Like many people, I discovered the Food Babe, Vani Hari, via Facebook. Probably like most guys, I started following her, because I was really into my health, that and she is rather attractive. But I had been into more natural diets before that, approximately in 2009 when I had a minor health scare when they found a benign polyp in my colon. I had also been experiencing regular indigestion from my shitty diet which included late night drunken Denny’s and greasy diner runs. I’ve been going to Whole Foods more, etc. The world is definitely changing in favor of more natural foods, but when I started in 2009, healthy food still had the health nut, hippie vibe. Today, I find more and more antibiotic-free, grass-fed, high fructose corn syrup-free foods and drinks everywhere.
What Hari accomplishes in this book is the uncovering of the big food industry, health vloggers/bloggers, and academia, an unholy trinity of profit-mongering assholes with supposedly trustworthy, independent academic researchers and health do-gooders. I already know now that big business has infiltrated universities, how they fund studies that don’t necessarily disprove a theory but rather throw sufficient doubt into the public forum that people become quickly confused and stall on deciding whether trans fats or GMO food is bad for you or whether climate change is human-caused. They’re pretty slick bastards. But even more insidious is the fact that they fund lackey attack dogs against activists, trying to discredit them with all their degrees and academic backings. Keep in mind, the entire scientific establishment doubted Isaac Newton at first, doubted the existence of tectonic plates, doubted Einstein. Science does not establish truth. Science establishes probability of cause and effect between two things given existing understanding of their properties using existing technology to measure it. What is known today as fact becomes incomplete or entirely wrong tomorrow. This is not to say that science is worthless. Science builds knowledge upon itself, and you can’t get to B without first getting to A, but A is an incomplete or incorrect theory that B corrects, and then B becomes an incomplete or incorrect theory that C corrects, etc. While Hari may not be a scientist, she often cites scientific studies, for example, linking artificial coloring with cancer or trans fats with arterial disease, etc.
It always astonishes me when people can present a simple idea, like warning people not to eat so much sugar, and then big business in collusion with some shady scientist, comes out and says, woah, wait a minute, where’s your scientific education? But there are ample simple-minded, well, let’s just come out and say it, stupid people out there who don’t read books and only consume mass mainstream media whether an ad for an SUV, a crime thriller, a Bachelor dating reality show, or an article that says, hey, eggs aren’t so bad after all, eat away! Most mass mainstream media consumers aren’t going to read past a headline, and if there’s sufficient contradicting headlines about eating eggs, they’re going to go with what makes them feel good at the moment and eat all the eggs they want. When you only have two brain cells to work with, you do the most expedient thing which is trust whatever someone with a Ph.D. says or if what they say contradicts your existing ideological beliefs, don’t trust them at all.
One of the most powerful documentaries I watched in general and specifically about food was What the Health. The most damning thing was their exposure of the American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society, and the American Heart Association all taking money from big business and big food:
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/documentary-details-largest-health-cover-up#4
“He says the American Cancer Society has no warning about meat on its site and even has suggested recipes that include processed meat.
Andersen also finds recipes for meat dishes on the American Diabetes Association website.
There are also “heart healthy” recipes for beef dishes on the American Heart Association website.
Andersen also notes the Susan G. Komen foundation has no warning about dairy products on its site even though he quotes research linking dairy products to breast cancer.”
Just as shocking, the collusion between universities and big business, is the collusion between so-called experts and ironically, other bloggers and vloggers and big business. A lot of bloggers get free products from companies to review on their websites or YouTube or Facebook. It makes you wonder if they aren’t somehow swayed by companies. They certainly don’t disclose whether some company may have given them an all-expenses paid trip to some convention or trade show. As big business gets more and more powerful and rich, it makes you wonder who else have they bought off? Perhaps, fortunately for us, the only good way to know if someone is truly independent of big business influence is when big business conveniently attacks them. If big business is threatened by this one person, imagine that, this one person may be on to something bigger than their personal opinions, but perhaps a truth that big business knows has some serious weight that impacts their bottom line. So you know you can trust this author, simply by fact that she has been a frequent target of big food and their crony front PR company assholes.
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While I already knew about the dangers of a lot of the toxic ingredients covered in this book, I also learned of a few new dangers like cellulose and emulsifiers. “In fact, a very common emulsifier in processed food is one of these hidden sources of trans fat-and maybe you’ve heard of it: “mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids,” or “monoglycerides” and “diglycerides.” … Unfortunately, these mono- and diglycerides are quickly converted by the body back into triglycerides, which are associated with heart disease. Even though mono- and diglycerides may contain trans fat, they aren’t required to be labeled as trans fats on food packages because they are classified as emulsifiers, and can even be in food labeled “no trans fat.”” Just an FYI, non-emulsifier trans fats like partially hydrogenated oils are now banned in America, but they use just hydrogenated oils instead which don’t contain trans fat, but it still doesn’t sound healthy. But even though trans fats are now banned, call it an emulsifier and you’re good to go. It’s like if I want to kill someone, “Well, your honor, I didn’t strangle him to death, I emulsified him to death.” Bailiff, release this man!
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I’m not sure why anyone trusts government anymore, an institution that goes around infecting people with syphilis on purpose or purposefully exposing troops to nuclear radiation, an institution that has proven time and time again that it is in bed with big business and will poison, kill, infect, lie to, spy on, and incarcerate people so big business can make a buck. But here’s some more fun government shenanigans regarding Nutrition Facts labels: “You see, government regulations allow a margin of error of 20 percent. … That 100-calorie pack of cookies could really be 120 calories. … When the US Government Accountability Office audited certain food products, they found that a third of them were inaccurate in regard to iron content and almost half of them had the wrong vitamin A content listed.” Trust government they said. Oh, but if you only gave them more money, they’d get out of bed with big business. That’s like a spouse getting cheated on. Gee, if only you gave your husband more money, he’d stop sleeping with the nanny. Yahhhhhhhhhhhh.
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