Vani Hari
Appearances
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
It doesn't go bad on the shelf. Whereas what they're using in Canada, carrot juice, blueberry juice, watermelon juice, it has a shelf life, right? It can break down faster. It's a real food product. So it's different, right? That's number one.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Number two, they like the advantage of using artificial food dyes because in focus groups, they've found that kids will eat more of their product when it's brighter. So they make more money. And that's the part that's sinister to me in the fact that we have the rising rates of childhood obesity and disease. We have 38% of preteens ages of 12 to 18 having prediabetes.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
It used to be zero and now it's 38%. That is unacceptable to me.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
They 100% have a financial stake in the food industry. I mean, I'm just thinking about the recent New York Times piece that said that, you know, what if ultra-processed foods aren't that bad? That one specifically was written by someone who works for like, you know, has consulted with Beyond meat, one of the most processed man-made plant-based meats that I think is complete processed garbage.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
That isn't something that we should be eating. We should be looking at how do we deploy technology so that we can do more regenerative farming and so that we can get people to eat more real food and animals, not like man-made chemicals in a laboratory to have like fake blood in it.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I had asthma. I was in and out of doctor's offices for most of my life. I was on so many prescription drugs. When my parents would take me to the doctors, they never asked them, what is she eating? What are you feeding her? They never asked about my diet. They just put me on the next medication. And that is how I grew up.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
So when I look at these pieces that are being placed in the media, number one, a lot of times they're being placed by people who are apologists for the food industry, or they're planted by front groups. These front groups are something that I write about in my book, Feeding You Lies, where I talk about the food industry's playbook and how to unravel it.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
In there, they use these front groups that are very innocuous and they think, you see their name and you're like, wow, they sound so reputable. Like the American Council for Science and Health or the Genetic Literacy Project.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
You see these different names and you're like, oh, they just sound so scientific and they're full of experts and they're gonna tell me the truth about what's really happening and let me feel better about my processed food habit. Well, that's their purpose, is they're basically trying to be apologists for the big food and big chemical industries. And they place this with these news outlets.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And on top of it, from the political standpoint, and this is where I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone, where I'm waiting with bated breath at this very moment of the first Democrat that's going to say, yes, I will confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Secretary of Health and Human Services I'm waiting on bated breath for that. And everyone is staying on party lines.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
The same thing happened in media, where nobody would have me on, like CNN, NBC, none of them would have me on their network during the election. But as soon as the election was over, they're calling me. I'm like, this is where we're at, where we're just going to let our American kids suffer. That is something that every American should rise up against and say, enough is enough.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Like, when are we going to say, you know what? We're not going to buy your products anymore, Kellogg's. This is not something we're going to do. And also... We say to the media, this isn't fair to our children. You need to give us real reporting.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And this is why we have to decouple some of the big food advertising towards little children from media so that the Today Show will actually cover this and it's not just Fox and Friends.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Well, yeah. I mean, I just said one. First of all, get the marketing towards little children, junk food marketing from little children out of the media. There's over 10,000 food additives approved for use in the United States. Europe only allows four. Simple. Go down to that number. That would make a fundamental impact on the quality of our food.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I say instead of subsidies to big ag for GMOs and factory farms, we should subsidize regenerative farming, which will dramatically reduce the amount of pesticides being used on our food. This will help our farmers grow a much more wide variety of crops, moving away from ultra-processed foods that are made with corn and soybeans and sugar or sugar beets.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
In my early 20s, I hit rock bottom when I ended up in the hospital having to get my appendix taken out, one of my organs. At the time, they said, your appendix is something that you don't even need. It's an organ that just can come out. They made such a light situation out of it, but I started to question what the doctors were telling me, which is, why do we evolve and
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
we gotta root out the corruption from our health agencies. We've gotta stop the conflicts of interest with big food and pharma and chemical corporations. We have close to 50% of the funding of the FDA coming from industry, and they say they're not gonna criticize the food industry.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
So it's like, even if you just required the warning labels that they require in Europe on artificial food dyes, so American parents could know the harms of choosing that product and eating that ingredient,
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
They understand this. They can get it done. Just looking at RFK Jr. 's track record, how he won a historic $2.2 billion case against Monsanto and Roundup Wheat Killer, and it showed that it's strongly linked to cancer. I think seeing his determination, he's so incredibly passionate about this subject. And then when it comes to Dr. McCary, he's absolutely incredible. I mean, I've read his books.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
He understands how corrupt medicine these institutions have been. And he also understands like looking at root cause analysis from a functional medicine perspective. And so I would much rather have someone in that position that gets these issues fundamentally. And by the way, publicly supported the fact that he's not buying Kellogg's because of this situation as well. I mean, I was floored.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I was like, yes, thank you, doctor. And it's incredible. So he gets it. He understands this.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
These are simple changes we could make today that if our governments, leaders, and agencies put the hatred for each other away and just think about American children and think about how many people are on Adderall to help these issues, how fundamentally they can change American children and help improve their lives and their teachers' lives and their parents' lives.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
having an appendix first of all, but I wanted to find answers of like what happened to my appendix of why it was about to burst. And so when I started to research really what was happening in my body, I found out that I had extreme inflammation and that was coming from my diet.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And when I started to make changes shortly after that scare and that situation, I remember getting this one big book and in it, there was a concept in it that hit me like a ton of bricks. And it was that the majority of foods on the grocery store shelf are dead. They're not alive.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And I was like, that's how I've felt for most of my life, like a zombie, not wanting to get up in the morning and go to school, not wanting to participate in activities and physical sport activities because I didn't have the energy because of my asthma.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And so when I started to take the concepts in that book and apply them to my life, and I started to eat as much real living food as possible, things like fruits and vegetables and things that I would find at the farmer's market, My whole life changes. I mean, it was dramatic to the point where I lost all of the weight that I had put on as a result of this lifestyle.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
But I also started to realize a level of health that I never thought was possible. I got off nine prescription drugs. And the people around me that grew up with me, my relatives, my friends, they were like, whoa. You have made a dramatic transformation in your appearance. What are you doing? We want a piece of what you're doing.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And they begged me actually to start a blog to share this information, to share my recipes and what I was doing and why suddenly I refused to eat candy because it had artificial food dyes. And they wanted to know the green drink that I was drinking and what was in it and how they could make it at home. And this is before, you know, we even had a Whole Foods in Charlotte.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Back then, it was the little mom and pop natural food stores or the farmer's market. And so I had to really teach people people in my community and people around me on these new methodologies of how to take care of your health and actually look at the root cause of what's happening in your body.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And I started to realize that there were so many people out there beyond my friends and my family that didn't know the truth about what was happening in our food supply. And I wanted to investigate it for them. And I wanted to investigate it for my own personal reasons in that there are so many products that I thought were healthy but weren't actually healthy.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Things that I thought were good for me because of the fact that they only had 400 calories or this many fat grams or whatnot, or they had the marketing of, quote unquote, eat fresh at their fast food chain that I was eating fresh, but I found out I wasn't. And so I started to investigate these major fast food chains, major food companies, and the company started reaching out to me.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I think the first one that reached out was a yogurt chain who I was very upset with because they were really promoting the fact that they were using organic milk for their yogurt. And I was like, this is amazing. This is so awesome. I could go to the mall and I could have this treat and it's good for me.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
But when you looked at the ingredients, they were coloring their products with artificial food dye. They were putting in preservatives and trans fats. Yes, they were starting with organic milk, but they were adding, you know, 30 more chemicals to the concoction that they put in the machines. And so I wrote about that and how duped I felt.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And it went so viral that the CEO of the company reached out to me, pulled the marketing off their stores and apologized. Wow. And that was my first taste of activism and my first taste of, oh my gosh, my voice can make a difference. And it was probably when Chick-fil-A invited me to their headquarters after I wrote an article called Chemical Filet or Chick-fil-A.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I showed the hundred ingredients that they have in their Chick-fil-A sandwich and how I thought they were healthier than going to McDonald's. But when I compared them to the McDonald's ingredients, they were virtually the same. And this really shocked people.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I mean, it went so viral that the executives at Chick-fil-A invited me to their headquarters to consult on their menu items on how to make their ingredients better. And when I was taking off work to go there to consult with them instead of consulting with banking institutions, I was like, okay, something got to give here. Like this is obviously way more impactful than what I'm doing at the banks.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And so I ended up deciding to quit my job. And when I quit my job, I was not making a dime doing Food Babe. It was literally there as a passion project. So it was something that I had to really figure out. The beautiful thing that happened after I quit my job was I was able to spend 100% of my time researching the food industry. And the first thing that I did was I was an avid traveler.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I love to travel. It's been a passion of mine since I was a little girl. And whenever I would go to Europe or another country, I'd always feel better. I felt I felt better. I liked the food better. It tasted better. And I was like, what's going on here? Like, why is it so different?
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And so I started to compare products that we have here in the United States to products that they sell in other countries. But the exact same products. So like a Doritos package here in the United States versus a Doritos package in Europe. And I would compare the ingredients. And I did this large experiment. and I think the title is something like how US companies are exploiting Americans.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And I showed this stark differences between the same product that's being sold here and in other countries and how in other countries they're using better and safer ingredients. And while here they're using man-made chemical additives. And that side-by-side comparison went so viral that it was an opportunity to finally say, you know what, we need to hold the food companies accountable for this.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
You know, one of the examples in that investigation was Quaker Oats. Here in the United States, Quaker Oats was a strawberry Quaker oak pack had dyed apple pieces to make it strawberry, dyed with a red 40, an artificial food dye linked to hyperactivity in children and can be contaminated with carcinogens. But in Europe, they're using real strawberries.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And, you know, that product, Quaker quickly got onto that and that product doesn't exist anymore, thankfully. But it was... Something that I just couldn't believe the stark differences. And so I decided to take on one of the largest food companies in the world, which was Kraft at the time. And they were serving little children mac and cheese with artificial food dyes, yellow five and yellow six.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
While in Europe, they're using paprika and beta carotene. Wow. And, you know, it was a viral petition. It was so exciting. For the first time, we were on national TV. It gained a lot of steam, like 270,000 signatures very quickly. And on April 1st, it wasn't Happy Fool's Day for Kraft that day because I took the petition to their headquarters and I demanded a meeting. And they sat down with me.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
They really did. And I sat down and I looked them in the eye and I just said, why? aren't you doing this for American children? You already have the formulation in other countries. Why are we getting the man-made additives that are linked to all of these health issues that we're experiencing? We have crazy chronic rates of disease for our kids, close to half of children on some kind of medication.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
What is going on here? And they looked at me and they said, we have to agree to disagree. And they dismissed me. And I said, you know what? I'm not gonna let up. I'm gonna keep leading the charge. I'm gonna keep educating the public. I'm gonna tell people the truth about these chemicals.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And within six or seven months, they had to change because what happened was we were able to change the marketplace. People went from Kraft macaroni and cheese to their competitor, Annie's, who didn't use artificial food dyes. And then General Mills saw an opportunity. We're gonna buy Annie's for $800 million. And so at that point, Kraft's like, shoot, we're going to lose all our market share.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
We need to change right now. And they did, which was great. And the funniest part of it all, which just makes me laugh to this day, is whenever they told the press that they were making the change, they're like, it had nothing to do with the petition, right? It had nothing to do with the worldwide press on this issue. So I took that momentum and And I continued it and took on more giants.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Yeah, my parents came here as immigrants in the 1960s. And when they came to the United States, they were big on adopting the American culture. And so when my dad went back to have an arranged marriage to my mother in India, and they ended up coming here to live the rest of their life, the first thing he introduced her to was a McDonald's hamburger.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Well, shortly after taking on Subway, I ended up taking on the beer industry. I took on Starbucks. Starbucks removed caramel coloring level four from their drinks and posted their ingredients for the first time in history. They were actually hiding their drink ingredients for many, many years from the public. But
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
After I took all of those giants on, you know, I sort of receive a lot of attacks and they try to take my character down and they try to do whatever they can to get me to stop. And it was very intense. And at the time I could say I was super kind of naive about what I was doing because I was like,
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
wait a minute, if I just tell the truth and they do the right thing and these companies change, this is great for everybody, right? But I didn't realize that there's some factory that makes azodicarbonamide and now they got to be shut down and people are losing their jobs and there's money lost by these companies that have to change their formulations and all of that.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And I'm affecting a trillion dollar industry, really, you know? And so... I was like, oh boy, I'm going up against the giants. Like this is really intense. And it was the moment that I started the Kellogg's petition, which is when my daughter saw Baby Shark cereal at the grocery store. She was two at the time.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And I had remembered that Kellogg's said that they were gonna remove artificial food dyes. So I was like, oh my gosh, let me check the ingredients. It's 2019 now. They said they would do it by 2018. It's gotta be done by now. And this is a new product. So of course they've done it, right? They didn't.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
They started creating new products and targeting the littlest modern children of today by using the most popular toddler song, Baby Shark. And now my daughter is interested in this product that they still are poisoning us with ingredients they don't use in other countries. In Europe, in Canada, in Australia, in India, Kellogg's doesn't use artificial food dyes. Here in the United States, they do.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And they said they would remove them. So I was like, why isn't anybody in Washington or the press or anybody holding them accountable for this commitment they made? They made Worldwide Press when they made the commitment and got the praise from it, but no one's holding these companies accountable for their actions. Their shareholders aren't doing it. Like, what is happening here?
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And so I was like, you know what? I'm starting a petition. And so I was so glad and happy that two of my friends food fighters in this space I got connected with earlier this year, Callie Means and Jason Karp. We started working together again on how to take on big food. And it was, let's finish the job with Kellogg's. So Jason got into the fight.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
He wrote a shareholder letter, sent it to Kellogg's and saying, you know, this is unacceptable. You must remove artificial food dyes. And they were gonna have a meeting with us. but they actually reneged on the meeting because we wanted to bring some doctors to the table because they wanted to bring the Consumer Brands Association with them.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
Now, the Consumer Brands Association is the biggest big food lobby group in Washington. They're going to do whatever they can to belittle you or to make you look like your pseudoscientist or your fear mongerer. And they will use whatever they can to kind of spin the situation against you.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And so we're like, okay, if you're going to bring the Consumer Brands Association, a huge lobbying group with you, we'll bring our scientists with us that show that these artificial food dyes are causing harm to children. They didn't like that. And so they shut down the meeting. Once they did that, they left us no decision at that point.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And that's how I was raised on an American standard diet. We were one of the only Indian families in Charlotte at that point, Charlotte, North Carolina, where I grew up and where I live now. So everything was kind of handed to us in terms of what we should be eating. And my parents were very trusting of the American food system. And As a result, I was really sick as a child. I had eczema.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And it was like, how can we bring the most attention to this as possible? And when I was invited to be part of the Senate Roundtable with Senator Ron Johnson, I was able to finally discuss how American companies are using better, safer ingredients for other countries and not us.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And I was able to show the examples, not with just Kellogg's, but so many other brands on how we are systematically being poisoned here in the United States because our FDA allows it to happen. They literally just said two weeks ago, that they will not criticize the food industry. If they will not criticize the food industry, how can they hold them accountable?
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
And in the room was Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also giving testimony, and he heard my testimony, and I could tell it really resonated with him. This has been something that's been important to him, and he gets these issues. And it was such a beautiful moment because when he was giving his closing remarks, he said something so profound. He said,
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
another country was doing this to us, it would be considered an act of war. But these are our own American companies, and it's un-American.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
I think it's a couple things. So first, I think they're going to eventually change. I know they are. There's no way they're going to be able to be a viable company in the next 100 years with artificial food dyes. There's too much awareness happening. We have leadership at the highest levels bringing this awareness down. Every single mainstream news station is talking about these issues.
Morning Wire
Food Babe’s MAHA Mission | 2.2.25
It's absolutely incredible, the movement that has been created and the grassroots movement. We literally have unstoppable momentum. And so I know they're going to change. But the two reasons why they wouldn't change, well, that they are maybe putting their heads in the sand is that number one, artificial food dyes are cheaper for them to buy because it's a petroleum-based product.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
38%.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So, you know, I continued working on in the corporate world. And I remember having this really terrible boss. And he was so bad that I started not being able to sleep at night. I started to get very fearful of, you know, just going to work. And it was becoming an issue. He was very aggressive. And in the way he acted, in the way he not only managed his employees, but treated me in general.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It was very misogynistic, if you will. And so I started to feel like kind of this this situation where I suddenly just stopped sleeping. So I went to the doctor and I just remember this moment because I sat in her, you know, she was my internist and I sat on the table and I told her, I was like, you know, I just can't sleep. I have a lot of stress at work.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And she just asked me like kind of what's happening. And she goes, oh, okay, this is what you need. You need Ambien, you need Xanax, and you need, starts with a C, it's an antidepressant. It starts with a C, I can't remember the name of it. And I said, wait a minute, like really? Like these, you want me to take these three drugs? And I was so trusting.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
of my doctor and so trusting of the medical system that I took those drugs to get through that time period when she should have just been saying, hey, Vonnie, why don't you quit your job? You're 25 years old. Like, why don't you quit your job, right? Why don't you go look for another job? You don't need to take this mistreatment from this dude because you're making a big paycheck.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Like, go find another job, right? But this is kind of where I think the rubber meets the road for me when I was going through that period, because that's really where my... Symbalta? Symbalta. That's it. Thank you. I was like, it starts with a C. Symbalta, yeah. And... It was around that time where I said, I don't need to be on these drugs.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
They were, first of all, making me completely numb and crazy, right? I suddenly was laying on the couch all day not doing anything, right? And it was that moment that I just said, you know, these drugs aren't for me. I need to get off these drugs, but I don't know how to do it. I found a integrative psychiatrist that also practices acupuncture, and she helped me get off of it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I started learning about natural foods, and I started learning about real food. And I started learning about food in a way that I had never known before in terms of
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I started looking at ingredient labels of things that I had been eating most of my life, and I became horrified because I realized that they were man-made chemicals invented for one sole purpose, which was to improve the bottom line of the food industry, not improve my health. And so I was eating this like science experiment. No wonder I didn't feel good, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I'd gained the weight and ended up in the hospital with appendicitis, but also didn't even have any other mechanism to get through a stressful time. The only option I was given from my doctor was here you go is, you know, all of these different, you know, brain altering medications.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And it wasn't until I made the connection that you can actually get through stressful times through meditation, through sleeping well, through, you know, eating well, from getting off of processed foods that actually make it very hard to think clearly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And as soon as I changed my diet from a processed food diet to a real food diet, things from earth, basic meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, when I did that, everything changed. I lost all the weight. I went off nine prescription drugs.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I started to look completely different to the point where my friends and my family around me couldn't believe the remarkable transformation to the point where one of my aunts joked with one of my cousins, did she have some work done? How long did that take? It took a period of two to three years. Yeah, two to three years. And a lot of trial and error, too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Of, oh, I thought this was healthy and this isn't. And there were so many time periods where I wouldn't eat a McDonald's hamburger anymore, but I'd go to Subway because it was, quote unquote, eat fresh, right? And then I found out Subway's bread had close to 50 ingredients, an ingredient in there called azodicarbonamide that you find in yoga mats and shoe rubber.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And they don't use it in single- They can be good if you prepare them properly. You know, they don't use it in Singapore and Europe and Australia and everywhere else, but they use it here in the United States. Like, what is this chemical doing in our bread?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Fundamentally for the food companies, it makes them more money because it's cheaper to use a chemical additive made from petroleum or coal tar or some other substance than to eat real food. And the reason why it's cheaper for them to do that is because it doesn't break down over time.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah. I mean, it's economics because it allows them to keep that bread there longer at every subway around the block, right? It allows them to have that uniformity of that product as well, which is what fast food tends to do, which is you want that same product every single time and you want it to taste the same every single time, no matter who's making it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, yeah. And so then I couldn't shut up about everything that I was learning.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So I started a blog and I wanted to call it eathealthyliveforever.com. And my husband, who's the tech geek in the family, thought that was a terrible name. And so he said, he found on auction a few minutes later, Food Babe for $10. And at first I didn't want to call it Food Babe because it felt kind of foreign. I didn't feel like a food babe for most of my life.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But I said, why don't we teach people to become a food babe? Like how to be a food babe.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But it makes people uncomfortable in some settings, which I find so interesting. And maybe you can comment on that because it's really interesting that it makes people uncomfortable. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Like Senator Ron Johnson, for example, like when he announced, you know, that I was about to give my testimony.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
He's like, I didn't come up with the name food, babe. Right. He just didn't want to take responsibility for it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
That's right. And so... Where?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
WordPress.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
In 2011.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I gave up television to find time to blog outside of work.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, I gave up watching television.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Oh, it was great. It was the best thing I ever did. So I found time to research and write and I started to just have this insatiable curiosity about all the things that I was eating and then looking at the ingredients and posting the ingredients for people to see what they were eating. And my friends and my family, like my mom and my few friends that wanted to read my blog at the time,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But it started to reach a wider community. And I realized there's other people out there looking for this information on what they were eating. And there was a food movement starting. And it was probably when I wrote the article, Chemical Filet or Chick-fil-A, that went viral.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And Chick-fil-A invited me to their headquarters to consult on their menu changes and ingredient changes that I finally made the decision. Why did they do that? Um... They were smart. They were smart. They rolled out the red carpet. They picked me up in a cow-wrapped car. They were really smart to try to make friends with me. More food industry executives should hear that message because...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
There's this revolving door of people who are working for chemical and food corporations and then going to serve in government to kind of uphold their interests.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
the reason why Kellogg's is suffering so bad right now is because they wouldn't let us in, right? We just recently went to their headquarters with over 400,000 signatures to get artificial food dyes and a preservative called BHT that's linked to cancer out of their cereals. And they wouldn't let us in. They wouldn't even sit down with us to take the petitions in person.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So what is that going to do to activists? It's going to rile us up. It's going to make us mad. It's going to make us go harder. And we started a national boycott. Now Fruit Loops is down 54% in the last 12 weeks on grocery store shelves. And their stock price is down.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
The reason Froot Loops is such a good example, they already make... other cereals without these additives for virtually everywhere else. Canada, Australia, Europe, India, you know, everywhere almost. And this has got to stop across the board. And so Kellogg's is one example of a larger problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I mean, it's not, I'm concerned, number one, I think the main concern I have with Froot Loops is I don't want anyone to ever eat it again, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And targeted towards little children. And the biggest profit generator for Froot Loops is actually in U.S. schools. In schools.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I see. So it's being sold to schools and served for breakfast to our little children. And then it has chemicals in it that affect their brains. It causes hyperactivity. In Europe— you have a cigarette type warning label on any product that has artificial food dyes that warns parents that says may cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
In Europe, parents get to know, have full informed consent on a product. Here in the United States, we don't have that, right? We allow our companies to just put these poisons in our food when they've already reformulated them better for other countries. And then on top of it, these carcinogens are made from petroleum and- And these are the coloring? These are the colorings, yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And just the way that they are produced create all kinds of carcinogens and other problems, immune response, allergies, other things in the human body, eczema. So one of the things that I first did when I went through my transformation is I suddenly gave up artificial food dyes. I just said, no artificial food dyes. And just that alone
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
helped me transition to a better, cleaner, healthier life because the products that didn't contain artificial food dyes were few and none, right, at the time. Now there's a whole another industry being created without a lot of these chemicals, which is great. One being my company, Truvani, where we're creating products that are processed, like our bar is processed
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
but it's made with ingredients you would find in your own kitchen. Dates, maple syrup, nuts, right? And that's the kind of food we should be consuming and have available to the public to eat, not food that is made with poisonous carcinogens that make, for example, let's take yellow number six that's in Cheetos. Yellow number six, there's a new study that just came out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
They're terrible, but I grew up on them, and so many children eat them, and they're served in schools too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yes, and Doritos.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But this is what we're eating. This is what kids are getting after their soccer match. This is what is happening out there that's available whenever you go to a show or anywhere else. This is what people, I mean, you go through the airport, that's what's available.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
If these are riddled with these carcinogens like yellow six, for example, that they just showed that turn the skin of mice transparent. Like, I can't make this up. Like, this is horrifying what it's doing to animals in animal studies, but we allow ourselves to continue to eat it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It is really hard, but I don't think nutrition has to be rocket science either. I think the only people that have made it difficult to understand or calculate in a way has been the food scientists themselves that have created these chemicals using the same technology as tobacco companies. R.J., R. Reynolds, and Philip Morris bought up all the food companies in the early
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I mean, it's a basic question to ask, why does the Coca-Cola served here have high fructose corn syrup made from genetically engineered corn here in the United States, but in other countries, they're using real sugar, right? Like we have a seriously different set of ingredients and chemicals that we are being exposed to than other countries.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Because they're using more natural ingredients, things that came from the earth. And I'm using my own, again, going back to this idea that it doesn't need to be rocket scientists. The food scientists have made our life complicated because all you have to do is go back to real food.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Intuitive eating and going back to what you would find in a farmer's market is literally the first step to unleashing your grips on this industry that has harmed our health, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Forever. I think about the Maasai, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I've been a food activist for many years, for over 10 years. And I... have been wanting to hold American food companies accountable for using ingredients that are banned or heavily regulated in other countries for a long time. I think it's disgraceful. I think it's unethical. I think it is hypocritical.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yes.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You go back to real food without added chemicals.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
That's right. Yeah, or the farmer's market. You go there. And it's really that simple. It really is. It's not complicated. And, you know, I think what has been so disturbing about the American food supply is it's been engineered to get us to eat more than we should.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, absolutely. So RJR Reynolds and Philip Morris bought up General Foods and Kraft back in the day. And what they did was they said,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
we have an opportunity now to get into the food business because there was a decrease in the use of tobacco because of the cigarette type warning labels, you know, the warning labels that they enacted and people became clear on you shouldn't really smoke tobacco, it causes cancer. And so they were looking for another opportunity to diversify their portfolio
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so they said, well, we have all of this amazing research that we've used to hook people to tobacco. We can use the same research and the same scientists to do the same thing to food. And we're going to buy the flavoring companies too, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, which is 100% true. Which parts of it?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Well, because... Well, I mean, PepsiCo has a robot that... has mimicked real human taste buds that they use for testing, okay? And this kind of information is getting out now because we have a teenager in Pennsylvania that just filed a lawsuit.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
He's 16 years old, has non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and diabetes, and he is suing 11 of the top food companies in America for his ailments, saying that the ultra processed food diet that he was on made him that way because it was addictive in nature. And so as part of that lawsuit, they've come out with this evidence, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And more is gonna be discovered in Discovery, which I'm so excited about because when I read the lawsuit, it was over, I don't know, 150 pages or something.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And when I read it, it was like a horror movie because it showed, even though it was in the exact pictures of what kind of technology they use to addict our taste buds and our senses to food, they showed the types of technology and the brain nodes that they actually attach to rats and to humans and to... Yeah, well, people understand the dopamine system pretty well now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I think it's immoral that an American food company can serve a better, safer version of their product for another country and not their own citizens and how when they find out they can make a product that's safe, they don't do it for all of their customers.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So that's where the moral dilemma comes in, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
38%?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
12 to 18 years old.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It used to be zero, right? We have to look at what's happening in the food supply. We have to hold someone accountable for it or create some type of regulation or change that would prevent this from continuing to go down into the dumps, which is where we're headed because right now we're last when it comes to- Okay, let me ask you another question.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I mean, you can say that I'm doing both in a way because I'm an activist on one side, but I also am a cookbook writer on the other, right? I've written two cookbooks where I'm teaching people how to make things faster with real food in the house that doesn't take all day, right? Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But the problem is the way our nutritional science gets divvied to the public and decimated to the public, it's riddled with conflicts of interest. It creates a situation where, for example, you have these studies that come out and they say candy actually makes kid athletes better at their sports. you know, this was a headline that went out, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And it was a study funded by Mars and, you know, the company who makes M&Ms and the other American candy companies. Well, these studies come out not because they, like, we're going to believe them and we're going to call out the bullshit for them, but it makes it so that when a mother is in the line at a grocery store,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
and their child is tugging at their skirt, grabbing those M&Ms and wanting to put them in the cart, they say, oh, it's really not that bad, right? It makes that situation so that they feel okay doing it. And that's...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so I've been working on this issue for a long time through petitions, through campaigns to get food companies to change because government regulators have been asleep at the wheel. They haven't held these food companies accountable. The conflicts of interest are riddled in the government that prevent them from enacting anything that would be helpful to safeguard ourselves from these chemicals.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
how probably 90% of the information that gets sent out to the American public through media, through marketing, through magazines, through wherever we're listening, TV is happening when it comes to food. The real information about how our food is full of chemicals and has been designed to make us overeat is not getting out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so when you make such an interesting argument, and I love that you've delved deep into the psychology behind this, because it is true that the food companies want to make their food delicious.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
They are delicious. I mean, of course, because, but is it an unfair advantage to an American, to a human being, that a company can have that kind of technology, a robot that has taste buds.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
We can't compete with that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Mothers can't compete with that. We don't even stand a chance up against that science because they're creating the one millionth best part of a taste. You know, the reason why nature is so... important for a child to eat at a very young age and allows them to become a less picky child is because, take a blueberry. Sometimes they're mealy. Sometimes they're hard. Sometimes they're juicy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Sometimes they're plump. Sometimes they're small. Sometimes they're big. It's different every time you have a blueberry. Whereas if you go and get a blueberry Nutri-Grain bar or some other cereal, it's the exact same time every single time. And then
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
They're using the one millionth best part of a taste in a flavor component that they call natural flavor on the label, which could mean a thousand different chemicals. And if your kid grows up on that, they're going to be picky and hate real food, and they're going to end up in that 38% pre-diabetes situation that we have right now with preteens.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Whereas if you start your child on blueberries, real blueberries... they're going to have a chance, right? And so we have to hit it from both sides. We have to hold the food companies accountable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
We also have to educate the public the truth about the food industry, the truth about nutrition, the truth about real food, what's been done to our food in the last 50 years, how to undo that in your own home, and how to get the products out there, and how to pick the right products that are using less chemicals and additives so that you don't expose your family to this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And we're just at this critical phase right now where we have an opportunity like we've never had before because of the national conversation. And I have more hope now that we can actually change the trajectory of where we're headed
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
than I've ever had in my entire career, and it's allowed me now to get back in the game, whereas before, again, I was worried about getting back in the game, because I have children now, right? And it was the reason why I wanted to say no to doing the Senate testimony, but I'm so glad I did, because now we have created, it's beautiful, because we've created this
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
community of people, this movement of people that not only care about their own health, but they want to hold these companies accountable. They want to spread this message far and fast and wide. And it's taking over social media to the point where it's getting to people that I never thought would ever listen or understand.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And that's the piece that I think is so important about the work that I do is I want people to wake up And so when I pick a certain company and I target some individual company for a chemical, it's not necessarily about that chemical or that company. It's about waking people up because of the injustice of what's happened to our food system.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Well— First of all, after the Senate hearing, I couldn't believe the media, for example. We had the left-leaning mainstream media either ignore us or call us names. They called us the woo-woo caucus.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so when I was invited to be part of the Senate roundtable with Senator Ron Johnson, at first I said no, actually, because for many years I've been off the scene. I haven't been holding the food companies accountable in that big, bold way because I became a mom. I started a food company to change the food industry from within. I took kind of a backseat to this activist role because
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
100 percent. 100 percent. Because they didn't even bother to ask for comment or, you know, interview us or anything like that. They just wrote the article. And it's in The Atlantic. You know, this is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, they're done.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, it makes me mad because it was one of the Christmas gifts that my father-in-law would send to us. And I'm like, great, I can read this. This is fantastic. You know, I would quote it all the time. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, that was really disappointing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And let me just tell you, the four hours we were there, there was not one political partisan party talking point talked about. It was four hours on how to save humanity. And Nobody wanted to cover it. It was insane. I just couldn't believe it that, like, the mainstream media just completely, you know, ignored us in a way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I mean, and I just—it was like the Twilight Zone. I really couldn't believe it. And I also want to say thank you to Senator Ron Johnson for allowing me— How did he get involved? Like, why did he do this? You know? I mean, I think he cares deeply about what's happened to our health in this country. And he wanted truth tellers to be there at the table telling the truth.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And he allowed me to talk about the food companies in an uncensored way that has never been before Congress in that way ever to the point where— It was a very weird day. Yeah, I mean, and I honestly am so thankful for that because my testimony went so far and so wide. I mean, hundreds of millions of views across so many different platforms.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And people were all of a sudden just waking up going, oh, my gosh, I had no idea these— chemicals are in American food and not other countries, and why are American companies doing this? And the questioning starts to happen in someone's mind, and they start to question what they're eating, and that's where it starts, right? That's where the change happens.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I do this work because I want people to never get in the position I was in when I was younger. I wanna reach them before they get to that point. I don't know if I'm successful or not.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I feel like I'm successful in that I get the people that are starting on the verge of being sick or they're looking for change, but I'm really hoping I get to the people that haven't had to go through the trouble that I've been through. And that is what ultimately motivates me to keep my message loud and clear because I think where people start to pay attention is sometimes this situation where
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
it's taken from a different point of view. It's not the, oh, you should eat healthy, you should eat more fruits and vegetables. Oh, you should look at your nutrition, you know, what the traditional route of a nutritionist or a registered dietician would have done, right? But from an activist standpoint, I think it's like, everybody wants to hold someone accountable for this mess.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Somebody wants, there has to be a villain in this, right? And the villain right now is the food industry in a way because Again, they have put profits over people over and over and over again. And now we're in a situation when we look at the chronic disease rates, we are in a dire situation where we all have to work together, corporations and government, to try to solve this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And that's what I'm so excited about because after that Senate roundtable, it was like an explosion happened with our movement. I don't know if you felt that. I mean, I just felt like it was the turning point in a way. I mean, just having Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You could say my nurturing phase of my life became more important to safeguard my kids. And when I was an activist and I hit the national level and the national stage, I was attacked. I was attacked by the media. I was attacked by paid for scientists. I was attacked by quote unquote independent experts who were actually getting paid by the food industry.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
sit down with us and hear each one of our testimonies and him say these words to me, and I'll never forget, he said this, he said, if another foreign nation was doing this to us, it would be considered an act of war.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
When it came down to, you know, American companies using ingredients that are banned or heavily regulated in other countries, not in their own, you know, not, you know, they use a safer version for other countries and a more toxic version here. That is something that just needs to change and fundamentally stop.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. You know, when we took... the petitions to Kellogg's headquarters. And I used, you know, my Senate testimony to kind of lay the framework of that petition drop because- So this was after this Senate hearing? That's right. And so I said in my Senate testimony, I said I was going there on October 15th and you should come.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You know, I invited everybody in the room and I invited other activists and the public and they came. I mean, we had a thousand people on the ground in Battle Creek, Michigan, very hard place to get to. And we marched to Kellogg's headquarters. It was a pivotal moment in my career to see that many people care about the American food system and changing it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And they understood that this is a much bigger issue. But when we got to the front door and they didn't let us in, they sent out a security guard. We looked up into the building and in the window, one of the executives was still in the building. They actually told most of their employees to go home that day.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
On a whiteboard, that rolling whiteboard, he wrote, get off our lawn and showed it down to all of the women and the children and everybody who was gathering there that day. And it was all captured on film. And this really made a lot of people mad, made me mad. I had to cool off for a second seeing that sign. Like, I can't believe they don't even have the decency to take these petitions in hand.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
I mean, when I did this with Kraft, when they were doing this with Kraft macaroni and cheese using one set of ingredients here in the United States and another in other countries, I petitioned them as well, and I delivered those petitions. They invited me in. That's what you do when someone gathers that many signatures and takes them to your headquarters.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You don't deny them entry and treat them like a terrorist, right? But since then, what's been so amazing to watch is I'm sending letters now to other big food corporations. I sent a letter to General Mills. Immediately, they responded. They didn't ignore me. And that's what I expect food corporations to be doing from this point forward because It is the biggest PR mistake ever.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And to the point where I had to have security when I went to go speak at universities. I had people drive by my house. I had, you know, death threats, rape threats online. So that work going up against a trillion dollar industry kind of took a backseat when I became a mom and then- When did you become a mom? Almost eight years ago now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Right, to not listen to us, not sit down and talk to us.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And General Mills has already created a new cereal without artificial dyes. So I think they're on their path. I think they're going to be probably one of the first to change. But again, cereal is not exactly the healthiest thing we want people to be eating.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But this is about a bigger issue, which is getting the chemicals out of the food, making it more real, having processed foods be available but not full of carcinogens and other toxins that could be affecting your brain, affecting your body, affecting your immunity. and increasing cancer incidences. We have to look at everything, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Thank you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah. And so earlier this year, I was called upon to be part of this new kind of campaign to hold big food accountable. And my friend, Jason Karp, who was also at the Senate hearing yesterday, called me and says, Bonnie, this is something I really want to do. Let's get together and figure this out. And then we got together with Callie Means as well. And we started working together again.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And it was like my passion was reignited. And I realized that we really have an opportunity at this point in time that I never thought was possible in my entire career with the emergence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking these issues at the national level.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Nothing, nothing like it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It really did. And, you know, for so much of my life, I was jaded about politics. I, you know, I was a... a Democrat delegate for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, I put him up on a pedestal. I thought he was gonna be the savior of our world. And when he got into office, I quickly realized that special interests, lobbyists, corporations,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
were controlling him and controlling the message and controlling what he could get done. And then the two-party system itself allowed him not to get much done.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
You could say it happened by accident because I was so... wounded by the truth about the food industry when I was finding it out. As a child, I grew up with two immigrant Indian parents who came to the United States and they were so trusting of the American food supply and the American way of life that my dad introduced my mom to a McDonald's hamburger.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It was the first thing he introduced her to when they had an arranged marriage and came back to the United States and said, if we're gonna live in America, we're gonna eat like Americans. And they lived in a very poverty-struck environment in India where it was hard to get food and hard for people to eat.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And so it suddenly became so easy and it was cheap and it was readily available to the point where, you know, my parents thought it was great that you could go and get fast food very quick. Hey. And they would give a free meal to you if you colored a drawing on Mother's Day and Father's Day. I mean, I was there at McDonald's doing that every holiday so I could get the free meal.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And as a result, I had such terrible health issues, me and my brother. I mean, in and out of doctor's offices on – Prescription drugs nonstop throughout my childhood. Can I ask you what those were? Sure, yeah. Everything from three different medications to control my asthma, Singulair, Advair, Aburol.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Asthma was one of them. Then to just control the situation when it would flare up, I'd be on prednisone. I'd be on antibiotics three or four times a year. Then there was the eczema medications, the costochorderoid, the cream, then there was shots in my ass. I mean, all of the things that they had to deploy to just make me feel normal, right? And I look back at my childhood,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And I was walking around like a zombie. I mean, I didn't feel motivated to go to school. I didn't feel motivated to read, even though I had these two immigrant Indian parents that took, put a lot of emphasis on my academics because of where they were. You know, my dad's a PhD, my mom's a master. So it was, they put a lot of emphasis on that. So I think that's where I ended up going, where I went.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But I know I could have done so much better in my early career, in my early life as a student, as a young person, if I had not been subjected to that food.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
In my early 20s, I hit rock bottom. I was working for a big six consulting firm called Accenture. They put me on the road on an expense account. I was in this situation again where I'm outsourcing my food to the corporation this time instead of to America, right? And it's nonstop. wine and dine dinners, five-course meals. I've never done anything like that before. It was so exciting.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
They would bring in droves of food, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so that you would bill more hours to the client at these big banks I was working. And I hit rock bottom. I became depressed. I became overweight. And I had appendicitis. And when I went to the doctor the first time, the doctor said, oh, there's nothing wrong with you. You can go back and take some Advil.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And thankfully, my parents said, you know, something doesn't seem right. You need to probably go see your regular doctor in the morning. And when I did, he was like, you have appendicitis. You need to have an emergency appendectomy right now. It's going to burst. And at that point, I went to see the surgeon, had my organ taken out of my body.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And this whole time, the doctors are saying to me, nobody needs their appendix. Don't worry. This is something routine. You'll be fine. You're going to survive. They're trying to ease my parents' worries. And something doesn't seem right, that God would give you an organ that you don't need, first of all. Second of all, I started to question,
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
first of all, why a young 22-year-old is in the hospital with this type of surgery.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Probably 30 or 40 pounds.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And it was that moment that I decided to take my health Seriously, and the first thing I did was research why you get appendicitis. And I found out the reason you get appendicitis is because your body's inflamed and your digestive system has become inflamed. And actually your appendix is there for a reason. It actually populates your gut with good bacteria.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, it's a reservoir, right? Yeah, and so I started to discover all these things about my body and about the human body that I couldn't stop learning about. And I started to channel this.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So I was a—I have a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
But in high school, I was a top-tier debater. I got recruited to college to be in debate. I was number one in state three years in a row.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
It is. It is very hard. But I think my debate skills are probably what allowed me to do that because I interview well. Yeah, yeah. But back then we didn't have Google. We had to go to the library and we had to look at the microfiche and carry these big tubs of evidence around and photocopy evidence to take. And you'd have to learn both sides of the argument, affirmative and negative.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
So you learned to see the world in a whole view through these topics and debate. And so one year's topic happened to be healthcare when I was in high school. I never applied anything I learned to it to my own body, but then it suddenly came rushing back. And so I started to check out these big books on nutrition. And one of these early books that I read was called Conscious Eating.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
And in there, he talked about how the majority of foods in the grocery store shelves are dead. And I was like, that's how I felt most of my life is dead.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
519. If Another Country Did This to Our Citizens, It Would Be War | Vani Hari
Yeah, the whole center of the grocery store.