Today we wrap up our series on Food Politics with Vani Hari, aka Food Babe.
She's a super cool, quite fearless, and impassioned investigative health blogger who is taking on the big food companies like McDonalds, Kraft, Subway and the likes.
Recently she made REAL headway with Kraft — getting them to remove artificial dyes from their Mac n Cheese. BIG WIN!!!
She also garnered national attention at the Democratic National Convention when she used her status as an elected delegate to protest in front of the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture on the issue of GMO labeling.
I wanted to wrap up this series with Vani because she was a just a girl who was passionate about clean food. And I think it’s amazing how this passion has helped her make a big difference and generate a following of over a million people who are now making cleaner food choices.
In this episode we ask Vani the all important question: What are some of the ingredients that are in our food that we're consuming all the time that you feel like really shouldn't be there in the first place?
“Definitely artificial food dyes, and that was the case of Kraft. There's been study after study that showed that they're linked to hyperactivity in children. In Europe, they have to use a warning label that says, “May cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children,” on any product that uses artificial food dyes, and they are linked to allergies, asthma, skin rashes, as well, and contaminated with carcinogens.
So there's no reason, there's no benefit other than the bottom line of companies, them making more money, to use this chemical petroleum based ingredient in our food. And so I'd like to see the eradication of artificial food dyes, and I think it's going to start very soon, especially with Kraft's big move. And I'd like to see M&M's do that. I'd like to see it across all food, especially the food geared towards children.
But then there's these other crazy ingredients that are our food that are banned in other countries. One that's a big example is something that's found in almost every whole wheat bread on the market, including Subway's nine grain bread, and it's called azodicarbonamide. But this thing is linked to lung issues in workers. There's no reason why we should be putting the workers who create our bread at risk, and that's why it's banned in Europe, Australia, and you get actually fined if you use it in Singapore and you can be put into jail.
And so this is a serious ingredient. It needs to be completely eliminated from the American food supply, from the world's food supply. If it's causing issues and linked to these health issues, we shouldn't be eating it.”
The bottom line here is our food supply has changed more in the last 60 years than it has in the previous 10,000 and we are paying for it. Chemicals we cannot pronounce should’ve never made their way into our food supply. We should be working on creating a clean and natural food supply which means anti-chemical, anti-gmo- just real food, straight from Mother Earth.
Learn more to become an informed consumer and to protect yourself by watching all 3 parts of our food politics series.
Part 1: Shocking Hidden Chemicals in Everyday Foods
Part 2: Exploring The Potential Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods