Is The Food Babe Really Full Of Sh*t?

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, I'm very careful about what I put into there. I won't go after someone unless I know exactly where the BS is and what they're doing, and I won't publish anything unless there's widespread scientific consensus. If anyone ever shows me proof that chiropractic makes you immune to the measles and not needing a shot, go ahead and show me that proof. But I've never seen it. He starts off saying the diet is based on Paleo and then to bring it to another level and it's like, but here's the problem. The premise behind Paleo is likewise bs. There's something else in that pumpkin spice latte that's in carcinogen class 2B, and that's coffee. Because of the acrylamide that's accumulated during the roasting process, it's very easy to conflate something like kale is good for you. So kale is going to fight cancer.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, praying, and hormone optimization. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfield Fitness.com. Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here and I first became aware of my podcast guest for today's episode when I read her article on Gawker.com entitled the Food Babe Blogger is Full of and my guest runs a website called cybabe.com that's s c I babe.com her name, which I'll be very careful not to mispronounce as I do. This is Yvette Guinevere d' Enferment and she is the Cybabe. She looks at things like alternative medicine and pseudoscience movements and she writes about them in a pretty entertaining way over on her blog@cybabe.com. she's got a BA in theater, a BS in chemistry, and a Master's degree, I believe, in forensic science with a concentration in biological criminalistics, whatever that is. So basically, she lives in Southern California. She runs this blog full time. She makes an effort to debunk pseudoscience with humor. Right before we got started recording, she already started ripping into me for using the term superfoods. So this ought to be a lot of fun. So, Yvette, welcome to the Ben Griefful Fitness Show.

Thank you for having me, Ben. This is going to be entertaining.

Let'S just start here as an easy way to delve in before we get into the Food Babe being full of the Paleo diet being debunked, and Dave Astri being a douchebag, which I believe are all things you've written about. I actually first heard you described as the Science Babe, but now it appears that you are labeling yourself as the Psy Babe. Was there some kind of a nasty lawsuit or trademark infringement, or did you just want to kind of shorten things up with fewer syllables?

Well, there was no nasty lawsuit, but there was somebody already using the name Science Babe. And when I first started the blog, I started off kind of as a spoof of the Food Babe. And it took a much more serious bend. I mean, it turned into my career. But when I looked up Science Babe, I found someone who. It looked like she hadn't used her site or her Facebook page in a while. And I thought, oh, this is an inactive page. It's not used anymore. I thought I was free and clear. And then I got an email from Debbie Bereviches, the Science Babe, saying, guess what? I'm getting your mail. And I'm still using the name. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. So we had a phone call and talked it out, and she said cybabe was enough different that she hopefully wouldn't be getting my mail anymore. And I announced very publicly on my Facebook page, I goofed. I used the name that somebody else had, and she has been very nice. We're actually speaking at the same conference next month that I told her I'm for. Just. I asked her, I'm like, for all the trouble I put you through for you getting my mail, can I take you out for a drink so there's no nasty lawsuit? I just. I goofed.

Yeah, it's interesting how the Internet's like that. Like, there's a reason that I don't have BenGreenfield.com and that I have BenGreenfieldFitness.com When I first tried to get BenGreenfield.com I don't know if it still is this, but it was literally a website with a guy bent over that said, enter Ben Greenfield.

Wow.

And that was Ben. And I couldn't find, like, how to buy the website or how to get it off of auction or whatever. So I think since then, it's been taken over by some, like, real legit Ben Greenfield, who's like. He's like a. He's actually speaking of theater, which I knew you have a degree, and I think he's in theater. But anyways, it's funny.

Well, I've tried doing. Because I'm not. I know my name sounds, at least in the U.S. sounds a little exotic, but there are, like, five other Yvette D. Entrements, one of whom is a cousin of mine and a distant cousin of mine and a singer in Nova Scotia. So Yvette dontrema.com I believe was already taken, like. And I think there are three of us that were battling over the, you know, why don'trema username@twitter? Because we're all on Twitter. So I think I'm friends on Facebook with two of the other Yvette Entremo's. And it's like, we're. We're always. We're always getting each other's mail. Mostly it's my. One of my cousins keeps sending them back over to me on Twitter. So it's like in the tiny little town we're from in Nova Scotia, it's basically like being named Jane Smith.

Yeah, there's actually a lot of Benjamin Greenfields out there too. I just happen to be one of the few that are not a Jew. Despite what people think, I'm half Jewish.

I'll take that joke.

I'm curious, with a bachelor's degree in theater and chemistry and a master's in forensic science and a background working as an analytical chemist, how you actually got started into blogging?

Well, I'd had a couple different blogs kind of through the years, and it's, you know, because I liked writing. I was a decent writer. You know, they were mostly just, you know, personal blogs for my own rambling. And then I started Cybabe kind of, you know, after I, like, I'd kind of fallen into the. This at one point. I'd fallen into the pseudoscience movement that I kind of fight now. And it's partially because I was very sick and very desperate at the time. And after a few years of figuring out, you know, these people are not on the level and finding that there are other people actively fighting against some of these people, I was like, you know, there's probably a voice for me in here. So I kind of. After. After following another page called Chao Babe and seeing, you know, there was that, I think I had something to add to the conversation they were already having. I was like, okay, let's. Let's start this up. They're Chow, Babe. They're just spoofing her straight out. I'm. I'm gonna add science to the mix. So it was born. I hate using this term, but it was born fairly organically and it's grown much faster than I expected.

Do you basically spend your day now researching pseudoscience and all these movements in health and fitness and nutrition that threaten to be pseudoscience or passing fads and just write about them? I mean, how much of your day is taken up by this?

Well, it's not just at this point. I'm not just writing the blog at this point. I do public speaking. I have a book deal, and I occasionally have a little bitty television appearance here and there. So, I mean, it's not just the blog. Basically, when I'm not writing the blog, when people don't see me, that's when I'm tucked away, working on my book. So it's in the fallout of the Gawker article. I shouldn't use the term fallout, but part of the effects of the Gawker article was a book deal that I was trying to get. I landed it two days after the article came out. So they, it's, it's. A lot of my time is spent in writing at this point. So it's a, it's a very big change from being, you know, I was a lab chemist for, for all of my career after, after grad school. So having, having to switch over from being in a laboratory every day to, to writing for my day, it's, it's been, it's been entertaining. But that's, that's, that's my job now is, is researching and debunking bad science for people. And I couldn't be happier with it.

Are you allowed to reveal the title of the book or the nature of it?

Yeah, yeah, it's Cybabe's 10 rules to BS detection. And it's kind of, it's very similar to the writing style that I had in the article on the food babe. And it's kind of, it's a little tongue in cheek, but it's also giving people a set of guidelines to be able to tell if somebody's giving them bad science. And it happens more often than you'd expect. But I mean, I think people don't always look at things on the Internet that they're forwarded with a very skeptical eye. Like, how many times have you had somebody send you this forward that onions can that trap the flu virus or something like that. And I'm looking at this going, there's we need people. Like, we need, we need to not just tell people this is BS piecemeal. Need to give them a way to recognize when something is bad science. So I had, I wrote a random little blog entry on it and I think a few weeks later a lit agent reached out to me and I was like, how about we just do, you know, I'd written the blog entry kind of as a funny thing and when he said, I want to read, lit agent reached out and said, do you want to write a book? I'm like, we could do it, you know, we could expand on my blog entry on the 10 rules of BS. He's like, it's perfect, let's do it. So this is, I'm about four chapters in right now and I've been having a really good time writing it.

Cool. Well, I can't wait to check it out once it's actually released.

It's going to be a while, but it's coming.

In the meantime though, we have plenty to talk about besides the book. You have a section of your website called the Weekly Woo. What is the Weekly Woo?

Well, it's for a while I was doing, when I was, when I was working, I was doing one blog entry minimum per week and putting out like finding either some article or some, you know, charlatan that, you know, that needed debunking and of course going at it with a mixture of humor and very well researched science. Like each of my blog entries took a minimum of like six hours to write. So my Sundays for a while when I, when I had a full time job than this, my Sundays were just wake up at 8am and write until whenever I'm done. I had one article I think that took me 15 hours to write and it was just, it needed to be really well researched. So I think that's part of the thing that's kept people coming back to my blog is that I'm very careful about what I put into there. I won't go after someone unless I know exactly where the BS is and what they're doing. And I won't publish anything unless there's widespread scientific consensus. So I'm very careful and I think, I think people latched onto the quality of the work very quickly. And of course it's kind of funny. It's like I try to mix in a decent amount of humor in there and it's a working combination so far.

Now you talk about things like cancer, gluten toxins, the food babe, of course, which I know we're going to get into later. What would you say has been one of your more controversial or sexy topics of Late on the weekly. Woo.

Well, I haven't. It's because after my website kind of blew up in April, I haven't been able to write on a weekly basis anymore, unfortunately. But I know people get really cranky when I take a swipe of chiropractors, and that's that once in a blog called Something about snake oil. If I don't have it right in front of me.

By the way, is there a clown in your office right now?

My dog is playing with the chip. Buddy. Buddy's playing with the chewy toy. Actually, I just keep.

I was just curious. It sounded like a clown.

I do keep a clown here just in case you need one on hand, obviously. How else do I get.

Yeah, lots of people are scared of them. They're good. Burglar detention.

How else am I gonna get humor? I'm a scientist. Scientists aren't funny.

So that's your dog?

That's my dog playing with a squeaky. So he's. And of course, all of his toys squeak. He's 11 pounds of dog and 10 pounds of stink. I've never met a tiny little dog that just managed to produce this much bad smell. But I think it's that all dogs have a certain amount of smell. And it's just. It's only stretched out over 11 pounds in Buddy, and he's hence a stinky dog.

Okay, so we'll get back into chiropractic here in a second because I want to hear why that was so controversial, but you may. I'm not sure if you've debunked this, but my dog used to have horrible gas. We had a boxer, and now we have a Rhodesian Ridgeback. And we actually started them on what's called the raw food diet. The acronym for it is the barf diet. It stands for something. Something raw food. Off the top of my head, I don't recall, but you literally blend in like a Vitamix or one of these super powerful blenders, raw meat with kale and olive oil and vitamin K and all of these nutrients as an alternative to like GMO corn and gluten and some of the things in dog food. And then you. You feed that to your dog, and almost overnight our dog's gas disappeared.

It's. Well, I mean, that could have been just that. The dog's farting is not the biggest problem. He is. Okay, this is gonna be disgusting. My dog is not coordinated. He's also not very smart. And he. When he. When he's walking. Cause I think it's Just his little legs are not. Because he's a Chihuahua terrier mix. So he's, he's way cute. The most adorable dog you will ever see. I will fight about this. He's very adorable, but very dumb. And sometimes when he's peeing, he misses and hits his legs. This is why he stays.

Okay, so it's not the farting, it's the urine.

It's not the farting. No. I had a farting dog before this. Lily was 100 pounds of crazy, but she was a farting dog. Buddy, not a farting dog. But definitely. He's just a stinky little, little pup. Don't worry, he gets bathed very often because of his.

I was gonna say you may want to take like one of those electric shavers to his legs.

He's short, he's short haired. It's just, you know, you have enough to, you know, you pee on yourself enough times, it's not gonna smell good. I say this is from experience. I think this dog's. Like I said, he's cute, not useful.

I didn't really imagine this is something that we'd be talking about. Now for those of you who want to keep your dogs from farting or who need to clean up urine on your dog's legs, colleagues, you've now learned a valuable lesson. Back into chiropractic, though. Why did you say chiropractic is. Woo.

It's, well, chiropractic in general. Well, here's the way it started. And I don't think people realize this. Chiropractic started when a magnetic healer claims that he fixed somebody's partial deafness by adjusting their back. And there's just, there's no way this is a thing that can happen. There are no nerves in your back that control if you can hear or not. And I mean the guy was allegedly, he said he had partial hearing and it returned a full hearing. Like there's no peer reviewed study on this, but you know, from day one it was started and magnetic healing, total bs. It's. He. So this, this person who was already a charlatan, already selling things that we know don't work, don't have any validity. Started the whole field and then chiropractic school started popping up. And here's the problem. And this is the way I, I look at it. I've heard a lot of people say I went to a chiropractor and my back felt better. Great, that's fine if you want to do that. I feel like it's just a fancy a Certain type of back massage, basically. And I think you're going to get about the same amount of relief from a massage therapist. However, when they go past just the, you know, the back cracking and the trying to make your back better, sometimes they try to be full family doctors and they're not equipped for that, they're not trained for it, they're not the appropriate person for that. And they also say things like adjusting your spine can increase your immunity so you don't need vaccines. I have a big problem with that because there's again, no scientific validity to it. So like I said, I've open minded. If anyone ever shows me proof that chiropractic makes you immune to the measles and not needing a shot, go ahead and show me that proof. But I've never seen it.

Interesting. You know, I have my own take on chiropractic therapy because I've been to what I would term like a Woo Woo chiropractor who hooks you up to a magical machine that tells you which supplements you need through muscle testing techniques. And, and then of course you've got a $200 supplement bill as you walk.

Out and they tell you don't go to mainstream medicine because all they're interested in is money. So I think that's hilarious.

But I've also been to chiropractic physicians who work with local professional sports teams who have done things like adjusted my sacroiliac joint and literally popped it out of place so that I'm able to run and so that my hips move and literally have high speed video cameras to show before and after results from running on a treadmill, for example, or who will take an atlas or an axis vertebra that's slightly out of place in your neck and kind of pop that back into place so your neck feels good. Do you think that there are varying levels of woo in certain forms of medicine like this? Where some are woo and some are not. Or would you say chiropractic medicine like across the board is woo?

I'm gonna say about, I mean most. It's funny, whenever I get into this conversation, I always hear some people say, I always hear people say they agree with me. And then I always hear people say I went to my chiropractor and that my everything got better, all they did was crack my back. I have the one chiropractor that's not full of crap. So I mean, I don't, I don't discount that. People said they felt relief from this. But chiropractic, the all the things that go into it, if you look at the things they believe as a whole in the field, are just utter bs. And I think when, like, no matter what, there are going to be some that, you know, people felt relief after getting, like I said, a fancy back massage. And I think that people need to look and be a little skeptical of what they're paying for, for, you know, for their medical treatment. So if, you know, someone goes and has their back cracked and it feels better, I always say look to see if it was just a fancy back massage. Because a lot of times you're getting that relief because you're looking for it and that's when you see it. So I don't, I don't think that, like I said, I would never recommend someone go to a chiropractor. I'll always recommend a physiotherapist and a massage therapist first, of course, depending on what their actual doctor says. But I think it's the exception, not the rule. When you're looking at chiropractic and you hear someone that's very science based.

Yeah. And it's a tough call too sometimes because a lot of chiropractics are, for example, active release therapy practitioners. Right. So they do things like physiotherapy or they are massage therapistschiropractors. So sometimes you're getting some of the type of treatments that like the massage therapy or the physiotherapy that you do and that's kind of rolled into the potential of some kind of like muscle testing for testing whether or not you need a certain supplement. Right.

Yeah.

It can be a mix of a few things that you got to kind of navigate through.

Yeah. I mean, every so often when I write about chiropractic, I get a really nasty email from a chiropractor. So it's interesting to me that that's the group that tends to send me the most hate mail from the people themselves. And I'm sure.

And we will get that in the comment section, by the way.

Oh yeah, they're gonna say that I'm on the payroll of big pharma and that I just don't know because I've never been to one. It's like, no, no, no, guys, read your charter. The American Chiropractic association says some of these things that are completely ridiculous and not scientifically proven. I'm like, if they want to show me, like show me I'm open minded to scientific proof that this stuff works. But it doesn't seem to, it doesn't seem to across the board have validity to it. So I think that's why I tell people look for, you know, look at what they're actually doing and look at what chiropractic believes. And I think there's a much, there are much worse things in this than people realize before they look into it.

Now when, when you're looking for, for things like scientific validity, what is your process? Do you have specific research journals or articles that you follow? Do you strictly stay on PubMed or what's kind of your process?

It's one of my processes. If I see something that I'm just that I see there are a lot of buzzwords that I know almost automatically indicate that something is just not on the level. Like whenever I see natural in the description for something I'm like, there has to be some BS happening here because it barely has a meaning when it's used in advert. So it's. So I look to see how people are advertising themselves, what kind of buzzwords people are using in their blogs and if they don't have any scientific validity, like there are some people who tell you not to have any medications whatsoever in your medicine cabinet and to replace it all with I think Betadine clay or something like that. It's like when I look at how they conflate science and how they are not using it accurately, it's like, okay, let's start off to see if this is if there's scientific evidence that to back them up. Because I mean I'm always open to being wrong, but it's like I'll look through the journals, I'll look through other articles that have been written about them because sometimes there are articles that are compilations that have a lot of, a lot of the evidence against someone. But it's looking to see if, it's mainly looking to see if somebody's going to give bad advice or you know, any sort of, kind of bad or inaccurate health claims to, to the consumer and see how I can break that down with things that are, that are peer reviewed and evidence based and show them. No, this is how you do this. It's kind of like I said, arming the consumer to make sure they know that there's scientific proof or evidence to support that some of these people are not giving them good advice. So I want people to see there's science behind this.

What are some of your favorite resources as far as like journals you subscribe to or, or blogs or digests that you follow to inform you?

Well, I don't follow or I don't have a certain blog, but basically any of the PLOS ones are good, as you said earlier, PubMed. And I want people, like I said, to look for the, for what'd you call it?

PPRs?

Hold a second. PLOs.

It's one of the PLOs.

Yeah, I mean, I want people to. Yeah, exactly. It's the public library of science for plos. But I mean, those are some good resources. I tell people before saying that something is true, because I mean, you can find one study that supports something. Fairly often I try to find meta analyses and I try to find reviews that show, here's a compilation of all of the articles. Because I want people to see that this is not just my opinion, this is the opinion of science. This is the scientist, not the opinion. But this is what all the science say, not just, you know, one tiny little research paper. So I want people to see that, like I said, the widespread scientific consensus. And I'm not, I generally don't, don't publish something unless there are. Or debunk something unless there are a lot of articles and a lot of research showing that they're wrong. Like if there's just one article against someone, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna contend with it. But I try to find things that there is widespread scientific consensus. One of the blogs that I do follow is Science Based Medicine. That is, that's, it's run by Dr. David Gorski. I also follow, I think it's the Ness. It's from one of the guys that's on Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Also a doctor. So I try, like I said, to follow blogs and articles that I know are coming from accurate sources.

So that was Science Based Medicine. I'm asking because I'm taking some notes for folks who want to go to the show notes to add some of these to their feed or if possible, Science Based Medicine. What was the other the skeptics one?

It's the neurological blog and it's@thenest.com okay.

Thenest.Com yeah, got it. Okay, cool. Okay, so I want to ask you again in just a little bit here about this article on Gawker about the food blog, but I actually have another question for you as well because you have plenty on there about the Wu like I mentioned. You cover cancer and you cover chiropractic and you cover gluten. You also have a post that's called the Bull Proof Diet in which you address Paleo, among many other things, but you also call Dave Asprey a douchebag. And I'm curious if you would care to expound on that.

Well, I find that number one, just looking at the language he uses in his blog. He starts off, I mean, here's the claim on his website or this is the. I'm going to draw you into things. Can you really lose 100 pounds without exercise? Upgrade your IQ by more than 12 points and stay health healthy sleeping less than 5 hours? It took 15 years and $300,000 to learn how to reach the bulletproof state of high performance. And it's all here in the blog for you. That just sounds like, I mean, if people don't read that and go, there's some here. Their detector is not on. And sorry if I just use a word I can't use on the show, but I think when people see some of that.

So don't worry, we have plenty of cowbells and whistles.

Yes, awesome. But I mean, he starts off saying the diet is based on Paleo. And then to bring it to another level, and it's like, here's the problem. The premise behind Paleo is likewise bs. It's not very accurate. And then he tries to add in, say you have to eat a certain type of chocolate. And I don't think the cavemen were sitting around grinding up cocoa beans. It's very. Not Paleo, like I said, even though the diet's already bs. Then he says that, that grains contain opiates. They don't. And that they cause cancer. They don't. He demonizes veganism as though that makes his diet work better by demonizing another type of diet. And I think here's the thing. There are a lot of ways to be healthy and to fuel your life. And I think that this is that the way he packages things are. There's a lot of, there's a lot of BS just in the marketing. He calls his coffee toxin free. And people have tested the coffees that he claimed weren't toxin free and there was nothing wrong with them. So it's, I mean, his coffee, it's just, it's just coffee. Like, and he makes it sound like it's this magical elixir of life. And it's really not like there's, I haven't seen any double blind peer review on his coffee mix versus plain old coffee. So when he says it gives you lasting energy and it's going to. And it's the, for people who don't know, it's the coffee that has about 600 calories of butter mixed into it. And people are like, yeah, I wasn't hungry for the next several hours. I'm like, yeah, that's because you just had 600 calories. There's nothing magical about the butter or coffee combination. Of course he adds in this MCT oil, which is just, it's just souped up coconut oil. So I mean a lot of the premises from what he does are just not accurate. So I mean, I'm sure people can lose weight on his diet plan. I'm sure people feel good. But I think I want people to look into the premise to see if he's just selling something.

So when you publish an article like that, do you get engaged with people who start to counter attack some of the arguments that you would make against something like that, like say like opiate, like grains not having opiates in them. Like do people talk to you at all about like gliadin and opiate receptors in the brain and do you like delve into that kind of stuff or are you generally just like looking at things from like a 30,000 foot vision?

It depends on the article. I mean sometimes I'll get very, very detailed. Like the article I wrote on bulletproof diet. I was going after every, all the diets that incorporate some sort of grain is evil message. And it was right after New Year's I'm like, here's your New Year's diet thing. That was why I went after a couple different diets. Now for the record, I'm gluten free, but I have celiac disease. So when I see all these other diets saying, you know, gluten is bad for you or wheat is bad for you, I'm like, wheat makes up 20%, approximately 20% of people's of the world's total calorie load. And I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing. I'm saying it is what it is. I think we would see a lot more issues if there was something specific to the wheat that was causing problems. And I just think it's not, it's not accurate. Now I'm sure there are people who are going to attack saying, well, we have more issues, we have more cancer, more whatever Today. The reason we have more of it is because people are living longer. At any society where people live longer, you're going to see more cancer cases. It's just, it's a disease that happens as the body is starting to shut down. Now there are some foods that can trigger it. It's certain are things that, I mean that's you have to look through the medical research a little bit on it. Like there are certain things you shouldn't be having, like cigarettes, obviously. But I mean, to say that grain is causing. It can cause cancer, I think is a very overblown claim that doesn't seem to have any backing to it.

Yeah. And I'll be straightforward with you. There are certain things that I would like in the example of that article that I would disagree with you on. For example, I do think that there is a potential for gliadin polypeptides to bind to opiate receptors in the brain. I do think that when you blend some of the terpenes in coffee with fats that they cross the blood brain barrier and have a different mechanism of action than just the isolated caffeine molecule. But.

Well, I ask people, I'm like, I asked for scientific proof of that, that's all. If someone can show me proof of that.

Yeah, there's certainly proof. You know, like, you know, like years ago the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition did a study on how naloxone, like it's basically an opiate blocker, it reduces the consumption of some of these gluten containing foods. And like we, you know, and again, like I didn't.

Naloxone also reduces. I mean, here's the thing. It's your. I think using the naloxone example, like, you have to look, is it just because of the gluten or is it because there's a bit of a pleasure thing? Whenever you eat something that tastes good and whenever you put someone on something that regulates parts of their brain, food tastes can change. A lot of times it reduces cravings for things. So I think you have to look to see what the exact cause of losing those cravings was and if it's not necessarily just the gluten containing food, foods that people lost their cravings for.

Right, yeah. And a lot of this stuff just gives us clues, right? Like that gluten containing foods could potentially be something that causes addiction or a type of high similar to what you might get for foods. And for the record, I'm personally not gluten free. I eat wheat. I eat a local non gmo.

I miss it so much.

Organic wheat that my wife makes sourdough bread out of.

Well, actually there's no GMO wheat on the market. So number one, GMOs are fine. I'm saying that publicly here for everyone to hate me about saying that. And of course there are going to be the accusations that I'm a shill coming in the comments section. I'm not. But there's nothing wrong with the GMO stuff. But whenever I see someone labeling wheat as non gmo, I'm like, there's no GMO wheat on the market. I think you're trying to tell people that there's no need for this. Labeling is what it comes down to.

What do you mean when you say there's no non GMO meat on the market?

No, there's no.

Or non GMO wheat on the market.

Market. No, there's. There's no GMO wheat on the market.

Or that. That's what I meant to say.

I'm sorry. Yeah, it's. I'm. I mean exactly that. There's no wheat that's currently on the market that was produced via genetic modification. It hasn't been approved at the moment. There's, it's just, it's all. I mean it's been hybridized, it's been crossbred. But the wheat that's on the market is not genetically modified.

So like, like the Monsanto transgenic wheat, like the glyphosate resistant wheat. That's not. That wouldn't be considered something genetically modified.

From what I've gathered. It's not on the market. But I mean, hold on a second, let me do a quick. I'm not sure that if it's from what I've read, from what I've been told, there's no GMO wheat on the market. I think it's soy. Isn't it soy and corn that glyphosate is used on.

Glyphosate? Well, the Monsanto, I think it was the Mon 71800. They're glyphosate resistant wheat. I think it may have been originally something they use in maize or corn, but I believe they've developed a glyphosate resistant wheat as well.

Last time I checked and I could be wrong, there is. I hadn't. Every time that this is brought up, I see my friends who run science blogs saying there's no GMO weed on the market. So I mean, and here's the thing. I think saying like people get worried about the GMO thing very unnecessarily and I think it's this fear of a science they don't understand. Because, you know, we've been. You've seen this probably if you read my blog entry on diets, we've been genetically modifying things for ages. And the way I like to phrase this to people is you're trying to Roll dice to get like when you're using, when you're hybridizing and when you're just saying, okay, we're going to shake pollen from this one onto this one into the field. You're rolling dice and hoping that you have a way to shake those dice into getting all six genetic modification. You just reach in and turn the dice over to six by going very specific with one or two genes. And I mean they're doing this out of tens of thousands of them. So they're not modified. Like whenever you see a picture of a fish sticking out of a tomato, that blog is probably not giving you accurate information. Just what I've noticed. This is a correlation, not a causation. But whenever you see the fish and the tomato, this blog has an agenda and it's to say, I don't like the science. Now here's the thing. I talk to farmers constantly and that's something that's been a big surprise to me since I've started the page is how many farmers came out of the woodwork, you know, to support what I was saying. Because farmers like GMOs, they can use less water, in some cases they use less pesticide. This is better. I mean they're in general better for the environment and better for the, for the farmers. And I think when people say they don't like, you know, GMOs because of, you know, they've heard all these things about it. A lot of the times they've heard very, very inaccurate claims. And it's, I've, I've looked over this time and again and at one point I was anti GMO because I'd heard, you know, things. I'd seen a few Netflix documentary, I like to say I was a Netflix expert on this stuff. But I mean, that's the thing. People will hear a study or they'll hear, you know, a one off things saying GMOs are bad. But all of the studies come back, meta analyses on studies in the show they're safe. So I, and I mean, like I said, if one day I find proof that I'm wrong, reputable proof that I'm wrong, I will change my mind.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, for example, you know, bananas that have been bred to have higher amounts of fat soluble vitamins that can help to address fat soluble vitamin deficiencies in children. For example, I believe that somewhere in Africa they're using those type of bananas. There are cases like that where I think that genetic modification can do humankind a great deal of good. But for Example, one reason that I'll avoid things that contain like glyphosate or Bt toxin is just because. And again, it's in mice, it's not in people, but it has been shown to damage some of the microvilli in the intestinal tract, kind of similar to what you get in celiac disease. So I'm careful.

Well, here's my question for you on which one was it? On avoiding GMOs and avoiding BT toxin. Are you aware that BT toxin is used as an organic pesticide? It's used in organic farming. They're just making it so that it's produced in a very tiny amount in the plant. And the other way that I point this out to people about the bt, when people think it's bad for them because it's a toxin to a bug, things can be species specific and of course, dose specific. So they make it so that it, it's toxic to one or two species, to certain species of bugs, and it's not, when consumed to the amount you're going to consume it in on a daily basis, it's not toxic to humans. It's kind of like saying, well, chocolate's bad for dogs, so humans shouldn't have it either. No, this is a thing that's specifically designed to be bad for the bugs. And like I said, it's used in organic farming as well.

Yeah, I certainly agree that organic farming is not something that's, that's flawless either. And, you know, I'm. I'm one of those lucky people that, you know, I grow most of my own food and have goats and chickens and just take care of most of it myself because I'm coming to hang out.

I like goats.

There are a lot of issues out there. And honestly, like, when we first started this podcast, I didn't even imagine we'd be. That we'd be getting into any type of debates, because I'll bet that we could. We could probably debate all day.

Honestly, it's fine for us having different.

Opinions and your dog would go nuts. But what I really wanted to talk about and the whole reason I got you on here like 40 minutes into our interview is the Food Babe article. The Food Babe blogger is full of that you write on Gawker. And I honestly just want to delve into what you write about there and why you think Vani Hari, AKA the Food Babe, is utterly full of as you write. So let's jump in. I'll just ask the question straight up. Why is the Food Babe full of.

Oh, God, where To start. So, I mean, I wrote in the article a lot about it. Now here's.

And you can, you can take it point by point, too, if you want to. Like you did in the article.

Exactly. Now, once upon a time, she seemed to be a blogger, just saying, here are the unprocessed foods I'm eating. Here are things that I find, you know, that work for me. And then she turned to attacking large companies for one ingredient that she could take out of context and make it sound scary and bad to the consumer who didn't know about it. And she, and I think her business model of trying to take, to tell people, look, we've taken one ingredient out of this thing and anything that's not that you know is artificial is bad, or anything that I don't know exactly what's in it. If she sees natural flavors, she automatically tells the company that they're wrong, that they're selling something bad. But, I mean, she uses very bad science to attack companies. Now, if she wanted to be an actual health blogger and tell people how to eat more healthfully and help people with that, she would be helping people who, you know, who don't have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, have access to them. She'd be promoting just, you know, more. A more. I guess I say balanced diet. I mean, in the U.S. in general, we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. We're going to tend more towards processed foods. So she wants to tell people, you know, eat more fruits and veggies. I would be on board with her, but it seems like her business model has turned into saying, you know, if I can't pronounce it, don't eat it. Well, how do you eat when you're traveling, you know, taking one thing and saying it's toxic, when she uses the term toxic completely inappropriately. And she's also anti vaxx and she's pro fake cancer cures.

Let me start here. The Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, from what I understand, like, that was one of your big. Like that was one of your big reasons for starting your site. And what you wrote about her article on the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte. Can you talk a little bit about what that article was and why you disagreed with it?

Well, she started saying the pumpkin spice latte. You'll never believe what's in your pumpkin spice latte. So right off the bat, clickbait, you get into this, and here's what she claims. She claimed, claims that the PSL has a toxic dose of sugar and then two doses of caramel color level 4, which is in carcinogen class 2B. And that sounds really scary to somebody that doesn't know what those terms mean. But she managed to take a chemical that in the dose it's used in, completely innocuous, and tried saying that sugar. There is a toxic dose of sugar when she promotes something called Suga juice that has. In one of their juices has the same amount of sugar. But this is a person who doesn't seem to know what the definition of toxic is, what the definition of a food allergy is. But, you know, the word toxic has a meaning that is having the effect of a poison. So saying that sugar is toxic when you would need to drink about 50 of those lattes all at once to get enough sugar to have a toxic dose of it, you know, and after drinking those 50 lattes, you might have enough caffeine for me. But still, the sugar is just. It's not bad for you in the amount you have it in one latte. As long as you're burning that off, the only thing that it can be, you know, the only thing about the amount of sugar that can be bad for you is, you know, not brushing your teeth and not burning it off, but it's not toxic. So, I mean, she uses that term because, you know, it's a hot term right now. People hear toxic, they're gonna. They're going to avoid something. But, you know, if it's on the market, you know, people aren't dropping dead in the streets after they've had a psl. They're going back for more because they run out of the PSL seasoning every year. This is not a toxic thing.

PSL being pumpkin spice latte.

Pumpkin spice latte. Yeah. And, I mean, she's. She tried saying that which ingredient was it? That the caramel color is in carcinogen class 2B. So you want to avoid it. The problem is Carcinogen Class 2B means that in some amount, it might. We haven't ruled out 100% that it can't cause cancer. They've never found an actual case of cancer caused by this. The other thing is that there's something else in that pumpkin spice latte that's in carcinogen class 2B, and that's coffee. Coffee is in carcinogen class 2B because of the acrylamide that's accumulated during the roasting process. So for her to say that this is bad because it has something in carcinogen class 2B while ignoring that the coffee is in it, how Disingenuous. Can you be? It was just a way for her to drum up, drum up a lot of attention because Starbucks, you know, she's going after Starbucks. It's a big company, it's bigger than Monsanto even. So of course she went after a big company and it was to try to make people, it was try to get attention. And I mean this is not. And of course she was taking ingredients out of context. And this is, you know, I have a big problem with that.

So it sounds to me like many ingredients that we might find in completely natural compounds like say water or coffee could in certain amounts be both toxic. You know, although sounds to me like you're saying that we need to be careful with that term or carcinogenic in the same way that many man made chemicals or things in, in a drink like a pumpkin spice latte could also in certain amounts be toxic and carcinogenic. But the question is, are we talking about something that's toxic and carcinogenic in ungodly amounts or something that is probably okay in smaller amounts, especially if you happen to be exercising?

Exactly. Like I tell people, like I've run a couple of marathons and whenever I hear someone say sugar is toxic, I'm like, tell that to me at mile 18 when I'm trying desperately not, not to choke on a goo packet. Like that's sugar is not, it's not a toxin, it's not an opiate, it's a carbohydrate. It's a short chain carbohydrate. And I think you need to, you shouldn't have too much of it. Obviously. It's like don't have more than your body can handle, your exercise load can handle. It's not great for you. But having it in the amount that you're going to have it in something like the PSL as long as you can, like I said, it's a treat. As long as you can burn off those ensuing calories, there's really nothing to worry about it.

Yeah. I think in my opinion the people who need to be careful with things like a pumpkin spice latte, for example, are folks who are, let's say, purchasing a grande pumpkin spice latte full of I don't know how many calories and then sitting in their car for three hours and then sitting at their desk for two hours while their blood glucose rises and, and they get that surge of insulin and then they probably have a meal within a couple hours later. Right. I think the total calories are a bigger issue than the potential for toxins and carcinogens.

Absolutely, absolutely. I always say, I don't like to say there are good foods and bad foods. I say there are foods you should have more of and foods you should have less of. But if it's on the market, it has to go through a lot of regulation before it could get there. And a lot of testing. That's one of the things that I see when people are arguing against GMOs. It's never been tested. No, these things are tested a lot. But you know, if something got to the market like the psl, I think we would know if the psl, other than the calorie load, was causing people, you know, a lot of all these things she claimed that they were causing. And it's just, you know, it's just not, let's see, it's just not a health food. But, you know, having one or two, you know, a season when they come out is not going to kill you.

Yeah.

As long as you're burning those calories.

What do you think about her rule that if you, if a third grader can't pronounce it, you shouldn't eat it.

I always say this. Don't base your diet on the pronunciation skills of an 8 year old. I think it's a very. I think she likes the simplistic ideology because it sells with people. But I think you're ignoring a lot of things because you're saying some chemicals bad. I think she thinks that some things don't contain chemicals. So she'll take the very long chemical name of something and say this is bad because we can't pronounce it. Ignoring that natural things are made of chemicals too. Everything's composed of chemicals. So she'll take something hard to pronounce and say it's bad while ignoring that. You know, this is like, I think there's a poster showing a blueberry saying, here's the composition of a blueberry and it shows all the chemicals that are in it. And you have to remember things are composed of chemicals. Like we just don't see it on a label of something that I guess that people would call a whole food. But you don't see the chemicals because you're not thinking about it. So everything's composed of chemicals. And don't bewhenever you hear a health blogger without a background in chemistry or toxicology saying this is a bad chemical or this is toxic. There's probably some BS astray there.

Yeah, that's interesting. There's an article and I'll Link to it in the show notes. It was written by a chemistry instructor in Australia about the ingredients of all natural blueberries. And when you look at it, it's got phenylalanine and it's got ethyl ethanoate and three methylbutyaldehyde and benzaldehyde.

And it sounds so scary, doesn't it?

Methylparaben. And it does sound. Even flavanols and polyphenols and anthocyanins to some people sound scary.

But, you know, it's easy to scare a consumer if they don't. If you put a big word out there and say, this is bad, it's very easy to use that as a scare tactic.

Yeah. And there are obviously. I think we've already established the fact that there's probably a lot of things that you and I disagree on, but that's fine.

I'm not here to change your mind.

I certainly am on the same page as you that when you're looking at a label, just because it has a big, scary looking, hard to pronounce word on it, that does not necessarily by its nature mean it's bad for you. And I agree, if a third grader can't pronounce it, then you shouldn't eat. It is not, in my opinion. Yeah, it really is. It's overly simplistic.

I mean, I mean, I'll say it out loud. There are some things I agree with her on. She tells people to eat less processed foods. That's probably pretty good health advice. And I mean, I probably eat more similarly to Vani than people would expect. Like my fridge full of fresh produce. Like, there are very little. There are very few things of processed food in my house. And it's not because. Not because I think they're dangerous, but because they're highly caloric and I've lost £90. I'm trying to keep it off, you know, So, I mean, you're gonna get. You'll get much farther with Brussels sprouts than you will with chocolate for your caloric load. But, you know, don't. That doesn't mean never have chocolate.

You mentioned that there is, I believe, a Facebook group called Banned by Food Babe or something like that. Why is that and what's going on there?

All right, so Vani, and she claims that she, in a couple interviews, at one point, she claimed that she hadn't. That she didn't ban anyone from her site or that she only banned people when they used obscenities or were horribly rude. People have gotten banned from her page. Like, people who are supporters of hers have gotten banned from her page by asking questions like, what are your credentials? Or I don't think this is accurate. If you disagree with her even slightly, or if you ask a slightly neutral question of clarification, you get banned from her.

What does that mean, to be banned from a page?

You can, you can click. You can ban a user from your page on Facebook so they can see the page, but they can't, they can't comment. They can't. Like, basically. And I mean, here's the thing. I ban people, too. I understand if she wants to ban people who are harassing her because it's the Internet and people are jerks. Like, I block people from my page who, like, people will occasionally say, you know, some swear words about her that I don't agree with. Like, look, I don't know Vani Hari, the human being. I know Food Babe LLC and their business practices. So, you know, when people go on and call her some words that I'm not even going to bother saying here, like, they get banned from my page because I won't. Like, I'm like, if I wouldn't put up with people saying it about me, I won't put up with people saying it about her. But, you know, we're there to fight the science, not the human being. And she's. It seems like she, conversely, on her page, only bans people who ask any negative things about her. And I mean, not even negative, but just questions of clarification. And it's at the point where she's banned at this point, well over, you know, just in the group alone we know of, I think there are 9,000 people now. When I wrote the article, there were about six. But, you know, that's the thing. She's. She's banned. If you ban that many people, like, because you can't have any dissenting comments on your page, there's a problem. It means that either you're like, you're just kind of trying to ignore that there are any people disagreeing with you or not letting your actual. Not letting your followers see that there are people who don't like you. It seems very, very odd how she, how she runs this.

Now. At the risk of turning this into a complete gossip fest, do you know if Vani has ever spoken out about why she's banned people or responded to your article?

Whenever I've seen something from her about why she bans people, she'll say the same line over and over again. I only ban people who are you know, who are abusive or who are, you know, who say, you know, giddy, you know, just. It's her way of claiming that she bans people or blocks people from the page is disingenuous at best because it's like she's not just banning people who are being rude and horrible to her, which I, it's like, girl, I get it. The Internet is rough sometimes. But she bans anyone who has a slightly dissenting agreement. And that's not how she presents itself the, when she's questioned about it ever.

So there's a statement that you quote in the article on Gawker that says that the food Babe uses statements like this. The enzymes released from kale go into your liver and trigger cancer fighting chemicals that literally dissolve unhealthy cells throughout your body. What is your beef with a statement like that?

It's okay. What does she even. This is one of those things she says that sounds, you know, might sound scientific, but, you know, kale is not dissolving unhealthy cells in your body. Kale is good for you. You know, I eat kale, I like kale. I find it, find it a little crispier than spinach. It's good stuff. But there's, but saying that enzymes from kale go into this is just, there's no, there's no validity to a claim like that. Like, this is one of the things she puts in her site and without any peer reviewed articles, without anything. So again, vegetables. Very good for you. I mean, saying it literally dissolves unhealthy cells. What does that even mean? Do they think that these, that kale is just eating cancer? Because, I mean, I think that's how people think this works and it's not. And I think when you read something like that, this goes into your liver and does it, it's like, no, no, no, it's not. I mean, she makes it sound like kale is going to treat cancer. And there are, there are other charlatans like the Gerson Therapy that they think that eating, having 13 glasses of juice a day and having coffee enemas, this is a thing, coffee enemas to help detoxify your liver. They think this is going to cure cancer. And a couple of. There have been bloggers who said they're treating their cancer with Gerson Therapy who have died. And food babe, she endorses Gerson Therapy on her website. So I think, I mean, there's just no proof that it works or that this is a thing that happens.

Yeah. So basically overly simplistic definitions of how superfoods or things like kale somehow get rid of cancer or completely detox your body, when in fact, it's a lot more complex than that.

Yeah, I mean, detox is just not. I think. Here's the thing. Whenever you hear somebody say you need to do a detox, they always go after pesticides and heavy metals. And here's the problem. The symptoms that they claim are coming from these things are not the symptoms that pesticides or heavy metals cause. So, I mean, when people say that you need to do a detox, they think that. I'm not sure what people are picturing. I think they're just picturing, like, somehow these juice is curing things. I promise you, juice, not even organic or freshly pressed juice. It's not going to cure anything. It's just juice. So. So when I hear someone say, do a detox, do this, I ask them, what is it going to cure and why? And there's never a consistent answer. And here's the thing. You might feel better afterwards because a lot of times you're cutting calories down because in a lot of detoxes, there are just a lot of vegetables. But these are. I've seen Dr. Oz promote something as a chelator, and it's not. You need dimercaprol for chelating. And I see them say, it's going to wipe the pesticides out of you. I'm like, that's just not a thing that happens. So it's very like, they just. There's no scientific validity to back all the whole detoxing claims. Vegetables are great for you. I want people to eat more of them. I'm practically living on them. But there's. I think people. It's very easy to conflate something like. Something like kale is good for you to. Kale is going to fight cancer. And I don't want people to read that and think I don't have to get chemo because that's horribly dangerous.

Are you sitting down?

Yes.

Okay. I do a bulletproof coffee enema about once every two weeks.

Oh, my.

And to my credit. No, I'm actually. I'm totally not kidding you. I don't do it because I think it's going to cure me of cancer or because of its detoxification effects. I do it because I poop like a baby every day since I started doing it.

It.

So I do indeed. Not only do I do a coffee enema once every couple weeks, but I do a bulletproof coffee enema. So anyways, just Throwing you a curveball there.

I'm glad I was sitting.

I just wanted to get your reaction on the podcast.

You actually. Here's the question. Hot or cold?

It's warm. It's like a nice, relaxing, warm temperature.

I mean, I hate to say something like this because it sounds, you know, it's how phrases. There are children in Africa who hate you right now because you're shooting coffee in your butt. You are playing with food.

Yeah. In that case, I do not consider it a food as much as more of a medicine to increase peristalsis, but it does actually. Well, perhaps you could try it and write a WOO blog post on it sometime.

But I don't think I'm going to ship. I think, I think that.

Putting coffee up your butt, the buck stops there.

It was funny. At one point I considered going on Van Ihari's diet, taking all of her advice and blogging about it and blogging how much I hated life because I couldn't eat things. But I was like, no, I don't want to do this. If I'm not going to just go on Vani Hari's advice or take her advice, then I'm not. If I'm not going to take her advice on this, that I'm not gonna go as far as shooting good coffee where it shouldn't go.

Yeah, well, you definitely, you, you, you don't need to drink it afterwards or anything.

I was, I wasn't planning on it.

But you do you do realize you actually just called bulletproof coffee good coffee.

It's. I didn't realize you were using bulletproof.

I'm just giving you a hard time.

It's like, okay, so I'm sure it tastes good. I just don't think it's medicine. It's good to make you not kill people in the morning when you're trying to wake up, but that's about it.

I have another thing that I wanted to talk to you about too. We can leave enemas behind for another day. Although now I know that I could potentially appear on your Woo alert now after making you aware that I do an enemy.

Very nice. And say, here's why you shouldn't do a coffee at Emma. And I hope that you're, you know, you can save your coffee.

I will, I will read it if you write it. I love, I love to hear all the opinions. So I think we were talking about this before we started recording. I'm pretty open minded, dude. You talk about allergies, food allergies and how you, you Certainly have an issue with Vani Hari claiming she's allergic to refined sugar. Can you expound on that?

Well, it's one of the things she claimed was she went to her acupuncturist, I think it was, who diagnosed her with an allergy to refined sugar. Now, number one, your acupuncturist is not the person who's qualified to diagnose you with an allergy. So right off the bat, the diagnosis probably bs. You need to do certain amount of testing for that. And then she claimed that her allergy was treated with crystal laser therapy. That's just not how this works. It's like I find myself screaming at the Internet, that's not how any of this works. So often when I see things like that. But then she claims in the same blog entry, she shows all these pictures of desserts she's had. Your body doesn't know where a source of sugar came from. They don't know. Your body doesn't know if it's molasses, if it's honey. All they know is there's a lot of sugar that my pancreas has to process. So her claiming she was allergic to refined sugar, I'm calling BS on that because there is no such allergy. I mean, the other thing is she tells people to when they're going to restaurants to lie about their food allergies, basically so that they can cut calories. Here's a problem is that I have celiac disease. And I see when people say to lie about allergies or when people take a food preference and claim it's an allergy after 20 people in a row like that show up to a restaurant and I show up and say, no, really, I have the real gluten free disorder. I don't know how seriously a kitchen staff is going to take that after they've had 20 liars in a row. So food allergies are not to be. They're not something to lie about. If you have something you don't want on your food, just tell the waiter you're a fussy douchebag and get on with your life.

The fussy douchebag.

Yeah.

No, it does make sense that by lying about food allergies, we may indeed make the restaurant industry a little less likely to believe us or perhaps more likely to roll their eyes and ignore the requests of people who, like you, actually do have full blown celiac disease, which actually is an allergy.

Yeah, well, it's a little different than an allergy, but that's for Purposes of food. It's just keep it away from the food. But when you see people, I saw a card on the Internet, it was a forward that got sent around this woman that went to restaurants with a card of her allergy. And here's the thing, she claimed she was allergic to all beans, including coffee beans. I'm like, that's not even, that's not how this works. Like, it was just, you know, it was one of these. You could look at it and tell just by what they listed as allergies that they'd read one too many food blogs. And this was not, you know, there might have been maybe one legit allergy in there, but there are so many that are, that just were complete bunk. And I look at stuff like that and I go, people are going to hear, you know, people who have legitimate allergies going into stores and going into restaurants and go, yeah, right. You're another person holding a card saying, I'm allergic to all beans, including coffee beans.

Yeah, that makes sense. Now, if you had to make a prediction, whether it's something coming from Vonnie the food babe or anything else, including coffee enemas, what do you think is the next most unproven or hyped up or dangerous or scientifically inaccurate trend or fad that's currently making its way down the health pipeline?

Well, I mean, there's. I like to say I have a problem with the anti GMO movement and I of course have a problem with the anti vax movement, but you know, I'm not sure what's coming up soon. But like I've seen.

Are you currently working on an article about anything?

Let's see. Yes, I am. I'm working on one for Gawker, talking about food labeling and what the labels on things mean, like defining fresh and defining, you know, natural as far as it goes on food labeling, because I want people to know if they're buying something because they have all these labels on it. Some of these labels mean something like they have legal definitions and some of them are just advertising terms that mean nothing. So I want people to know about that. But it's like I'm not sure what's going to be next down the organic pipeline of things that are allegedly going to save you from cancer. But every few years they seem to, I feel like we seem to swap every 10 years what things we say are killing you and what things we say are good for you. At one point it was a low fat diet, now it's a low carb diet. It's a low toxin diet and people are just, you know, they're changing what they call a toxin depending on the day of the week. Like I think I told you before we started recording that I've heard the same foods described as both clean and I guess the converse would be dirty, but, you know, or unclean. But I think this trend with toxin free and with clean eating eventually is going to come to a close after people, you know, after enough science gets out about GMOs and people are going to believe that, you know, they're not bad. And I'm hoping people get to a point and I know this is very not quite the question you asked, but I'm hoping we get to a point where people will see a claim made online and really look behind the headlines and see if this is a really huge overblown claim and they're claiming a scientific breakthrough and you're reading it in a tiny little blog that it might not be in line with a, with accuracy. It might not be something that's selling you a product that doesn't have overblown claims. So I want people to look at this skeptically. I mean, here's a quick question for you. What have you seen coming up down the fitness and health claims pipeline?

Oh, you know, it's tricky, but I would tend to agree with you on the natural flavorings or natural ingredients label because it's not well defined. Well, can you give an example of something that would be considered a natural flavoring or a natural ingredient that we would see in a health compound or healthy food that really is not healthy?

I'm still in the middle of writing that article. I haven't gotten to do you want healthy or unhealthy?

Either one. Like a mistake that someone would make when grabbing something that says natural flavor flavoring.

It's. Well, I mean, here's the thing. Whenever you see and natural flavors, it generally means there's a mixture of spices because I mean, I believe that when you're claiming natural flavoring, it just means that it was not a chemical that was made in a laboratory. So I don't believe that you can say natural unless it's, you know, an actual natural claim or natural. Naturally occurring product I think is the more accurate term for it than nat, than just plain old natural. But you know, all of these things before they're added in have been through, you know, laboratory testing and whatnot. So I mean, you're very rarely going to get a food additive that's unsafe because there is a huge amount of Testing that goes into it before it can hit the market. But in terms of, like, one of the things the food Babe claims is that, you know, they're using, as she calls it. She says they're using beaver butt to. Yeah, she's a charmer to flavor. You know, things that should be, I think, either vanilla or raspberry flavor. They're using it as a flavor additive. It's very, very rarely used. Extraordinarily rare. It's called castoreum, I believe. And, you know, sometimes you'll hear that, like, whenever she sees something with the food Babe sees something with the term natural flavors on it, she automatically, like, you know, goes and digs for the recipe and says it lists natural flavors. So it's bad. I'm like, that's kind of. You know, there are so many things on her don't eat, listen that. I mean, I think it's confusing the consumers about what, you know, what a healthy food looks like or what a healthy. I hate to use this term, but a healthy processed food looks like. But, you know, I think the biggest thing people have to look out for in terms. Because, I mean, one of the. One of the things I'll see is if you want natural to be better, some people are anti whatchamacallit. They're anti pasteurization with milk because it's. Because it's not natural. And I don't think they look at the actual number of deaths and illnesses we had before we learned about pasteurization. So, I mean, even Vonnie says, you know, use or drink the unpasteurized milk. And I'm like, this is. Or raw milk, as they call it. And that is one thing that I'll tell people. Don't buy it unless you saw it milked from the cow that day. Do not. Don't get raw milk, because it's much way, way, way more likely to cause food poisoning. And, you know, just. Again, just because it's natural does not mean it's better.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's what I. You know, we keep our goats very clean. When my kids collect chicken eggs, I explain to them that they could get sick and die unless we're cleaning the poo and the pee off of those eggs. We are literally getting this food ourselves 20ft from our front door and still taking precautions. And I think that you are right. You know, people who are simply using a rule that they will not consume a milk unless it is unpasteurized or they will not consume a food unless it is only flavored with Natural flavorings don't realize that an unpasteurized milk or a free range egg can be full of bacteria and salmonella and literally poo and piss on the animal. And natural flavorings can essentially include any chemicals, whether derived in a laboratory or otherwise, as long as the starting ingredient is from a natural source. And so I think that ultimately what this comes down to is having a good relationship with your food and knowing really where it came from. And that's why I think some people need to cook their food more, some people need to go to farmers markets more, some people need to go buy the ingredients that they're putting into their bodies more, rather than consuming packaged foods, just frankly, so they can become more aware of what it is that they're eating.

I agree with you on that. I'm a huge advocate of cooking for yourself and not buying everything prepackaged because I think, number one, you're generally going to eat healthier because if you're cooking all your food yourself, I hope you're not living on bacon. But, you know, it's, it's an easy way to understand, you know, how many calories go into something, portion size and whatnot. And I think people really need to start, It's, I guess here, how to phrase this. I think if people cook more of their own food, they're going to, like you said, they're going to have a better relationship with their food and they're probably going to have a better understanding of, you know, of ingredients. Because here's the thing, if you're making your own food at home and you're adding in certain types of spices and seasonings, some of them aren't considered natural and they're still fine for you. So it's, I think, just like I said, I think slapping natural on something is not enough because it doesn't have a, like I said, it doesn't have a very good definition. But that's, I guess that's, that's one of my whole points is look at what they're, you know, look at the words they're using to advertise their product. And you can, it's, I think having someone who tells you you can only, you know, much like the food babe saying, you can only listen to me on these things, she's missing a much bigger picture on health and nutrition.

I think that there are many things, obviously, I would guess that anyone who's listening to this podcast episode has gathered there are many things, Yvette, that you and I probably disagree on. And there are obviously things that we agree on as well. And I want to make sure that if you are listening in a well, two things. A, I've been taking notes as we've been talking and I'll have links to everything from the Public Library of Science to the Science Based Medicine website to the Nest Neurological blog to the natural ingredients in a blueberry, even my article on bulletproof coffee enemas, as well as the Cybabe website. I'm going to put that all over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Sci Fi Science Babe. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com ScienceBabe and of course, the article the Food Babe blogger is full of on Gawker. I'll also put a link to that as well. The second is that please understand that if you're listening in, my podcast really is, it's a pretty open platform for discussion. And so, for example, if you think this is unfair and that we should have the Food Babe on to give her thoughts or have Vani Hari on or, or Dave Aspreyn or whoever else, I'm game. Send me their contact details or hook me up with them. And I'm happy to talk to them as well. So please understand that I'm not trying to necessarily shove someone under the bus here and just give one person's opinion. And I want to make sure that you as a listener know that I'm not out here with an agenda. I just would love to make you aware of all of the components of this, the argument here.

Yeah, I mean, no, it's, it's, I think that I want people to understand I'm not attacking Vani Hari, the human being. I don't know her. I don't know what she's like outside of work. I just know that I disagree with her business practices. So I want people to remember if I'm, I think I'm pretty clear about this in my writing. If I'm having a go at someone, it's not the human being. It's, you know, it's that I want consumers to be protected from inaccurate information and not, not buy into something that's overpriced for, you know, because it's, as I like to call them, either, you know, superfoods or natural or organic. I want people to know that it's okay, you know, to buy conventionally grown. It's okay, you know, to have your pumpkin spice latte twice a year. You know, there's not, there isn't some sort of huge big food agenda, you know, to make you eat certain things. You can buy vegetables and also and cook and also occasionally, occasionally have a cupcake.

And there you have it, folks. So it's the Science Babe. Her website is Cybabe. That's Cybabe.com her name is difficult as it is to pronounce. Just for bragging rights, I'm going to say it again. Yvette Guinevere d'. Entremon. Did I do a good job?

No.

I need to go have a pumpkin spice latte to get my blood sugar back up. Maybe have it via enema and you. That's true. True. We could start a trend. Although I'm not going to shoot pasteurized milk up my butt. The URL for all the show notes is BenGreenfieldFitness.com ScienceBabe I understand you'll probably have some thoughts and some comments on this. Feel free to leave them over there. I will not ban or delete them, I promise. And thanks for listening in. And Yvette, thanks for your time. Thank you today.

Thank you for having me, Ben.

All right, folks. Well, this is the Cy Babe and Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week. Visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

Sam.