The Food Babe

Summary

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Maintenance Phase – "The Food Babe" (Sept 25, 2025)

Main Theme

In this episode, Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes dig into the rise and rhetoric of Vani Hari, also known as the "Food Babe," a social media influencer famous for food activism campaigns against major corporations. The hosts critically examine Hari's tactics, her origin story, signature campaigns (like the “yoga mat bread” controversy), and the broader impact of junk science and sensationalist wellness language in today’s media environment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Is the Food Babe? (00:55–04:57)

• Background: Vani Hari, born in 1979 to Indian immigrant parents in Charlotte, NC. Her father was an engineering professor; her mother, a high school math teacher. She graduated in computer science from UNC Charlotte and worked in management consulting at Accenture before starting her wellness blog.

• Origin Story: Hari cites chronic health issues (eczema, asthma, stomach problems, allergies, and appendicitis at 23) as the catalyst for her wellness journey. She attributes her improvement to dietary changes, fueling her entry into public health advocacy.

  “She talks about getting sick, she talks about changing what she ate, and she talks about feeling better. And then she says, I started looking into nutrition.” — Aubrey (03:47)

• Critical Framing: The hosts note the familiar structure of internet wellness origin stories: vague illnesses, dietary cures, “doing your own research,” and certainty that personal experience translates to actionable public health claims.

  “She’s got a condition without sort of clear causes or clear treatments, which often sends people googling. And then Google gets you into the like, swim with dolphins to cure everything rabbit hole.” — Michael (04:59)

2. The Building Blocks of a Wellness Influencer (04:57–08:10)

• Self-Education by Internet: Hari’s “research” is critiqued as confirmation-seeking instead of exploration. She looks for why certain foods made her feel better, not for the nuances or broad context of existing research.

  “You’re gathering ammunition for something you already believe rather than doing like an open ended, like, oh, what does the science say about this?” — Michael (07:12)

• The Launch of ‘Food Babe’: She began blogging in 2011, quickly leaving her consulting job due to the blog’s popularity and revenue from ads, affiliate deals, and her Truvani protein powder line.

3. Early Blog Content & Major Gaffes (09:03–17:16)

• Plane Air Panic (09:32–11:29): Hari stated that plane air is concerning because it “isn't pure oxygen... it’s mixed with nitrogen,” misunderstanding basic atmospheric composition (air is naturally ~78% nitrogen).

• Microwaved Water Pseudoscience (13:06–17:16): Hari promoted claims from Masaru Emoto’s "The Hidden Messages in Water," suggesting microwaved water forms “evil” crystals. The hosts lampoon the pseudoscientific logic and note Emoto’s lack of credible credentials and his label as a “pseudoscience entrepreneur.”

  “He is a pseudoscience entrepreneur. One of his inventions is called the vibration O meter. Got his degree in alternative medicine from a disgraced and discredited institution that no longer exists.” — Aubrey (15:54)

• Response to Criticism: Hari often deflects errors as “nitpicking” from critics rather than owning basic factual mistakes, displaying reluctance to correct misinformation.

  “If they can’t just admit to a mistake and be like, yeah, that was really dumb... The fact that she can’t even admit, like, oh, they're nitpicking and finding all this garbage. But also, it wasn’t even... it wasn’t wrong. And also, I deleted it without saying anything. All of this stuff is just, like, weird.” — Michael (11:56)

4. Tactics of Influence and Blocking Critics (19:02–21:37)

• Growth through Campaigns: Hari gains visibility by launching high-profile petition campaigns against prominent food corporations (e.g., Kraft, Starbucks, Subway).

• Pattern of Blocking Dissent: Notoriously blocks critics and those questioning her credentials—sparking the creation of a 10,000+ member “Banned by Food Babe” Facebook group.

  “Although as someone who blocks extremely liberally, I’m inclined to like, slightly defend her on this.” — Michael (20:21)

5. Signature Campaigns & Sensational Claims

a. Kraft Mac and Cheese (“Yellow 5 & 6”) (21:41–28:44)

• Petitioning over Food Dyes: Hari's campaign targets artificial food colorings in Kraft Mac & Cheese, linking them to dangerous health effects like hyperactivity in children, ADHD, and even echoing the “Yellow 5 shrinks your balls” urban legend.

• Dissecting Research: Aubrey and Michael clarify the actual science: food dye fears (like ADHD links or carcinogenicity) are largely unsubstantiated, and the referenced rat studies use unrealistically high doses.

  “According to one scientist... a 60 pound child would have to eat eight bags of Skittles a day to get to harmful levels of red 40.” — Aubrey (28:25)

• EU vs US Food Regulations: The EU does use the same dyes as the US, but under different names (E numbers vs. “Red 40” etc.), debunking the myth that the US is an outlier in using these chemicals.

  “Every food coloring that is allowed in the US is used in the EU... They are just named differently.” — Aubrey (29:10)

b. Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (31:03–34:14)

• No Pumpkin in Pumpkin Spice: Hari popularized the (non-)controversy that Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes contain no actual pumpkin—missing the point that “pumpkin spice” is a mixture of spices. Notably, Starbucks later added pumpkin to the ingredient list amid public furor.

• Caramel Color “Carcinogen” Panic: Criticized Starbucks for using Class 2B carcinogenic caramel coloring; chemist experts clarify that this designation means only “not proven safe beyond doubt,” not that it causes cancer.

  “Class 2B means that all possible carcinogenic effects haven’t been ruled out, but that it hasn’t been shown to cause a single case of cancer.” — Michael quoting chemist Yvette Dennis (34:14)

c. Subway “Yoga Mat Bread” (36:19–45:31)

• The Azodicarbonamide (ADA) Scare: Hari’s viral video accused Subway of making bread with a “yoga mat chemical” (ADA). Hosts clarify that ADA is a foaming agent harmless at consumer levels, its occupational danger (when inhaled as powder) doesn’t translate to dietary risk, and its use was part of a safer, phased replacement of another chemical.

  “She relies really heavily on this sort of proposed binary of like, chemical versus natural. Which is like, that doesn’t exist.” — Aubrey (40:49)

• Public Relations Outcomes: Subway (and others) quickly pivoted, either because of preexisting plans or respondent pressure. Hari takes full credit for “victories” regardless of timing or actual harm.

  “The issue is that she is doing a bunch of world building that is like they’re poisoning you, the food supply is out to get you... painting a much broader picture about like, most of the sources of your food are inherently suspect and are trying to hurt you.” — Aubrey (46:41)

6. Broader Impact of Wellness World-Building (45:51–52:22)

• Consequences: The hosts argue the problem isn’t always the direct result (e.g., dyes removed from Kraft), but how this constant alarmism undermines trust in science, regulation, and public institutions, contributing to a “low trust society.” Hari’s presence at RFK Jr’s confirmation hearing, and similar rhetoric, shows her alignment with broader anti-establishment, anti-science trends.

  “Instead of educating her followers on the actual problems in the food supply, she’s essentially like uneducating them and making them afraid of all these like, phantoms, rather than, like, things that we could actually be doing something about.” — Michael (47:18)

• Rhetorical Devices Inventory (49:32–52:22)

  • Anecdotes as Evidence
  • “Real” foods vs. “fake” foods
  • Nutritional nostalgia (“things were better before”)
  • Posing loaded questions (“What are they trying to hide?”)
  • Suggesting complexity is always sinister, never product of legitimate supply chain/industrial logistics.

  “With the rise of mobile influencers with, like, more and more sort of, like, algorithms tuned toward rage, bait and controversial shit, it means we’re just gonna keep seeing more and more and more of this stuff.” — Aubrey (51:30)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Wellness Research:

  “It’s the kind of Googling most of us do... you’re gathering ammunition for something you already believe.” — Michael (07:12)

• On Admitting Mistakes:

  “If they can’t just admit to a mistake... the fact that she can’t even admit, like, oh, they're nitpicking... and also I deleted it without saying anything. All of this stuff is just, like, weird.” — Michael (11:56)

• On Chemical Fear-mongering:

  “Almost everything in the natural world is also chemical. Has a chemical name. This is once again, I would say neophobia in sheep’s clothing.” — Aubrey (41:03)

• On Regulatory “Victories”:

  “Again, each of these campaigns, she gets what she wants. But often what she wants is not the full picture or not correct or whatever.” — Aubrey (32:38)

• On Rhetoric:

  “Her most common [defense] is by asserting that the scientist in question is a paid industry shill... or that she’s just ‘translating’ science for the people.” — Aubrey (19:11)

• On Broader Harm:

  “She’s doing a bunch of world building that is like they’re poisoning you, the food supply is out to get you...” — Aubrey (46:41)

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Topic | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------|---------------| | Introducing Vani Hari | 00:55–04:57 | | Hari’s “Doing Her Own Research” | 07:04–08:10 | | Viral failures: Plane Air/Microwaves | 09:32–17:16 | | Public Critique & Blocking | 19:02–21:37 | | Kraft Food Dye Campaign | 21:41–28:44 | | Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Campaign | 31:03–34:14 | | Subway “Yoga Mat Bread” | 36:19–45:31 | | Misinformation’s Impact | 45:51–52:22 |

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Conclusion

Aubrey and Michael close by diagnosing Hari’s success as representative of broader trends: exploiting anxiety about “chemicals,” dismissing scientific nuance, and narrating a continuous battle of “real” vs. “fake” foods, with little regard for actual public health risks or systemic food justice campaigns. They urge listeners to watch for the rhetorical red flags (anecdotes, natural/chemical binary, “what are they hiding?”) that mark manipulative wellness discourse, and to remember that complexity in food systems often reflects logistics and trade-offs—not conspiracy.

“If someone opens with, like, ‘I didn’t see this information, what are they trying to hide?’ it might be worth considering that that is a person who hasn’t done their due diligence or doesn’t understand what’s in front of them.” — Aubrey (51:30)

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Tone:
Wry, skeptical, conversational.
Best For: Anyone interested in debunking wellness misinformation, understanding food scaremongering, or learning how health influencers use viral tactics (and why it matters).

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Transcript

[A]

Hey, Michael Aubrey, wait. Are you ready to tag us in?

[B]

Oh, I thought we were doing the if post could kill. I think you were about to ask me what do I know about the food babe. Very little.

[A]

Oh, do you want me to. I'll be Peter today. Michael Aubrey, what do you know about the food babe?

[B]

Well, I already said very little. Welcome to Maintenance Phase, the podcast where we know very little about what we're talking about.

[A]

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[B]

It doesn't cut it in the same way. Welcome to Maintenance Phase, the podcast that is made from the same material as yoga mats. This is like all I know of this person, so I'm going to be just killing time till we get to that controversy.

[A]

It was also almost all I knew of this person as well because you.

[B]

Mentioned her real name the other day and I was like, what?

[A]

Yes, her name is Vani Hari. She has been running campaigns, usually petition drives, that are focused on food corporations for more than a decade.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

That approach has garnered her quite a following. She has currently 1.2 million followers on Facebook and 2.3 million followers on Instagram. She has targeted Anheuser Busch, Kraft, General Mills, Kellogg's, Chipotle, Chick Fil, a Subway, Starbucks, In n Out. Just. It's a really long list. That all sounds bitchin to me. Except for the goals that she sets and how she achieves them.

[B]

Except for what she's doing and who she is as a person.

[A]

So today, Michael, I'm Michael Hobbs. Oh my God. I'm not recording.

[B]

Whoops.

[A]

She got to far into it.

[B]

It's not like we even say like what our like little qualifications are. Just like here's my name as a person.

[A]

We don't even have really a schedule anymore.

[B]

Yeah, we don't. It's not a real show.

[A]

It's not a real show.

[B]

It started with the fake tagline and then it just gotten less real from there.

[A]

If you would like to support the show, you can do [e-mail] maintenancephase you can also subscribe through Apple Podcast, premium subscription. It's the same audio content, same stuff. Michael Aubrey, today. Today I'm taking you into the world of the food babe.

[B]

You're taking me back to the blogosphere.

[A]

And I think that, oh my God, shit is leaving my brain again. Michael, this sucks.

[B]

Cognitive Decline, the podcast Cognitive Decline. We are in our 40s.

[A]

A bunch of the sort of rhetorical devices that she uses are used by lots of folks in this space. So it seemed useful to sort of break down and think about, like, what are the components of what she's doing here and what are the red flags that FOL might be able to apply to other health and wellness media and go, ooh, wait a minute.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So. Michael Aubrey Vani Hari was born in 1979 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her parents immigrated to the US from India. Her dad was an engineering professor at UNC Charlotte and her mom was a high school math teacher. Vani herself goes on to graduate from UNC Charlotte with a degree in computer science. And when I read that, I was like, I don't know why, but this makes an intuitive sense. There's something going on with computer science majors. I know, having like a bizarre sense of certainty that they excel at lots of fields.

[B]

We need to get kids like reading like liberal arts shit again. We need more wokeness in the schools.

[A]

After college, she goes on to work as a consultant, a management consultant at Accenture.

[B]

That's also foreshadowing. No offense to the management consultants out there, but it's like if you look at the trajectory of it's real bad.

[A]

Her origin story as the quote unquote food babe is similar to many, many, many we have heard before. She talks about getting sick, she talks about changing what she ate, and she talks about feeling better. And then she says, I started looking into nutrition. So here is a synopsis of that origin story from a New York Times piece.

[B]

It says she had eczema, asthma, stomach problems and severe food allergies. The last which critics and at least one person who said she knew her growing up dispute because Ms. Hari has advocated lying to servers about allergies to butter, dairy, corn and soy to avoid possible sources of genetically modified food. At age 23, she had appendicitis, something she said was caused by her lifestyle of poor nutrition, though most experts say it is a random occurrence. She read books like Spiritual Nutrition and Conscious Eating and applied the skills she learned as an award winning debater in high school to food. She read labels, cleaned up her diet and saw results. Her eczema, asthma and allergies went away. And she said she was off all prescription drugs up to eight or nine, depending on the season, within three to four years. Yeah, this is like all of the greatest hits of maintenance phase.

[A]

It's like a voltron.

[B]

Yeah. She's got a condition without sort of clear causes or clear treatments, which often sends people googling. And then Google gets you into the like, swim with dolphins to cure everything rabbit hole. And then she gets into this, like, my diet will Save me, my lifestyle was killing me stuff. And then into like, spiritual world and then these weird claims of, like, I was on prescription drugs.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But then I stopped eating seed oils and now I'm not on any.

[A]

What she does with that experience is go, ah, this made me feel better. We need to change the law.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I feel better because I stopped eating this thing. So we should change how they make this thing that I don't eat anymore.

[B]

What was the actual diet that she switched to? Was it anything specific or just certain foods?

[A]

She's a little bit Dave Asprey style in that. It's like a real sampler platter. Oh, yeah, it's GMOs, it's food colorings, it's additives.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I always feel like there's this moment in an episode where I go, like, do we just tip our hand and go, this person isn't good? And I think this is the moment where I go, you're not.

[B]

You're not pretending to be like, this is a sympathetic protagonist.

[A]

This person is good. This person isn't good. She's not good.

[B]

I mean, we're already getting like some of the woo woo stuff and some of the exaggeration. So, like, I knew this was coming.

[A]

What I will say, what we'll see in her pattern is that she reaches for, like, the biggest, scariest, and least understood concepts amongst her audience.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

She's written two books, and I read both of her books, Michael.

[B]

Did you really?

[A]

Yeah. Aubrey, I know.

[B]

Are you okay?

[A]

I'm fine. They didn't end up being super relevant to the actual episode, so you wasted your time. I read these for nothing.

[B]

You stopped eating seed oils months ago and you're like, why? What was it all for?

[A]

I've cut out all the GMOs. What am I supposed to do now?

[B]

But you feel amazing. Your energy is off the charts.

[A]

She doesn't say this, but reading her work, I was left with the distinct impression that her. What she calls here, sort of like looking into health and nutrition stuff in that phase of her origin story was much more her Googling from a place of like, I feel better. Why did this thing make me feel better?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Than a. I want to understand the full landscape of this issue and understand the nuances in the body of research. Right, Right.

[B]

You're gathering ammunition for something you already believe rather than doing like an open ended, like, oh, what does the science say about this?

[A]

Yeah, it's the kind of Googling that most of us do most of the time. Right. Just to be totally honest, right, you're.

[B]

Like, you're Googling like E Bike benefits rather than like, okay, what are the pros and cons?

[A]

She's not Googling like, eczema.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What are the treatments that are available? What's the body of research she's googling? Quit GMOs treatment for eczema or like improved eczema. Right. Like, yeah, that's my. I don't know that I don't have her search terms in front of.

[B]

Of me.

[A]

Of course I don't, but that's the impression that I got from reading her work was being like, I feel better. Why do I feel better?

[B]

Yeah. I feel like anytime somebody says, like, I do my own research, like 90% of the time, that's what I assume they're doing 100% from there.

[A]

She starts blogging under the name the food babe in 2011.

[B]

Is she like 25 at this point?

[A]

She's born in 79. So what are we talking? Yeah, 32.

[B]

So she has like a whole life as like a management consultant before she starts this, like, influencing stuff.

[A]

She's been a management consultant for like the better part of a decade.

[B]

Decade.

[A]

At this point. She's doing well enough with the blog within one year that she is able to leave her full time corporate consulting job.

[B]

Dude. Adsense. Getting that Adsense dollars, truly.

[A]

So she's getting money from adsense, she's getting money from affiliate marketing of products that she says are safe and above board. And, uh, oh, Michael. She also now sells her own line of protein powder called Truvani, which you can get at Target and Whole Foods.

[B]

Truvani. That's almost Truvada.

[A]

No, it's the word tru. And then her first name.

[B]

Oh, so mine would be true. Michael Tru.

[A]

Michael Trabbri. So the early days on the Food Babe blog are frankly wild as fuck. There was one post. I only found synopses of this one. It didn't get archived on the Wayback machine, so I couldn't find the original post. But there was one post that has been much discussed and much reported on called Food Babe Travel Essentials. No reason to panic on the plane.

[B]

Okay, we were just talking about this. I'm an anxious flier in a way that I didn't used to be, so maybe I can benefit from these tips.

[A]

Okay, Michael, did you know, according to Vani Hari, that the air on a plane quote isn't pure oxygen either? It's mixed with nitrogen.

[B]

Oh. What? This is very alarming.

[A]

It is alarming because air itself is about 78% nitrogen. And she just, like, didn't know.

[B]

This is a wild thing to publish without, like, a very cursory Google.

[A]

Just a Google.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So people started to critique it both in the comments and also, like, on Reddit. It sort of made its way far and wide to be like, what is going on with this lady? The New York Times interviewed her about this post. This was in 2015, so several years later. And here is what happened.

[B]

She says, all you seed oil guzzlers in my mentions right now stay metabolically impaired and torpid.

[A]

That's interesting because you're afraid of sunflowers. That's never not going to be funny to me.

[B]

It says in an interview, Ms. Hari said she didn't remember the post. Okay. Which Mr. Cook brought up by name. She then said it would have disappeared from the blog because it was old. Weeks later, in an email, she admitted that it had been removed because of mistakes and said that she planned to start noting when she clarified or corrected posts. Ms. Hari said that these particular posts, which she wouldn't acknowledge as having been discredited, were a feeble exercise in nitpicking that detracted from her mission. If you're gonna pick apart every little sentence I've written, she said, her voice trailing off. She added of her critics, they have to dig so far and deep to find something that will make me look crazy. Because what I'm saying now is so sane and so real. That's good. I'm too real and my haters are going back to my posts. She is doing seed guzzlers in my mentions.

[A]

This is what these people always do. She's doing all my haters are my.

[B]

Become my waiters at the table of success. Another good quote from a terrible person. That's all this show is now.

[A]

Oh my God. I don't know why that one gets me so harsh every time.

[B]

You could have just said that and saved us both some time and I wouldn't have had to read this fucking alarmingly weird quote.

[A]

That's a really, really strange response to just like a factual error.

[B]

Also, like, factual errors get through. Like, people, we have said dumb things on this show too. Like, factual errors happen. I feel like the bigger thing with, like, if you're following an influencer or something. If they can't just admit to a mistake and be like, yeah, that was really dumb. I don't know why I said that. Thank you to everybody who pointed it out. Like, the fact that she can't even Admit, like, oh, they're nitpicking and finding all this garbage. But also, it wasn't even. It wasn't wrong. And also, I deleted it without saying anything. All of this stuff is just, like, weird. Just say that you made a mistake and move on. It's not that big of a deal to me.

[A]

These are the reactions in the comments of someone who is seeing this as, like, an attack on their character and not as, like, this is a thing that happens. Every reporter under the sun has published something that was, like, incorrect in retrospect or you didn't catch it at the time, or where.

[B]

I heard of a podcaster recently who called Colostrum Wounds.

[A]

I heard about that one, too. Unclear who. The next post we're going to talk about is from July 2012. It focused on microwaves. The previous one was not archived on the Wayback Machine. This one is archived in the Wayback Machine. And have I got a fucking screenshot for you.

[B]

Ooh, it's got an arrow. Okay.

[A]

It's got images. So I would like for you to describe. Okay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The images.

[B]

Oh, my God. What? I didn't know she was like this off the rails this early.

[A]

Michael, we're doing it.

[B]

There's a before and after image, and the before looks like some sort of, like, snowflake type of thing. And then there's an after, and there's a giant red arrow pointing at the after, and I don't know why. And then alongside the arrow, it says, harmful effects of electromagnetic waves, as illustrated by Dr. Mazaru Emoto in book the Hidden messages in water. And then under the afterimage, which also has a microwave oven. So this is like a snowflake being microwaved, I guess.

[A]

It just looks like a water droplet.

[B]

It says the distilled water heated in the microwave resulted in a crystal similar to that created by the word Satan. Yeah, I'm not seeing Satan in this image, though. Do we have to look upside down?

[A]

No, read the paragraph.

[B]

Okay. And then we get. Get this big brick of text.

[A]

The paragraph that we're about to read is from Vani Hari's post.

[B]

She says, last by not least, Dr. Mazaru Emoto, who's famous for taking photos of various types of waters and the crystals that they formed. In the book called Hidden Messages in Water, Found water that was microwaved did not form beautiful crystals, but instead formed crystals similar to those formed when exposed to negative thoughts or beliefs. Yep. If this is happening to just water and then an EM dash, which doesn't make sense. I can only imagine what a microwave is doing to the nutrients, energy of our food and to our bodies when we consume microwaved food. I didn't know what a bad writer she is.

[A]

It's not great.

[B]

For the experiment pictured above, microwaved water produced a similar physical structure to when the words Satan and Hitler were repeatedly exposed to the water.

[A]

Yep, yep.

[B]

This fact is probably too hokey for most.

[A]

Most people.

[B]

Again, a weird EM dash, but I wanted to include it because sometimes the things we can't see with the naked eye or even fully comprehend could be the most powerful way to unlock spontaneous healing. What does it mean? The words Hitler and Satan were exposed to the water. Like the water was nearby.

[A]

He just said Hitler, Satan, Satan, Hitler, Hitler.

[B]

Is that real? He just chants it at the water and then he looks at it under a microscope. This is the first thing we've talked about on the show, Aubrey, where I'm like, don't bother, like, debunking this. Debunking just like so off the rails. And it's like, this isn't even like a real. Like, what possibly could he be fucking talking about?

[A]

So the author of this book is Masaru Emoto. He is a pseudoscience entrepreneur.

[B]

You're kidding. Pseudoscience.

[A]

One of his inventions is called the vibration O meter. Got his degree in alternative medicine from a disgraced and discredited institution that no longer exists.

[B]

Hell yeah.

[A]

His fucking Wikipedia page is listed under pseudoscience. And I gotta say, if Wikipedia as a whole is like, this is garbage.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Then like, that is the fucking drag strike.

[B]

I love the ones that are like early life and it's like a paragraph and it's like controversies and like six pages.

[A]

So his belief was that water's structure responded to human consciousness.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And that its structure changed when exposed to curse words. And words like Satan and Hitler.

[B]

Is it only like curse words in English or is the water multilingual?

[A]

Mike, I'm gonna blow your mind. I didn't read this book.

[B]

She's slipping.

[A]

When asked about these, she said, quote, these were before I decided to make this my career. It's like saying that the New York Times or whoever aren't allowed to make mistakes. Back then I was blogging as a hobby.

[B]

It's so funny to be like, how was I to know that the guy who exposed water to Satan and found crystals in it was lying? This was only a part time thing.

[A]

It's my hobby. Of course I'm allowed to lie, right? There's a part of me that Read that. It's like you don't get mad at the New York Times for having its little hobby. Wordle. Yeah, come on. Her profile continues to grow. In 2015, she was named one of the 30 most influential people on the Internet by Time magazine. Michael, do you want to know who else is on the 30 most influential?

[B]

I'd be asking you this. I'd be like, give me the list. Are they all, like, discredited? Like, crypto weirdos?

[A]

Now I'm gonna go rapid fire. PewDiePie, Ta. Nehisi Coates, Matt Drudge, Anita Sarkeesian, Shakira, J.K. rowling, Narendra Modi, Taylor Swift, and Caitlin McNeil. The woman who took the picture of the blue and black slash, golden yellow, golden white dress.

[B]

Let's. Let's do it again. But do Mary Boff kill for each one of them? It's very important to me. We have to rank these people.

[A]

Oh, it's gonna be so many kills.

[B]

What I know. It's mostly kills on that.

[A]

So all the while, while her profile is rising, there is more and more and more overt criticism from scientists. A Yale neurologist named Steven Novella has called her the Jenny McCarthy of food.

[B]

That's a good dig.

[A]

Kevin Folta, who leads horticultural sciences at the University of Florida, said, quote, she found that a popular social media site was more powerful than science itself. More powerful than reason, more powerful than actually knowing what you're talking about.

[B]

That is accurate and very sad.

[A]

Marion Nestle told one reporter, quote, I think she means well, but I wish she would pick more important issues and pay closer attention to the science.

[B]

Classic Marian Nestle. She's saying the same thing, but, like, way nicer. Yeah.

[A]

Trying to put it in a nice way and is like, pick better goals and also look at science.

[B]

I love your energy, but if you were a different person, it would be better.

[A]

When asked to respond to her critics, she generally responds in one of a few different ways. Her most common one is by asserting that the scientist in question is a paid industry shill.

[B]

Classic. Classic.

[A]

Another one comes from a quote that she provided to the New York Times. She said, quote, this whole idea that I'm not scientifically accurate. Okay, fine, if you want to say that, but I'm translating stuff so that the layman can understand it, and that's why I'm so effective.

[B]

Yeah, well, how else would we know that the water exposed to Satan and Hitler is poisoning us?

[A]

She's like, I'm trying to make this available to the people.

[B]

Right.

[A]

As a retort to your information for the people is incorrect.

[B]

And also we are the scientists that you are allegedly interpreting, and we are saying that this is wrong.

[A]

In addition to those sort of more public responses to criticism, a lot of the media around Vani Hari includes references to her penchant for blocking people who express discomfort with her marketing or who are like, hey, wait, what are your credentials for talking about this?

[B]

Although as someone who blocks extremely liberally, I'm inclined to like, slightly defend her on this.

[A]

Do you have a Facebook group called Banned by food babe with over 10,000 members?

[B]

Oh, my God, is that true? Yeah. No way.

[A]

I definitely think there's like a point at which it just became like a little hater factory and all the people who disliked her joined in. But, like, it seems like initially it really was like a shit ton of people who had been blocked by her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This was also summarized in one of the Times profiles. Quote, Ms. Hari said that people are only blocked for obscenities. But Dr. Schwartz, who is among the band, though not a Facebook group member, said he merely questioned her credentials.

[B]

I block people for being annoying, mostly.

[A]

Ten years ago, I was like a zero block purist. Like, no blocks. Not doing it.

[B]

You can't do that. You can't do that on the Internet today.

[A]

No, I'm not a responsive blocker. I'm like a preemptive blocker.

[B]

You're like, this is only going to get more annoying 100% if I see.

[A]

Someone doing some real fucking bad behavior in someone else's comment section.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I do that too.

[A]

Cool block.

[B]

So we stan a queen. A blocking queen.

[A]

A blocking queen. Join that Facebook group, everybody.

[B]

The thing is, there is a blocked by Michael Hobbs Facebook group, but it's just Mumsnet.

[A]

Where she really starts getting traction is by running a series of campaigns focused on food corporations.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So in 2013, Michael Vani Hari set her sights on Kraft Foods crown jewel. It's boxed Mac and cheese, which to.

[B]

Be honest, is like the most ultra processed food imaginable.

[A]

When you think about it, all of these are. All of these are. And I think this is one of the things that, like, absolutely blew my mind about her work, is that she's targeting things like chick fil a sandwiches, Kraft Mac and cheese. She had a whole Fruit Loops campaign.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

All of them are like, can you believe they're putting this in there?

[B]

Right?

[A]

We deserve healthy, safe food. And I'm like, why are you campaigning around boxed Mac and cheese?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like, do you not want to advocate for Higher levels of money and food stamps programs. There's, like, a bunch of stuff that you can do that isn't focused on, like, Kraft Mac and Cheese is poisoning you or what? Like, it's an odd path to take.

[B]

Although, to be fair, it is powdered cheese.

[A]

Dude, I'm on record. Cheese dust is delicious. How dare you?

[B]

It is delicious, but it's like, there are some, like, mega, ultra processed foods that I'm like, yeah, this stuff is killing us.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

That if there was real evidence for it, I would buy in wholeheartedly.

[A]

Again, I think this is sort of her model.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Is pick things where you're like, that sounds about right. And then say the scariest version of thing about that and get a bunch of people on board. Right. With that. And then on her list. And then buying into her framework and so on. So her complaint with Kraft Mac and Cheese was the use of artificial food dyes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

She wanted them to remove artificial dyes from Kraft Mac and Cheese, particularly Yellow five and Yellow six, because they shrink your balls. Oh, good.

[B]

That was what I learned in middle school. Yellow 5, which was in Mountain Dew, shrinks your balls. And also the last sip of Mountain Dew is 80% backwash.

[A]

Richard Gere gerbils.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, these are true facts. That's just community knowledge.

[B]

My sincere goal in high school was to start a nationwide rumor.

[A]

You fucking gremlin. Of course you started a fucking podcast.

[B]

I know. This is what. Spreading misinformation. This is all I want.

[A]

So in this Kraft Mac and Cheese campaign, she did what would become a real sort of classic tactic of hers, which is she launched a petition on her website, and according to her, she got 350,000 signatures. Oh, wow.

[B]

So she's a huge audience. Yeah.

[A]

And each one of these campaigns grows her audience audience considerably. Right. She gathered all of these signatures. She did a big theatrical petition delivery, like physical petition delivery at Kraft hq, and had a meeting with executives there. Kraft initially said that they weren't going to change the recipe, but two years later, they announced that they would remove artificial coloring from all of its Mac and cheese products. Okay. But they said the change had been in the works since 2012. It's not because of this lady.

[B]

Although that could also be PR stuff on their part.

[A]

Yes, absolutely.

[B]

Both of these actors involved have an incentive to lie. Yeah.

[A]

Also, this is a common response from businesses is that they're just like, we're doing the thing. I don't want to talk about it.

[B]

We didn't really get into some seed oils, but Fundamentally, I don't care if they remove food dyes. It's not like I'm married to food dyes. It's like, I think evidence should guide these discussions. But ultimately, if Kraft removed Yellow five. Okay, fine.

[A]

Do you know what the concern is with food dyes when people are like, get artificial food coloring out of our food.

[B]

Drinking your balls? No, that's all I've ever heard about. I've never heard anything specific.

[A]

This one dates back to the 1970s with something called the Fine Gold Diet.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The core idea behind the Fine Gold Diet, it was the, like, strip all of the additives out of your kid's diet.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The assertion behind this in the Fine Gold Diet was that additives and food dyes caused adhd.

[B]

Was it like a line go up thing that, like rates of ADHD have increased at the Same time as Yellow 5 consumption has increased kind of thing?

[A]

No, the Fine Gold Diet came out in the 70s. So even our language around ADHD was very different than what it was.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There is some evidence today that in kids who already have adhd, some of those kids, when consuming foods that have food coloring in them, will sometimes experience a temporary increase in their hyperactivity symptoms.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yes, it's very strange. So as a result, some countries require a warning label on foods with food coloring.

[B]

Wow. Okay.

[A]

The U.S. does not require that warning label. But that body of research did not exist when the Feingold diet came out. This was somebody who was just like, Ron fucking vibes.

[B]

Here's what I think.

[A]

Right. And again, this is like 70s natural food freak out sort of suspicion about newer foods kind of stuff. So this fit right into a worldview and a discomfort with of like the modern world as a whole. And also a fundamental discomfort with neurodivergence.

[B]

Also like yellow 5 and red 40. And these things do sound kind of like sci fi dystopian.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Because what happened to the first 39 reds? Yeah.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

We've had to iterate on this. We're finally at the decent one after 39 tries.

[A]

The idea that food dyes cause ADHD has long, long, long since been discredited. The other concern with food dyes that pops up up is about cancer in rats.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

That is a result of a dye called Red3. The FDA has banned Red3. You can't use Red3 in the US. However, the amount of dye that exists in food for people is way lower than the dose given to rats in these studies. Right. This is the Diet Coke aspartame conundrum. Where it's like, yeah, you're drinking aspartame, you're worried about like brain cancer from rats. Are you having aspartame directly injected into your brain?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

At like double your body weight? No. Okay, cool.

[B]

It's always like an indicative mechanism, not necessarily like a direct danger. On the other hand, like, fine, we don't have the cancer causing dye in our food anymore. It seems fine to me.

[A]

I think the other thing to know about food dye regulation in the US is that the FDA quote, requires evidence that a color additive is safe at its intended level of use before it may be added to foods, and it adds a maximum allowable amount. So it's not just you can use unlimited red 40. Right, right. It is. You can use up to x amount of red 40.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

According to one scientist interviewed by New York magazine, a 60 pound child would have to eat eight bags of Skittles a day to get to harmful levels of red 40.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[A]

It really is being regulated. Right. Like, there is a regulatory mechanism there.

[B]

Make Skittles beef tallow again.

[A]

So a big part of Van Ihari's pitch around Kraft is the idea that these food colorings are banned in the EU, so why are they allowed in the U.S. this comes up all the time in these conversations.

[B]

Yeah, that came up with a seed oils thing too.

[A]

Yeah. It sort of sounds right that the EU would have a stronger regulatory food system than the US but that is not the case.

[B]

Oh, interesting. Okay.

[A]

Every food coloring that is allowed in the US is used in the EU.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yellow five used in the EU. Red 40 used in the EU. Blue two used in the EU. They are just named differently.

[B]

Oh, is it like red 41?

[A]

Red 40 is called allura Red.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And when it shows up in ingredient lists, it is listed under its E code name. So all of these have like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So people are looking for red 40 on a label of food from, like the UK and they're like, where is it? And it's E129. That's red 40.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yellow five is E102. Blue two is E132. These are labeling differences between the US and the EU. The EU is more likely to use technical names or these sort of coded names for ingredients and labeling. But regulation in the US prioritizes consumers ability to understand what's in their food. So we're more likely to use and to require language that's more accessible to more people. Right. And more direct.

[B]

Like, this is a food dye rather than just Like a random number.

[A]

I think it's also worth noting that there are, like, a number of food dyes that are allowed in the EU that are banned by the FDA and are not allowed in the US Ponso 4R is a red food coloring that is allowed in the EU but not approved by the fda. That doesn't mean it's necessarily unsafe. It just means that these two sort of regulatory systems deal with them differently. I think there's a temptation to go, this food system is doing a better job on every measure and not like, hey, these are different countries with different needs and different priorities about how this stuff ought to get disseminated.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Reasonable minds can differ. Different systems can make sense for different places. Right.

[B]

This is actually one of the most enriching things about living abroad for many years. I feel like when I moved to Denmark, I was like, they're better at everything. Socialism is cool. And then you get there and you're like, oh, we actually do a couple things better than them, and they do some things better than us.

[A]

So, Michael Aubrey, the craft campaign was in 2013. In 2014, she sets her sights on Starbucks.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

She writes a blog post called, you'll never guess what's in a Starbucks. Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.

[B]

Is it union busting? Is it union busting?

[A]

No. There are two main claims that she makes. One of them we're gonna dig in on, and one of them we're not. The one we're gonna dig in on is that the caramel coloring used in pumpkin spice lattes is quote unquote, linked to cancer. Okay. The other big bombshell that she drops in this blog post is that pumpkin spice lattes contain no pumpkin.

[B]

Is she the one that originated this? This has been driving me insane for, like, a decade.

[A]

It's nutso. I don't know if she's the one who originated it, but she is definitely a big force in popularizing it. This made me laugh because I just always assumed that a pumpkin spice latte did not contain pumpkin, that it was pumpkin spice.

[B]

Yeah. We're both bakers. We both understand that the pumpkin spice is the spice you put on the pumpkin. It doesn't contain pumpkin.

[A]

So here's the thing that I find fascinating how worked up I am about this. According to Bonnie Hart, it took Starbucks one year to announce that they had removed caramel coloring from their pumpkin spice lattes. Again, each of these campaigns, she gets what she wants.

[B]

Yeah, that's weird.

[A]

But often what she wants is not the full picture or not correct or whatever.

[B]

Yeah, like, physically incorrect. Like, they. I remember this. They added pumpkin to pumpkin spice latte. They absolutely did.

[A]

So I looked this up because I was like, is there. I've never. I don't think I've ever had a pumpkin spice latte.

[B]

They're so good.

[A]

Are they really? I bet it's delicious. Of course, all of those Starbucks, like, we just, like, poured a pound of sugar in here. Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Yeah. Basically a pie in liquid form. Of course. It tastes amazing.

[A]

It's a milkshake. We made you a milkshake.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, here's the other thing. When you get a can of pumpkin puree, that's mostly not pumpkin. Oh.

[B]

Cause butternut squash. A lot of it.

[A]

It's butternut squash. So I'm also like, well, now who's hiding things? Is it real pumpkin? I don't know.

[B]

Well, I would know, Aubrey, because I always bake my own pumpkins when I make pumpkin pie.

[A]

He's farm to table.

[B]

I did live in Europe. You know what? I did live in Europe. I just, like, eat like this. That's why I'm, like, so healthy.

[A]

He's got the superiority complex to prove it.

[B]

That's why I'm, like, so masculine. Like, the Internet is saying, like, he's so masculine. And, like, it's mostly like the vegetables that I eat from Europe, the way that I make my vegetables.

[A]

She gets hooked on this caramel coloring thing as being, like, a source of carcinogens in pumpkin spice latte. I'm gonna send you a quote here that is from an analytical chemist named Yvette Dennis who wrote a piece for Gawker called the Food Babe. Blogger is Full of Shit.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

Okay, so here is that chemist's breakdown of the PSL of it all, it says.

[B]

And what about that carcinogenic caramel color? Well, it turns out that it's not the only thing in your pumpkin spice latte that's in carcinogen class 2B. There's also coffee. Coffee is class 2B because of the acrylamide accumulated during the roasting process. Process coffee before Starbucks turns it into a milkshake is pretty healthy for you. Class 2B means that all possible carcinogenic effects haven't been ruled out, but that it hasn't been shown to cause a single case of cancer. Okay, so it's like a maybe. We can't say it doesn't cause cancer, but there's no affirmative evidence that it causes cancer.

[A]

Right. The evidence doesn't allow us to prove a negative that it absolutely never causes Cancer. This is a sort of classic thing where health and welcome influencers will pull from these rankings of carcinogens and will assume that they are ranked by their likelihood to give you cancer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those rankings are instead rankings of the strength and state of the evidence.

[B]

Yeah, I know the science could be way better at communicating this, to be honest. But like, yes, 100%, so easy to misinterpret.

[A]

But also, this is like directly the result of people who are untrained sort of googling around, tromping around and not attempting to understand the science on the science's terms.

[B]

Because I wish scientists were better at, at communicating this stuff. But also, ultimately the responsibility is of the influencers or whoever, the pundits who are saying, like, this causes cancer without reading the documents in question, which are always very clear about what these terms mean.

[A]

Right. And meanwhile, Vani Hari is out here in the press repeatedly saying, you don't need to be an expert to understand this stuff.

[B]

Yeah, but you don't understand it really.

[A]

Fundamentally misunderstanding, like, big, big, big parts.

[B]

And not even caring to, like, check in with experts. Be like, hey, do I have this right? Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is what, like, we do with our episodes very frequently. It's like we'll send a rough cut to somebody and be like, are we saying anything boneheaded here? Does this sound roughly true? And like, it's really useful to check in with experts on that stuff and.

[A]

We will absolutely get very useful feedback being like, ah, this part's not quite it.

[B]

I think the only way you can do this and not bother to reach out to people is if you think scientists are, like, fundamentally part of the problem.

[A]

Paid industry shills, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael, Aubrey, are you ready for our next campaign?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

This is the way that both you and I first heard about the food babe. Yoga mat. Bread.

[B]

Yoga mats.

[A]

We're talking 2015. We're talking the campaign against Subway Bread.

[B]

I will say every subway in the whole world has the same weird smell when you walk in there, which does have like a sort of formaldehyde kind of quality to it. So I get why this sounded true to people. There's something weird about the way that it smells. Cause it doesn't smell like baking bread, even though they are baking bread in there.

[A]

Subway is not a top tier fast food place in the U.S. you're coming.

[B]

You'Re going for it. You're coming for Subway. You're like, we don't care about what you eat, how you live your life. However, if you go to Subway you're trash.

[A]

No, no, no, no. Not at all, not at all. I just mean, like, she's reaching for a restaurant that not very many people are going to defend. Right, right. Last week, tonight did an excellent piece on their, like, extremely predatory business practices, which is why we have, like, many Subways in the US as any other fast food restaurant.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

[B]

Did he talk about how 6 inches isn't enough food and 12 inches is too much? That's my beef with Subway.

[A]

So this was the first campaign of hers that sort of made its way onto my radar. The allegation sort of at its core was that Subway's bread used ingredients that were used to make yoga mats.

[B]

Love it.

[A]

A friend of mine told me this at the time and I remember being like, that doesn't sound right.

[B]

Yeah, I remember that too.

[A]

Like, like, it really felt like scientific information that had been delivered by like one of the minions memes on Facebook or something where you're just like, the. The packaging of this alone is suspect. Right? Yeah, it's a little bit like the American bread is cake thing, which is also just about Subway bread and about its tax status in Ireland or something.

[B]

Also just such a, like, on its face, facile comparison. You can say, like, I wash all my towels in vinegar and then I made a salad dressing.

[A]

Right. You use baking soda to clean things, but you also use it to put in your, like, quick breads or whatever or your cookies.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So Vani Hari went about looking at Subway's ingredient lists, and she found one ingredient in particular that troubled her. It's called azodicarbonamide. We'll call it Ada. That's what it's shortened to.

[B]

Sounds bad. Sounds scary.

[A]

Sounds scary. Vani Hari launched a petition in February of 2014 demanding that subway remove Ada from their bread. And she made a video to go along with that petition. And Michael, we are gonna watch that video.

[B]

Okay? We're gonna see this woman. Okay.

[A]

We are gonna see this woman.

[C]

Oh, hi there. I'm the food babe.

[B]

I love yoga.

[C]

It is so amazing for your body and stress and well being, but it really does make me really hungry.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

She's taking a bite out of the yoga mat.

[C]

Wake up, people. Take a look at the ingredients in Subway's nine grain bread.

[B]

Wake up.

[C]

That one of them is the same ingredients found in yoga mat. This stuff called Azocarbon. You know, it's this stuff here, the name's on the screen. Is banned across the globe. If you get caught using it in Singapore, you get fined and put in jail. Yes, this is a very hazardous substance that is linked to lung issues and workers who are exposed to it. If it isn't even safe to be around and breathe in, how could it.

[A]

Be deemed safe to eat?

[C]

Well, the US Is one of the only countries in the world that still allows this ingredient to be used. Here in the United states in the U.S. big food companies use this as a flour bleaching agent. In other countries, they wait a week to turn their flour white. Not only is as a it's on the screen and Subway's nine grain bread, but you'll find it in the food at McDonald's, Wendy's, and even Starbucks croissants. Keep the yoga mat out of your mouth and on the floor. Do you know friends and family that eat yoga mat? Then share this video with them and go to foodbabe.com for updates. Until then, I'm the food babe.

[B]

You have no real enemies. You're afraid of yoga mats. I shouldn't be, but I'm so annoyed at how she's pretending not to know how to pronounce it.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

You've written numerous posts. It's like a whole campaign. And you're like, aw, whatever. You can see it on the screen. Like, come on.

[A]

One of her sort of core rules about food is if a third grader can't pronounce it, you shouldn't eat it.

[B]

Third graders can't pronounce very much. I couldn't say refrigerator when I. I was in third grade.

[A]

She relies really heavily on this sort of proposed binary of like, chemical versus natural.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Which is like, that doesn't exist.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Almost everything in the natural world is also chemical. Has a chemical name. This is once again, I would say neophobia in sheep's clothing. Right. The assumption is that new techniques and new ingredients and new foods are inherently sinister.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I thought that this, this quote from a professor of food science at UMass was a really good sort of encapsulation of what she's doing here. This is from a New York Times piece.

[B]

It says science splutter with frustration that to Ms. Hari, the word chemical is always a pejorative and that she yells fire about toxins but ignores that fruits and vegetables are full of naturally occurring toxins. Beach pits, for example, are very natural, but they contain cyanide, said Fergus M. Clydesdale, a professor of food science at the University of Massachusetts. Oranges have methanol, which is very toxic, and we've been eating those for thousands of years. Professor Clydesdale also pointed out that the body is made of chemicals and that we eat partly to replenish those chemicals with chemicals from food.

[A]

Ay. Everything is chemicals.

[B]

Yeah. I'm against chemicals and I'm for natural foods. Like, neither one of those things mean anything.

[A]

So, Ada, what it does is that it's essentially like a foaming agent. It helps foams retain their structure. And bread, Bread is a fucking foam. Okay? So this is an additive that helps you sort of maintain that, like bread foamy kind of structure. She does point this out in her video that, like, the core reason that this is banned in other places is because of worker safety.

[B]

Right, Right.

[A]

It doesn't have anything to do with consumer consumption.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's just like completely apples to oranges. And again, she's reaching for sort of of the scariest thing. It's also wild to look at that and not to frame this as, hey, the people who make your food deserve safe working conditions. I want food that's made by people who are able to be safe at work.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You could run this whole campaign as is, but swap out sort of like, aren't you afraid of what's in your food? What's lurking in your food? For, hey, workers are underprotected in this country. That's fucking true.

[B]

Hey, like, food processing is like a notoriously exploitative sector.

[A]

The leap from, if it's not safe to inhale, why would it be safe to ingest? Without looking into what we know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

About whether or not it's safe to ingest. Right. Like, that's sort of an unhinged thing. Again, like, part of the way that she talks about this stuff is completely devoid of context. She doesn't talk about, like, why is this used?

[B]

Right. Right.

[A]

Here is a little write up from Forbes.

[B]

So how dangerous is this latest red flag food additive? Honestly, not so bad, at least when compared to some of the other chemicals like BPA that have raised a hue and cry in the past few years. Interestingly, Ada was actually brought in as a substitute for a much worse chemical, potassium bromate, which was phased out after California's Proposition 65 called it into question as possibly dangerous to human health. Right. So this was an attempt to actually improve the safety of the food system.

[A]

Yes. And there's no real acknowledgement of that. There's just the, like, look how sinister this shit is.

[B]

Right.

[A]

She genuinely just makes it seem like they are straight up out to get you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And not like they're solving a problem in an inelegant way. Or they could Solve that problem in a better way.

[B]

Right.

[A]

According to her website, the petition garnered more than 50,000 signatures just in the first 24 hours.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Which is also how long it took Subway to respond and agree to remove ADA from its bread within the next two months.

[B]

That's actually fascinating that they caved so quickly.

[A]

They said that the removal was already underway. Which tracks to me. Right. If it's coming out in the next two months.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I don't know enough about industrial, like, food creation, food manufacturing, so I couldn't say for sure. But I'm like, two months is a really quick turnaround for something that is part of the structural integrity of the bread that you serve in every dish at your place.

[B]

Because you'd have to, like, reformulate it and then, like, do a bunch of testing to make sure that the product is not going to be meaningfully different, which, like, takes time.

[A]

There may be different equipment that's required, There may be different staff training. It just seems like a big undertaking to me to get done in like 60 days or less just because there was a petition.

[B]

But I'm sure she declared victory anyway.

[A]

Absolutely. For all of these, she claims credit pretty unilaterally, but again, it's sort of goop style where like as. As Gwyneth Paltrow said, like each of those little cultural firestorms. Yeah, just bring traffic, increase her business, all of that kind of stuff. And that is also whether or not that's her intention, that is also an effect that appears to be happening here. Right.

[B]

Well, the thing is, I mean, it's also the thing that she didn't mention the actual danger with Subway sandwiches that if you arrange them in the shape of the word Satan.

[A]

Oh. It changes their molecular structure.

[B]

They actually get so much worse.

[A]

The sandwiches response to human consciousness, but only in English.

[B]

And I guess the real issue with this isn't necessarily that Subway removed this thing from their bread because honestly, who gives a shit? It's more like it's the opportunity cost of, first of all, giving people this bizarre, like, anti system, anti government everything message. And also, like the energy of people doing petitions and lobbying the corporation could have been directed at something like, bad that they're doing, like the way that they treat workers or union busting or something that's like, actually real.

[A]

I think that's the vibe with kind of all of her stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Most of the things that she lands on, I'm like, I don't care.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

But I think the issue is that she is doing a bunch of world building that is like they're poisoning you, the food supply is out to get you. That she's sort of painting this much broader picture about like, most of the sources of your food are inherently suspect and are trying to hurt you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that leads directly into like, pretty profound anti government government sentiment and erosion of trust in entities like the fda. Right, right. You know, the FDA has a great deal of sort of power, but in terms of like a social media following, she's definitely winning that war. Right.

[B]

And instead of educating her followers on like the actual problems in the food supply, she's essentially like uneducating them and making them afraid of all these like, phantoms, rather than, like, things that we could actually be doing something about. Like, things like improving the ability of like the FDA to like inspect workplaces and shit like that.

[A]

100%.

[B]

Food safety is like a real.

[A]

The little coda to this particular campaign is that this year the FDA has announced that it's going to revisit Ada's place on the grass list.

[B]

But isn't that just like RFK Jr being like. Whatever.

[A]

That's what I was gonna say is like, whatever the FDA does is not a measure at this point of whether or not it's true or false.

[B]

But also, I hate this so much because we're now going into a world where basically anything the FDA does, you're like, oh, fuck it. It's RFK Junior's weird bullshit.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's exactly the kind of distrust in institutions that she's fomenting how, however, these institutions are not trustworthy anymore because they are run by degenerate psychos.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's now true what she's been saying about these government agencies for decades.

[A]

It's true. As a direct result of what she has been campaigning for.

[B]

Yeah. And then we result in this, like, low trust society.

[A]

They were trustworthy or considerably more trustworthy on a bunch of different things. And as a result of her like, straightforward misinformation campaigns on a bunch of this stuff that is now eroding public trust, at least amongst her audience and sort of adjacent audiences, for institutions that were by all accounts not doing a perfect job. But on the stuff that she was talking about, were taking those decisions pretty carefully. Right. And were like really genuinely weighing consumer safety and that sort of thing. Right.

[B]

And also then now it puts us in a position where we're like, oh, those numbers are from the fda. You can't trust them. Them. Which makes us sound like loons. But, like, that might end up being the case.

[A]

It also Puts us in the position of being like, hey, lay off, craft. What did they ever do to you? Right. Like, these are all sort of, like, institutions with very few defenders.

[B]

Right.

[A]

This all sort of culminates with her attending the confirmation hearing for RFK Junior. Oh, it makes a lot of sense to me. Her approach is sort of right in the pocket of RFK juniors. Right. So, like, their alignment makes a ton of. Of sense to me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The thing I wanted to close with is talking a little bit about sort of the rhetorical devices that Vani Hari uses that I think are pretty common amongst MAHA influencers and wellness influencers, sort of regardless of their political affiliation. Right. A few of these sort of rhetorical devices we've talked about before. One is anecdotal evidence stories in place of evidence. Right. Another, which we've talked about a fair amount is designating some foods as real foods and other foods as quote, unquote, fake foods. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's also another one that we've sort of touched on in the past is this idea of, like, nutritional nostalgia. Right. That's not an argument that relies on evidence. It relies on the sort of feeling that we weren't, quote, unquote, meant to eat something.

[B]

We're a fallen society. Yeah.

[A]

There are also a few devices that we have haven't talked about quite as much. One is that in her work, Vani Hari does not spend much time explaining why things are the way they are.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Again, there's only this sort of fallen society narrative. The last one that she uses very liberally is this deployment of questions with sort of heavily implied answers. The one that she uses the most is what are they trying to hide?

[B]

Oh, yeah, I love that. That's super conspiracy brain, because it's like, we can't find evidence of this, but that's evidence of the conspiracy.

[A]

Right. This is the thing that will show up sometimes where people will be like, I called General Mills and asked them who grew the oats that are used in Cheerios, and they couldn't even tell me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That doesn't necessarily mean that someone is concealing sinister information from you. Right. It may just mean, hang on, I don't have that answer handy. It might take me some time to find it, or I don't even know how to get that question answered. I'm so sorry, I can't do it. Right.

[B]

Or maybe it does mean the company's evil, but you need actual evidence that the company's evil. It's not just because they won't answer a question.

[A]

Right. All of that felt important to sort of lay out, because I think all of these are, like, increasingly commonplace as there's more and more sort of health and wellness quote unquote, information being shared on social media. With the rise of mobile influencers with, like, more and more sort of, like, algorithms tuned toward rage, bait and controversial shit, it means we're just gonna keep seeing more and more and more of this stuff. So it felt, like, worth lifting up, like, here's how this shit shows up. And if someone opens with, like, I didn't see this information, what are they trying to hide? It might be worth considering that that is a person who hasn't done their due diligence or doesn't understand what's in front of them, rather than just the person they're pointing the finger at or the company they're pointing the finger at is necessarily doing sinister things. You know, and the only.

[B]

I mean, the only way around this stuff is to arrange your food so that it spells out Gandhi, and then it becomes more healthy for you, Sam.