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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Does Turkey Really Make You Sleepy?

You’ve probably wondered, as you struggled to keep your eyes open amidst all the Thanksgiving Day football & family chatter, “is it the turkey that’s making me sleepy”?

Here’s the chemistry involved: turkey contains L-Tryptophan, an amino acid involved in sleep; your body uses that to produce a B vitamin called niacin, which generates the neurotransmitter serotonin, which yields the hormone melatonin, which helps regulate your sleeping patterns. But, plenty of other common foods contain similar amounts of tryptophan, including other poultry, meat, cheese, yogurt, fish, eggs, and others.

Moreover, for tryptophan to produce serotonin in your brain, first it has to cross the blood-brain barrier, which a lot of other amino acids are also trying to do. To give tryptophan a leg up in the competition, it needs the help of carbohydrates. Eating a small, all-carbohydrate snack a little while after you’ve eaten something containing tryptophan, will help the carbs will ferry that tryptophan from your bloodstream to your brain.

Thanksgiving isn’t about eating small, well-timed snacks, however; it’s more about mounds of mashed potatoes, mountains of stuffing, and moats of gravy. Combine that with alcohol, and you’re more than likely going to collapse into a spectacular food coma after the meal. Your body has to work extra hard to digest when you overeat (especially high-fat foods), redirecting blood to the digestive system & leaving little energy for anything else. And, since alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, it also slows your brain & other organs down.

In short, you can still hold turkey responsible for your Thanksgiving drowsiness, but you should also make sure that the mac & cheese, spiked apple cider, and that second piece of pumpkin pie also share the blame.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Put Paper Chef’s Hats On Turkey Legs?

Sometimes, you feel like wearing a chef’s hat while you cook Thanksgiving dinner, and that’s okay. But placing a tiny chef’s hat on the end of each turkey leg could be considered taking the holiday cheer a bit too far. Why do we always see that, though, especially in movies & cartoons?

Over the years, those paper coverings have had many creative names: turkey frills, turkey booties, even turkey panties. While they’ve (thankfully) fallen out of fashion in recent years, they did originally serve a very specific purpose. According to writer John Cordy Jeaffreson in the 1800s, paper trimmings sprung up in the 17th century as a way for women to keep their hands clean while carving meat.

Here’s what he wrote in his 1875 book, A Book About the Table: “To preserve the cleanliness of her fingers, the covering was put on those parts of joints which the carver usually touched with the left hand, whilst the right made play with the shining blade. The paper-frill, which may be seen round the bony point & small end of a leg, is a memorial of the fashion in which joints were dressed for the dainty hands of lady-carvers”, before the introduction of the carving-fork.

When etiquette books started encouraging “lady-carvers” to use carving forks, the paper didn’t become obsolete…it just got frillier. During the 19th & 20th centuries, chop frills were a cute & classy way to conceal the unsightly leg bones of roast turkey, lamb, chicken, or any other bird. So, if you have dainty hands like me, you can use them if you wish…or, just use a carving fork and knife & you’ll be set.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Is There A Difference Between Stuffing & Dressing?

If you’re a carb lover like me, nothing completes a Thanksgiving meal quite like dressing…boatloads of bread, celery, and other ingredients & spices to complement that beautiful bird protein.

Some people don’t call it dressing, though…they say stuffing. In these unprecedented times, knowing how to properly refer to that magnificent mound of moist bread seems necessary. So what’s the difference?

Let’s knock out one theory right here at the top: dressing & stuffing do not correlate with how the side dish is prepared. A turkey can be stuffed with dressing, and stuffing can be served in a casserole pan. Whether it’s ever seen the inside of a bird is irrelevant, and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong & should be run out of town on a rail.

The terms are actually separated due to regional dialects. Dressing seems to be the favored choice for southern states like my home state of Mississippi, as well as Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia. Meanwhile, stuffing is preferred by Mainers, New Yorkers, and other folks of the northern areas. There are some parts of Pennsylvania where they call it filling, but…no harm, no foul.

If stuffing stemmed from the common practice of filling a turkey with carbs, why the separation? It was likely because Southerners considered the word stuffing impolite, so they never really accepted it.

So, while there’s really no material difference between stuffing or dressing, when visiting relatives it might be helpful to utilize to their regionally-preferred word to avoid confusion & dirty looks. But, otherwise…just enjoy stuffing yourself!

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: How Does Food Go “Down The Wrong Pipe”?

Most folks aren’t very well-versed on human anatomy, which is why many of us call biceps “guns”, elbows “funny bones”, and heads “noggins”. So, when throat irritation & coughing spring up after you swallow something in a weird way, you might say that the food “went down the wrong pipe.” But what’s actually going on when that happens?

More than 30 muscles operate when you chew & then swallow. When the food’s ready to leave your mouth & head down into your stomach, it’s near the top ends of two “pipes,” the esophagus & the trachea. You want that food to travel via the esophageal route, since that leads to the stomach. Your body knows that, which is why, during ingestion, the voice box & epiglottis shift & close off the trachea, which, for food, is definitely the “wrong pipe”.

We don’t typically hold our breath when we eat, so food can end up taking a wrong turn down into the trachea every now & then. That “aspiration”, as it’s medically known, triggers an adrenaline response & causes you to cough uncomfortably. Dislodging the food will usually ease the problem, but sometimes it can get stuck & obstruct your airway, at which point you’re officially considered to be choking.

You might notice, though, that this happens more often with liquids. That’s because liquids move more quickly than solids, giving the body less time to react.

In rare cases, food or liquids that head down the “wrong pipe” can end up in the lungs & cause pneumonia. Thankfully, that’s uncommon, as coughing tends to get the food moving back into the esophagus where it’s supposed to be.

To minimize your chances of getting food stuck, try to avoid talking with your mouth full. Also, thoroughly chew reasonable portions. Y’know…all the things your mom & dad used to tell you.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Do We Say “Bless You” After A Sneeze?

We absorb a lot of how we socially interact at an early age, from it not being polite to cough without covering your mouth, to saying thank you whenever people give you things like money or gifts. And, what do we do when someone rears back & lets loose a violent burst of snot & spittle? We say “bless you”. But why? What do blessings have to do with sneezes?

The ‘bless you’ phenomenon dates back to as early as 77 BC. While there weren’t any explanations given for it, it was obvious people tended to acknowledge sneezes as a sign of good health, deserving of some cheer. Greeks & Romans would follow sneezes with phrases like “live long” & “may Jupiter bless you”.

That positivity changed in the 6th century, though, with Pope Gregory I as Europe experienced the depths of the bubonic plague. Sneezing was considered a symptom of illness, so the Pope thought saying “God bless you” would add some extra insurance for what was, at that time, near-certain death.

Also, there was a myth that the heart briefly stopped during a sneeze; perceived blood flow changes were believed to cause a pause between heartbeats. So, folks would say “bless you” to ensure that the heart wouldn’t stop beating. Basically, it was a way of congratulating someone for not dying: “Bless you, Oliver…that sneeze didn’t kill you!” Some cultures even believed demons were transmitted during sneezes, so they adopted the blessing as a way of warding off evil spirits.

However it came to be, we’ve clearly adopted a blanket blessing policy for all sneezes. When people don’t say “bless you”, we think they don’t care about our well-being. One etiquette columnist even put it like this: it’s considered more rude for people getting hit with sneeze shrapnel to bypass a “bless you” than for the person detonating the germ bomb to not say “excuse me”. And we have the plague to thank for all those blessings.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

{Katie’s Baby Blog} Lily is TWO!!!

Yesterday we celebrated my baby girl turning TWO years old…wow did that fly by fast.

She has been gearing up for her birthday for weeks- singing the song, asking for balloons and cake almost everyday!

So…that’s what we did! We plan to have a birthday party with family soon, but we wanted to celebrate on her actual birthday, too.

She got a balloon when she woke up, special birthday breakfast and then played all day until Mom and Dad got home from work.

She took a great 3 hour nap…I think from all of the excitement to come she wore herself out…then we opened presents!

We got her My Little Ponies (they are her favorite right now), a Mrs. Potato Head toy, Peppa Pig doll that sings, and these little squishy toys that SHE LOVES.

Her grandparents got her princess dresses, a treehouse with toys and clothes!

We sang Happy Birthday….twice… at her request and ate a strawberry shortcake (she loves strawberries)! Then, she spent the rest of the evening playing with her new favorite toys!

<3 Katie Ryan

{Katie’s Kitchen} Cranberry Feta Pinwheels- Thanksgiving Appetizer

Brought to you by Catoctin Mountain Orchard. 

I have made these pinwheels in the past and they are a HUGE hit…especially at Thanksgiving for an appetizer before the big meal while everyone’s mouth is watering smelling the turkey cooking in the oven.

Here’s the ingredients: Cream cheese, Feta cheese, green onions, Crasins Dried Cranberries, and large flour tortilla wraps (I used green spinach wraps to be festive)

  • 3/4 cup dried sweetened cranberries
  • 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, room temperature
  • 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 1 ⁄4 cup chopped green onion
  • 2 large flour tortillas

Mix all the ingredients into a mixing bowl (it really helps if the cream cheese is soft) then take a spreading knife and spread a layer of the mixture over the tortilla. Roll the tortilla up as tight as you can and then slice into pieces (about 12). Turn on their side and you can position these into a Christmas tree, too!

Superrrrrr easy and fun and everyone loves them!! YUM!

Recipe from here

Pictures of the recipe from Katie’s Kitchen below!!

MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Are Legal Pads Yellow?

We have a guy named Thomas Holley to thank for the legal pad. A 24-year-old dude working at a paper mill in Holyoke, MA, in 1888, every day Holley & his co-workers would throw out the “sortings”, which were basically a lot of scrap pieces left over after cutting paper into the correct sized sheets. He knew there had to be some use for them, and he eventually decided he could cut the sortings into a uniform size & bind them into notepads.

And, since the paper was essentially trash in the eyes of the mill, they were able to sell their pads at low prices. The first few batches sold so well that Holley quit his job at the mill & started his own company called “Ampad”, the American Pad & Paper Company, which collected scraps from mills and manufactured & sold them as pads. That company still exists, and still manufactures notepads in a variety of sizes & shapes…and colors.

The pads Holley made weren’t yellow, and yellow’s not the only color they come in today. Really, the only thing that technically sets a legal pad apart from every other notepad is the 1.25-inch, left-side “down lines,” or margins, which Holley added in the early 1900s at the request of a judge who needed space to comment on his own notes.

When most people think legal pad, though, they think of the classic yellow paper & blue lines. The true origin of the yellow hue is actually still a mystery to this day. As far as we know, the original pads were white, as dyeing them would’ve upped the cost & ruined the business plan.

No one seems to know when the pads first came out in color. One theory is that yellow contrasted well against black ink without glare, making text easier to read. Another is that, from a psychological perspective, yellow stimulates mental activity, so writing on yellow notepads boosts creativity.

The most probable possibility is that legal pad makers eventually decided to dye the paper to hide the fact that the pads were made from scraps of various ages & qualities, and yellow was the cheapest or most readily available dye at the time.

Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via social media (@AndyWebbRadioVoice), or shoot me an email at [email protected].

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