NPR⁠84%

Fermentation is behind a lot of the food you eat 

By Hannah Chinn Regina G. Barber⁠0% Rebecca Ramirez⁠0%

11/11/2024, 8:00:59 AM

BS Summary: The article has not yet been analyzed.

What did you have for breakfast today? 
Whether it was buttered toast, yogurt and granola, or even just a cup of coffee... 
David Zilber says that odds are, at least part of it was fermented. 
He should know. 
After all, as a chef and former director of the Fermentation Lab at Noma, that's his specialty. 
So what is fermentation, anyway? 
Zilber defines it as "the transformation of one food into another with the help of microbes." 
"Grape juice? 
Wine. 
Cucumbers? 
Pickles. 
Milk? 
Yogurt. 
Flour? 
Bread. 
All of that, all of those transformations, use microbes." 
Those microbes are everywhere. 
They're outside, floating through the air. 
They're inside, on your kitchen counter or the bananas in your fruit basket. 
They're even in your mouth, and on your skin. 
And a large number of them produce lactic acid, which is key to the process of fermentation. 
Those lactic-acid-producing microbes use enzymes to process the simple sugars found in carbs and starches, and turn them into energy. 
The byproduct of that process is lactic acid (plus, in some cases, ethanol and carbon dioxide). 
Add it all together, and you get complex, unique flavors that come only from fermentation. 
"In the Venn diagram of foods that microbes like, and foods that humans like, there's a lot of overlap there," Zilber says. 
"When they get to party down in our food supply, we seem to like what they do." 
Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave. 
This episode was produced by Hannah Chinn, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact checked by Tyler Jones. 
Maggie Luthar was the audio engineer. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 8.1%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.4%Confirmation Bias8.1%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.6%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 10.8%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.8%Availability Heuristic10.8%This article: 3.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Representativeness Heuristic3.4%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.8%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 5.7%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.4%Overconfidence Bias5.7%This article: 7.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 11.1%Framing Effect7.4%This article: 7.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Loss Aversion7.4%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.1%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 5.7%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.4%Optimism Bias5.7%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.3%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 3.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 11.3%Negativity Bias3.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.3%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.1%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.3%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 1.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.8%Halo Effect1.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.7%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 11.1%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 6.1%Appeal to Authority11.1%This article: 5.1%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.5%False Dilemma5.1%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.3%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 9.1%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 4.4%Hasty Generalization9.1%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 5.7%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.7%Bandwagon5.7%This article: 8.1%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 6.6%Appeal to Emotion8.1%This article: 1.7%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.9%Begging the Question1.7%This article: 6.7%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.8%Post Hoc (False Cause)6.7%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 7.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.4%Burden of Proof7.4%This article: 5.7%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Appeal to Nature5.7%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 7.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.8%Anecdotal7.4%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 16.5%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.5%Ambiguity (Equivocation)16.5%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.5%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 4.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.3%Unattributed Quote4.4%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.9%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 7.7%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.1%Biased Writer Voice7.7%This article: 7.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.0%Indoctrination7.4%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.1%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 10.4%Hannah Chinn: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…10.4%

297 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker23%attributed speech229writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 10 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageDavid Zilber • 13 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 3 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverageDavid Zilber • 16 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 2 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 4 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageDavid Zilber • 22 words • 0.0% coverageDavid Zilber • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

David Zilber

100%flagged-word coverage
68 attributed words100% of attributed speech81% writer coverage
0%12.5%25.0%Biased Writer Voice+20.5 ptsWriter: 3.1%David Zilber: 23.5%23.5%Unattributed Quote+19.1 ptsWriter: 0.0%David Zilber: 19.1%19.1%Attempt to Sell a Product -13.5 ptsWriter: 13.5%David Zilber: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-9.6 ptsWriter: 9.6%David Zilber: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.