fat and,

Saturated fat is firm at room temperature and unsaturated fat is not. So that was my theory, right? Right. Fat is harder because there has to be a change in the fatty acid levels. In the cow of what's coming out of the cow. And so how does, how...

Why would the fatty acid levels change? So if you look, you know, fats in your kitchen, you look at lard, it's firmer than canola oil. Canola oil is liquid because it's mostly liquid at room temperature. But then the more saturated a fat gets, the more solid it is at room temperature. So

Coconut oil and palm fats. Like a coconut, like a coconut. Yeah. I was just going to say your jar of coconut oil that sits in the cupboard or on your counter and you have to scoop it out with a big spoon and chuck it in your pan. Exactly. Because it's mostly saturated. Right.

So my theory was that the ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats had changed in butter, which is likely due to the diet. And then ding, ding, ding, palm fats. So that started this trajectory of I spent a couple of weeks researching, talking to people, put out a story. So how is that getting into the cows? This is what your mind is doing. Like, why?

What's happening? And why aren't we reading that on a label on our butters? And it got more complicated. It is an incredibly complicated industry. It's a $20 billion industry. A lot of people in the industry weren't aware of the effects of these palmitic acid supplements that farmers, some farmers, not all farmers, give to cows as an energy supplement, but also because it boosts the output and the fat production.

the proportion of fat, the milk fat or butter fat in the resulting milk.

And, you know, we've been baking a lot. There's a huge demand for butter. 20 years ago, people were eating more margarine. And so now we're eating more butter. So it's all super, super interesting. And, you know, so to update, you know, there was a lot of, you know, a lot of claims that there was no evidence. There actually is a lot of research. I spent a lot of time researching and I have a huge file of,

That dairy cows are being fed a palm, whatever supplement. Tell me what it is. Palmitic acid. And they're being fed that. The cows are being fed that. And because they're being fed that, it doesn't have to be listed on the butter itself because it's in the cow, not conceivably in the butter.

It's in the feed. Exactly. It's the cow's food, not going into the butter, but it's changing the fatty acid profile of the result. But that's how they get around it. That's how they get around listing it, right? Well, yeah. They don't list the forage and the grains and the things that the cows eat.

They, it, but it changes the way the, this fatty acid profile of the milk. And we understand that when we say, you know, people say, oh, well, I only get grass fed. They, they sort of understand that the feed affects the food, but when it went the other direction, it,

People were like, well, there's no evidence, you know, and palmitic acid exists naturally, which it does. It's the primary saturated fat in dairy products, meat. So it exists, but does that matter? Does it matter that there is more of it in the result in the resulting better? So what people weren't understanding was that these palmitic acid supplements were transferring to the milk, right? So about 40% ish.

of the palmitic acid is transferring to the milk itself and it's showing up in butter that's firmer at room temperature.

It's all super interesting. I've talked to so many teachers and researchers and people are teaching it in their classrooms. And, and just, you know, it's great that people have a better understanding. Does this, does this, does this happen all over the world? Are, are dairy cows all over this planet being fed the palmitic acid in their diet? Yes, yes, they are. So in different forms. So in New Zealand, New Zealand is the,

primary exporter of dairy products. In Canada, most of our dairy products are produced here. We don't import very much. New Zealand is the largest worldwide exporter of dairy products. Their primary dairy cow feed that comes into, that they bring in, is

called PKE, so palm kernel expeller. And it's the crushed kernel that's left over after you extract the palm kernel oil from the palm kernel. The kernel is in the middle of the palm fruit. We're seeing palm fruit, we got to talk about this too, on labels now because it sounds sort of healthier. But anyway, the palm kernel expeller is...

is cow feed, you know, and those sort of crushed holes of grains and oilseeds are common in livestock feed around the world. But I've been talking to researchers, you know, in Ireland and, you know, all over the EU is a big importer of PKE. So people are looking into it in other places as well in the US. But

I did a follow-up story a few weeks ago that kind of got a little bit buried because of the news cycle that week. And it was shorter than it could have been because print is, you know, we don't have, I couldn't just write 4,000 words for print. But I did a follow-up in the Globe and Mail about sort of why it matters, right?

you know, if our butter and so our Canadian butter is sort of known as our Canadian hard butter and it's higher in palmitic acid out West. Oh, by the way. So in all of this, sorry, Adam, are we running out of time? No, you have a minute. Go ahead. Okay. Okay. One minute. So, so researchers at the university of Guelph, all everyone was saying, there's no evidence. We don't have proof, you know, and there was, there was a lot of research that showed that,

palmitic acid transfer from the supplements to the milk, but is it making her better Harvard harder? So these researchers, Alejandro and his team in Guelph went and bought a whole bunch of butters, tested them. I sent him a whole bunch of butters from Alberta. He got a whole bunch of butters from out east and,

And he, they actually proved a correlation between the palmitic acid content and the firmness of the butter. And he could now say that he could, he could tell the palmitic acid content of the butter by poking it. So it went like full circle. The researchers in Guelph are poking the butter. That was in fact the best,

This finger, I'm waving my finger in the air, but she can't see, but is the best test of butter firmness, which equals palmitic acid levels. And we will leave it at that. That's our segment. You're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. I'm with Julie Van Rosendahl. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Jan Arden show podcast variety hour podcast.

Julie Van Rosendahl, Adam Karsh is here. Adam is bragging about a 29 degree day, a very lovely weekend that they're going to have. We will not be having that. Here's something interesting, Adam. This pertains more to you than Julie and I at this point. Okay. The brightest white paint ever developed by scientists. Well, of course scientists develop paint because it wouldn't be the paint people. It wouldn't be the Bayer scientists.

Home Depot people. This is scientists. And the reason that I'm even bringing this up is because they're saying that painting your roof with this super duper white paint could cool your home better than an air conditioner. Really? Huh. Which, you know, if you're thinking about living in

a place in the world that doesn't have access to AC. I mean, when you think of, you know, South America or India or Malaysia, the, you know, South Asia, I mean, there's, they deal with a lot of heat a lot of the year. So, and electricity ain't cheap. So, you know, maybe the bucket of paint anyway, what it does is,

And who the people are who measure this is beyond me, but this is our science people. At night, it changes the temperature like over 10 degrees Celsius, lowers it. Wow. And during the day, it keeps things four and a half degrees lower, which I guess is really huge when it comes to like the heating and cooling of a human body.

Anyway, it broke the world record of how it tests because it, this new paint reflects 98% of the sunlight. So it bounces it back instead of letting it absorb into your home. I just, I, I love the fact that there's people in the world that are doing this. Like they're sitting down, they're having their Tim Hortons and they're going, do you notice how I'm dropping all these names within this? They're eating their, their Tim Hortons. And, um,

They're discussing, hey, let's see if we can make a whiter paint than what's already happening. So it's whiter than eggshell. Would eggshell work? I don't know if eggshell is very white.

Can't they just make shingles out of this white? I mean, they're painted or just the material, the molecular structure of, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but the can't they create the shingles to reflect with this white? I don't know, but they also have the blackest black. It's called Vanta black. I think I've seen that. And, and it absorbs 99.9% of visible light. There's something about that that kind of takes my breath away.

So, you know, maybe for you people that are insomniacs, you may want to get a hold of a gallon of Vanta Black and paint your bedroom. My mascara is blackest black. Does that mean it's absorbing all the light around me?

Probably. People might not be able to see your head because of it. I don't know. You might be having adverse effects. Well, and the thing about paint is that, you know, it's inexpensive and people can sort of slap it on whatever their roof material already is, right? I don't know. I'm liking it. I would definitely do it. If I lived someplace where I'm just like dying at night, and at night especially, to lower...

The temperature of where you're at by 10 degrees Celsius is... I don't understand it because I am not a very bright person. Keeping in line with that sort of mode of what people are talking about, I just read an article by 2050, they, the science people once again, are saying that human beings and robots, machines, will be integrated. So that human beings...

29 years from now are going to be integrated with mechanical parts. Yeah. So Star Trek was right. Cool. They've always been right. Star Trek has always been right. So what does that mean to you guys? Do you think we will literally have our phones or that our cellular devices like implanted in our bodies? Like, will we even be carrying a phone? Thoughts?

I wouldn't be surprised. Right? It's coming. And we might be alive, Julie. We might be. Well, you'll be alive. I'm 59. So I'll be like, I'll be 89. And perhaps my phone will be in my left breast and I'll just tap a nipple. I don't know. How is this? And you'll be...

But you'll be part robot, right? So maybe, maybe that will affect our longevity. Well, they're saying man and machine will be integrated. And they think as early as 2050. Now the way things are going right now, I'm with you, Julie. It doesn't surprise me to think about what that would look like. People are already doing unbelievable body modifications, right?

Oh, for sure. And they are putting, they're putting horns in their head. They're having titanium horns put on their skulls because that's what they want to look like. They are having, there was a guy that wanted to look like a lizard. It started with tattooing and then he started getting body modification. So he's got like these bumps, almost like a,

It looks like a dinosaur tail going down each arm. You kind of see, and it's, it's metal things that he's put under his skin. His cheekbones have been raised by like an inch on each side by these metal pieces. So what's to say that those metal pieces don't have software and can control the

I mean, who knows? Do you remember the Google Glass when they had those glasses for a short period of time that people could wear and that was their screen? Yes. Well, and they're saying that humans are evolving to have like hooked pinky fingers the way they hold their phones. So I've been looking at my my pinkies and my right pinky is definitely more crooked than my left pinky.

Like I feel like my right pinky is already used to cradling the bottom of my iPhone. Oh, that's awful. That's awful to think about. So your body is morphing. It's modifying itself according to my electronics.

And my eyes, I've always had glasses since junior high, but my eyes have gotten worse. Only one eye. And I think it's because I lie in bed and look at my phone. But how do so how do we upgrade? Right. I mean, we are conditioned to upgrade our electronics every what, two years, is it? They fail. Well, software that you could plug something in. I mean, you know, pacemakers are replaced every decade, right?

My mom had a pacemaker for, you know, years. And I remember they just put her in a twilight sleep. So she wasn't completely under anesthetic because it's hard on your body. So she's chilled out because they literally just had to make an incision where the pacemaker pack was.

take it out. I believe another lead wire was threaded in. I believe that they changed those out as well to make sure they're conducting properly, but they're very fine fiber optic wires. Like they're very. Yeah. And invasive. Yeah. So yeah, you go in for your upgrade. You, you go in and maybe you get a twilight sleep. You get a little bit of a sedation and they literally plug into whatever's underneath your skin and,

But I would imagine that's where it would start would be with phone and how you charge your battery. That's beyond me. Like how... Oh, yeah. Totally. Maybe your solar. Maybe... You have to go sit out in the sun. Maybe they're a drive-thru. Well, it's interesting to think about, you know, jump-starting your own car just with your body. Yeah. Or somebody else's body. Well, I'm going to do...

Uh, yeah, that could be a whole new thing, but there's lots of things happening. There's a lot of things happening with, with technology and there's a lot of things happening with how people are living their lives. I mean, it's, you'd be hard pressed to find a photograph of people anywhere in the world, just taken randomly of people in a square, people sitting around a fountain, sitting at a dinner, sitting, uh,

through a jungle that don't have their cellular device in their hand or that there's groups of people that all have their phones in their hand. I mean, most people are listening to our show right now, probably on their cell phone. A lot of people say that they take us for walks, you know, they're on their hikes and

Anyway, we have lots to talk about today. I've got, uh, Caitlin green, our illustrious companion, who's going to be back with us. Hopefully in no time has sent me some, some topics. So we're going to share those with you. When we come back, this is the Jan Arden show. Oh,

Thanks for joining us today. Yeah, you're listening to the Jan Arden Show. I'm with Julie Van Rosendahl. I'm with Adam Karsh. Adam is in Toronto. Julie is downtown Calgary in a house. Julie, how old is your house? It is 1906, so 14 years old. 115, oh my gosh. 115 years old. You've got the greatest house. I love your house. It has a lot of character. Well, it's a beautiful home. And I feel like...

They're actually trying to make houses now that look like your house. Like a lot of young people, couples moving into their new homes. It's kind of fashioned after that, you know, the staircase over to the one side and they come in, they're looking, your house looks very European to me, but you've got that great long yard with a shed and a garage at the end, a place for a garden. And whenever I, the few times that I've been to your house,

It's so, you remind me of being at Nigel's house in Europe. It's very European. Big trees, lots of big old trees. And you live across the street from one of Calgary's first, I guess it was a brothel at one point. And it was actually a hotel for the railway workers. Yep.

Yeah, right across the street. And is it a private home now, that place? It is. Yeah, it's a private home. It's not much bigger than mine, which is not huge. So, and my sister used to live across the street in an almost asshole house. And it was, they were CP Rail housing, you know, back in the day, made from Eaton's catalogs kits. Yeah.

Right. And I just had someone from a group from the city at a heritage society that they want to designate this house as a heritage home. So the hotel or your home, my home. Yeah. Oh, that is so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So we did sort of a site. They did a site visit yesterday and we walked around the outside and looked at the different the there's a lot of interesting writing in the cement and sort of imprints in the cement old

colored stones. There's one cement block in the backyard. That's an unusual shape concrete block. I should say cement is liquid concrete is solid. It says 1932. It's got some children's handprints in it. So I'm super curious what's underneath it, but, but yeah, it's, you know, there's not one closet on the front. I think I said this last time, you know, the main level, but it's, I love it. It's got some,

so much warmth and so much character. And you can't tell me that there's not 115 years of memories soaked into that wood. I mean, it has not been stripped of original walls or anything like that. Walking in there, you get such a sense of home. I don't know what else, what other word, it really sums it up. You know, you walk

Even going in the front door, when you think about human lives lived, and I love that part of history. I love considering history.

you know, what fights happened in that living room and the storming up the stairs and how much we've changed, but how little we've changed. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The hardwood floors in the living room are the same ones. And I just thinking about what, you know, these floors could talk the stories they would tell. And I just, you feel it, right. You just sort of feel the history. I love old things in general, the garage apparently housed, uh,

some people or a family during the great depression. And, uh, you know, the, the few renos that, uh, that I've done here that we've pulled old Valentine's out of the walls and old newspapers and, and,

and it's all lath and plaster walls underneath. The builders who are doing the hanging the new kitchen cabinets were like, so apparently there's not one strut or no, what's the word? - Studs. - Studs, thank you. It wasn't quite right. There wasn't one stud. So they sort of hung the cabinets from the top stud. Like it's just very, and everything's wonky, right?

everything is so crooked that I, you know, I was having a Christmas party years ago and someone brought a jello mold and it was on the kitchen counter and it, I went in the kitchen and it was slid, it slid off the plate onto the countertop. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. I shimmied it back on, went back 20 minutes later. It's like off the plate again. The house is just so crooked, right? Well, it's either that or there's a poltergeist.

A very friendly poltergeist. I don't know. I just, there is just something completely captivating for me about old buildings. Like as a kid in Calgary folks, we have a place called heritage park and a lot of Calgarians, they might roll their eyeballs a little bit, but I think there has been a real res resurgence with the interest in heritage park. Um,

Certainly with lockdown, we all want to go do stuff that was available to us for 50 years, but now suddenly we really have to go because we can't go.

But it is, it's been buildings that have been reclaimed from all over the province. And it's a little Western town. But going there as a kid, you guys, I was in heaven. They had a functioning bakery. You could smell the bread when you got onto the grounds. They had a functioning sort of a candy shop, a

It just was, you know, with licorice root and, and old timey candies. And there was a guy in the, in the blacksmith shop making horseshoes or whatever. If you ever get a chance to go do it, they have an old paddle wheeler. They have, it is something that just makes you feel kind of hopeful and these lazy people

wonderful, simple days. And I know they weren't so simple. Like I was talking about, there was lots of stuff that went on in your house. And like you said, a depression family living in the back garage for a while. But there's just, it just seems simple. Let's put it that way, but it is lovely. And it's so beautifully done. And you can go and have an old fashioned Sunday and a root beer and some kind of a float. Yeah. There were hardships. We don't talk about the dentist office at the, uh,

across from the Wainwright Hotel. I can't even imagine getting dental work back then, but then the butter tarts at the bakery are fantastic. Dental work,

A hundred years ago. No, thank you. Thank you. No, no nostalgic memories about that. I think they just, I think you just had to grin and bear it. I literally think if you had to get a tooth pulled, they probably did it as quickly as they could, but there wouldn't have been any anesthetic. I mean, maybe they used a clove. I know my grandmother talked about clove. Yeah. Clove oil. Oil. Yeah. Rub on there. But I don't think for a molar extraction that would have done a lot.

Shot a whiskey, shot a moonshine. Yeah, I just, ooh. Even, I was at an old, out in Saskatchewan, in the middle of nowhere, I can't even remember what the town was, but there's an old museum, and they had an old

like hair salon with these, like a chair that you find. Yes. The big electric giant electric. And it was like a car battery that you'd like, you know, you're boosting your car to give these, like how many women died getting perms in these, you know,

None, Julie. No women died getting perms. Well, the whole thing, you know, talking earlier in the show about, you know, by 2050, human beings being a hybrid of human flesh and machine. So, yeah, maybe the perming unit was ahead of its time at hooking us up. But, yeah, it's a hybrid.

I've got someone right now looking into my ancestry. I know so much about my dad's side because they're Mormons. So the Mormons are the group of people behind ancestry.com or ancestry.ca. It's the lineage that the Mormon church has done for hundreds of years. Some of the best ancestry work in the world has been done by the Latter-day Saints people.

I know tons on my dad's side. It goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, but very little on my mother's side. So I had just started going down that road with finding out, you know, where, what I can find out about my great grandmother, Ernestine Zato, who had 17 kids, you know, and who met my great grandfather coming over on a ship from Europe.

But yeah, I'm so interested in stuff like that. I really feel like there's so much to know about ourselves. Anyway, we've got more to talk about. You're listening to The Jan Arden Show. Julie Van Rosendahl is here with us. We'll be right back.

We are so excited to welcome another new sponsor, our friends at Cove Soda. Have I pestered Cove enough to come and join us here at the Jan Arden podcast? I love them so much. They are Canadian, first of all. They are a natural, certified organic, zero sugar soda, which includes, get this, one big

I kind of sounded like Dr. Evil there, didn't I? But seriously, you can get 80% of your daily vitamin C in just one can. Cove Soda is on a mission to promote gut health for all, and you still get to have a delicious treat...

while putting a gut-friendly, guilt-free drink in your body. Cove Soda is available in 12 delicious flavors all over North America. So for our American friends, you can find it. They've got this fruity lineup that's fantastic. I drink those all the time. They've got the classic lineup if you like

A cola or a cream soda, root beer, yes indeedy. And they've got their limited edition summer flavor, which will take you right back to the second grade. You gotta try the ice pop one. Head to janardenpod.com to find out where the closest place to you is where you can go and buy Cove. Go right now. ♪ A house is a very, very, very fine house ♪

With two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy because of you. Welcome back. This is the Jan Arden Show Variety Hour Podcast. I'm with Julie Van Rosendahl. Adam Karsh is with us. 200 questions every couple should ask each other. This has certainly been a time to reflect on the relationships that we're in.

this last 15 months, dating in the new world, how to navigate the relationships that we're already in. Anyway, it doesn't matter how long you've been together. You still feel like sometimes, probably in the heat of an argument, you wonder, do I even know this person? I just...

I never thought you'd do something like this. This is so not like you. So all these things kind of come up. And this is people that have been together sometimes 25, 30 years. I mean, you hear about women that, you know, sleep beside a guy for 30 plus years and they're serial killers. I mean, we see these things happening all the time. So they've made a list. I don't know who they are of 200 questions that couples need to ask each other.

And it goes from your childhood to, you know, their future. I don't know if you'd call them conversation starters, but I'll give you an example. What's something about me that turns you on quickly? This is what you would say to your partner. The next question, what's the strangest thing you have ever done in your life? Like anything.

I think stuff like this would be super fun at a party. Oh, yeah. Yeah? I think there are games that are like this, right? That have questions. Would you rather...

I love Would You Rather. That's my favorite. Would You Rather is the best. That was Willem's favorite. Yeah, Would You Rather. We'll play that next time. What makes you hate a person? Oh, hate's a pretty strong word. Yeah. Would you rather lose a toe or have another date with your worst ex? I would go on a date. I'm not losing a toe. I'm not going to give up a toe for a...

Some time. Yeah, no. This is, I believe, from a book called Questions for Couples or an online service. So just I just want to credit the people that are doing this questions for couples. What? OK, I'm going to let you guys answer this one. If you if you feel comfortable, Adam, I'll ask you first, what aspect of yourself would you improve if you had the chance? Oh, God. What aspect would I improve? You can tell me to F off too. No, no, no. I could probably think of a few.

I don't know. I procrastinate sometimes. - You're procrastinating answering this question. - I know, see? Perfect tie in. I'm a procrastinator. I'll do it later. That's me. - Julie, do you want that question or do you want me to ask you a different one? - That's a hard question. I would maybe have more confidence in myself. - You seem so confident to me. - Like fake it till you make it, right? - But I don't think you do that at all. I think confidence,

It's not the right word. Let me ask you this. Because I have confidence, but I don't always have self-esteem. Maybe that's it. I'm very self-conscious. I'm very worried about what people, I worry too much, more about what people think, more of a people pleaser than I maybe should be. I do that too. Yeah. Self-esteem. I have confidence. I need to better articulate this. Yeah. Next question. Okay.

Um, what one quality or skill would you benefit if you could wake up tomorrow with it?

So these are questions we're asking couples, right? Yeah, these would be you sitting across from, you know, whether it's your son, Willem, whether it's your wife, Adam. Yeah, get to know each other a little bit better. Deciding whether you're a couple worthy. Like some of them are really cute. Like how do you like to spend a rainy afternoon? Oh, I love rainy afternoons. Yeah.

Okay. Well, here's a, here's a good question for you. How would you spend a rainy afternoon? Depends on the day. Depends who I'm with. Depends. Yeah. I depends on if I have deadlines. How would I, I like, I like a fire, you know, I like being at home. I like eating. So food would be a part of it. You know, good company would be a good thing.

Um, would be nice, a fireplace, you know, some books or some watching something or just, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty easy to please. Me too. I think so. And I, and I, and I mean, I don't know you super well, but I, I find you so easy going, but I also would imagine that sometimes people would take advantage of that a little bit.

Do you find that? Possibly. Just, you know, take advantage of, you're extremely generous. You have one of the kindest hearts. You have done so many nice things for me. Just leaving goodies on my gate. Just being, you're just very thoughtful that way. Oh, thanks. But I have a hard time saying no. So maybe that's something that I need to work on. I have a friend who works at,

cbc who says oh sorry i have family in town when he wants to turn down a uh and i that's brilliant because his family lives in town right so um sorry i have family in town okay i mean some of these other questions are are pretty fun i mean i guess there's things that you don't think of asking your partner what what has been the weirdest food you've eaten

I know what mine is and I'm, I'm not proud, but it was some kind of a gummy. I'm not kidding you made out of lamb. Really? It was a gel. It was, it was a, it was a gelatin lamb thing. And it was, I was one of the celebrity guest guests.

judges on Top Chef years ago in Canada. I was a judge on Iron Chef. Yeah. And they had a cube of gelatine. I mean, I don't eat meat anymore, but what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten, Julie? Oh, I mean, weird is sort of subjective, right? Yeah, you're right. You know, in terms of people could have go to animals, right? Antelope. Years ago, I had...

Yeah. Um, Oh, what is the years ago? I had, um, bear actually. Whoa. My mom and my gram ate bear. My mom and my gram, they ate bear up in the lumber camps. That's what they had. Yeah. It was, it was not delicious as far as mates go. Um, yeah, I mean a lot of, you know, different game and, um, awful and, uh, you know, sea urchin, different sort of seafoods. Um,

out on the coast. Oh my gosh, now I'm drawing a blank on those sort of long... Are they razor clams? Razor clams? I've had razor clams, yeah, but oh my gosh, my brain is panicking. Adam, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever eaten? Probably the two weirdest things I've ever eaten. One of them is frog's legs. I've tried frog legs before. They were pretty good, actually. I mean, this was years ago, but I've eaten frog legs and I've tried alligator.

I guess at the end of the day, what this whole exercise is about is no matter what point you're at in a relationship is taking the time to ask questions. You know, people often talk to me about, you know, don't you get sick of being interviewed?

because they ask you the same questions over and over again. Well, it's up to me to find new ways to answer these questions. And I'm telling you, yes, I've been asked the same questions over the years. And certainly not from, well, yeah, from partners too, but from journalists. But I, depending on, you know, where I'm at in my life, the answer is always different.

I'm always, you know, it's always something different. Like, how did you get started? Or, you know, what's your favorite song to sing? I mean, that really changes from year to year. So moral of the story, blah, blah, blah, is ask questions. I think people really genuinely like being asked questions and to show interest in other people and then to actually sit back and listen to the answer.

I mean, nevermind playing cards. When you have a great conversation going at a dinner, there is nothing in the world like it. There's nothing in the world like learning

something about an old friend. And I love being able to say, I didn't know that about you. I didn't know you went there. I didn't know you had that. Anyhow, Julie Van Rosendahl, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for including me again. I love you guys, man. I love you guys. Love you guys too. I love you, man.

I can't wait to see what happens with your garden. Go to Julie's Instagram, dinnerwithjulie. She has something that's almost like ASMR visually, and it's watering her garden. So she comes out with her water, and sometimes it's just a story of watering the garden. Anyway, thanks for being with us today, folks. Jen Arden Podcast. Listen at your favorite podcast outlets. Okay, we're back. And if you're still hanging in there with us,

On iTunes or Spotify. This is the bonus content for the podcast. And with Julie. And she's finally remembered the food, the weirdest food that she ever ate. And it's called, she said gooey duck, but then it was geo duck.

So what are we at now? It's well, it's spelled geoduck, but it's pronounced gooey duck. And it's, it's, it's a large clam. Yeah. It has this like phallic extrusion that comes out of the shell. And how was it prepared? Oh, I can't even remember. It's prepared a lot of different ways. It's very chewy. Julie Van Rosendahl is one of the preeminent food, uh,

people in this country. And if this is what she's eaten now, if I wasn't vegan, Julie, I would be in their sleeves rolled up and I would try it.

But of course, that ship has sailed for me. Yeah. So it was chewy. Would it be oystery? Muscley? Is it sort of that family of things? Yeah, that family. And, you know, very native to the Pacific Northwest. You got to try things too. And I'm all for people trying things. But I think we also have to find limits to that. You know, pre-COVID, we were seeing young people, you

you know, in different parts of the world that were eating deep fried bad. And it was, for me, it was really very disconcerting. There was a picture that was circulating on Instagram a while ago with a young woman that had been kind of,

had a facial injury, a laceration from a live octopus that she was trying to eat. And I'm thinking, well, fucking rights, because you've got, you're trying to eat a live octopus and I'm surprised it didn't take your eye out.

Um, so, you know, things like that. I think the food trends, we have to be mindful with it. Yeah. It's great to be adventurous and try good, cool things, but to also be very respectful of the dignity of another living thing. I mean, let's hope that these things are dead for one thing. Um, there was a picture of a fish, you know, of sushi taken too far of a live fish perched on this, uh,

thing of people cutting into its back and it gasping for air. So I'm just saying when I see things like that on Instagram, I block the accounts because anyone that would post that to glorify anything like that. And I know I don't want to sound preachy, but man, I get sick of it and how far human beings can push that stuff out. And, you know, as we know with the internet, these trends, you know, people are eating goddamn bread.

detergent pods. I'm not going to name companies, but you know, it's something that it doesn't work that way. If you've ever put cinnamon in a recipe, you see it dissipate on top of a liquid. It doesn't, it's, it's just that spice doesn't work that way. Anyhow, welcome to the bonus round of the podcast today. Yeah, I just, and an update on the horses too. People have asked me about the, the,

you know, how things are going with the petition, with shipping the live horses to Japan, also for human consumption for sashimi. These horses are not alive, so I don't want to mislead you in any way. They are slaughtered when they're there, but they are used for raw sashimi, which is a, it would be like a beef carpaccio. It's horse meat.

But it's just getting them there that is not very pleasant at all, you know, in the crates. Julie and Adam and I were talking just when we went to break from the end of the last segment that in the United States, there's something in the House right now called the SAFE Act. And Julie was saying that, you know, President Biden is endorsing this.

And it's basically stopping all domestic horse slaughter and all of the exporting of horses. There's a hundred thousand plus horses that come up to us every year from the United States. And they don't even know how many are going South into Mexico from the United States, but they're, they're planning on stopping that completely. So if you're in a horse in a trailer or you've got a, you know, a trailer full of horses and you're trying to go to Mexico or coming up here and

if this act goes through, that will be, that will end. And that's really going to shift how the perception is with Canada. So I'm excited about that, of the pressure that it will put on the Canadian government to stop exporting horses. They're simply not mentally, physically, emotionally equipped. Horses are not that kind of an animal. They can't be treated the same way cattle are or, or pigs are not that they should be treated like that either, but

Horses just are not meant for that. And I just, you know, what's the big cowboy rule? You don't eat your own horse. So they should not be frequent flyers. No, they shouldn't be frequent flyers. No. Anyway, I'm glad Julie thought of geo duck, which sent me, sent me into a spiral.

I googled an image of this. Are you looking at it? It's very phallic and I feel like it shouldn't even be on my screen. Are you seeing what it looks like? That's a disturbing image on my screen. I know. Well, who hasn't eaten phallic things in their life? If you're a woman of a certain age, it's a pretty good chance that you may have eaten geoduck at some point in your life. Sashimi. Yeah. Yeah.

No, there's some very strange things out there that we eat. There's some very strange, I mean, cultural things that you can get into. I am always very fascinated going to Asian supermarkets because there's vegetables there.

that I have just fallen in love with over the years. Like, I don't think I, I probably bought Choi, the Choi family's like once a week and the sprouts and they have these really long, gorgeous beans that you've seen them one time. They literally have to wrap them around each other and put an elastic band, but they're, they're a foot and a half long. They are the most delicious beans, like a long green bean with a black,

bean sauce or garlic or, you know, a chili paste. If you ever get a chance to wander into an Asian grocery store, it is an adventure just for the fruits and vegetables. And you were talking about something with fruit too earlier, Julie, about you made mention of it. Can you expand on that? You said, you know, that they're trying to...

pawn this stuff off as a, as a healthy alternative, something fruit you said. Oh, palm fruit. Yes. Palm fruit. So we were talking about, uh, palm oil and palm kernel oil being fed to cows via palmitic acid supplements. And everyone's very upset about that. But then, you know, when you look at there, there's so many plant-based product, there's a huge demand for palm fats and plant-based products. Right. Yes. Yeah.

plant saturated fats that are plant-based, right? That are solid at room temperature. So, and in 2018 Health Canada banned a hydrogenation process. So you don't see partially hydrogenated oils anymore, which is what made

liquid fat solid. Anyway. So if you look at a lot of the plant-based butters, plant butters and plant spreads, they're primarily palm fats, palm oil and palm kernel oil, but they say on the ingredient list, palm fruit, because it sounds like maybe something different. It sounds better than palm oil. Sounds like maybe it's made with watermelon or something. Right. So it's sort of, you know, but packaging is, you know, notorious for trying to

to embellish what's actually inside and make things sound. Are you a label reader? I read the back of the package. That's where the, that's where the truth lies. Right. Okay. So, I mean, yeah, I think for the most part, I don't, I don't have a lot of, I don't need a lot of, of packaged food. Um,

I, you know, I cook a lot. Yeah. No, I love it. You're, you always inspire like going on to your Instagram, the dinner with Julie, you got to do it on Instagram folks. It's, it's,

So fantastic. And your stories of baking stuff and when things don't, I've been fascinated with your focaccia stuff lately. Oh, my ramp focaccia. Oh, gosh dang. Well, I'll make you one anytime. Although if I can find ramps, they don't grow here very well. You know, they don't grow on trees ramps. They just don't. They grow under trees and mostly under Ontario trees and in like more moist conditions. We're so dry here.

Um, apparently down in Southern Alberta, they do around Lethbridge. I've heard, but I haven't seen them or gone foraging for them myself, but, um, yeah. Do you, do you, have you tried asparagus? Like I just, I just at 59 years old saw how asparagus grows. I don't know why it's never dawned on me. Are you serious? Oh, I gotta take.

I gotta take you out to harvest some. I just went and harvested some at my niece's place out by Dremheller. And somebody said on Instagram, every time I see a picture of asparagus growing, it looks like a joke. It looks like someone's playing a joke on this is how asparagus grows because it's just one stalk growing out of the ground. And you go like, and you can actually almost see it growing. Like you can go through in the morning when it gets really, really hot and

And harvest it and come back through the afternoon and harvest it again. Because the stocks just come straight up. And now that you got me on asparagus, thinner is not better. Yeah. Thinner is not better in life and asparagus. It's not an indication of like youth. The thicker asparagus is an older or woodier. The thicker asparagus is better because you have a better ratio of inside to skin. That's how I feel about my body. Same. Yeah.

But I have, I don't know, my ratio of skin to insides. Your ratio is goddamn awesome. And so is mine. And so is Adam's. And, you know, people have got to stop being hard on themselves. You know, I have heard ad nauseum the 15, 20 pounds that people have gained, you know, over this past 15 months. And you know what? Screw that all of it, you guys. Eat your damn chips.

find comfort in that it's not going to last. And so what it takes you a little while to, you know, figure out how to get back into your eating routine or whatever, but you know what, you look after your mental health. Number one, because your, your mind is going to look after your body.

And your body can carry a little extra whatever. And who says it's freaking extra anyway? Why is it extra this or she sure carrying extra of that? And, and further to that, my last point, don't look at the size of whatever you're trying on. It doesn't God damn matter. If the pants fit,

And it's not a number that seems, trust me, the fashion industry has no clue what a standardized size is. Anything means go try shoes on sometime. Seven isn't a seven. It depends what brand you're buying, you know, all of that stuff. So please don't be hard on yourselves. You know, this is about maintaining a degree of wellness and happiness. And if it comes in the shape of a hot dog bun, um,

With cheese in it and maybe some spears of asparagus and some Ritz crackers crumbled in. Not that I've ever had that, but that sounds good to me now that I'm thinking about it. Totally making that. Just be kind to yourself. All these things will sort themselves out. And, you know, for me kind of eating what I want this past 15 months and walking between those two things, I have really felt well.

Yeah. Guilt has no, there's no good can come of eating something that you naturally crave or yeah.

Don't even bother. These are such unprecedented and I hate the word unprecedented, but these are really weird days and we've got a lot going on that take that off. That's one thing you can take off your plate. No pun intended, but take that. Julie's right. There's no place for guilt. It doesn't help you. And it's been proven over and over and over again, scientifically that

that, you know, you can see a very, very thin person with skyrocketing blood pressure. And you can see a person that's twice their size. That's tickety boo, you know, 110 over 70. So you cannot judge people's health and wellness by by looking at people at all. And, you know, that we're all just that's what makes life so great is that we're all different. And we look different. And bodies aren't just this one picture that were clipped out of a magazine, like,

It just isn't. No, I have so much to say on this subject. A whole other podcast. But it is. I mean, it's nice just to end kind of on a high note because I, you know, people, I just hear this underground mumbling constantly about,

And my friends, especially, I don't think I've had one friend that hasn't said to me, Oh my God, my pain, I can't get my pants. And I'm just like, you know, we've just been through, do you know what we're doing? Yeah. And it's a fricking godsend that we've got anything to eat to begin with. I mean, we're very, very lucky and fortunate. Yeah, exactly. But there is no permanent. So don't worry about that. And no one's judging anybody. Trust me. No one is judging.

They're, we're seeing our friendships going like, oh my God, thank God I can see you. And maybe I can hug you next week. Like no one's thinking that. Yeah. And we're all in this together. It's not just one person. It's all of us. It's everyone. Look at these, what these poor kids are enduring in school, out of school. People working, you know, some of us are working hard.

you know, from home and sort of in the comforts of our home. And then there's so many people who are working 10 times as hard as they ever have under stressful, scary situations and no breaks, no holidays. And it's just like,

there's so many extremes that are coming to light in this through this pandemic, but yeah, but we're all in it. Yep. In it. Yeah. In different boats. Anyway, be kind to yourselves and just know that all of us certainly talking to you today, me and Adam and Julie, you know, we're, we're going through the same things as all of you. We're all waking up and, you know, trying to have good days and by noon it all goes to shit. And then we're,

we're trying to you know keep going and pulling this pair of pants on it's like oh i'll try a different pair of pants no maybe i'll just resort back to my sweatpants i think i'll stick with the old black sweatpants the elastic is coming out of um just don't because i think you know people are still be mindful of social media be mindful of instagram pages i'm telling you right now

people, famous people, influencers or whatever the hell you want to call them, curate their pages. And they're taking 500 photographs to get one. So please know that. And please, if you're a young woman or a young man, if you're a teenager, if you're our 40 to 80 year old fans listening to this podcast, just know that those accounts are

They take 200 pictures to get one and they have lighting up the ding dong and they have filters. Oh my God. So please don't look at that going. They're curating lives that don't exist. Yeah. And that's why my feed is so goddamn boring. The road, the deers, this, that, I mean, it just is.

It's just not. I like your feed. Your feed is real. It's genuine. And I like both of you. I follow you both on Instagram and it's real. It's not contrived. It's real. They're great pictures and it's great content, but it's real. So thank you for being genuine. Well, no, it's important. I'm very mindful of what I do and what I say and what I put out there. I mean, I've

I've got pictures on my Instagram of me that are so terrible. Oh yeah, I've got cute ones too.

Because a photographer took them. I had hair and makeup. There's 40,000 lights in front of me. I don't even have nostrils. I have so many lights blown out. I'm sure a lot of the pictures are touched up. I'm like, I don't give a crap because people actually know what I look like because they see my pictures on social media. Hi. I mean, look at me right now. I always look nutty on these podcasts. And I come to them.

I wander around. I don't hardly wear any makeup anymore. And plus I got the mask on now. What do I need? My pair of glasses and my hair is in a ponytail. Same, but don't buy into that. Don't lose sight of that because it's all curated very specifically to, and it comes from people that are so insecure, just like us. But they don't want to show you that they don't want to show you that. Yeah. Yeah.

Even JLo has crap days. I know you find that hard to believe, but you know, my, my dad used to say, Jan, everybody poos. Oh Christ. That used to crack me up. I'm like, I think I know what you're saying. I'm not sure where this is going, but everybody poos. Okay. So that's all you need to picture.

And it kind of changes things. I know Adam's like, wow, is this how this thing's going to wrap up? We're falling off the rails now. Okay. Perfect. The perfect way to wrap up. Okay. That's it. That's been your bonus content.

And we'll try and do this every now and again so that you have an extra 11 minutes of ranting and raving. Perfect. Everybody pooh. Sometimes. Hopefully twice a day. Thank you, Julie Van Rosen. Okay, I'm going to say goodbye now. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Subscribe to us if you can because that way you get reminded every week when there's a new podcast. And we'll talk to you guys soon. Totally do. Bye.

This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.