6th anniversary special: Comfort Eating with Grace Dent

·45 min·4 clips

Grace Dent explains why asking celebrities what they had for breakfast reveals more than any PR-approved interview.

Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd open the episode by celebrating the sixth anniversary of Reasons to be Cheerful. They reminisce about episode one, including anecdotes about falling over while running and making cheesecake. Miliband mentions missing the interview due to dealing with Rishi Sunak's net zero policies. The hosts introduce the interview with Grace Dent, recorded earlier with Geoff alone. Dent discusses her Comfort Eating podcast and book, explaining how asking celebrities about breakfast reveals more than traditional interviews. She shares examples of guests' comfort foods, like Scarlett Moffat's beans on toast with Wotsits and Siobhan McSweeney's combination of Guinness, Dairy Milk, and Tayto crisps. Dent talks about her own sobriety for over 20 years and how it relates to comfort eating. She addresses class differences in food, noting that posh people also enjoy items like Fray Bentos pies. Dent describes facing hostility as a vegetarian restaurant critic and how meat is tied to identity for some, especially men. She reflects on her Northern upbringing, where food shopping at supermarkets like Asda became a family ritual. Dent connects comfort foods to childhood memories and discusses the ultra-processed food debate, arguing that her work examines why people eat these foods rather than just labeling them as bad. The episode ends with the hosts joking about musical instruments and thanking the production team.

As heard by us

Comfort eating becomes a funny, tender tour of memory, secrecy, and indefensible snacks.

A sixth-birthday conversation turns comfort eating into a small archive of memory, embarrassment, and the snacks people admit to when nobody is really watching.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for pub memories, sheepish snack confessions, and the fragile dignity of eating rice pudding from the tin.

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