Short Stuff: Sardines!

0:00Josh Clark:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure. When you think about discovering small brands, what store pops in your mind? Well, it should be Walmart. Seriously, Walmart has thousands of small brands and they're all in one place. Just go online or in-store, discover and shop. It could not be easier. Every one of these brands has a real story and real people behind it. They're true American success stories and you can find them all at Walmart. Discover thousands of small brands at Walmart.com today. My name is Arnold Bogarty, and prior to me, I enrolled in Rasmussen to become a nurse.

0:38Josh Clark:I spent 16 years in the military, 12 in Special Forces,

0:41Chuck Bryant:as an Army Green Beret, and I was recommended to Rasmussen by a former student. She said she loved the culture. It was a family atmosphere. I went to visit the campus. The facilities were amazing. I knew before I left that that was the school that I was going to attend. Rasmussen University. Are you ready to be your own hero? Online and on campus. Learn more at rasmussen.edu.

1:07Chuck Bryant:Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and we're just sucking down sardines and the short stuff because Jerry's sitting in for Dave, which means it's short stuff about sardines.

1:19Josh Clark:That's right. I picked this because a couple of weeks ago you mentioned sardines because I mentioned I'd been eating tinned, like salmon and tuna, for lunches, for light lunches. You said, try sardines. I said, I got some sardines, and I tried them today, finally. Yeah? And I have to say this. I liked, like, the flavor was good. Okay.

1:41Chuck Bryant:But I got skeeved out. Yeah, the same thing happens to me, man. I have zero recollection of telling you to try sardines. and I find them difficult to eat because of the texture. You did not mention any of that when you told me to try sardines. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not kidding. Last week or the week before. That is bizarre. I think you're even like, oh, sardines are good. Go eat them. Huh. That sounds like me.

2:08Josh Clark:Yeah.

2:08Chuck Bryant:But like one part of my brain was saying it and the rest of my brain didn't even know that I just said it.

2:13Josh Clark:Yeah. So the idea was to, I got some bagels when I was just in New York from my favorite, Essa Bagel. Everything's, bring them home in the suitcase, put them in the freezer, cut them in half, put them in the freezer, because eating a whole giant bagel like that is a lot. So I put a, like for lunch, sometimes I'll do a half a bagel with like, maybe sometimes nothing, just a half a bagel. Or sometimes I'll put some of that tinned tuna on top. So it's like today I'm going to throw some sardines on that, but let me try them first. And I tried them and I'm glad I didn't waste that bagel because I couldn't do it, man.

2:44Josh Clark:They skeeved me out, but the flavor was still fine. It was hard to describe why it skeeved me, I guess because they're tiny little fish looking at you.

2:51Chuck Bryant:Well, that's the thing. Yeah, it's a whole little fish. They don't grind it up like tuna or salmon or anything like that. Like it's a little fish in a tray, a metal tray. That didn't skeeve me out. Again, it's the texture. The taste is fine. Like they smell way more fishy than they taste and their taste is fine.

3:10Josh Clark:It wasn't unlike tuna taste-wise.

3:12Chuck Bryant:No, it's no. And it's certainly nothing like anchovies, which are definitely their own thing. And they're good in their own way. It's nothing like that. I saw some recipes because I got into sardines before I ever tried them. And we still have cans left from years back. And I'm always looking for ways to use them up. And I found that you can just fry them up like a Spanish tapas is to fry them. And I'm like, if they crisp up a little bit, I might be able to handle them better.

3:43Josh Clark:Agreed. And grilling them. Had I maybe just placed them on that bagel and toasted it in the toaster oven, it might have been a little better. But, yeah, I'm with you. So we're talking sardines. Yeah. These are tiny little fish, of course, very silvery. They're very nutrient-dense, which we're going to talk about because they're actually pretty good for you. And you can get them, you know, you can get fresh sardines in a lot of Asian countries, usually over here in the United States and other places in the West. You're going to buy them in their little bunk bed that you twist open. I wish you still twisted open things like that with the little key, but unfortunately it's the stupid pull tab now.

4:20Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

4:21Josh Clark:But one benefit of a sardine, if you're into like a light tinned fish for lunch, is that you don't have to worry about mercury because they don't eat other fish. And apparently that's where mercury comes from is fish eating fish. They eat plankton, and so you don't have to sweat the mercury.

4:35Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I saw the reason why it's a problem because plankton actually has mercury in it, but it's very small amounts. The problem with eating fish with mercury is that it bioaccumulates. So one fish eats another fish that has mercury. That fish's mercury combines with the fish that ate its mercury and so on and so forth. So that by the time you eat a fish, you're eating a bunch of mercury potentially. Since sardines only eat the little bit of mercury that plankton have, they're fine.

5:03Josh Clark:Yeah, which is a shame because if not for that, I would honestly eat a little tin of nice tuna every day for lunch.

5:10Chuck Bryant:I, yeah, I don't eat it every day, but I eat a lot. I've been eating way more fish than usual. Have you ever had Branzino? Oh, yeah.

5:19Josh Clark:Anytime it's on a menu, a whole Branzino at the table for everyone to share, that's what I do.

5:23Chuck Bryant:Okay, my friend, you can go to a certain alternative grocery store, I guess you could call it. Okay. that has a lot of their own brand stuff. Basically, that's all they sell is their own brand. Okay. And they have frozen branzino fillets and like just put a little salt, a little pepper. Yeah, yeah. Maybe not even olive oil and eat it and you will just be in seventh heaven.

5:49Josh Clark:Throw it in the oven or just eat it cold?

5:50Chuck Bryant:You can throw it in the oven. I throw it in the air fryer sometimes. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I don't recommend eating it cold. It's not like sashimi.

5:58Josh Clark:Oh, okay. That's what I thought because you didn't mention cooking it. I'm sorry. But you know you're not supposed to eat that much tuna. I hope you're not. Because that's a serious thing. Like eating more than one like tin of tuna a week is not great.

6:09Chuck Bryant:I didn't know that, but I don't think I eat a tin of tuna every week now.

6:14Josh Clark:All right, good. You don't want to turn into the Mad Hatter? No, the guy that ate too much tuna. Ari from Entourage. You know plot lines from Entourage? No, Ari, the agent in Entourage. What's the guy from all the John? I know who you're talking about. Go ahead. Yeah. What's his name? I can't remember his name.

6:38Chuck Bryant:Not John Favreau.

6:40Josh Clark:No, the guy from all. Jeremy Piven. Jeremy Piven, yeah. He got sick from eating. He got like mercury poisoning years ago from apparently eating too much sushi.

6:50Chuck Bryant:I think you told me that before. Yeah. Did you ever see PCU?

6:54Josh Clark:I saw parts of it. I never saw the whole thing.

6:56Chuck Bryant:I saw the whole thing multiple times for some reason.

7:00Josh Clark:Well, that's where you were in your life at the time.

7:02Chuck Bryant:I guess so.

7:03Josh Clark:All right. So back to sardines. They are found in shallow coastal temperate subtropical oceans all over the world. And they're very popular in Europe. Obviously, Portugal and Spain, you can find them on a lot of tapas menus. You can grill those things up. Throw them on a pizza toast. You're eating the bones, by the way. They're very tiny, so you don't feel like you're eating bones. so you just sort of dissolve in with the rest of the little silverfish.

7:27Chuck Bryant:I think that might be part of the texture problem, too. Yeah, maybe. But there's a lot of health benefits, including the bones. The bones are chock full of calcium. Apparently, just eating one tin, I think, of sardines gives you like a third of the calcium you need as a human being, at least according to the U.S. government.

7:47Josh Clark:Yeah, and if you're lactose intolerant, it's a good place to get calcium. Also, because it's a fish, you're going to get lots of vitamin D, B12, phosphorus, selenium, and those omega-3 fatty acids, which are great at preventing heart disease while also being low in saturated fat.

8:04Chuck Bryant:Yeah, I was reading about that because I take omega-3s for cognitive stuff. Like it helps me focus and it really works really well. I've heard that. But there's a history of atrial fibrillation in my family. And I read that if you have a family history of heart disease, the taking omega-3s, there was a study recently that found taking omega-3s actually increases your risk of developing it yourself. Oh, really? But it has a protective function if you already have heart disease. It's really bizarre. Oh, geez, man. The human body is so weird sometimes. It is. So this was one study. It was a recent study, but it was a pretty big meta-analysis, and it doesn't seem to be being poo-pooed in the scientific press.

8:52Chuck Bryant:So it might be legit. I don't know, but it was enough to make me stop taking it every day.

8:58Josh Clark:All right. All right. Well, we'll take a little break, and we'll come back and talk a little bit more about sardines right after this.

9:17Josh Clark:This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure. You probably think of Walmart as a store that carries about everything under the sun. And maybe not as a place to discover small brands. Well, two things can be true at the same time. Because Walmart is home to thousands of small brands founded by people who had an idea, took a chance, and built something of their own. Behind every one is a real story and a lot of hard work. So why not take a little time to recognize all the people building small brands across the country and support everything they're creating? Walmart is proud to give those brands a place on its shelves and online.