STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

Duane A. Lienemann
UNL Extension Educator

     A couple of weeks ago I talked about Dr. Oz and his attack on conventional farming and in particular GMOs. Modern-day quacks often cherry-pick science and use what suits them as semantic backdrop to fool unsuspecting consumers. Quacks may dazzle people with fanciful research study claims or scare them with intimidating warnings before trying to peddle products that make unreasonable promises or sell products as organic or natural alternatives to the evils that come from GMO based foods. Quite honestly I had never heard of one of these quacks until a couple of weeks ago when someone asked me about the “Food Babe”.  Now it seems I see her work everywhere and so I did some research on her and what she stands for. I was very surprised as I found the impact that this one person has had on the food and drink industry and it is not good in my opinion. Who is this “Food Babe,” anyway? Let’s investigate this supposed food “expert” this week.
     For starters, her real name is Vani Hari, and one thing is for sure, she’s got quite a following. On Twitter, she has more than 76,000 followers. On Facebook, she has a whopping 860,000 followers. Her website: http://foodbabe.com  had 632,684 unique visitors in September 2014 with over 1.3 million last March. She’s been on Good Morning America, the Today Show and on her fellow alarmist’s program, The Dr .Oz show, plus a whole bunch of other programs popular with moms. She has what she calls her “Food Babe Army” who blindly follow her and her non-scientific claims and troll the internet. 
     What is remarkable to me is that she has no relevant qualifications. What the Food Babe rarely reveals is that she isn’t a scientist not even a nutritionist or dietician. Nor is she a toxicologist or a medical doctor. Yet she doles out nutrition, toxicological, and medical advice with the confidence of someone trained in all three areas. She actually only has a B.S. in Computer Science and began her career as a banking consultant which she quit to blog full time and sell herself as a food expert, author and consultant on food!! She is nothing but a quack…..and she has a very lucrative business.
     In reading her webpage, blogs and on her Facebook page it seems to me that the Food Babe has one clear mission: to scare moms so bad that they stop buying all that convenient and reasonably priced food they’ve grown to love and which makes their lives a little easier.  Because progress is your enemy, ladies! She’s not asking much…just eat only food produced by raw, whole ingredients that you cook yourself. Oh, but wait, it can’t be just any whole ingredients; they have to be organic and non-GMO. So you would think there would be studies or resources available to back it up. The evidence she provides that this strategy will lead to a healthier life? Exactly nothing!!! The trouble is that it is not science based at all!
     Instead The Food Babe relies on alarmism. She’s essentially a shock jock of the food and nutrition world, relying not on scientific evidence but on emotion and scary personal anecdotes. In short, quackery is dangerous. It promotes fear, devalues legitimate science and can destroy lives. Unfortunately, nutrition is a wonderful playground for people who want to manipulate fear. We need food to live, but according to her we can be poisoned, or worse yet poison our children by eating the wrong things!! Of course mothers will flip out and turn to her for more “things that “Big Ag” are hiding from us”!
     Learning from others which foods are safe and which are dangerous was essential to our survival in the days before grocery stores. We are primed to react to scares about food. We make 200 food-related decisions every day. Food choices are one of the few things we can control as individuals. All this misinformation is a version of the “FUD Theory” - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt tactic that’s been recognized as a marketing tool in other contexts. It operates on a guilt-by-association model: if bread contains a chemical that’s also used in yoga mats, you claim that yoga mats are in our food, or that antifreeze and fish bladders are in our favorite beer! Never mind that antacids like Tums contain the same chemical used in gravestones and peach pits naturally contain cyanide!! Her fear-mongering detracts from the value and promise of GMO technology, and promotes the appeal to nature fallacy. In turn, Food Babe perpetuates one of the most daunting perils of modern society, far more frightening than preservatives, artificial colors or GMOs – scientific illiteracy!!!
     A lot of folks like this Food Babe aren’t simply misleading the public about food choices. They are flat-out lying! Accurate information is readily available if you care enough to look for it and apply a bit of common sense in distinguishing credible vs. bogus sources. But if you spread fear and confusion without checking facts because it fits with your worldview or increases your sales, you’re lying because you didn’t bother to find out the truth first. Food Babe has the luxury of doing just that and then profiting from her lies. She sells meal plans and endorses superfood supplements, but positions herself as an “investigator” of the dangers in foods. The tactic, it seems, is to make people feel that the world is so full of dangerous foods that they better pay for her meal plans that specify what she believes is safe to eat. Oh and she has a book, “The Food Babe Way” that is available in February 2015 on Amazon and a TV show under development. Hmmmmm!!!

     She sells ads on her site so it is in her interest to generate controversy to draw eyeballs. Hari has appeared on Good Morning America and The Dr. Oz Show. The exposure drives readers to pay $17.99 a month to download her Eating Guide, the organic living manual plus at least $15,000 speaker fee at conferences and who knows how much in consulting fees! She also has interest in companies that do home-delivered natural, organic and non-GMO foods as well as organic "superfood" such as hemp and chia seeds!  You don’t suppose that money is the real reason for her activism do you?

The preceding information comes from the research and personal observations of the writer which may or may not reflect the views of UNL or UNL Extension. For more further information on these or other topics contact D. A. Lienemann, UNL Extension Educator for Webster County in Red Cloud, (402) 746-3417 or email to: dlienemann2@unl.edu or go to the website at: http://www.webster.unl.edu/home