Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

For how many hours can you leave out a Christmas ham? Will turkey stuffing give you the runs? Is it okay to refrigerate hot take-away fried rice? Why does America have the world's worst E. coli? Can soft cheese really kill unborn babies? Why does asparagus make your pee smell? Every Christmas, families sit down to feasts... and Josh sits down with one of his favourite regular guests, Gary Kennedy. Gary is a food scientist who knows everything about the microbiology of what you eat, and what you shouldn't. Merry Christmas, humans. Bon appetit!

Josh takes questions about the news on his weekly livestream. No prizes for guessing the big story this week. That's right: The French Snail Robbery.

Sydney is shell-shocked after the deadliest terrorist attack ever on Australian soil. Sixteen people are dead and at least 40 wounded after gunmen executed Jewish families celebrating the first night of Hannukah at Australia's most famous beach. As his city picks up the pieces, Josh shares his feelings and his thoughts about extremism, free speech, Israel, Islam, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, multiculturalism, liberalism and how to encourage a more peaceful future for us all.

The image of a singular political leader is misleading. Why? Because they can barely function without a team behind them. Chief among that team, being their Chief of Staff: part strategist, part consigliere, part javelin-catcher. But the real job is even stranger. They are the gatekeepers to presidents and prime ministers. The triage nurses for national crises. The confidantes who remind a leader to eat breakfast, steady them during massacres and terror attacks, and sometimes challenge them on the very policies they champion. Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks has interviewed the people behind Mandela, Blair, Gillard, Howard, Ardern, Trudeau and more, revealing a world of invisible power, professional intimacy, and the oddity of a system in which unelected aides can quietly influence the fate of nations. From the death of Princess Diana to 9/11, from Port Arthur to Christchurch, their stories show how leadership actually works when the stakes are existential. Phoebe joins Josh to unpack the hidden architecture of power, the personalities behind it, and what their experiences reveal about trust, loyalty, crisis, and the human frailty of the people we expect to carry entire countries on their shoulders. Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!

If you're ethically conflicted about industrial animal farming, this episode is a shot of hope. Shaming people into going vegan doesn't work. What does? Aidan Alexander is the co-founder of a non-profit that distributes money to a basket of effective charities creating cruelty-free options for millions of farmed animals each year. If you care about whether pigs and hens endure agonising lives simply to shave a few cents off each pound of their flesh, here's your practical solution. FarmKind, Aidan's organisation, is independently funded through philanthropy. It takes no cut of any donations -- they pass it all directly to six of the best charities working to fix factory farming. Until the end of 2025, all donations using the code "josh" will be matched 100% by FarmKind so your dollar goes twice as far. (If this reads like an ad, it's not. We're not paid for this; we just believe in fixing factory farming so Josh can have his steak and eat it too.) Go to FarmKind.giving and use the code "josh" before the new year, to double your contribution. Or follow the link below: https://www.farmkind.giving/giving-season-2025?promo=josh Aidan joins Josh to discuss why animal-rights activism hasn't worked, the problems of preaching veganism, the sentience of different species, the strangely elevated status of cats and dogs, the negative externalities of industrial agriculture, and practical ways we all can solve this fixable problem. Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!