Transcription of “The Food Babe Way with Vani Hari”

One of my really dear friends said, “You know what? You are hot on the trail to investigate what is in our food.”

I said, “I like that tagline. That’s pretty cool, you know? Because I am hot on the trail! Right?”

Someone needs to be hot on the trail! A lot of this information has been hidden from us for so long. We ALL need to be hot on the trail, right?

So how can we all get hot on the trail?

(applause)

Yeah! We all need to be hot on the trail! We can’t let these people just pollute our bodies without our permission! We can’t do that! We all need to be hot on the trail to find out what is in our food and that is what I started doing.

One of the first investigations that I did was one of the most groundbreaking of all and it’s when I started to compare products sold here in the United States to products sold in other countries.

One of the first products that I found had this double standard where they were using safer ingredients for citizens overseas, and not for us, was Kraft® Macaroni and Cheese.

Two months later, I unlocked a pandora’s box of the hypocrisy within the food system where companies, American companies, have found out ingredients can make us sick and instead of solving the issue for all of their products in all countries, they only do it for companies that safeguard themselves.

In Europe, when there is an artificial food dye used, yellow-5, yellow-6, red-40, whatever, there is a warning label for parents. It says, “May cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children”.

Parents are warned, “If you feed this to your kid, they might become hyperactive. Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Right?

They are warned in other countries, and because Kraft wanted to avoid this warning label they said, “You know what? We’re just gonna take out those ingredients. No problem. We’re gonna use REAL food. We’re gonna use paprika and turmeric and we’re gonna figure it out. We’re gonna use real ingredients. But only for them, we’re still gonna just hoodwink everyone else, including all the American children that are on hyperactivity drugs, that are getting autism, that are getting all of these issues in school where they can’t pay attention. We’re not going to address that because you know what? We are a corporation and it costs less money to buy things made from petroleum and coal tar than it does to buy real ingredients.”

It’s pennies. It’s pennies. But how many kids have suffered?

So I started a petition and overnight, I think like in a week, it got over 200,000 signatures and it was one of the most viral food petitions over time because so many people were mad about this double standard.

(applause)

Thank you.

And, yes, Kraft is just one product, but it was to highlight an issue. This issue of hypocrisy. This issue of these double standards. The issue of being ethical and moral in your business practice.

When you find out your product is hurting someone, I believe you have a moral, ethical obligation to change it!

(applause)

So, two months later, after finally quitting my job, devoting my full energy into my work, I set the world on fire with Kraft and I was on every single major news network on earth I felt like, and everyone wanted to interview me and it was really intense. It was a really intense period.

I remember my first national TV experience and I was just totally like, “What? What’s going on?” I had no media training. I didn’t know anything. But I knew how to debate.

I knew how to debate, so I could debate the food corporations on these news networks.

But, you know, a few months later – actually, one month later, after starting the petition – I showed up on Kraft® headquarter’s door, their front door, with those petition signatures and they weren’t too happy when they saw me.

It was on April Fool’s Day but it was no joke.

(laughter)

There was no joke. There was no joke and that’s actually how my book starts. If you have The Food Babe Way the introduction chapter is what happened at that meeting when I showed up. So, anyways, go read it because it’s so good.

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