From KCRW, I'm Evan Kleinman and this is good food. I think you have to have some kind of a sense

of humor when you look at food culture today. You cannot be po-faced about it. It resists that.

It refuses that. As someone who's been interviewing people about food and food culture for more

than 30 years, I can deeply relate.

I've seen food culture swing from bacon on everything to plant-based or bust. Sometimes I look

at a trend like smash burgers or Dubai chocolate and wonder, how did we get here? When did food go from being sustenance to a

constant performative drumbeat that takes up so much of our time? Ruby Tando tackles this question

with depth and humor in her book, All Consuming. Hi, Ruby. Hi.

The book is really tremendous.

It is so dense, and I just love how funny you are all while describing some things that maybe shouldn't be so funny.

You quote Michael Pollan as saying that culture used to guide us, not moral and

nutritional information. And now food culture is this extravagant mix of advertising, influencers,

education, peer pressure, and family. And you say we should take a breath and look at the impact these forces

have had on each of us personally

so that we can take a look at the way each of us eats with less judgment.

Can you give us a personal example?

I mean, I guess just in general in my life, until I started thinking about this stuff,

you know, professionally, I saw my appetites as extremely personal and I was maybe a little

precious about them. And, you you know for a lot of my kind

of teenage years and younger adult years as well I didn't have a particularly good relationship

with food but one thing that I found really really illuminating was starting to understand myself

not as this unique individual with these

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