Our Story
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Boston), Juna Gjata, a lost, confused recent college grad, sent an email to Carey Goldberg, Health Editor of Boston’s NPR News station, WBUR asking if she could come in and talk to Carey “about her job.” At that meeting, after an exasperated rant about the misinformation and lies pervading the health and fitness spaces, planted the seed of an idea: A podcast, to be produced by Carey’s WBUR colleague George Hicks, about all things food, exercise, health, behavior change, and above all else, relationship to body and self.
In a great (but not out-of-character) stroke of genius, George suggested that we bring on a co-host, Dr. Eddie Phillips. George, Carey and Eddie had all previously worked on the Edward R. Murrow, award-winning podcast The Magic Pill, which was aimed at getting people to fall in love with exercise. The dream team first met over vegan nourish bowls in a WBUR conference room, and a few short months later, Food, We Need to Talk was in full production mode.
The first season of Food, We Need to Talk dropped in December 2019 and reached over a million downloads within its first 10 episodes. It reached #1 in Apple Podcasts’ “Health” category and was featured on multiple curated playlists on platforms including Spotify, Stitcher, and PocketCast. Each episode features Juna and Eddie chatting with experts in nutrition science, exercise physiology, neurobiology and more, all with a helping of thoughtful discussion, banter, and plenty of dad jokes (Eddie’s specialty).
After a pandemic-induced hiatus, in which Juna worked on her backflips and Eddie learned how to cook, Food, We Need to Talk is back with its new production partner PRX. Find us on your favorite podcast platform for your biweekly dose of science-based, humor-laced health and fitness info!
PS: And they all lived (pretty much) happily ever after.
Hosts
Juna Gjata
Juna (Yoo-nah) is the creator and host of Food, We Need to Talk, which she considers her baby. When she’s not chatting with Eddie on the mic, she spends most of her time at the gym, or posting videos about the gym on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram in her never ending mission to get ladies to lift. In a prior life, (AKA a few years ago) Juna was pursuing a career as a concert pianist and has had the amazing opportunity to play at Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center. She graduated from Harvard University in 2017 with a Bachelor’s in Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology and a minor in Music, further proving that the more complicated and obscure your degree title is, the less likely you are to ever need it in life.
Fun fact: Juna is currently obsessed with snowboarding and is no longer able to sit or kneel because of permanent bruising. Tis a hard life indeed.
Dr. Eddie Phillips
Edward M. Phillips, MD, “Eddie” is an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School and is founder and director of the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine (ILM) at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital where he has directed 26 courses in Lifestyle Medicine through Harvard Medical School, reaching >25,000 clinicians worldwide. Eddie is a Fellow of American College of Sports Medicine (FACSM) and serves on the executive council that developed and leads the Exercise is Medicine™ global initiative. He is co-author of Organize Your Emotions, Optimize Your Life: Decode Your Emotional DNA and Thrive (2016) and ACSM’s Exercise is Medicine™, A Clinician’s Guide to Exercise Prescription (2009) and is past chair of the Exercise is Medicine™ Education Committee. Eddie serves on the Advisory Board of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and on the Health Sector of the United States National Physical Activity Plan. The President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition recognized both Eddie and the ILM with its Community Leadership Award. He has published >80 scientific publications and is an active clinician and educator working at VA Boston Healthcare System as Whole Health Medical Director.
He speaks and consults nationally, guiding a broad-based effort to reduce lifestyle-related death, disease, and costs through clinician directed interventions with patients. Eddie has appeared on various national media including Good Morning America, ESPN radio, Huffington Post, Slate, Time Magazine, and Cosmopolitan. He co-hosted WBUR’s Daily Exercise Podcast, The Magic Pill, which was awarded an Edward R. Murrow award for Excellence in Innovation in 2017.
Fun Fact: Eddie interviewed His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet at the 2021 Lifestyle Medicine course at Harvard Medical School
The People That Make It Happen
MORGAN FLANNERY
Morgan is a producer and audio engineer. Her recent work can be heard on PRX’s "Unsung Science with David Pogue”, Slate's "Mom and Dad Are Fighting" and “The New Yorker Radio Hour.” Prior to that, she spent her free time writing and performing embarrassing autobiographical short stories, some of which can be heard on “The Townies Podcast”.
Fun fact: Morgan's first job in New York was working as a magician's assistant, a job so secretive that she knew she'd never make it as a spy. Now she makes podcasts.
CLAIRE CARLANDER
Claire is a future 2022 graduate from Wellesley College studying media production and anthropology. Her interest in audio production and storytelling brought her to an internship with PRX last summer, and she is thrilled to be continuing her work at PRX with the amazing Food, We Need to Talk team!
Fun fact: Claire has been ice climbing in a frozen gorge!
TOMMY BAZARIAN
Tommy is an audio engineer and composer based in NYC. He spent five years at the Peabody Award-winning arts and culture show Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, crafting sound-rich stories and learning from some of the best in the industry. Since then, he's mixed and sound designed shows for PRX, CNN Audio, Religion of Sports, Slate, and MasterClass.
Fun fact: When he's not making radio, Tommy can be found writing and recording with his band, Lampland.
JOCELYN GONZALES
Jocelyn Gonzales is the Director/Executive Producer of PRX Productions, the production studio inside PRX, a non-profit media company specializing in audio journalism and storytelling. PRX Productions helps develop and produce podcast series for partners such as TEDx, NOVA, WGBH, CBS/Simon & Schuster, Harvard Business School, Religion of Sports, FCB, and more. Before PRX, she was Executive Producer of the Peabody Award-winning program Studio 360, and a longtime freelance audio producer for radio, podcasts, publishing, and visual media. Jocelyn teaches sound design in the Film and Television department at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and is a producer and engineer with Feet In Two Worlds, a non-profit journalism project that covers immigrant communities across the US.
Fun fact: Jocelyn is currently enjoying making different kinds of smoothies from whatever happens to be in the fridge...it's hit or miss, but a lot like mixing audio! She is also a sucker for 1950's and 60's sci-fi and horror flicks.
GEORGE HICKS
George spent 15 years as a recording engineer / producer with artists such as Stan Getz, Keith Jarrett, the Klezmer Conservatory Band and Itzhak Perlman.
An award-winning producer, editor, technical director, reporter and announcer for public radio programs such as NPR's “Here & Now,” “Car Talk,” “Only A Game,” “The Connection,” and WBUR's “Morning Edition,” and “Inside Out Documentaries,” George capped off 24 years at WBUR as the co-creator, editor and producer of the hit podcast, “Food, We Need To Talk.”
Fun fact: George is spending the pandemic with his family in Arlington, Mass., looking forward to a time when he can once again play jazz in cocktail lounges for gas money.
CAREY GOLDBERG
Carey Goldberg is the Boston bureau chief of Bloomberg News. For a decade, she covered health and science at WBUR, and was the host of WBUR's CommonHealth section. (It was never as much fun again after George, Juna and Eddie had gone.)
She has been the Boston bureau chief of The New York Times, a staff Moscow correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, and a health/science reporter for The Boston Globe. She was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT; graduated summa cum laude from Yale; and did graduate work at Harvard. She is co-author of the triple memoir "Three Wishes: A True Story Of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak and Astonishing Luck On Our Way To Love and Motherhood."
Fun fact: Carey worked with Eddie on an initial podcast about why and how to exercise — called “The Magic Pill” — and has worked out pretty much every day ever since.
Sara Litzenberger is an animator & designer who’s had the pleasure of designing the cover, episode art, & website for Food, We Need To Talk. You can find her full portfolio and social links on her website.