TRC 219: Can Men and Women be Friends + Foods With Animals + Van Halen M&Ms

They’ve done it again! The Reality Check episode 219 may just be the best episode yet. Darren leads off the show by exploring some recent research into whether men and woman can be platonic friends. Adam then provides a thorough listing of foods that contain animals that you may not have suspected. Pat rounds out the show with the myth of the week: Did Van Halen ask for all brown M&Ms to be removed from their snacks backstage at their shows?

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SHOW NOTES

Can Men and Women be Friends

Scientific American Article

Full paper

Foods with Animal Products

Gelatin – Wikipedia

Foods which contain hidden animal products for reading labels

Semi-vegetarianism – Wikipedia

Van Halen Brown M&Ms

The Smoking Gun

Snopes

David Lee Roth interview

NPR

CBC

Wikipedia


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5 Responses to TRC 219: Can Men and Women be Friends + Foods With Animals + Van Halen M&Ms

  1. Paul Anderson says:

    An interesting aside, Worchester sauce is in fact a derivative of an ancient Roman sauce called garum. They are both fermented fish sauces. Soya sauce and teriyaki sauce are also considered to be derivatives.

  2. Paul Anderson says:

    Sorry, Worcestershire.

  3. Adam says:

    I sure had a hard time pronouncing that one! Didn’t realise Soya Sauce and Teriyaki were based on Wer… that other one. I’ve never actually had it.

  4. Jo says:

    Why would men be more attracted to women friends than the opposite? There was a psycho-evolutionary theory mentioned (there is another one saying it was also beneficial to women to sleep with a lot of men to make sure more people would take care of their children)… But you didn’t talk about the social one… We all assume it is normal for men to be attracted to so many women, because it is manly and it’s their testosterone, but a woman attracted to many men wouldn’t be well seen. It is often pictured as ‘normal’ for men to look at other women even if they are in another relationship (eh, it’s natural!!), but women shouldn’t say it out loud. So isn’t it normal that the woman downplay her libido and attraction to other men, while the opposite is also true? I know the study was confidential, but we internalise social pressure.

  5. Darren McKee says:

    Hi Jo,
    Thanks for the comment. While it is true that in our society women are taught, informally or formally, to be less sexual and that overt sexuality is less acceptable (of course, the success of Madonna and all the other pop tarts is an interesting counter), I don’t think this would necessarily translate into affecting the outcomes of this study. You are correct people internalize but it is hard to say if it would make a difference in the conditions of the experiment.
    I didn’t mention this because there is less overt data backing it up (or if there is, I just don’t’ know about it (but I can be honest and say I haven’t looked hard)).

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