MasterStroke with Monica Enand & Sejal Pietrzak

Food Babe Vani Hari - Fight for Cleaner Safer Food

• Georgianna Moreland • Season 1 • Episode 33

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Host Monica and guest host Ned Renzi are joined by Vani Hari, better known as “the Food Babe,” for an eye-opening conversation about America’s food system. With over 10,000 chemicals approved for use in the U.S.—compared to just 2,000 in Europe—Hari has made it her mission to expose what’s really in our food. Dubbed by The New York Times as “public enemy number one of big food companies,” she shares how her personal health crisis transformed her into an activist who has changed the food industry.

Vani’s journey started in childhood, growing up in an Indian immigrant family that embraced American culture through fast food and processed snacks. By her early 20s, she was struggling with eczema, asthma, allergies, and endometriosis, constantly exhausted and feeling like she was in a fog. After an emergency appendectomy became her wake-up call, she started looking into the ingredients in her food—applying the same determination that once made her a top high school debater. What she found shocked her, and she knew she had to share it.

What started as a personal blog quickly turned into a movement, with Vani challenging some of the biggest food brands—like Subway, Chick-fil-A, and Starbucks—to clean up their ingredients. Her campaign against azodicarbonamide, a chemical used in Subway’s bread (and also found in yoga mats), led to major industry changes. But not everyone was thrilled—some companies fought back, trying to dismiss her as a fearmonger.

Today, Vani is focused on solutions. Her company, Truvani, creates clean protein powders and bars made without artificial sweeteners, gums, or unnecessary additives. Now available at Whole Foods and Walmart, these products reflect her belief that eating real food doesn’t have to be complicated.

this episode sponsored by  www.enjoythework.com.

Georgianna Moreland - Executive Producer | Managing Editor;
Matt Stoker - Editor


Food Babe, Vani Hari:

There's about 8,000 chemicals that are not even allowed for use in Europe. I think the approved list last I heard was around 2,000 chemicals. We have over 10,000 approved chemicals for use in our food supply and a lot of the things that are obesogens, if you will like. Pesticides aren't even used in a lot of the countries. We have to change the culture here in America if we're going to survive, and so this is going to have to be a huge shift.

Georgianna Moreland :

This is Masterstroke with Monica Enid and Sejo Petruzak, and welcome to our special guest host, Ned Renzi. Conversations with founders, CEOs and visionary leaders in technology and beyond.

Monica Enand:

Well, welcome to another episode of Masterstroke. This is Monica Enan, and I'm joined again with my guest host, co-host Ned Renzi Ned, thank you so much for being here.

Ned Renzi:

My pleasure, monica, thanks.

Monica Enand:

All right, ned, we have a really great episode today. I'm very happy that my very dear and very old and by old I really mean long tenured friend, vonnie Hurry Vonnie and I have known each other, for I actually think I don't even remember.

Monica Enand:

What'd you say Since I was born? I think since you were born. Yes, you were little and I was. I'm actually I was a little bit older. I guess I still am a little bit older. It doesn't seem that way, though. But you know, I know her as little Vani, but many might know her as the food babe, don't? I know her as Little Vonnie, but many might know her as the food babe, as she has become well known for.

Monica Enand:

Vonnie is a New York Times bestselling author and I have seen the way she has changed dozens of multi-billion dollar food companies and she's impacted so many lives. I've seen so many pieces of feedback from people who follow you and talk about the impact that you've had on their lives for the better. So great work. What does she do? She investigates and campaigns against various food additives, chemicals, manufacturing processes used by big food, the major food companies. She promotes clean eating and natural ingredients and advocates for transparency in the food industry. She's had you know we talk about impacting multi-billion dollar food companies. She's had so many high profile campaigns. She has made companies Kraft, chick-fil-a, starbucks, general Mills, chipotle, anheuser-busch and Subway remove controversial ingredients from their products, making our food safer for everyone.

Monica Enand:

The New York Times calls Vonnie public enemy number one of the big food companies and the Atlantic called her one of the most popular voices on nutrition in mainstream media. And a few years ago Time magazine listed Vani as one of the 30 most influential people on the internet. And I want to pause on this one, vani, because when I saw that Time magazine article listing you as one of the 30 most influential people on the Internet, I clicked to see who were the 30. And the 30 included Taylor Swift, barack Obama, kim Kardashian, justin Bieber, Beyonce, shakira, narendra Modi and Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I love. But I was like Vani, you are in seriously good company on this list, so I thought that was really fun to see you there. But welcome to the show, welcome to.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Masterstroke Vani, Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you here today. This is just a treat to be able to hang out with an old friend.

Ned Renzi:

My take is if you're the number one target of big food, you're doing something right. Right, I mean that's just sort of a great claim to fame. How did you get started as Food Babe? Who actually coined that name?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

So actually it was my husband. You know I wanted to start a blog because I had basically went from someone very, very sick to someone super healthy and I went off nine prescription drugs. I realized a level of health that I never thought was possible. You know, I grew up with two immigrant Indian parents, like like Monica and I. You know, when they came to the United States, they adopted the American culture and the American way of life and they were so excited and patriotic about it that they were like we're going to eat McDonald's and we're going to eat Burger King and we're not going to, you know, make you eat Indian food every night and we're not going to make you eat Indian food every night.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And as a result, I had eczema, asthma, allergies, I had endometriosis, I had my appendix taken out all before the age of 22. And my life when I think about the first half of my life because I'm now 45, it was like I was living like a zombie. I was not living up to my potential. I was always tired, I always was scrambled in my brain, I couldn't pay attention. You know, I did well at school because, I think, because the pressure of Indian parents, but I know I could have done so much better and excelled so much further if I had been eating the right foods and excelled so much further if I had been eating the right foods. And when I discovered that the majority of foods that I had been eating were full of chemical additives and I didn't understand what these additives meant or why they were there, I started this quest to find out what I had been eating and learn everything I could about the food industry, and it was something that I never thought would lead to where I am today. It was somewhat of a passion, but it was on the side.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

I was working in the corporate world right out of college and this was something that I did just because it was fun to learn about food, and I started to apply those principles to my own diet when I hit rock bottom after that appendicitis, the appendectomy that I had, and so after doing that, I started to use kind of my skills that I learned in high school, where I was a ranked debater. I got recruited to college to be in debate and you know I was number one in the state three years in a row. So, like back then you didn't have Google to like find your information. You had to go to the library and look at the microfiche, and look at law journals and do all of this extensive research. And so I did the same thing with my health, and so I started to check out these big, thick books on nutrition, and I started to discover that the majority of food that has been invented in the last 50 or so years was invented for one sole purpose, and that's to improve the bottom line of the food industry and actually help process things faster, make food more addictive, allow food companies to be able to ship their products from really far away across the world, if you will without spoiling out-spoiling, and to maintain its same integrity, and try to find ways to cheapen the cost of ingredients by using chemical additives.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And once I figured this out, I decided to eat just real food, and when I did that, it didn't take long. But things started to change dramatically. All of my eczema went away, all of my allergies went away. I went off every single prescription drug, and people around me, especially my family, were like whoa, what are you doing? What is this green drink you're drinking now? What is, what are you doing? We want to know.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And I was still working in the corporate world. So I was kind of like this outlier in my office because I'm working with these C-level executives at top tiered banks across the nation and when I would go travel I would take a cooler with me of my own food because I didn't want to eat food in the airport and I didn't want to eat food. You know fast food for lunch every day that you know the three days I was gone. So I would like make my own soups and my salads and everything and just like heat them up in the break room and do whatever I could to like eat as real as possible. And people thought I was a freak show and they started to ask questions about like why I was doing this. And I started to educate those around me in my office environment and my close friends and my family and they're the ones who said, hey, you should start a blog, you know so much about food.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

One year it was, it was Lent, it was Mardi, bra, right. And I said to my husband you know what? We're going to give up television. And we gave up television and I said this is going to be the time where I start this blog, because I'll have the time after work. And I said can you register this domain? And it's going to be called eathealthyliveforevercom. And he said that is a terrible name. And so I said, okay, we'll come up with a better name. And in about in about 10 minutes he said how about food babe? And I said food babe. He's like yeah, it's available for $10 on auction.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And I was like, okay, well, you know, for most of my life did not feel like a babe. So to to to name the blog. That felt very foreign to me and just funny, right. And I remember calling my best friend and being like hey, what do you think about this name for the blog? Food babe, she's like, she's like, and I described you perfectly, you have to have that. And and I said, okay, well, why don't I teach others to become a food babe? And so for the first year and a half of the blog I didn't have my picture at all on the main header of the blog. Like no one really knew who food babe was, unless they knew me personally. If you found me on the internet, it was like I was signing every blog post food babe. I was really hiding behind this name because, again, I was working in the corporate world for these city level execs and I didn't really want them to have such an insight into my personal life. I mean, yeah, they knew I was a health nut and all that.

Ned Renzi:

But I you were intentionally staying in the background. Yes, absolutely Great story on how you got your name Early on in the answer. This idea of travel, because I generally try to eat healthy as well and whole foods, and I actually moved to fasting when I travel. So, like I understand what you're saying. Because there's no good choices at the airport, I'm mentally fatigued, I know I'm mentally weak, and so I just decide to fast because then I don't have the logistics of planning and carrying all that food.

Ned Renzi:

And, similar to you, I started sharing that with my friends and all of a sudden now a bunch of them started to fast while they travel and stuff. So I get how this catches on. I want to go back to this quest. You're on because we talked to a lot of awesome founders like yourself who start on this quest and they have. When I was an investor, I'd call that, like you know, problem founder, fit Right, because you're solving a problem for yourself and you're so much more passionate about it, and then sometimes it takes a long time to catch on and sometimes it catches on like wildfire and so like when was the first time you really felt you were on to something and how did you know, like when you you know the message was resonating with the audience and your people.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

So it was. It was one of the first times that I had felt personally duped by a food company that I shared a story about an organic yogurt chain that had just started in Charlotte, north Carolina, and they had opened up a store in South Park Mall, and so Monica will know that, and I went there thinking that if I eat at this organic yogurt chain, it was going to be super healthy, full of real ingredients and I wasn't going to have to worry about any of the chemical additives. But what I found out is they were starting with organic milk for the yogurt, but then, to make all the different flavors, they were adding artificial food dyes, trans fats, all of the different additives like monodiglycerides and other types of seed oils and other things that they were adding. And so I figured this out because the favorite flavor that I had was taro, and you know taro is not something that grows indigenous to the United States and it's primarily in Asia. And so I like Googled, like what's taro? And you know what does it look like? And it looked nothing like the bright blue yogurt that I was eating. And I found out they're putting blue number one in there to make that tarot color and it was really disheartening and so I wrote about it and it went so viral within the community in Charlotte and the other places that had this chain that the CEO of the company reached out to me, apologized and took down the marketing that they had on the wall that said organic tastes better. And that was the first moment I had, or the first taste of activism and how the blog and my writing and my sharing could change the food industry.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And that literally just ripped the Band-Aid and I went after every single company personally that I had been duped by, and the two biggest ones I mean they're all really big, but I mean they're all personal stories whether it was Subway, because I used to eat a foot-long veggie sub every single day when I was on the road right before I had my appendix taken out. Or a Chick-fil-A sandwich, where everyone around me thought it was the healthier fast food, but when you looked at the ingredients they were the same chemicals that McDonald's was using. Or Starbucks, where you're paying a premium for coffee thinking you're getting a better product, but they're adding caramel coloring level four that's linked to cancer according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and it's like you know. I'm like wait a minute, you're drinking this pumpkin spice latte in an opaque cup. Why do you need this caramel coloring in there too?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

This is something that can be made without that, and a lot of these chemicals that I rallied against and wrote about are completely unnecessary. They are literally there for aesthetic purposes or for you know. They found that when children look at brightly colored foods and they add dye to foods, that children will eat more of that product than they normally would, and so this is one of the tricks the food industry uses to make us eat more, but it's not a necessary ingredient for the purpose of taste or anything like that. Then, you know, I think about Anheuser-Busch.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

You know, when I'd open my fridge and beer was the one thing that didn't have a label, it didn't have any ingredients listed on the label, and it was like wait a minute, knowing everything that I'd known what had happened to the food industry. I know they've screwed up beer too. They've got to be adding additives to make it more addictive or to make it taste a certain way, or, you know, adding the flavor enhancers and things like that, and I found all of that to be true. Not only were they adding that, but they were adding sugar.

Ned Renzi:

How did they get away with not listing ingredients?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Well, for the beer industry is not regulated, actually, by the FDA. It's regulated by the tobacco firearms.

Ned Renzi:

Oh, ATF.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, of the government. So and and it was this just kind of archaic regulation back in the day where you know, this was like these agencies were separated. I mean, I'll give you a great example. They tried to ban red number three in food and they didn't get away with it because basically, red number three was the same ingredient that was used in those little maraschino cherries and at the time the alcohol industry was selling a lot of drinks using those. And so they lobbied the government to keep red three in food. But it was banned in cosmetics, so you couldn't use it in lipstick, cause cancer, but you can still use it in food. But that's how powerful that lobby is to keep the regulations from happening.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And and as a result of my campaign against Anheuser-Busch and Miller Coors they were I pit them against each other to see which one would relent first. And within 48 hours of starting a petition and letting people know of what's happening in the beer industry, and this cloak of secrecy, anheuser-busch reached out to me, said that they would post the ingredients right away, that they would start listing them, and they invited me to their headquarters, actually invited my entire family to their headquarters and was able to consult with them on creating an organic beer. You know they asked me. They're like what's the one thing that you would want as a result of this meeting? And I'm like an organic beer. And you know, fast forward a couple of years later and you see organic Michelob Ultra being advertised on the Super Bowl, which was just the coolest moment ever.

Monica Enand:

That's amazing. You know you talked about how powerful these lobbyists and the food industry and these large companies are, and we know that anyone who speaks truth to power can have powerful enemies. So we see that play out over and over again People who speak out against opioids, for big pharma or corporations that do environmental damage you talked about. You know skeletons coming out or arrows. What has that been like for you?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, I mean it was really tough at first because again, I thought if I just tell the truth, I get these companies to change, everybody will be happy, right, of course this is great for the consumer to eat less chemicals, to have more transparency in food and know the ingredients and all of this work. But it wasn't that case. What I was really naive about is that I was going up against a multi-billion dollar industry and they were losing multi-millions of dollars as a result of my campaigns. And I think it really became clear during the Subway campaign when I got them to remove a chemical called azodicarbonamide, a chemical they use in yoga mats and shoe rubber, that they were using in the Subway bread here in the United States but not elsewhere. This chemical actually creates evenly dispersed air bubbles in bread the same way it would rubber Like. If you look at rubber or a yoga mat by its side, you see those little air bubbles. It's the same thing it does in bread because they wanted the bread to be uniform and be the exact same every time you went to any subway. But in Europe they regulated this chemical because when it's heated it turns into semi-carbicide, which is a carcinogen, and also when you inhale it, you can have asthmatic issues. So it's a hazard for the workers using this chemical. And if you actually get caught using it in Singapore, you get fined and put in jail, which is insane. So this is a really hazardous chemical. But when I petitioned Subway to remove this chemical, not only did they remove it, but almost every single bread manufacturer in America had to remove it. They went from the number one fast food chain down a few slots. They lost so much revenue as a result of that campaign Because every single bread manufacturer had to remove that chemical. There is a chemical company that was making that additive that no longer had that revenue as a result.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

They hired lobbyists, pr firms, other people to go after me and destroy me as a messenger of change and try to go after me personally. And the attacks they used were very interesting in that they called me a fear mongerer. They called me pseudoscientific because I didn't have a scientific background, because I wasn't a doctor. I wasn't a doctor, I wasn't a scientist, I was more of a citizen journalist, right. But one of the things they did was they really insulted the public with these attacks because they tried to insult the public, as in if you aren't a scientist or a doctor. You don't know how to eat, you don't know how to read these ingredients, you don't know these chemicals right, and the funny thing is, is the only people that have made food complicated in the last 50 or so years has been the food scientists themselves.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Right Before that, it was just real food, right. You knew what an apple was and a banana and lettuce and things that you got from the farmer's market. So for me, once I realized what type of power I was up against, it became easier to deal with, but at the time it was hard because I didn't have a huge PR team or a lot of people working for me. It was me, a couple people, and it was that. That was it.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And so when these attacks were being levied in huge news articles about me, like you know, the the profile piece I think about is the one that I wrote about in my book Feeding you Lies. Feeding you Lies was like sold so many copies the week it came out and I knew I wasn't going to get on the New York Times bestseller list, because the entire first chapter was about the New York Times and this article that they had released about me, this profile piece and I had talked about how the three detractors that they put in that article all had ties to the industry, but they didn't reveal that. One of the guys they interviewed to show the counter point of, I guess, not eating real food was Fergus Clydesdale. He was on the board of Sensient Technologies, the company who makes caramel color level four of the pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks that I was riling against.

Ned Renzi:

I'm going to go on this quest where it's kind of you against the world and you know like you have all these big companies with unlimited resources and hiring lobbyists to target you, and my understanding is you have an army behind you now, the Food Babe Army, and maybe tell us a little bit about how they assist in the work you do us a little bit about how they assist in the work you do.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, so the Food Babe Army is citizens across the globe that not only care about their own health, but they care so much that they're willing to share information with those that they love. They're willing to sign petitions, they're willing to meet me at the headquarters of these companies to deliver those petitions, and they're the ones out there that are being the activists in their own lives, in their own communities, at their own schools, at their own dinner table. Right, they're using the information as a revolutionary act in their own lives, and these people are just incredible. I was just on the road across the United States doing Sprouts tours for my company, truvani, and I got to meet so many people that not only care about eating real food, but they care enough to like hold these companies accountable for what they're doing? Because one of the issues that I'm having is that no one's holding these companies accountable in Washington, right? I mean every single.

Ned Renzi:

They're funding all the campaigns of the people approving this stuff, like we're talking about food here. But it boggles my mind that, like lead paint was banned in Europe in 1937. And it wasn't banned in the US till like 1973 because of lobbyists and you know again, you see what RFK Jr did with, you know his rallies against big food in his campaign and stuff, and the big companies go after them. They're doing all the hit pieces just like you're talking about right, they have a playbook and they're executing their playbook.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, and, and you know it is really hard to be the messenger of change, but one of the things that I always kind of go back to is that this mission is bigger than myself. So if I'm the one who's being attacked as a result of getting this information out, it's bigger than myself, and so, like I'm going to be protected in that way and I'm just going to have to keep going, and, and I have to tell you, you know, when I became a mother, I I softened my stance, not not like in terms of in the, in the, in the public eye, but I softened the way that I do things, because I didn't want to put them at risk. I mean, people were at one point driving by my house. I had death threats, rape threats oh my God, ground for a lot of these chemicals that we use, and especially the chemicals that we use on our ground. And Monsanto is now owned by Bayer.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And when they got wind of me going to the University of Hawaii to do a talk on the ethics of eating, they tried to stop it.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

They unleashed trolls online to try to buy up tickets, to make it look like the event was sold out so nobody could come.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Luckily, the event organizers realized this and they were able to stop it and fix the system and when I went, we had standing room only. It was incredible, but I had to have security guards with me because of the fact that it was so heated of a debate at that time and it was right before the government had decided to label genetically engineered ingredients and so that was one of the key regulations that was about to occur. So there was a lot at stake for Monsanto and it was a really heated time and it was scary, but it was before I had my kids and so, you know, after I had my kids, I kind of just, you know took a holding these companies accountable. Kellogg's, in 2018, said that they would remove all the artificial food dyes in their cereals, creating new cereals like Baby Shark. They're using the most popular toddler song in the world to attract a new generation of eaters and they're using artificial dyes in these, and when these artificial dyes are consumed by little kids and little babies, it affects their brains, it affects their immune system.

Ned Renzi:

It's awful. I have an 18-month-old granddaughter and I was just looking at some statistics on toddlers in the US versus toddlers in other countries. You picked an advanced area like Scandinavia or the UK At different ages. Our heights are off by inches like several centimeters inches, whatever and the only variable is the food intake, right, what we're feeding our kids. So it's actually stunting our growth. It's impacting us mentally, in addition to all the health stuff that you experience. If we could just pause right there and maybe just say like to me. You've accomplished so much in a pretty short period of time on this front. What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

It's probably getting my brother to eat healthier.

Monica Enand:

I know your brother. I was friends with your brother in high school. That's such a hard one.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

I wish I could say the same, for like my dad, but it's probably that I mean honestly, like no one wants to listen to you about food right. Like it's just a really hard subject and I just tried to lead by example. And it took, you know, taking down these corporations, becoming a best-selling author, becoming, you know, known for this, for my brother to finally, like, several years later, be like, okay, I should look into this. For my brother to finally, like, several years later, be like, okay, I should look into this, right.

Monica Enand:

That cracks me up. I have to admit, Vani, I feel a bit overwhelmed about how to eat right. I mean, I don't know, there's conflicting information. Is sugar good, bad or carbs? The enemy Is fat. The enemy, Like. I just feel like over the course of my life I have tried and the landscape has shifted. I never have understood what the right thing to do is. If you had to say, like, what were the top three things that people should be paying attention to, what would you say?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

So I would eat the least amount of processed food as possible and that means anything that is in a package or plastic container from the grocery store and make the majority of your diet fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meats, yogurt, cheese. You know again, yogurt and cheese from the grocery store do come in a package, but it's a minimally processed food compared to an ultra processed food like Oreos or chips or, you know, crackers or something like that. And the more real food that you add to your diet, the less processed food you'll eat automatically, because your body and your cells and everybody will be like everything inside. You will be happy because you're getting actual nutrition. And that's what happened to me is, when I made that shift, I stopped craving food. I stopped having issues with food because it wasn't a thing that happened anymore. It was like you know, my body actually craved having my sprouts that I make on my front porch. Right and it was. It became a non-issue and and especially when you don't have it in the house and there's this three question detox that I have at the end of one of my books, feeding New Lies, where I ask people it's really easy how to become your own food investigator, and it just takes these three simple questions to ask every time you sit down for a meal, and it's what are the ingredients, are these ingredients nutritious and where do these ingredients come from? And if you can answer those three questions every single time you sit down to eat, you're going to be definitely in a better place by the third, fourth, fifth, sixth meal. After you do that exercise, because you're going to start learning about all of the ingredients that you have been eating, you're going to ask what are the ingredients? Okay, well, shoot, I never thought about the ingredients in this bread.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Let me go look right, oh, it's got monodiglycerides in it. Oh, well, what's that? What's that ingredient in there for? And you start to educate yourself, right. And then you ask yourself and again, you don't need to be a nutritionist or a food scientist to figure out if something's nutritious. Are monodiglycerides nutritious? No, they're not. They're a chemical that's made by the food industry to make fat from breaking down in a product. Right, you'll find that out if you do the research. And then you can say well, where do these ingredients come from? Oh, from a chemical factory. That's not going to be good for my body. Like, everything that comes from nature is typically good for the body in terms of you know except you know the poisonous plants that are available out there, but in terms of getting it at a farmer's market, that's where a person can really, I think, achieve their highest level of health possible is having a diet that is less reliant on ultra processed foods and more real food.

Ned Renzi:

Okay, makes sense. Great answer, Monica. I'm going to put you on the spot, since you said you were overwhelmed. So Vonnie's given us some great info. Maybe like what are you going to do different after this conversation?

Monica Enand:

Good question, I think you know, I think the journey of actually looking at ingredients has been I never did that, I don't know. And also I looked at it and I just assumed, oh well, someone's taking care of this, Like I shouldn't have to worry about it. But I think that actually just questioning it and thinking about it and looking into it is absolutely something I can do. I think you know I've been trying to eat less processed foods and real foods, but I think that sometimes you don't realize, even in basic things, where there's like basic things that you're used to eating, what the ingredients are. And starting to look at that, I think, is definitely something I can do.

Ned Renzi:

Yeah that's awesome. I'm going to check in on you in a month and just test you on your ingredient knowledge. All right, ok, you hold me accountable, like just test you on your ingredient knowledge.

Monica Enand:

All right, okay, you hold me accountable like Vani holds the food industry accountable.

Ned Renzi:

I'm down for that Ned. Exactly, Georgiana put that in the show notes.

Monica Enand:

All right, but I have a question, because I have all these friends that will go to Europe or Japan and they'll be there for a few weeks and then they'll come back and they'll be like oh my gosh, I ate all the food, I ate all the things, the cheese, and I ate all the sushi and I ate everything, and I felt like I ate worse, more food. But they claim that they lost weight and I always say, oh, you just walked more than you do in your normal life sitting at a computer. But there seems to be a lot of evidence of people traveling, know, in your normal life sitting at a computer or and. But there seems to be a lot of evidence of people traveling abroad spending a few weeks feeling better, eating, you know, feeling like they lost weight, when they really didn't do very much differently. What is going on there?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Well, there's a couple of things. Number one there's about 8,000 chemicals that are not even allowed for use in Europe. I think the approved list last I heard was around 2,000 chemicals. We have over 10,000 approved chemicals for use in our food supply, so eliminating just the chemicals alone will make you feel better. But the second thing is that they're using real food and real cooking techniques, whereas when you go to a restaurant here in the United States, a lot of it is being the product is being processed before it gets to the restaurant.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

I'll give you an example Like when you go to an Applebee's, if you order rice and chicken, you think you're getting rice and chicken that someone's making the rice in the back and the chicken and everything else. No, it's coming frozen, it's already processed, it has additives in it. They are simply just heating it up. The rice is coming in a plastic bag so they can parboil it by throwing it in some boiling water in the plastic bag. So not only are you getting a processed product, but you're getting the leach of the plastics too. Are you getting a processed product, but you're getting the leach of the plastics too, and so this is something that they just don't generally do in Europe Like they don't have these efficiencies to make more money.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

They actually take pride in having to cook real food and do that. And so, like a lot of, I would say, you know, and I go to Europe a lot and I go to Europe a lot, I have to say it's just an emphasis on real food, a less emphasis on ultra processed food and a lot of the things that are obesogens, if you will like. Pesticides aren't even used in a lot of the countries, like Monsanto is banned for use in Italy, for example. So it's tiresome, it's exhausting.

Monica Enand:

It is.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

You know, when you say you're overwhelmed, I'm, I I'm even overwhelmed at times because I take such a pride in like eating as much real food as possible. We have to change the culture here in America if we're going to survive, and so this is going to have to be a huge shift, and you know it's happening. I feel like it's starting to happen. You know about. You know, 10 years ago, I think, it started to like a big food revolution, started to take wave, and then it tapered off a little bit. And I think we're back over there because we're realizing the high levels of all of the obesity-related diseases and the food-related diseases that could be easily quenched if we just take emphasis and put dollars where they need to go, which is towards real food instead of all the ultra processed foods that the government subsidizes.

Ned Renzi:

Bonnie, if I could maybe just switch the conversation a little bit to your new company. Like I love that you take it on this problem. You're solving it for yourself, but like something that simplifies life for people like me and Monica is to find a brand we can trust, and it sounds like you've started that with Truvani. Maybe tell us about that?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, absolutely so. One of the things that I love is finding fast food that's real food, and smoothies are my ultimate fast food. I use real fruits and vegetables. I use protein powder, nut seeds, all kinds of things that I add to my smoothie ginger, lemon, I'm always adding all kinds of things just to pack it with nutrition, and so protein powder has always been one of the things that I was using as my arsenal.

Ned Renzi:

But when I looked at the ingredients, I was going to ask you this question because I do one or two shakes a day and it's really hard to find clean ingredients. So what should we be looking for in protein?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, so so the ingredients that I was seeing and everything that I was learning about the food industry, I was like I can't consume these protein powders anymore and so I went to like a product that was just like 100% hemp protein at one point because I just didn't want to use any of the additives. And one of the first products that we created at Truvani was a protein powder, because I knew it could be done better, and so we started with a blend of organic peas, chia seed and pumpkin seed and we created a protein powder without any of the chemical additives that you will see in the 99% of the protein powders that are on the market today. You won't see xanthan gum, you won't see maltodextrin, you won't see gar gum or locust bean gum. These gums help the product kind of emulsify and stay together when you mix it, but that's not something that you need in the product. It's an unnecessary ingredient and they've found in studies today that these chemicals actually disrupt the gut microbiome and make it actually, you know, can cause leaky gut other things in your body. So this is something you don't want to have in your protein powders.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

The other thing that I was seeing in a lot of protein powders was a lot of artificial sweeteners, and the sweetener that we chose to use in Truvani was organic monk fruit. But organic monk fruit is really hard to find without erythritol, which is another artificial sweetener, and so I searched the freaking globe to find someone who would make us organic monk fruit without erythritol, and we were able to do that. When you see the label natural flavor, people think that that's coming from something natural, but it can be a thousand different chemicals made in a laboratory and they're also tricking your taste buds because they're creating the one millionth best part of a taste in that additive. I wanted to create the best in class protein powder and now, after launching seven years ago, we're the number one plant-based protein powder. And now, after launching seven years ago, we're the number one plant-based protein powder on the natural market according to spins, and it's absolutely incredible. We launched in whole foods in June and after we launched, thank you.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

We um, and after we launched we stayed number one. Every single month they're out and we just keep increasing our footprint there, which is so exciting. We just launched into Walmart for our vanilla and chocolate SKUs this month, which is just insane to think about, because that's the realm of big food. Right, if I'm public enemy of number big food, it's a little bit scary to be with the big dogs in Walmart, but we're there and we're going to see if we can make it there. It is a tricky situation because you just don't know whether your product's going to succeed in that type of environment. But I'm hopeful because it means that Walmart is looking at these better for you products and bringing that to their marketplace and that means more access to Truvani and I know that means healthier people.

Ned Renzi:

That's right. Kudos to Walmart for taking a product like that. So look, I mean, there's so much good info in the discussion here, whether it's you know Truvani, you know joining your army and helping fight the good fight. Where can people go to learn more about all these things?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, you can come over to foodbabecom and truvanicom. You can follow me on Instagram. I'm back on X if you want to follow me there. Thefoodbabe I'm really excited about my account. I was banned for two years, suspended for two years and I had no idea why, but I have a feeling that someone just decided to take me out for some reason, and so I'm back now which I'm back, and the Food Bay Barmy is responsible for that right.

Monica Enand:

They reached out, yes, they did?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, it was funny because I was. I was submitting my appeals, like you know, in a black box and nothing was happening. And I said you know what? I just need to ask the Food Bay Barmy. I sent out a, told everybody what was going on and within hours I had my account back. So it was incredible. They're a really powerful group.

Monica Enand:

Even Elon can cave to the Food Babe Army.

Ned Renzi:

I just want to pause for a day. I made this reference to RFK Jr. One of the things I was thinking is if somebody like you was, you know, queen for the day, president, head of the FDA, or what like, what would? What one thing would you change about like the FDA and their relationships with the big food industry?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

I would make it so that nobody working with the FDA was actually getting paid by the food industry themselves, like we're getting any kind of monetary compensation from the food or chemical or even pharmaceutical companies. That's the first thing I would do.

Ned Renzi:

You're saying, like actual government employees, civil servants are getting a government paycheck and they're also getting money from the industries.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Absolutely. They're getting consulting dollars. Yes, oh wow. The current head of the FDA worked for probably nine out of 10 of the top pharmaceutical companies as well, so it's really a revolving door and it's something that needs to change.

Ned Renzi:

Yeah, yeah, I remember my first job out of college. I worked for the Department of Defense and as part of our ethics training, like when we went to a contractor, I literally could not accept a cup of coffee because they thought that would influence me in giving a contract except a cup of coffee, because they thought that would influence me in giving a contract. Right, while you, while you watch, you know, our congressmen go on these junkets to these islands and stuff that are fully funded by industry, defense contractors, food, energy, whatever, and it just seems like the whole system is so conflicted.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, and I mean. The other thing that I would do is take the subsidies away from ultra processed food and give it towards real food.

Ned Renzi:

Yeah. So look, maybe I'm off base here, but like I think it was like during the Nixon administration, when they just like never wanted to go through food shortage rationing again, so they subsidized corn and some of these other things, and now it's just like the high fructose corn syrup it just found its way in. And now it's just like they just keep moving from subsidy to subsidy to subsidy as opposed to letting the market figure it out.

Monica Enand:

Yep, exactly and Vani when you talk about real food fruits and vegetables do we have to worry about the pesticides that they use on fruits and vegetables.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, I mean, it's better to buy organic if you can afford it and seek it out whenever possible. You know, the Environmental Working Group sends a list out every year. That's the dirty dozen, it's the top 12 vegetables and fruits that use the most pesticides. You probably want to avoid any kind of non-organic of those. It's like strawberries and kale and celery. You know cucumbers, so you want to look at that list every year to see what that does. And then there's like the Clean 15. There's things like avocados and mangoes and other things that you can buy that are not organic, that have a thicker skin, that aren't as heavily sprayed that you can consume. So that's one way to determine where you need to buy organic. But I think you buy everything organic if you can afford it, because I truly believe without your health you cannot accomplish what you need to do in this world.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

I know I read this book, which was life-changing to me. I don't know if I sent it to you, monica, but you should go get it. It's called Die With Zero. I think I did send it to you, didn't I send it to you? No?

Monica Enand:

I didn't.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

No, I didn't send it to you Okay, because you were one of the people I was thinking about I need to send this book to, but it's called Die With Zero and it's about Creating mass fulfillment of your life and when you have your health right and you have to almost start treating your health like your job, your number one job After the age of 45, really, it should be your number one job to stay as healthy as possible if you want to have max fulfillment of your life.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

And this book is a financial book. However, it's more of a spiritual book too, in that it teaches you what's important your life. And this book is a financial book. However, it's more of a spiritual book too, in that it teaches you what's important in life. And without your health, you can't do the things that you seek to do in this world right. And without health, I wouldn't have been able to come to Food Babe or start Truvani or do any of the things that I did, because I was so that I did, because I was so jacked on processed foods. And if I had continued during that path of being on prescription drugs and all of those different surgeries and continued that trajectory of health, I know I might not be alive today to tell you the truth. I mean, I was down a rough road.

Monica Enand:

Well, and as we live longer, we have to choose whether we want to be healthy for the longer years that we're on the earth. You can either. You know somebody said oh well, does living longer mean that you have a longer retirement? I actually think it means you have a longer midlife, like the midlife portion of your life is longer and you just have to make that high quality right and not think about it as you're just old, longer You're actually, you know.

Ned Renzi:

Yeah, you want to increase your healthspan as much as your lifespan. Exactly, monica. You want to jump over to some audience questions.

Monica Enand:

I did. But I had a quick question about. You mentioned that they do a lot of testing in Hawaii. Why do they do testing in Hawaii?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Good question. I mean, it's just, you know it's fertile farmland and so in Kauai specifically, they have a whole testing ground for pesticides and you know, I think it's it's you know it's away from the United States, you know the mainland and it's unfortunate, it's really unfortunate for the people of Hawaii.

Monica Enand:

Okay, Well, we do have some thank you. We do have some audience questions.

Ned Renzi:

Monica, I have one from Carolyn Myrie in Dallas, texas, and so, vani, like you know, we had talked about eating out. Like what are your non-negotiables for eating out? Like what are one, two, three simple rules our listeners could follow to sort of navigate eating out? Like, what are your non-negotiables for eating out? Like what are one, two, three simple rules our listeners could follow to sort of navigate eating out?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah. So number one don't eat out that much. But if you do eat out, choose foods that are high in plants. So you know salads and lots of sides that have different vegetables. Ask them to cook it in butter or olive oil. Always take the salad dressing on the side, because every single I mean I would say 90% of restaurants are using seed oils for the salad dressing.

Ned Renzi:

You can ask If you do recommend just oil and vinegar instead? Is that cleaner?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, yeah, and you can ask for that.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

On the side, you can use just lemon juice a lot of times, and then you know you can also do what I do, which is sometimes you eat a little bit of stuff that you're not supposed to eat or that you're rallying against, or you know that it might not have the best ingredients, but because you've dialed in everything at home and you eat so well for the majority of time, letting go a little bit is not going to kill you, right?

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

You know it might make you feel bad later, but having a little bit of it here and going back to your normal diet when you get home is not going to kill you. Now, if you're a consultant like I was where you were on the road from Sunday night until Thursday that's not going to cut it, right? You have to have some things in place where you have some go-to meals that you could make in your hotel room or in your Airbnb or whatever, that are quick and easy. Or seeking out restaurants that you know that don't use seed oils or using more real food. Nationally there's a chain that's expanding called True Food, and it was actually Dr Andrew Wiles, you know restaurant for a long time and now it's owned by someone else, but it's an amazing restaurant that's taking care of the ingredients that they're serving their customers.

Monica Enand:

So that's another one I recommend. I love True Food Kitchen and hearing you ask about where the meat is from. You know I live in Portland, oregon and there's like a Portlandia skit about how much we ask about where the meat is from and where, you know, go visit the chickens and all that. So if you haven't seen that, okay, but I have a burning wrap-up question. So if you haven't seen that, okay, but I have a burning wrap-up question. So when they make an Erin Brockovich-style blockbuster movie about you, is Priyanka Chopra your choice to play you in?

Ned Renzi:

the movie.

Monica Enand:

Like who if Steven Spielberg or Greta Gerwig better than that is listening yeah.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

I don't know that's a good question. That is a really good question. I mean that's a good question. I don't know it's a good question, that's a really good question. I mean, I that's a good question, I don't know, it's got to be an indian girl lady woman um actress.

Monica Enand:

There's going to be so many of them out there, yeah yeah maybe you'll play yourself.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Take on a new chapter? No, no, I didn know. I do not want to act.

Monica Enand:

Well, thank you so much, Bonnie, for being with us today. It has been so informative and really important topic for all of our listeners to be listening to. They can check things, get your books, check things out about your blog or, I guess, your articles and join the Food Babe Army at foodbabecom and check out Truvani Protein powder at Walmart or Whole Foods or wherever I don't know.

Food Babe, Vani Hari:

Yeah, Walmart, Whole Foods Sprouts. You can get it on Amazon. You can go on the website truvanicom. We also created a bar which uses ingredients that you would find in your own kitchen, so we have 12 flavors of the bar. It's absolutely incredible. My kids are obsessed.

Monica Enand:

I gotta hide them from them alright, we are definitely going to be checking those out. Well, thank you very much, and thank you, ned, for joining me to co-host today. And that is another episode of Masterstroke. Thank you so much to our executive producer, georgiana Marland in Moreland.

Georgianna Moreland :

Thank you for listening today. We would love for you to follow and subscribe. Monica and Sejo would love to hear from you. You can text us directly from the link in the show notes of this episode. You can also find us on the LinkedIn page at Masterstroke Podcast with Monica Enid and Sejo Petrozak. Until next time.