I most frequently listen to podcasts when I am on my own, working on something non-verbal that requires manual, but not mental, work. Washing dishes. Walking to work. Cleaning the house. I also listen to podcasts while preparing food, as I often cook while my children are kept busy.

I usually do not select different podcasts, but simply work my way through my playlist. My playlist is constantly being updated and downloaded as the weeks progress, and I only select the first show of the session and let the playlist manager select the rest. Usually my hands are wet, dirty, or otherwise full when the shows change, so I just listen to whatever is next. When I get a large number of shows in my queue, I will binge listen to all of them.

Except one.

There is one podcast I now listen to any time OTHER than when I am eating or preparing food. The Caustic Soda Podcast is one of my very favorite podcasts, but not when I am eating. The three hosts are hilarious, but is their humor is the bleak, dark stuff you make to keep yourself from going crazy. The modus operandi of the Caustic Soda podcast is to pick a grim/gross/bizarre topic, discuss it, and try (desperately) to find some humor. They succeed, but I can’t keep listening while I eat.

The most recent podcast I’ve listened to (I’ve nearly finished my The Flop House binge) is about Stalin. As I walked into the office today, they had reached the point where they described “rolling people around in a barrel with nails studded all throughout the inside” which would impale the victim as they rolled around. This horrific image, and the hosts cringing at how awful would be had me slack-jawed. I sat down with my coffee and a snack I bought from a bakery before work.  I was going to snack before my class, but listening to them describe people’s hands being flayed, and how awful dissidents were treated put me off my meal.

That’s not the only time where I was suddenly less hungry after listening to one of their shows. I’ve realized that if I want to keep my food appetizing, I can’t listen to their show. If you want to build up negative associations with food, listen to disgusting and disturbing content, and you want to learn about weird stuff, I’d recommend the Caustic Soda Podcast Diet.

Listen to the show before you sit down to eat. You will not want to eat during the podcast.  However, you won’t lose any weight, because you’ll immediately need comfort food. This desire to snack is from the stress of listening to the messed up content. If you are lucky, you might break even on the scales, but you’ll definitely learn lots of new messed up stuff.

Particularly brutal shows (Ugh, Ted Bundy/Infanticide) are difficult to listen to because of their disturbing content. It will not only dissuade you from eating, but won’t want to be around people either. In rare cases, vomiting in your mouth is probably not rare.

It’s a testament to the hosts that despite the disturbing content I continue to listen to this sometimes disturbing, always weird show every week. While listening to disturbing content takes a toll, being a person that can laugh at something truly awful, point out how messed up it is, and educate people on why it happened is important. You need to take steps to recognize why something terrible might happen again, whether it be through history or an accident, and work to prevent it.

This is a wearing, but responsible position to take in life. You need to know facts, no matter how terrible. You can’t dig a hole in the dirt deep enough to hide yourself from everything truly terrible in this world, but you’ll go crazy if you don’t find a way to laugh at it all.

Anyway, I’m off to not eat more food and listen to the second part of the Stalin episode!