Is Your Cinnamon Fake? Where Does Kefir Come From? Plus: Why Is Citric Acid In Everything? Ask Gastropod!

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Arts, Science, History, Food

4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The season for holiday baking is upon us, and before you spice up your cookies and pies, you’ll probably want to know: is most of the cinnamon on grocery store shelves actually fake? That’s one question we’re investigating this week on behalf of you, dear listeners, in the latest installment of our popular Ask Gastropod series! This episode, we've got the scoop on what's real when it comes to cinnamon—because your buns deserve the truth. We're also putting our detective hats on to figure out where in the world kefir comes from, in an epic tale that involves mummies, a prince, and a potential kidnapping. Finally, if you look at almost any label, from jam to ice cream to soda to sausage, you'll find one shared ingredient: citric acid. What on Earth is this additive doing in everything, how is its spread connected to a technology that has saved millions of lives—and is it safe to eat? Listen in for a festive feast of listener curiosity, and keep your awesome questions coming our way! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name's Rosemary Klein and after listening to the show for a while, I was up one
0:10.7	nine and I was thinking, I think I have an idea. Rosemary's big idea, citric acid. Because I feel like
0:17.3	most people don't consider all the citric acid that's in everything.
0:21.8	It seems quite the ubiquitous ingredient.
0:24.6	And I was just really curious about how it came to be in everything.
0:29.6	Rosemary, your curiosity is our mission.
0:33.1	You're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.
0:37.3	I'm Nicola Twilly. And I'm Cynthia Graber, and this week we are taking your questions for our
0:41.7	latest installment of Ask Gastropod. Citric acid is something I honestly had never thought of before.
0:47.2	But before we started investigating, here's another burning question.
0:50.8	Hi, Gastropod team. This is Hannah from Ghana Country, South Australia. I've heard
0:55.3	every kaffir grain can be traced back to its origin in the Caucasus Mountains a really long time ago.
1:00.6	I've also heard that kaffir grains themselves can't be reproduced in a lab, so what we buy in the shops
1:05.3	might not be real. Is that true? All great questions, and we are going to get to the bottom of them this episode.
1:12.2	But that's not all.
1:13.3	It's the season where people are doing a lot of baking, and one of our listeners was confused by the cinnamon options in the store.
1:19.6	Why is only one of them called true cinnamon?
1:21.9	Are the other ones fake?
1:22.9	What's going on?
1:23.6	What's the difference?
1:24.4	I guess we're going down the cinnamon rabbit hole, too.
1:28.5	Our pies and cookies and buns need and deserve the truth. This episode was supported in part by the Alfred
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