Whether it’s food, beauty products, or the state of our home, describing something as ‘clean’ also implies there is ‘dirty’, an idea that carries a lot of guilt and shame. In this week’s episode, Brooke and Ben dig into a new duality by looking at food, home, green-cleaning and more.

Ben talks about the brosphere — specifically the rise of ‘clean eating’ and its impact on boys and young men — and Brooke talks about her conflicted feelings on individual responsibility versus industry accountability. Ben also shares his honest take on Brooke’s hardcore green-cleaning and no-shampoo hippie eras, the tidiness of their house as a barometer of mental well-being, and why the internet will never agree on how often to clean the walls.

They also talk about:

• dropping their standards
• why kids can be a balancing influence on all-or-nothing thinking
• using righteous anger to fuel our enoughness
• making small changes in the face of systemic problems
• quality versus quantity and how a bit of fussiness isn’t a bad thing
• the painful gap between the why and how of things
• knowing when a fight is worthwhile and when it’s not
• the importance of language around food and health and why men and women experience it differently
• what it means to be ‘houseproud’
• QUIZ: how often do you need to clean a ____?

Thanks for listening!

Links:

• Find everything mentioned in today’s show at brookemcalary.substack.com
• Become a paying supporter of ttath and get double the episodes! Weekly shows delivered straight to your inbox for just $8AUD/month or $80AUD/yr.
• If video is your jam, subscribe to our YouTube channel @thetortoiseandthehare
• Access the full, human-made transcript here

Credits:

• the tortoise & the hare is a McAlary Media production.
• Produced and hosted by Brooke McAlary and Ben McAlary
• Edited by Ben McAlary
• Studio equipment supplied by shot.studio
• Theme music is Edgar Allan Poe by Modern Aquatic

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prompted by a listener question, this week’s episode is about Brooke and Ben’s relationship with alcohol and how it’s changed over the past five years. Brooke shares why she never really wanted to use the word ‘sober’ to describe herself and how healing helped her let go of rigid ideas on drinking vs not drinking.

Ben discusses the role drinking culture has had on his life and why he thinks other countries do it better than Australia. They also talk about wasted days, the toll drinking takes and the flip-side: the high cost of complete restriction. It’s a vulnerable chat but it feels important to share.

They also discuss:

• their respective relationships with alcohol — then and now
• Brooke’s experience with quitting — why, how and what she told people about it
• what was lost and gained
• how learning to have fun sober has been a game-changer
• the physiological effects of alcohol and why Brooke used it as a social crutch
• why moralising could have a negative effect on their family
• how to step back from a restrictive mindset and soften the language we use
• why we still do things we know to be “bad” for us
• the difference between preferences and non-negotiables
• what Brooke and Ben would tell themselves 10 years ago

Thanks for listening!

Links:

• Find everything mentioned in today’s show at brookemcalary.substack.com
• Become a paying supporter of ttath and get double the episodes! Weekly shows delivered straight to your inbox for just $8AUD/month or $80AUD/yr.
• If video is your jam, subscribe to our YouTube channel @thetortoiseandthehare and watch today's episode
• Access the full, human-made transcript here

Credits:

• the tortoise & the hare is a McAlary Media production.
• Produced and hosted by Brooke McAlary and Ben McAlary
• Edited by Ben McAlary
• Studio equipment supplied by shot.studio
• Theme music is Edgar Allan Poe by Modern Aquatic

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today’s episode, Brooke and Ben dive into different ways of thinking — open and closed, fixed and fluid and whatever exists in between. They discuss their different approaches to rule-following, how they deal with opinion chameleons and why finding common ground is one of the most effective ways to have a constructive conversation.

Ben also explains why he loves playing the devil’s advocate (and why Brooke finds it infuriating!) and finishes with a hard-hitting question: rigid or flexible lollies — which is better?

They discuss:

• hypersensitivity
• Brooke’s EMDR experience
• dealing with narrow-minded people
• chameleon opinions and why they’re so confusing
• rule-followers vs rebels
• improving cognitive flexibility
• how to engage different opinions without losing your mind
• why hope hurts sometimes
• the great lolly debate: rigid vs flexible

Thanks for listening!

Links:

• Find everything mentioned in today’s show at brookemcalary.substack.com
• Become a paying supporter of ttath and get double the episodes! Weekly shows delivered straight to your inbox for just $8AUD/month or $80AUD/yr.
• If video is your jam, subscribe to our YouTube channel @thetortoiseandthehare
• Access the full, human-made transcript here

Credits:

• the tortoise & the hare is a McAlary Media production.
• Produced and hosted by Brooke McAlary and Ben McAlary
• Edited by Ben McAlary
• Studio equipment supplied by shot.studio
• Theme music is Edgar Allan Poe by Modern Aquatic

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to age and youth, body image takes a beating at both ends. Can we find a gentler way through the years?

In today’s show, Brooke and Ben discuss the duality of wrinkles & pimples — i.e. the visible elements of youth and aging — and how they are literally in the middle of it right now, with both wrinkles and pimples (and grey hair and stiff backs in the morning).

They discuss:

• changing body image in their mid-40s
• why gender-affirming care (including hair removal, plastic surgery, make-up and hormone therapy) should be accessible to everyone
• the changing role of body image for boys and men over the past decade
• what our faces and bodies are actually for
• the billionaires who want to live forever and go to great lengths to avoid aging

Thanks for listening!

Links:

• Find everything mentioned in today’s show at brookemcalary.substack.com
• Become a paying supporter of ttath and get double the episodes! Weekly shows delivered straight to your inbox for just $5AUD/month for a limited time
• If video is your jam, subscribe to our YouTube channel @thetortoiseandthehare
• Access the full, human-made transcript here

Credits:

• the tortoise & the hare is a McAlary Media production.
• Produced and hosted by Brooke McAlary and Ben McAlary
• Edited by Ben McAlary
• Studio equipment supplied by shot.studio
• Theme music is Edgar Allan Poe by Modern Aquatic

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

fast & slow | Is there a middle ground between the two? Or are we destined to wrestle our inner-tortoise and inner-hare forever?

In the first episode of the tortoise & the hare, Brooke and Ben revisit slow living one last time (no, really!) to see where they exist on the spectrum of speed today and why they decided to keep the slow living reference in the new show’s name.

Initially, slow living was a new way of seeing the world. It provided freedom and community and opportunity. But within a few years, the wellness industry exploded and slow-living voices competed to become a new version of the Joneses — the most slow, the most aesthetic, the most minimalist. What started as a fluid, adaptable idea became consumption-driven and highly aspirational.

Links:

• Find everything mentioned in today’s show at brookemcalary.substack.com
• Become a paying supporter of ttath and get double the episodes! Weekly shows delivered straight to your inbox for just $5/month for a limited time
• If video is your jam, subscribe to our YouTube channel @thetortoiseandthehare
• Access the full, human-made transcript here

Thanks for tuning in!

Credits:

• the tortoise & the hare is a McAlary Media production.
• Produced and hosted by Brooke McAlary and Ben McAlary
• Edited by Ben McAlary
• Studio equipment supplied by shot.studio
• Theme music is Edgar Allan Poe by Modern Aquatic

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to the tortoise & the hare preview now. The first episode drops 20th August 2026!

Fast and slow. Young and old. Hard and soft. Open and closed. Real and fake. Hide and seek. Pleasure and pain… Life is full of dualities and extremes and pick-a-sides. But most of our days are spent in the messy middle.

the tortoise & the hare is a weekly show from Brooke and Ben McAlary, creators of the much-loved Slow Home Podcast (RIP). Each episode is a human-made, homegrown, perfectly imperfect conversation about the either/or of life and the vast grey area in between.

Because we all contain multitudes. So let’s talk about them.

***

Don't forget:

• Subscribe to ttath in your favourite podcast app so you don't miss an episode
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• Find us on YouTube if you prefer to watch your pods

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Instead of the usual conversation between Brooke and Ben, today's episode is simply a reading of the final ever edition of The Tortoise newsletter.

Take a listen, and please know that it has been an absolute pleasure to be heard by you over the years.

https://brookemcalary.substack.com/p/sometimes-life-surprises-us

Much love and thanks for listening,

Brooke and Ben xx

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A more accurate title for this episode might have been: The Myth of Work-Life Balance, because both Ben and Brooke think it’s fundamentally BS, but that was too long a title, so Balance it is.

In this episode, they look at the idea of balance through a post-lockdown, new-workplace lens, in an effort to make sense of why it feels harder to achieve now, and what we might be able to do to create it.

They dig into their own definitions of balance, the pros and cons when it comes to self-employment, how they each differentiate between work time and non-work time and why they find the goal of work/life balance to be damaging.

The also talk about anti-balance or tilting as an alternative, as well as the impact of the upcoming “right to disconnect” legislation, the attraction of "working ahead", how to approach changes in your own workplace when you’re not self-employed, and why it’s important to start small, specific and slow.

It’s a juicy topic, not least because it applies to everyone differently and we hope you enjoy it.

Head over to The Tortoise for the full show notes, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter while you're there.

Thanks for listening!

Join The Tortoise Community: https://brookemcalary.substack.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.