012: Vani Hari, Food Babe: Fear Mongerer or Voice of the People?

Women's Wellness ON AIR WITH ELLA

Ella Lucas-Averett

Education, Health & Fitness, Fitness, Self-improvement, Alternative Health

5 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2015

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Vani makes her living making food companies angry. She challenges them on the chemicals they use to make manufactured food more addictive, longer-lasting and as cheap as possible to produce. And she’s not quiet about it.

Is she alarmist? Unabashedly, yes. Her headlines are notoriously, um, cloying at times. (Did you catch the infamous “Do You Eat Beaver Butt?” post?) ...And it would be easy to write her off as an obnoxious headline-grabber who is just looking to generate a following by making big companies like Kraft, Starbucks, Kellogg, and General Mills look bad. Except, isn’t there something backward here?

Vani Hari receives death threats on a regular basis because she is telling the world what food manufacturers opt to put in our food supply. Huh?

What’s wrong with this picture?

From her site:

Back when Congress gave the FDA authority over food additives (in 1958), there were about 800 additives. Today, the number of known ingredients has swelled to more than 10,000 and continues to grow. Even the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner, Michael Taylor, recently said: “We simply do not have the information to vouch for the safety of many of these chemicals… we do have questions about whether we can do what people expect of us”. - Washington Post

Additional resource: “Food additives on the rise as FDA scrutiny wanes” - Washington Post

Well, maybe that isn't as scary as it sounds, because apparently new food ingredients are commonly approved by the manufacturer themselves, and not by the FDA. So, that's helpful, right? [What the ???]

So, what does this mean to you?

Why should you care?

Here are a few reasons:- hyperactive children- asthma- diabetes- cancer- eczema- digestive disease- premature aging- obesity- lethargy…are all on the rise. Like, WAY. ON. THE. RISE. And, according to some experts, 70% of the average American diet now comes from processed food.

Interestingly, a research review of 172 clinical studies published in the Journal of American Clinical Nutrition concluded that "virtually all chronic diseases are partially caused by our modern diet of engineered foods."

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	They want to make it be controversial because they don't want to stop making processed food.
0:04.8	They make a lot of money.
0:06.1	So they don't want Americans to stop eating processed food.
0:10.7	Welcome.
0:11.5	You're on air with Ella, where we share simple strategies and truths from people who are doing something better than we are.
0:18.2	Whether it's wellness or fitness and fat loss to just living better
0:22.1	and with more energy or changing your mindset to accomplish more in your own life and succeeding
0:27.7	however you define it. This is where we share the best of what we're learning from the experts
0:32.2	and we're learning more every day. Live better. Start now. Hi everyone, you're on air with Ella and today I'm joined by
0:43.2	Bonnie Hari. Bonnie is the internationally known blogger and food activist behind The Food Babe. Hi, Vani. Welcome to
0:50.3	on air with Ella. Hey, yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I'm super excited to talk to you, not just because of your new book, Vonie,
0:57.8	The Food Babe Wave, but just because I've been reading your material for several years now.
1:03.0	Yeah, I'll be four years in April.
1:05.0	Fantastic.
1:06.0	Well, it's been fun to watch the evolution of the Food Babe, from blogger to food activists to force of nature. Tell
1:12.9	everybody a little bit about what you do now. Absolutely. So right now, I am a writer and I just
1:19.8	came out with a book, The Food Babe Way. It hit number one on the best sellers list, which is insane
1:25.4	to even comprehend and even think about.
1:28.4	And so I've been spending really the last year working on that book and so excited to get it
1:33.9	out to everyone that needs it. And then, you know, I also spend most of my days investigating
1:40.9	what's in my food and our food and really learning about what the food industry
1:48.1	is doing, how they are inventing chemicals and what those chemicals can do to the body or can
	...

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