From KCRW, I'm Evan Kliman and you're listening to good food.

Are we still allowed to say happy new year? I recently joked that Americans are in the annual three-week window of extreme dieting before the Super Bowl

when the entire country slides into a vet of seven-layer dip.

I understand the impulse to eat a simpler diet after the holidays, but I'm also keenly aware of how diet culture negatively impacts our mental health and relationship to food.

So what if instead of focusing on losing weight,

we zeroed in on our well-being.

Mary Beth Albright is an award-winning journalist

who studies the science behind the food mood connection.

I love talking to her about her book Eat and Flourish,

how food supports emotional well-being.

And considering the autopsy world we live in I

thought it was a good time to check in with her again. Hi Mary Beth!

Hi Evan I'm thrilled to be here thank you so much for letting me speak with your audience.

Oh, we're glad to have you back.

Since we last spoke, you launched a podcast which is called Eat, you'll feel better. And I thought we could start with a few topics

you've discussed recently, starting with how flavor is created in the brain.

And specifically, if you can explain that in the context of Air One's Haley Bieber

smoothie, how much more delicious it is given that it's named after a celebrity

cost of fortune is associated with LA and went viral on social media.

Yeah and is at a grocery store where paparazzi stands outside trying to get photos of the famous people who go in and buy stuff.

Yeah, it's crazy. Well, look, the human body is an ecosystem.

Flavor is created in small piece of what we the experience of food. The flavor that we get comes, yes from the food that's on our tongue,

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