Harm reduction programs sound responsible until you check the evidence. You're walking past the playground near your house and there's broken glass on the ground. Could be a beer bottle. Could be a crack pipe. Your tax dollars paid for both possibilities: the distribution and the cleanup. Between 2021 and 2025, Toronto procured 2.3 million meth pipes and 3.5 million crack pipes. When pressed for the evidence base, the city provided four studies. One study interviewed four hospital receptionists about their impressions. That's not science.

Of the three remaining studies, only one suggested free pipes might reduce sharing. The evidence? Thirty-one drug users in Victoria said in 2010 that free pipes might make them share less. Sixteen years ago. Thirty-one people. Millions of pipes. But here's the contradiction nobody talks about: a 2011 Vancouver study with similar sample size found users saying the opposite, that sharing pipes is essential to the social experience of smoking crack. The city calls this evidence-based while ignoring the evidence that contradicts them.

Next time you see drug debris near a library or school, remember: you paid to distribute it, and you'll pay again to clean it up. The program isn't based on science. It's based on what active addicts said they wanted sixteen years ago.

Topics: harm reduction programs, crack pipe distribution, evidence-based policy, taxpayer funding, drug paraphernalia cleanup

GUEST: Adam Zivo | adamzivo.com

RUNDOWN: Investigative journalist Adam Zivo exposes Toronto's procurement of 5.8 million crack and meth pipes justified by a single 2010 study interviewing 31 drug users, revealing how harm reduction programs ignore contradictory evidence while flooding communities with publicly-funded paraphernalia.

Sushi safety risks start before you sit down. You're at the sushi bar. The chef slides salmon nigiri across the counter. Behind him, the rice pile looks like it's been sitting there since yesterday morning. You notice but you don't ask. Do you trust the restaurant followed freezing protocols, or do you assume they cut corners?

Why won't a microbiologist eat sushi after decades studying food safety? Warriner's answer: "Knowledge is power and I don't touch it." The Montreal sushi bar kept adding fresh rice to the pile all weekend. Four days old at the bottom by Monday. Bacillus cereus bacteria. Cereulide toxin that can kill you. The Anisakis parasite takes residency in your stomach. Doctors think you have ulcers or appendicitis. They're wrong. One sushi chef preparing fish got a cut. Vibrio bacteria caused flesh-eating infection. Amputation followed. Fish fraud: that expensive tuna might be cheap escolar with oils that wreck your digestive system for hours.

Freezing kills the parasite. Proper acidification stops the bacteria. The expert who knows this refuses to eat it anyway. That refusal is the answer.

Topics: sushi safety risks, raw fish parasites, Anisakis, food poisoning, sushi bacteria

GUEST: Keith Warriner

RUNDOWN: Microbiologist Keith Warriner explains why he refuses to eat sushi, covering Anisakis parasites in raw fish, Bacillus cereus in improperly held rice, widespread fish fraud, and the Montreal case where four-day-old rice made customers sick.

Mindful eating means putting the phone down. You're scrolling through TikTok with a fork in one hand, consuming content and calories simultaneously, completely disconnected from both. Your body never signals fullness because your attention isn't on your body. The food could be delicious or terrible. You wouldn't know. This is how you end up eating too much, feeling too little, and wondering why nothing satisfies.

The world's five healthiest communities share one non-negotiable practice: they eat together. Not just sit at the same table. They cook together, source together, break bread as ritual. What does this do? Portion control happens naturally when you're engaged in conversation instead of your phone. Obesity rises when connection drops. The correlation isn't subtle. And the fix isn't complicated: stop eating alone. Stop eating distracted. Start treating meals like the intimate, communal experience they've been for centuries.

What's true for food is true for everything: when you pay attention, you consume less and connect more. When you disconnect, you overconsume and feel empty. The meal isn't the point. The presence is.

Topics: mindful eating, eating alone, phone distraction, communal meals, self-care through food

GUEST: Alyssa B | nourished.ca

RUNDOWN: What if your date night started at the grocery store instead of a restaurant? Shane and nutritionist Alyssa B explore how sourcing, preparing, and sharing food creates deeper intimacy than any reservation, and how disconnection from food mirrors disconnection from yourself.