"The Food Babe" Says They're Feeding You Lies (How to Unravel the Food Industry's Playbook and Reclaim Your Health).

They are so scared out of their wits about losing their advertising money from these big food conglomerates. And this is such maddening information. Once you learn it, you just get so angry because these are American companies who have decided that it's okay to serve us the toxic, cheap stuff and serve other countries better stuff.

I have a Master's degree in physiology, biomechanics and Human Nutrition. I've spent the past two decade competing in some of the most masochistic events on the planet. From Sealfit, Kokoro, Spartan Agoji, and the world's toughest mudder to 13 Ironman triathlons, brutal bow hunts, adventure races, spearfishing, plant foraging, free diving, bodybuilding and beyond. I combine this intense time in the trenches with a blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science. Search the globe for the world's top experts in performance, fat loss recovery, hormones, brain beauty and brawn to deliver you this podcast everything you need to know to live an adventurous, joyful and fulfilling life. My name is Ben Greenfield. Enjoy the ride. Folks. As promised, I've got Vani Hari on the show today. She's known as the Food Babe. Unless you've been living under a rock, you have probably heard of her or seen her on television talking about all of the issues that are presented to us nowadays in this modern post industrial era where we've got a lot of processed and packaged foods floating around. She published a new book that I found absolutely intriguing. As a matter of fact, I found one section of this book very intriguing and really want to focus on it today. But in the book she goes into everything about how nutrition research is manipulated by food company funded experts and how to spot fish, fake news generated by big food, different tricks that food companies use to make food addictive, why things like all natural or non GMO may not really be what they seem. She's got a whole bunch of information about different food marketing hoaxes that kind of get you to buy junk food that's disguised as health food. And this is what she does. She's kind of like a watchdog in the health and nutrition industry who keeps her eye on labels and what the FDA is doing and tries to protect us. So the the book is really good. It's called Feeding youg How to Unravel the Food Industry's Playbook and Reclaim youm Health. It was last month what inspired me to go give a presentation at my children's school on healthy lunches and I literally had paper bags and paper bags full of processed and packaged food and a room full of Fourth and fifth graders. And we just spent time learning how to truly know whether or not that I can't believe it's not butter is truly healthy. Digging our ways through the healthiest of oils and going through some of the, some of the common foods that kids are eating. And it was fantastic. So thank you, Vani, first of all, for inspiring me to go and talk to my kids school with his book.

Oh, well, that just makes my day hearing that, Ben. It really does, because that is why I do the work that I do to inspire others to educate people about what's happening in the food system.

Yeah, well, you're doing a good job. I know you're a controversial person and you catch a lot of flack for this stuff. Admittedly, I've even called you out on my podcast before. I'll throw that out there. Right there. I think what I called you out on was, I think it was something about like, if a third grader can't pronounce it, you shouldn't eat it.

And that, you know, it's so funny you say that and it's not even my phrase. It was like, who came up with that initially? And he said basically, if you're, if your grandmother didn't, you know, can't. I can't remember exactly, exactly the words he said in his book Food Rules, but it was along the same lines. And so I always say that it's funny because my critics love to take that and make me look stupid or unscientific by saying that. But honestly, if you don't know the ingredients that you're eating and you don't know what they are, if you can't pronounce them, absolutely, you shouldn't be eating it. You need to be able to go look these things up, know why they're there. And I mean, you need to know what you're eating. And that was the point of it. And, you know, it's a simple rule to follow to kind of eliminate a lot of the processed chemicals that have no business being in our bodies.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So if you see something like, you know, cholecalciferol or methylcobalamin or something like that that are technically decent vitamins, you should at least make sure that you know whether or not cholecalciferol is a vitamin or an artificial sweetener or a food dye, for example.

Yep, exactly.

Okay, well, before we jump into really what I think was one of the more intriguing parts of your book, Europe versus America. I'm not sure if you saw this recent study that came out on inorganic phosphates, because I wanted to get your opinion on this. And from what I understand, inorganic phosphates, and I'd love for you to fill us in on what those are and where we would find them, were investigated, particularly on something I think very relevant to our audience. You know, a lot of people who are exercise enthusiasts or athletes or coaches, and that would be its effect on physical performance. Did you see this study?

Yes, I did. Yeah. And this is, you know, this is additional information that is coming out about these additives. And, and for those of you who don't know, sodium phosphate or phosphates or inorganic phosphates are used by the food industry mainly added to different processed foods to make them have a specific texture or to create some additional shelf life to the product. A really popular example of a product that has it is like a lot of the boxed Mac and cheeses out there or the soups out there. Taco Bell is something that uses phosphates all over their food foods as well as like other fast food companies. And so this is something that's being added to our food. And when you have a high level of this in your diet, it actually starts to affect your kidney function, which I think would probably be one of the reasons why it affects your performance. But also it starts to actually, you look at the, you look at other studies too, that have been done at healthy adults who have higher phosphate levels in their bodies, and they actually have a higher mortality rate as well because of the links to affecting the kidneys and other organs.

Now, why would inorganic phosphate be added? What's the value of that being in food?

Again, it's for texture purposes, for shelf life. Yeah.

And this study that I saw, I think it was University of Texas, was the latest one where they basically gave rodent models the amount that you'd see an adult consuming, like an adult human consuming from an average food supply in the US And I think it was a pretty long study. Like it was 12 weeks of kind of lacing their food with inorganic phosphate. And they found that there was probably due to the damage to the vascular system, an effect on endurance performance. Like they had a faster time to exhaustion on the treadmill, they had less cardiovascular fitness, but it even changed gene expression, like specifically the genes associated with fatty acid metabolism. And then they did the same thing with people. And they found that the higher the levels of phosphate in the blood, the lower the level of physical activity and the more sedentary behavior. And of course, there could be some confounding variables. There I'm not quite sure how they were feeding them phosphate or if the food that folks were eating were somehow influencing their inactivity. But regardless, it's brand new, just off the streets, that if you value your fitness and you're working out, it's probably a pretty good thing to look for inorganic phosphate on a label.

Yeah, absolutely. And you'll find the most common way to find this is, you know, it'll say some type of phosphate on the label. Then sodium phosphate is the most popular one that the food manufacturers add as a preservative.

Okay. So sodium phosphate would be what you'd want to look for. That's, that's going to be what it'll mostly appear for on. Appear as on actual packaging.

Okay, that's right.

Got it. Now, speaking of packaging, this is the really interesting thing that I wanted to delve into Europe versus the US and you have a large section of your book devoted to kind of us versus the rest of the world. One of the first examples that you give is Mountain Dew and what the difference would be if you picked up, say, a can or a bottle of Mountain Dew in the UK versus the US can you, can you walk through Mountain Dew and Pepsi products in general when it comes to how this is different and why?

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the first investigations I started to do when I eventually quit my corporate job, you know, I wasn't a food activist for most of my life. I was actually working in the corporate world, working for a big six consulting firm, doing something completely different. But I was working with like, C level executives and, and doing presentations and things. And, you know, I really learned how to research. And so one of the things that fascinated me was when I discovered that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese had a completely different ingredient label in countries overseas. And that actually inspired me to start a petition to get Kraft to remove artificial food dyes in their version here in the United States, because they had already removed it in other countries. And the reason why they removed it is because there's a warning label that's required by the United Kingdom that says, may cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children. And so Kraft, instead of putting this warning label on their products that have artificial food dyes, they said, you know what? We're going to avoid this warning label and we are going to instead reformulate our product without artificial food dyes and use natural ingredients, beta carotene and paprika to color our Mac and cheese. And that's what we're going to do over there. But you know what, we're just going to serve the same controversial ingredients here in the United States, even though we know that this other country has looked at studies, a big study called the Southampton Study, that showed this correlation and this effect in animals and children too, in terms of increasing their hyperactivity levels. And they basically said, you know, instead of doing that for all of our products, which would be the right ethical thing to do, they decided, hey, because we can get away with it, because the FDA doesn't look at, doesn't regulate artificial food dyes here in the United States, we can just, we can just continue to use it here because you know what, it's cheaper.

So. And you're talking about things like yellow number five and yellow number six, the kind of things that would make macaroni and cheese look, look really sexy.

Right? And you know what, it's funny because with the beta carotene and paprika, the natural ingredients, they look exactly the same and it tastes exactly the same.

Yeah, I would imagine, I would imagine turmeric could be another, another potential replacement.

Yep, absolutely. And that would be like, have a health benefit too. So. Yeah, no, absolutely. So this just maddened me that food companies were getting away with this. And so one of the big, large investigations I did was comparing products overseas to products here in the United States. The exact same product, whether it was, as you mentioned, Mountain Dew, and just showing side by side comparisons of what the ingredient label looks like. And it's not just Kraft that does this, but it's every American company under the sun. I feel like at least the big conglomerates, the big multi billion dollar corporations, you know, Pepsi, what they'll do is here in the United States, they'll serve us their Mountain Dew with high fructose corn syrup, with sodium benzonate, with brominated vegetable oil, which is a very controversial chemical that's banned overseas. Yellow five. But in the other countries, they will actually take out all of those additives I just mentioned, and they just use plain sugar and they use beta carotene again to just color the Mountain Dew. And so there's distinct differences in what you're looking at when you see the ingredient label and the amount of controversial ingredients are removed when you buy the same product overseas. And my argument has always been that these are American companies. Right. We're getting the short end of the stick. I mean, this information is so controversial, Ben, that no mainstream media will actually show the size by side comparisons of these products in the news because they're so scared out of their wits about Losing their advertising money from these big food conglomerates. And this is such maddening information once you learn it that you literally just start to feel completely. I mean, you just, you just get so angry because these are American companies who have decided that it's okay to serve us the toxic, cheap stuff and serve other countries better stuff.

So you don't find artificial dyes in like, European Mountain Dew or European Gatorade, but you do in the US and if those dyes were to be present in those food products in Europe, they would be required to have a warning label. But is the reason that they still include them in the US is because they feel like a warning label would reduce the amount of sales of a product, like the warning label on a cigarette? Or are there other reasons, reasons that they'd keep selling the version with the dye here in America?

I mean, the reason why they keep serving the version with the dye here in America is because our government has not regulated artificial food dyes like other governments overseas. And so. And also, it's cheaper for them to use petroleum based synthetic dyes.

Okay, that makes sense.

And so, you know, largely the chemicals that have been invented in the last 50 years in our food system haven't been invented to like, improve our nutrition or to like, make our bodies healthier. They've just been invented to improve the bottom line of the food industry. I mean, they're creating these synthetic chemicals so that they can make their food perform a certain way. They can use less real ingredients so they can make more money, or they can put their products on the shelf longer. So again, they make more money or they create an addictive quality to the food, which, you know, is a real sinister thing that happens. And that's exactly what the tobacco industry did in terms of making their cigarettes addictive and not really telling us what they were doing.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting when my wife makes our children macaroni and cheese. You know, she'll often use like, you know, quinoa noodles and rice noodles and a wonderful, you know, local raw goat cheese or something like that. And she makes macaroni and cheese that's like white. It's a totally different color than what I grew up, you know, I grew up on, on comfort foods. Right. I grew up on Kraft macaroni and cheese, Cocoa Puffs, peanut butter, Captain Crunch, taking baked pizzas, Hot Pockets. I mean, that was my life growing up. And it's very interesting to see, you know, my wife whipping up almost like healthy versions of these comfort foods in the kitchen. But one of the most remarkable things is they're completely different colors. And I think that that's, of course, part of the psyche of this, is that the color of the food is quite appealing. Especially toto young eyes who like bright things. And the dopamine and the serotonin release that you get from those.

Well, you say Hot Pockets, my stomach just starts because that's exactly what I was eating when I got sick. That kind of led to this health. So, yeah, yeah, I used to eat those things all the time.

Oh, man, I love them. I would skip the microwave sometimes and just literally bite into a frozen hot pocke. That's how much I hate Hot Pockets.

That's so awful.

Now, McDonald's is another one. I was completely unaware of this, but apparently McDonald's. And I believe what I'd like you to get into is the french fries, because that was very interesting to me. Apparently the french fries in Europe are different than the french fries in the.

U.S. yeah, I mean, in the UK they make French fries at McDonald's very basic, probably how you would make it at home. Potatoes, a little oil, and they add a little dextrose, which is sugar, and then they add the salt after they cook it. So it's like four ingredients. Right. Then here in the United States, McDonald's uses all sorts of different oils like canola and corn and soybean and hydrogenated soybean oil, which is another finicky ingredient that they've created, the food industry has created to sort of act like partially hydrogenated soybean oil soaked. The jury's still out in terms of whether it affects our hearts, just like trans fat does. And then they.

Not to derail you, but really quickly, do you know what kind of oil they use in the uk they use sunflower.

Okay, yeah, Sunflower. And then sometimes they use canola or rap seed oil.

Still a vegetable oil, but a little less prone to oxidation.

Yes, exactly. And then they add beef flavoring here in the United States. So people who are vegetarian or vegan may not know that they can't eat McDonald's french fries. And then. And then on top, of course, they have the phosphates. And then they also fry their french fries that has an. In that same vegetable oil blend I mentioned, but it's also preserved with an ingredient called dimethyl polysiloxane. And this is an ingredient. And people hate when I say these things, especially scientists. They hate when I compare ingredients that are found in other objects that are not.

Yeah, I think you caught that flack with the. With the yoga mat ingredient in your subway sandwiches analogy.

But these chemicals that they've invented, they've invented these chemicals across industries. So these aren't just chemicals that go in our food. They go in everything. And so it makes you kind of wonder, like, wait a minute, shouldn't we be eating these things? So dimethyl polysiloxane is an ingredient that the FDA has actually never actually had any safety studies conducted on. But they also allow it to be preserved with formaldehyde in a very small amount, which is just disgusting and terrible. I mean, considering that something like that is even in our food and it's one of these ingredients, dimethyl polysiloxin is not only in our french fries here in the United States and not in the uk, but it's also, and this is what blows my mind, people don't even recognize. So when I was a soda addict, one of the things I loved was going to a fountain soda machine because there's fountain soda always tasted so much better. I don't know why. But one of the ingredients that they add to fountain soda, like Diet Coke, for example, the Diet Coke in the can does not have dimethylpolysiloxane. But when you go get a Diet Coke in a fountain format, like at a fast food chain or at a gas station, it has dimethylpolysiloxane in there too. So it's like, how much of this stuff are we eating? Like, this is crazy. And anytime you go to a fast food place and you're getting french fries or anything fried, I would say a lot of different restaurants beyond fast food are using this additive in their food. I mean, this runs the gamut. I mean, this is like five guys. Some of the higher end chains, they still use this additive, if I understand.

Correctly, as an anti foaming agent. The dimethylpolysiloxane would primarily be used to prevent all those vats of oil from actually boiling over or foaming over in the kitchen in McDonald's. Correct?

Yeah, yeah. And it's just. It's just so, you know, I mean, it's basically to prevent foam. And so, you know, when you, if you fry something at home, it does get kind of foamy. And when you put it on a paper towel after you're done, it kind of like, you know, you kind of wait for the foam to dissipate. Well, they're just preventing that. So it's just a. They, you know, again, they want food certain way, and that's why they're using this chemical.

Okay, so oh, well, at least the crew at the McDonald's kitchen is safe. They're not getting burnt by overflowing oil vats.

I don't think it really prevents people from getting splashed on by hot oil. I don't think it's about that. It's really about preventing that foamy nature to be on their French fries as they serve them.

Interesting. Okay, so French fries, you could actually make an argument that they actually are a little bit more guilty free in the uk. I'm not a fan, just due to, you know, lipopolysaccharide formation, for example, of combining high oil and high starch based foods together. You know, like the dextrose and the fries and this and the. You said it was sunflower oil or soybean oil that they use over there?

Sunflower.

Okay. Yeah, I'm still not a huge fan, but it's definitely a healthier product or at least a less toxic product over there than here. What about Quaker Oats? That was another one I found very interesting. And I don't know about you, but I used to open up those little. Remember the little packets like the cinnamon and apple and the banana? And I think there was one that was like, it was blueberries and cream or something like that. But you know the little quick packets of Quaker Oats?

Absolutely. I mean, I would have those things in my desk drawer and I'd rip one open, put hot water, and I thought I was, was doing myself good by like, you know, eating oatmeal in the morning first thing, but.

Oh yeah, when I was a personal trainer for my carb load, if I was doing pre or post workout, I would do two packets of those and then a big spoonful of peanut butter. And then I'd cover that in milk and I'd microwave it for about four minutes so it turned into like a souffle and that's what I would eat. It was like a peanut butter Quaker Oats milk souffle. I'd always have horrible gas by about 11am after my morning workout. But I thought I was, I was doing myself a service by eating my healthy grains. Right?

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's really shocking when you start to look at the Quaker Oats that we get served here in those instant oatmeal packs. And then overseas here in the United States, they're using artificial flavors, artificial food dyes. And I just want to take a detour right quick on artificial flavor and why this is so important. The artificial flavor can be so many different chemicals under the sun, all synthetic Chemicals, that's why it's artificial. And just recently, the FDA was sued by several nonprofit organizations who found that there were seven artificial flavor ingredients that are allowed in artificial flavor. So they found seven different artificial chemicals that you would, that are in our food supply that are allowed to be used under the name artificial flavor when you see it on a label that are actually linked to cancer in animal studies. And because it was linked to cancer in animal studies, the FDA has a duty to ban these under the Delaney clause. Okay. And so they weren't obviously looking at any of this stuff. It took these nonprofit organizations to sue the FDA in order to get this band. Now the FDA said, okay, you know, we're going to ban these seven. As a result of this lawsuit, we're going to ban these seven chemicals. Now, one of the chemicals is rarely used, so it's not a big deal. But six of the other chemicals are being used all over the sun in terms of, in the most popular products that you see on store shelves everywhere, which is candy and gums, all sorts of candy that is, you know, targeted towards children, that's on every eye level of every CVS and Walgreens and grocery store and, you know, convenience shopping all over the airport. And these chemicals the food industry has up to two years to remove. The one thing that I found so maddening was that the FDA did not require these food companies to tell the public which products actually contain these cancer causing chemicals. So right now on store shelves everywhere, you are going to find artificial flavor on just about every product in terms of like on the candy aisle. And they could have these cancer causing ingredients that are banned that food companies have up to two years to remove that they're going to take their sweet old time, because they always do. And they're going to of course, try to get rid of all their product before they reformulate. And so this is stuff that we're consuming. We don't even know what's in it. The food companies aren't required to tell us which artificial flavor products we should avoid. And they basically are just saying, tough luck. Anyways, going back to this Quaker Oatmeal, the Quaker Oatmeal here in the United States has artificial flavor, so we should have some concern about that. But it also has those artificial food dyes that again are linked to hyperactivity in children. And then when you look at the Quaker version in the uk, oh, they're using actual real fruit. They're using real, you know, if you look at strawberries and cream here in the United States, they're actually using dehydrated apples and then using artificial strawberry flavor.

So, so it has, so it does have some apples in it, but it doesn't have actual strawberries in it. The strawberries and cream.

Right. They can write, like literally write strawberry on the label and have no strawberries in the product. They're using artificial strawberry flavor with Red 40 to make it look like strawberry. And then in the uk they can't get away with that over there because I guess they're smarter than us. I don't know. What's the reason, Ben? I have no idea. Maybe because it costs more money.

There is that stereotype of the intelligent Brit. Right? I don't know.

I mean, this is just absolutely crazy. So in the UK you'll find real, real strawberry freeze dried pieces and real raspberry. Oh my goodness. You know, and so they don't even try to get away with it over there.

Do they have artificial dyes in the one in the uk?

No.

Wow.

And no artificial flavoring either. You know, we need to rise up as Americans and demand better of our own American companies. And the fact that we've allowed this to happen is just insane to me. And that is why I do the work I do. And one of the reasons I wrote feeding you lies, because I want people to recognize the lies that we're being fed and that these food companies can make safer, better versions of their products. And they're making them right now to reinvent the wheel. They don't need to do anything differently other than just allow us to have the same product.

You talk about Doritos in the book and I don't think it's any surprise to anyone listening that of course in the US you'd have yellow six and yellow five and red 40. And then you mentioned how they use paprika extract and something called annatto in the uk and they're also non gmo. Like they don't actually use GMO corn, which is of course completely controversial. And we could go down that rabbit hole if we have time later on. But you know, the big issue with GMO is of course it's contaminated with glyphosate, the weed killer. But another one you get into is ketchup. What's the deal with ketchup in the UK versus the us?

Yeah. So you know, Heinz ketchup is one of the. This is like the. I. This is just the dawn of my existence. Like, okay, I am a ketchup. I love ketchup. Who doesn't like French fries with ketchup.

Me too. Shout out, by the way, to Mark Sisson. I use his Primal Kitchen. Ketchup. I love it.

The only one that I'll give my daughter. Right? Primal Kitchen. But. And it's funny. And the only reason she started to eat ketchup is she saw me eating ketchup, and I'm like, oh, crap, why did I do this in front of her? You know, And. But then, okay, we have Primal Kitchen, so all is good in the world, but ketchup is literally in every restaurant across America. Every fast food restaurant, everywhere you eat, every fine dining restaurant, every fine dining hotel has Heinz ketchup. Okay? They might put it in those little glass bottles, but it's still the same Heinz ketchup. Right Here in the United States, we're getting the GMO high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup, right? And then in the uk, they're getting just sugar, regular old sugar and tomatoes and vinegar and some spices, like how you would make ketchup in your own kitchen. And that I find really maddening because it's like, people don't really necessarily see the stark difference when you're tasting a product or you see the label and you really don't pay attention to the ingredients. But what is happening beyond what you see on the label and what you're tasting, is that we're being exposed to genetically engineered corn that has been developed and patented to withstand heavy doses of a chemical that's now a probable carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization. And other people in other countries are not being exposed to those chemicals. And that is a big issue. You know, why are our own American companies poisoning us? I mean, that's basically what's happening.

Yeah. Yeah. Andand I know some people will say, well, you know, the high fructose corn syrup versus the sugar, it' sit's really not that much different. Itit's maybe, you know, 5% extra fructose, although in many cases. I know, and I don't know if you've looked into this. I think high fructose corn syrup can have up to 80% fructose and 20% glucose. You know, regular table sugar is like a 5050 mix. And a lot of high fructose corn syrups are maybe 55% fructose and 45% glucose. And that might not sound like much, but if your fructose consumption or your high fructose corn syrup consumption is high, that's where it becomes an issue in terms of liver metabolizing and the Increased triglyceride synthesis, fat storage in the liver. It's a shocking number of youth now that have non alcoholic fatty liver disease. And of course I have have to be careful because you know, my company makes a bar that has honey in it. But I've also commented on the very small traces of natural organic honey found in it. And I've also commented on the fact that folks are not supposed to be sitting at their desks, you know, like eating two of these bars or chomping through three on a long airplane ride. Like I designed these to support physical activity and an active lifestyle. So high fructose corn syrup, it's kind of like the dose is the poison.

Yeah, I mean your honey isn't ultra processed either. Like high fructose corn syrup is one of the most processed ingredients in our food supply. So processed that people have found it contaminated with mercury. I doubt your honey is contaminated with mercury.

Can you get into that? Are you comfortable getting into that? The processing of high fructose corn syrup.

I'm not an expert on how it's processed, but I mean it's, it's a pretty involved process, I mean multi step process in order to extract the syrup from the corn. And I'm sure they're using all sorts of solvents and chemical solvents and that's one of the reasons why you have the contamination.

Right. And the derivative, if I'm not mistaken, is actually GMO corn that you're using when you're processing the corn starch to actually generate the high fructose corn syrup. Not only is a pretty intense chemical process, but the, the origin of it versus say like you know, natural honey from a, from a, you know, from a, from a hive. It's actually, it's, it's, it's corn, it's GMO corn, you know. And so you return to the same glyphosate issues that we were talking about earlier.

Yep, absolutely.

And I'm, I'm definitely not a, not a Robert Lustig. You know, fructose, fructose is poison kinda guy. But ultimately, yeah, I mean high fructose corn syrup is different than fructose. Not all fructose is created equal. Kind of a rabbit hole there. But important when you're looking at your.

Ketchup label, the entire, like the vitamins, the minerals, all the things that you would naturally find and I guess a good piece of corn are completely extracted from it as well. And so, you know, I feel like, you know, when you eat a piece of corn, there's things in there that balance out the sugar that you find in that ingredient. Right. Where the same thing, I think goes with honey. There's a lot of beneficial qualities to honey. But when you start to process these ingredients and make them into something they're not supposed to be, that is when our bodies really start to handle them differently.

Yeah, yeah. And regarding the genetically modified ingredients, and again, all the of admit that there is not a host of human clinical data on the effects of some of these compounds, but I know that when they use certain enzymes to actually break down the corn starch, those enzymes are also genetically modified in order to allow them to break down the fructose. So you've kind of got a double whammy of genetically modified corn and then also genetically modified enzymes that are used to break down the corn to make the high fructose corn syrup. And for me, I'd rather, you know, when it comes to gmo, I just play it safe. Like, I can't necessarily say that there are, there are bodies in the streets yet showing that GMO is causing, you know, a huge health issue. But I've like, I play it safe, basically, is my approach.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Now let's get into actual FDA regulation because this might confuse a lot of people when they're picking up a packaged food, whether it's at Trader Joe's or maybe in the airport newsstand or at Walmart or wherever. How is that actually regulated? Or is that regulated by the fda?

Yeah. So there is this phrase called generally regarded as safe. And this is something that a manufacturer or food company can voluntarily send their gras determination to the fda, but it's not mandatory. So what's important for people to recognize is that out of the over 10,000 food chemicals that are allowed in our food supply, the food companies themselves submit the data to get them rubber stamped by the fda. Now, we have this underlying assumption, I believe, like a lot of Americans do, and we're very trusting of our government and we have this assumption that there's some regulatory body out there testing these chemicals from a third party, independent perspective to look over the safety of the world. Right. The safety of us to make sure the things that we're eating are safe. And there's this assumption that every single thing you find on grocery store shelves is safe. But what's actually happening is the food companies invent these ingredients to probably save them money in some form or fashion. And not probably, but they are. I mean, I would say 99% of the chemicals invented over the last 50 or so years have been just invented to improve the bottom line of the food industry. And those chemicals are being safety tested by the food companies themselves. So they, they look at, you know, the safety of these chemicals they created and they say, you know what, we're going to put these rats under 3 months or 6 months or 9 months, use these very short term studies, and then they submit this data to the FDA to get rubber stamped. A lot of times the FDA doesn't even have the manpower to look over all of the information or even look through all of the different chemicals that the food companies are using, and they just allow it through. And then what happens is they get into the food supply and then things like what happened with trans fat starts to happen. You start to realize that, whoa, whoa, whoa. So we just approved an ingredient, partially hydrogenated fats that are, oh my gosh, actually creating heart disease and creating heart attacks. And oh my goodness, according to the CDC, have been linked to 7,000 deaths per year and 20,000 heart attacks. And this is an ingredient, we said, that was generally regarded as safe and entered into just about every processed food and basically was killing Americans. And it wasn't until the last few years that this ingredient has even been banned.

All ingredient manufacturer has to do is, what you're saying then is they can have their own internal team, like let's say Kraft, for example, and they can hire their own experts to claim under reasonable certainty in the minds of their competent scientists that the substance is not harmful under the intended conditions of use and that that's all they need to have it deemed as grass.

Yep.

Now then they can send that to the fda, but they're not required to.

That's right.

Okay, so the fda, and I think you have a quote in the book about how their former deputy commissioner said they just can't even keep up with figuring out whether or not a chemical is safe when it actually is submitted by a food manufacturer. And so, as you just alluded to, it's almost like we're using our population as a giant test canister for a lot of these chemicals that we might find out later on are not safe. But has the FDA ever been, I guess, audited on these practices in terms of their oversight of food ingredients?

That's a good question. So there's a wonderful group, the nrdc, that has took on the job as watchdog and started to look at some of these chemicals and starting to audit what's going on. That was one of the results of that lawsuit that I talked about earlier with artificial flavor. But There are a lot of things that need to be addressed. I mean, one great example is artificial food dye number three. Now, back in 1990, the FDA basically banned artificial red number three from cosmetics because it caused cancer in animal studies. But they still allow it in food. And the reason is, is because red number three was actually one of the main ingredients in maraschino cherries. And if you guys know the alcohol industry and every bar across the world uses those little red maraschino cherries in their alcoholic drinks. And the maraschino cherry lobby did whatever they could to get the FDA to not ban it in food, but they still banned it in cosmetics. So that's a perfect example of how absolutely ridiculous the oversight is at the FDA and how it completely just doesn't even matter. Makes sense.

Interesting. So this GAO that you talk about in the book, the US Government Accountability Office, is that different than this other organization that you were talking about that ran an audit?

Yeah, yeah, that's a different organization.

Okay, what's the gao?

You know, the GAO is basically an organization within the government that, that is a fact based, nonpartisan kind of situation. But they are someone that you basically want to and you can contact when you see these different issues. And that is what these other nonprofit organizations will do, is they'll contact the GAO and submit these different claims to try to get them addressed.

Okay, got it. So ultimately, the biggest picture here is that even if something is generally recognized as safe and approved to be added to a product, that can all be based on internal testing, which admittedly could be highly biased by scientists hired by the food manufacturer themselves. Okay, yeah, that's scary. Now, what are some of the things you talk about common lies on the label of packaged food? What do you mean when you say lies? What are some of these?

Well, here's a perfect example. So there is, there was a study that happened a few years ago that looked at Parmesan cheese and they found an ordinary amount of cellulose being added to Parmesan cheese. And cellulose is an additive that you'll use to prevent anti caking of the cheese so that it comes out of the shaker without the particles sticking to each other. Or in shredded cheese, you'll see it. So that the shredded cheese will stay in those little individual pieces. And they found that there is up to sometimes 13% of cellulose in a product that was labeled Parmesan cheese. And, and the food manufacturers were basically getting away with selling less cheese and more cellulose to people. And the reason why this became such an issue is that there was a study done in nature that looked at cellulose and how it affects gut metabolism, and it starts to affect the way your body gets rid of fat and how your liver performs. And so this became kind of an issue. So people started kind of eliminating or started to look beyond packaged processed cheese and started looking to getting blocks of cheese on the block. And that makes a lot of sense. And a lot of real foodists will say, if you want to eat cheese, get it on the block and grate it yourself so you avoid these other additives that are in the packaged version. Well, Sargento obviously fell, you know, was like, oh, yeah, of course you need to have off the block cheese. And so Sargento is an example of a cheese manufacturer that wanted to basically capitalize on this new awareness about cellulose. But they did it in such a sneaky, just completely deceitful way. They actually put on their product, that's the shredded cheese product off the block. It literally says off the block on the front of the package, it says so that you think that they've taken cheese and they've shredded it themselves and put it in the bag, and that's all there is in that bag. But when you turn the package over and read the ingredients, they're still using cellulose. So for me, that's a lie.

Why would you even need cellulose if it's a block of cheese?

Exactly. And the reason is because they're still putting these. They still want to process the cheese and not let it stick to each other. They're basically lying to us and making us believe it's off the block.

Yeah. Indicating that it's not pre shredded, therefore it doesn't have cellulose, and that it's whatever cut by your grandfather off the block of cheese, but it's actually covered with cellulose, basically laced with cellulose. Interesting.

And another, you know, this is another example that I just, you know, you are. You sell a bar, right. And I just. I just. This makes me so mad. So a few years ago, the former CEO of Whole Foods called me and he says, bonnie, what ingredient trends do you see on packaging? I want to know, like, what you're seeing or what you think is going to be the next level. Like, I really want to get your ideas on this. And so I put together a list of things that I felt like are going to be the next level things. And the first thing I said was, Walter, you're going to see the ingredients on the front of packaging. You're not going to see it on the back written in type. That's hard to read like you do now. You're actually going to be seeing the ingredients on the front of packaging because consumers are going to be so hyper aware of what they're buying and what they want, that they want to have that information right dead and center. And so the other marketing labels are going to take a backseat. That's what, you know, that's one of your trends. And so then all of a sudden, I started seeing this bar pop up in every juice bar I went to and every smoothie bar, and it was called the Rx bar, and it had the ingredients listed on the front of the label. And I was like, yes, this is great. This is exactly what I predicted that this was gonna happen.

Yeah. And every, everybody's seen the, the Rx bars. I think by this point, it's, it's. What is it, like two cashews, three eggs, or like six almonds, two dates? No bs. That kind of, that's basically what their label says.

They say what's in their bar on the front, and then at the very bottom they say no bs. And I was like, this is great marketing. Yeah. The products, not organic. Yeah. They're using factory farmed eggs probably, and caged eggs. You know, they're probably, who knows where their eggs come from. But you know what, they're putting the ingredients on the label. That's really cool. So then I pick up the product, I turn it over, and I realize they're adding natural flavoring to it to, you know, create that kind of burst of flavor in the brain. And, you know, natural flavoring is not going to kill you, but it is an ingredient that the food manufacturers use to create a certain flavor and sometimes an addictive quality to a food. And this bothered me because on the front of the package, they were willing to put all the ingredients except that one. And so why were they hiding that? And why were they lying to us by saying that there was no bs? I mean, that really made me mad.

Yeah, well, I mean, like natural flavors, I mean, those can have literally like over a hundred different chemicals. Like natural apple flavor can be propylene glycol and polysorbate and BHT and bha. And those are all just, I think in the book you describe them as incidental additives that arethey aren'tthey aren't even required to be labeled by the fda.

Yep, that's right. And so they're, you know, they're carriers for those ingredients. And so you actually will see some of these carriers on the label of different flavorings. If you're like a baker and you wanna go buy like butternut squash, I'm not butter, I'm sorry, like butterscotch flavor, or you want to do a certain type of flavor for your like frosting or something like that, you can kind of see sometimes these carriers are listed on the other side and you can actually see what is actually behind some of these flavorings, which is really interesting. But the whole flavoring industry is very cloaked in secrecy about what's actually in these flavors. And a lot of the food manufacturers that buy flavoring, they don't even know what they're putting in their product because the flavoring they buy is proprietary. And so they just, they're testing out different flavors and they eventually pick one and they don't even know what's in it. And that's actually why I think companies like Lacroix are being sued for the flavoring that they're adding to their products. Because, you know, some people like, I think the lawsuit says that someone like tested it and saw some synthetic chemicals and they're using the terms that they're all natural. And a lot of these flavorings do have synthetic chemicals added to them.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like the new Diet Coke campaign, they've got like zesty blood orange and feisty cherry and twisted mango and ginger lime, but there's not actually any orange, cherry, mango or ginger or lime in any of them. They're just basically all natural flavors. I pulled my hair out for like two years trying to do that bar I mentioned that's got the honey in it. And you know, if you read our label, it's honey almonds, cocoa nibs, gelatin, quinoa chia seeds, coconut flakes, cocoa beans, water, organic rice protein, sesame seeds, cocoa butter, sea salt. And the only ingredient on there that I've caught flack for a little bit has been tocopherols. You know, like basically a vitamin E based antioxidant. But, but even that does not fall into the category of something that's laced with a lot of these compounds that natural flavors have in them. I also wanted to touch on the section that you talk about in the book about organic foods because I think this is important for people to know if they've decided they're just going to clean up, shop and buy all organic. Can organic foods still be something that people need to worry about?

Yeah, I mean, I think what's really important is there's a different Levels of organic, right? You have products that are 100% organic. And that means every single ingredient has to be organic in the product. They can't use any other ingredients in there that are other than like salt and water that are non organic. Then you have the next level, which is 95% organic and that you'll see USDA certified seal on. And that means that the other 5% of the ingredients are basically can be any of a long list of additives that are allowed in organic food. So there are a bunch of additives that are allowed in organic food that are, you know, most of them are pretty benign, but some are controversial, like carrageenan, that causes intestinal inflammation. You'll find that ingredients and some of the nut milks and things like that that's allowed in organic food. So you still need to read ingredient list. Even if you're buying USDA certified organic for some of these additives that could be questionable. Then you have this one is the one that gets me, is made with organic ingredients. And this is the one that I'll find. Like my husband comes home and he'll buy a product that says organic on it or made with organic. And he'll be like, it's organic. Or my mom will find something and she'll be like, oh, it's organic. And you know, those products, only 70% of the ingredients have to be organic, but the other 30% can be anything under the sun. And this is a really popular bar. You will find this to be the case where they're like Clif bars. They're using all sorts of organic ingredients, but then they're using like non organic soy protein, which is like, what? And so in soy protein isolate and soy lecithin and other things that, you know, I think, you know, their intention is to eventually go organic because I don't know if you saw this, but they took out a whole huge ad in the newspaper and asked their competitor, Kind Bar to go organic as I guess a marketing campaign.

I didn't realize that. Which newspaper do you know?

I think the New York Times. So yeah, it just happened yesterday or the day before. And so Cliff has the prospects of going all organic. But I mean, they've been getting away with using the words organic and not being 100 or even 95% organic for a really long time and confusing a lot of people. Another product line that does this a lot is Newman's. You'll see this with like, you know, they make like better for you Oreos and things like that. And they have like made with organic ingredients on the label. But then when you turn the product over, you'll realize that not all the ingredients are actually organic.

You mean like the Paul Newman stuff? The guy that does the salad dressing?

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. I used to drink so much of that salad dressing. And I say drink, but, you know, it was on my salad, but essentially it was iceberg lettuce floating in Newman's salad dress, which I also thought was healthy. You mentioned something important in the book, and that's the whole pesticide with organic crops and how sometimes people will claim that there are these horribly toxic pesticides used on organic crops like rotenone and copper sulfate. But I believe what you say in the book is that that's actually it's not true or that it's a very rare chemical. Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one of the things that has to happen when you have a certified organic farm is you have to completely use as many as natural pesticides as possible or, you know, any natural method of controlling weeds before you even are allowed to even consider using those other two that you mentioned. And that is what is really interesting. And then the other thing is that you're actually. They actually test, you know, for the different types of chemicals that are being used. I mean, there's this underlying kind of thought that if you eat organic, you're avoiding all pesticides, and that's just unfortunately not the case. But what you are doing is actually reducing the load on your body. I mean, even organic food is now being contaminated with glyphosate. It's because it's just so widespread, even.

Though the wind will spread it.

Right, exactly. And so I think what's really important for people to recognize is, you know, there's just. Then there's been this huge wave of non GMO project certified foods and non GMO foods. And this has been this huge category to hit store shelves over the last few years. And I know a lot of people probably listening here will go and buy a non GMO product or a bag of chips or something and say, hey, it's non gmo. That's way better than the conventional counterpart. And yeah, you may not be getting some of the food from a crop that has been patented to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, but you're still buying product that could be sprayed with Roundup. Because it's really important for people to recognize that conventional produce, conventional foods, a lot of things that you would never think to have roundup, tomatoes, almonds, etc. Have Roundup sprayed to it either, you know, pre harvest or part of the process. Wheat in this country is actually sprayed with Roundup conventional wheat before it's harvested. And so it's really important that you buy USDA certified organization organic food to avoid exposure to these chemicals because in USDA certified organic food, the synthetic pesticides are prohibited altogether.

Yeah. With the biggest issue being that the glyphosate residue is most likely going to disrupt the intestinal microbiota and alter the microbiome in a very unfavorable manner. And there are certain ways you can protect yourself against that. I mean, a diet rich in things like bone broth and raw dairy and fermented foods. And there's a guy, a really smart doctor, Dr. Zach Bush, he even is working on different products that he extracts from soil like lignite is one that even my own children use before eating their organic produce simply because we're smack dab in the middle of Spokane surrounded by farm fields. And I know that it's possible even our own vegetable garden right here in our backyard could have glyphosate residue on it just from wind borne contamination. So yeah, I mean, it's a serious issue that I think is even in the absence of the GMO argument, just the glyphosate on its own is a definite issue that I think a lot more people need to be aware of even if they're buying organic.

And just to go back to that point that you made about Rotone, that is actually a pesticide that isn't even used anymore in America. It was actually used a while, you know, I don't know how many years ago, but it was approved to use in organic crops, but the APA actually banned it. And so this is actually an argument that you will see from the critics out there that want you to continue buying the conventional and GMO foods is they'll say, oh well, you know, organics use pesticides, pesticides too that are controversial and so you're still going to be consuming them. But in all of the data that I've seen, when all the studies have come out that are testing products on store shelves for glyphosate and other herbicides and pesticides and their exposure every single time, the organic product has less, significantly less.

Yeah, well, you get into a lot more of this in your book. But I also had kind of a fun question that I wanted to ask you because I'm just curious, how do you eat? What's a typical diet look like for the food, babe?

Yeah, so it's nothing like you, Ben. No, I think we probably have some.

You could be surprised.

Yeah, but I'm not training to be like an ultra crazy athlete. I'm just trying to get by as a mom over here and not kill my body and try to live a time long. And I think we have that in common in terms of wanting to live a really long, healthy life. And so what I do is I try to avoid as many packaged processed foods as I possibly can on a daily basis. So when I'm in control and I'm at home, in which I'm very lucky, I get to work from home. And so I don't have to travel as much anymore because I just decided not to. In terms for work, I am pretty much eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at home. And so I have full control over what I'm putting in my body, which feels really great because I've not outsourced that to someone else. And I've got a pretty awesome garden that I choose from as well. So my morning will go something like this. I'll have warm lemon water with cayenne pepper first thing in the morning. And then I will usually have a big crock pot of steel cut oatmeal. That is not the Quaker Oat instant packs that we talked about. It's like the whole, you know, steel cut oats that cooked overnight literally takes me five minutes to prepare. The night before. I'll throw some ground flaxseed or some other type of fat in there, hemp seeds, chia seeds, and then I will put fruit on it usually and I'll eat that in the. The only reason I've done that, which has been the opposite of what I usually used to do before I had a baby, was before I had a baby, actually would have a smoothie or a shake or something with lots of greens, very minimal fruit and some type of protein included in that. But I switched it up because I'm still breastfeeding. And oats and flaxseed are incredible for milk production. I've never had it an issue with milk production in two and a half years. So I am. I'm good to go there. And so then I'll go work out usually. And my workout consists of, you know, I like Orange Theory a lot. I do a barre class that's like an H. It's like a. It's called a Hilliard studio method and it's like weights and stuff. And I do yoga as well. I want to actually, Ben, you probably can inspire me to like get My fitness goals again, but I just haven't had those in my mind. Just writing a book and getting this out to the world was the most important thing. So I need to get back into figuring out a good fitness goal to challenge myself. But.

Well, when I'm in hardcore writing mode, a lot of it is walking on my treadmill with the little dragon dictation program up and a headset so I can actually walk while I'm dictating my thoughts. Kettlebell on the floor of the office, this hex bar, deadlift in the room next door and a pull up bar and I can just jam all day and kind of sprinkle in. Working out in between my exercising and when I'm. When I'm hardcore deep in writing that, that works pretty well. My philosophy is make make a formal exercise session at the end of the day optional, not a necessity. And so I just kind of weave everything in throughout my day and it works really cool.

That's efficient. And then for lunch I almost always have a salad. So I have this amazing garden that luckily my husband has the green thumb in the family. I do not. And so we have kale and cilantro and everything kind of growing and I just literally go pick it every single day almost and make a salad. And then if I don't have time to make a salad, which there's a lot of days lately that I haven't had time, I go sometimes and get takeout occasionally from this organic place here in Charlotte called Living kitchen. It's like 100% organic and I'll get like an awesome salad and I'll put some type of lean protein along with it. We make, you know, we make a lot of wild salmon around here and you know, different. We do chicken, we do turkey, but I make sure I get it from really high quality sources, you know, making sure it's pasture and all that kind of stuff. And then for dinner, I make dinner pretty much almost every night. We try to take my daughter Harley out to eat at least once a week because we, and we do like a long nice meal with her. Like she's really great about sitting at the table and I want to continue to have that habit with her because it's just, it's so cool to be able to sit and have like a four course meal and, and she be entertained and be fine and enjoy the food. And so I've always served food and courses for her and so she's just used to that. So she gets kind of her vegetables first and then it may be some meat or some grains and then some type of fruit for dessert or something like that. And so she's used to that. And so that's kind of what we do at night too. And so last night, actually, I was really lucky. My husband made dinner and he made jerk chicken, this amazing marinade he created like two days ago. And it had to like, sit and it had all this like crazy habanero peppers in it. My poor daughter, her mouth probably got so much on fire from eating it, but she had it and she was fine. And so that's what we had. We had like some sweet potatoes with that. And what else do we have with that? I made some cabbage. And. And then I think the real the kryptonite that I have is I have to have like after Harley's gone to bed and I'm sitting on the couch, I have to have some kind of tea. And then I have. I like to have something bad for me. And usually the bad for me thing is something I make from scratch with.

Organic Mountain Dew and French fries.

No, no. But, you know, it's usually something that I'll make for. From some junk food, organic ingredients, like some organic cake mix or some crap. But I will eat that. And yeah, it's not the perfect thing, but it is my one thing that I have kryptonite for. Another thing that I make all the time are organic brown rice Rice Krispies, but not the Kellogg's version and not the marshmallows that have the blue dye in them or whatever. I'll get like the good marshmallows and use grass fed butter and the brown organic Rice Krispies and I'll make Rice Krispies treats and I'll eat half the pan And I have no shame in my game.

I love it. You need to go to my kids have a cooking podcast and one of their episodes is on marshmallows. They made marshmallows with like glutamine and bone broth. And they're absolutely. What? They're like the big giant square marshmallows and they made those with a dark chocolate fondue. So that's how I'm getting my marshmallow fixed these days, is I make my kids make marshmallows. Oh, cool.

Yum.

Well, it sounds like you're eating real food. You're not doing all of your shopping at Trader Joe's and Walmart. And neither are you on a carnivore diet or a keto diet or any of these other kind of myopic or dogmatic approaches to eating. You're simply eating a real diet rich in a variety of real recognizable foods. So that is, that's, I think the takeaway message too from your book is if you're relying on the food industry to package and deliver to you your foods, you have zero control over the ingredients.

That's exactly right. And so I just try to eat as much, much unadulterated food as possible, making that like 95% of my diet and then allowing myself to have a little bit of fun. Yeah, because there are some fun to eat foods. As Marion Nestle always says, there's fun to eat foods.

Yeah. She's got some great books too. Marion Nestle, so. Well, speaking of Marion Nestle's books, I'll hunt down a few of my favorites from her and link to those in the show notes. I'll also link to this book by Vani Hart, the Food Babe, Feeding you Lies, how to Unravel the Food Industry Playbook and Reclaim youm Health. I'll link to those studies that recently came out on inorganic phosphate, to the to the Primal Kitchen, ketchup, and so much more. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com FeedingYou lies that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com feedingyou lies Vani, thanks for writing this book. I think it's going to help a lot of people out. And thanks for coming on the show today.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Ben.

Awesome. All right, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with the Food Babe signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com the URL is BenGreenfieldFitness.com FeedingYou Lies have an amazing week. Oh, hey, before you go, there's an event I'm leading next year that's filling up really fast. But it's a completely non run of the mill, two week detox retreat over in the Swiss Alps. So we'll be doing like hyperthermia treatments and liver detoxification treatments. But it's very unique because we're combining that with hiking in the sunshine in the Swiss Alps, eating this fresh, flavorful, healthy food. Speaking Italian Bonjourno. In the Italian quarter of Switzerland. I'm going to fly into Milan, take my family up there and they have just a couple of rooms left in this high end medical retreat. If you've always just wanted to just like push the giant reboot button on your body and use a lot of these European biological medicine procedures we don't have access to here in the US this is the place for you it's going to be wonderful. I'm looking forward to it as one of the highlights of my summer. You can get in. There's still a couple of rooms left. If you go to greensmoothiegirl.com BenGreenfield Green Smoothie Girl is Robin Openshaw. She the person I'm putting on this retreat with. So you go to greensmoothiegirl.com BenGreenfield you get into this two week Swiss detox retreat. Join me and my family there. It's going to be in June and July of the summer of 2019. You won't be sorry. Go to greensmoothiegirl.com BenGreenfield well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes. Use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming.