Dan Pashman: Please note, this episode includes discussion of eating disorders. Also my guest Jameela Jamil is known for her dark humor, so you’ll hear plenty of that, along with a lot of explicit language. Okay, here we go …

Jameela Jamil: Do you ever just, do you ever just go to Paris for the day ... to eat?

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] I haven't, no, but I've spent a bit of a tiny bit of time there. But that sounds magical. 

Jameela Jamil: I think it was one of the greatest days of my life. It was a friend of mine's birthday, um, present, but really one of those ones where you give them the present because you want to do the present ... 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] Is there a particular bite that stands out in your memory?

Jameela Jamil: I think one of the restaurants we went to was called Pink Mama. They have, you know, food from all different types of backgrounds and, you know, like Argentinian steak, but also incredible sourdough pizza and then wonderful French food. But I took sourdough pizza and I took some of the steak with chimichurri and I rolled it up into the pizza with some smashed potatoes, like deep fried smashed potato, [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] and created a new food. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: It was the single greatest bite of food I've ever eaten in my life.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, not for foodies, it's for eaters, I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Jameela Jamil is probably best known for her role on the NBC show The Good Place, about four mismatched people who died and gone to heaven. One of the things I love about the show is how much thought was given to the kinds of restaurants that exist in heaven, and it turns out that in heaven, restaurant names have a lot of puns. So there’s “The Pesto’s Yet to Come,” and “Crueller Intentions,” and “Ponzu Scheme.”

Dan Pashman: Jameela plays Tahani Al-Jamil, a deceased British socialite and philanthropist, who comes from a very posh background. 

CLIP (TAHANI AL-JAMIL): I was born in Pakistan, raised in London, schooled in Paris, but I think the primary reason that I’m in the Good Place is that I raised quite a lot of money for non-profit groups. But I also dabbled in some other professions. I was a model, a museum curator, an "It" girl, and oh, I was Basil Luhrmann’s muse for a while. That was quite fun. 

Dan Pashman: In The Good Place, Jameela’s character’s non profit work is a punchline, making fun of how rich people and celebrities sometimes take on causes as vanity projects. But in real life, Jameela’s activism on issues of fatphobia and sexism is no joke. She’s spoken in the U.K. parliament about her own experiences, and successfully lobbied social media companies to change how they operate. She covers many of these issues in her hit podcast, I Weigh. We’ll talk about all that in our conversation. 

Dan Pashman: But there’s another difference between Jameela and the characters she played on TV. She’s not from a posh background and it took her a while to feel comfortable in Hollywood. In 2016, after filming the first season of The Good Place, she was invited to a star studded party by Judd Apatow, who’s made some of the biggest comedies of the last 25 years, and his wife, actor Leslie Mann. 

Jameela Jamil: Obviously, no one knew who the fuck I was, and no one knew why I was standing with the king and queen of comedy. They just thought I was a very, sort of intense cleaner, or assistant. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: So after a while I started to take the hint from people's body language and I just fucked off. And I found my way immediately to the buffet, which is always my favorite part of any party. And there was all this unbelievable food that nobody was touching — gourmet, like wagyu steaks and char grilled cauliflower and all these amazing cakes. So I was like, right, I'm going to take as much of this home with me as I can. So I'm standing in a line. I think I've got, like, Edward Norton behind me. I've got — Gwyneth is in front of me. I load up 10 steaks onto one plate and then I grab a big cloth napkin and Gwyneth turns around and looks at me and I'm like Atkins, [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] because I know she'd like that. I know she'd like any kind of restrictive diet. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

[LAUGHING] 

Jameela Jamil: So she’s like, "Cool." So I carry the plate of steaks out into the garden area and I take the big cloth napkin, wack it over the plate, flip the plate, so it's now all bleeding through this cloth napkin. And I'm like, "Fuck, how am I gonna get this out of here?" So I stick it between my thighs. I'm wearing a very short dress and very high heels, and I'm like, I'm gonna have to waddle, like my life depends on it, the fuck out of here. And then I knock someone over, and the steaks go flying from out of my thighs, like, across the floor and leave this sort of, like, red, bloody streak. And everyone's worrying about the man who's fallen over because I think it's Al Pacino.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]

Jameela Jamil: And I, uh ... I just ... I don't help him.

Dan Pashman: No, you're worried about the steaks, Jameela! You got to get these steaks!

Jameela Jamil: Wagyu.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, come on.

Jameela Jamil: It's Wagyu.

Dan Pashman: Priorities.

Jameela Jamil: I have $17 in my bank account.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, Al Pacino will be fine.

Jameela Jamil: I bundle them under my arms and I run out of the party and then text, like, Judd, and just said, like, "Oh, I had to go. So sorry. By the way, I hope they catch that man who knocked Al Pacino over,” and then just leave.

[LAUGHING]

Jameela Jamil: I was never, you know, brought back to that house. So ... 

Dan Pashman: I can’t imagine why not. 

[LAUGHING] 

Jameela Jamil: I haven't been in a film with Al Pacino, you know. It is what it is. 

Dan Pashman: Right. Right. [LAUGHS] 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Jameela had a long journey to that Hollywood party, where her top priority was to load up on as much steak as possible. She came from a working class family, and often had a complicated relationship with food. 

Jameela Jamil: We didn't have very much money and we just ate what we could and that was normally, you know, very cheap food — is normally very, very bad for you. 

Dan Pashman: Jameela’s parents had a difficult marriage and divorced when she was young. 

Jameela Jamil: I had a single mother who was working all the time and the only time we sort of would eat something kind of indulgent was the rare occasions my father would visit and he didn't know how to show love when I was little, apart from through food. So that really created a weird relationship for me with food, where food became love. But then I also had a mother who, and father, who were both very insistent on me being very thin. So then food was also something that represented me being rebellious, you know? And food was sin, and food was fat, and bad, and wrong. But also it was love, and it was dad, and it was all of these different things, and a treat, and a guilty pleasure. 

Dan Pashman: You talked about how if your father was around, when he was gonna , like, give you a ride to school, he would say, "We're gonna take the scenic route."

Jameela Jamil: Yes, which meant via Dunkin' Donuts at the gas station. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: Right. But he didn't want to tip your mom off that he was gonna take you there. 

Jameela Jamil: No, because it was weird ... Like, he would give me junk food, but then also shame me if I gained weight, so it was a really complicated — you know, they're not terrible people, they're just, you know, born in the '40s and '50s. You know, it was a different time. And I think, genuinely, especially South Asian parents think it's very normal for them to criticize the way that you look and criticize your weight and nitpick at you because they think it's from love because they're trying to make you your best. And I ... I am ... I have more empathy and understanding for that now that I'm older, but it didn't half complicate my fucking teens.

Dan Pashman: Jameela went to a boarding school on scholarship, where she was one of the only girls of color. She was often bullied. In 2018, she told New York Magazine, quote “It was sort of open season on Pakistani and Indian people back then. And it really traumatized me.” She says that the combination of body image pressure at home, and bullying in school, led her to develop an eating disorder.

Jameela Jamil: I started starving myself at 11. Between about 14 and 16, I stopped menstruating. I stopped having periods altogether because it was so bad.

Dan Pashman: Then, just before her 17th birthday, Jameela’s life changed dramatically. She was hit by a car while crossing the street, and broke her back. She was in the hospital for months, then had to recover at home for a year. She says that she couldn’t even leave her apartment building for that year, because there was no elevator, and she couldn’t use the stairs. She couldn’t go back to school and had to drop out. But, she says …

Jameela Jamil: I sometimes refer to it as “the best year of my life”.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: Which is dark, but it was great. I had a wonderful time. It sort of just took me out of the hellish life I was in. No one was nitpicking me about my weight or my size and everyone was bringing me ice cream and I was high as fuck on all the painkillers and I was just watching Friends in bed and I didn't have to go to school where I was being bullied and I didn't really have to engage with anyone. And getting hit by that car definitely saved my life. I would have died of anorexia if that hadn’t happened to me.  

Dan Pashman: In that bed, isolated from the world, being taken care of, Jameela was able to reframe her relationship to food.

Jameela Jamil: It taught me how to eat again, you know? I started to respect my body a bit more. It didn’t heal my full eating disorder but it definitely stopped the level of starvation, to which I was no longer — like my body was not maintaining a normal function anymore. I never went back to that.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Once she had recovered from her injury, Jameela started working, first as a photographer, then teaching English as a foreign language. At a pub one night she met a producer for England’s Channel 4, and landed a job as a host for a music show. She says they were looking for strong women and diversity, and she came along at just the right time. Then she got a job on BBC Radio 1 as a DJ and host of the music show Official Chart, which is a big national show, like the Top 40 countdown of Britain. She was the first solo female host in the show’s 60-plus year history.

Dan Pashman: Do you remember the moment when you realized, like, I’m good at this, and I’ve earned it? 

Jameela Jamil: I think, about three months in, when I found out that I'd gained two hundred thousand listeners? And, normally, a new show, a new host, loses listeners. And the fact that I'd gained so many people meant — made me feel like, okay, then I'm not totally fucking this up. Because I have to rely on metrics like that because I'm so hard on myself that I would never have any idea that I'm doing a good job other than if I'm told literally more people would like to hear my voice.

Dan Pashman: But as Jameela’s career was on the rise, another health issue would affect her relationship with food and her body. When she was 26, she developed serious asthma and was prescribed steroids, which she needed to use for months. One common side effect of these steroids was a big increase in appetite. 

Jameela Jamil: And so I ate a small village, as well I should have, but I gained a lot of weight and I didn't care that I'd gained weight because I was like, finally, I am free from feeling as though I have to be this certain size. I can do my job. I'm good at my job. People like me.

Dan Pashman: But at this point she was a public figure, a well known BBC host, and when she gained that weight, the British press pounced. 

Jameela Jamil: The tabloids became obsessed with the fact that I'd gained so much weight. And then it became a huge problem because then they started stalking me and harassing me, the paparazzi, in a way they'd never done before, like parking outside my house trying to capture pictures of me eating, trying to capture pictures of me, you know, shopping for food, seeing what I was buying. There was a lot of body shaming. And loads of photographs isolating me from my friends because I was actually having a great time. I was killing it in my career. I was in love. I had an amazing social life. It was one of the  best years of my life. And if you'd looked at photographs, paparazzi photographs of me, it would look like it was the worst year of my life because I've got a sort of natural British resting sort of bulldog face. Unless I'm animated, I look like I'm about to kill myself. [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] And that's just a resting kill myself face. But they would take photos of me and they would isolate me in the photo from the group of friends I was walking with, so it would look like I'm always alone, always miserable, and they were trying to create the narrative where in all the thin photos of me when I was genuinely depressed and suicidal, I look happy and glowing and ready for the photo. But that was ... That was ... It was the exact flip.

Dan Pashman: As a teenager, this pressure to look a certain way had nearly killed Jameela. Now though, at 26, she decided to fight back.

Jameela Jamil: I was just like, fuck this. I'm on the fucking radio, you can't even see me! Will you need to just know I'm thin while you hear my voice in the car? [LAUGHS] And I went and started speaking in all my interviews about it. And I started whistleblowing on the inside of the industry, talking about my own eating disorder, shaming the media and the paparazzi and I went and spoke at parliament about it. I started doing campaigns and released plus sized clothing lines, and it was great. It was really liberating and it — I don't think I would be doing what I do now had that not all happened. 

Dan Pashman: The paparazzi take those photos because they can make money selling them and the newspapers buy the photos because they can make money selling the copies of those newspapers or they can get ... 

Jameela Jamil: Yeah, and the people fucking buy them. The people buy them.

Dan Pashman: Right. So how do you feel about the people at the end of that chain? I mean, this isn't to let anyone else off the hook, but if there wasn't that economic incentive at the end of the line ... 

Jameela Jamil: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Then you wouldn't have these people doing this.

Jameela Jamil: I think it's just so hyper normalized to shame women and to vilify women and to hold them to unrealistic standards in a way we just still don't do with men in the same way. And so, I think that as the public started to wake up because people like me and other activists started to speak about how fucked this is, people started to realize, oh yeah, this is disgusting. Why am I participating in this? And then those tabloid magazines have largely died in the United Kingdom. They used to be like nine a week, and now we have maybe one. And so I do think that it's better now than it was then. But I ... But you know, the public was complicit.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Coming up, Jameela moves to L.A., catches a very lucky break, and becomes a TV star. And she continues to speak out. Then later in our conversation, she reveals her methods for how to dunk biscuits in tea without leaving any crumbs. Stick around. 

MUSIC

 

+++BREAK+++

 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful. I’m Dan Pashman. Hey, did you know that you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app has all your favorite podcasts, and you can listen to over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era. Plus, live sports coverage, interviews with A-list stars and more. It’s everything you want in a podcast app and music app and the radio all rolled into one. And right now, we got a special deal for Sporkful listeners. You can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com/Sporkful. That’s SiriusXM.com/Sporkful. Okay, back to my conversation with Jameela Jamil.

Dan Pashman: In 2016, Jameela decided to move to L.A. to work in Hollywood. She was 29. A few months after settling in, she got a very lucky break. She got an audition for the role of Tahani on The Good Place. Now, maybe you’re wondering, how did she get an audition with no acting experience? Well ... she lied. She told the casting director that she had acted before and had done loads of improv in England, and they believed her. Clearly, Jameela was a natural.

Dan Pashman: The show wanted a wealthy-looking South Asian English woman who could be irritating, and Jameela says she knew she could check all those boxes. She was cast on The Good Place, and she, and the show, were a hit, running for four seasons on NBC. In the middle of the run, Jameela began to use Instagram more to promote the show. One day, while using the app, she wandered over to the “Explore” page, which is where Instagram shows you all kinds of different posts from strangers that the algorithm thinks you’ll like.

Jameela Jamil: And I'm being shown the most fucked up images of women, like successful business women, like the Kardashians or Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez, with numbers written across their body. And those numbers aren't how many awards or how much their net worth is, it was just how much they weigh. And there were no pictures of men like that, just women. And I was reading all the heartbreaking comments underneath all these pictures and I was like, God, this feels like 20 years ago. This feels like what I was reading when I first developed an eating disorder at 11. I can't believe this is what these young girls are seeing and this is what these young girls are saying. So I just wrote a simple tweet. I had maybe 100,000 followers. It wasn't that many. And I was like, "I weigh my orgasms and my friendships and my mistakes and my contributions to society. I weigh the sum of my motherfucking parts." And for some reason it just struck a chord and it went super viral and then super duper viral. And within three days I had 10,000 women write what they weigh back to me in their attributes and things they've survived with photographs of themselves.

Dan Pashman: Jameela created a separate Instagram account called “I Weigh,” to share these stories. It’s now got over a million followers. And she began taking on social media companies directly, creating an online petition entitled, “Stop Celebrities from Promoting Toxic Diet Products On Social Media.” 

Dan Pashman: In 2019, in response to pressure from her and other activists, Instagram adjusted its settings to block users under 18 from viewing certain posts about weight loss products and cosmetic procedures. And for all users, it added restrictions on dieting products that make unrealistic claims. Soon after that success, Jameela started the I Weigh podcast, where she talks to experts, celebrities, and activists about body image, stigma, and mental health. 

Dan Pashman: Meanwhile, at the same time that her campaigns were producing real change in society, Jameela was also working on her own residual body image issues and history of disordered eating. She did that with a relatively new kind of therapy known as Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, or EMDR. The way EMDR works is that you move your eyes in a specific way, while processing traumatic memories. It’s been used to treat PTSD and has also been used as therapy for eating disorders.

Jameela Jamil: I was literally watching a light go back and forth across a wall. while thinking of the darkest shit that had ever happened to me or the worst thoughts I'd ever had about myself or anything in life. Because my eye movements were being manipulated whilst thinking of these terrible things, somehow it broke the thought pattern being connected to the feeling. And so I no longer felt anything when I thought those things, which meant that I was no longer able to be triggered. 

Dan Pashman: Not being able to be triggered was huge for Jameela, especially a couple of years later, when she landed the role of the supervillain Tatiana in the Marvel show She Hulk: Attorney At Law. It’s a role that required grueling personal trainer sessions and a strict diet. 

Jameela Jamil: It was amazing to learn this new side of my body that wasn't based on how little I could be. They wanted me to be bigger and stronger. And I was exercising not to punish myself for eating, I was exercising to become faster and more flexible and to have better balance, and it reframed the way that I looked at my body in a very meaningful way, and it reframed, like, my desire to take up more space and to want to be strong. I think it's really fucked up that we don't encourage women to be strong and to look strong. We want women to look as frail and fragile and little girl like as possible in society, so that they don't look like they can defend themselves, and I think it's sick that I look like I can defend myself and that I actually learned how to defend myself. It made me crazy. It made me, like, want to get into a fight for a while. Now I understand men.

[LAUGHING] 

Jameela Jamil: Like, [LAUGHS] because I think your testosterone increases when you're exercising that much and when you're weightlifting that much. But I was like, fucking, come on then. In every, back of every Uber I was in, I was sitting there just being like, I fucking dare you to lock the backseat. I fucking dare you. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: Uh, you know, crazy person. Crazy person.

Dan Pashman: At the same time … 

Jameela Jamil: It was hell. I couldn't stop farting.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: It was just too much protein. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: It was insane. I was training three hours a day with martial arts trainers and then I was training with a separate personal trainer that they were also paying for, later in the afternoon, and I had nutritionists and a masseuse and, like, a sort of osteopath, I guess, used to help put me back together when I'd get injured fighting. So I was just, like, constantly looked after. 

Jameela Jamil: But it's a completely unsustainable lifestyle. And I said I'd keep it up afterwards, and I got into bed the day I arrived back in Los Angeles, and I did not leave that bed for three months.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: I did not move. All of — I atrophied, like, every, even my heart atrophied, I think, like, every muscle in my body, I just stopped using and I've been a puddle ever since.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: How would you describe your relationship with food today?

Jameela Jamil: Wonderful. Wonderful. Really, really wonderful. I never want to be really skinny again, ever. I don't like that aesthetic anymore for myself personally, and I can't believe I ever did. I just accept my body. My body has become something I've sort of disassociated from in a healthy way where I no longer look at it as this sort of reflection of me as my representative. My body is my car, and it takes me from A to B, and I have to fill my car with good fuel, and occasionally steak wrapped in pizza ... 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: But now I eat with pleasure and thoughtfulness, and I eat intuitively and nutritionally.

Dan Pashman: I understand that you and your boyfriend like to enjoy some coffee and doughnuts in the morning. 

Jameela Jamil: In the morning. First thing in the morning, because it's a wonderful way to start the day. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: I mean, donuts are really in my absolute — like among all of the sweets in the world of sweets, I think for me, ice cream and donuts are at the top. 

Jameela Jamil: Yes. Unreal. Unreal, and just a great motivator for me to actually leave the house and leave the bed. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: You know, so ... And the doughnuts are 10 minutes away, so I have to get up, leave the house, walk to them with the coffee, and then we get into bed, and then we gossip while we eat our doughnuts and drink our coffee together, and it is the most sacred time of day.

Dan Pashman: What are your favorite donuts?

Jameela Jamil: I really like a classic sugar with jam — raspberry jam on the inside. I like a sourdough doughnut very much. 

Dan Pashman: Mmm!. 

Jameela Jamil: And I like vanilla flavored. And just any kind of pastry, but specifically a big, soft, cushy sourdough vanilla doughnut from Crosstown Doughnuts in London. It's why I've been spending more time in London, is just to get the doughnuts, literally. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: I can't believe I don't have a campaign with them yet. 

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS] Are you a donut dunker?

Jameela Jamil: No. I’m not an animal. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] You wouldn't dunk your donut in the coffee?

Jameela Jamil: I would never dunk my donut in anything. How dare you?

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: This is only ... This is only for digestive biscuits ... 

Dan Pashman: Okay.

Jameela Jamil: And rich tea biscuits in the U.K. 

Dan Pashman: Are you a digestive biscuit dunker?

Jameela Jamil: Yes, I am. I would never, ever ... I would never raw dog a digestive biscuit. I would never do that to my throat.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] I'll raw dog a hobnob. You like a hobnob? 

Jameela Jamil: Crazy talk. Crazy talk. It's sawdust at the back of your throat!

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: It comes alive when you lube it with a lovely cup of tea. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Oh, I can't wait to be back in London this fall to eat some hobnobs.

Jameela Jamil: Yes, but you must dunk. 

Dan Pashman: But what about the crumbs in the tea or coffee?

Jameela Jamil: No. Well, you have to learn your timing. I'm like a ninja.

Dan Pashman: Okay. [LAUGH] 

Jameela Jamil: It's been decades since I've lost a piece of biscuit to a cup of tea. I've got a teflon mouth, so I drink very, very hot tea. So I'm allowed about three to four seconds and then it's out. But I'm concentrating. I could never have a cup of tea and just chat to someone because my attention is fully on the biscuit timing. I'm fine.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

Jameela Jamil: I'm aware I don't sound like I'm fine, but I am fine.

[LAUGHING]

Jameela Jamil: But it is ... It's a serious part of our sort of, like, identity culture and tradition in the United Kingdom to have a proper biscuit with a cup of tea.

Dan Pashman: For sure. One of the things that I've experimented with, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, if you're gonna dunk [Jameela Jamil: Right.] a biscuit into a beverage, what about having a little sort of like an espresso cup of tea on the side, like a sidecar? You dunk only into that and that way you don't get any crumbs into the bigger cup?

Jameela Jamil: I mean ... Sure, but that's just like ... That just means you're giving up on your ability to learn your own biscuit timings.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Jameela Jamil: It's the action of a quitter. It's fine. You know what though? I did recently have some panettone in Italy, like pistachio cream panettone in Italy, [Dan Pashman: Ooh.] where they poured a cup of espresso over the panettone. Pouring coffee on a sourdough panettone is un fucking believable. Whipped cream with chocolate and espresso, like, poured on top.

Dan Pashman: Oh my god.

Jameela Jamil: It was insane. It's the ... It's the sex of breakfasts.

Dan Pashman: Cause I love an affogato. What I'm hearing from this, Jameela, is that I feel like we should be pouring espresso on more things.

Jameela Jamil: I agree. I'm gonna pour one on my head right now.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: After Jameela’s trip to Italy, she wrote on Instagram about “Daring to eat on your goddamn holiday," as she put it. In the caption, she wrote, “My dress burst at the end of my European trip. And finally, I found it to be a sign of privilege and pride. I had hit the buffet just hard enough, without fear, without guilt, without a feeling of responsibility to maintain myself. I documented all of the moments and didn't dare delete a picture. I really savored every bite and experience and reminded myself how lucky I was to be alive.” 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This tension between enjoying food and feeling guilty for having too much of it is also a theme in The Good Place. Now, you might expect a depiction of life in heaven to include ice cream shops on every corner. But instead, it’s frozen yogurt shops everywhere. Michael, who's the architect of The Good Place, says in the show of frozen yogurt, “There’s something so human about taking something and ruining it a little, just so you can have more of it.” As we wrapped up our interview, I had one final question for Jameela:

Dan Pashman: Are you an ice cream or frozen yogurt person?

Jameela Jamil: Ice cream. Frozen yogurt is not a food.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] And it also feels like a scam.

Jameela Jamil: It's just nonsense.

Dan Pashman: Yeah. You know, like, if it was actually really yogurt and really like tart and tangy, then I could respect it as its own separate thing. 

Jameela Jamil: It's largely ice and air. Yeah, it's a scam. 

Dan Pashman: And sugar. You want to think you're not eating ice cream, but just eat ice cream.

Jameela Jamil: Yeah, yeah. Just have a fucking ice cream.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: That’s Jameela Jamil. Check out her podcast, I Weigh, wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're in the U.K. on September 12th, she’ll be recording a live taping of I Weigh at the London Podcast Festival. And hey, you know what else is happening at the London Podcast Festival? I'll be there doing a live taping of The Sporkful on September 14th. My guest will be comedian Ed Gamble, who's also the co-host of the Off Menu podcast. It's gonna be great. For more info and tickets for this event, go to Sporkful.com/events. 

Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, we've got a summer time Salad Spinner for you. Remember, Salad spinner shows? Those are our rapid fire round table discussions of the biggest weirdest stories in food news. I’ll be joined by Josh Scherer and Nicole Enayati from the podcast A Hotdog is a Sandwich, which is part of the Mythical Kitchen universe. We're gonna talk about the new cereal that Travis and Jason Kelce have launched, whether Chipotle is giving you smaller portion sizes, and much more. That’s next week. 

Dan Pashman: While you wait for that one, check out last week's show about salads. Hey, have you noticed that, like, every restaurant has salads, and yet, most of them are terrible or at least not exciting? It doesn’t have to be that way! I go behind the scenes at the restaurant that makes one of my favorite salads in the world, and I learn how they make it. Plus, we got lots of tips for how you can up your salad game at home. Down with obligation salads! That episode’s up now. Check it out.