Episode 243: Vani Hari: How to Stop Food Lies and Fight Food Corruption

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Creshit.

All right, Bonnie, here we are.

I'm very happy to be talking to you.

I've been dying to talk to you for a very, very long time.

Well, thank you.

I'm excited too.

I know it's been a long time in the making.

We've had some scheduling challenges, but I'm excited to be here.

So, I mean, you're just amazing.

We have a, I think, I think you're very good friends with Jesse Itzler, right?

He's told me, like, yeah,

I was mentioning that you're coming on.

He was like, she's doing all sorts of crazy things, amazing things.

Like, you really have changed the landscape of the food industry more so than I believe anybody that I've known has had the ability to do.

I mean, you are one of the leading food activists.

You're a blogger.

You're a co-founder of Truvani, a company, by the way, the food that you guys have and the supplements, bar none.

I use the protein powder.

I love your protein bar.

So, good job.

Good job.

Awesome.

Thank you.

No, you're very, very welcome.

I guess I want to start by asking you more so than anything, because you're not a nutritionist or you don't have a medical background by any means.

How did you become this person?

Like, how did you become such a force to be reckoned with in the food industry?

Well, you know, it started with my own health challenges.

I was on several prescription drugs, had eczema, asthma, endometriosis.

I had appendicitis.

I had all sorts of mental issues that arose as a result of my diet and my lifestyle and the jobs that I chose to the point where they put me on all sorts of drugs for that.

So I went through a lot of medical health issues in my early 20s.

And I hit so rock bottom in terms of just feeling like a zombie and feeling just absolutely awful about myself to the point where I just, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to teach myself about food and health.

And one of the first things I did was like go to the library.

And back then, when I started doing this, we didn't have Google.

And so, or maybe Google had just started or something.

So I literally just like went to old school library and checked out books on nutrition.

And one of the first books that I came across was called Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousins.

And he was this renowned doctor who specialized in raw dieting and vegan food.

And, but what he talked about in that book was just so eye-opening.

He talked about how the majority of foods in the grocery store center, like the center of the grocery store, are all dead foods.

And that's how I felt for most of my life, just completely dead and zombie-like.

I mean, I was, you know, working in this corporate job, working in this rat race environment, literally eating what everybody else was eating around me, bagels and blueberry muffins for breakfast and at lunch, bring eating it and whatever they were catering in.

And at night, they'd cater dinner.

So we would work through dinner.

And, you know, I was just living this lifestyle that I thought I had to live.

And I kind of outsourced all of my food.

to other people and other people's decisions.

It didn't really take ownership of it.

And so when I started learning about food, I realized that I can't outsource it anymore.

I have to take ownership of it.

And so, I started cooking for myself for the first time ever.

You know, I grew up with two immigrant Indian parents.

And so, they were very about like math and science.

And you stay out of the kitchen.

You don't need to learn how to cook or do any of these life skills.

You need to learn how to become, you know, either a doctor or an engineer.

And I went to engineering school.

And so I focused on that.

And so it wasn't until I I like had to teach myself how to eat that I learned this information.

And so then what started to happen was really crazy.

I went on every off of every single prescription drug.

My weight normalized for the first time.

And my skin, my hair, everything about me changed to the point where people around me who had grown up with me and seen me day after day just couldn't believe the transformation.

And it was because I was just eating so much crap.

And I mean, I used to have like all of these sores all over my face from the eczema.

I mean, it was always on my face and on my neck.

And, you know, all of a sudden I had this beautiful skin.

And people were just like, whoa, what are you doing?

And back then in Charlotte, North Carolina, we didn't have a Whole Foods.

We had a tiny little health food store and that was it.

And so I had to learn how to do all this, you know, on my own.

And so I started green juicing, green smoothies, started to eliminate processed foods from my diet, started to teach myself about the chemicals that I had been eating.

I wondered what was in the runts candy that I used to like down a whole box of every night.

I saw those, yeah.

Yeah, right, you know, but I'd always leave the bananas.

I never liked the bananas, but I leave it right.

So, you know, I was just wondering about what is all this crap I've been eating, right?

It was just not real food at all.

It was like zero nutrition in your body.

And what I learned is that over the last 50 or so years, all of these chemicals that have been invented and put into processed foods had been invented for one sole purpose.

And that was actually for the food companies themselves to make more money to either preserve the product, to make it more uniform, to make a product that isn't real food, taste like real food, to make a product addictive with different additives.

So I realized that all of these chemicals that I was reading on the back of the package had literally no purpose for nutrition in your body.

So it wouldn't make you feel good at all.

So I just decided to eliminate it all.

And then around that time is when Michael Pollan started getting super popular.

I started reading his books and like getting really deep into the food system and how it was created and where our food comes from.

And I just could not shut up.

about what I was learning to the point where I was telling everybody at work, I was still working, you know, in this rat race environment.

But at this point, I was bringing in my lunch, bringing in my breakfast and like determining where I was eating in the evening.

I wouldn't just eat whatever was available.

And everybody at work really thought I was like the health nut.

And everyone was asking like, hey, you need to start a blog or something and teach people about what you're doing.

And at the time, Gwyneth Paltrow started Goop, I think around that time.

It was 2011.

So it's almost like 12 years ago.

And I was reading that and I was like, you know, this, I could do something like this.

I could start a blog and whatever.

And so I wanted to call it eathealthyliveforever.com.

And I yelled it over to my husband, who's the tech geek in the family and said, hey, can you register this name?

And he was like, this is the worst name ever.

And

he came back 10 minutes later and yelled from the other room and said, Hey, what about food babe?

And I'm like, oh, you know, that's catchy.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

That could work.

But wait a minute.

I'm not a food babe.

Like, because I didn't feel like a babe for most of my life.

I didn't want to be the babe, right?

So I said, why don't I teach people how to become a food babe?

And so for the first two years of my blog, I had these cartoon characters similar to what Goop was at the time, just these, just no pictures of myself, and started to just teach people what I was learning.

as I was going in my health journey.

And then when I started to really get upset about the ways that I had been duped by certain things that I thought were healthy that weren't.

That's when I realized I had a readership, a community of amazing activists and people who also felt this way to the point where they would share my stuff so virally that the food companies themselves I was talking about would reach back out to me and either ask me to consult or they would change their ingredients or they would invite me to their headquarters to discuss what I what I found wrong with their products and i was still working like in this financial consulting job and i was taking off work to go consult with these the largest food companies in the world and i was like wait a minute like this is not what i need to be doing this like this financial stuff like i need to be like changing the food industry i need to do this full time and it was really hard for me to make the decision because when I did food babe, it was just for fun.

I gave up television for lent so I'd have time to blog.

And I would just do it every day after work or on the weekends.

And so I wasn't making any money doing it.

And when I made the decision to quit, I quit cold turkey.

I wasn't making a dime doing any of it.

And it was because I was on the top of Machu Picchu, I swear.

And it was because it was like magical up there.

And it was the day the world was supposed to end.

It was December.

21st, 2012,

and that auspicious day in the Mayan calendar.

And I got a note from my consulting agency that said, my consulting gig was coming to an end.

Would you like to renew for the next year?

And I just like wrote back no.

And I looked at my husband.

I was like, I'm doing this.

I'm going to just be a food activist full time.

And I expected him to say, what about the mortgage?

What about, you know, hello, health insurance, your 401k, all that that you've been working towards, right, for the last 10 years.

And instead, he says, you know, what have you been waiting for?

And he was ready, ready to support me in this mission.

And it was fantastic.

And I remember when I got back from that trip, I was living in this two-bedroom apartment in downtown Charlotte.

And I looked down, and everybody's going to work, and I'm still in my PJs, and I'm not going to work.

I don't have a paycheck anymore.

And I'm like freaking out, going, What the hell am I going to do now?

Right.

How am I going to make this work?

And everything, I tell you, everything happens in life for a reason, right?

Because as soon as I was able to 100%

focus on being a food activist, within two months of that, I was literally on every front page newspaper across the world taking on craft and their macaroni and cheese and the fact that they use artificial dyes here in America and not overseas.

And that just thrust a whole amazing opportunities for me in terms of writing books and figuring out a way to support myself, creating programs and meal plans and all sorts of things that allow me

to do this passion and do it full time.

So it was fun.

No, it's amazing.

No, it's amazing.

I like, because you know, the reality is like, I don't, I can't name another person that is as well known as you are in what you've done.

Like, I'm sure there's other people who've done things I don't know, but you've really kind of, I think because of social media, whatever else, like the way you explain it or position it, it's so hard-hitting, right?

Like, I think so many people are shocked of what the information is.

So when you, before you quit then, your, your consulting job, were you, so at that point, you weren't making any money, right?

You were still like, you were just kind of just giving, you know, free information because that was what was happening, but you took a leap.

And then the second you did take a leap, that's when all the floodgates started to open.

Yeah.

And at first I thought I had to like turn on Google Ads, you know, and make that advertisement because I got, I mean, I had like, you know, over that next year, I think I had like 60 million visitors to my website, right?

You know, and so I had the capability of like just making money off the ads, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then I remember I like blocked all pharmaceutical and food ads.

And somehow McDonald snuck in there.

And someone sends me a screenshot of foodbabe.com with McDonald's ad on there.

And mine, I like died inside.

I died.

And I immediately, I was like, oh, that's that's it.

We're not making our money using ads.

No more Google Ads.

I think I had it on for like a couple months.

And I was just like, this is not the way I want to make a living.

It just was, it didn't serve the purpose of like, it just, it made me so, it cringed me so bad that I was just like, I don't even care about that source of revenue.

So I turned off Google Ads.

And so then I figured out what people really wanted from me, which was they wanted to know what to eat and they want to know what I was eating.

So I just shared my meal plans with everybody every single week and had a weekly subscription to those meal plans.

And I remember launching it on the worst weekend ever.

It was six months after I quit my job.

It was on July 4th weekend, which was, you don't launch anything on July 4th weekend.

I obviously knew nothing about business, right?

But weren't you a business consultant?

Weren't you a business consultant before?

I was like,

but like, I wasn't teaching people how to make money in that financial consulting.

It was like project management right it was like like managing all these c level sea level projects it wasn't like how to make money right so like we went like so i'm just telling your your listeners don't ever launch anything on holiday weekends okay

right but the funny thing is is it was so

popular and it i had so many people that wanted it that I literally could not, I didn't sleep and I didn't take a shower for like two days because I was handling so many customer requests.

Wow.

And I looked at my husband and I said, I can't do this on my own.

I need help.

Like, oh my gosh, like, look at all these people who want this.

Like, I can't handle this amount of requests.

Can you please quit your job?

And he's like, yeah.

And he quit his job on Monday, that Monday after July 4th.

And he's never looked back since.

He's been with me working on Food Babe since that day.

Stop it.

So what was he doing before?

What was his?

He was also a consultant.

Yeah, technology consultant.

Okay.

So were you guys like at like KPMG or Bain or one of those types of

met at Accenture?

Yeah.

Okay.

So one of those.

So you, so is your husband then your business partner?

Like, did you, yeah, he's my business partner now.

Yeah.

Is that who also does Truvani with you, or is there another person that does Truvani?

Well, I have two other business partners with Truvani.

So when I started Truvani, it was after I had my first child.

And there's something that happens after you become a mom.

You You kind of, I didn't lose my edge as an activist.

I just knew I needed to change the food industry in a different way.

And I wanted to impact it in a way that was very inspirational and would

grow a business in a way that

I could like, you know, hand it down to my kids one day or something like that.

Like there, there's so much fight involved with being an activist and there's so much resistance.

And with it came a lot of haters too, like from the people who are being paid by the food industry, the people who make these chemicals, you know,

all of them were against me, right?

Because it costs a lot of money to change an ingredient in a product, especially when you go from a petroleum-based product to a more natural product, right?

It's going to cost a lot of more money.

It's going to cost millions and millions of dollars.

So the impact I was having was way beyond my comprehension at some points.

But also, I had a whole slew of like a misinformation campaign waged at me as a person so that people wouldn't listen to me anymore.

They didn't want anybody to know about this information because the food industry didn't want to make any of these changes.

So having all of that attention on me as a mom, I felt very protective over my children.

And so I felt like I needed to do something less risky with my life.

Although now that I've had both my children and my second one's growing up and he's two,

I'm getting that fight back again because there's so much screwed up with the food industry that I want to change.

And I want to teach my kids that like they don't have to put up with this stuff and they're the next generation.

And I really want them to see.

Well, I want them to remember their mom as someone who fought for them.

Oh gosh, I'm going to cry.

Oh, but yeah, I do.

But anyways, okay, back to Truvanni.

So I started.

No, no, no, no.

I think that's really beautiful.

And I understand what you're saying.

I have two kids and myself.

And I understand how,

you know, your brain starts to think in different ways and you transition where your goals are.

And you think about being protective as a mom.

And so, and I understand that.

And I understand that like now that they're getting older, Hey, you want them to be proud and you want to leave a legacy.

And I get all that to me.

I really understand.

And then now, when they're a little bit older, you know, you start to kind of like your baseline starts to change again.

I get it.

Like, you're, it's, I think that's really amazing.

And I think it's beautiful.

And I'm like, what you're doing as a mom, I think it's so just not only is it incredible,

I thank you, right?

Because I just want to read a couple of the things, just for people who may not know what you've already accomplished.

You know, Kraft decided to remove artificial food diets from their kids' mac and cheese.

Subway removed like some chemical that's in yoga masks in their bread.

Chick-fil-A now uses antibiotic-free chicken.

Starbucks dropped their, I don't know, some type of food coloring in the pumpkin latte or something based on their viral.

Yes, caramel coloring.

Yeah.

Caramel coloring in like because of a viral post you did.

I mean, it goes on and on.

And the fact that the fact that these companies now,

the biggest food conglomerates in the world are scared of you.

I mean, that is just insane to me.

Like what kind of impact and disruption you've had for their bottom line and what you've made them do.

I mean, you're, I mean, the kind of legacy that you're leaving for those children and what you've been able to accomplish on such a mass scale is beyond even impressive.

I don't even know what the word would be, but you should be very proud.

That's what I have to say.

Thank you.

I'm not done yet.

I'm not done yet.

I have so much work to do.

I know you're like, what do you mean?

I'm not even, I'm not even beginning.

What's interesting to me, though, is like, what people, I think it's, what's so crazy to me is the amount of money that these companies are paying medical experts, doctors, like just nutritionists.

Like people don't know what they don't know.

And when people are promoting something or supporting something, they're usually in that respect are getting paid and people have no idea because they're so underhanded about it.

Can you just talk about that too, a little bit?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

So I'll just give you a great story that happened.

So when my first book came out, the New York Times reached out to me and they wanted to do a profile piece.

And I said, sure, you know, let's let's do this.

And I met with her, first of all, at my favorite place in New York, ABC Kitchen.

And we sat down and I ordered the squash toast because it's so delicious.

I don't even know if they still make it there, but I haven't been to New York in forever.

And I remember her just looking at it and being like, yeah, I don't eat that.

And she just, she just immediately, I could tell, just, I could just tell this interview was not going to go well.

Okay.

She just immediately did not like who I was or what I was about.

And when the article came out, she quoted three different

scientists and professors

who went on to criticize me

and anything that I was doing.

And I couldn't believe that the New York Times would actually

put these three people in this article without telling the reader their conflicts of interest.

So one person was being paid by Monsanto and Bear as a speaker.

The other person was on the board of Sensient Technologies, the company that makes caramel coloring, the one that Starbucks removed, right?

And then the other guy was literally part of an entire misinformation campaign that that I found out through the Freedom of Information Request Act that I could submit to his university and found out he was part of this entire web of people and trolls that were created to go against me and other activists.

And thankfully, the New York Times later on, I think it was like, you know, a year later, actually published on the front page that this guy was this guy, which was so cool to just see that one, you know, come full circle.

But at the the time, I was telling this, this writer, hey, the people who are going against me, they're, they have conflicts of interest.

They're like actually working with the food companies that are making these chemicals or glyphosate, which is, you know, the main ingredient in Roundup, which is one of the big campaigns that I was part of in terms of getting GMOs labeled in the United States.

So, but they wouldn't publish that.

And that was just, that just made me so irritated to the point where I had to write a whole book about it.

It's called Feeding You Lies.

I just read it by the way.

It's excellent.

Thank you.

It's my second book, and it's probably my favorite book in that it really opens your eyes about what's happening in the food industry and the corruption involved in how the food companies can pay spokespeople that look reputable and that look like they don't have any conflicts of interest.

And they can make opinions that the media then writes about.

And then that becomes nutrition science it also happens all the time through grants to universities one huge one that i talk about in feeding you lies is about how harvest harvard you know the one of the top universities in the world their scientists were paid by coke to put the onus on obesity on the fact that we have lack of exercise versus sugary drinks.

And

that conflict of interest in terms of funding, in terms of the analysis of studies is just absolutely unethical and just despicable to the point where you have to realize that things that you read in the media about health and nutrition, you have to take with a grain of salt.

You have to find out who funds the study.

You have to find out why, who's writing about it and what's their agenda.

You can't just take something for face value.

And so.

When I, it's funny because during the pandemic, when we were also getting fed a lot of information about health, I was very skeptical about the things that were being talked about.

And the reason I was skeptical is because of everything I've learned in the food and pharmaceutical industry that I talk about in Feeding You Lives.

But anyways, so yeah, we could go on a real big tangent there.

No, no, I think it's no, it's very important.

It's very important because I think even when people don't know what they don't know.

And so when they see people that they actually highly respect and think, okay, this person's, you know, a pediatrician and they're saying that the Flimstone vitamins are wonderful, or this person, you know, saying this thing.

Like the amount of money that's spent on these things, it's really hard to know and navigate.

And so

can we talk about, I mean, there's also even like the trade associations and how about even the American Heart Association, you know that you talk about this in the book, that heart check.

Do you remember that?

What was it called?

Like I put it here.

Yeah.

The American Heart Association and the heart check.

People think that symbol means this is like good for you.

I mean, it used to be on tricks, like it used to be on trick cereal, like American Heart Association approved cereal on trick cereal.

I mean, that alone should teach you that that's absolutely ridiculous.

And they, I mean, it's a pay-for-play system, right?

Yeah.

And so it's, it's kind of like how, you know, number one pediatrician recommended vitamin is Flintstones vitamins full of artificial food dyes and like all of the other chemicals in it.

Sugars and it's like, who's the pediatrician, right?

Who's the pediatrician that recommends this?

Come on.

And Jesse, our friend, is one of the awesomest guys because he like, he literally put like a, I think he's put up like a million dollars.

He goes, I will give a million dollars to the first pediatrician who tells me that they recommend flintster vitamins.

I mean, it was insane, right?

And nobody came, no one came forward.

No one came.

Of course not.

And then I think he wanted to debate, you know, the CEO

about this and they wouldn't come forward either.

I mean, and the CEO of Kellogg's, I think, too.

But anyways, I love Jesse because, you know, he's very, it's just so funny.

He is very passionate and for good reason.

I mean, a lot, like, this is like, this is.

Also, we're people that have kids and like, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's very dangerous, right?

Because kids become addicted to these things.

And then to get them off of it to a healthier alternative.

And I know because I try, it's very, very hard.

And sugar addiction is way more difficult than probably any, like even like any other drug addiction, right?

Like it is, and it's, it's so invasive and the havoc it does on your body.

So, okay, so then can you tell us properly, I think, how do people properly read labels?

Because it is so confusing.

There's like all natural, natural flavors.

I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg, like no added hormones.

Like you said something that I thought was really interesting that I didn't even really know.

And I thought I was pretty good was no growth hormone.

Like they can add one word like no growth hormone added or something like that, where they can get around something by just tweaking the way they say it just a little.

Can you tell us like what to look for, what to avoid, what to all that?

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's just, it's really simple.

So I have this.

this thing called the three question detox.

And all you have to do is ask yourself these three questions every time you sit down for a meal or prepare a meal.

And like you will learn, you will teach yourself about how to read labels and you will learn so much about what you're eating to the point where you may start to make better decisions.

So the first thing is, what are the ingredients?

Like, do I recognize the ingredients in this product?

Can I pronounce them?

Do I know what they're there for?

Why am I eating, you know, maltodextrin, monodiglycerides?

Why am I eating all of these different chemicals?

If, you know, like, what is all this this stuff doing in my body?

Like, is this something I need to be eating?

And so it'll, it'll spawn kind of your ability to like quickly Google, like, what does this chemical do?

Like, why do I need to eat this?

Right.

And then you ask yourself a second question about that ingredient, which is, are these ingredients nutritious?

Well, you'll quickly realize if you were to Google monodiglycerides, that it's a type of preservative that they add to processed foods that was created as a substitute for trans fats when they remove those from products.

And it actually has natural and small traces of trans fats in them.

And it's something that you probably shouldn't be eating, right?

It's not nutritious.

It's not there for your nutrition purposes.

It's there for the preservation of a product.

Then you'll say, well, where does this ingredient come from?

or where does this food come from?

If you're eating a piece of meat, you would find out, you know, what kind of farm it's coming from, what that animal was being fed.

But if it's an ingredient, you'd say, is it, was it created in a laboratory or is it coming from nature, right?

Is it apple on the ingredient label?

Is it wheat on the ingredient label?

Or is it, you know, monodiglycerides that's coming from a factory?

And once you start to ask yourself those three questions, you quickly realize what the majority of your diet is, whether it's majority of chemicals and processed ingredients or if it's real food.

And when you make that transition to real food, your body, your life, everything will change.

Everything from the way you think, the way you sleep, the way you act, the way you're able to exercise, the way you are able to get up in the morning and actually know what you're supposed to be doing in life, all of that will change because when your body gets the nutrition it needs, you actually end up finding your purpose in life is what I believe.

And I don't think anybody, and the reason why I'm so passionate about the work that I do and what I'm doing, I don't think anybody can actually realize the true potential in their life until they actually start to eat healthy and actually eat the foods that are the most nutritious for them, because everything else will fall into place.

And I know I wouldn't have become the food babe taking on all these big organizations and starting an amazing supplement company like Truvani had I not been taking care of myself because there's just no way my brain and my mental past capacity could even handle this, especially being a mom of two people.

You know,

so you're saying

count my husband.

I know, girl, I know what you're saying.

saying exactly

exactly i know so you're saying that the correlation between that is nutrition equals mental focus alert mental like the cognitive strength the brain your brain becomes that much more powerful by just eating well so you're able to conquer and accomplish all these other things it's kind of like a it's kind of like a process and i i totally agree i talk about that with exercise a lot and i always say to people always shop the perimeter never shop in those, in the middle of the store or the grocery store.

But to what you were saying, I want to just kind of keep on with that a little bit because, you know, even when you're on the perimeter, let's say with the meats and all the other stuff, you can get very taken for also, because that's where I get, you know, I can get stuck too.

It's not just, it's, that's what they say, all natural, no added hormones, like the meats, the chickens, the turkeys, yogurts, like all the dairy stuff.

Like, that's where people get really, can get really kind of stuck.

So have do you yeah right i think the the main thing like if you have to make some choices from the fact of your finances if you have to make any kind of choice i would choose the highest quality meat and dairy as possible and then you just you could have conventional fruits and vegetables as long as it's real whole foods but you need to go organic because you're going to be avoiding genetically engineered grain that is doused with tons of Roundup when you are are eating organic meat.

So you want to avoid all of that.

You want to avoid the growth hormone that is in conventional dairy that's linked to cancer.

You want to avoid the antibiotics that are also

put into cow feed, chicken feed, any of that.

You want to avoid all of that.

So wait, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I want to make sure that.

So you're saying if it doesn't say organic on it, then what?

Do we not buy it?

Or are you saying there's other things that other labels that you can do?

I would go for like, if I can't find organic, you should be able to find organic meat in just about every grocery store now.

I mean, within a reasonable distance from your house, you should be able to, or you can get it online and ship to you frozen.

And that's a lot of people do that.

And it's very economical to do that.

And then if you're not able to find it.

then I would go to some plant protein like beans, nuts, legumes for that meal, right?

And I would use, and this is one of the things I talk about in my first book, Food Babe Way, is I use meat like a condiment.

You know, I don't eat it at every single meal.

I eat it once a day, right?

You still get a lot of the amino acids and what you need from meat if you eat it once a day, right?

You don't have to eat it every meal.

And so if you can get high quality meat that you eat once a day, or even a few times a week, you're doing really great in terms of nutritional benefits of adding meat to your diet, but also avoiding some of the other things that are happening.

You know, one of the really sad things that is happening actually with

our meat supply is that the majority of it's being fed corn and soy.

And so

our meat is actually really high in what they call linoleic acid.

And this linoleic acid has been linked to every major disease that modern man is, you know, experiencing right now, diabetes, heart disease, cancer.

And

it almost like turns on those cancer cells in your body.

And so when you're thinking about meat or any kind of meat product, you want to do grass-fed.

You want to have something that's paste-raised, even the chickens itself or the eggs that come from the chicken.

You want it from a pasteur-raised chicken.

And so, and then that's one of the reasons why at Truvani, when we developed our bovine collagen and our marine collagen, it was real, well, marine collagen, we weren't so concerned about, but our bovine collagen, we were very concerned about making sure that they were coming from cows that are raised on a pasture that are grass-fed.

And if they're not grass-fed, there's a reason why, like what happens to those cows.

We figured out exactly how they're raised because it was so important to avoid that linoleic acid that

can happen as a result.

So sometimes you can see grass-fed and not the word organic, or organic and not the the word grass-fed.

Right.

So grass, yeah, you're right.

So to get certified USDA certified organic and grass-fed, that's ideal.

But you're pretty much not going to get that when it comes to majority of beef products because

They are raised on a huge pasture and to have that kind of land to be USDA certified organic is very rare.

It's very rare.

You can find it, but it's very rare.

So I would go with grass-fed.

And there's, you know, certified grass-fed labels that you can look for.

You can also look for certified humane.

So you know that those animals have been treated humanely.

You also want to avoid ractopamine in pigs.

And so a lot of people don't realize that the majority of pork in our country, well, at least the stuff that comes around in this area, we have this huge conglomerate, you know, Smithfield Pork.

You may have heard of that company.

It's here in North carolina but a chinese company bought it and they actually raise the pigs here in north carolina but they ship the meat to china to process it and then ship it back it's crazy

and yeah yeah yeah

And

they don't have a lot of regulations around the chemicals they use in the production of the meat and the processing of meat in China.

So that's one of the companies I avoid at all costs.

You know, if I go to a restaurant and they serve bacon, I ask where it's from.

If it's from Smithfield, Smithfield, forget it.

But yeah.

So I'm Jewish.

I don't eat bacon or pig or pork.

So yeah, so that's good.

But yeah.

That's crazy.

So what about fortify?

Okay, there's two things.

What is it?

The fortification of foods.

Why is that something we should be worried about?

What is it?

Yeah.

So a lot of different foods out there, processed foods, will use these buzzwords to make us think that the like we have to consume it in order to get these other vitamins and and minerals.

So you'll see like orange juice, for example, and it says plus vitamin D and plus, you know, plus vitamin C.

And you'll see that across the board, not just in orange juice anymore, you'll see it everywhere in cereals and bars and,

you know, fruit snacks, anything.

And they're adding synthetic versions of those vitamins to that product.

to create a health halo.

So it's, it's basically a synthetic version of a vitamin that your body doesn't process as well as a natural source.

And then you're getting a product that is pretty much nutritionlessly dead.

And you're paying for that product thinking that you're getting that vitamin, but you're not actually able to absorb it.

So it's just a con.

Yeah.

I want to ask you something.

You talk, you post about this a lot and you show the different products like ketchup, McDonald's french fries,

a ton of product, Mountain Dew, the difference in ingredients in the UK versus in the US, and how much cleaner those products are in the UK versus in the US.

What I still don't understand is why can they not just use those versions in the US, especially when there's been so much talk and chatter about the differences between how in the US it's so much more dangerous and

full of crap in the food.

Like, why has that not been switched?

Well, it's because of money.

And so in Europe, they actually use the precautionary principle before they approve additives.

So a lot of the additives that we use here in the United States are banned or not used in Europe.

And so these food manufacturers that are American companies have figured out a way to make their products safer and cleaner and better for people overseas and not for us.

A great example that you mentioned was McDonald's french fries.

McDonald's french fries in the UK has potatoes, oil, salt, and dextrose.

That's it.

Those three things.

They actually add the salt after they fry it.

So you can actually determine how much salt you want to add to it.

And then here in the United States, they're using like nine different ingredients.

One of them called dimethylpolysiloxane, which is the main ingredient in silly putty, is actually preserved using formaldehyde.

The FDA doesn't, it does not look at the safety data of this at all.

And so it's like it's generally approved for use or whatever, you know, generally regarded as safe, grass status, but it's not really, it hasn't been like studied in terms of being actually safe to consume.

But this is like a chemical that you would definitely want to avoid in your diet, right?

And it's actually also used, people would never believe this, but it's actually used in fountain drinks as well.

Fountain diet coke uses dimethyl polysiloxane.

So like if you buy a diet coke that's in a can or in a bottle on the shelf at a grocery store, it has different ingredients than you you would having it in a fountain drink.

People don't know that.

But anyway, so this is an

huge thing.

That's a huge thing.

Like, think about all the fountain drinks you go and you get, even at Chipotle, right?

Chipotle still has Coca-Cola products.

Everywhere you're going and you're getting a fountain drink, you may be getting this additional chemical.

You don't even know it.

This kind of discrepancy of American companies using better ingredients overseas, I feel like is so unethical and hypocritical.

And it happens with some of the products that

are targeted towards children too.

And Kellogg's is actually one of the biggest culprits of this.

They have been literally having fruit loops and all of those different cereals overseas without artificial dyes for years.

And they said actually in 2015 that they would remove the artificial food dyes here in the United States.

And they said they would do it by 2018.

Well, it's 2023 and they haven't done it.

It's not like they have to reinvent the formula or create a new formula or whatever they already have it overseas they haven't done it and it's been over you know eight years and instead they've been creating new products like baby shark cereal and unicorn and like elves on the shelf and all this crap out there that still has artificial food dyes so it's it's these companies are getting away with murder i mean they really are and it's like our kids are really suffering.

These artificial food dyes are linked to hyperactivity in children.

You know, in order to use an artificial food diet overseas, you have to have a warning label that warns parents.

And we don't know how much is being consumed by kids because it's in everything, right?

And

you wonder about all of the rise of ADHD medication and all of these medications we're putting our kids on and why they won't sit still and why they can't pay attention.

And it's because of the food that they're eating.

It's also because of video games and the iPad and technology, but it's a combination combination of probably both.

But I think that like 20 years, when we were younger, you and I, when we were like kids, was it better or was it still pretty bad?

Has it gotten worse over years in a lot of ways?

Not better.

Yeah, it's definitely gotten worse in terms of just the prevalence of chemicals in our food supply, for sure.

It's definitely been worse.

Which is interesting because

I feel like wherever you get so overwhelmed.

There's so many health,

I think nutrition and health, that industry of organic and everything else has had a real uptick, right?

Like we never talked about that when I was a kid, you know, like all these healthier alternatives and food, but yet at the same time, as that's rising, I feel like to your point, so is the bad stuff that's been incorporated in a way more addictive way, which is interesting.

I mean, I would say in the last five years, we've really had,

we've definitely had this revolution happening in terms of people becoming more aware because of social media.

And, you know, I know my career was largely based on that too, just this ability to quickly educate and create a community of people that are like, I call them the food babe army, people who go out there and just like educate and share this information and tell people.

And they're making the next generation of kids like super smart about food.

And so that's why these companies have realized that organic matters and natural matters and why some of the huge companies out there are buying organic companies up.

And they're not, thankfully, a lot of them are not changing.

You know, sometimes, you know, a big conglomerate will buy a smaller organic company and change the ingredients for, you know, to make more money or whatever.

But largely what I've seen in the last you know, five or six years, these companies are remaining somewhat unchanged.

You know, they are creating some new, newer products that maybe they wouldn't have created otherwise, but that are, you know, semi-healthy.

But, you know, they realize that this is the new economy.

And it's, it's something that I'm really excited to inspire with Truvani because I've realized since we created our protein powder with our very simple ingredients or five simple ingredients in our vanilla, since then,

So many companies, the legacy companies, the huge giant protein powder companies have copied our model and they're creating new simpler products as a result.

And it's awesome to watch.

Our product's still better because we don't have the natural flavors, we don't have the gums, we don't have the erythritol, we don't have the stevia.

We're using, you know, organic monk fruit, the purest form of it to sweeten our products.

So, you know, we, we still have the best, but it's, it's awesome to watch the copycats out there because that's why I wanted to start Truvani is to literally change the protein powder and supplement companies from within and like inspire all of them to do better.

Because I can't tell you, for so much of my life, the protein powders I always tried would always make me sick.

One time, one of them went out of commission at GNC, and I was like, Well, where is it?

What's wrong?

Like, I need my protein powder.

Where is this product?

And they're like, Oh, it got recalled because it's had rat dropping.

So I was like, Oh, goodness, you know, I mean,

I've been through like the ringer with like the worst protein powders.

And And I love a protein powder as part of my routine because I wanted to be able to like have quick, fast food.

Like I won't go to McDonald's or Chick-fil-A or Wendy's, right?

I won't ever do that.

But sometimes I need quick, fast food and smoothies are my quick, fast food.

And I wanted to feel like I was having a complete like package in that.

And so I have always loved protein powders as a, as a tool with my real food diet, right?

Like I'm still so about real food, food but i i use protein powders as a tool and but i wanted it to be the cleanest possible right i didn't want any like chemical natural flavors in it i wanted my vanilla to be real vanilla i wanted you know the pea protein to feel to have like the whole fiber and all of it intact right i never tried the vanilla one i want to try that one

yeah yeah i want to try that one because i i i mean you know i'm curious like you're how old is your older one i know that the younger one's two.

How old's the older?

Six.

So does that mean that you don't ever give this kid any or both kids any French fries from McDonald's, pizza from like, do they, they never eat that?

They've never had McDonald's before, no.

Ever, or any of it.

Like, how?

No.

Are they, do they eat super clean like you?

Like, how, how do you feed your kids?

Yeah, I'm making breakfast, lunch, and dinner pretty much every day unless we go out to eat.

And I try to go like out to eat with everybody at least once a week.

You know, we try to.

And then, you know, we'll do takeout from some really great places.

Like we have a flower child in Charlotte and they have really clean oils and they're really good.

And I've like looked into it.

And I feel really confident that that's a great takeout option.

But even when I do takeout, I still make.

a couple things on the side for my kids.

Like I still, they'll eat some of the takeout, but like I still make things because I'm in my kitchen and I'm right there and it's so easy.

My biggest thing is I don't like to shop and cook on the same day.

So we've figured it out between me and my husband.

Like he's the shopper.

Like if he stocks the kitchen, I'm like all about cooking all day.

Like I can cook and cook and cook and cook.

And a lot of times he cooks too.

He's a great cook.

So we

take the cooking and the food so seriously in our family that we make sure we make it a priority every single day.

And we've set up our lifestyle and our businesses so that we can make it a priority.

If I lived in LA like you do, or if I lived in New York or Miami or any of these other big cities that have a lot more organic, healthy places, I would eat out way more, right?

When we travel, that's when I let go of the reins a little bit, right?

I let my kids indulge in the sorbet or not my little one.

He hasn't had ice cream yet.

He will soon, though, because we're probably going to go to Italy this summer and he's going to have gelato.

I know it, but he hasn't had ice cream yet.

And I should make him like some homemade sorbet.

I don't know why I haven't given him ice cream yet, but I haven't.

I'm surprised.

How can that be possible?

I know, right but it is it's possible yeah it is possible i guess and it's funny he just discovered these little spelt cookies uh they're little heart-shaped spelt cookies they're made with spelt and they have like a teeny bit of sugar in them and they're cinnamony

and you can buy them at whole foods or whatever i don't even remember the brand of it it's like follow your heart or something like that he loves them he's just like cooking really

do you trust whole foods and trader joe's because i know that whole foods start to put on lots of canola canola oil in their prepared foods.

Yeah, I don't buy their prepared foods because

they just use a lot of seed oils.

If I go to Whole Foods, it's for fresh fruits and vegetables and meats and things like that.

So I don't really buy a lot of that there on a weekly, daily basis.

I mean, if we're traveling again, if we're traveling, we may go to Whole Foods for a meal, right?

But I...

you know, my family, we love to travel.

So when we do travel, I have my laundry list of snacks that I bring.

I mean, I'm bringing organic olives.

I'm bringing organic beet chips, epic salmon strips, like real foods that are in snack form that my kids are snacking on when they're stuck on a plane or stuck in a car or whatever, and a lot of dried fruit, that kind of stuff.

And then when we go out to eat, like we would never pick like a fast food to go eat out.

We would find some mom and pop restaurant to go to.

And, you know, I really love to go.

This sounds so, just so bougie, but it's not.

I really love to spend my

time in St.

Bart's.

It's just one of my favorite places on the world because the French that live there, they love food so much and the quality of the food is so high that I'm just like so happy because I can order anything and everything is so healthy and the way they prepare it is so clean and just like really minimal.

And like the vegetables even are prepared like I make at home.

So when my kids eat at a restaurant and they're eating the vegetables, they actually eat them, you know, with lots of butter and a little bit of sea salt.

And so, I love going there because I just love the food there.

And I'm a huge like scuba diver snorkeler.

So, I love the ocean and swimming.

So,

I love going there.

And I just, I love, I love travel in general.

And so, I usually, if I pick a travel destination, it has to have some kind of good food component.

I've been to 70 countries, and I can tell you there's a lot of places that don't

have good food, but you just make it work and you do the best you can.

So, no, 100%.

But I will say that you're controlling your environment, which is what you have to do if you want to be successful in this way, right?

Like, you just have to be mindful.

I do the same thing, by the way.

So, name a couple other places that are really good to travel to because actually, that's a good one.

I didn't know that, I didn't realize that St.

Bart's had such healthy food.

Name a couple other ones that you've been to.

So, I

love this resort in Mexico.

It's called Rosewood Mayacoba.

It's in the sea pool, and you take a little boat to your

little

hotel room or villa, whatever you want to call it.

And they are just, they have an organic garden on property and they have this amazing organic garden dinner two times a week.

And it's so beautiful

that they really, really pay attention to the food.

And I'll go there just to eat and relax with my kids.

And my kids love the kids' club there.

And like, we go to the pool and it's so much fun.

And the food's great.

And it's super, like, you can just get super clean food.

And I remember asking them, they had popsicles and they were using artificial dye in the popsicles.

And they actually made

popsicles without artificial dye for my kids, which was awesome.

And this is a tip for parents that really care about this stuff.

You can email the resort or wherever you're staying in the hotel ahead of time and tell them your dietary restrictions tell them my kids don't eat artificial food dye so they knew not to put the basket of candy that they normally put in everybody's room that has kids in my room i noticed that like online i saw like you know parents showing oh look how they treat your kids this is so awesome they gave us a basket of candy and i'm like oh the candy looks awful you know

So I just emailed them in advance.

So I don't even have to go through the conversation of with my kids of being like, hey, this isn't that great candy.

Like, let's look at the ingredients.

Like, I do that a lot.

But if I can avoid those situations just by a simple email, I'll do that.

And I've found out that hotels love this and they love the challenge of making something awesome for you.

Like my little one was allergic to eggs.

He's starting to like tolerate a little bit of eggs now, but he was super allergic to eggs to the point where the chef came out and was like, hey, we can make pancakes, waffles, everything without eggs.

Just tell us what you need.

And it was just so awesome for him to come out and say that.

And all I had to do was just send an email in advance.

It was super easy, right, to the concierge.

So, one other resort that I think is amazing.

Now, this is like, you know, you have to really splurge for, but it's,

I can't tell you, I think it's the best resort in terms of food on the East Coast: Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain.

They both are amazing properties, like they're so beautiful in Tennessee, and they have

the most

meticulous attention to the quality of food it's coming from a lot of local farms around there and the farm that they have on site and it's absolutely amazing when you look at the kids menu and the ability to like order vegetables and other things than just chicken fingers and pizza um it's just awesome when you i i love that that's one of the things i love about saint bart's too when you look at the kids menu at the majority of restaurants in St.

Bart's, they are offering you a small piece of fish, a mahi-mahi, or a piece of filet, like beef and vegetables, and sometimes french fries, too.

But, like, because, you know, French fries.

They're kids.

And also kids.

Right, kids, right.

Yeah.

And so it's, it's just so cool to see that.

awesome menu and and having like you know fresh fruit on the menu and other things not just ice cream.

And it's just, that's the best thing ever.

No, I love that.

I'm interrupted now by one of my children.

You're okay.

I don't mind.

Hello, hello, child.

I have one fat, one more question, and we can actually wrap this up.

I wanted to know if Truvani is going to be doing any kids' foods or kids' line of foods.

Yeah, so that could be in the works in the future.

It's definitely been a vision of mine in terms of doing a kids' line.

We'll have to see.

We'll have to see.

Okay.

And I guess basically, I think we're good.

I think that you kind of gave us a lot of information.

And it was, listen, I'm going to look into those resorts, but where can people find more information on you if they don't know who you are?

Can you give us all the things?

And then, you know, we can always do part two again, because I love talking about this stuff.

I think it's just so important and it's information everybody should be aware of.

Oh, well, thank you so much.

So I actually have a new book coming out in October.

It's called Food Babe Family.

And I can't believe I haven't mentioned it until now, but it's something that I'm so super excited about because it's about raising kids on real food.

And it includes 100 recipes too that are family friendly.

And it's stuff I'm eating every day.

And I can't wait to share it with everybody.

But that's coming out.

in the fall.

And you can find out about that and everything else at foodbabe.com and come and also check out all of our amazing products at Truvani.com.

That has, we have protein powders, we have collagen, we have the most amazing bars that are made with ingredients that you would find in your own kitchen, all USDA certified organic, non-GMO, et cetera.

And it's the highest quality ingredients that you'll find in any supplements.

Amazing.

How many, how many employees do you guys have now?

Oh, gosh.

I don't know.

It's got to be probably around

40 to 50, probably.

Wow.

That's amazing.

And you guys are now in sprouts.

Where else can people find the products?

Yes.

We are in sprouts.

We are in fresh time.

We are in mom's, mother's market.

We are in a lot of stores.

We are really taking retail by storm.

So, yeah.

And it seems like you're growing pretty quickly, aren't you?

Like, it looks like it.

Well, yeah.

I mean, I would say we're the number one plant-based protein in all of plant-based protein natural stores for the last five months.

Oh, wow.

So we are like,

we are like bigger than like the big dogs, which is the coolest thing ever,

according to this, this data company called Spins.

And we are actually one of the most trending emerging brands there is.

So it's pretty cool.

That's amazing.

Don't forget to send me the vanilla powder so I can try it.

Oh, I will.

I definitely will.

I love that.

Thank you.

I appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing all this information.

It's been a real pleasure to meet you.

Finally, finally.

Yes, you too.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

And well,

when your new book comes out, let's do this again.

I would love to.