0:00

Hello everyone in podcast land. If you

0:02

have ever wanted to see us on stage

0:04

telling jokes and slinging facts, and

0:06

you live out west, you can come see us

0:08

in Portland, Oregon or Vancouver,

0:11

Canada. Yep, We'll be at the Chance Center

0:13

in Vancouver on Sunday, March twenty nine,

0:15

and then we'll be at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert

0:18

Hall in Portland on March And

0:20

if you want tickets and info, then

0:22

the best thing you can do right now is to go do

0:25

s y s K live dot com.

0:28

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production

0:30

of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

0:38

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

0:41

There's Charles w. Chuck Bryan over there,

0:43

there's Jerry over there again. Gosh, it

0:45

feels good to have you back. Chairs Cherysa's

0:48

thanks and this is stuff

0:51

you should know. The smell of

0:53

mi So is back. I

0:55

love the smell of me so in the morning. I've

0:57

been doing a lot of mis lunches mm

1:00

hmm, actually just eating

1:02

balls of mis no. I found

1:04

a I found a soup

1:07

that's pretty good, like well,

1:09

a ramen and a miso that

1:11

are a little because I was thinking like man, I used

1:14

to love those little ramin's

1:16

in college. It's like, I wonder if there's an elevated

1:18

version of that, and there is, Uh,

1:22

I'll plug it. Mike's mighty good ramen. It's

1:25

a cup of soup, but it's just a little

1:27

bit better. It's made from better ingredients. In

1:30

Instead of twenty cents, it's like two dollars. Oh

1:32

yeah, it's still pretty affordable. But yeah,

1:35

it's just super fast and get

1:38

some you know, low calories

1:40

in your body to stave

1:42

off some food cravings. Stave off

1:44

that cheeseburger craving, you know what I mean, Yes,

1:47

which can be substantial. And

1:49

you know what I'm also back on and

1:51

this is all just because of calorie crap.

1:54

But beef turkey

1:56

is a nice little protein snack, not

1:59

a ton of calories, and squashes cravings.

2:01

That one kid, um sorry, that one

2:03

guy, but he started it as

2:05

a kid our listener who makes beef

2:07

jerky really top quality

2:10

stuff. It was good, but

2:12

you know, I had my MOLDI beef jerky

2:14

incident years ago in l A. Oh that's right.

2:16

This is the first time I've had beef jerkey

2:19

in fourteen years. Because of that incident.

2:21

Well you're back on the train, though, I'm glad. Well,

2:24

not like a ton, but a couple of times a week I'll

2:26

snack on some beef jurney. That is. That's a

2:28

lot. That's a lot of jerky.

2:30

Yes, a couple of times a week is a lot. I

2:33

mean that's like right in my wheelhouse. But it's a

2:35

lot. And the whole bag of beef

2:37

jerky once, okay, two

2:40

ounces? Yeah, do you weigh

2:42

it out first? I do? Do you really? Yeah?

2:44

I was on the food

2:47

weighing thing for a little while and like you can

2:49

get into it's kind of like a game. I mean just

2:51

that's the only way to track accurately. Um.

2:54

Yeah, good for you, man. Thanks, you're feeling

2:56

good whatever, You're

3:00

like, I've lost my world of blue now

3:02

it's weighing beef jerkin. It's

3:04

fine. Alright, Well, everybody,

3:07

obviously we're talking about Indigo

3:09

to Die in the History of

3:11

It, which to me, did you

3:13

know any of this before we started? No,

3:16

So this is kind of you're like, oh, this sounds interesting,

3:18

let's do one on Indigo and dug In and

3:21

struck Gold. You know, I was I was

3:23

perusing the old house stuff works dot

3:25

com website um, which

3:27

you know, I know we have almost cleaned that

3:29

website dry over the years, but

3:32

this one popped up and I thought

3:34

interesting because this is one

3:37

of those that is like, oh,

3:39

indigo, Yeah, that's a color, but it's also

3:41

a pigment and it has an interesting

3:43

history and also slavery

3:46

and race gets involved, so

3:48

no idea. Yeah, it has a lot of tendrils that I found

3:51

interesting. Yes, Supposedly, wherever

3:54

indigo went, especially after the age

3:56

of the exploration and colonization, so

3:59

too went um slavery

4:02

because it was it's a really intensive process

4:05

and crop um to produce

4:08

indigo to die very popular

4:10

crop. Yeah, and it was also a worth

4:12

a lot of money, which was like, oh, well, we'll

4:14

just um kidnap people and make them

4:16

work for free and and that's how

4:18

we'll produce indigo. And that's how it went for hundreds

4:21

of years apparently. Yeah, and we'll get to this,

4:23

but there are some people that say

4:25

the state of Georgia legalized

4:28

slavery specifically so they could

4:30

kind of keep pace with indigo as a

4:32

crop. And those people

4:35

who say that are historians, that's

4:38

right. So okay,

4:42

I knew zero about indigo aside from

4:44

the fact that they used it to dye jeans

4:46

and that was blue basically. Um.

4:49

And I just found this ultimately super

4:51

fascinating. Yeah. I mean

4:53

this beginning though, I thought was even

4:55

more fascinating because I never

4:57

really thought about the fact that

5:00

if you look at any color up

5:02

to a certain point about the mid

5:04

nineteenth century. Yeah, mid nineteenth century, was

5:07

any color you would see on a fabric or

5:09

a textile was there because

5:12

a lot of plants and insects

5:16

We're squashed like it

5:18

was an insect and plant blood bath for eons

5:22

in the world. Because if you wanted something to be colored

5:25

at all, then you had to

5:27

find a bug or a plant that

5:29

you could grind up into a powder basically

5:32

or some other means, yeah, or

5:34

an animal, uh, like

5:36

sea snails and animals, And if you

5:39

wanted purple for a very very long

5:41

time, you had to um, you

5:43

had to get the mucous gland out of a

5:45

sea snail and and desiccated. And

5:48

I'm guessing that didn't end well for the sea snail.

5:50

No, And I imagine that's a super

5:52

labor intensive thing to do.

5:55

But who, Like I guess I

5:57

could see like accidentally smashing

5:59

a sea snail and be like, oh, that's a very pretty

6:01

purple. I wonder if I can use it to do stuff

6:03

with the stuff that gets me those

6:05

when you get into like indigo itself.

6:08

Yeah, because it's the fact

6:10

that you can get blue out of indigo is not

6:12

intuitive. No, because you look at the plant,

6:14

it's not blue. You squeeze

6:17

the plant, not blue, eat

6:19

the plant, poop it out, not blue.

6:22

There's nothing blue about it. You have to

6:25

you have to put it through this chemical reaction

6:27

that's multi step to

6:29

to get it to be blue. And I'm likely

6:32

at a loss how what

6:34

what series of accidents had to happen

6:37

so that like somebody

6:40

came up with indigo to die because

6:42

apparently it's one of the

6:44

least

6:46

least natural natural dyes

6:49

in the world. Yeah. And and also

6:51

and for that reason, one of the most sought

6:53

after through antiquity, because

6:56

you know, if they wanted to make red stuff, it's pretty

6:59

easy. There's a lot of things you can you know,

7:01

get red out of it in nature or green

7:03

obviously, but blue. You

7:06

know the old thing about there being no blue foods.

7:09

What old thing? Well, the

7:12

old adage there are no blue foods. Have

7:15

you ever had arctic blue gum? Well?

7:19

I did look into this because this doesn't make a little

7:22

sense of why blue as a pigment would

7:24

be more sought after, and I think it

7:26

ties into the fact that it's just not naturally occurring.

7:28

Really, Um, I had never thought

7:30

about that, but that. Yeah, now I'm just gonna spend

7:32

the rest of the episode racking my brain for a blue

7:34

food. Well, blue corn, blue potatoes,

7:36

blue blueberries are the things that

7:38

most people would say, well, what about that. I never

7:41

would have thought of those, But those are technically purple.

7:43

Um that on the Food Network a few

7:45

years ago, and other people have done this. They used

7:47

to spectro uh photometer

7:51

photometer two

7:54

look at the true colors of foods,

7:56

and even those foods are actually

7:58

purple. They brought Sydney Opera and be

8:00

like, yeah, it's purple. I

8:03

don't get it. She had that song true Colors. Okay,

8:06

I was thinking true blue. I was like, that's my daughter. Did

8:09

you just add an r Onto the end of Madonna?

8:11

Yeah, but that's a reservoir dogs reference. Um,

8:15

thank you for explaining it. I didn't have to see

8:17

like multiple emails two

8:19

weeks from now with people being like great reservoir

8:22

dogs reference Chuck. So the

8:24

blue food thing, supposedly people

8:26

think that blue light is

8:29

one of the high energy wavelengths on the on

8:31

the light spectrum, on the visible light spectrum,

8:33

and that the guesses is to grow more

8:35

efficiently plants absorbed that light and

8:38

use that energy. Well, yeah, because the blue

8:40

end is is higher energy. Yes,

8:43

I'm pretty sure. Yes, yeah, yeah, that makes

8:45

sense. Yeah, and that was what we were talking

8:47

about in the about the

8:49

blue blood. Yes,

8:51

but that's the opposite of that. It absorbs

8:54

more red, so it reflects more blue.

8:56

Interesting, so if it was blue, it

8:59

would it would absorb less

9:01

blue light. I don't know,

9:04

I know, it's kind of like a mind sure,

9:08

a brain teaser, right there you go.

9:11

But at any rate, there are very

9:13

supposedly no true blue foods, and

9:17

that's probably ties into the

9:19

fact there are not a lot of plants

9:21

that were true blue. And as if you wanted

9:23

something blue back then, uh,

9:25

you had to get it from woade, which

9:28

is a If you look at those, it's got yellow

9:30

flowers again, not blue. If there

9:32

was ever a medieval English word,

9:36

I love it for that. It sounds like

9:38

a little uh a little short,

9:40

hairy stubby, that little

9:42

woe man with big feet who

9:44

wears like a tunic, that's a

9:46

woad or the more um

9:48

are the prettier named Indigo fera,

9:51

which is a family of plants in India

9:53

and South America, both

9:55

of those that has like a pinkish flower. But

9:58

both of those is where you used get

10:00

indigo. Yeah, And what's weird about

10:02

this also is not only like to neither

10:05

of these plants look like they would produce

10:07

blue dye, but neither

10:10

one of them are actually particularly good

10:12

at dyeing fabric. They

10:14

both resist binding to fabric

10:17

or um dissolving in water.

10:20

Hence the reason why you don't just

10:22

like squeeze wode or

10:24

an intego ferra plant um

10:26

and get blue dye. You have to run it through

10:29

this process that starts with fermentation.

10:31

Even yeah, and squeezing, squeezing your wode

10:33

sounds it

10:36

sounds like something else. Yeah,

10:38

So we don't know for sure. We

10:41

think they've been making indigo from wode longer

10:44

than from the Indigo ferra plant. I

10:46

think now we we can't say the word woude anymore

10:48

for the rest of the episode. I think you're right, but

10:51

it's you know, we can't really tell sometimes

10:53

whether it was woade or the indigo ferra.

10:56

That they do think because Egypt and

10:58

Mesopotamia are close to Turkey and

11:00

they had a lot of blue uh

11:02

and in Turkey they had more woad

11:04

than indigo ferra, So they think that was probably the first

11:07

one. Yeah. So the upshot of all that is that

11:09

they can trace blue die

11:12

back to the third millennium

11:14

b c. Five thousand years ago or up

11:17

to five thousand years ago, but they

11:19

can't say whether it came from wood or indigo

11:21

ferre right, right, But they did

11:23

find indigo ferra in the

11:25

Bronze Age in the Indus Valley civilization.

11:29

And this was fascinating to me just because the

11:32

um the

11:33

horror Pon. I

11:36

guess it's one of the same, the Indus Valley

11:38

civilization and the that that what you

11:40

just said, Yes, they're they're the same thing,

11:42

right, Yes, they're the Harpon civilization

11:45

that was one of maybe the largest ever ancient

11:48

civilization. And I'm just fascinating

11:50

anytime we talk about these

11:52

civilizations back then, add like as many

11:54

as five million people, It's just blows

11:56

my mind. They also had indoor

11:59

plumbing, underground sewage like

12:02

they had it going on. They apparently had

12:04

a better standard of living um

12:06

than contemporary Egyptians at the same

12:08

time. And everybody thinks that the Egyptians

12:11

having it going on too. Yeah

12:15

please, yeah, I guess not compared

12:17

to the Indus Valley civilization. So

12:20

um, there is lots of examples

12:22

of this stuff. Um.

12:25

Yeah, Indigo fera or wode they kind of

12:27

competed for a very long time, and

12:30

Europe kind of went the Woade way

12:32

because wade grows

12:34

in um in Europe much more

12:36

easily related to the cabbage family. They took

12:38

the load less traveled. That was good,

12:41

um, and then that was really good. And

12:44

then indigo fera grows better

12:47

in like Pakistan, India that

12:49

that area the Indus Valley um,

12:51

and so that that was kind of like the split in

12:54

blue dye. The thing is, there

12:56

seems to have always been this understanding

12:58

that indigo fair is just vastly

13:01

superior to woade indigo

13:03

um. And so even in Europe,

13:06

like you would find woade like the Greeks,

13:08

the Romans, and then up to medieval

13:11

Europeans, if they could get their hands

13:13

on indigo ferra, indigo

13:16

that um. They would pay through the

13:18

nose for that stuff. Um

13:20

and rightly. So, I mean like it was really expensive

13:22

because it's hard to produce, as we'll see um.

13:25

But also at the time you had to travel

13:27

over land carrying the stuff,

13:29

and so each trader that went along these trade

13:31

rush just added more and more money on

13:34

too. So by the time it reached a western Europe,

13:36

you were paying a lot for this blue dive. One

13:39

million dollars. They would be like

13:41

that that number doesn't even exist yet.

13:44

So the Greeks they called and

13:46

this is going down a bit of a a

13:48

word origin rabbit hole. But the

13:50

Greeks called the blue pigment indecon

13:53

with a K because it

13:55

was from India and they wanted it to sound sinister

13:58

because things were the K that

14:01

became indigo in English. And

14:03

then there's the word for die

14:05

in ancient lands uh

14:07

in i l i neely that

14:11

was Sanskrit meaning dark

14:13

blue, and then that

14:15

became a n i l in Spanish,

14:18

and eventually that became indigo

14:20

in Central and South America. And apparently,

14:22

yeah, blue in Arabic is al

14:25

neil right, in English,

14:28

uh annualine is

14:30

derived from that, and that is synthetic

14:33

die class. So it's all tied

14:35

together. We got to climb right out of this

14:37

hole. Yes, that was a big one.

14:39

So, um,

14:41

where are we in the ancient world? Well,

14:44

I think we're in Marco Polo? Okay, good

14:46

so and twelve

14:50

the late twelve hundreds, the late

14:52

thirteenth century, Marco Polo

14:55

made his way to China and

14:57

was like, hey, get this. We had

15:00

to say something. This is me talking, not

15:02

Marco Polo, but um,

15:05

they had, like the Romans, the Greeks,

15:07

the Europeans had no idea that

15:10

indigo came from a plant, because by

15:12

the time I got to them, it was like these little hard

15:16

um bits of die

15:18

and you would mix with water at about solution

15:21

and there you had your die. All of a sudden, um,

15:24

But they thought it was a mineral. Marco

15:26

Polo went to China, saw some of

15:28

this stuff firsthand. I was like, hey, this comes

15:31

from a plant. Did you guys know that? And by

15:33

the way, I got a bunch of my boat if you

15:35

want to buy something, And all of a sudden

15:37

there was trade now with with China.

15:40

Yeah, and that went. It was still pretty

15:42

expensive because there was no direct sea

15:44

route to China. Until Vasco

15:47

da Gama came along and said watch

15:49

this, Yeah, I'll sail to China in

15:51

like two seconds. Everyone

15:54

was very impressed. And this kind of cut

15:56

out the middleman in all those hands. Like you were

15:58

saying, raising the prices

16:00

along the way, you cut out a lot of those

16:03

and you've got more supply.

16:06

And even back then that

16:08

those economics meant cheaper prices

16:11

would follow, right, isn't Fosco

16:13

da Gama George Costanza's favorite explorer?

16:16

I can't remember. I was just wondering that.

16:18

I want to say it is, but I thought it was Cortez.

16:21

Now no, no, no, everybody hates Cortez.

16:23

Who was Jerry's I don't remember

16:27

which one. I think one of them was impressed about

16:29

going around the Horn of Africa majelling.

16:33

Maybe I'll have to look that all.

16:36

What's the door Steinfeld research on that for you?

16:38

So the cost of Indigo dropped a lot

16:41

because of the da Gama but

16:43

but not like rock bottom

16:46

luxury, like the point

16:49

zero one percent could afforded to you

16:52

know, could

16:54

afford kind of something like that. Yeah,

16:57

But what that meant was is Woade was

16:59

in big double because Indigo

17:02

from the Indigo ferra was the blue gold,

17:04

said, what is me? All

17:06

right, let's take a break and we'll talk

17:09

about the synthesization

17:11

synthetization. Good God,

17:14

am I dreaming right now? I think? So? Good

17:17

night? Okay.

17:38

So you said that they call it blue gold, right,

17:40

or they did back in the age of Vasco da Gama.

17:43

That's right because it was worth a lot of money.

17:45

It lasted along and had a good shelf life, and

17:48

it wasn't you know, huge. It was pretty compact

17:50

as far as storing and traveling, super compact.

17:53

So um, if you'll indulge me, like I found

17:55

a little bit about how that stuff

17:57

that they used to to travel with

18:00

was made. Yeah, and it's still

18:02

if it's going to be made naturally, which it really isn't.

18:04

This is how they would still do it, right. Someone

18:06

figured this out thousands of years

18:08

ago and still today from what we

18:11

understand, the process is virtually

18:13

the same. So the whole thing starts

18:15

with a whole bunch of indigo

18:17

ferra um plant um,

18:21

and you throw it into a pot and you start

18:23

to ferment it. Step

18:25

one. Somebody figured out how to ferment

18:28

or that you need to ferment indigo.

18:30

I bet someone drank it at some point, yes,

18:33

and they're like, chuck out my teeth. Have

18:36

you ever seen teeth like these? So

18:39

here's the thing, the reason why

18:41

you can't just squeeze an indigo ferra

18:43

plant and get indigo outs because there's no indigo

18:45

in the plant. It doesn't exist naturally. But

18:48

there's a precursor to it called indi can

18:51

um, and that is what you ferment out

18:54

of the um leaves with

18:56

an enzyme which kind of breaks

18:58

it down, and all of a sudden, um

19:01

you have something called endoxyl

19:04

and glucose. That's right, so you're splitting

19:06

it. This endoxyl is what you're actually after.

19:09

And then after that you drain the liquid

19:12

um and into a second tank

19:15

you add the endoxyl um

19:17

with air. You stir it basically, and

19:20

all of a sudden it oxidizes into intogotten

19:23

and then the into gotten is actually

19:26

what um apparently is

19:28

indigo. Because there's no other steps

19:30

after that except to let it air dry.

19:33

It like settles at the bottom and

19:35

then they can get rid of the uh,

19:38

the matter on top. Yeah, they filter it

19:40

out and you're left with kind of a sludgy

19:42

paste, I think, right, Yeah, And then if you

19:44

dry that paste in the sun, which I think is

19:47

the traditional customary way supposedly,

19:49

that converts it into basically like blocky,

19:52

solid indigo die. Okay,

19:55

so it's not a powder, it says

19:57

cakes. And then the fact that the

20:00

but I've seen it as a powder, so I know what you're talking about.

20:02

But I think the fact that the Romans and Greeks

20:05

thought it was a mineral because it must

20:07

be hard. But surely, I mean, it's got

20:09

a breakdown somehow. But what's weird

20:11

about all this is if you take that

20:14

that indigo die and you

20:17

say, like, soak some denomen in

20:20

it, it's not just going

20:22

to come out blue, certainly,

20:25

not after one. If you're using natural

20:28

indigo die, you have

20:31

to, um I've seen up to

20:33

forty times. You have to wash it in this indigo

20:35

to get it to start to bind. Because one of the things about

20:38

indigo is it doesn't like to bind

20:40

with fibers. And

20:42

then even when it does, it's very superficial.

20:45

So like if you took your genes right now, cut

20:47

it open, you looked at the cross

20:49

section, you'd see white inside.

20:52

It's just the superficial top

20:54

of the fiber of your genes that have been

20:57

die blue inside the indigo

20:59

hasn't actually kind of traded, and I would be

21:01

wearing some sweet daisy dukes you

21:03

would with like the pockets sticking

21:05

out of the bottom. No, I never went that short.

21:08

I would cut off Geane phase, but

21:11

never the Georgs. It was

21:13

always had the frayed bottoms, kind of country

21:15

style, nothing nothing hemmed.

21:18

Oh yeah, yeah, I never never owned appear No,

21:20

no, no, I know what you're talking about. George

21:23

didn't either. Actually it's not true,

21:25

but mine was at a time where they

21:28

were acceptable. Yes, okay,

21:30

yeah, I buy that. I

21:33

don't. It's not like I was like, oh, I'm not going

21:35

to wear those because theydn't even call them George back then. I

21:37

think I just didn't have them. What you're describing is

21:40

not what I have. Mine were bag here, but

21:42

they had like a hem like the bottom

21:44

of jeans did but they weren't at

21:46

all the tebow George.

21:49

Yes, yes, I didn't look

21:51

anything like that here. I need to see what that looks

21:53

like. Just imagine like nineties

21:56

Geene shorts. Okay,

21:59

there you go, you got it. Sort of we'll just

22:01

leave it there, all right, Okay, Uh,

22:04

we don't know. Let's just smoove on. So

22:08

Chuck just put his glasses on. Everybody. That's

22:10

right, because I'm reading. My eyes have gotten

22:12

so bad. Mine have to Chuck. I

22:15

can't, like, I can't read anything now unless

22:17

I have them. I have to go like this,

22:20

and it makes it really hard to underline and

22:22

highlight when you hold like Josh's

22:24

holding a page very far from his face and

22:26

then close and then it's

22:29

really sad. So,

22:31

uh, I guess we should get into the dark

22:33

side of And I think this was one

22:36

of the parts from the house Stuff Works article they

22:39

said some of that. I had some NPR in there,

22:42

and I think a fashion website even chimed

22:44

in. That's a heck of a So

22:49

when Europeans kind of like colonized

22:52

North America colonialized, they

22:55

started obviously they needed to grow

22:57

crops and sell them

22:59

for any That was a big deal was

23:01

farming. So they were like, what should we grow, Like

23:04

we've never been here before. Yeah,

23:06

that's like you don't think about that, but that's

23:09

exactly kind of what they went through. And they tried a

23:11

bunch of different stuff, and they did grow a bunch

23:13

of different stuff, but indigo was something that they

23:15

tried to grow a lot of early on. They grew yeah,

23:18

in Jamestown, New Amsterdam,

23:21

I think in Louisiana. The French did it an

23:23

okay job of it. But it was a

23:25

woman named Eliza Lucas in

23:27

the seventeen thirties and uh,

23:30

more appropriately Eliza

23:33

Lucas's slaves that

23:36

figured this out. Yeah, so she was

23:38

she gets the credit. She was a pretty interesting

23:40

person herself that she was sixteen and

23:43

her father, boy, but my voice

23:45

just transitioned really weirdly. And

23:47

her father um owned uh

23:50

like at least three plantations

23:52

in around Charleston, South Carolina.

23:55

Yeah, again a British colony at the time,

23:57

and he said, hey, Eliza, you're interested in botany,

23:59

why don't you go take over these three plantations

24:01

and see what will grow there. And

24:04

he sent her some seeds and she started growing

24:06

stuff and she found the indigo grew really

24:08

really well in the lowlands

24:10

of South Carolina. Yeah, she grew ginger

24:13

cotton, hemp, alfalfa,

24:15

and the aforementioned indigo.

24:18

Eventually, for her efforts, she was inducted

24:20

into as the first woman into the South Carolina

24:23

Business Hall of Fame. Again she's

24:25

sixteen years old at the time. Sure she

24:28

got married to a man named Charles Pinkney. Um,

24:31

you know, because she was an old maid of sixteen and

24:34

not married yet getting up and

24:36

they because, um, and you know,

24:39

of course she'll get I think a lot

24:41

of the credit now is being shared. But

24:43

for many years she was like Eliza Lucas,

24:45

the woman who figured out how to grow indigo.

24:48

Whereas the true story is

24:51

is Eliza Lucas um had

24:53

slaves on her plantation from Africa

24:56

that knew how to grow indigo. She's

24:58

like, how do you do this? And they helped

25:00

her out. Uh they Um. To

25:02

their credit, they did share this,

25:05

the plants, the seeds, the knowledge

25:07

to all kinds of other farmers. And

25:09

they are kind of looked at as being responsible

25:12

for the indigo boom in the south, right,

25:14

So then you could extrapolate pretty

25:16

easily that they were also responsible

25:19

for the introduction of slavery into the southern

25:21

cultures because the

25:23

indigo started growing so well, and this indigo

25:26

boom happened. And remember this is still

25:28

like a luxury item and

25:30

in high demand. Everybody wanted everything

25:32

blue, blue, blue blue, Give me some blue clothes

25:34

right now? That was kind of the the age

25:37

in the middle of the eighteenth century. UM.

25:39

And because this crop started

25:41

growing so well in the south, and because it

25:43

was so lucrative, they think

25:46

that Georgia said, oh, you

25:48

know, Charleston is doing really well with this indigo.

25:51

We could be doing well too, if only we would

25:53

overturn our ban on slavery.

25:55

Had no idea that Georgia initially had a ban

25:58

on slavery, did you. I did not, uh,

26:00

and said We're going to start allowing

26:02

slaves uh to be held

26:04

in Georgia and the Georgia colony so

26:07

that we can grow indigo. And that's exactly

26:09

what happened. Yeah. In seventeen

26:11

fifty one is when the band in Georgia ended

26:13

and the revolutionary Revolutionary

26:16

I keep saying that revolutionary

26:18

because it was truly revolutionary. The

26:21

Revolutionary War came along. Um.

26:23

By that point there were eighteen thousand

26:26

slaves in Georgia and

26:28

Uh. The war, though, kind of put a dent

26:30

in the indigo market. Yeahs

26:33

um. So the biggest um

26:37

consumer base of indigo for

26:39

the colonies was Britain,

26:42

and Britain said, you don't wanna be our colonies anymore.

26:44

You want to be independent, go find some other customers.

26:47

And Britain said, we're gonna go take over India

26:49

and get our indigo there, right, except

26:51

they said it British, all British, British eight

26:55

barby gun. That's

26:59

pretty good. I don't know if that's

27:02

pretty good, governor accurate at all. Uh.

27:04

And this tie to slavery

27:07

and indigo was basically around until

27:09

the early twenty century when um synthetic

27:12

indigo came along. Yeah. So if Eliza

27:14

Lucas Pickney kicked off the slavery

27:17

boom um in

27:19

the Southern colonies, you can

27:21

make a really good case that Alfred Vombayer,

27:24

a German chemist, freed a

27:26

lot of slaves when he found

27:28

a synthetic um alternative

27:31

to indigo. Yeah, and he

27:33

followed a boy,

27:36

truly a boy, a teenage chemist

27:38

named William Perkins. That's up with all these teenagers

27:41

don't doing stuff? Well, they died when

27:43

they were seven. Um,

27:46

we both know that's not true. Don't bother emailing

27:48

everybody.

27:50

Seven Club. Great new show on our

27:52

network from Yeah

27:54

from Disgrace Lands, Jake Brennan, Catch

27:56

it Sundays on my Heart. It

28:00

is a good show though. Yeah, it's about the twenty

28:02

seven Club, the musicians who die at the

28:04

age of seven. Yeah, I feel like I

28:06

think that's on our list of to do episodes,

28:09

although now it's done. So yeah, why are we gonna

28:11

rip jakeof I don't know, he'll

28:13

come after us, I know. So.

28:17

Uh. Brittish chemist, teenage

28:19

wonder kid William Perkins, he

28:22

was the first. Uh. He was the creator of the

28:24

first synthetic die, which came about

28:26

as a lot of things doing science by accident when

28:29

they're trying to do something else, in this case

28:31

a cure for malaria, right, which is teenage

28:34

kid was doing trying to find a cure

28:36

for malaria. Pretty cool,

28:38

and he came up with something called Marvin, which

28:40

produces a bright purple and so

28:42

this was the first synthetic die. Remember

28:45

up to this moment when William Perkins

28:48

came along, everything that

28:50

had ever been dyed in the history

28:52

of humanity had been died using

28:56

naturally sourced labor,

28:58

intensive weirdo processed

29:03

um dies. And all of a sudden he's

29:05

like, hey, this is way easier. It's way

29:07

more controlled. And because

29:09

it's controlled, you can put it into like mass

29:11

production pretty easily. Just changed

29:13

everything. Yeah, and we don't have to harvest

29:16

billions of insects and grind them up

29:18

into powder or poor sea snails. Yeah.

29:21

Um and so again. A few years later,

29:23

a couple of decades later. Uh, funny

29:26

enough, Alfred von bayer Um said

29:28

I'm going to start working on one for indigo.

29:31

Oh yeah, eightolf in Uh. In eighteen

29:34

sixty five he declared that that's what he was working

29:36

on. In seven he

29:38

figured it out. Yeah, not bad

29:42

years. Ah, well, what's funny?

29:44

He got the Nobel Prize actually for chemistry

29:46

for his work on organic dies, but also he

29:50

discovered, um, barbiturous,

29:53

didn't even mention it in the Nobel Prize

29:56

barbituous or synthetic

29:58

dies. We'll give it to them

30:00

for synthetic dies. Wow. Yeah,

30:02

chemistry, Well it's still interesting. But

30:05

back then it was just like, I can make

30:07

heavy duty drugs, might make synthetic

30:10

dies, and they'll inject

30:12

them both and see what happened. Um,

30:14

when that launched in the

30:18

natural production of indigo, was

30:20

it about nineteen thousand tons? I

30:23

guess annually it doesn't

30:25

say those look like metric tons. If you ask

30:27

me, there's an extra and and a knee. Yeah,

30:29

Let's say it's annually and this

30:31

was you mainly coming from India.

30:34

About fifteen years later, after the invention

30:36

of the synthetic die, that natural

30:38

number had gone from nineteen thousand townies

30:41

to one thousand tonies. It's

30:44

a pretty precipitous drop. Pretty it

30:46

hit a It hit the natural indigo market

30:48

pretty hard, and it had nothing to do with the

30:50

demand for indigo. It was just the synthetic

30:53

indigo stepped in and just took over very

30:55

very quickly. That's right, um, And so

30:57

now it's like just a complete niche market

31:00

to be like this is actually naturally

31:03

dyed with natural indigo

31:06

kind of garments. You just don't find those. Instead,

31:10

almost entirely everything

31:12

is made with synthetic dyes. Let's

31:14

take our second break and then we'll come back and talk about how

31:17

that's just ruining everything too, because

31:19

there's nothing good about indigo apparently, correct,

31:42

Charles. You're

31:44

wearing jeans right now, are you? Unfortunately

31:47

I am as well. That's

31:49

all you wear. How many pair of jeans you got two?

31:53

I have two as well. One

31:56

jean jacket show

31:58

off you throw on like a

32:00

little jeane vest. You got a Canadian

32:02

tuxedo going yeah,

32:04

I I but Emily made fun of me for buying a jean

32:07

jacket and that's like, I think jean jackets are kind

32:09

of in your Like Brennan thinks it's

32:11

cool. I bet he can rock a jean jacket that

32:14

hair, Yeah, for sure. Uh

32:17

And I said, now these are in now, and she's like,

32:19

I don't know, and I was like, no, they totally are. Like

32:21

I'm going to make it my business that they're in now.

32:23

They're in. You just don't don't wear them with gene

32:26

bottoms. What are you wearing with? Uh?

32:28

Well, according to the websites I looked up to prove

32:30

Emily wrong, you wear them with

32:32

like khakis. You wear it with

32:34

a corresponding or a pant that doesn't

32:38

jack doesn't sound right. Yeah, khakis

32:40

are like you know, I have my like maroon khakis.

32:42

You can wear it with that any

32:45

anything that's not blue jeans, basically,

32:47

because again, you look like you're edging really

32:49

close to Canadian tuxedo. Yeah,

32:51

but you know I've seen people pull it off. Will Ferrell

32:54

he worked Innadian tuxedo. He's

32:57

hilarious. He got up there, do you see that jean

33:00

getting blue jeans? But he offset

33:03

it. Yeah, I was like, because

33:07

he did that whole Neil Diamond thing. Remember,

33:09

no, oh, one

33:12

of his greatest characters from Sorrence

33:14

Live is Neil Diamond and

33:17

you sorry, I mean Robert Goulay.

33:19

Do you know? Okay, this Neil

33:21

Diamond makes his Robert Goulay look like like

33:24

dog poop. Really, it's yes.

33:26

I don't think I ever saw there was he did

33:28

it multiple times, but there was one where

33:30

he did. A VH one storyteller is Neil Diamond

33:33

and like Neil Diamonds just

33:35

off the rails on like on

33:38

pills and like he's got stitches for

33:40

some reason, they come loose and just

33:43

beautiful. He's like a bigoted

33:45

racist who's singing about he can't

33:47

really stand as keyboard player because he's

33:49

black, and his keyboard players like, what are

33:51

you talking? Yeah? It is Tim

33:53

Meadows. So I I

33:57

I demand that everybody pressed

33:59

Paul and go watch the

34:01

Neil Diamond Forever or no vh

34:04

win storytellers will Ferrell and we'll

34:06

wait. I will check that out and we're back.

34:08

Okay, So where the heck

34:10

are we now? Is the environmental

34:13

nightmare that is modern text,

34:16

not just blue jeans but textile dying period.

34:19

Uh. There's a documentary called River

34:21

Blue that I have not seen yet. Sounds

34:23

lovely, but it details the chemical manufacturing

34:26

process for denim specifically where

34:28

like you go to China and there are rivers that

34:31

are running blue um,

34:33

which is not good for many reasons. No,

34:35

some of the reasons are that the die

34:38

itself makes

34:40

the river blue, which blocks

34:42

out sunlight. So plants die everything.

34:46

Yeah, when they when they disintegrate,

34:48

they are broken down by bacteria

34:50

which stuck up all the oxygen, which kills the fish.

34:52

It's just a horrible chain reaction. Um.

34:55

Again, remember even with synthetic

34:58

indigo, but with natural as well. Even

35:00

with synthetic indigo, that the dye doesn't

35:02

want to stick to the stuff. So you have to use

35:04

something called the mordant, which

35:07

is a bleaching agent that actually that will

35:09

bind the indigo die to

35:11

the garment. Oh, I thought the mordant

35:13

was because the initial color that it

35:15

gets is not the blue that you want, so

35:18

you have to keep bleaching it. That's not my understanding,

35:21

you know. I think it's the thing that binds

35:23

that says, hey, indigo, come

35:25

on over here and let's hang out with this

35:27

this denim and we'll stain it

35:29

blue. Well, the wastewater the leftover

35:32

mordants are terrible or either acidic

35:35

or their chromium or some other

35:37

kind of horrible metal that kills fish

35:39

and poisons the supply.

35:42

Yeah, you know they spell

35:44

it differently, which is why they pronounce

35:47

it differently. No,

35:49

I looked it up. How's it spelled exactly

35:53

as it's pronounced. But we

35:55

spell it aluminum in the US

35:57

and in Canada. Apparently the rest of the English

36:00

king world spells it alumni.

36:02

Yum, there's that extra syllable

36:04

spelled out. Oh they say aluminium.

36:06

Yeah, okay, I didn't know that. I thought

36:08

it was just aluminium, right,

36:11

but they're they're really saying aluminium,

36:13

but they're just they're British, so that

36:16

would be an extra I after the end. Aluminum

36:20

aluminium, Yes, exactly, all

36:22

right, But in't that fascinating we spell it differently.

36:25

Yeah, that's weird, But

36:27

anyway, you don't want that stuff in your water supply.

36:30

And it comes about in aces

36:33

from the four billion pairs

36:36

of genes that are died every year

36:38

in the world. Yeah, jeans and

36:40

geen jackets and gene hats

36:42

all Canadian tuxedos. That's right,

36:46

But they are trying to work on this. UM.

36:50

There's a more environmentally friendly

36:52

way they're there trying to formulate

36:55

UM. I did not understand this at

36:57

all, So I'm just gonna

36:59

say it's magic through chemistry.

37:01

I have a feeling you're gonna want to explain it. Well,

37:04

So it's here's the thing. Do you remember,

37:06

Like endoxyl is what you're after when

37:08

you're when you're extracting and fermenting indigo

37:11

or indigo ferra plants in indigo.

37:14

So that indoxyl it's super unstable,

37:17

so it likes to buy into something. It becomes

37:19

something else. We can't use that something else.

37:21

You need the endoxyle. What they figured

37:23

out is too they genetically

37:25

altered an E. Coli, a strain of

37:27

E. Coli, and it secretes

37:30

that that precursor to endoxyl,

37:33

or they can make it secrete it right right,

37:36

Yeah, they like genetically engineered to do

37:38

so UM that that precursor

37:41

to endoxyl. When you put it together UM

37:43

with some other natural enzyme,

37:47

it separates that precursor

37:49

into endoxyl and glucose,

37:52

and then all of a sudden you've got endoxyl.

37:54

And what's neat is they found that with this particular

37:57

type of endoxyl, when you expose it to air, it

37:59

automatically turns into indigo.

38:02

Well, it turns into uh luke

38:04

luco indigo, which is the white indigo,

38:07

which apparently is what you actually want

38:09

to make things blue. That's right, it's

38:11

really confusing it. You just

38:14

lost me with that one. That's the deal.

38:16

But they're they're they're saying, like, we've got this thing.

38:18

It's like, this system actually works.

38:21

We've engineered this bacteria to produce

38:23

basically the precursor to indigo, and

38:26

then you scale it. That's always the problem, exactly.

38:29

It's exactly because big Denim is gonna

38:31

say, great, show me the numbers. Tommy

38:34

Hill figure is going to be like, I can't make any money

38:36

off this, and and so will an

38:38

tom antoine bugle boy. Well,

38:41

they won't have anything to do with it unless it's

38:44

cost efficient. Oh

38:46

that's good. Uh. And the

38:48

good thing about this is is it it uh

38:51

solves a couple of problems. Um, the

38:53

chemical synthesis of indigo

38:55

is just bad. And then you also

38:57

don't need that mortan

39:00

bleaching stage either, and all

39:02

of this stuff is running off into the rivers

39:04

in China and other places. But if

39:06

you don't have that, and you just have this nice little bacteria

39:08

producing it on a massive scale, then

39:11

the denim producers will say we're on board

39:13

and the world will be saved. It's

39:15

just could

39:17

there be anything more wrong

39:20

with the world? I know,

39:22

because you start to

39:24

think about like someone like

39:27

someone who's vegan, it's like really

39:30

walking the walk and trying to do the right thing, and

39:32

like, I don't wear leather, no belts, no shoes,

39:35

all of this stuff. They say, maybe

39:37

while wearing their jeans or

39:39

maybe not. Maybe they're like, oh, and I don't. I won't wear

39:41

denim either. But I think it's

39:43

all dependent on what

39:45

you have researched. You could probably

39:47

research everything on your body and

39:50

find some awful practice along the way. Unless

39:53

you're just sitting on your commune

39:55

making your clothes and weaving your

39:57

loom and

39:59

you're just wearing like Tan Lennon's

40:02

no colors, no dies. You're like,

40:05

because you're not gonna smash up a beetle to

40:07

get green. No, because

40:09

that's not environmentally friendly either.

40:11

Beetles got a right to live. Yeah, beatles

40:13

got a beetle. You got

40:15

anything else? No, it's just sad. You're right,

40:18

and I was hoping to end it on the upbeat thing, but

40:20

not this one. Yeah. You you

40:22

follow the chain of almost anything used today,

40:24

and it's got some terrible thing. I've got.

40:26

I've got it. But that doesn't mean you should give up.

40:28

No, no, because anyway, any

40:31

choice you make that helps something

40:34

continue to live did not

40:36

be polluted. It's still helping. Now

40:38

you're still screwing up this other way you

40:40

don't mean to, but the

40:43

other stuff that you are doing that is

40:45

helping is still helping. It still saving

40:47

a life, it's still promoting some healthier

40:50

ecosystem somewhere, and it's still

40:53

worthwhile. I'm a big subscriber to this.

40:55

You know, you don't have to be all or nothing. Some people

40:57

are that's great, But every little bit

40:59

of good you can do is still doing good because

41:02

I've been taking the task personally over the years

41:04

from listeners saying, how can you be an

41:06

advocate for dogs and eat meat? Oh? Yeah,

41:08

they love that one, And I'm like, you know, I'm

41:11

still helping dogs.

41:13

You know, I just really love two ounces

41:15

of perfectly proportioned beef jerky

41:17

was and maybe I should be vegan. But to

41:20

call me out on saying, you know, you're

41:23

a hypocrite because you're helping dogs,

41:25

like, no, helping dogs is good, period, full

41:27

stop. Agreed, And they're like,

41:29

you know, strangling turtles with a plastic

41:32

bag while they're saying this too, because

41:34

I guarantee if you drilled in chuck, you could

41:36

find something too. Yeah.

41:38

Yeah, but that's not a fruitful road

41:41

to go down. No it's not chuck, No, it's

41:43

not agreed. Uh. Well, if

41:45

you want to know more about being a better person,

41:47

go back and listen to our catalog. How about that? Yeah?

41:50

All of them? Um, And since I said

41:52

that, it's time for listener mail, what

41:56

is this? Oh? This is kind of a fun

41:58

one. It's a correction for you, but it's

42:01

a lighthearted and fun one. Hey, you guys,

42:03

A long time listener, huge advocate for all you do.

42:05

I live in southern Maine and frequently make the

42:07

long drives to Vermont. In your

42:10

podcast helps me make that more tolerable. But

42:13

I got a bone to pick with Josh. Whenever

42:15

the state of Maine comes up, you guys

42:17

always slide in a comment about our state's weird

42:20

and independent nature. Rightly so. But

42:22

I've now counted two times at least where Josh

42:24

is misidentified Maine as the slogan

42:27

live for or Die uh, the

42:29

first time in the rank choice voting and

42:31

then more recently in AI facial recognition.

42:34

I let it go then, but I have to say something now,

42:36

Live for you or Die is famously New Hampshire state

42:38

motto Josh, not Maine. It's even

42:40

on their license plate. Main state motto

42:43

is uh, dear a dear

42:45

Ago dear a Joe Latin

42:47

for eye lead. I have no idea d

42:50

I R I G O. That suits

42:52

us quite well as our state leads as

42:54

the first in the nation to use rank choice voting,

42:57

having the most breweries per capita, and being the state

42:59

in which the most Stephen King books take place.

43:02

Again, I love the show. Always chuckle when you call us

43:04

Maynard's weirdos. I hope you enjoyed your time

43:06

in Portland during your live episode last Wall. Now,

43:09

if you excuse me, I have to go ride my moose

43:11

to the ocean so I can catch lobsters by

43:13

my lighthouse. And that is

43:16

from John Q Neo.

43:18

Speaking of lighthouses, we both agreed.

43:21

The Lighthouse was an amazing movie.

43:23

I know you just randomly texted

43:25

me, it's just so good that have you seen

43:27

The Lighthouse. I was moved to Robert Agars,

43:30

just please keep making movies. He's great,

43:32

and I was. I wish it hadn't gotten shut out

43:34

of the Academy Awards. I thought, why would it have

43:36

been because it was black and white, because it was weird,

43:39

It was almost an experimental film. But

43:41

the fact that either or both of them did not get

43:44

nominated for Best Actor is just ridiculous,

43:46

pretty ridiculous because they were both amazing

43:49

and production design everything.

43:52

Have you ever seen a more like authentic looking

43:54

film that's absolutely

43:56

true Edgar's Robert

43:58

Pattinson came out and was like, we

44:00

basically lived like you know,

44:02

it was whatever year it was. He

44:05

was like, it was awful. It's like all the stuff

44:07

you see is doing is the wheelbarrow

44:10

scene that just looks miserable because

44:12

it was. Yeah, everybody, if you don't know we're talking

44:14

about, just go look up the Lighthouse and it

44:17

was so good and watch it and just

44:19

watch it all the way through. Okay, and

44:21

then after that I really like this, then

44:23

go watch the Witch, which is Robert Eger's

44:25

first movie. That's right, his first movie

44:28

was The Witch, one of the greatest films

44:30

ever made. In Pattinson is just one

44:32

of my favorite actors. He's so great. Have you

44:34

seen Good Time? Oh? Yeah, man, I

44:36

couldn't believe how good that was. Amazing. Okay,

44:39

John wrote that that listener mailan right

44:42

hold on, I think it was John,

44:44

Yes, John, Cuneo. John, I can tell you that

44:47

definitely in the facial recognition

44:49

episode, I was being I was trolling. I

44:51

know for a fact that it's New Hampshire's

44:53

slogan, and if I know Josh,

44:56

John, you're going to hear that again. Yeah. I would also

44:58

guess that when I said it before in whatever

45:01

other episode I said it any Yeah,

45:03

I don't remember that. That was probably

45:05

me trolling too, But if I was mistaken, I

45:07

apologize live for or die everyone.

45:10

If you want to get in touch with us, like John did,

45:13

you can go into Stuff you Should Know dot com, or

45:15

you can just send us an email to stuff podcast

45:17

at iHeart radio dot com.

45:22

Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios

45:24

How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my

45:26

heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple

45:28

podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.