Exposing The Food Industry’s Dangerous Lies - Vani Hari

1. 0:00 – 5:36

   Vani’s Conflict With Kellogg’s

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      What's happening with you and Kellogg's?

   2. VHVani Hari0:03

      Kellogg's, so two weeks ago, on October 15th, I went to Kellogg's headquarters with 400,000 signatures, took them to Kellogg's front door to ask them to remove artificial food dyes and BHT from their cereals that they produce here in the United States, but don't do this for countries like Canada, all of the countries in Europe, Australia, India. So basically using one set of ingredients here in the United States that are more toxic and harmful towards little children, because artificial food dyes are linked to hyperactivity. They require a warning label, a cigarette-type warning label in Europe when a product has artificial food dyes that says, "May cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children." They've seen that when they study these different artificial food dyes, they contain carcinogens, so they're linked to cancer. They cause autoimmune disorders, eczema, (laughs) asthma, and also the chemical BHT, which is an endocrine disrupting chemical that you find in the lining of cereal bags as a preservative. They use that here in the United States, but they don't use that in other countries. So I've been demanding that Kellogg's sell us the same safer versions of their cereals that they serve in other countries. And I've been doing this for a really long time. Uh, I've been doing it since t- t- for over a decade. In 2015, Kellogg's said that they were gonna make these changes. They got worldwide press about making these changes, they got a lot of praise publicly and through the media when they made this announcement, but then they never did it. They said they would do it by 2018, and instead, they created new cereals to, to hook modern children of today, like Baby Shark and Peeps and Little Mermaid and Elf on the Shelf and, and all of these different trick or treat (laughs) type, uh, cereals to, to, to get people to buy their cereals. And it's really sad because not only did they lie to us, they continue to sell American children an inferior, less safe version of their cereals.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:32

      Is it true that they make those cereals in the same factories as the cereals that don't have those same dyes in? Is there any truth to that?

   4. VHVani Hari2:41

      At one point, I believe the Canadian cereal was being produced here in the United States and they were shipping it over, uh, over the border. Uh, I think now they have-

   5. CWChris Williamson2:50

      So it's e- evidently they-

   6. VHVani Hari2:50

      ... they have a Canadian manufacturer now, uh, a fa- a factory, but, uh, but yeah, (laughs) yeah, that, that was-

   7. CWChris Williamson2:57

      They had the capacity to do it. So-

   8. VHVani Hari2:59

      Um-

   9. CWChris Williamson3:00

      ... you know, we're gonna talk a lot today about some of the more nefarious activities maybe of people's favorite High Street food brands and stuff like that. Why? Why do brands do this? Is it cheaper? Is it laziness? Is it something, uh, g- new world order trying to sterilize the population? What's your, uh, reasoning behind this? What's your justification that you think they're doing it for?

   10. VHVani Hari3:25

       There's a few different reasons. The first reason is that a petroleum coal tar based dye is cheaper to put into a product than carrot juice, watermelon juice, blueberry juice th- that they're using in other countries to color these cereals, okay? And other products for that matter. It's cheaper. The second thing is, it doesn't break down as fast, right? Petroleum lasts forever. (laughs) Uh, carrot juice, you know, goes rancid. So from a preservation standpoint of how long you can keep a cereal on the shelf, it matters. So it's all about money and it's all about greed. In the same way they're u- using BHT to line the insides of the cereal bags, it's a preservation thing, and the fact that the FDA has allowed our food companies here in the United States to create these chemicals, to approve these chemicals for use under their own safety data, not any third party regulatory fashion. This is happening in the food companies themselves. They've decided it's okay to use these chemicals, and the FDA hasn't even reviewed, for example, red number 40 since 1971. And they don't even know the amount that, uh, the American public is consuming at this point, which we've done some studies and datas and there's been a, a, a study done in Purdue University about how the, he- it's been a dramatic increase in terms of, uh, o- over 500% increase since food dyes were introduced to our food supply in terms of how much we're actually consuming as the American public. And this is something that, um, food companies continue to do because no one's holding them accountable and this is-

   11. CWChris Williamson5:27

       Huh.

   12. VHVani Hari5:28

       ... why I had to march to Kellogg's headquarters to do this. Uh, because no one's doing it.

   13. CWChris Williamson5:34

       Mm.

2. 5:36 – 14:16

   Why is America’s Food System So Bad?

   1. CWChris Williamson5:36

      How much do you lay at the feet of the food companies? How much do you lay at the feet of the FDA? And why is America so unique in... I- i- it's like this weird island food desert type thing, but it's not. It's like a food additive desert, but whatever the, uh, a food additive oasis.

   2. VHVani Hari5:56

      Right, yeah. We ha- we have the worst food system, um, uh, in the world.And w- we have all of the big food companies that are American food companies making better, safer in- products overseas for all these other countries, and this is something that has to be addressed. Um, first of all, I believe that it is a moral obligation, an ethical obligation, if you can make your product safer, then you should do that, and not doing it is anti-American, especially when it's an American company doing this. And the worst part about it is that these food companies know their product is causing harm because 20 years ago, when the South Hampton study came out, European regulatory agencies decided that they would put the cigarette-type warning label on any product that contains dyes. And when they did that, these food manufacturers in America didn't want that warning label. They said, "Oh, no, we don't wanna warn, m- you know, parents that this could cause hyperactivity, so we're gonna voluntarily remove these chemicals from our products, and we're gonna create a safer version for all of these other countries." That right there is completely sinister. To find out that your product could cause this issue in children and decide not to change it across the board, and that policy, that unethical business practice, has to stop with American companies, and that's why we have targeted Kellogg's first with our campaign, and me and other amazing health leaders, doctors, activists are gonna go after the entire food industry at this point, because this is something that's happening not only with Kellogg's, it's happening at McDonald's, it's happening with PepsiCo, it's happening with General Mills, it's happening at Kraft, Heinz, it's happening everywhere across the board, and I wanna send a huge message to the food industry that they can't get away with this anymore. If they are already making a product that has less chemicals and is safer, they have to do it for their own American citizens.

   3. CWChris Williamson8:26

      What's the story of the food industry over the last few decades? How would you describe it?

   4. VHVani Hari8:33

      We've created a toxic soup, Chris. O- over the last 50 or so years, the majority of food chemicals that have been produced and put into our food supply have been invented for one sole purpose, and that's to improve the bottom line of the food industry. Everything from a preservative chemical to an addictive chemical that makes you eat more of that product than you should, the, um, the, the mouth feel, the emulsifiers, the flavorings that trick your olfactory sys- system in your head, um, every time you open up a package or you rip open a, a bag, every single ingredient, I would say 99% of them, are there to make the food companies money and not improve our health. And so the majority of foods in the grocery store right now, I would say anything in a package or box or bag that doesn't have five or less ingredients is something that is literally harming your health because the ingredient itself, first of all, l- likely doesn't have safety data around it. There's this underlying implication that when a food chemical or anything that's been introduced to the food supply goes through rigorous testing at the FDA, there is nobody at the FDA testing anything. They actually look at the data that the food companies themselves produce, and they just let it be called generally regarded as safe. There's no one actually holding the food companies accountable and saying, "Hey, we need to look at these chemicals and see the safety data and prove that these chemicals are safe before we allow them in our food system."

   5. CWChris Williamson10:29

      Is it a, a hangover from previously food was just food, it was something that you ate, and maybe you wrapped it in plastic? There are, uh, only so many degrees of perversion and molestation that you could do with food, whereas for something like a drug, if we're going to release a drug onto the market, then we need to go through different trials and we need to do so on and so forth. But that now it seems the, uh, level of manipulation that's happened to food and the different additives and the different preservatives and the different carrying methods that can be, uh, included in them, and even the design of them too, is the- sort of the technology is getting to the stage where it can become very, very far removed previously, but we're still working with an old framework, which is when food was largely just food and there was maybe a couple of different amendments that could be made to sort of, I'm gonna guess, sort of N- 1900s to '60s model, and then we start to pivot a little bit more as food technology becomes more advanced. Is that kind of what's going on, that it's just not held to the same rigor that other industries that people consume are because we assume, "Well, it's food. Food's just, you know, ah, it's food."

   6. VHVani Hari11:37

      Well, I mean, there's a couple things at play here. The food companies basically started to get bought up several years ago by the tobacco companies, and the tobacco companies started to use the same technology that they learned on how to hook Americans to cigarettes and the world to cigarettes and basically use that same science and technology i- in, in our f- in our brains when we would start to eat processed food.And so, they started to use this complicated kind of laboratory experiments where they would measure our bliss point in our brain, measure our taste response when we would eat a certain product, everything down from the type of texture the product is. A lot of people don't know that processed foods are manufactured in a way for you to consume them very fast. Uh, think about cheese balls, for example. Y- they melt in your mouth, right? You just digest them so quick, and so your body doesn't even have the time to catch up with its- its own society for you to stop, and you end up eating half the bag, right? The same thing is with bread. If you get grocery store bread, a loaf of it, it's so soft and so processed that you could eat five, six, seven slices of that in the same time it would take you to eat sourdough bread that you would make in your f- y- in your o- oven at home where you have to, you know, really chew through the crust. You really have to, you know, take your time to chew-

   7. CWChris Williamson13:13

      Mm.

   8. VHVani Hari13:13

      ... it and eat it. And your body and your society hormones and everything start to work, and you're like, "Okay, I've had enough bread." But that's not the case with processed food. It's literally manufactured so that you eat more than you should, and everything from the texture to the taste to the flavorings that they add and the different additives that they add. I mean, I wanna talk about natural flavoring. This is something that seems so innocuous that it- it- it- it's on the label and you're like, "Oh, it's from nature. It's natural flavoring." But no, it can be thousands of different chemicals under that label that create a flavor in your brain that you remember, and that you crave, and you taste that, and you're like, "I have to eat one more." And without that flavoring component, the food manufacturers would- would really be, uh, i- i- in- in- in a lot of hurt because we would stop eating just a little bit.

3. 14:16 – 21:09

   What’s Actually Wrong With What They’re Doing?

   1. VHVani Hari14:16

   2. CWChris Williamson14:16

      It's kind of in- I- I'm thinking about this from the standpoint of the food manufacturers, that what we're asking them to do is almost make foods less palatable. They need to be less enjoyable. And you think, "Well, who wants that? Who wants food to be less enjoyable?" Surely, the job of a food design company is to make foods that are tasty, and people enjoy them, and they want to have them. And sure, maybe they get them to eat more and that's, you know, capitalism or whatever. So, is it your stance that there is a- a step change in how they've been able to hack our physiology, our, um, olfactory system, our texture detection, orification as it's known? Um, they've been able to get in and play now sort of outside the bounds of what is reasonable for food companies to do? Because assuming, I'm- I'm gonna guess that you're not gonna say all foods need to taste like gravel, and it should make the e- experience as unenjoyable as possible for everybody involved.

   3. VHVani Hari15:09

      Like, listen. Real food does not taste like gravel, right? I mean, I- I eat a real food diet. I love everything that I have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I think it tastes amazing. But I- I stay the same weight. My health is- is- is awesome because I'm eating real food with real nutrition. And there's- And my body isn't being subjected to these food industry tricks that have happened at a level that I can't even comprehend. I mean, our entire food system has been weaponized against the human body to the point now our rates of chronic disease are astronomical. I mean, like literally, we were gonna have a situation where we are going to break down as a human society unless we take a look at this and see what's been done and people know the truth.

   4. CWChris Williamson16:00

      How much do you lay at the feet of ultra-processed, calorie-dense, hyper-palatable foods that are easy for people to find, consume, and eat too much of? And how much do you lay at the feet of the specific ingredients and endocrine-disrupting, uh, effects and so on and so forth? It seems to me, hmm, that most of the arguments come from either a over-consumption side leading to higher BMIs, downstream from that, lots of health problems, but then there's this sort of other area which is maybe to do with what do the constituent parts of these foods and so on and so forth. How do you come to think about these two areas?

   5. VHVani Hari16:38

      I mean, both of them are synergistic. You know? Both of them are problematic. And, you know, you've got on one hand the over-consumption of food that- that is not nutritious. It's actually not doing anything for your mitochondria in your body. Uh, it's leading to metabolic syndrome, and that leads to so many different chronic diseases. Um, so-

   6. CWChris Williamson16:59

      What's metabolic syndrome? Sorry.

   7. VHVani Hari17:01

      Uh, metabolic syndrome is, um, a condition that happens in your body that basically turns on factors for diabetes and cancer and heart disease. Um, it- it basically is when the organs in your body stop functioning. Your liver, your pancreas, other- other parts of your digestive system actually stop functioning so that you become more insulin sensitive, you become more prone to cancer, you become, um, more r- reluctant to have heart disease. And so, this is something that Dr. Casey Means and Calley Means talk about in their book Good Energy, that this is something that is literally attacking the entire body when we're eating this food. And- and it's up to us to really know the truth about what this food is and- and- and if it is even food. I mean, can you even call it that at that point when it's, you know, 50, 60 different chemicals in a- in a Subway sandwich or, (laughs) you know, in- in- a- in a Chick-fil-A sandwich for that matter? Um, it's- it's something that we have to take a good look at in terms of...... how these chemicals interchange with each other. But here's why I think I've been effective at getting people's attention, because I've broken down these chemicals for people to understand, and I've told them why they're there and why the food industry is using them. And they decide on their own that, "Hey, I'm not gonna be part of this experiment anymore. I don't want that chemical in my body." If it, if it is taken out in a study whether it causes hyperactivity, or if it's linked to cancer, or if it has some endocrine disrupting property, those are all reasons not to consume those chemicals, and I think those are strong reasons. But what that does also is it puts a note in the person's brain of like, "Wait a minute, I shouldn't eat that much of this food either." And so, they don't bring it in their house as much. And so for me, my, my methodology has always been ingredients. You read the ingredients. If you don't recognize the ingredient, you don't understand it, you need to go find out why. And this is, uh, part of my book, Feeding You Lies. At the end, I take people through a three-part question that they need to sit down, and every time they sit down to eat, they need to ask themselves. Number one, what are the ingredients? Number two, are these ingredients nutritious? Number three, where do the ingredients come from? If you can't answer those three questions about what you're eating, you need to go find out. And n- when you go find out, you will learn so much about your diet and your food that you will automatically start to make better choices, and you don't need to be a nutritionist or a food scientist or anything to know if wh- whether those ingredients are nutritious or not. Because if you know what the ingredient is, and I'll give you a really good example, in breads and a lot of processed foods, you'll see this ingredient and nobody knows why it's there, un- unless they were to actually go look it up and, and teach themselves. It's mono diglycerides, okay? This is a food industry manufactured product that they used to replace trans fats when the FDA banned trans fats because it was linked to s- 10,000 heart attacks a year and, um, and, and several deaths, okay? Th- when they banned this chemical, partially hydrogenated oils, from our, our food system, the food manufacturers had to find a way t- to still preserve oils in products, and they came up with this mono diglycerides. And so it still even has m- you know, uh, trace amounts of trans fats in it, and it's a, a chemical they're using from a preservation standpoint. If you see that on a product that you're eating when you're, when you sit down to eat, you should automatically know, "That's not for my health. That's not for my nutrition. That's not gonna serve my body." That's there for the food industry. And so, if you start to make decisions, "Hey, I'm not gonna buy products with those chemicals anymore," you're automatically (laughs) gonna eliminate several thousand different products on the grocery store shelves, and it's, it's absolutely a critical thing people have to learn.

4. 21:09 – 25:23

   The Most Damaging Ingredients

   1. CWChris Williamson21:09

      What are your hit list of... Wh- what are the biggest concerns you've got in terms of ingredients? You've just mentioned one there. BHT was something else. Uh, so we're talking about, I guess, packaging? Um, what are the main culprits? I'm aware that there's probably an awful lot, but what are the ones that are carrying most of the weight and doing most of the damage in your opinion?

   2. VHVani Hari21:29

      Yeah. Any kind of processed seed oil, so cotton seed oil, canola oil, corn oil, soy oil. The majority of those come from genetically engineered seeds that are designed to withstand heavy doses of glyphosate, which has now been linked to cancer in many different court cases across the United States, and, and awarded juries, uh, I'm sorry, plaintiffs billions of dollars, okay? So this is a closed shut case on... Our, our oils are being produced with this very toxic chemical. Then, the way the oils are actually extracted, they're extracted with hexane and different chemicals, deodorizers, and bleach agents before they get to the supermarket. And the FDA, unfortunately, does not monitor the residues of things like hexane that are left in a lot of these oils. Not to mention cotton seed oil is something that is actually produced from the textile industry. This is not even regulated like a food. It's a textile, so it has way worse pesticides and chemicals allowed for use on cotton. But they found out that they can use this byproduct in our food system, and it's actually one of the... What, what was the main ingredient in Crisco and, uh, and trans fats for so long until I think a lot of manufacturers have started to remove cotton seed oil, al- although you see it all the time. It's everywhere. And this is something that is pervasive in our food supply. And so, when I'm looking for a product to buy on the shelf, I look for things made with olive oil, I look things for made with coconut oil, I look for things made with avocado oil, and that's about it. And I use grass-fed butter and ghee at home to cook with, and I eliminate all seed oils. So that's like the first thing that you'd wanna do. The second ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Not only is that also made from genetically engineered corn and have all those chemicals associated with the crops, but the way it's produced also disrupts your, y- it, it primes you for metabolic syndrome. It primes your body for insulin, uh, insulin resistance. And so this is something you wanna take out of your diet. And this is, you'll, you'll find everywhere. It's in Coca-Cola, it's in soda, it's in the majority of things that you find on grocery store shelves unfortunately. Then you wanna look at... Sorry, go ahead.

   3. CWChris Williamson24:06

      No, no, no, no. I'm th- I'm enthralled. Keep going.

   4. VHVani Hari24:09

      And then you wanna look at all of the different artificial ingredients that are allowed in food. I'll give you a great example, red number three-... was banned in cosmetics because it caused cancer. But when the f- when they were ready to ban it in food, the alcohol industry lobbied the FDA and said, "No, you need to allow it still in food because it makes our ma- maraschino cherries that we have in all of our popular alcoholic drinks red. And so we need to keep those maraschino ch- cherries with that red number three dye, so you need to still allow it in food." So you can't use it in lipstick, but it's still allowed in food, and that shows you what a wild, wild west kind of situation we have with our government agencies and how they're completely co-opted by industry. And one of the things that I think needs to happen immediately at the FDA is remove all industry funding from the FDA, and it should be a government-funded, um, uh, o- uh, organization. It should not have any type of, um, industry funding coming into it.

5. 25:23 – 33:20

   Why You Can’t Trust Studies & Food Scientists

   1. CWChris Williamson25:23

      Talk to me about the conflict of interest in studies and food scientists and stuff like that.

   2. VHVani Hari25:29

      Well, one of the things that has happened recently, and I wrote about it in my book, Feeding You Lies, is the food industry will use groups that look very reputable to defend their chemicals and their, their food green policies (laughs) , right? They will hire corporate, uh, you know, different organizations. Like, I'll give you one great example. The, uh, the American Council of Science and Health. Sounds so reputable, sounds so, like, you... Yes, we need to listen to the American Council of Science and Health. But this is an organization that has taken funding. It, it was... It's like the who's who of corporations. Everyone from big pharma, big chem, and big food. They've taken money from Kellogg's, they've taken money from Coca-Cola, they've taken money from Bayer, they've taken money from Syngenta, McDonald's. I mean, it is insane. And their main objective is to do character assassination on anyone who is speaking out about their products, and then to also confuse the public into thinking that consuming these chemicals in these foods are completely safe. And they just released a hit piece on myself and Eva Mendes, who has been a huge-

   3. CWChris Williamson26:58

      I saw.

   4. VHVani Hari26:58

      Yeah, you saw it. So, a huge supporter of, uh, our campaign on Kelloggs, and Dr. Will Cole, and, and this is what they do. And back in the day when I was going up against a lot of these food giants, I was very naive. I didn't know that I would literally have paid organizations trying to take me down. And it was, it was, it was pretty much right after I think I got Subway to remove azodicarbonamide, a chemical that you find in yoga mats and shoe rubber. You know, if you turn a yoga mat sideways and you look at the, the, the air bubbles, it's, like, evenly dispersed-

   5. CWChris Williamson27:42

      It looks like a Subway sandwich. Oh, no.

   6. VHVani Hari27:45

      (laughs) well, well, it's... It evenly disperses the air bubbles in rubber. Well, it does the same thing in bread, and so they wanted the bread to look and feel the same in every single Subway. You know, that's, that's what fast food is, right? You want it to be the same and uniform. And so, uh, this was a chemical they were not using in other countries. Uh, if you got caught using it in Singapore, you got fined $450,000. And I petitioned Subway to remove this chemical because I didn't think eating that chemical was eating fresh, and Michelle Obama at the time had partnered with Subway in her Let's Move campaign, and I was like, "Wait a minute, does she not know the truth about Subway, that there's close to 50 ingredients in a, in the, in the piece of bread at Subway? Like, she needs to know." And so, I started this petition and it went so viral that the company, by the end of the week, made the decision to remove the chemical. And not only that, but every single bread manufacturer in America virtually removed the chemical too, so we shut down the azodicarbonamide chemical factory, okay? So you can only imagine how much money was involved with reformulation, removing that chemical, changing all the ingredient lists, all the packaging, all the things that the food industry had to do at that point.

   7. CWChris Williamson28:59

      You're a big spanner in the works of a lot of the operations.

   8. VHVani Hari29:03

      Yeah. They were not, they were not happy. And so, as a result, I started to be targeted by these organizations, these front groups, and paid for in... Quote-unquote, "Independent experts" that started to show up in every single article that was detailing my work. On one hand, it would say, you know, "Vani has gotten these chemicals out with her Food Babe Army and all these concerned citizens," and then on the other hand, "She doesn't know what she's talking about. She's pseudoscientific. She's got no education. She, she has no right to talk about any of these chemicals and, uh, she, uh, is dumb as a doornail. Uh, she's a food bimbo. Uh, she gets on..."

   9. CWChris Williamson29:47

      (laughs)

   10. VHVani Hari29:47

       No. That was, that was the headline of one of the biggest lobbyists against me and, and for the food industry, and, um, he's, he's... Quote-unquote doc- uh, they're c- he's, he... His nickname is Dr. Evil because he, he does that. I mean, he was against Mothers for Drunk Drivers. I mean, he's just an evil man. But, uh, that was a, a headline in the- I think it was The Washington Post. "Food bimbo." Um, uh, another one is, "She gets on all these programs because she's easier to look at." That was written by a professor in McGill University in Canada who was getting paid by Monsanto, Bayer, uh, to, to attack me, which I found out through Freedom of Information Request Acts that I submitted to his university.Uh, these are the conversations that we're having to destroy my character at the time, and because I was so unaware of what was going to go down taking on the industry, I became very scared because they went hardcore. I mean, death threats, rape threats, people coming by my house. Every single talk I gave that was a public talk had to have security there because people were trying to shut down the conversation.

   11. CWChris Williamson31:12

       Presumably, that's not operators from Kellogg's or Monsanto sending you that directly. Presumably, that's people who are downstream from the news articles and that have read the criticisms of you and stuff like that.

   12. VHVani Hari31:28

       Yeah, so i- it was being funded by the chemical and food industry. However, they were using these front groups that you can't tell what the industry funding's happening behind the scenes because they hide it. And we weren't able to discover a lot of this until we were able to see it through FOIA documentation that this was actually happening. And then on top of that, there was, and this just happened three weeks ago, Lighthouse Reports released a expose about a private social network that was being funded and directed by the communications director at Monsanto to ho- hold information about critics to the chemical and food industries, personal data, personal information, your- my address, my parents' phone numbers, my parents' names, my spouse's name, uh, on my profile, a three-page dossier on how- a- a- and doxing information on- given to people of the chemical industry and o- the entire chemical industry to use this information against me any time that my name would come up. And this is- this was just found out, um, three weeks ago and it's an incredible investigation. I'm still actually comprehending it all that this even was allowed to exist, but the worst part of it all was that the government was funding this through a program called USAID. And so, the government and the chemical corporations were working hand-in-hand against activists like myself. And other people were in there too, notable people like Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva, other activists who have spoken out about the food companies.

6. 33:20 – 37:34

   What Drives Vani’s Activism?

   1. CWChris Williamson33:20

      So suffice is to say, they're not your number one fan, probably at the moment.

   2. VHVani Hari33:26

      You know, you know, the New York Times coined me the, you know, public enemy number one of the food industry, and I take that badge with a lot of pride because honestly, it's- it's- it's something that I- I've had to- I've had to grapple with becoming an activist because it's been very hard on me personally in terms of being able to withstand these attacks, keep going, and keep sharing this information, and not letting it distract me. And for a while, I would say, about 10 years ago, it was very distracting to the point where I almost stopped, and it wasn't until I really took a moment and f- and- and went inside and prayed and decided that what I was doing was bigger than myself, that what I was doing was not about Bonnie, the vessel, me as a person. This was for the health of the world and for the right for people to know the truth about what's happened to the food industry, and I dug deep into the power and the passion that I have because I remember the little girl who I was, so sick, on nine prescription drugs, hitting rock bottom, and wanting to change with my health, and I didn't know where to start and I didn't know what to do. And thank goodness I found out the truth about the food industry and removed the processed foods from my diet and went to real food and now realize a level of health that I never thought was possible. I don't think I would've been here today alive had I continued the lifestyle that I was on. And there's so many people out there that are like me and they continue to walk around completely weaponized by these food chemicals and these different, um, um, ingredients that are in their body that are re- wreaking havoc on them and they're very trusting of the food industry. You know, when my parents came here to the United States in the 1960s, they didn't know any of this information. W- no one knew this information that this was being done to our food supply. They were- they were like, "Wow, you can get a hamburger at McDonald's for a dollar. This is fantastic. I could feed my kids. This is amazing, very fast." You know, "I'm busy working. I'm trying to make a name for myself. I'm trying to..." You know, my- my parents were both teachers and so, they were always working and- and it was like, they just wanted to feed their kids like real f- you know, just any kind of food. And it wasn't- they didn't know it was so fake. And now this information, because of the internet and because of social media, I feel like we have a really unique point in time right now where we can wake up the world and something s- that is so fabulous that is happening in the political landscape, that people are listening and now, not only the Democrats who- who- who- who- it was largely a Democrat, liberal issue to talk about the environment and the health and these chemicals, the other side...... is now talking about it, too. And I can't think of anything better for this country than for everyone to know the truth about the food industry, and it has been the most exciting time of my career in the last (laughs) two months because of this happening. I mean, I literally... When I saw on national news political candidates talking about chemicals in the way that they d- were, my- my job was just wide open. I just couldn't even believe it. And not only has this kind of woken up the world, but it's now a time where I really think that we might have an opportunity because of this widespread awareness to enact real change.

7. 37:34 – 43:38

   Most Concerning Food Establishments

   1. VHVani Hari37:34

   2. CWChris Williamson37:34

      You mentioned before, uh, you had a run-in with, uh, Chick-fil-A. Uh, I quite like Chick-fil-A. Can you just explain for some of the people listening, what are your lowest-ranked, most concerning, uh, American food establishments, and then where- what are some options that people can go to that you think are a little bit better?

   3. VHVani Hari37:58

      So let me just get this straight. You like Chick-fil-A?

   4. CWChris Williamson38:01

      I love the taste of Chick-fil-A. It tastes good.

   5. VHVani Hari38:03

      Well, everyone loves the chi- taste of Chick-fil-A. I... My mouth still waters when you say the words "Chick-fil-A."

   6. CWChris Williamson38:09

      So you like Chick-fil-A?

   7. VHVani Hari38:11

      Oh, it's fantastic. Are you kidding me? And they've engineered it that way. The second ingredient in a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich is monosodium glutamate, monosodium glutamate, MSG, is added to Chick-fil-A so that you remember the flavor, your mouth starts watering. You wanna have that sandwich. You- you- you love it, right?

   8. CWChris Williamson38:33

      Mm-hmm.

   9. VHVani Hari38:34

      And MSG is one of those additives that when they're studying obesity-related diseases, they give to rats to make them fat so that they eat more than they should, and they crave the flavor, and they keep eating and eating and eating. And so for me, when I found out that was the second ingredient at Chick-fil-A, I lost my... you know. I- I was mad. I was really mad, and I was so mad that I wrote an article called Chemical-Filet or Chick-fil-A because it had close to 100 ingredients, not... I mean, that- that's just one of the problematic (laughs) ingredients in- in Chick-fil-A, but several others. And- and it went so viral that the company reached out to me and invited me to their headquarters, and when they invited me to their headquarters, I had to take off from my regular day job. I was not... uh, wh- when I was wr- when I initially was starting my blog, Food Babe, I was doing it just bec- for my own passion, so it wasn't- it wasn't to make money or do anything like that. It was, you know... I was- I was a banker, you know? I was a consultant. I... That was my day job, and this is what I was passionate about and what I would write about in the evening and on the weekends. And so when my article went viral and they invited me to headquarters to consult and I had to take off work, it was that moment that I was like, "Wait a minute. I'm consulting all these big financial institutions. This doesn't really mean much to me." Th- but consulting with Chick-fil-A and changing their ingredients, like, that's real change, and, like, wow, I could really change the food industry. And that's when, after that meeting and the subsequent changes that Chick-fil-A made as a result of the- that meeting convinced me that I should quit- quit my job to do this full-time.

   10. CWChris Williamson40:25

       Okay, so who else is on the hit list? I've seen floating around, uh, a McDonald's comparison between fries in, like, the UK and Europe and in America. Uh, you've already mentioned Subway. Who else is on the- the hit list, and- and what are you worried about that they've got in their foods?

   11. VHVani Hari40:44

       So yeah, let's just talk about McDonald's. You've got McDonald's in the UK, three ingredients and then salt is optional, very simple. Here in the United States, it's over 14, and you've got the chemical called dimethylpolysiloxane. It's an ingredient that can be preserved with formaldehyde according to the FDA, although there's no safety data on this chemical. It's the main ingredient in Silly Putty, and when... (laughs) When it's combined with TBHQ, which is another crazy chemical that's a preservative that you'll find in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups here in the United States but not in Japan, um, this TBHQ ingredient turns on your immune response, so you become more al- allergenic to your surroundings and in your environment. And if you're already allergic to something, it triggers that, so it triggers an off-

   12. CWChris Williamson41:39

       Are they... Are they... Uh, are they, uh, preservatives? What- w- what's the justification for them being in the food? Presumably, they're not in there for no reason.

   13. VHVani Hari41:46

       So the TBHQ is a preservative for the oil, and dimethylpolysiloxane is a anti-foaming agent so that they don't have to change the oil as often at fast food places, and- and dimethylpolysiloxane, by the way, is- is in a lot of fast food french fries, not just McDonald's. Um, and this is something that you will also find, which when I did drink soda, I always thought a fountain soda always tasted better. I don't know why. But you will find this in a fountain Diet Coke where you will not find it on the label of a Diet Coke that you buy in a bottle, but when it's coming out of a fountain, they add dimethylpolysiloxane to Diet Coke.

   14. CWChris Williamson42:35

       Who's better? Who- who... Where can I eat that y- you're not gonna shout at me for going to?

   15. VHVani Hari42:43

       Well, uh, first of all, I just want you to stop eating at Chick-fil-A. (laughs)

   16. CWChris Williamson42:46

       Uh, well, look, there's s- g- gi- gimme, gimme another option. Where else am I gonna go?

   17. VHVani Hari42:50

       Um, where do you live?

   18. CWChris Williamson42:52

       Austin, Texas.

   19. VHVani Hari42:53

       Okay. (laughs) Gosh, you have so many good places to eat. W- well-

   20. CWChris Williamson42:57

       A-

   21. VHVani Hari42:57

       ... you can go to True Food Kitchen. Uh, you, uh, you can go to Chipotle. Chipotle's a great option. They removed all GMOs as a result of one of my campaigns as well, um, and they have probably the least amount of chemicals in their food in terms of a fast food. Um, Sweetgreen. Do you have Sweetgreen there?

   22. CWChris Williamson43:17

       We have-

   23. VHVani Hari43:17

       They removed all-

   24. CWChris Williamson43:17

       ... m- multiple-

   25. VHVani Hari43:19

       Yeah, they removed all seed oils. That's a great-

   26. CWChris Williamson43:22

       What about f-

   27. VHVani Hari43:22

       ... option for fast food.

   28. CWChris Williamson43:23

       What about Flowerchild?

   29. VHVani Hari43:25

       Love Flowerchild. Uh, a lot of their ingredients were organic. They've also removed most seed oils. Um, you know, I would also say make your own food, Chris. Come on. You know? I-

   30. CWChris Williamson43:37

       Again, no,

8. 43:38 – 49:36

   How to Shop for Food Better

   1. CWChris Williamson43:38

      no, no, no, look, I mean, so this is a point I really, I really wanted to get into, which I think is for the few food purists out there, and, you know, uh, Calley's been on the show. He's fantastic. Um, I, I'm really interested in the work that you're doing at the moment. I've been at dinner with RFK a bunch of times. It's, it's great to hear this mostly whole real foods from a variety of sources as unmolested as possible. I get it. But I think that the biggest barrier to entry to a lot of people, a lot of people that'll listen to the show, people like me, is just convenience, right?

   2. VHVani Hari44:07

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson44:07

      We're busy.

   4. VHVani Hari44:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson44:09

      Um, w- w- we need to be able to balance the things that we want to do in life. And I know, I know that, you know, if you eat sufficiently badly, talking about, "Well, what I'm doing is I'm saving myself time because I'm so busy," it's like, you're gonna lose time if you get sick in future. So I understand that it's a value trade, but I think that we kind of need to meet people where we're, they're at. And where I'm at is someone who a lot of the time doesn't have all that much time to actually, uh, get into the nuts and bolts of, of cooking stuff. And, uh, you know, there's, I guess, two, two elements there. First off, how can someone shop better in the supermarket? And secondly, uh, what are the l- labels? You've mentioned that there's some perverse incentives, uh, regulatory bodies and agencies and stuff. What, uh, USDA, is USDA any good? I've heard that, uh, organic doesn't actually mean all that good, but maybe it does. I've heard that non-GMO is maybe not all it's cracked up to be. What are the things that people should be looking for, uh, beyond not too many ingredients in the food obviously? How can people shop more effectively and what should they be looking for on packaging?

   6. VHVani Hari45:17

      Yeah, so let me just describe to you my favorite fast food, first of all. Whenever I am s- uh, strapped for time, this is my favorite fast food, a smoothie. And this is one of the reasons why I started my company Truvani where I created the protein powder with the least amount of unnecessary chemicals as possible, with all real food. And, you know, like our vanilla has five real ingredients, all that you would recognize. And so I start off with that, but then I add fresh greens, whatever I have growing in my yard. And if you don't have a garden, no big deal, just buy greens from the store. Celery, cucumber, lemon, ginger, and then I add fruit. And sometimes avocado for a little bit of fat or some hemp seeds, and that's it. And that shake is so delicious and so nutritious. It's got all of my vegetables. It's got the protein, it's got fruit, it's got everything, all the fiber that I need in there 'cause everything's intact. It's in a smoothie, and I consume that. It takes me less than 10 minutes to make. And, and it's all real food ingredients and it's fast. It's much faster than going through the drive-through, and it's much better on your body. So that's my hack for fast food, and I almost have that every single day for lunch 'cause I'm working through lunch and I k- I have two kids. Things are busy, right? Um, the second thing is when you're shopping at the grocery store, choose the perimeter, you know, all the fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, um, whole grains like quinoa, oats, um, brown rice or, or even regular rice is fine. Um, just choose organic because organic has less arsenic. Um, pasture-raised eggs, uh, pasture raised, uh, or grass-fed, uh, cheese. I, I do a lot of goat cheese, uh, that I love because goat cheese is just easier to digest. I, I love, um, any kind of yogurts, um, that are grass fed. I like, I love a coconut yogurt if you're vegan. That's called Cocojune, great and so delicious. They have an unsweetened vanilla version that's fantastic. Um, I eat a lot of chia seeds, um, different nuts, and then, you know, meats. Make sure they're grass fed, pasture raised. You can order any kind of n- sustainable meat now on the internet and have it shipped to your door frozen and have it ready stocked g- to go. And all you have to do is remember to defrost it really. You can, you can defrost things fast too, but remember to defrost things the night before. Just plan out your meals so that you're not stuck in that situation of, "Oh gosh, I'm so hungry. The only thing that I can eat right now is this fast food," because I don't wanna think about what to eat and how to prepare it and do whatever. And you just need to come up with five or six meals that you can repeat at home that your family loves, and this is one of the reasons why I've written two cookbooks, Food Babe Kitchen and Food Babe Family, with things that the whole family can sit down and eat. You're not making different things for each person and being a short order cook. You're eating one meal as a family. Everybody likes it. It's, it's nutritious. It's real food, and it's fast. I don't like spending, you know, all day in the kitchen, and, you know, I want things to be 30 minutes or less. And so a lot of my recipes are that way. So I would highly recommend that, number one, you start cooking at home. You pick the ingredients yourself. You know what you're eating. That's gonna be the, the best solution to the situation that we're in in terms of our food system. And that's the way I've decided to be revolutionary in my own life...... and to live this way is to be ... You know, it's very unconventional to live a real food lifestyle because every time you go out of your house, you're being in- inundated with these processed foods. Everything from the checkout at the grocery store, the fast food convenience places, all the places in the airport, uh, all the places at any kind of event, whether it's a sporting event or a show or anything else, it's always pure crap. You have to make a revolutionary act in your own life to say, "You know what? I'm not gonna be part of that system anymore. I'm gonna bring my own food to these places. I'm gonna take-

   7. CWChris Williamson49:27

      How do you-

   8. VHVani Hari49:27

      ... my own plate- food on the airplane. I'm gonna take my own food into the show, um, because they don't have anything worth eating."

9. 49:36 – 56:37

   Making Changes Without Having Health Anxiety

   1. VHVani Hari49:36

   2. CWChris Williamson49:36

      How would you advise people to deal with, what I imagine will be an increasing problem as your, uh, platform grows, and maybe people are feeling this today, which is sort of health anxiety. You know, if they're permanently very vigilant, on the lookout, maybe it's got monophosphoric whatever-the-fuck in it, um, (laughs) how-

   3. VHVani Hari49:59

      (laughs) New one.

   4. CWChris Williamson49:59

      How would you advise? 'Cause e- e- it's- it's this is gonna be a slow transition for a lot of people. It's n- And that day, the clouds parted and I listened to Vani talk and- and she- she said to me that ... and I'd never ate processed foods again. No. Y- you know, you're gonna h- you're gonna be at a baseball game and be starving hungry. You're gonna be on a road trip and you're gonna end up doing this stuff. You're gonna be at someone's party and you don't get to ch- ... Oh, I'm like, "You're taking us out for dinner and I'm going to bring my own thermos with, like, hot food from home." Like, that's not gonna happen. So, how do you advise people to, you know, take onboard what you're saying with the right amount of, uh, concern that they probably need to have whilst not going, "Right, my fucking life's over, I might as well die now"?

   5. VHVani Hari50:41

      Right. Well, first of all, you just need to stop making excuses because honestly, in order to live a healthy life in the system that we have, we have to be ... we have to have those situations. So, you might bring your own food to a party, you know, your own dish that you eat, right? Because you know everything else is crap. But you're contributing to the party, you're still there, you're having a good time. Like, you may have to do those cer- cer- situations, I'm just gonna have to say. Because th- Depending upon the lifestyle that you live, if you're in those situations a lot, that can really m- take a toll on your body, right? So, if you are in control of your food, I would say 80% of the time, you're gonna be in a good shape and then so that allows you, that other 20%, to, like, be in those situations where you're caught with your- your pants down, right? You don't have some snack available or some food available and you need to eat something and- and I've been in those situations where, like, literally there's nothing to eat that I would, uh, choose normally and sometimes I just decide to fast, right? I mean, hey, I can wait 'til the- 'til I get to where I'm going and get something better, but majority of times you can make better choices. There's always a banana, there's always an apple, there's always some plain almonds available at the airport, right? There's always an option for a one ingredient food and so that's what I- I tell people to do and- and again, if you're in these circumstances a lot, then you need to really make a choice whether you want to-

   6. CWChris Williamson52:10

      And start planning more effectively.

   7. VHVani Hari52:13

      ... do this or not, right? And so-

   8. CWChris Williamson52:13

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   9. VHVani Hari52:14

      ... um-

   10. CWChris Williamson52:14

       So, I think, um ... I- you remember when intermittent fasting became a really big thing in the bodybuilding world? There's another version called carb night, uh, carb back loading was a- a version of this where you would fa- basically, uh, macro fasting throughout the day and then you would have your carbs in an evening time. What most people are doing is they're setting very easy to follow rules that restrict them in simple ways, bright lines in the ground, no decision needs to be made. I get the sense that the recent transition to, uh, specifically diets like carnivore and then most recently the hipster trendy version, meat and fruit, uh, which is what I'm doing currently, uh, I think that that is kind of the equivalent of the elimination diet thing, which is bright lines in the ground. But instead of aiming to get you into a calorie deficit, what it's aiming to do is restrict the- the vectors of potential infection from foods that have been highly processed. If you go, "Look, if I just eat six things, I- I- I can just sort my health out for a while." So, I'm- I'm detoxing from a variety of different problems at the moment, autoimmune. America does not like, uh, foreigners. Uh, shock, horror, no matter what, uh, people on the right may criticize Democrats, definitely this environment is not very conducive to immigrants coming in, uh, because it tries to kill you, uh, through the food and through the building standards and through the climate and through the insects and through everything else. Uh, my point being, I would not be surprised if we see more people taking up these more extreme, uh, quasi-elimination style diets, very restrictive style diets in terms of what you're eating, uh, not from the, "Bro, I'm gonna get jacked and- and look at how lean I am," perspective, but more so from a, "Well, if I only have a very small number of things in my diet, I'm hopefully going to be able to eliminate some of the stuff that was maybe messing with my health."

   11. VHVani Hari54:10

       Yeah. You know, I think the reason why some elimination diets work is because you will remove so many foods from your diet, and so it ends up working in terms of, like, losing weight or whatever. But then when you add those foods back, that's when you gain the weight back and you end up in this, like, kind of yo-yo cycle, and the only thing they found, researchers have found, that actually work full time and long term is removing processed foods all together, right? If you eat real food, and let's say less than 10% of it's processed, that is the diet that literally withstands all of the other diet literature out there far- as far as what actually works long term and keeps you off of that yo-yo dieting strain and I've seen that in my own body.... having two children where I, you know, I was a little concerned. I was like, "Wow, I've gained 40 pounds having this child. Like, am I gonna be able to lose this? Am, am I gonna be one of those people that just can't lose it?" And it naturally left my body because I went... My diet didn't change. I'm still eating real food. I'm trying to eat as real as possible because I'm now nourishing my ba- baby through breast milk. And it just went off naturally. I didn't have to diet. I didn't have to work, go on some workout program. I didn't have to do anything extreme. It's because I was eating real food this entire time and it's why I've been able to maintain my weight now for 20 years and, and not have to do anything extreme. And so, like, th- I... My, my plea to all of the people out there that are struggling with weight is go to real food because real food will send the signals to your brain for you to stop eating. It will send the signals to your body to be healthy. It will elimi-... You will get off your prescription drugs. You will start to realize that a, a level of health that you never thought was possible. And even more than all of that, those aesthetic reasons, right? And internal health reasons, I think there's a bigger thing at play. I don't think people's brains can function at the highest level that it needs to function until you get real nutrition and real food. And you will not find out who you are meant to be in this world and give back to the world in the way that you're supposed to until you get your body completely clean of all of these chemicals.

10. 56:37 – 57:13

    Where to Find Vani

    1. CWChris Williamson56:37

       Fanny Hari, ladies and gentlemen. Fanny, I am watching with a combination of fascination and trepidation, uh, for this stuff that you're doing and the wars that you, uh, insist on getting yourself into. Where should people go if they wanna keep up to date with the stuff that you're getting up to?

    2. VHVani Hari56:52

       Just come on over to foodbabe.com. I'm The Food Babe on all social media. And, uh, thank you for having me, Chris.

    3. CWChris Williamson57:01

       Heck yeah. I appreciate you. Thank you.

    4. VHVani Hari57:03

       Thank you.

    5. CWChris Williamson57:03

       (instrumental music) Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, there is something else you will absolutely love right here. Go on. Give it a tap.

Episode duration: 57:13