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Melissa: [00:00:00] Hey, I'm Melissa

Jam: I'm jam

Melissa: and I'm a chemist

Jam: I'm not

Melissa: and welcome to chemistry for your life

Jam: the podcast steps to understand the chemistry of your everyday life

Melissa: bonus edition. I'm sorry. I was like. I was like, what do I say next? I don't know what happened. And I thought it was really funny that I, so, so sorry about that. Not smooth intro. Okay. So today for the bonus episode, we are going to talk about metals and then we're going to take a little dive into sort of like an annex of our learning styles conversation.

Melissa: So are you ready for it?

Jam: very ready for

Melissa: All right. Take it away.

Jam: Also, I was gonna say to you guys can probably tell melissa's sick again

Melissa: I know.

Jam: So forgive the sniffles and the coughs and stuff like

Melissa: I am really sorry, and don't worry, I did take several days off to rest. I'm not, like, powering through. I feel much better [00:01:00] now. But there's just congestion left over, you know? But I feel like, when I woke up this morning, I felt like a normal person. Um, I had to take medicine today, but I did, and I was out for a few

Jam: also feel like putting the headphones on and doing this and hearing you right now It's way more obvious than just when we're talking Without headphones something about you know recording it in a with a high quality thing like I'm like Oh, I can hear the difference way more stronger than I could with these off.

Jam: But

Jam: anyway,

Melissa: well, so, in real life, it doesn't. Also, so, my roommate has docs. And lately, she's leaving something on so the dogs don't

Jam: Mmm,

Melissa: And I was like, um, well, if you're just gonna leave YouTube on, it should be on our podcast channel so that we get watch hours, right? So I just put it on our channels, like, kind of as a joke, but also I was like, might as well.

Melissa: And then left. And then when I came back, it was still on, and I Mason was just standing there watching it, , . And I was like, what are you [00:02:00] doing? He is like, oh, your conversation was interesting . So, so he did, uh, watch it, but also the episode that he happened to watch, I've never seen this one before, but I think it was a bonus episode or something.

Melissa: But your hair was a little bit messed up on the mic. Oh yeah, yeah. And you like zoomed in on it, , and I thought that was hilarious.

Jam: are the kind of things that's funny because like are the section of the podcast, the parts we work on, like, you know, I'm editing it, and I'm not gonna be like, Hey, Melissa, will you go watch this entire thing real quick or whatever. And sometimes it's like late at night that I'm doing it like that specific night I did that like I was finishing that when I want to am or something.

Jam: And so I saw that as a playing back as it was on this side, you couldn't see it.

Melissa: No, I couldn't see it. I can't see that side of.

Jam: Yeah. Even when I turn this way, it's like, so I saw that. Thankfully I fixed it about a minute, uh, in, but I was like, I gotta at least draw attention to this because it's pretty funny. And, uh, but if I don't, then you think of like, people are gonna be like, Hey, Jim's hair is [00:03:00] messed up.

Jam: Like someone's

Jam: got to comment that, which is like, of course I know it's messed up. I cannot.

Melissa: I give you permission to do that same thing to me if I ever have a thing that's messed up.

Jam: I think it's fake. Cause it's like, we're owning it. It's just like, Hey, look at, if you didn't already notice, look at this thing that's messed up,

Melissa: notice? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, it was pretty good and that made me laugh.

Jam: I like that that's the one he was on because that was our most recent one as of this recording at least most recent one That came out

Melissa: Oh, nice.

Jam: So anyway,

Melissa: I think I just like, I don't even know how I ended up, like which one I ended up picking, but I was like, hey.

Jam: yeah

Melissa: And also then the doggies have their friend. It's like they know both of

Jam: nice you can also go to a playlist for the dogs to be able to listen and watch us are a playlist So just our our video episodes and it'll just play them end to end so you can just do

Melissa: Do we have a playlist of that?

Jam: We do because that's the way it works for, uh, it working on YouTube's podcast app. So I have to put them in a playlist, um, so all of them [00:04:00] are It's like not like exclusively there, so it's like, it's on its own and also in a playlist.

Jam: But that's how it knows which ones are podcast episodes. If we were to, say, be a channel that uploaded a bunch of other stuff too. Including like our shorts, for instance, like you can have a playlist of shorts, I think. We're obviously not putting those in the playlist, so they're not, it's not making those be a bunch of little tiny short podcast episodes, so,

Melissa: for those of you who have dogs and like to leave TV on for them. Just shout out. You could do it on our podcast playlist now.

Jam: 100%.

Melissa: Okay, great. So let's get into the questions

Jam: sounds good. This first question is from Kaiebe, and oh, this seems interesting. Why, why do metals have this silver slash golden color?

Melissa: When he asked that, I put a, um, I put a little note that was like, I bet my inorganic chemistry professor thinks I should already know this. And I, I couldn't find my organic chemistry, my inorganic chemistry textbook. It's, [00:05:00] um, up at the chemistry department. Pretty much all colors come from the same thing, which is, you know, what light can they absorb and what light can they reflect?

Melissa: And so that's what gives them color. But I do wonder about their shininess and I tried to Google quickly, but I couldn't find any reputable sources, but there's. People theorizing about like, oh, the electrons have sort of like a, you know, the sea of electrons. That's why. There's like all these theories, but I don't feel like any of them are 110 percent like that I felt confident about.

Melissa: So I was like, I don't know about, I don't know that I'm confident. So All that to say, I think this could be an episode topic in the future, once I retrieve my inorganic chemistry textbook from the chemistry department.

Jam: interesting. I mean, yeah, we have talked about color, like you said, so it's like, there's a, there is, A way we've addressed it without addressing specifically metals,

Melissa: But we haven't talked about, like, why metals are shiny. I don't [00:06:00] have a good I don't have a good reason for that just in, just like handy

Jam: right.

Melissa: some of the answers people gave, I was like, I don't know, I don't feel comfortable about that. So I'd like to do research and actually find out and have a rule just to keep our work life balance that I don't do research for bonus episodes as much as possible.

Melissa: I'm about to break that rule for a future question. Mm

Jam: Are you ready for this next one?

Melissa: hmm.

Jam: Okay. Um, this is from Hunter R, uh, one of our patrons, one of our, the members of our chem community.

Melissa: He's an H Bunder patron

Jam: Heck yeah.

Jam: H ponders.

Melissa: out on our coffee hour once or twice.

Jam: Um, hi, Melissa and Jam. I listened to your episode on learning styles over the break while on a long drive, just as you said in the episode.

Melissa: Isn't that fun?

Jam: That's awesome.

Jam: And I thought I'd add something from the world of education. There does exist a more accepted way of thinking about the multidimensional ways in which people learn called the theory of multiple intelligences, [00:07:00] first proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983 and added to by other scholars since. While the theory isn't without its criticisms and exists as a theoretical model for the mind rather than an educational methodology. or scientific hypothesis, quantitative research points to the use of the theory to guide instructional practices as having positive benefits in the classroom, and even more so when used in conjunction with other evidence based practices such as project based learning. You might have known about this theory already, of course, in your own studies on chemistry education.

Melissa: Okay. So, um, this is a, this is a great topic. Thanks for writing this in Hunter. I was really excited to get this, but also I felt like I wanted to respond in a more thorough way, because this kind of touches on some other things that we haven't talked about yet that I think are important. And so this episode, just to give you a peek behind the scenes, we're recording this episode in December.

Melissa: [00:08:00] We're trying to like get a little bit ahead for the holidays, holidays, and for us to take some time off. And so. Um, we don't have a ton of fresh questions for people to ask about the newest episodes because they haven't come out yet. So I took this as an opportunity to turn this bonus into almost like a mini regular episode.

Melissa: Um, and so I wanted to talk about sort of intelligence as a whole. So I broke my own rule and did some research here. Um, but so something that I think is really important is a lot of this desire to measure intelligence and have theories about intelligence is, it's really difficult to do. And a lot of it's the measurement started with the IQ test.

Melissa: And have you listened to this episode of Radiolab about this?

Jam: They actually did like a whole series called G about

Melissa: Radiolab presents G. S.

Jam: and then I also watched we've mentioned this [00:09:00] guy before the YouTube channel Veritasium

Melissa: Yes, who is a chemist or physics education person?

Jam: hmm. He did an episode about IQ. It wasn't nearly as thorough understandably It was just like one episode, but it was really really good really fascinating.

Melissa: So, shout out to those. The one that really stood out in my brain is called The Miseducation of Larry P. And that talks about how and why it's illegal to give black children IQ tests in the state of California.

Jam: Oh

Melissa: so we can link that in our show notes, but, but really the IQ test has a lot of links to racism and, and even eugenics, which is, um, like the pseudoscientific practice of trying to select basically for a better race of humans, it's, it's very icky.

Melissa: And so a lot of that. I don't like the idea of like labeling and measuring intelligence is really hard. But in this case, the theory of multiple [00:10:00] intelligence, I think essentially it's just that there are different areas where, so let me back up and say intelligence, according to this person is the ability to solve a problem.

Melissa: And the theory of multiple intelligence is, well, then there are areas where you may be more able to solve a problem like musically or interpersonally linguistically or spatially or mathematically than others. And so there are different areas where you can be gifted or be more or less intelligent. I agree with that really to some degree because it feels like it makes sense.

Melissa: You know, it's like there are things that you can be good at and others, but just because it feels like it makes sense. I think learning styles does too. That doesn't necessarily mean it's scientifically true. So what I really appreciated that Hunter said is. You know, I feel like it, what did Hunter say?

Melissa: It has not without its criticisms, but using it in the classroom along with other practices as positive results. And I really want to hone in [00:11:00] on that idea of like,

Jam: Mm

Melissa: regardless of the scientific evidence of the theory, it did seem like there's evidence that the practice could be valuable. I think one big thing to take away from that, I'll talk about the evidence of the theory itself, but one big thing to take away is, you know, it might be really difficult to measure someone's intelligence, but especially because of the way in our society, the label of intelligence is built on like one specific type of knowledge in a lot of cases.

Melissa: And we have limited ways of assessing that, and usually from our one perspective.

Jam: Yeah, and from a specific society at a specific time. It's like, like I think one of the points that was made probably in the Radiolab series, but definitely in the Veritasium video too, was like taking someone from a completely different society, maybe even from a different time to now, they would maybe do horribly on an IQ test that we give.

Jam: What ways would we fail sort of their IQ test if they had one? It'd be like, [00:12:00] Oh, well, can we? How good are we at, you know, gathering herbs, and how good are we at, um, at surviving a certain climate in a certain place, and How good is our knowledge of, you know, like, um, healing or sort of bandaging a certain wound in the middle of nowhere?

Jam: Like these kinds of things are like, these are incredibly important things to know, depending on your, like, your life, like, and they actually matter. Whereas like, can you do this math problem? Doesn't matter. You know?

Melissa: Yes. And, and I think what that is helpful in bringing out is an idea that I wanted to talk about that is researched by a friend of mine, um, I hope I do justice to her paper cause I didn't talk to her about this before, but the first time I ever met her, she's actually giving a talk about, you know, science education and for a very long time, science education was, uh, science was only done by white males.

Jam: Mhm.

Melissa: And as time has progressed and we've opened that up, well, the people who originally are doing it are [00:13:00] the people who are making sort of like what the reason we have science tests and the reason, you know, the reason that we teach science the way we do cater to this one demographic of person. And as we've opened it up, it doesn't necessarily cater to more people.

Melissa: So it's like really well designed for the people who first were doing it. But anyone who doesn't fit in with that way of approaching or that way of thinking about things might have a harder problem. And so this paper that my friend Jenna was presenting on was all about, um, sorry, I got distracted. This paper that my friend Jenna was presenting on was all about, um, like, There's sort of, they call them gaps or like disparities in performance between different genders.

Melissa: And actually by modifying the coursework to have it like different things be weighted equally instead of tests be really important and everything else be [00:14:00] weighted less, that corrected for that. So there was iniquity built into the classroom just in the way that things were weighted because that was naturally going to benefit.

Melissa: You know, just for a number of reasons, whether that's biologically or based in the way that we, you know, are socialized, whatever, it was benefiting males over females, but changing that didn't crack some of the other inequities in the system. So then the next question is what other inequities exist that perpetuate like certain people succeeding versus others?

Melissa: And so I think sometimes what I have a hard time with in talking about intelligence is that idea of we are looking at knowledge and intelligence and measuring it based on, you know, the people who have had success and power for a long time. They're the ones who decide, you know, who's intelligent or what intelligence is or the thing that's the most important right now, you know, is like decides who's intelligent or what intelligence is like.

Melissa: They don't need to know how to use smartphones or programming [00:15:00] languages. back then, but it was really important for them to know how to do cars, so they probably all think we're really stupid that we can't do work on our

Jam: Yes. Right.

Melissa: things like that, that it's like, love this theory of multiple intelligences, because I do think it broadens educators minds up to thinking about what are the different ways that people might be considered intelligent, and I think that's Instead of just like labeling a child as smart versus not, but I do wonder some about like, well, are these different intelligences?

Melissa: Is there, are we still slapping a label sort of? So that's a question that I have, or just something that I thought about. So I like the idea that it's broadening up our mind, but I do try to be careful about that.

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: Those are all my thoughts, but I did want to talk because of the way Hunter phrased it was more about like using it in the classroom and how it has positive effects. But then I had to look at the theory itself, so, [00:16:00] I'm sorry. So I went and looked up the theory and what I found was a hot debate. I love a hot debate.

Jam: nice.

Melissa: most recent paper I found was a review, which is where someone goes and looks at a bunch of different articles and compiles all that and draws conclusions based on the body of work instead of just like one individual research experiment.

Jam: Mm-Hmm.

Melissa: And there was one in 2017 that gave good evidence, they said they found good evidence, but before that in 2006, somebody put out a review and said there was not good evidence and, um, so many people pushed back on it that he had to publish a follow up defending his position. Okay, so the follow up defending his position made me laugh so hard that I'm just gonna read it.

Melissa: This is like in a journal article, like a peer reviewed journal. I, Waterhouse2006, argued that because multiple intelligence, the Mozart effect, and emotional intelligence theories have inadequate empirical support and are not consistent [00:17:00] with cognitive neuroscience, These theories should not be applied in education.

Melissa: Proponents countered that their theories had sufficient empirical support, were consistent with cognitive neuroscience findings, and should be applied in education. And then he lists three different papers published in that same year. Like people must have been so mad that they're just like putting out papers all in the same year.

Melissa: And it's hard to get papers published that fast. So the idea of that made me laugh really hard. And then he says, my reply addresses They're the proponents specific criticisms. So anyway, I thought that was funny that there was this like hot debate where it was like one guy comes out and he's like, there's no evidence.

Melissa: And then three other people come back and they're like, you're wrong. And he's like, I got to defend myself. It's like a nice academic debate

Jam: so wait, what year did you say that happened? In

Jam: 2000. Okay. Wow. Okay.

Melissa: So in 2017, there was another review that seemed to find more empirical evidence, but even in 2006, there was debate that [00:18:00] people said that there was.

Jam: Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

Melissa: And what I like about that is I think that's good science. It's like people pushing back on theories and, and calling other people to a higher standard and finding support. I mean, we've talked about that before, but that's sort of how the scientific process goes. So. To me, it seems like the jury's still out, but there, there seems to be more evidence for it than against it right now.

Melissa: Uh, and I think there's good things that we can take away from it. And I feel that way about a lot of theories. Like, there's a lot of theories that I'm like, there's good things that we can take away from this and apply in our classrooms. There's others that I think do more harm than good, and that's how I feel about learning theories.

Melissa: But this one I think is, it's good to open our mind about what intelligence is a little bit.

Jam: Yeah,

Melissa: What do you think about all that? I basically just gave an impromptu lesson on intelligence.

Jam: I mean, it seems like, like, I can see people's motivation for wanting to study it and [00:19:00] maybe find some standards of measuring it. Some people's motivations are good, I think, you know? We clearly have tons of examples of people who had really bad motivations for it. And so much of the IQ stuff seems like that was one of the big starting points, was kind of wanting to prove people are better than others, you know,

Melissa: yeah,

Jam: based on other criteria.

Jam: But, it seems like, It would be, it could be beneficial, but um, but how could we ever really quantify it? Especially knowing that like, intelligence is not one thing, or one, one discipline, or one, you know, um, even one specific science, or whatever. Um, there was this great, oh my gosh, this went viral, like, A couple years ago.

Jam: Um, there's this great, do you know the channel, I think it's called Jubilee? Have you heard of this YouTube

Melissa: No, I don't think so.

Jam: Okay, so, you know, this is like, not science, right? So just know that right away. But [00:20:00] there's this experiment in a social sense where they got like six, I think six or seven people

Melissa: Uh huh.

Jam: that they specifically kind of chose people who were different from each other in various ways.

Jam: This is here in the U. S. And they had them all talk to each other. And, and work together to rank what they thought each, the group's IQ would be ranked from highest to lowest or whatever. So they all talk, they ask questions about, you know, what have you done, what level of education have you had, what level of success have you had, what subjects are you strong in, that kind of stuff.

Jam: So they, obviously not all fully agree, but they come to a kind of consensus, or most people agree, of the order they put them in. One specific member of that group had a, um. Ph. D. and worked in, um, an arena of like, um, vaccines being made for something or something like that. A really cool space, [00:21:00] basically.

Jam: Biomedical something. Um, and, and, they, the group ranked her as like, first or second, somewhere around there. It was a guy who had a college, who had just only finished his, It was high school and then had gone into the military for a time, I think, and come back out, but he hadn't been there very long or maybe he was still in there.

Jam: I don't know, but he, they all ranked him pretty low and he was actually kind of okay with that. You know, he was like, yeah, you know, maybe whatever, like, and it turned out that he was actually second or third when they took a pretty standard IQ test, obviously. That's not like the measure, right?

Melissa: great at measuring anything

Jam: Right, exactly.

Jam: But you could think that maybe someone who's been in higher ed might test better to, you know, like just be a better test taker. And that's one of the things you can always pinpoint. So that person who had the PhD and they'd ranked second

Jam: actually was [00:22:00] last. Yep. And it was just this interesting experiment where you, people are making judgment about each other's.

Jam: like intelligence and then you at least measure it by a tool that is trying to measure it and then everyone's wrong or like at least very likely wrong about one or two or three people and It was such a funny video like just like I'm watching the people be wrong about each other and the things that they said having to eat their own words about stuff at least like At least it being proven to you that you can't know, you know, and that your judgments are kind of, are a little bit fruitless and a little Yeah.

Jam: You should just be careful about judging people's intelligence, um, at all. Yeah.

Melissa: and even using the IQ test I love that because it's sort of like if you reject the premise that the IQ test was even right It's like, this proves that, maybe, because this person went to school for a long time. So here's a good proof that the IQ test isn't right, but on the other side, [00:23:00] like, you know, I have said that a lot, that just because I'm an expert doesn't mean I know everything, and in some ways I think I've spent so long in school thinking about chemistry and researching chemistry and like everything talking about chemistry that Sometimes when a simple quote unquote question is presented to me that should just have a straightforward answer, I'm like, I, I don't, in good conscience, I can't answer that, you know, or like sometimes my friend, um, my, my friend and roommate who's, she's went back to school for chemistry and I would help her with her homework sometimes and they would ask a question and I would be like, I know what answer they want to give you.

Melissa: But this question, or like Utica, but this question is fundamentally flawed because they're doing it based on a super boiled down, not really accurate way of teaching something. And sometimes I think, yeah, so I just, I, I think that that is such a funny thing to happen because I [00:24:00] don't think that people with PhDs are the smartest, like quote unquote most intelligence people, whatever intelligence is.

Melissa: Because I think, you know, like my husband, he went to a four year school. He's an engineer. He's a really smart guy. He has more ability to problem solve in day to day life than I do. I've learned so much about problem solving. Being married to him more so than I did in school. If that's what we're gonna call intelligence, you know, I have Three more degrees than he has but he he is definitely better You know and and they are similarly like I know people who who didn't graduate high school or who?

Melissa: Are like never finished college who are really good at solving problems. And so I just think yeah I love the idea as educators of broadening your perspective on what could be intelligent and broadening your classroom practices, it does not surprise me that that has a positive impact on student outcomes at all.

Melissa: So I like that Hunter wrote in about this theory and I like that it gave us this chance to talk about like [00:25:00] what even is intelligence and how hard it is to measure that and how like Yeah, I don't, I've never taken an IQ test and I don't ever want to because I don't think it could actually accurately measure any type of intelligence, you know, and so

Jam: Yeah, and I think, I think there's no, at least, I've thought about that a few times myself, for taking one, I've thought, like, like, either, if I have, like, what's, it seemed to be, like, a low score, I feel bad about myself, and even if it's only measuring a certain kind of intelligence, I feel sort of like, oh, I guess I can't be blah blah blah, you know, Maybe things that are hard for me.

Jam: I can never overcome it and stuff like that or you get a good score And you think like I'm awesome, you know Like seems like neither outcomes good like I either think too highly of myself or I think you know Like I'm I think I'm limited in some way. Isn't it kind of nice not to know

Jam: just be like, I'm

Melissa: you against a fake standard [00:26:00] of like A group of people, white males predominantly, like, at the time that the IQ test was made, how well they did on this test, and you're based on an average of that, well, those people didn't even look at cell phones, so like, cell phones didn't exist, you know?

Melissa: So there's so much that you're like, this is how, how intelligent I am, on what scale compared to who? It just isn't, it just isn't real, it's fake, it's fake, it's not real. It sort of reminds me of, like, How pilots, so there's like all this research on how pilots are like not doing well in their seats that were made for the average person.

Melissa: And then they made adjustable seats,

Jam: Mm hmm

Melissa: Oh, then pilots did a lot better, you know, because there is no average person. It doesn't fit everyone.

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: And that's true for intelligence too. It's based on a, the average intelligence of no one, you know?

Jam: And I think that's not to say that like, [00:27:00] obviously in education, having ways to like grade stuff and like measure how well someone is doing in a subject, like that matters, you know, but like, and trying to cater that as best as you can to people is great. You can't make it fit everybody. So there's always going to be people who honestly, they're just going to get a bad grade in science.

Jam: And they may not even want a good grade in it. They need to, if they can get enough, know the material well enough to pass, great. So it's like, we don't need everyone to get an A,

Jam: you know?

Melissa: it also, so I guess I have two kind of thoughts too is there is some evidence that a lot of assessments aren't testing what we think they're testing in science. So like a lot of multiple choice questions are not actually testing how well do you know the material? It's how good are you at taking a multiple choice test, which is kind of different.

Jam: Yeah. That's for like, you saying the weighting the assignments in the grade, in like, the test list makes total sense to me. [00:28:00] But you still may have someone who doesn't do as well.

Melissa: Right. And

Jam: it's like, at least maybe you're, it's more accurate though.

Melissa: Right and that my second thought when you said that is like people who might not even want to do well is Success looks different for every person and and I think like, you know, I have students who take Organic chemistry and they have kids and they have jobs And they work so hard, and they have a pretty good understanding, but they aren't able to learn every single little detail of it, and they get a B, and that is fine for their, that's like amazing, considering all the things they're balancing.

Melissa: And then the students who have no other job but to be students, and they can spend hours and hours studying, and they can get an A, and like, that's because they don't have a lot of other responsibilities, and so, I try to always encourage my students, too, of like, there is, success is different for every person, and you can do the best you can do with the tools you have right now.

Melissa: And that's

Jam: mm hmm,

Melissa: And if you [00:29:00] can do that, that's enough to be proud of. Sorry. I got heated.

Jam: mm

Melissa: so passionate about, um, Encouraging my students that I, um, got heated and now my cough came in one, one out for a minute. So let me just cough here for a second. Anyway, so all that to say that I think it's dangerous to label someone as intelligent by any means, but I do love the idea that we can be They're gifted in different areas, and it does seem like there is some evidence for the idea that there are multiple intelligence and shaping your classroom practices to expand.

Melissa: That can be valuable. There does seem to be some evidence for that based on what I found. So, I think that's great and, um, [00:30:00] Yeah, I hope that was interesting and you guys go check out the, um, the Radiolab series. We'll link it in our show notes. Okay, so the next question is actually for Jam, and that will give me a chance to rest my voice.

Melissa: This came from Jeanette on YouTube, and she said, Jam, tell us your favorite recipes for kombucha. I love kombucha and some of my favorite are lemon and blueberry. I've had good luck putting lavender in with some things, and I like ginger, grapefruit, and lime. So, take it away, Jam, while I recover my voice.

Jam: saw this comment too, it was on, yeah, on YouTube, and I thought about trying to comment it there, and I kept being like, Oh, I need to remember what I used to make, and all that kind of stuff, and also I have to sit down and like, type it out, so this is perfect that I get to do it here instead.

Jam: Maybe I'll do it.

Melissa: comment back to Jenna and tell them, Hey, I'm gonna ask Jam this on the February Q& R.

Jam: Nice. Excellent. Okay. Cool. So here's what I remember doing. And here's a couple of my, both my recipes and some of my, like, what would you [00:31:00] say? Uh, strategies? I don't know. Um, and our friend Ryan, who I mentioned when we talked about kombucha last time that I, um, would do kombucha with, we kind of piece mas together, um, and try different things.

Jam: But I love doing ginger as well. Ginger was like, I basically didn't do a kombucha that didn't have ginger in it. I feel like it just added so much depth to the flavor. Um, occasionally I would, but I'd always be like, I wish this had ginger in it, you know, like it's experimented. So that's like obviously a taste preferences thing.

Jam: But, um,

Jam: I

Melissa: also good for you.

Jam: it's great for you. Yep. And you could, you know, vary the strength and stuff like that. You could probably do a little bit in every single recipe and not. ever be a bad thing. I would do a lot though. So what I did, I would do like strawberry ginger, um, ginger lime. You said you liked lime.

Jam: Sometimes I would do like a mixed berry and ginger, but the way I would do this is I would buy fruit. Um, and honestly, depending on where you are and like what you have access to, [00:32:00] sometimes frozen fruits really good for this because they typically freeze fruit at like the perfect time. I don't know if you noticed that.

Jam: If you ever use frozen fruit for something, some for something that's not not great to use it for, it's like the worst because as it melts, it's all juicy. But for kombucha, that's not bad. Um, and what I would do is I would Blend up, I'd cut off all the, you peel the ginger, cut it up into smaller pieces, then I'd blend it up all together, all the ginger and the, um, the fruit.

Jam: And I would add some sugar in there as well, because you need, you want a little bit for the second fermentation. And I would blend it all up and then pour it through a nut milk bag, which is just really like a, like a reusable filter bag, um, that you'd normally use to make almond milk or something like

Melissa: oily cheesecloth work, you think?

Jam: It might, um, cheesecloth is. I'm like, I don't want to use that. Every time people are like, use cheesecloth. going to find another way. Just his cloth and [00:33:00] nut milk bags are like, like a much

Melissa: I love, I love getting a hot take from J. M.

Jam: Oh yeah. People say using it. I'm like, I remember people said to use that for like, um, filtering for cold brew too.

Jam: And I'm like, there's better things out there to use like cheesecloth. Also like people probably think that to a time when people just maybe had that on hand, but nut milk bags are great because you can, Put, you can pour it into a, it's a bag and it has a thing that closes and then you can kind of like squeeze it out and stuff like that and it's just only the, the, the liquid is going to come out.

Jam: Um,

Jam: it's pretty incredible. No, it's actually, I, I think it, I don't know what it is. I have it. I can show you later.

Melissa: Weird.

Jam: It's kind of stiff, like, like stiffer than cloth would be. But it's, it's definitely a woven thing. But I can't tell if it's like, is it wire or is

Melissa: Is it woven? Because you know those bags that look woven like, um, like reusable grocery [00:34:00] bags? A lot of times those are actually polymers

Jam: Hmm, it

Jam: could

Melissa: they're called non woven. Blah, blah, blah.

Jam: it looks woven, but yeah, you're right. It could be.

Melissa: Interesting.

Jam: So I'd run it through that. And then what I would do, because I wasn't trying to add just a ton of liquid to the kombucha for the second fermentation. I would put it on the stove and kind of reduce it down a bit. I let it simmer. Also, it felt to me like the ginger stuff would kind of like, like mingle better.

Jam: And I don't know, come out more. I don't know what to say there. Um, but what, but the reason I started doing that is also because the initial kind of basic way a lot of people get into adding flavor to kombucha, which is totally fine. It's just like literally adding pieces of fruit and pieces of ginger into the bottle. Uh, after the first fermentation, but for the, for the second

Jam: fermentation and a little bit of sugar maybe. Um, but then you have pieces of stuff in there and some of these sort of like, um, bacteria [00:35:00] and yeast can start to grow on that and it's, and it's really not bad, but it just like isn't the most appetizing for people.

Jam: So I liked having, trying to get a really concentrated, flavorful liquid of stuff. to put in the bottles for the second fermentation. And then it kind of didn't have as much of a chance of forming a little, little tiny scoby on top of it. Um, and there wasn't, it wasn't anything floating around in there anyway.

Jam: So like when you get some ginger hanging out in just a bottle for a while, depending on

Jam: how,

Melissa: floaties on the bottom.

Jam: yeah, between how long it takes you to drink it, it gets, yeah, kind of weird. So I, that's what I would do. But I loved doing berry related stuff with ginger. And then, um, I think, I did like a peach ginger one, one time, but it was easier to get my hands on good berries, you know, pretty much any time of year.

Jam: Peaches like really good [00:36:00] peaches, you know, only certain season, uh, at least here in Texas or whatever. But, um, but I think exploring like the way you try to get the flavors sort of concentrated and filtered or whatever else like that, venturing into that stuff, it gets messy and it takes more work. But I think it made my, kind of took my kombucha to another level.

Jam: Uh, when I started doing that, and it felt very worth it. So I think messing with that would be really fun. And you can also buy, like, what we use now for, like, seltzers and stuff. We buy, like, um, real concentrated extracts of fruits. And I've wondered if I got back into kombucha, if I used some of that,

Melissa: I think that would be good.

Jam: how that would work, and how much I would need to do, and all that kind of stuff.

Jam: Um, but I feel like that is kind of a cool thing, is you can get it to be very flavorful without adding, needing to add a ton of it to it, and you kind of get this great best of both worlds kind of situation. Um, but you do need to add some more sugar to it,

Melissa: Well, [00:37:00] I don't make kombucha, but I love the pink lady apple kombucha flavor.

Jam: that's a good one. We did do apple actually. Apple ginger. Apple ginger

Jam: is really good. Especially like a fall kind of, you know.

Melissa: I like, I think, so, I like Pink Lady Apple because they're a good mix of tart and sweet. And if you have never had Pink Lady Apples, I'm out here to tell you, they're the best.

Jam: Mmm.

Melissa: They're so good. I have a really clear memory. When I was like, probably in high school, I was like, Oh mom, look, they have Pink Lady Apples.

Melissa: You love Pink Lady Apples. And she was like, I don't love Pink Lady Apples. You three, like me and my brother and sister, wouldn't eat apples when I bought them unless they were pink lady apples.

Jam: ha ha.

Melissa: So I have that like memory that I thought she loved them because she would always get excited but she was just excited because it was a way to get us to

Jam: Mm hmm.

Melissa: And that's pretty exclusively like that and maybe some honeycrisp is like the only apple I'll do.

Jam: Mm hmm.

Melissa: And I've brought [00:38:00] apples to other people and sliced them up and they'll be like, oh, this is a good apple. And I'm like, yeah, it's pink lady. Welcome to the club. Anyway, so there's a pink lady kombucha flavor that I really, really love.

Melissa: That's probably my all time favorite. It's like in the amber bottles at the store, you know, the ones. And then there's the other, there's like a, a brand of kombucha that they tried every flavor of on Rhett and Link.

Jam: Oh yeah, GT.

Melissa: Morning. Yeah, GT. That one's got some okay flavors, but I like the other one better.

Melissa: I think it might be Health Aid brand.

Jam: yeah, GT in my experience. I have not been impressed with

Melissa: No, me neither.

Jam: we have a brand I think it's actually a Fort Worth. I think they're their main like bottom places in Fort Worth called Holy Kombucha. They're super

Jam: good I

Melissa: that the one that's the amber bottle that has Pink Lady on

Jam: I don't know. There's another brand That's really good, too. I can't remember what it is, but Holy Kombucha is kind of local and it's All their flavors are good.

Jam: I haven't had one of theirs that's not good.

Melissa: It's the [00:39:00] Health Aid brand is the one I like. I'm looking up Holy Kombucha. I didn't know they were local. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I have seen those. Well, I, my favorite of all time is HealthAid Pink Lady Apple Kombucha, so

Jam: Nice.

Melissa: that was a fun foray into, um, kombucha. Are you glad that we're talking about one of your other favorite drinks?

Jam: Yeah, and I, it's making me want to get back into it. So, you guys might just trick me into doing it.

Melissa: And I know for a fact you could get Mason, you could trick Mason into doing it with you. I

Jam: That'd be really fun.

Melissa: you already hang out and roast coffee. You could just hang out and do this too.

Jam: Yeah, definitely.

Melissa: So great. That was a good question.

Jam: Yeah, that was good.

Melissa: I hope I said your name right. Jeanette or Jeanette or Jeanette?

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: Hard to say.

Jam: Okay. Oh, this one's interesting. Ready for this one from Samwise?

Melissa: Yes.

Jam: What's your favorite condiment? Mmm,

Melissa: it's ketchup.

Jam: nice.

Melissa: I, like, but, but what [00:40:00] counts as a condiment?

Jam: I think, well what are you wondering about?

Melissa: I also really like Valentina.

Jam: I think that's a condiment.

Melissa: salt and pepper count? They're just like spices.

Jam: think spices. I think condiments are liquid. That's where I would draw that

Melissa: Or at least amorphous salt. Right.

Jam: a sort of granule or dried out

Jam: herb

Melissa: okay, okay. Yeah, I think it's between ketchup and Valentina because it depends on what I'm eating. I mean, and that feels like a little kid answer, but like, if I'm going to get chicken nuggets at a place, or a hamburger, I want ketchup and mustard on the hamburger, but I dip, I dip my fries usually in my Nuggets in ketchup,

Jam: Right.

Melissa: and, but I do like Valentino and like, breakfast foods, eggs, sometimes on popcorn, you know, so it just, so both of those are like, those are probably my top two.

Jam: [00:41:00] Yeah. That's good. I have two also, um, that I would say. I love barbecue sauce. A lot. Which has ketchup in it. And I also love ketchup.

Melissa: It has ketchup in barbeque sauce? I don't have a clue what's in barbeque sauce, I'm not in the barbeque sauce community.

Jam: It's good. I mean, like, I don't remember when this happened. I feel like sometime in like Late high school. I was like, whoa, barbecue sauce is like way more complex than like ketchup, but I was a huge ketchup kid growing up.

Melissa: I know, I feel like, uh, like a little bit of a kid saying that.

Jam: Yeah. I mean, it's good.

Jam: I love ketchup

Melissa: in my chili,

Jam: I love spicy ketchup. The, uh, the Whataburger spicy ketchup.

Jam: Ooh.

Melissa: still love that.

Jam: So good. It takes ketchup to a new level, but barbecue sauce really has my heart. I could probably do like, if you were like, yeah, you can't have anything else on your burgers, your chicken tenders, your French fries for the rest of your life. You get to pick one only barbecue sauce would be where I would go with. But, another condiment that has my heart is this jalapeno salsa, I [00:42:00] think it goes by a few different names, but it's like, at taquerias it'd be like this like, green, like a pale green

Jam: sauce.

Melissa: exactly what you're talking about. That stuff is so good.

Jam: finally, we found a brand of that we can get on a reliable basis, like in a bottle, um, and so we always have

Jam: that at our house. It is I think the brand is called Holic, H O L I C, like, like I'm a chocoholic or whatever, you know, um, and they make a few different sauces like that. That's obviously not the only place you could buy it or get it or whatever, but like, getting a, uh, several bottles of it so it'll stay good, we can have it in the pantry, that kind of stuff, that's the challenging thing

Melissa: And what is it called?

Jam: Uh, they call it jalapeno sauce.

Melissa: Jalapeno salsa.

Jam: Um, but you know, I'm sure there's like a more accurate name for that and like we used to would save the little like little tiny, uh,

Melissa: you'd get at the taqueria?

Jam: we would keep those, but they don't they'll keep for so long or whatever. And it [00:43:00] was like also a tiny amount. So I was like, well, we want to have breakfast stuff.

Jam: I want to have that right in my, in my fridge all the time. Um, Trader Joe's also has a version of it. But there's is quite good too. Quite, quite good. Yes. But that is my favorite sauce. It's really spicy. It's creamy. It's just got such a great flavor to it. And if you were like, you can have one thing on your tacos for the rest of your life, that's what I'd pick.

Melissa: I think I would do like a tomatillo salsa.

Jam: Mm

Melissa: I've gotten older, I'm like, the green salsas are better. But they're also risky because they could have the really hot, what are the really hot green peppers? Not jalapenos, but like one step above that. Like hatch green chilies. Is that the hot one? No, they're not

Jam: They're not hot.

Melissa: There's something that they sometimes have in green salsas that it's like, could be, could be not.

Jam: are spicier than jalapenos.

Jam: But I don't know if they're green. I don't, that's a good question.

Melissa: Oh, nothing.

Jam: Um, [00:44:00] but anyway, so that would be my answer.

Melissa: Yeah, I feel like that's a good one. That's definitely a good one. Well, I think that wraps us up for the questions But I did pull a comment that I think is really fun off of YouTube of someone giving some positive feedback because we like to You know shout out our good reviews. So do you want to read this one from swag cat Jim?

Jam: I'd love to. Swagcat on YouTube said, I'm super glad one of your shorts came up. I listened to the podcast on Spotify and you guys cover really cool topics. The PFAS episodes got me into y'all and more into the subject. Great job on those.

Melissa: Oh, it's just so nice

Jam: Yeah, thank you swag cat. Thanks for the encouragement. That was awesome.

Melissa: And I can imagine that would be fun. Like if I listened to a podcast and then I was swiping and their shorts came up, that would be like, Oh, and shorts is on YouTube. They have like short one minute videos that we've been like just clipping some of our YouTube videos. So you can get a little like one, one minute clips.

Jam: And because we're we're still will have been on YouTube less than a year in terms of like putting our video video videos Versions of our [00:45:00] episodes over there. It's like our audience that listens to the audio is like so much larger There's kind of there's got to be people more people like swag cat.

Jam: They're like having your idea they could watch our show even though we talked about it, but like It's just kind of cool to think like, Oh, wait, they have video?

Melissa: Yeah. I also, I don't watch a lot of my podcasts. I'm like, I don't want to watch. Two people talking really but I do sometimes watch their shorts if it comes up or like on Tick tock sometimes if it comes up because I'm like, oh, I remember that story It's funny to see what they look like or like it's fun to see like, you know So I totally get that like oh their reactions I can see it in real time.

Melissa: So I totally get that for sure All right. Well, I think that's everything for today. Thank you all. This is our last episode that we're recording Before we go on our holiday break. So, um, it feels kind of like, uh, Oh, I won't see you for a while. We won't talk to y'all for a while.

Jam: Yeah,

Melissa: So, um, [00:46:00] We might, but we won't see each other.

Melissa: We won't record.

Jam: for a little bit, but.

Melissa: Yeah. So, yeah, I guess I just want to say thanks for all your questions and for writing in and sharing your thoughts. It really makes us so happy. And we love that we get to interact with y'all.

Jam: And thank you, yes, for sending those questions. Some of them turned into full blown episodes. And so we love hearing those from you guys. If you have a question, thought, idea, follow up question from an episode, correction, whatever. You've seen those, those, today our questions kind of ran the gamut of that stuff.

Jam: So you can, you can send those to us on our website at chem4yourlife. com. That's chem, F O R, yourlife. com. Share your thoughts and ideas. If you'd like to help us keep our show going, contribute to cover the cost of making it, you can go to patreon. com slash chem4yourlife and join our super cool chemmunity of patrons.

Jam: If you're not able to do that, though, you can still help us by subscribing to our favorite podcast app, rating, writing a review on Apple Podcasts, and also subscribing on our YouTube channel. Those things help us to share chemistry with even more people.

Melissa: This [00:47:00] episode of Chemistry for Your Life was created by Melissa Kalini and Jim Robinson. Jim Robinson is our producer, and this episode was made possible by our financial supporters on Patreon. It means so much to us that you want to help make chemistry accessible to even more people. Those people are Avishai B, Bree M, Brian K, Chris and Claire S, and this is almost Chris's birthday when we're recording.

Melissa: Happy birthday, Chris. Chelsea B, Derek L, Elizabeth P, Emerson W, Hunter R, Jacob T, Christina G, Katrina H, Latila S, Lynn S, Melissa P, Nicole C, Rachel R, Sarah M, Stephen B, Shadow, Suzanne P, Timothy P, and Venus R. Thank you again for everything you do to make Chemistry for Your Life happen. Seriously, it means so much to us that we get to do this and that we get to make chemistry more accessible for so many people.

Melissa: And extra special thanks to Bree who often creates illustrations to go along with our episodes of Chemistry, uh, Chemistry for Your Life, and you can see that on our YouTube.[00:48:00]

Jam: Yay chemistry!

Melissa: Yay, chemistry!