A few months ago, I wrote here about “Food Babe,” the persona invented by Vani Hari. She is a pretend expert on food, blogging about supposedly dangerous additives. Some call her a “food activist,” but the truth is that she is paid for bringing paranoia and hysteria to her cult-like following.
I believe Vani Hari is a complete fraud for a multitude of reasons. The most compelling include:
- Her lack of education in the field in which she claims to be an expert
- She makes money from bashing companies and promoting “alternatives” which pay her through affiliate links or other advertising means (and these alternatives often include expensive, useless supplements.)
- It was discovered that Food Babe has gotten companies she has criticized to pay her “consulting fees” (some might call this extortion)
- Little science, lots of fear mongering
- She is wrong so often (The misguided attack on beer, her silly claims about microwaves, her wrong information on vaccines, just to name a few.)
- She won’t actually respond to legitimate criticism that is based in science and facts. She just lumps together all critics and focuses on the people who attack her personally. Her followers focus on those attacks, and don’t demand that she respond with facts to the legitimate criticism.
- Hari was named the #1 junk science for 2014 by Real Clear Science. LOL.
Food Babe claims this isn’t about the money. This is her “passion.” Except it’s not enough of a passion for her to actually research and provide accurate information to her “Food Babe Army.” Therefore, I must conclude that Vani Hari’s crusade IS all about the money.
Thank you for continuing to write about the Food Babe. The more I study her tactics, the more appalled I am. I’ve been compiling a list of foods/items/companies/brands that she’s warned people away from–almost always recommending an alternative for which she’s compensated–and that list is just a few shy of 500 now. The irony is that most of her suggested alternatives fail her own “safety” criteria, such as it is…
Of course beer is great, microwaves are perfectly safe and vaccines cause no harm! How silly of anyone to claim otherwise! I mean after all the beer companies, pharmaceutical companies and FDA have all proclaimed that these are safe, they have never been wrong! I’m so happy you are correcting my thinking that I should be embracing mercury, fluoride and chemical preservatives, gmo, radiation etc. thank you, thank you, thank you. I feel like going to get my flu shot now, microwaving the crap out of my dinner and sucking down a few healthy beers! Hey just heard the McRib is back! Yeah baby!
Mark – I linked to your list in the article!
Scott – I’m not here to correct anyone’s thinking. I just happen to believe real scientists over Hari, who seems to be wrong more often than she is right.
It’s amazing what the combined efforts of the Gov, pharma, big food, corporate media and even Universities (who train and conduct science to keep in the good will of the Gov, pharma and big food) can do to prevent “outside” information from leeching into the minds of the sheeple. Want some goods on vaccine and autism? Google – “dr william thompson” CDC
Peter – Vani Hari keeps beating the drum that it is the government, big food, pharma, etc. that want to silence her. Nothing could be further from the truth. People who are in favor of the dissemination of ACCURATE INFORMATION want to silence her because she is JUST PLAIN WRONG so much of the time. If she were accurate in her claims and interpretation of the science, I think there would be a lot more people supporting her. As it stands, she is wrong so often, that people like me have no choice but to expose her for the fraud that she is.
wow. just wow. lady you sound completley misinformed and ignorant. do you allow your children to just eat endless streams of foods you know nothing about? you didnt even produce a single verified article in your argument all your attacks are ad hominem. did you know that the polio vaccined given to children in india buy the bill and melinda gates foundation paralyzed up to 60,000 children when only 43 children a year get the disease in that country? ive listened to the food babe and agee with everything she says. and guess what subway has made commercials boasting about the yoga mat material they removed from their foods.and we should know whats in our food through labeling. you lady, you are the shill by writing this. you hope to advance your own name and career by brown nosing the the establishment without doing your own research. stop writing assumptive and speculatory pieces you sound like a hack. and your face shot is terrible by the way that is unless you like looking like a character from fresh prince of bel-air.
i pity you
Garrett, your Gates/polio figures are pure fantasy. I bet you can’t provide a single peer-reviewed reference to back that up, can you? After challenging Tracy on sources, it’s the least you can do.
As for your following everything Food Babe does… she’s earning sales commissions on products with the very same ingredients she says are dangerous. She falsely links aluminum in deodorants to diseases and in the same article sells a deodorant that contains aluminum. She says vitamin A on your skin in the presence of sunlight will give you cancer–yet sells at least 3 skin care products that contain vitamin A. Her products are laced with group 2B carcinogens though she slanders Starbucks over a supposed group 2B carcinogen in their pumpkin latte. https://badscidebunked.wordpress.com/category/food-babe-2/
Garrett, you’re either trolling, or you haven’t done your research.
Garrett – Please follow the links within the article for the truth about Vani Hari’s lack of facts. Writing articles like this does not advance my career. I do it because I like it. Thanks for your comments!
Food Babe may not always be perfect, but I thank God for her and her efforts. She is giving it her best effort. We ordered her book, The Food Babe Way, and plan to follow it as best we can. The devil is definitely in our food like never before.
Polly – Food Babe isn’t just “not always perfect.” She is VERY OFTEN WRONG. You need a better source of information. I understand the desire to eat healthy things. You just shouldn’t count on Vani for ANY information about food.
[…] Hari will up your Gawker, Hari is teamed up with Jezebel The Food Babe Vani Hari may be full of crap, but Kraft macaroni and cheese is crap. Sorry, it’s old cheese dust. Poison? No, just not good. You can make your own kick ass macaroni and cheese with some decent pasta, some grated good cheese, butter, cream and salt and pepper. It really is not that much more expensive, especially if you have the ingredients for something else (you need just a little butter and cream). Yoga mat chemicals in the bread? The Jenny McCarthy of food? Maybe she should stop giving cancer advice? Vani Hari allegedly makes Charles Johnson look like a blogging free speech advocate! Is Vani Hari an unhealthy addiction? Vani Hari’s bullshit habits Food Babe Fear Mongerer? Is Vani Hari a fraud? […]
How about the NIH as a source to backup what Garrett said? I agree that all data should be backed up by science; peer reviewed independent & attributable science. The FDA is hardly am “independent”/”impartial” source… According to the NIH, 47,500 suffered from paralysis following the 2010-2011 campaign.
Now of course, one might claim the NIH is not independent. Which means perhaps there are other outcomes that were not attributable and thus remain un-investigated. This peculiar paralysis phenomenon, that based on their own scientific data sources is directly proportional to the number of vaccines given
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22591873
By no means am I stating that by virtue of the correctness of Garrett’s claims that the “food babe” is now a verifiably scientific & credible source. She may not be. I haven’t investigated this myself, so I cannot claim that she is or she isn’t. I do think she can be classified as an “activist”, alerting the public (“educating” is hardly the right verb to use, unless she’s verified to have high scientific integrity) to the “possibility”, not necessarily the “definitiveness”, of irregularities and potential harmful marketing, scientific and manufacturing practices of the FDA, Big Pharma/Agri/Food business.
What I am saying instead is that it is hardly prudent for Tracy, or others to suddenly cross-bash at Scott & Garrett’s claims of scientific impropriety by the “conspiracy” protagonists re: what is in our food, what is safe and what is not, and claim that they’re not being scientific when it took me all of 5 minutes to find the article I posted above, after Tracy asked for proof.
I now consider the credibility of the content, the “scientific” method and intellectual honesty of this website and its contributors to be suspect. In my opinion, its claims cannot be regarded as a reasonable source for debunking anything. Until there’s material evidence that the methods of the contributors to this website have changed in a significant and demonstrably sustained fashion, every posting on this website must be regarded with immense suspicion and independently verified itself.
It’s too bad really – We can all invest our time in anything we desire. I think bashing people is a terribly unproductive approach, for either side of any argument. All the more so, when when reinforced by the need to resort to underhanded practices & to an unwavering attachment to a particular viewpoint exceeding the need to simply ask “Do I really know this to be true?”
Fadi – What are you talking about? I didn’t “cross bash” anyone, nor did I ask anyone for proof of anything. Furthermore, the article you cited is not from the NIH. It simply appears on their site as an article that is out there. They don’t endorse it. There may be more to the article that meets the eye.
Thanks for writing this. Vani reminds me of the old saying “I’d rather be lucky… than smart.” She got really lucky.
If she was a champion of the people… She wouldn’t be getting paid to bash/promote. Period. Don’t feed me the bull that this is what she loves… She’s hot – and got lucky with the popularity of her blog. Be correct or be gone… Or how about hiring people that actually know what it is that you would like to address… and do it correctly.
Food babe army… like minded – uneducated know nothings who will believe anything she puts out… You question your own government – (understandingly so) but you won’t question the hot popular chick? Shame on you. If she was ugly and smart – she’d have seven followers.
Deep down you guys know what’s right and what’s wrong. If you know what I mean !
This is sad….I can’t believe people are so in the dark. I agree with Polly, we FINALLY have someone telling us the truth. Vani one of the first people to tell us the truth. I feel very sorry for all of you government slaves. The worst part is you don’t even know it. I hope you all find your way…..