The show is going on hiatus. We may return!

What’s the key to a long and healthy life? Turmeric? Kale? Antioxidants? A gym membership? Kambucha? Omega-3 capsules? Resveratrol pills? Multivitamins? Flax seeds? Olive oil? Paleo diets? Mediterranean diets? Low-carb diets? Bulletproof coffee? Yoga? Green tea? Ginseng? Lentils? A Peleton? Consumers in industrial societies have been conditioned to believe that purchasing the right mix of goods and services will add years to their lives. But rigorous scientific research tells a very different story. Most nutritional supplements offer virtually no benefit. And although a healthy diet and exercise are important, they’re not nearly as beneficial to our health as our social relationships. In her recent book Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 science journalist and author Marta Zaraska bursts the commercially-generated myths and wishful thinking that permeate our discourse on longevity and refocuses the conversation on what science is actually telling us. Marta joins the show and we discuss Marta Zaraska is a Polish-Canadian science journalist who has written for Scientific American, New Scientist, Discover, the Washington Post, and others. Marta’s website can be found here. Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 is available on Amazon.

When we think of Canada’s connection to slavery we often think of The Underground Railroad, the network of abolitionists that led escaped American slaves north to freedom. However, too little attention is paid to Canada’s own 200-year history of slavery. The nation’s early political culture was strongly pro-slavery and many early Canadian politicians were slaveowners. Slaves of both indigenous and African origin were held in bondage under conditions not unlike those in the U.S. or elsewhere in the Americas. Their stories are mostly unknown to the general public, in part because Canada’s education system has neglected this crucial chapter of the nation’s past. Natasha Henry is part of a group of scholars seeking to correct the record and tell a fuller picture of Canada’s history. Their work is important because only by understanding how systems of racial discrimination were first erected can we fully contextualize today’s struggle to dismantle them. Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/danielbarkeley ---- Natasha Henry is a 2018 Vanier Scholar completing a PhD in History at York University on the enslavement of Africans in early Ontario. She is the president of the Ontario Black History Society. You can visit her website here: https://teachingafricancanadianhistory.weebly.com/about.html Her book is available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Emancipation-Day-Celebrating-Freedom-Canada-ebook/dp/B004DNWM1U