August 9, 2022 • 47 mins
Chuck hates them, Josh has flirted with them. Energy drinks. Listen in to learn all about this canned speed.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and this is stuff
you should know. Are y'all hopped up? I used to
be man. I used to drink energy drinks a lot.
(00:21):
I think I remember that especially. I would definitely drink
at least one before we would go on stage. Um.
And I can tell a big difference between not doing
that and doing that for sure. Yeah, So I just
want to caveat all this. I don't want to like
sound like a Debbie Downer with how I talk about
(00:43):
energy drinks. Um, I find them disgusting, like the taste
or like the whole concept. The taste absolutely not for me.
Like I don't even really drink soda ever. Oh yeah,
it's like, you know, a couple of cokes a year,
maybe in a couple of fan of oranges, maybe your
root beer like six or seven. I've talked about this before,
(01:03):
so obviously if I'm not even in desoda really an
energy drink flavor wise, it's just it's a lot for
my tinder taste buds. But I'm also just not a
caffeine hound. I don't. I don't uh, And I know
a lot of people really maybe depend on this stuff
or enjoy it and like to be uh energized in
(01:24):
that way. But it's just not my style. I don't
like the heart racing feeling. I don't like feeling ganked up. Um.
It's just not It's just not my personality. So if
I do sound a little like energy drink, uh, you know,
like a little thumbs downy, then that's kind of where
(01:44):
that's coming from. It's just it's just not my bag.
To each his own. Don't want to yuck someone's yum.
Although we will get into the sort of the h
whether or not they're good for you, obviously, but I
just want to cavy up this episode with that. Yeah,
we're not gonna let this one turned into the vaping episode.
How about that? I don't even remember what we said
in that one. Oh we we pood pood every bit
(02:06):
of it. Yah, didn't quite overtly. Yeah, it's kind of
playing out though now right it is, because I can
tell you just anecdotally, I'm seeing way more people smoking
cigarettes these days than I did five ten years ago.
People are going back to cigarettes or Yeah, that was
the whole problem with vaping. It was like people who
had never smoked were like, Oh, vaping is good for you,
(02:26):
I'll try that, and then they're like, well, I wonder
what these cigarettes are like, and now they're hooked on cigarettes. Interesting,
or the vapors were like, oh, it's not so awesome
to just puff huge clouds of coconut pineapple flavored garbage chemistry.
It's grossed. Yeah. Alright, So energy drinks, right, yeah, I
(02:47):
mean I bring up the vape episode not just because
of that, but because energy drinks to kind of bear
like a weird similarity to it. Like there's a lot
of chemistry going on, there's a lot of unproven claims,
and yet people are finitely into them. There's no denying it,
and I won't yock anybody's on either. I don't really
drink a much anymore, but I do enjoy when occasionally
might have more to do than usual in a particular day. Right.
(03:11):
But but um, I'd say we start out with the
history of energy drinks, which I mean, you can make
a case that coca cola was an energy drink when
it had cocaine in it. But energy drinks, as we
understand them today actually start um background uh in Tennessee,
of all places, right, this is in Johnson City, Tennessee.
(03:34):
The first I don't know about the first, but it
was well, it definitely wasn't the first, but it was
a part of the early medicinal soda trends that was
going on back then, along with coke. And we're talking
about dr enough E n U F which started in
forty nine with it was basically like a soda but
they had some potassium and some be vitamins thrown in
(03:58):
and it it was and still is still around. It's
hard to find, but you can find it here and
there in certain southern states. Um, but it's not everywhere.
Like I've never really seen it on shelves. I've never
even heard of it really. Yeah, I haven't seen it
on shelves in Georgia. But um, I think it's marketed.
It's sort of like one of those like old kind
of tonic elixir sort of things got you, um the
(04:21):
so Okay, so that's established as the beach had have
possibly the first energy drink. Um. What what really kind
of takes that that mantle and runs with it is
something called LiPo itan D that's how I'm pronouncing great
name for a market marketable drink doesn't exactly roll off
the tongue, and yet it sounds like it would taste
really awful, and apparently it did. But it came out
(04:44):
of Japan because back in the fifties when it came out,
Japan was like super into working fourteen or sixteen hours
during the day, eating standing up in in like five minutes,
and then getting back to work like basically everything. Like
if you ever saw um, what was that automaker movie
(05:04):
with Michael Keaton Japanese? Yes, if you ever saw gung
Hollo like that, that caricature of Japanese business. It's not
entirely just completely stereotypical. It's not based on just nothing,
you know what I mean. Yeah, but this was in
the fifties when meta amphetamines were uh pre nineteen fifty
three in Japan at least uh were legal, and like
(05:28):
there were all kinds of like fine upstanding citizens across
the world eating uppers basically to get more done. And they,
you know, like I said, they weren't illegal at the time.
I think there weren't people out there screaming about ill
health effects, so all they knew was this was go juice,
and I can get a lot more done. And they
(05:50):
they certainly, at least in part, helped fuel that kind
of nineteen fifties Japanese business work ethic. Yeah, it also
helped jet kerouac on the road in like forty eight
hours on a single long sheet of keeper as I understand. So, UM,
the Japanese were into emped. I mean like most of
the world was at that time. UM. But then the
(06:12):
Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act was passed in that um
in that country, and they said no more methem fed.
It means everybody, you're getting out of hand. Um. And
so the Taisho Pharmaceutical company said, we can't use speed anymore.
But I suspect that people are gonna really want something
that that makes them feel that way. So let's come
(06:33):
up within a lixer. And that a lixor that they
came up with was lipovitan D. That's right. And it
was initially um served as a pill that had something
called taurian in it, which is derived from originally from
ox bile. But they synthesized it, you know, a long
long time ago. Uh, And we'll we'll talk about what
(06:54):
that is more, but it's a key ingredient and modern
energy drinks. But they made that into a liquid. They
served it in a little glass bottle called an ampuel,
and it had a little membrane and you could stick
a straw through it, and it became kind of the
go to UH and it was small. It was sort
of if you've ever seen a five hour energy uh,
(07:15):
it was kind of that size. It looked like, Yeah,
in Japan was like, this is great. I don't know
why you took the pill and turned it into some
disgusting tasting like liquid that we have to drink, but
we like it. Probably because it hit you a lot faster,
That's what I'm guessing. And then there was a guy
who was running that company at the time, the Taisho
Pharmaceutical company that was making lip of it T and D,
(07:37):
and he said, you know what, let's make this taste here,
Let's add some flavoring, let's add more of like a
soda feel to it. And that is when it really
started to take off. And that is in nine two
um what you would consider probably the first modern precursor
of a genuine energy drink as we'd recognize them today. Yeah. Um.
(07:57):
A couple of decades went by, and then in nine five,
Jolt Cola came along, which was invented by a gentleman
named CJ. Rap Uh. It was highly marketed as a
just a super caffeine eated cola. What was the slogan?
(08:17):
It was like all the sugar twice the caffeine, that's right. Uh.
And it had seventy two milligrams of caffeine and I think,
uh didn't a coax somewhere between fifty and sixty? Wait,
how many milligrams are caffeine? A jolt had seventy two? Okay,
all right, I thought you said seven for a second. No,
seventy two, which is, you know, tend to twenty ish
(08:41):
milligrams more than like an average soda, I think, which
isn't like a ton. But at the time he called it,
Joeld had the lightning bolt. And this was at a
time in the mid eighties when less was more in like,
you know, a fewer calories, fewer caffeine, like kind of
less everything, And so it really swam against the current
as far as a kind of a marketing thing. Right.
(09:03):
I used to love that stuff, and I don't know
if you remember. But we mentioned it before on the
show and they sent us some some Jolt ms good.
I don't know if I ever even tried it, to
be honest. Oh well, it tastes like cola that's super
sweet and really gets you going. I mean it's still around,
I think too, right, Yeah, I just I hadn't seen
it in forever, so I was really happy that they
(09:24):
sent some. But eight four, if you jump back a year,
is kind of when if you think about American style
energy drinks, was the birth of that movement? Yeah, because
I mean Joel Cole is like all in fun, it's
about being hyper that kind of thing, but it's not
like it's not like a drink that's designed to give
(09:45):
you like a form of energy that you can be
productive with or increase your performance with. And that seems
to be like the baseline point of energy drinks and
that really finds well, I guess lip of it and
d really fits that bill. But the one that we
would recognize today that started in eighty four, um was
found by a m a German toothpaste marketer named Dietrich
(10:07):
Matta Shits, and he was hanging out in Thailand at
the time. And he came across the tonic syrup called kretting. Dang.
It wasn't it wasn't that Like my my context messed up?
Like I wish you could have seen my face, because
I'll bet it was hilarious. Oh man, that was great
(10:29):
that in there, that kretting dang dang? So what does
that mean? Chuck? How about this? Why don't we take
a break and we'll we'll talk about a cliffhanger and
we'll tell you what that means right after this. How's
(11:09):
your contact? It's fine, I've got this new thing where
I'm trying. So I've got, um what am I? I'm
near sighted, so I can see things really well close
up when I don't have contacts, and um and my
my optometrists split the difference between you know, far sighted
contacts and near sighted context so that I can generally
(11:30):
see things close up and I can really see things
far away. So I've got like two different powered contacts.
And every once in a while, if like like the
paper gets a little too close, it all just gets blurry.
That's what happened. Okay, full disclosure, everybody. It these are
the details people want to hear. I don't know about that,
but sure, all right. So where we left off, Wastrich
(11:53):
Matta Shits was marketing for tooth Basse was hanging out
in Thailand discovered the tonic strup called kretting dang and
that was developed in mid the seventies. And if you
want to translate that into English, that means what. No,
(12:13):
I'd set you up for it. You take it. It
means red bull. Yeah, and you might say, okay, red bull.
But where'd the red bull come from? Its origin stories
even more complete than we've led on, because the red
bull refers to Toren, which is again named after bulls.
Taurusts is the bull and the reason why it seemed
(12:33):
after bulls is because it was first extracted from ox bile,
which is awesome. Right. So if you ever heard kind
of remember early on in Red Bulls life when people
would kind of spread the urban legend that there was
like bull urine and stuff like that in it and
that's how it's derived. I remember that. Yeah, I totally do. None.
Obviously none of that is true. It may have had
(12:55):
something to do with the ox file uh original, Yeah,
I'm guess thing so, and the fact that there was
trace amounts of bull seamen in there. No, just not
bull yeurine. That's crazy. But like we said that that
had been synthesized for decades, so it's not like they
were using real ox spile anyway, right exactly. So Um
(13:16):
Dietrich Mattashits who he went from marketing blend Ax toothpaste
to um taking this tonic, the Red Bull tonic, kretang dang,
kretting dang. I just can't quite get it, um, and
he he said, I want to do something with this.
I think people are going to go crazy for this.
So he got his hands on a license. He spent
(13:36):
three years like turning it into a carbonated beverage rather
than just a tonic syrup, messed with the taste, came
up with a great marketing plan and launched it in
nineteen seven in um, Austria and Germany to to great success. Yeah,
he sold a lot of it and early just kind
(13:56):
of from the beginning, Red Bull had a very guerrilla
style marketing thing as far as those cars that you
see that are that are I don't say wrapped in
Red Bull ads and I have a can on them. Yeah,
like Red Bull parties and stuff like that. Uh, they
had animated TV commercials over there that were really catchy,
(14:18):
and it really caught on not only there, but obviously
worked its way through Europe eventually found its way to
the US, where it became um tied to car racing
and extreme sports and uh, you and I even did that.
Uh was it like a soapbox derby? Soapbox derby where
(14:38):
we were called upon to judge the soapbux derby? Who
was it? Was it, young Jock? I think so it was.
There was a rapper that was with us, and like
a couple other people. Guy, Oh it was great. Um,
I don't remember who else was up there, but yeah,
it was. That was a weird thing. But that was
a red Bull event and they sponsored a lot of
(14:59):
those kind of things, and that was you know, they
were marketing to younger people who you know, red Bull
gives you wings and uh, it's sort of like the
extreme sports angle. They sponsored. That jump, the highest jump
from the stratosphere ever ever done by man. I can't
remember the guys. They want to say, Casper or something.
Do you remember that, Casper Weinberger. No, No, you never
(15:21):
jumped out of an orbiting satellite like this guy did, right,
right right, Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, so that
that was a red Bull sponsored thing. That's definitely like
up there alley for sure. It's so interesting advertising that
if like, oh, you're gonna anything where people have eyeballs
on it, They're like, well, can we put our logo
on your chest? I guess it makes sense. I mean,
that's I don't know it does. It's like that guy
(15:44):
who the airline pilot who landed the plane safely in
the Hudson and no one died, like a few years back. No,
he wasn't sponsored, but he took that he took that
spotlight and he used it to UM to basically share
with the public the plight of like UM airline pilots
and how they're like mistreated UM. And it's the same thing.
(16:07):
It's like a bunch of people are paying attention to
you all of a sudden. Are you gonna say, I'm
sponsored by Red Bull or my uh colleagues are really
being mistreated by the airline companies. Let's let's do something
about it, right. And I'm not poo pooing it, obviously.
The irony is not lost on me. I know. That's
how we make our livings. So please Savior emails. We're
always walking around with Red Bull jackets on the leather
(16:28):
eight ball red Bull jackets that were contractually obligated to wear.
But Red Bull was a pretty big success right away
held a lot of the market, like the lion share
of the market share early on in the early two thousand's,
I think seventy nine uh in two thousand one of
the market share. And obviously when something is selling one
(16:49):
and a half plus billion cans of something a year,
people are gonna jump on board. And then you've got
one to three basically four other are really big players
who have stuck around. Yeah, Monster, which is a a juggernaut.
It was actually launched by you know that Hansen soda,
(17:12):
the all natural soda. I don't think I do. You've
seen it if you've ever been to a decent deli before.
They had Hanson soda along with New York Seltzer and stuff,
and it's just like little little soda brand that just
keeps plugging along. But it's it's like touts that it's
made of like natural like ingredients. They launched Monster and
they went from in two thousand three a company with
(17:36):
fifty million dollars in revenue. They launched Monster Energy Drink
that year, and eight years later they were making one
point seven billion dollars in revenue. Wo. Yeah, yeah, they
have about a third of today's market. Uh, there's n
os which I see those signs all over convenience stores.
But honestly, I never really paid attention enough to know
(17:57):
what it was. But that is an energy drink. It
was launched in two thousand five by f u Ze Fuse,
which was bought by Coke. Uh and I think Monster
owns them now as well. Right, yeah, so they owned
the number two and number three most I guess best
selling energy drinks. I've also seen it pronounced nass it
(18:19):
probably is, yeah, but a little I know about car racing. Well,
I had to look up a video where somebody reviewed
it to make sure that's how you say it, So
I'm with you, but it's um. It's it's like a
nitrous oxide booster, like that part in Black Sheet when
Chris Farley and David Spade are driving the stolen police
car and they're tailed by real police and he pushes
(18:39):
the nitrous oxide button. It just takes off because it
injects a bunch of combustion into it and really gets
it going. That's basically the premise of this energy drink.
Still haven't seen that movie. It's okay, it's pretty good,
all right. Uh. Then you've got, of course rock Star
that was launched in oh one, that is owned by Pepsi.
And you know, you see a trend here with any beverage,
(19:02):
any beer. If you're some kind of cool small brand
that's selling a lot of stuff, one of the big
dogs will come along and gobble you up pretty pretty quickly.
And I think that's the goal for a lot of
these companies. It's like, you know, a big payday. Apparently
rock Star is kind of going down in the market, right, yeah, yeah,
(19:22):
year by year. Apparently it's it's a discount um uh
energy drink. It's about half the price of Monster. But
they have a very limited amount of flavors, and I
think that's the way you make money in that biz,
is like having fifty million flavors, half the price, half
the flavor, right. That's their logo that that used to
(19:43):
be mine. I used to like rock Star a lot,
and it was like it just wasn't nearly as like
noxious as some of the other ones are. But yeah,
it's it's fine. Uh, and then you've got you can't
beat the price, then you got your five hour energy.
That's the one I mentioned earlier. You will see these
little guys. It's like a shot basically by UM the
(20:04):
cash register area because they're not refrigerated. Uh. They were
launched in two thousand four by Living Essentials, and this
was kind of harkens back a little more to those
Asian elixir tonics that were sold in the early days
in the sixties, right. And one reason that the big guys,
the big players in the soda market started buying up
(20:26):
energy drinks smaller companies is because their own attempts at
them were almost across the board failures. UH. Coke Energy
was probably the longest lasting one, and they just announced
they think this past year that they were going to
stop making it. Heard of it, you could have very
easily looked past. It was like a thin can that
they If you weren't looking for an energy drink, you
(20:47):
you could have gone your whole life without knowing the
existed UM vault, which was I was sad to UM
to see that go. I used to love that stuff.
But it was a little more along the lines of
like jolts vibe than like an energy drink vibe. Do
you remember that stuff that used to fuel me in
the early days of recording? Yeah, okay, I don't remember
(21:09):
Pepsi's Josta. Never heard of that me either, Uh. And
I don't remember Nelly the rapper Nelly had pimp juice never.
I don't remember that. No. And I mean, there's plenty
of others to chuck there's more than you can shake
a stick at. Apparently in two thousand and six and
two thousand and seven, two hundred new brands were introduced,
(21:30):
and you've got just there's tons of different brands, and
some of them are kind of like UM still tapping
into that early like extreme vibe, Like there's one called
Redline Extreme. Uh. Then the others are like kind of
like going after niche markets once called Nerd Focus, and
then Sunny D has gotten into it with their rise
(21:51):
R Y s e Um Energy Drink. I can't believe
there's not a Z in that. There's not. I think
they were satisfied with the Y and like you can't
bastardize two letters exactly. They're like, we're sunny D, we
can only go so far. And then also there's Bang.
I think there's people who are energy drink fans who
are screaming at us right now. You can't not mention
(22:13):
Bang at least if we're gonna buzz market all these guys. Sure,
what about muscle buzz that's a good one. Is that
for real? Or you make them out up? Made it up?
Because I could see it both ways. No, it totally
could be a real thing. Uh No, I'm sure there
are still smaller brands out there, Like you said that,
they have their like loyalists, But whenever you're talking about
(22:35):
something like this, it seems to boil down to like
four or five kind of of the big big boys.
UM and big boys is right because I think a
couple of years ago the global market was about forty
five billion dollars total UM. And this is uh. Ed
Grabanowski helped us out with this one. He does point
out that, UM, Like, statistically, if you look at like
(22:58):
the Wall Street Journal, they'll talk about Europe and Russia
and North America. But those are just because they're traded publicly. UM.
I'm sure that in in Asia they still have some
of the UM hot selling smaller tonics that just aren't
you know, publicly listed like that, right, at least not
on the New York Stock Exchange. So so you said
(23:20):
in was right? Yeah, I saw predicted by twenty thirty one,
less than a decade from now, it'll reach a hundred
and eight billion dollars and that will go toward nerd focus.
That's my prediction. Uh. We should talk about what's in
these things, right, Yeah? Um, first and foremost chok is sugar. Sugar. Sugar. Yeah,
(23:45):
they're very sweet, and that's probably why like I like sugar.
I like, you know, ice cream and desserts and things.
But yeah, just get a bag down from the counter.
And I don't love sugary, really sugary drinks though, as
evidenced by my lack of cola consumption. I think that
may be one of my biggest turnoffs out of the gate,
is just how sweet they are. Yeah, man, you're really
(24:07):
doing yourself a favor by avoiding that stuff. I mean,
I already have a weight problem. Can you imagine if
I drank like six or eight so does a day.
That's I mean, that wouldn't be around. That's the easiest
way to drop a bunch of weight. If that's what
you're looking for. Is dropping like soda and apparently also,
um this is I can't back this up with any study,
(24:27):
but anecdotally speaking, um h zero sugar or diet is
is just as bad, if not worse somehow that we
don't fully understand yet. Yeah, Emily used to be a
diet coke fiend and totally gave it up, probably I
don't know, six or eight years ago and noticed a
big difference in her life. You know, Yeah, I believe it.
(24:48):
Uh So, sugar wise is sixteen ounce uh energy drink
has about fifty to sixty grams of sugar. It's a lot.
That is a lot. If you look at the same
size coke has about thirty nine. So this is you know,
upwards of twenty plus grams of sugar, more than in
a coat. Yeah, so it's they're very sweet. What's interesting
(25:10):
is like the I guess the taste of them. Some
of them you're like, this is really sweet. But like
Red Bull, for example, has a ton of sugar in it,
but that's not the thing that you notice that, that's
not the chief part of like the taste or the
mouth feel. It's something different. But there's a ton of
sugar in there, and sugar. The reason why there's a
lot of sugar in there is because you know, carbohydrates,
(25:32):
like sugar, they're easily broken down. Do provide you energy,
that's one of the things that they do, and so
energy drinks have said, well, we'll just put a ton
of sugar in here to start. Yeah, And honestly, Red
Bull is the only one I've ever even tasted, and
as soon as it did, I was like, this is
not for me. So I've never even had any of
the other ones. The other ones can be really sweet
and not real Red Bull at all. Yeah. Caffeine is
(25:54):
the next huge ingredient. Um. Obviously, all of these are
gonna have of at least a hundred and fifty grams
of caffeine, which sounds like a lot, and it is.
But I think, I mean, how much is a is
a like a large coffee has usually more than three hundred, right,
(26:15):
not a large chuck? A grande has three? Ten? Is
grande the larger the medium? It's the medium. Yeah, there's
tall Grande INVENTI big big one. But yeah, so it's like,
you know, of course coffee has a bunch in it,
but uh, sixteen out soda has like fifty to sixty
grams of it, right, and some of these, you know,
(26:35):
a hundred and sixty is a good average from what
I saw, a hundred and sixty grams of caffeine and
like a sixteen ounce like one of those tall Boy
cans of an energy drink. So there's a lot more
than there is in soda, but not quite as much
in coffee. The thing is, some of those energy drinks
do go up to like three hundred, Like I know
Bang has three hundred grams of caffeine in it, so
(26:57):
basically double the average um caffeine that you'll find in
other um energy drinks. And that's just the listed stuff.
As we'll see, there are, from what I can tell,
depending on what it's regulated as no requirements for listing
how much caffeine is in it. And if they are
required to list how much caffeine is in it, they
(27:19):
only have to put the amount of caffeine that they're
actually putting it, like caffeine powder that was synthesized in
a lab that they put into their drink. That's the
only stuff that they would need to list, and there
are there's a lot of other caffeine sources in it.
I just don't see how that could still be possible
because the f d A is just totally owned by
(27:39):
everybody but the American people. That's why it's it's just sad.
And we've done episodes on that it does the FDA
protect Americans. The really eye opening one we did on supplements. Remember,
like the U an energy drink can be regulated as
a beverage of food item or as a supplement like
a vitamin, and the food I them is more regulated
(28:01):
than the supplement is. And that's just that's just classic
f d A. Yeah, and I'm not even saying, like
a government you should put a cap on things, uh,
but it's it's just hard to believe. They don't even
have to list what is in these things, uh right.
It is very hard, especially when you start, you know,
(28:22):
really kind of digging into how much stuff is in
these things, and that we don't fully understand how some
of these things actually affect us, especially over the long term.
And again, some people drink three four five energy drinks
a day every day and have for years, So really
anything we should be studying those people, like a gaggle
(28:44):
of scientists should be following them around just taking notes,
like every day on them. Yeah, put on your uh
speed skates exactly. Rocket skates is more like it. Am. Yeah,
we tried to follow them around, but we couldn't catch up.
We're on too much sunny d rise. Taurine, of course,
is still in there. Like we mentioned, Um, how much
(29:06):
do you want to get into two taurin? I'd like
to talk about it a little bit, all right, hit
it go ahead. Uh. Well, like we said, we've been
synthesizing it from the the ox spile for many years now. Um.
Human beings can actually synthesize it to some degree. Right, Yeah,
so it's not it's it's not an essential nutrient force,
(29:29):
but we do need more, I think than we produce,
so we get it from other sources like meat and
fish and stuff like that. And the synthesized version of
it like that you would take as a supplement, has
been used in Japan. They treat it, use it to
treat congenital heart disease UM. They've shown that it treats
metabolic diseases, inflammatory diseases like arthritis UM. And it does
(29:54):
have an effect on human performance, like endurance of elite
athletes give and touring show like a difference in how
well they perform. Yes, Like you can take supplements of it.
And there's usually about two thousand milligrams of touring in
an energy drink, and that is a high dose of touring.
(30:15):
And we do know from study that touring does have
generally positive effects on humans. But again it's a really
high dose and we don't know how much. You know,
a dose like that multiple times a day, every day
will affect you. Yeah, and then how it interacts with
caffeine and sugar and all the other things right right exactly,
because that's the point of an energy drink. All this
(30:35):
stuff taken separately can affect you. We don't really understand
how they interact and work together to affect you. That's
the big, the big question mark. Yeah. Um B vitamins
are still in a lot of these energy drinks, just
like they were with that initial uh initial Japanese elixir.
Um B vitamins are are you know, can be really
(30:57):
good for your body for sure, um, but we again
combine with all the sugar, um, we don't know like
what kind of effect uh A lot of the kind
of remaining ingredients, We don't know what kind of effect
it might have when it comes to like gen seng
and antioxidants and b vitamins and things that they kind
of tout as being, you know, good for you. We
(31:19):
don't know what kind of effect they have in an
energy drink. Um. There's another one that that is pretty
much in every single energy drink you'll ever find. It's
called guarana and guarana I do want to talk a
little bit more about to chuck. So it's a climbing
plant native to the Amazon, right. It's a traditional medicine
there and it's been used to treat things like fatigue depression.
(31:42):
Like it is a a an active um molecule that
like affects human beings. And one of the things that
it does to affect us is has like four times
the caffeine that coffee beans do, and it also acts
as somehow there's some other part of it that act
is a booster to that caffeine. So like some component
(32:03):
of guarana um interacts with the caffeine in it to
boost it and then would also ostensibly interact with all
the other caffeine that you find floating around in an
energy drink. So it actually is boosting properties and more
to the point that three hundred or hundred and sixty
grams of caffeine that's listed on the label. That doesn't
include the guarana, which again has four times the caffeine
(32:25):
of coffee beans. So you really have zero idea how
much caffeine you're ingesting um, whether higher or lower um
according to the label. Um, because of things like that,
because it's considered an herbal supplement, and you don't have
to list a darn thing that's associated with that herbal
supplement in the United States, that's right. So that was
(32:46):
one of the sort of well not mystery additions, but
just one of the extra caffeine additions. Yeah, and again
it really does have an effect on us. We just
aren't haven't studied it closely enough to know to dick stuff.
All right, another break, Yes, I'm ready for one. All right, Well, uh,
we've kind of been hinting around at this, but we'll
(33:08):
talk about whether or not the energy drinks are actually
bad for you or even dangerous right after this, all right, chuck,
(33:40):
So energy drinks bad for you? Go, Well, here's the deal.
After researching this stuff, A couple of things are clear. Um.
One is kind of like with most things, if you
have the occasional energy drink and it's something that you've
have in moderation, it's it's probably not terrible for you.
It is got a ton of sugar in a ton
(34:00):
of caffeine. So uh, just like any other sugary sodas
or or loads of caffeine, you know. Um, all that
stuff in moderation is probably okay. Um. We're not doctors.
So if if you have like a heart condition or
super high blood pressure or like you know, arrhythmias and
things like that, and you you want to drink a
(34:22):
lot of energy drinks, like you may want to talk
to your doctor and say, hey, is this a bad idea?
Because there have been and this you know, we want
to point out this doesn't mean that, uh, this is
an open and shut deal. But there have been a
lot of lawsuits brought against energy drink companies because of
health problems that people have had that they at least claim,
(34:46):
um stem uh, And I think they think it stems
from energy drinks. But I think what we can probably
say is and what the defendant will say, which is
to say these big companies is hey, you can't draw
a straight line from your stroke to my energy drink.
It's like there's a lot of factors going on with
your life, right, um. But I don't know if any
(35:08):
of these has been settled in I haven't heard, but
that the lawsuits definitely say like, hey, this my kid
was totally fine until she started drinking energy drinks. And
there's a really famous like case from two thousand eleven
of a girl in Maryland who was fourteen at the time.
Her name was a Ni Fernier or either one. She
(35:29):
was fourteen at the time. She drank um to twenty
four ounce cans of Monster in a single day, uh
and died of cardiac arrest. And she did have an
existing condition, a heart condition, but it's not normally a
fatal heart condition. And like her parents are like, your
energy drink killed our kid from drinking two of them
(35:50):
in a single day. Uh. And there are you know,
it's not like there's tons of stuff like that. But
you know, I have not seen any, um, any any
lawsuits of somebody dropping dead from drinking two pepsis in
a day or even six pepsis in a day. So
it is it is remarkable and noteworthy that people have
suffered some serious like health setbacks from drinking energy drinks,
(36:13):
or at the very least around the time that they
drank energy drinks. Yeah, I mean, her autopsy straight up
said that caffeine toxicity was a factor in her death.
That didn't say. And again, this is where the defense
will come for these things, is like, hey, she had
a heart issue already, or you know, if you look
through all of these lawsuits, they can there are other
(36:37):
contributing factors. But certainly, like I said, if you have
a if you have a hard condition or really high
blood pressure and your your mowing down six h six
Tallboy energy drinks a day, it can certainly lead to
some poor health outcomes. It certainly can, especially especially yeah,
like you said, if you have a pre existing condition,
(36:57):
especially like hypertension or heart disease, because caffeine is very
well known to constrict your blood vessels, but at the
same time it releases adrenaline, which increases blood flow, so
you've got more blood trying to flow through tighter blood vessels.
And that also occurs in your brain as well, and
(37:18):
it can like that's right for a stroke, it's right
for a heart attack. You can make your heart like
like palpitate. There's just a lot of things that theoretically
could happen and may have happened. Uh, if these lawsuits
pan out correctly, Um, that from drinking energy drinks. But again,
like you said, generally in having one once in a while,
(37:41):
especially if you don't have a pre existing condition, is
probably not going to hurt you. Yeah. I think one
area that they definitely have kind of made people a
little more aware of in the past like ten years
is alcohol and energy drinks. Um. I know, like vodka
and red Bull was a really hot drink order for
a while, at least in Uh it feels like about
(38:02):
the midish two thousand's. Have you ever had one? No,
I don't want to drink red Bull. Oh that's right,
it's totally it's a totally different animal. The two things
combine to create something totally different. So I can totally
see why this is not not a smart thing to do. Yeah.
I mean you've got two opposing factors. You have something
dulling your senses combined with an upper basically, and uh
(38:27):
that that can lead to all sorts of problems. Um,
certainly with decision making whether or not you think you
can drive, and things like that. Um. I think most
people who enjoy those drinks. Will tell you that's exactly
why I drink them is because the upper in the
in the energy drink does combat the sluggishness of the
alcohol if you're out, you know, kind of partying on
(38:50):
the dance floor or something like that. That was so square.
Uh here partying on the dance floor. Um. But uh
for a while there they were actually selling like four
loco was a drink that was a pre mixed energy
vodka energy drink um with all the you know, standard
(39:13):
energy drink ingredients, and uh. They the FDA basically kind
of came out in two thousand ten and with with
a stern warning to stop producing those, and it basically
effectively banned them, didn't it. Yeah, it did it. It
said you, we really strongly advise you against that. And
I would guess that if the FDA advises you against that,
(39:34):
you keep doing it, you're really opening up yourself to lawsuits,
especially if you are harming people. And there's a really
like um widely cited study from two thousand well after
two thousand eleven, because that was the last date they
went up to, but it was the Dawn Report Drug
Abuse Warning Network Report, and they studied emergency department e
(39:54):
D visits h that involved energy drinks among people twelve
or older, and between two thousand seven in two thousand eleven,
the emergency department visits doubled from ten thousand, sixty eight
to twenty thousand, seven hundred and eighty three in just
a few years. And so a lot of people point
to that and say, yeah, energy drinks are toxic, they're poison,
(40:15):
they're they're gonna kill you, They're gonna the very least
send you to the hospital. And other people who are like, well,
hold on, let's let's not get into a moral panic
over this. Um. These were the four Loco years, and
basically people agree like that widely skewed the number of
emergency department visits because mixing alcohol and energy drinks is
(40:36):
such a bad idea and has these horrid effects. As
far as I know, nobody has done a follow up
study to see if it declined after four Loco stop
being made with alcohol or with the caffeine and the
torreing and the guarine. I think it's still made, but
it's like a just like a sweet malt beverage, um
malt liquor beverage. Now, now do you know, with bars
have ceased to serve those mixed drinks from fear of lawsuits,
(41:00):
not that I know of. I'm surprised that no one's
brought a lawsuit against a club, a nightclub that serves
someone you know nine Red Bull and Vodkas. Uh you know, yeah,
I'm i or maybe it has happened. Yeah, maybe it has,
it just hasn't made the news. Who knows. Uh. There
have been studies as far as um, like just heart
(41:22):
rate and stuff like that. There was one uh and
this wasn't a huge population study, but um, fifteen healthy
people between eighteen and forty and they have them consumed
two cans of one of the big brands, uh, basically
every day for a week and kind of across the
board they found, um, you know, significant increases in both
(41:46):
heart rate and blood pressure sort of on a day
by day basis. So I mean a significant increase. Yeah,
I mean, I mean, I guess that's what people are after.
So it's not like we're surprised by any of this.
But that's just say that. You know, when you're increasing
your heart rate at a steady pace, sustained pace and
your blood pressure, you know, that's that's not great for
(42:07):
your body. No, And one of the other things that
turned up in that study is that it had a
cumulative effect. So your heart rate increased by eight percent
on day one and then eleven percent on day seven.
So like it had a build up effect, Like you
didn't your body didn't get used to it, your body
became more sensitive to it, it seemed like. So that
was one week, imagine drinking more than two for multiple years,
(42:32):
you can imagine that it could conceivably have a really
bad law effect on your long term cardiovascular health. Yeah,
but you also did find some studies that sort of
showed that they can increase your mental performance right in focus. Well,
red bull specifically has been found from studies possibly supported
(42:53):
by the Red Bull Institute of Science and Stuff, UM
that red bull improves attention, kind centration, memory, driving quality,
reduced variation in speed while you're driving, less mental strain
in prolonged driving which is four hours, and faster motor
reaction time. Like it Actually it does have that effect
(43:14):
on you. Um. Again, it's just a question of you know,
what's the health trade off if there is any, and
we definitely need more study on that. Well, they probably
could find the same result in a meth amphetamine study.
You know exactly what is it? Um? Benny's. If you
take some Benny's, you probably do. Man, we're just so
square today. So yeah, he takes some Benni's and you
(43:37):
go get down on the dance floor. But the real question, though,
my friend, is is Monster energy energy drink a satanic drink?
I I have a love hate with the internet, don't you.
Well that's sort of one of those dumb Internet urban legends, right,
is that it's Yeah, it's like a six six six thing. Yeah,
(44:00):
because if you've ever seen the Monster logo, it's like
claw scratches that form the M but they're clearly three
separate scratches. And some people said, hey, that looks like
the Hebrew vov, a Hebrew number. Well letter um that
represents six, the number six, and there's three claws, So
clearly this is just saying six six six right in
(44:21):
our face there there Um. Their slogan is unleashed the Beast,
which is of course another name for the devil. And
apparently if you look closely, I see what people are saying.
If you look at the oh in Monster on the logo,
there's like a cross in the middle of it, like
a plus sign, but one like the cross section is
down a little further so that if you tip it up,
(44:43):
you're you're you're looking at an upside down cross the logo. Yeah,
it's just this is what happens when you drink too
much energy. Just start paying attention to stuff like this.
It was wholly created from from people drinking this stuff
at the time. That's right. I would say, chuck Jerry's out,
wouldn't you, Not on whether monsters satanic or not, but
(45:04):
on um, whether energy drinks are bad for you or not. Yeah,
they're not for me, but um, I mean I think
any like you don't want to drink six sodas a day, right,
you know they say it's all in moderation, that's the
key to life. You don't want to drink six coke
zeros a day, No, you really don't. And also six
(45:26):
don't drink six anything a day except water or And
if you are, take the time and respect yourself enough
to go look up and see, like if if anyone
studied what all that stuff is going to do to you,
and then make a more informed decision rather than just
be like I like this, Yeah, but we're not doctors.
That's just our suggestion. Yes, anything else. I got nothing else. Well,
(45:49):
since Chuck said he's got nothing else, and obviously it's
time for a listener mail, I'm just gonna call this
a nice letter of appreciation from a nice fellow. Hey, guys,
my name is Jonathan Bednar, and I just wanted to
thank you on the tremendous job that you and your
team do operate heavy machinery all day, which seems fun,
(46:10):
but it can be rather monotonous and boring, and your
podcast really gets me through the day whenever discussions of
the podcast come up with my friends or family, and
make sure to hype stuff you should know as much
as possible. Just the array of topics that are researched
so thoroughly is really refreshing. And I just leave off
of whatever episode I was on and keep on going
because even the quote boring sounding ones end quote sometimes
(46:34):
end up being the most interesting. So thanks a lot,
guys and ps ps. I've listened to Josh Clark's Into
the World podcast about five times now. Thank you. Very
fascinating stuff all the way around, So go check out
Into the World with Josh Clark. Uh if you're into movies,
go listen to the retired movie Crush. But there's still
(46:55):
a lot of really fun, great movie Crush episodes out
there you can go listen to, and um, it's good stuff.
So thanks Jonathan for that word of support. We need
those these days. Yes, thanks a lot. Jonathan is nice
to hear that kind of thing. Um, And if you
want to be like Jonathan and send us a word
of support, we're always open to that. You can send
(47:16):
it to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and there's Jerry, and this is stuff
you should know. Are y'all hopped up? I used to
be man. I used to drink energy drinks a lot.
(00:21):
I think I remember that especially. I would definitely drink
at least one before we would go on stage. Um.
And I can tell a big difference between not doing
that and doing that for sure. Yeah, So I just
want to caveat all this. I don't want to like
sound like a Debbie Downer with how I talk about
(00:43):
energy drinks. Um, I find them disgusting, like the taste
or like the whole concept. The taste absolutely not for me.
Like I don't even really drink soda ever. Oh yeah,
it's like, you know, a couple of cokes a year,
maybe in a couple of fan of oranges, maybe your
root beer like six or seven. I've talked about this before,
(01:03):
so obviously if I'm not even in desoda really an
energy drink flavor wise, it's just it's a lot for
my tinder taste buds. But I'm also just not a
caffeine hound. I don't. I don't uh, And I know
a lot of people really maybe depend on this stuff
or enjoy it and like to be uh energized in
(01:24):
that way. But it's just not my style. I don't
like the heart racing feeling. I don't like feeling ganked up. Um.
It's just not It's just not my personality. So if
I do sound a little like energy drink, uh, you know,
like a little thumbs downy, then that's kind of where
(01:44):
that's coming from. It's just it's just not my bag.
To each his own. Don't want to yuck someone's yum.
Although we will get into the sort of the h
whether or not they're good for you, obviously, but I
just want to cavy up this episode with that. Yeah,
we're not gonna let this one turned into the vaping episode.
How about that? I don't even remember what we said
in that one. Oh we we pood pood every bit
(02:06):
of it. Yah, didn't quite overtly. Yeah, it's kind of
playing out though now right it is, because I can
tell you just anecdotally, I'm seeing way more people smoking
cigarettes these days than I did five ten years ago.
People are going back to cigarettes or Yeah, that was
the whole problem with vaping. It was like people who
had never smoked were like, Oh, vaping is good for you,
(02:26):
I'll try that, and then they're like, well, I wonder
what these cigarettes are like, and now they're hooked on cigarettes. Interesting,
or the vapors were like, oh, it's not so awesome
to just puff huge clouds of coconut pineapple flavored garbage chemistry.
It's grossed. Yeah. Alright, So energy drinks, right, yeah, I
(02:47):
mean I bring up the vape episode not just because
of that, but because energy drinks to kind of bear
like a weird similarity to it. Like there's a lot
of chemistry going on, there's a lot of unproven claims,
and yet people are finitely into them. There's no denying it,
and I won't yock anybody's on either. I don't really
drink a much anymore, but I do enjoy when occasionally
might have more to do than usual in a particular day. Right.
(03:11):
But but um, I'd say we start out with the
history of energy drinks, which I mean, you can make
a case that coca cola was an energy drink when
it had cocaine in it. But energy drinks, as we
understand them today actually start um background uh in Tennessee,
of all places, right, this is in Johnson City, Tennessee.
(03:34):
The first I don't know about the first, but it
was well, it definitely wasn't the first, but it was
a part of the early medicinal soda trends that was
going on back then, along with coke. And we're talking
about dr enough E n U F which started in
forty nine with it was basically like a soda but
they had some potassium and some be vitamins thrown in
(03:58):
and it it was and still is still around. It's
hard to find, but you can find it here and
there in certain southern states. Um, but it's not everywhere.
Like I've never really seen it on shelves. I've never
even heard of it really. Yeah, I haven't seen it
on shelves in Georgia. But um, I think it's marketed.
It's sort of like one of those like old kind
of tonic elixir sort of things got you, um the
(04:21):
so Okay, so that's established as the beach had have
possibly the first energy drink. Um. What what really kind
of takes that that mantle and runs with it is
something called LiPo itan D that's how I'm pronouncing great
name for a market marketable drink doesn't exactly roll off
the tongue, and yet it sounds like it would taste
really awful, and apparently it did. But it came out
(04:44):
of Japan because back in the fifties when it came out,
Japan was like super into working fourteen or sixteen hours
during the day, eating standing up in in like five minutes,
and then getting back to work like basically everything. Like
if you ever saw um, what was that automaker movie
(05:04):
with Michael Keaton Japanese? Yes, if you ever saw gung
Hollo like that, that caricature of Japanese business. It's not
entirely just completely stereotypical. It's not based on just nothing,
you know what I mean. Yeah, but this was in
the fifties when meta amphetamines were uh pre nineteen fifty
three in Japan at least uh were legal, and like
(05:28):
there were all kinds of like fine upstanding citizens across
the world eating uppers basically to get more done. And they,
you know, like I said, they weren't illegal at the time.
I think there weren't people out there screaming about ill
health effects, so all they knew was this was go juice,
and I can get a lot more done. And they
(05:50):
they certainly, at least in part, helped fuel that kind
of nineteen fifties Japanese business work ethic. Yeah, it also
helped jet kerouac on the road in like forty eight
hours on a single long sheet of keeper as I understand. So, UM,
the Japanese were into emped. I mean like most of
the world was at that time. UM. But then the
(06:12):
Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Act was passed in that um
in that country, and they said no more methem fed.
It means everybody, you're getting out of hand. Um. And
so the Taisho Pharmaceutical company said, we can't use speed anymore.
But I suspect that people are gonna really want something
that that makes them feel that way. So let's come
(06:33):
up within a lixer. And that a lixor that they
came up with was lipovitan D. That's right. And it
was initially um served as a pill that had something
called taurian in it, which is derived from originally from
ox bile. But they synthesized it, you know, a long
long time ago. Uh, And we'll we'll talk about what
(06:54):
that is more, but it's a key ingredient and modern
energy drinks. But they made that into a liquid. They
served it in a little glass bottle called an ampuel,
and it had a little membrane and you could stick
a straw through it, and it became kind of the
go to UH and it was small. It was sort
of if you've ever seen a five hour energy uh,
(07:15):
it was kind of that size. It looked like, Yeah,
in Japan was like, this is great. I don't know
why you took the pill and turned it into some
disgusting tasting like liquid that we have to drink, but
we like it. Probably because it hit you a lot faster,
That's what I'm guessing. And then there was a guy
who was running that company at the time, the Taisho
Pharmaceutical company that was making lip of it T and D,
(07:37):
and he said, you know what, let's make this taste here,
Let's add some flavoring, let's add more of like a
soda feel to it. And that is when it really
started to take off. And that is in nine two
um what you would consider probably the first modern precursor
of a genuine energy drink as we'd recognize them today. Yeah. Um.
(07:57):
A couple of decades went by, and then in nine five,
Jolt Cola came along, which was invented by a gentleman
named CJ. Rap Uh. It was highly marketed as a
just a super caffeine eated cola. What was the slogan?
(08:17):
It was like all the sugar twice the caffeine, that's right. Uh.
And it had seventy two milligrams of caffeine and I think,
uh didn't a coax somewhere between fifty and sixty? Wait,
how many milligrams are caffeine? A jolt had seventy two? Okay,
all right, I thought you said seven for a second. No,
seventy two, which is, you know, tend to twenty ish
(08:41):
milligrams more than like an average soda, I think, which
isn't like a ton. But at the time he called it,
Joeld had the lightning bolt. And this was at a
time in the mid eighties when less was more in like,
you know, a fewer calories, fewer caffeine, like kind of
less everything, And so it really swam against the current
as far as a kind of a marketing thing. Right.
(09:03):
I used to love that stuff, and I don't know
if you remember. But we mentioned it before on the
show and they sent us some some Jolt ms good.
I don't know if I ever even tried it, to
be honest. Oh well, it tastes like cola that's super
sweet and really gets you going. I mean it's still around,
I think too, right, Yeah, I just I hadn't seen
it in forever, so I was really happy that they
(09:24):
sent some. But eight four, if you jump back a year,
is kind of when if you think about American style
energy drinks, was the birth of that movement? Yeah, because
I mean Joel Cole is like all in fun, it's
about being hyper that kind of thing, but it's not
like it's not like a drink that's designed to give
(09:45):
you like a form of energy that you can be
productive with or increase your performance with. And that seems
to be like the baseline point of energy drinks and
that really finds well, I guess lip of it and
d really fits that bill. But the one that we
would recognize today that started in eighty four, um was
found by a m a German toothpaste marketer named Dietrich
(10:07):
Matta Shits, and he was hanging out in Thailand at
the time. And he came across the tonic syrup called kretting. Dang.
It wasn't it wasn't that Like my my context messed up?
Like I wish you could have seen my face, because
I'll bet it was hilarious. Oh man, that was great
(10:29):
that in there, that kretting dang dang? So what does
that mean? Chuck? How about this? Why don't we take
a break and we'll we'll talk about a cliffhanger and
we'll tell you what that means right after this. How's
(11:09):
your contact? It's fine, I've got this new thing where
I'm trying. So I've got, um what am I? I'm
near sighted, so I can see things really well close
up when I don't have contacts, and um and my
my optometrists split the difference between you know, far sighted
contacts and near sighted context so that I can generally
(11:30):
see things close up and I can really see things
far away. So I've got like two different powered contacts.
And every once in a while, if like like the
paper gets a little too close, it all just gets blurry.
That's what happened. Okay, full disclosure, everybody. It these are
the details people want to hear. I don't know about that,
but sure, all right. So where we left off, Wastrich
(11:53):
Matta Shits was marketing for tooth Basse was hanging out
in Thailand discovered the tonic strup called kretting dang and
that was developed in mid the seventies. And if you
want to translate that into English, that means what. No,
(12:13):
I'd set you up for it. You take it. It
means red bull. Yeah, and you might say, okay, red bull.
But where'd the red bull come from? Its origin stories
even more complete than we've led on, because the red
bull refers to Toren, which is again named after bulls.
Taurusts is the bull and the reason why it seemed
(12:33):
after bulls is because it was first extracted from ox bile,
which is awesome. Right. So if you ever heard kind
of remember early on in Red Bulls life when people
would kind of spread the urban legend that there was
like bull urine and stuff like that in it and
that's how it's derived. I remember that. Yeah, I totally do. None.
Obviously none of that is true. It may have had
(12:55):
something to do with the ox file uh original, Yeah,
I'm guess thing so, and the fact that there was
trace amounts of bull seamen in there. No, just not
bull yeurine. That's crazy. But like we said that that
had been synthesized for decades, so it's not like they
were using real ox spile anyway, right exactly. So Um
(13:16):
Dietrich Mattashits who he went from marketing blend Ax toothpaste
to um taking this tonic, the Red Bull tonic, kretang dang,
kretting dang. I just can't quite get it, um, and
he he said, I want to do something with this.
I think people are going to go crazy for this.
So he got his hands on a license. He spent
(13:36):
three years like turning it into a carbonated beverage rather
than just a tonic syrup, messed with the taste, came
up with a great marketing plan and launched it in
nineteen seven in um, Austria and Germany to to great success. Yeah,
he sold a lot of it and early just kind
(13:56):
of from the beginning, Red Bull had a very guerrilla
style marketing thing as far as those cars that you
see that are that are I don't say wrapped in
Red Bull ads and I have a can on them. Yeah,
like Red Bull parties and stuff like that. Uh, they
had animated TV commercials over there that were really catchy,
(14:18):
and it really caught on not only there, but obviously
worked its way through Europe eventually found its way to
the US, where it became um tied to car racing
and extreme sports and uh, you and I even did that.
Uh was it like a soapbox derby? Soapbox derby where
(14:38):
we were called upon to judge the soapbux derby? Who
was it? Was it, young Jock? I think so it was.
There was a rapper that was with us, and like
a couple other people. Guy, Oh it was great. Um,
I don't remember who else was up there, but yeah,
it was. That was a weird thing. But that was
a red Bull event and they sponsored a lot of
(14:59):
those kind of things, and that was you know, they
were marketing to younger people who you know, red Bull
gives you wings and uh, it's sort of like the
extreme sports angle. They sponsored. That jump, the highest jump
from the stratosphere ever ever done by man. I can't
remember the guys. They want to say, Casper or something.
Do you remember that, Casper Weinberger. No, No, you never
(15:21):
jumped out of an orbiting satellite like this guy did, right,
right right, Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah, so that
that was a red Bull sponsored thing. That's definitely like
up there alley for sure. It's so interesting advertising that
if like, oh, you're gonna anything where people have eyeballs
on it, They're like, well, can we put our logo
on your chest? I guess it makes sense. I mean,
that's I don't know it does. It's like that guy
(15:44):
who the airline pilot who landed the plane safely in
the Hudson and no one died, like a few years back. No,
he wasn't sponsored, but he took that he took that
spotlight and he used it to UM to basically share
with the public the plight of like UM airline pilots
and how they're like mistreated UM. And it's the same thing.
(16:07):
It's like a bunch of people are paying attention to
you all of a sudden. Are you gonna say, I'm
sponsored by Red Bull or my uh colleagues are really
being mistreated by the airline companies. Let's let's do something
about it, right. And I'm not poo pooing it, obviously.
The irony is not lost on me. I know. That's
how we make our livings. So please Savior emails. We're
always walking around with Red Bull jackets on the leather
(16:28):
eight ball red Bull jackets that were contractually obligated to wear.
But Red Bull was a pretty big success right away
held a lot of the market, like the lion share
of the market share early on in the early two thousand's,
I think seventy nine uh in two thousand one of
the market share. And obviously when something is selling one
(16:49):
and a half plus billion cans of something a year,
people are gonna jump on board. And then you've got
one to three basically four other are really big players
who have stuck around. Yeah, Monster, which is a a juggernaut.
It was actually launched by you know that Hansen soda,
(17:12):
the all natural soda. I don't think I do. You've
seen it if you've ever been to a decent deli before.
They had Hanson soda along with New York Seltzer and stuff,
and it's just like little little soda brand that just
keeps plugging along. But it's it's like touts that it's
made of like natural like ingredients. They launched Monster and
they went from in two thousand three a company with
(17:36):
fifty million dollars in revenue. They launched Monster Energy Drink
that year, and eight years later they were making one
point seven billion dollars in revenue. Wo. Yeah, yeah, they
have about a third of today's market. Uh, there's n
os which I see those signs all over convenience stores.
But honestly, I never really paid attention enough to know
(17:57):
what it was. But that is an energy drink. It
was launched in two thousand five by f u Ze Fuse,
which was bought by Coke. Uh and I think Monster
owns them now as well. Right, yeah, so they owned
the number two and number three most I guess best
selling energy drinks. I've also seen it pronounced nass it
(18:19):
probably is, yeah, but a little I know about car racing. Well,
I had to look up a video where somebody reviewed
it to make sure that's how you say it, So
I'm with you, but it's um. It's it's like a
nitrous oxide booster, like that part in Black Sheet when
Chris Farley and David Spade are driving the stolen police
car and they're tailed by real police and he pushes
(18:39):
the nitrous oxide button. It just takes off because it
injects a bunch of combustion into it and really gets
it going. That's basically the premise of this energy drink.
Still haven't seen that movie. It's okay, it's pretty good,
all right. Uh. Then you've got, of course rock Star
that was launched in oh one, that is owned by Pepsi.
And you know, you see a trend here with any beverage,
(19:02):
any beer. If you're some kind of cool small brand
that's selling a lot of stuff, one of the big
dogs will come along and gobble you up pretty pretty quickly.
And I think that's the goal for a lot of
these companies. It's like, you know, a big payday. Apparently
rock Star is kind of going down in the market, right, yeah, yeah,
(19:22):
year by year. Apparently it's it's a discount um uh
energy drink. It's about half the price of Monster. But
they have a very limited amount of flavors, and I
think that's the way you make money in that biz,
is like having fifty million flavors, half the price, half
the flavor, right. That's their logo that that used to
(19:43):
be mine. I used to like rock Star a lot,
and it was like it just wasn't nearly as like
noxious as some of the other ones are. But yeah,
it's it's fine. Uh, and then you've got you can't
beat the price, then you got your five hour energy.
That's the one I mentioned earlier. You will see these
little guys. It's like a shot basically by UM the
(20:04):
cash register area because they're not refrigerated. Uh. They were
launched in two thousand four by Living Essentials, and this
was kind of harkens back a little more to those
Asian elixir tonics that were sold in the early days
in the sixties, right. And one reason that the big guys,
the big players in the soda market started buying up
(20:26):
energy drinks smaller companies is because their own attempts at
them were almost across the board failures. UH. Coke Energy
was probably the longest lasting one, and they just announced
they think this past year that they were going to
stop making it. Heard of it, you could have very
easily looked past. It was like a thin can that
they If you weren't looking for an energy drink, you
(20:47):
you could have gone your whole life without knowing the
existed UM vault, which was I was sad to UM
to see that go. I used to love that stuff.
But it was a little more along the lines of
like jolts vibe than like an energy drink vibe. Do
you remember that stuff that used to fuel me in
the early days of recording? Yeah, okay, I don't remember
(21:09):
Pepsi's Josta. Never heard of that me either, Uh. And
I don't remember Nelly the rapper Nelly had pimp juice never.
I don't remember that. No. And I mean, there's plenty
of others to chuck there's more than you can shake
a stick at. Apparently in two thousand and six and
two thousand and seven, two hundred new brands were introduced,
(21:30):
and you've got just there's tons of different brands, and
some of them are kind of like UM still tapping
into that early like extreme vibe, Like there's one called
Redline Extreme. Uh. Then the others are like kind of
like going after niche markets once called Nerd Focus, and
then Sunny D has gotten into it with their rise
(21:51):
R Y s e Um Energy Drink. I can't believe
there's not a Z in that. There's not. I think
they were satisfied with the Y and like you can't
bastardize two letters exactly. They're like, we're sunny D, we
can only go so far. And then also there's Bang.
I think there's people who are energy drink fans who
are screaming at us right now. You can't not mention
(22:13):
Bang at least if we're gonna buzz market all these guys. Sure,
what about muscle buzz that's a good one. Is that
for real? Or you make them out up? Made it up?
Because I could see it both ways. No, it totally
could be a real thing. Uh No, I'm sure there
are still smaller brands out there, Like you said that,
they have their like loyalists, But whenever you're talking about
(22:35):
something like this, it seems to boil down to like
four or five kind of of the big big boys.
UM and big boys is right because I think a
couple of years ago the global market was about forty
five billion dollars total UM. And this is uh. Ed
Grabanowski helped us out with this one. He does point
out that, UM, Like, statistically, if you look at like
(22:58):
the Wall Street Journal, they'll talk about Europe and Russia
and North America. But those are just because they're traded publicly. UM.
I'm sure that in in Asia they still have some
of the UM hot selling smaller tonics that just aren't
you know, publicly listed like that, right, at least not
on the New York Stock Exchange. So so you said
(23:20):
in was right? Yeah, I saw predicted by twenty thirty one,
less than a decade from now, it'll reach a hundred
and eight billion dollars and that will go toward nerd focus.
That's my prediction. Uh. We should talk about what's in
these things, right, Yeah? Um, first and foremost chok is sugar. Sugar. Sugar. Yeah,
(23:45):
they're very sweet, and that's probably why like I like sugar.
I like, you know, ice cream and desserts and things.
But yeah, just get a bag down from the counter.
And I don't love sugary, really sugary drinks though, as
evidenced by my lack of cola consumption. I think that
may be one of my biggest turnoffs out of the gate,
is just how sweet they are. Yeah, man, you're really
(24:07):
doing yourself a favor by avoiding that stuff. I mean,
I already have a weight problem. Can you imagine if
I drank like six or eight so does a day.
That's I mean, that wouldn't be around. That's the easiest
way to drop a bunch of weight. If that's what
you're looking for. Is dropping like soda and apparently also,
um this is I can't back this up with any study,
(24:27):
but anecdotally speaking, um h zero sugar or diet is
is just as bad, if not worse somehow that we
don't fully understand yet. Yeah, Emily used to be a
diet coke fiend and totally gave it up, probably I
don't know, six or eight years ago and noticed a
big difference in her life. You know, Yeah, I believe it.
(24:48):
Uh So, sugar wise is sixteen ounce uh energy drink
has about fifty to sixty grams of sugar. It's a lot.
That is a lot. If you look at the same
size coke has about thirty nine. So this is you know,
upwards of twenty plus grams of sugar, more than in
a coat. Yeah, so it's they're very sweet. What's interesting
(25:10):
is like the I guess the taste of them. Some
of them you're like, this is really sweet. But like
Red Bull, for example, has a ton of sugar in it,
but that's not the thing that you notice that, that's
not the chief part of like the taste or the
mouth feel. It's something different. But there's a ton of
sugar in there, and sugar. The reason why there's a
lot of sugar in there is because you know, carbohydrates,
(25:32):
like sugar, they're easily broken down. Do provide you energy,
that's one of the things that they do, and so
energy drinks have said, well, we'll just put a ton
of sugar in here to start. Yeah, And honestly, Red
Bull is the only one I've ever even tasted, and
as soon as it did, I was like, this is
not for me. So I've never even had any of
the other ones. The other ones can be really sweet
and not real Red Bull at all. Yeah. Caffeine is
(25:54):
the next huge ingredient. Um. Obviously, all of these are
gonna have of at least a hundred and fifty grams
of caffeine, which sounds like a lot, and it is.
But I think, I mean, how much is a is
a like a large coffee has usually more than three hundred, right,
(26:15):
not a large chuck? A grande has three? Ten? Is
grande the larger the medium? It's the medium. Yeah, there's
tall Grande INVENTI big big one. But yeah, so it's like,
you know, of course coffee has a bunch in it,
but uh, sixteen out soda has like fifty to sixty
grams of it, right, and some of these, you know,
(26:35):
a hundred and sixty is a good average from what
I saw, a hundred and sixty grams of caffeine and
like a sixteen ounce like one of those tall Boy
cans of an energy drink. So there's a lot more
than there is in soda, but not quite as much
in coffee. The thing is, some of those energy drinks
do go up to like three hundred, Like I know
Bang has three hundred grams of caffeine in it, so
(26:57):
basically double the average um caffeine that you'll find in
other um energy drinks. And that's just the listed stuff.
As we'll see, there are, from what I can tell,
depending on what it's regulated as no requirements for listing
how much caffeine is in it. And if they are
required to list how much caffeine is in it, they
(27:19):
only have to put the amount of caffeine that they're
actually putting it, like caffeine powder that was synthesized in
a lab that they put into their drink. That's the
only stuff that they would need to list, and there
are there's a lot of other caffeine sources in it.
I just don't see how that could still be possible
because the f d A is just totally owned by
(27:39):
everybody but the American people. That's why it's it's just sad.
And we've done episodes on that it does the FDA
protect Americans. The really eye opening one we did on supplements. Remember,
like the U an energy drink can be regulated as
a beverage of food item or as a supplement like
a vitamin, and the food I them is more regulated
(28:01):
than the supplement is. And that's just that's just classic
f d A. Yeah, and I'm not even saying, like
a government you should put a cap on things, uh,
but it's it's just hard to believe. They don't even
have to list what is in these things, uh right.
It is very hard, especially when you start, you know,
(28:22):
really kind of digging into how much stuff is in
these things, and that we don't fully understand how some
of these things actually affect us, especially over the long term.
And again, some people drink three four five energy drinks
a day every day and have for years, So really
anything we should be studying those people, like a gaggle
(28:44):
of scientists should be following them around just taking notes,
like every day on them. Yeah, put on your uh
speed skates exactly. Rocket skates is more like it. Am. Yeah,
we tried to follow them around, but we couldn't catch up.
We're on too much sunny d rise. Taurine, of course,
is still in there. Like we mentioned, Um, how much
(29:06):
do you want to get into two taurin? I'd like
to talk about it a little bit, all right, hit
it go ahead. Uh. Well, like we said, we've been
synthesizing it from the the ox spile for many years now. Um.
Human beings can actually synthesize it to some degree. Right, Yeah,
so it's not it's it's not an essential nutrient force,
(29:29):
but we do need more, I think than we produce,
so we get it from other sources like meat and
fish and stuff like that. And the synthesized version of
it like that you would take as a supplement, has
been used in Japan. They treat it, use it to
treat congenital heart disease UM. They've shown that it treats
metabolic diseases, inflammatory diseases like arthritis UM. And it does
(29:54):
have an effect on human performance, like endurance of elite
athletes give and touring show like a difference in how
well they perform. Yes, Like you can take supplements of it.
And there's usually about two thousand milligrams of touring in
an energy drink, and that is a high dose of touring.
(30:15):
And we do know from study that touring does have
generally positive effects on humans. But again it's a really
high dose and we don't know how much. You know,
a dose like that multiple times a day, every day
will affect you. Yeah, and then how it interacts with
caffeine and sugar and all the other things right right exactly,
because that's the point of an energy drink. All this
(30:35):
stuff taken separately can affect you. We don't really understand
how they interact and work together to affect you. That's
the big, the big question mark. Yeah. Um B vitamins
are still in a lot of these energy drinks, just
like they were with that initial uh initial Japanese elixir.
Um B vitamins are are you know, can be really
(30:57):
good for your body for sure, um, but we again
combine with all the sugar, um, we don't know like
what kind of effect uh A lot of the kind
of remaining ingredients, We don't know what kind of effect
it might have when it comes to like gen seng
and antioxidants and b vitamins and things that they kind
of tout as being, you know, good for you. We
(31:19):
don't know what kind of effect they have in an
energy drink. Um. There's another one that that is pretty
much in every single energy drink you'll ever find. It's
called guarana and guarana I do want to talk a
little bit more about to chuck. So it's a climbing
plant native to the Amazon, right. It's a traditional medicine
there and it's been used to treat things like fatigue depression.
(31:42):
Like it is a a an active um molecule that
like affects human beings. And one of the things that
it does to affect us is has like four times
the caffeine that coffee beans do, and it also acts
as somehow there's some other part of it that act
is a booster to that caffeine. So like some component
(32:03):
of guarana um interacts with the caffeine in it to
boost it and then would also ostensibly interact with all
the other caffeine that you find floating around in an
energy drink. So it actually is boosting properties and more
to the point that three hundred or hundred and sixty
grams of caffeine that's listed on the label. That doesn't
include the guarana, which again has four times the caffeine
(32:25):
of coffee beans. So you really have zero idea how
much caffeine you're ingesting um, whether higher or lower um
according to the label. Um, because of things like that,
because it's considered an herbal supplement, and you don't have
to list a darn thing that's associated with that herbal
supplement in the United States, that's right. So that was
(32:46):
one of the sort of well not mystery additions, but
just one of the extra caffeine additions. Yeah, and again
it really does have an effect on us. We just
aren't haven't studied it closely enough to know to dick stuff.
All right, another break, Yes, I'm ready for one. All right, Well, uh,
we've kind of been hinting around at this, but we'll
(33:08):
talk about whether or not the energy drinks are actually
bad for you or even dangerous right after this, all right, chuck,
(33:40):
So energy drinks bad for you? Go, Well, here's the deal.
After researching this stuff, A couple of things are clear. Um.
One is kind of like with most things, if you
have the occasional energy drink and it's something that you've
have in moderation, it's it's probably not terrible for you.
It is got a ton of sugar in a ton
(34:00):
of caffeine. So uh, just like any other sugary sodas
or or loads of caffeine, you know. Um, all that
stuff in moderation is probably okay. Um. We're not doctors.
So if if you have like a heart condition or
super high blood pressure or like you know, arrhythmias and
things like that, and you you want to drink a
(34:22):
lot of energy drinks, like you may want to talk
to your doctor and say, hey, is this a bad idea?
Because there have been and this you know, we want
to point out this doesn't mean that, uh, this is
an open and shut deal. But there have been a
lot of lawsuits brought against energy drink companies because of
health problems that people have had that they at least claim,
(34:46):
um stem uh, And I think they think it stems
from energy drinks. But I think what we can probably
say is and what the defendant will say, which is
to say these big companies is hey, you can't draw
a straight line from your stroke to my energy drink.
It's like there's a lot of factors going on with
your life, right, um. But I don't know if any
(35:08):
of these has been settled in I haven't heard, but
that the lawsuits definitely say like, hey, this my kid
was totally fine until she started drinking energy drinks. And
there's a really famous like case from two thousand eleven
of a girl in Maryland who was fourteen at the time.
Her name was a Ni Fernier or either one. She
(35:29):
was fourteen at the time. She drank um to twenty
four ounce cans of Monster in a single day, uh
and died of cardiac arrest. And she did have an
existing condition, a heart condition, but it's not normally a
fatal heart condition. And like her parents are like, your
energy drink killed our kid from drinking two of them
(35:50):
in a single day. Uh. And there are you know,
it's not like there's tons of stuff like that. But
you know, I have not seen any, um, any any
lawsuits of somebody dropping dead from drinking two pepsis in
a day or even six pepsis in a day. So
it is it is remarkable and noteworthy that people have
suffered some serious like health setbacks from drinking energy drinks,
(36:13):
or at the very least around the time that they
drank energy drinks. Yeah, I mean, her autopsy straight up
said that caffeine toxicity was a factor in her death.
That didn't say. And again, this is where the defense
will come for these things, is like, hey, she had
a heart issue already, or you know, if you look
through all of these lawsuits, they can there are other
(36:37):
contributing factors. But certainly, like I said, if you have
a if you have a hard condition or really high
blood pressure and your your mowing down six h six
Tallboy energy drinks a day, it can certainly lead to
some poor health outcomes. It certainly can, especially especially yeah,
like you said, if you have a pre existing condition,
(36:57):
especially like hypertension or heart disease, because caffeine is very
well known to constrict your blood vessels, but at the
same time it releases adrenaline, which increases blood flow, so
you've got more blood trying to flow through tighter blood vessels.
And that also occurs in your brain as well, and
(37:18):
it can like that's right for a stroke, it's right
for a heart attack. You can make your heart like
like palpitate. There's just a lot of things that theoretically
could happen and may have happened. Uh, if these lawsuits
pan out correctly, Um, that from drinking energy drinks. But again,
like you said, generally in having one once in a while,
(37:41):
especially if you don't have a pre existing condition, is
probably not going to hurt you. Yeah. I think one
area that they definitely have kind of made people a
little more aware of in the past like ten years
is alcohol and energy drinks. Um. I know, like vodka
and red Bull was a really hot drink order for
a while, at least in Uh it feels like about
(38:02):
the midish two thousand's. Have you ever had one? No,
I don't want to drink red Bull. Oh that's right,
it's totally it's a totally different animal. The two things
combine to create something totally different. So I can totally
see why this is not not a smart thing to do. Yeah.
I mean you've got two opposing factors. You have something
dulling your senses combined with an upper basically, and uh
(38:27):
that that can lead to all sorts of problems. Um,
certainly with decision making whether or not you think you
can drive, and things like that. Um. I think most
people who enjoy those drinks. Will tell you that's exactly
why I drink them is because the upper in the
in the energy drink does combat the sluggishness of the
alcohol if you're out, you know, kind of partying on
(38:50):
the dance floor or something like that. That was so square.
Uh here partying on the dance floor. Um. But uh
for a while there they were actually selling like four
loco was a drink that was a pre mixed energy
vodka energy drink um with all the you know, standard
(39:13):
energy drink ingredients, and uh. They the FDA basically kind
of came out in two thousand ten and with with
a stern warning to stop producing those, and it basically
effectively banned them, didn't it. Yeah, it did it. It
said you, we really strongly advise you against that. And
I would guess that if the FDA advises you against that,
(39:34):
you keep doing it, you're really opening up yourself to lawsuits,
especially if you are harming people. And there's a really
like um widely cited study from two thousand well after
two thousand eleven, because that was the last date they
went up to, but it was the Dawn Report Drug
Abuse Warning Network Report, and they studied emergency department e
(39:54):
D visits h that involved energy drinks among people twelve
or older, and between two thousand seven in two thousand eleven,
the emergency department visits doubled from ten thousand, sixty eight
to twenty thousand, seven hundred and eighty three in just
a few years. And so a lot of people point
to that and say, yeah, energy drinks are toxic, they're poison,
(40:15):
they're they're gonna kill you, They're gonna the very least
send you to the hospital. And other people who are like, well,
hold on, let's let's not get into a moral panic
over this. Um. These were the four Loco years, and
basically people agree like that widely skewed the number of
emergency department visits because mixing alcohol and energy drinks is
(40:36):
such a bad idea and has these horrid effects. As
far as I know, nobody has done a follow up
study to see if it declined after four Loco stop
being made with alcohol or with the caffeine and the
torreing and the guarine. I think it's still made, but
it's like a just like a sweet malt beverage, um
malt liquor beverage. Now, now do you know, with bars
have ceased to serve those mixed drinks from fear of lawsuits,
(41:00):
not that I know of. I'm surprised that no one's
brought a lawsuit against a club, a nightclub that serves
someone you know nine Red Bull and Vodkas. Uh you know, yeah,
I'm i or maybe it has happened. Yeah, maybe it has,
it just hasn't made the news. Who knows. Uh. There
have been studies as far as um, like just heart
(41:22):
rate and stuff like that. There was one uh and
this wasn't a huge population study, but um, fifteen healthy
people between eighteen and forty and they have them consumed
two cans of one of the big brands, uh, basically
every day for a week and kind of across the
board they found, um, you know, significant increases in both
(41:46):
heart rate and blood pressure sort of on a day
by day basis. So I mean a significant increase. Yeah,
I mean, I mean, I guess that's what people are after.
So it's not like we're surprised by any of this.
But that's just say that. You know, when you're increasing
your heart rate at a steady pace, sustained pace and
your blood pressure, you know, that's that's not great for
(42:07):
your body. No, And one of the other things that
turned up in that study is that it had a
cumulative effect. So your heart rate increased by eight percent
on day one and then eleven percent on day seven.
So like it had a build up effect, Like you
didn't your body didn't get used to it, your body
became more sensitive to it, it seemed like. So that
was one week, imagine drinking more than two for multiple years,
(42:32):
you can imagine that it could conceivably have a really
bad law effect on your long term cardiovascular health. Yeah,
but you also did find some studies that sort of
showed that they can increase your mental performance right in focus. Well,
red bull specifically has been found from studies possibly supported
(42:53):
by the Red Bull Institute of Science and Stuff, UM
that red bull improves attention, kind centration, memory, driving quality,
reduced variation in speed while you're driving, less mental strain
in prolonged driving which is four hours, and faster motor
reaction time. Like it Actually it does have that effect
(43:14):
on you. Um. Again, it's just a question of you know,
what's the health trade off if there is any, and
we definitely need more study on that. Well, they probably
could find the same result in a meth amphetamine study.
You know exactly what is it? Um? Benny's. If you
take some Benny's, you probably do. Man, we're just so
square today. So yeah, he takes some Benni's and you
(43:37):
go get down on the dance floor. But the real question, though,
my friend, is is Monster energy energy drink a satanic drink?
I I have a love hate with the internet, don't you.
Well that's sort of one of those dumb Internet urban legends, right,
is that it's Yeah, it's like a six six six thing. Yeah,
(44:00):
because if you've ever seen the Monster logo, it's like
claw scratches that form the M but they're clearly three
separate scratches. And some people said, hey, that looks like
the Hebrew vov, a Hebrew number. Well letter um that
represents six, the number six, and there's three claws, So
clearly this is just saying six six six right in
(44:21):
our face there there Um. Their slogan is unleashed the Beast,
which is of course another name for the devil. And
apparently if you look closely, I see what people are saying.
If you look at the oh in Monster on the logo,
there's like a cross in the middle of it, like
a plus sign, but one like the cross section is
down a little further so that if you tip it up,
(44:43):
you're you're you're looking at an upside down cross the logo. Yeah,
it's just this is what happens when you drink too
much energy. Just start paying attention to stuff like this.
It was wholly created from from people drinking this stuff
at the time. That's right. I would say, chuck Jerry's out,
wouldn't you, Not on whether monsters satanic or not, but
(45:04):
on um, whether energy drinks are bad for you or not. Yeah,
they're not for me, but um, I mean I think
any like you don't want to drink six sodas a day, right,
you know they say it's all in moderation, that's the
key to life. You don't want to drink six coke
zeros a day, No, you really don't. And also six
(45:26):
don't drink six anything a day except water or And
if you are, take the time and respect yourself enough
to go look up and see, like if if anyone
studied what all that stuff is going to do to you,
and then make a more informed decision rather than just
be like I like this, Yeah, but we're not doctors.
That's just our suggestion. Yes, anything else. I got nothing else. Well,
(45:49):
since Chuck said he's got nothing else, and obviously it's
time for a listener mail, I'm just gonna call this
a nice letter of appreciation from a nice fellow. Hey, guys,
my name is Jonathan Bednar, and I just wanted to
thank you on the tremendous job that you and your
team do operate heavy machinery all day, which seems fun,
(46:10):
but it can be rather monotonous and boring, and your
podcast really gets me through the day whenever discussions of
the podcast come up with my friends or family, and
make sure to hype stuff you should know as much
as possible. Just the array of topics that are researched
so thoroughly is really refreshing. And I just leave off
of whatever episode I was on and keep on going
because even the quote boring sounding ones end quote sometimes
(46:34):
end up being the most interesting. So thanks a lot,
guys and ps ps. I've listened to Josh Clark's Into
the World podcast about five times now. Thank you. Very
fascinating stuff all the way around, So go check out
Into the World with Josh Clark. Uh if you're into movies,
go listen to the retired movie Crush. But there's still
(46:55):
a lot of really fun, great movie Crush episodes out
there you can go listen to, and um, it's good stuff.
So thanks Jonathan for that word of support. We need
those these days. Yes, thanks a lot. Jonathan is nice
to hear that kind of thing. Um, And if you
want to be like Jonathan and send us a word
of support, we're always open to that. You can send
(47:16):
it to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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