Food Babe Critics Speak Out

Foolmewunz said:
Personally, like I'd wish for Dr. Oz, I'd like to see full disclosure agreements for bloggers, like they have on responsible financial news sites, where they reveal whether the writer or organization publishing the information have "interest" in the company being reported on. Does she have any interest other than Bigtime Fan Girl in some of the products she supports by name?
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Ms Hari gets a cut from some of the products featured on her site through affiliate marketing deals.
In doing so, the Babe is positioned to capitalize on her growing fame with a burgeoning business model that includes making money by referring her loyal readers to several organic and GMO-free food brands via her website.

Under the program, known as affiliate marketing, she often posts editorial content praising these small brands, including links to their sites where readers can purchase the goods. She gets a cut of some of the transactions, according to the rules explained on some of her partners’ websites. Ms. Hari also sells “eating guides” for $17.99 a month and charges for speaking appearances.
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http://jebkinnison.com/2014/07/14/vani-hari-food-babe-and-quack-where-the-money-comes-from/
 
Darat said:
Concerned about the "additives" in beer seems to me being missing the bigger point, it's akin to wanting a "may contain lead" warning on bullets in case someone is shot by one.
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In reading through her site I was struck by a similar thought. In addition to beer ingredients, which she apparently got wrong anyway, she has taken on boxed Mac and cheese and soda pop among other processed foods and junk foods.

I have a health issue and dropped all soda pop, processed meats, fast foods (aside from all veggie Subway sandwiches) and read nutritional and ingredient lists. I make my own soup to avoid salt.

So why not just implore people to eat healthy and make more of their food from scratch( when I want a snack food I make oven fried sweet potato crisps or air popped popcorn with unsalted butter and cinnimon) rather than fight to have these other foods made differently?
Rhetorical question of course. People don't want to hear they shouldn't drink too much beer, they want to hear that beer should be made healthy. They don't want to be told about a good recipe for home made Mac and cheese, they want to be told that they can be part of making boxed Mac and cheese healthy.
 
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jaydeehess said:
In reading through her site I was struck by a similar thought. In addition to beer ingredients, which she apparently got wrong anyway, she has taken on boxed Mac and cheese and soda pop among other processed foods and junk foods.

I have a health issue and dropped all soda pop, processed meats, fast foods (aside from all veggie Subway sandwiches) and read nutritional and ingredient lists. I make my own soup to avoid salt.

So why not just implore people to eat healthy and make more of their food from scratch( when I want a snack food I make oven fried sweet potato crisps or air popped popcorn with unsalted butter and cinnimon) rather than fight to have these other foods made differently?
Rhetorical question of course. People don't want to hear they shouldn't drink too much beer, they want to hear that beer should be made healthy. They don't want to be told about a good recipe for home made Mac and cheese, they want to be told that they can be part of making boxed Mac and cheese healthy.
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Be careful. Have you ever investigated the ingredients in cinnamon? (This will get you started: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf60218a031#)

Apparently, it isn't enough to tell people what's good for them. You have to scare them away from all the other stuff too.
 
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Red Baron Farms said:
Avoiding things like trans fats from Hydrogenated Oils and parabens etc...

I mean if you read through, you can find good advice. But also find unsubstantiated claims as well. Or more likely, sourced claims that are referencing low quality sources. She actually does use quite a few good references, but doesn't seem to matter to her. If no good citations can be found, she is more than willing to use lower quality or in some cases just plain bad references.
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Yep, basically a horoscope of food advice. Fantastic.
 
steenkh said:
Whatever flaws there might be in the Food Babe's arguments, it has nothing to do with woo.

Personally, I welcome a campaign for fewer unnecessary chemicals in our environment. I do not care if the amount is considered non-poisonous, because we might get the same chemicals from several sources, raising the amount that we eat, and these chemicals are still unnecessary.
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Stop drinking water then as it is a chemical compound.

She is stupid, stupid, stupid. She doesn't known any basic organic chemistry nomenclature, which means that she is seriously confusing things.

At the most basic level, things like methyl and ethyl alcohol sound like they might be the same thing, but one people drink every day and the other could make you blind and destroy a liver with very little effort.
 
Tatyana said:
Stop drinking water then as it is a chemical compound.

She is stupid, stupid, stupid. She doesn't known any basic organic chemistry nomenclature, which means that she is seriously confusing things.

At the most basic level, things like methyl and ethyl alcohol sound like they might be the same thing, but one people drink every day and the other could make you blind and destroy a liver with very little effort.
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Imagine the confusion when the prefix is simply "c-" or "l-", or a suffix of "ide" or" ate".
 
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jaydeehess said:
Imagine the confusion when the prefix is simply "c-" or "l-", or a suffix of "ide" or" ate".
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That was one of the criticisms (from actual scientists/nutritionists) I read of her writing. In order to list more scary chemicals she listed mono-, bi-, di-, or tri-, of some compound suspended in a solution. I think it was in the beer article. The point being - and sciencey types can explain it better - that those chemicals in crystal form could be very different ingredients but that when the one chemical is in an aqueous solution, all the variants show up as byproducts of the process.

In short, she's ignorant if she just doesn't know this stuff. If she actually has taken the time/trouble to learn it, then she's not ignorant but dishonest. Take your pick. Personally, I wouldn't follow the nutritional advice or someone who was either ignorant or dishonest (or both).
 
ThunderChunky said:
What's the danger of aspartame? Are you also against small amounts of fluoride and chlorine in tap water because they are "unnatural"? Invoking evolution or nature is a total fallacy in face of actual studies on how these things are metabolized by our bodies.
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About one year ago, and overnight, my tap water went from a discolored, bad tasting liquid to a clean looking, chlorinated smelling/tasting liquid. I don't drink it except on rare occasions, before or since the added chlorine. Is chlorine cleaning my water or hiding the junk in it? I'm asking, I don't know. PPM is the same before I filter it.

I made a rare visit to a fast food place (Carl's Jr) where they are advertising their new "natural" burger:

- grass fed
- no added hormones
- no steroids
- no antibiotics
- more expensive

It made me think, "So all the other burgers here have all that? Yuck, goodbye Carl's Jr!" Thanks for bringing the reality of your burgers to light and reminding me why I make my own at home.

That ad backfired by grossing me out of the place permanently, rational or not. The beef I buy is ground daily by the butchers, grass fed (didn't know until the butchers told me and didn't really care at the time), no hormones or bla bla (local supermarket) and is cheaper than the nearby Safeway. It also looks and tastes better - some people seem to forget about flavor in these discussions.

I feel like I'm being played for a sucker by buying foods with added crap or fillers that make the companies more profits. That's probably the biggest reason I started being selective in what I buy and eat. It's not all about health. No fast food, no prepared frozen foods. I've slimmed down. My freezer is always empty. I spend less per month. My household garbage output is lower.

This "babe" sounds like a crackpot - I'd never heard of her.
 
mgidm86 said:
About one year ago, and overnight, my tap water went from a discolored, bad tasting liquid to a clean looking, chlorinated smelling/tasting liquid. I don't drink it except on rare occasions, before or since the added chlorine. Is chlorine cleaning my water or hiding the junk in it? I'm asking, I don't know. PPM is the same before I filter it.

I made a rare visit to a fast food place (Carl's Jr) where they are advertising their new "natural" burger:

- grass fed
- no added hormones
- no steroids
- no antibiotics
- more expensive

It made me think, "So all the other burgers here have all that? Yuck, goodbye Carl's Jr!" Thanks for bringing the reality of your burgers to light and reminding me why I make my own at home.

That ad backfired by grossing me out of the place permanently, rational or not. The beef I buy is ground daily by the butchers, grass fed (didn't know until the butchers told me and didn't really care at the time), no hormones or bla bla (local supermarket) and is cheaper than the nearby Safeway. It also looks and tastes better - some people seem to forget about flavor in these discussions.

I feel like I'm being played for a sucker by buying foods with added crap or fillers that make the companies more profits. That's probably the biggest reason I started being selective in what I buy and eat. It's not all about health. No fast food, no prepared frozen foods. I've slimmed down. My freezer is always empty. I spend less per month. My household garbage output is lower.

This "babe" sounds like a crackpot - I'd never heard of her.
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I will never, ever buy meat that is labelled antibiotic free. Essentially this means that the animal grew up on a farm that did not use antibiotics to assist sick animals. By buying antibiotic free meat, you are directly contributing to needless animal suffering.
 
Octavo said:
I will never, ever buy meat that is labelled antibiotic free. Essentially this means that the animal grew up on a farm that did not use antibiotics to assist sick animals. By buying antibiotic free meat, you are directly contributing to needless animal suffering.
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Actually just the opposite. If that really is your reason, you should realise that the reason for the general antibiotic need is the inhumane CAFO conditions and also sub-therapeutic antibiotics used as a metabolic modifier.

Actual legit reasons for antibiotic use in organic animal husbandry are required when needed...at least in the US. I don't know the regs of every country.

In the US if you refuse to treat a sick animal you can loose your organic certification. It is extremely rare to need antibiotics though. Grassfed animals are significantly healthier in general.
 
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Octavo said:
I will never, ever buy meat that is labelled antibiotic free. Essentially this means that the animal grew up on a farm that did not use antibiotics to assist sick animals. By buying antibiotic free meat, you are directly contributing to needless animal suffering.
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You are joking, right?

As far as I know, sick animals are also treated in organic farms, but there has to be a longer period before the animal can be slaughtered in order to get the antibiotics out of the meat.

Treating animals with antibiotics all the time only increases the risk of bacterial resistence, and is not better for the animals.
 
steenkh said:
As far as I know, sick animals are also treated in organic farms, but there has to be a longer period before the animal can be slaughtered in order to get the antibiotics out of the meat.
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Regulations vary and they keep changing. But either a quarantine for a specific period of time to get the antibiotics to flush, or they simply sell that particular animal under a different label (and get a bit less money for it).

Either way, at least in the US, if the animal requires antibiotics and you let it suffer, you can loose your organic certification. The animal welfare requirements are much stricter for organic. Still not perfect. There are still a few loopholes. But that's partly why the regs get updated.
 
steenkh said:
Treating animals with antibiotics all the time only increases the risk of bacterial resistence, and is not better for the animals.
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And also you have to consider why they need so many antibiotics: It's because they are raised in close quarters that contribute to disease and are also constantly close to their own and other animals excrement.
 
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