The Truth About What’s Really in Our Food with Vani Hari

Mark Hyman, MD

Dr. Mark Hyman is leading a health revolution—one focused on using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity, happiness, and so much more. Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the founder and chairman of the Food Fix Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy.

He is a co-founder and the Chief Medical Officer of Function Health. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, The Dr. Hyman Show with 150+ million downloads. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, Fox, and CNN.

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Full Transcript

Automatically generated. Please forgive any typos or errors in the following transcript. It was generated by a third party and has not been subsequently reviewed by our team.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor Hyman Show.

Vani Hari
Citizen activists like me and we've had enough. These companies are lying to us. They're poisoning us with ingredients they've already figured out how to remove from their products. They have the formulations. They've shown it in so many different countries.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, The Hyman Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website at DrHyman.com for my website store for a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested website So, Bonnie, it's so great to have you back on the Doctor Hyman Show. It's been a while and you have been up to some great things. And it reminds me of a quote from Margaret Mead, which is never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has. And you and a bunch of people, about a thousand other people storm Kellogg's headquarters with 400,000 petitions that were signed to protest the chemicals and dyes in Froot Loops, which don't exist in other countries, which is just astounding to me.

And you've focused your career on really helping educate people about the dangers of what's in our food. You personally had an incredible story of being very sick when you were younger, realizing it was all the junk food you ate from your parents wanting to become American because they were first generation immigrants to The US from India. And you basically kind of got the experience of what it was to eat that crap and then the experience of what happens when you didn't. And I think that was a big part of your motivation. But what's really amazing to me is you've taken that and you've created a movement, your food made movement, and you've been able to catalyze people around advocacy, doing amazing things.

So tell us about that experience at Kellogg's, what happened, and the consequences. Because I it was very effective. It got a lot of play. And I I think it was a tactic that that changes the the activity of these big corporations that are highly resistant to changing what they do because they basically maximize profit over public health.

Vani Hari
Taking 400,000 signatures to Kellogg's headquarters quite the, I would say, pivotal moment in my career. When I started doing this work several years ago, over ten years ago, I took some petitions to craft headquarters and I was met there with maybe 10 people. Right? We went there and it was such a different stage in terms of who I was met with when I went. I mean, health leaders from all across the country came to meet me there and speak and as well as a thousand people on the ground, moms, children, concerned citizens, people that are fed up have had enough with the food industry doing this practice, which is using ingredients that are banned or heavily regulated in other countries in the exact same products they use here in The United States using safer, better for you chemicals and using more toxic, more poisonous chemicals here in The United States in same exact product that they sell overseas.

And so Froot Loops was a perfect example of this fact that they have a version of Froot Loops in Canada and Australia and Korea and India and all of Europe that doesn't have artificial food dyes. But here in The United States, it does. And this is something that has been the crux of all of my activism since day one when I quit my job as a corporate consultant to become a food activist full time. It was the first investigation that I did was I compared the American products, the exact same American products that are sold here in The United States compared to the same products that are sold in other countries. And when I compare the ingredient list, I mean, was shocked.

And back then there was I just remember one of the first ones I discovered was so alarming. I mean, Quaker Oats, it's no longer this way. But back then ten years ago, was Quaker oats, strawberries and cream here in The United States was artificially dyed apple bits with red 40 of petroleum, crude oil based dye. But if you bought the same strawberries and Korean Quaker oats in Europe, it had real strawberries in it. And seeing those stark differences and what's been done to our food supply versus other countries by the same company.

That's what made me so mad because it was just this unethical business practice that these companies engaging in. And when I found out that the European regulators back in 2010 created a warning label, a cigarette type warning label on their products that contain these artificial dyes that warned parents that said may cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children. And these food companies said, hey, we don't want to put this warning label on our product anymore. We're going to reformulate our products so that we don't have to warn anyone about our products. And so they should have done that for all of their customers.

You know, that day when we went to Kellogg's headquarters to deliver those petitions, that was to signify that we no longer want American companies to engage in this practice any longer. And I would say Kellogg's was such a great target because they also back in 2015, due to the widespread awareness of artificial food dyes, decided to remove them. They said, you know, we'll remove these from our cereals by 2018. And then when I just had a baby, it was 2019, my daughter had just turned two, and I am going down the aisle and she picks up a box of baby sharp cereal and it is by Kellogg's. And I look at that and I say, oh gosh, they've probably taken out the dice by now.

Let's look the ingredients. They said they were going to do it. And I couldn't believe my eyes that they were coming out with new formulas, new products to attract the new children up to date using the most popular toddler songs. And then they still didn't take it out. And they just went back on their promise.

And I'm like, why isn't anybody holding these companies accountable for, first of all, lying to the public, getting all the positive press that they were making these changes, and then deciding not to go forward with it and then create new serials to target children of today? This was something that I felt was so sinister. And this is why during my Senate testimony on September twenty third of last year, I made this the crux of my testimony because I was like, I wanted to look the leaders in the room in the eye, the senators and the other members and other elected officials and Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who was running to be in a position of power under the Health and Human Services Department. And I wanted to look them in the eye and say, hey, guys, we need help.

Citizen activists like me and the people that follow me and all the moms out there that want to see these changes, we've had enough. These companies are lying to us. They tell us they're going to do something and they don't. And then they're poisoning us with ingredients they've already figured out how to remove from their products. They already have the formulations.

They can already do this. They've shown it in so many different countries.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So why don't they do that? Why don't they do it?

Vani Hari
Well, it all has to do with money, right? I mean, a petroleum based diet sits longer on the shelf, doesn't break down as faster as a real food ingredient, like a carrot juice or a blueberry juice. But also, it is a way for them to, again, just continue using ingredients that are allowed here in The United States because the FDA has had created this loophole, which basically allows food companies to approve chemicals themselves and these chemical companies and inundate our food supplies. The reason why we have over 10,000 chemicals here in The United States, and there's only a few hundred Europe that are allowed for years.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Three thirty eight.

Vani Hari
Yeah. So it's so sad that we have these huge disparity in the amount of chemicals we're being exposed to. But the worst part about it, it's the American food companies doing this for me. I feel like it's very un American for American companies continue this practice. And it's not just Kellogg's, you know, it's general mills, it's Coca Cola, it's Pepsi, Coke Doritos in Europe don't have artificial food dyes, don't have MSG in them.

Right? Gatorade is made with carrot and blueberry juice. And here it's Red 40 and we get sodium benzene. And I look at cinnamon toast crunch from General Mills. This is something I grew up on.

I love that cereal. And they're using a caramel color level four made from ammonia that the International Research, an agency in cancer, determined that that specific coloring causes cancer in rats. That should not be in a cereal we are giving to schools to serve children that mothers and fathers across the country are buying for their children. This is an unnecessary chemical that these companies have already shown that they can make the same product without these harmful chemicals. And when, again, I go back to that day at the Senate, when I gave that testimony, it was like the whole room was electrified.

Everybody got this issue and everybody understood that this needed to change, including the leaders in that room. And when RFK Jr. Went out on the campaign trail post that roundtable, it was amazing. He carried my voice. He carried the message.

And he took it to the campaign trail. He said, Hey, one of the first things I'm going to do when I'm put in a position of power is I'm going to ask the serial companies to remove these diets. I don't know if it's going to be that easy by just asking them to do that. But I with the position that he's in now and the leadership that's going to be supporting him, Doctor. Marty McCarron, who's also giving testimony that day that I got to know and saw how he wants to look at the root cause of disease, I can see that this new leadership understands that these problems could probably get solved for the first time ever.

When I look at the rates of ADHD and how over three million children are on some kind of ADHD medication, that over seven million children are diagnosed with it. So many parents are looking for answers of why their kids can't sit still in school or they are having behavioral issues or they are having learning problems. And this is the one thing that we can solve. We have seen that other nations are doing it and we see that they have better health outcomes as a result. And I think this is just one of the things that would be a really easy win for the American people if our government leaders could figure this out.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, mean, I think what you said is so many things in what you said. I want to dive deep and double click One is the GRAS loophole, which is this loophole that exists at the FDA, which just doesn't make any sense to me. Because if you're a drug company and you want to develop a drug, you have to do peer reviewed scientific research that's independent, you have to submit it to the FDA, you have to submit all the data around safety, efficacy, and so forth. And then the FDA has to review it carefully, and then they give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. With food additives, they don't have to do that.

Food companies can just come to the FDA and say, got this new thing. We think we it's safe based on our testing and, like, they they don't have to submit anything to FDA or they don't even have to actually tell the FDA. And so there's over a thousand chemicals have been added without FDA even knowing about it. And and there's no studies to show they're safe or they're they're they're not harmful. And we are learning, and I think this is from the European Union, know, this we're learning about how these compounds are are from the scientific literature harmful to kids, to humans, they cause various injury to the microbiome, they cause behavioral issues, neurologic issues, and the science is there.

So I think I think the question is, you know, in my mind, what do you think is the most powerful lever? Because when you what you said about the food the food label in Europe saying this is dangerous for kids, that made the food companies change. And I think front of package labeling is an incredibly powerful lever because it's about transparency. It's about informing people. It's about not telling them what to do, but letting them know what's gonna happen if they eat this food.

And I think I think Mark K. Jr. Has has also said this in his his congressional hearings when he was being confirmed that he wants to get to the kind of root of this and to find out what's really going on. I think from my perspective, have an epidemic of childhood disease, we have an epidemic of adult chronic disease, and a lot of this is driven by the amount of refined starches and carbohydrates, not just the dyes and chemicals, but those are adding to the problem. And those are in all these processed foods, which are basically the vehicles for feeding people starch and sugar.

And, you know, there's like crazy things where you don't actually have to put the percentage of ingredient on the label. Like in Europe, they put the percentage of sugar or whatever it is. Here, put like five different kinds of sugar in the in the cereal, but they don't actually you don't know actually how much its total is. So it gives you a very skewed view of what what the main ingredients are. And in Europe, says if it's 32% sugar, even if it says corn syrup, sugar, honey, maltodextrin, whatever that whatever the things they put in are.

It's pretty striking. So how do you think, this administration should should focus on this? Do you think they should close the grass loophole? Do you think we should focus on front of package labeling or all of the above?

Vani Hari
Ideally, I think we would want first scientific review of all of the artificial food dyes for sure, because there has been no scientific review by the FDA done, for example, on Red forty in over a decade. Okay. And we know Red forty, the amount that was originally kind of tested in terms of an impact on humans was very small to the point where it is being used now. It is being inundated in just about everything that we eat. And so it's in a conventional grocery store setting.

So this is something that I think we need real scientific review on to ban these chemicals from our food supply if they weren't that. And based on the scientific review that I have done personally just on, and I know you have done too on, I think there are 80 different studies that show some kind of harmful effect of dyes on children. I think that alone should warrant a warning label. And that could be implemented within six months. I think you could ask the manufacturers to do that.

And that warning label alone would not only motivate the food companies to remove artificial food dyes from their products, but it would also educate the public on the effects of these dyes. And could you imagine every single morning you take that box of cereal and you put it on your counter or on your breakfast table or whatever? And you know everybody reads the box of cereal on the back, right? And imagine having that warning on there every single day. Those companies are not going to want that, right?

And so I think that is one step towards transparency. It's one step towards education. I think that could help move the market in the right direction. The grass loophole that you mentioned, that 100% has to be closed. We actually have to have some scientific review of chemicals that are introduced into our food supply.

Someone needs to be able to say, hey, this is something that shouldn't be in our food supply or you need to provide more safety data on this. We need to adopt that precautionary principle that Europe does.

Dr. Mark Hyman
When we introduced Transfast, it was Crisco was the first product in 1911. Yeah. And that was introduced, and it was sort of grandfathered in based on this GRASS, which means generally recognized as safe standard. And it was it was fifty years of research showing that it was harmful, And the FDA did not move on it. And it wasn't until there was a scientist who is now in his nineties sued the FDA to get them to force them to make it non grass.

Now, trans fats have killed literally millions of people being in the food supply for, you know, how many, when it was almost a hundred years. And it was it was more than a hundred years, I guess. And it was it was in, I think, 2015 that it was ruled. And it took like, I still see it in products. So it's still in there.

In some ways, they're using palm oil now, which may not be as good.

Vani Hari
Also, the ingredient monodiglycerides, which is a new chemical that you've seen and kind of replace that partially hydrogenated oil that acts very similar to those trans fatty acids and contains my new amounts of trans fatty acids. When I spoke to all of these different food scientists from Cornell University about this chemical, because I was shocked to see that this molecule still contains trans fatty acids, but doesn't need to be labeled as that on the label. So the food industry figured out a trick to make it so that the fats and the oils don't break down in the product by using this chemical. This is something that you will find in bread at the grocery store, will find in crackers. You will find in just about every fast food.

Is a really kind of nasty chemical that I think that nobody should be eating.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, mean, do you think we should sort of label all ultra processed food as a sort of a blanket statement or do we need to grade it or should be labeled based on the amount of sugar and starch? I mean, there's so many interesting ways to do food labeling that I think the FDA has the opportunity to do now. And I think we we kinda have to get it right in order for really to inform people. And I have mixed, you know, feelings about how the best way to do it is. It's like in in South America, they have big hexagons with, black warning labels and sort of saying this is not safe for children on the label of this soda.

I mean, it's quite impressive to see, like when they when they when they actually do the labeling and it has a big impact on the purchasing of foods that people buy.

Vani Hari
Yeah, it does. And I think there is going to be a lot of nuance in terms of determining the levels of ultra processed food. But I think if we can give consumers some real education about what ultra processed means versus processed, I think that's the first step. I own a food company called Shivani and we make a processed bar. But we use ingredients you would find in your own kitchen.

Nuts, seeds, maple syrup, dates. That is a type of product that you want to consume, that you can recognize the ingredients, they would be something that you would combine in your own kitchen, not something that has the monodiglycerides and the natural flavors and like all of these other chemicals that the food industry uses to kind of trick your brain into liking a food more than you should and creating that addictive quality that has been so problematic in the rise of obesity in this country and why so many people have a problem with curbing their appetite.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I think these foods are so addictive. They designed them to be addictive. They know they're designed to actually create a certain mouthfeel, a certain trigger in the brain. And this has been well documented by folks at the Yale Food Addiction sort of studies, and they have a food addiction scale, which you can look at, and fourteen percent of people in the world and also children, about fourteen percent of children are technically addicted to food by a very rigorous standard, which is a lot.

It's the same amount of people who are alcoholic. And that that's frightening when you think about it. We're creating a bunch of little kids who are addicts, and you try to take it away and you see what happens. They get really freaked out, and they kinda go nuts. And and what's interesting about these chemicals is that they are kinda easy to spot.

And if anybody really wants to stop eating this stuff, all they have to do is say, look at the label and the ingredient list and say, is there anything on here that I don't have in my kitchen? And if the answer is yes, then you shouldn't eat it. Right? If it has some weird spice from like, you know, The Middle East and you don't recognize it, that doesn't count. Or has some weird, you know, Indian spice in it, that doesn't count because that's real food.

But if it's something you really wouldn't have like maltodextrin or monodruglycerides or butylated hydroxytoluene or red dye 40. I mean, are not things you're putting in your food at home, although sometimes you do if you have bake a cake and you put sprinkles and stuff on it. But most most of the time, we don't do that. And I think that's an easy thing for the average consumer to think about when they're shopping is look at the ingredient list. If there's something on there that you can't pronounce, you don't recognize, it's in Latin, that you don't have in your kitchen, put it back on the shelf.

It's pretty easy. And that will change the behavior of these big companies. And what you what you've done is, you know, interesting because you've kind of shamed Kellogg, and you you held them to account. And what happened was they didn't they didn't really respond, and they didn't really do much. And their stock tanked.

Froot Loop sales were down 54% in the last twelve weeks of 2024. Kellex stock prices going down. They lost a million dollars in earnings report in the third quarter of twenty twenty four. So this has had a real impact. Right.

And then, you know, from a PR standpoint, it's been terrible for them. And so I think you kind of won on that issue. But the question is, are they going to change? Are they going to change?

Vani Hari
That is a really interesting question. And I find it so unbelievable that they have not done anything yet. But that day when we went there to deliver the petitions, I thought they were going to meet with us. I thought they were going to invite us in and we were going to hand off the petitions in person, whether they talked to us or told us we have to agree to disagree, which is what crafted several years ago before they changed eventually. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I never expected a security guard to come out and receive those petitions and no one representing actual Kellogg's being there to talk to us.

Like I couldn't believe that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
A security guard?

Vani Hari
Yes, they had a security guard. And so when we looked up into the building, we saw the executives still left in the building. They actually had told all of their employees to go home that day. And so nobody was going in and out of the building. And we looked up and there were still some executives in the building and they started looking down at us and they were smiling, making faces.

And eventually one guy brings over a rolling whiteboard and writes, get off our lawn to all the women and children behind me that are supporting this cause and asking Kellogg's to uphold their commitments, do what's right. And it was such a moment of like, how stupid can you be as a corporation to do that to a group of people that truly care about changing the food system? But also, anything, they added fire to the movement because if they had sat down with us that day, they would have inoculated us in a way because we would have said, oh, they're listening. They're going to take time to think about this. Maybe they'll communicate with us, whatever.

But instead, they turned their back on us, told us to get off their lawn. And that's when the national boycott happened, which resulted in the numbers that you just talked about. And now what's very interesting is their stock price recently just went off and shut up all of a sudden. I was like, wait, what's going on? There's got to be something that's happening, right?

Well, what's happening is there are companies looking at taking it over. Private companies like Ferrero is the candy maker on street that's looking at taking over Kellogg's. And this is actually something that happened shortly after this all was going down. When I was talking to a consultant in the food industry and trying to figure out what was going on at Kellogg's, they said things are so backwards there that they cannot figure out how to actually make this change without losing a lot of money. So one way that they would do it to be viable is actually take their company private, make the changes, and then eventually come back as a public company later on.

That was one way that this consultant recommended that this could happen. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's actually what's about to happen, I think, because this is what the market is seeing right now. And so I don't know what what the future holds for Kellogg's. I know that they've suffered in terms of PR, they've suffered in terms of brand value. I can tell you Froot Loops sales are down as well as all of their cereals.

Most of their cereals are down. I don't know if all of them are, but I have to go back and look at the latest data. The majority of them are down. Apple Jack's, even Raisin Bran was down because people were like, you know what? We're not supporting Kellogg's because they did this to the American public because really it's about the fact that they continue to sell poisonous ingredients children here in The United States and not in other countries.

And that's the argument that nobody can argue with. And it's time for that to change and everyone knows it. And the best way to get Kellogg's to respond at this point is to make sure your school does not serve Kellogg's for breakfast or any Kellogg's products because that is one of the ways that they make money because they are allowed to sell this to different schools across the nation. Even though you might make the choice at the grocery store, your child still could be consuming this product and other children out there that may not know the truth about these artificial dyes and how they affect their brains.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, my joke is I'm a serial killer. Think serial is probably one of the worst things invented And, you know, ironically, it all started in Battle Creek, Michigan, where you went to deliver your petition to Kellogg's. And Kellogg's was named after a guy who was, and his brother. They started a basically a spa, like a medical spa in Battle Creek back in the early nineteen hundreds, and people would go there and they would do

Vani Hari
They called it a sanitarium, which is just Sanitarium. Right. It's just such a weird name. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And they had people, like, eating huge amounts of fiber. And and and and originally, the idea was to eat more of the grains in their whole form. And then it's transitioned to being basically a delivery mechanism for sugar and refined starches that's driving obesity rates up to, you know, twenty percent kids, forty plus percent overweight in children. I mean, I remember there was like one kid who was a little chubby in my class and that was it. And everybody else was sent, you know, this was back in the sixties and seventies.

And and and now it's, you know, basically normal to be overweight as a kid, which is just unconscionable. I think the executive order around developing a commission to look at the problem with childhood chronic disease, which has been skyrocketing, we've seen 203% increases in almost everything, sometimes 1000% increases in things like ADHD and asthma and metabolic diseases, obesity, prediabetes. I mean, one in four teenagers now is prediabetic. It's something I never would have imagined in my lifetime. And it's a consequence of the type of food system we have, which we've been both working to fight.

And you've really dug in on the chemical stuff, which is so important because it's sort of it's something we can grab onto and get. And and, actually, this is now taking hold in in Texas, for example, which I think you're gonna come, but you couldn't make it. But they they're introducing a bill, which I'm testifying on this week. The testimony is to support a bill. It's basically saying we're gonna automatically meet European standards in Texas, and we're gonna mandate all school lunches and all schools have none of these chemicals in there, which is amazing.

Now I don't if they can get away with it or do it or if that kinda oversteps or bounds in terms of what the FDA has allowed or I mean, I don't know how they're gonna do that, but it's it's, even to bring this up to see that this is coming out of legislators that there's been a sort of this awakening in America around health. I mean, you and I have been talking about this for I don't know. We've been friends for ten plus years. I don't know how long, but, like, it's been a while. And and we've we've kind of been shouting in the wilderness for a long time.

And all of a sudden, there's this chorus of voices coming from grassroots movements that you've helped facilitate and from legislatures, which are now around the country starting to wake up and and put introduce bills about chemicals in food, about food labeling, about changes in in health care to address the obesity epidemic and recognizing this is sort of a national emergency. You know, all the hard work and all the effort and all the years of sort of struggling against, you know, the giants is actually paying off because now we're seeing this shift. And I think Kellogg's was really stupid to not pay attention and use this as a way to actually lean in and say, look, we we recognize that we're doing this and, we will change this immediately. And and that will be kind of would shot their stock price right up. But they they the food industry is in this bubble, and they think they can fight it.

And I know they're fighting it. And I'm sure you've been attacked. I know, for example, I've been attacked many times by the American Council on Science and Health, which sounds like a very great and noble group of doctors and scientists who are trying to create the truth about science. And this group, if you look at the composition of this group, a lot of them are have been criminals. The doctors have been put in jail for Medicaid or Medicare fraud.

They have huge conflicts of interest funded, and it's funded primarily by the big ag chemical companies, the big food companies, tobacco companies, and even petroleum companies because they're against pesticides, they're against all that. Most of the industrial agriculture is fueled by petrochemicals. What you're talking about is a red dye 40, but pretty much all the agriculture we use, one in $5 of money spent on energy is used for industrial agriculture and oil. We have real crisis that they're now trying to sort of sort out what they're going to do. And I think it's this very unstable moment where, know, how do we take care of farmers?

What do we do to protect them? Because they're going to be kind of victims if we all of a sudden switch to a different form of growing food. And how do we how do we work with companies to actually help them do the right thing? Because they're they're so dominant. They have to be part of the solution.

So I'm wondering, you know, this this American Council on Science and Health took you down. They taken me down. They took Doctor. Oz down. And it's and it's just a bunch of criminals.

So how do you how do you kinda help people understand how to sort through the the noise? Because there's a lot of these front groups that have great sounding names, like the Center for Consumer Freedom, which says obesity is a hoax. I mean, the obesity epidemic is a hoax. I mean, like, what? You know, just walk down the street and you will see it is not.

So how do you think about all this, Fani?

Vani Hari
Yeah. You know, I actually wrote a whole book about this because I was so stunned at what happens when you start to tell the truth about the food industry. And you have been such an amazing leader in this movement, a hero in this movement, Doctor. Mark Hyman. I mean, it so funny.

I had a memory pop up just this week, ten years ago, my book hit number one in the nation. And it said Bonnie Harrie and Doctor. Mark Hyman, because you wrote the foreword for that. And it was so awesome to see your name right next to mine right there. And it's just this reminder of how long we've been doing this work and how it was leaders like you that backed me up early on and said, she's telling the truth, guys.

This is true. Right. When everybody was trying to take me down, because when I was getting big corporations removed a lot of these chemicals from their foods, like Subway removing as a dicarbotomy, which ended up getting almost every bread manufacturer in America to remove that chemical that you can find in yoga mats and shoe rubber that when it's heated, it turns into carcinogens. Definitely should not be in our food. But of course, they are not using it in other countries, but still using it here in The United States, still approved for use by the FDA today.

Getting the artificial dyes out of Kraft Macaroni and cheese, getting the beer companies to be more transparent and release the ingredients in beer, getting Starbucks to remove caramel coloring from their products and post their ingredients, getting Chipotle to go GMO free. I think that would really anchor the biotech industry. And so they created a paid for campaign to destroy my character. Any time I was written about in any mainstream media article or I was featured on television, they would attack that TV station or attack that news outlet when I was on the cover of a magazine. They attacked the magazine on Amazon, bringing down its rating.

They were doing so many different things like a coordinated campaign attack that was being we found out was being funded primarily through Monsanto. And we found out through the Freedom of Information Request Act when I submitted these requests to these different quote unquote experts that were showing up in all of these different articles being the attack dog and then using their credentials as a professor or a PhD or whatever to say she doesn't know what she's talking about. She's pseudoscientific. She's a fear monger. Whenever they would use it was kind of like the basic trio of arguments every time.

Fear monger, pseudoscientific, she's dumb. She doesn't know what she's talking about. She doesn't have a degree. They use their credentials against me. And so then I found out that there's this sinister group of what they call front groups that you mentioned, you know, that sounds so reputable, like to the average bystander person on the street, the American Council for Science and Health.

Wow, that sounds so profound and so amazing. Right? And they have all these doctors. And then you find out that they've gotten money from every single big food, big pharma, big chem industry to literally be their mouthpiece in the media and to be their attack dog because they can't be seen as the person actually attacking these activists. You can't Kellogg's doesn't wanna find out.

You don't wanna find out Kellogg's is doing it because people will stop eating Kellogg's. Right? But if they use these front groups to do it, then they can kind of get away with these type of attacks. And a lot of times these character assassinations will stop people from speaking out. And I would have to say there was a moment in time in 2015 after my book hit number one and then a bunch of other accolades started to occur.

And I started to get some really big momentum in getting food companies to start changing. There was this kind of snowball effect of so many food companies starting to change, like companies I didn't even have to petition or campaign about. I just would write about and they would change. Like, for example, Papa John's removed all artificial ingredients. Subway eventually ended up removing all artificial ingredients.

So many different chains just started to follow suit. When they saw that power, they immediately unleashed the gauntlet on me. I just remember, also think there was a time period where, and I don't know if I can say this, you can edit this out, but even our common publisher was worried of you actually being on the cover of my book as a forward because I was getting attacked so much. And so yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, it's

Dr. Mark Hyman
but I held firm. I held firm.

Vani Hari
And you did. You held firm. And that's the hero that you are because you're standing for truth. And I love that about you and why we're having this conversation so many years later still. But it is, you know, at the time, I had to kind of like look back and say, you know, I had some amazing guidance from some amazing people that came into my life and was like, you know, they just kind of taught me the raise and they are like, hey, do you think the evil people of the world are just going to sit back and take this?

No, they're not. And I think this is one of the reasons why I'm so spiritually connected to Bobby Kennedy, because he's also endured this enormous attack on his character and this narrative that they've placed in the media about who he is that he's not. And that is something that I experienced. And to the point where it made me at one point want to stop doing this work, I was very concerned. I have to say, even when I became a mom shortly thereafter, it pushed me back from this work because I was so scared because I was getting death threats and rape threats and people driving by my house and having to have security when I went to go speak at different universities.

And that is something that I said, okay, well maybe I need to take a step back and try to change the food some different way. I did that by creating my own company, which trying to change the food industry from the inside out. It's kind of like, you know, when you find your calling, it keeps calling. You can say that that's what's happened to me in this realm of why I am back in the game and why I wanted to take on Kellogg s and why I wanted to take on this issue that, again, I have been fighting for for so long. And I think what I also figured out was that this mission is bigger than just myself.

And when I kind of separated my body and my being and my body Ari from what s happening on the outside to me, that was the moment that I said, the mission is bigger than just myself. So whatever happens to me in terms of being attacked or whatever, it doesn't matter because I can help one more person not suffer the way I suffered as a child and prevent that suffering, this work is worth it. And I started to just focus on willingness. Started to ignore behaviors online, which were actually a paid for group coordinated to attack me. I started to call them out by writing a whole book about naming names.

Dr. Mark Hyman
What was the name of that book, Giovanni, so people can refer back to

Vani Hari
Feeding You Lies.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Feeding You Lies. It was a great book, by the way. I love that book. It was really all about sort of nefarious tactics that the food industry has used for decades to control the narrative around food, whether it's direct food lobbying to Congress, whether it's front groups, whether it's co opting social groups like the NNCP, or whether it's funding universities and academic centers to do research on their behalf and basically writing it for them. I mean, like the Global Energy Balance Network, it was funded, I think, by Coca Cola.

Their website was set up on Coca Cola. They were trying to prove that all calories are the same. It didn't matter if you had Coca Cola calories or broccoli calories. It was actually identical in terms of their effect on the human body. And yes, all calories are the same in the laboratory when you burn them, not when you eat them.

When you eat them, they go through your microbiome, through your hormones, your metabolism, your immune system. And so they have profoundly different effects. And so the narrative the food industry has really been to sort of undermine any attempt to try to challenge this narrative by actually sounding like they're doing good. Like right now with ultra processed food, they're all about it. Like, oh, it's gonna if you stop that, food's not gonna be safe.

It's not gonna be convenient. It's not gonna be affordable. You're discriminating against the poor and underserved. And this is catastrophe. We can't have this.

And they're they're act and I've been actually privy to inside emails from these big trade associations which are shocking and that are happening right now that are really how their tactics are being laid out across all the big food companies to to attack what's going on to make America healthy. You know, who is against making America healthy? I don't think anybody can be against it. You might be against Bobby Kennedy. You might be against, you know, president Trump.

You might be against this or that. But you nobody's like, no, I don't want to make America healthy. Right? Everybody should want to make America healthy because everybody's touched by illness, whether it's themselves or their kids or some friends or their family member, it's ubiquitous. Now 93% of us are metabolic and healthy.

So it's pretty much every American except a few of us, maybe like you and me, try to stay healthy. It's a travesty and the industry is so good at this and they're going to fight back with everything they have. So how do you see with this movement in a new director of the FDA, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As head of HHS, with the new potential, if he's confirmed, Jay Bhattacharya being the new NIH director, and Doctor.

Oz being the new director or head of Medicare. How do you see us as a movement thinking about keeping the ability to do the right thing and not having the big powers that be shut down? Because this is what happened with Michelle Obama. I saw really clearly in the movie Fed Up that I was in. Could see she's coming out all guns blazing, attacking the food industry, going for it.

And then you can see her, you know, in the latter part of the movie where she's on stage with a big, you know, big food company executive representative. And she's like, we're gonna a trillion or a trillion or 6,000,000,000,000 calories out of the food supply, which meant they're going to make Oreos instead of 100 calories, 90 calories, which is just crazy. And she knew it was it was crazy. And you could see how defeated she was. And so that kind of got shut down.

How do we prevent that this time?

Vani Hari
You know, I think this time we definitely have a little bit more power than just the First Lady. I think there is only so much the First Lady could get done without being in a position of heading a department, for example, that oversees all of this, being the director of the FDA. President Obama back then put Michael Taylor as the deputy director of the FDA, someone who was coming from Monsanto. There were a lot of conflicts of interest within those organizations that prevented Michelle Obama from doing what she really wanted to do. And I think that's what makes this time so different, because Bobby gets that the conflicts of interest need to be removed.

And the gutting of these agencies that you're seeing, where they're asking several hundred people to leave, is because they want new blood in there, people that actually get these issues that are going to be intellectually honest about these issues that don't have the sneaky ties to industry, where they're going to end up going to go work for industry after they leave their four years in Washington. What's going to happen is that not only are you going to get those people that get these issues in, but they want to make it more efficient, it so that it doesn't take thirty years to ban Red Three, which is what just happened when they banned it out of cosmetics thirty years ago, but left it in food because the Maraschino cherry industry decided to lobby Congress. And they used the power of industry because the maraschino cherries is what drove alcohol sales. And so the alcohol industry is the one that was the most concerned about this. So they lobbied the FDA to keep it in food.

And so if we can prevent those things from happening to make sure that there's common sense scientific regulations happening in our regulatory bodies, then we have some hope. I think back to this very simple thought. We look at our life expectancy. We see that it is less than every single other developing nation. See that

Dr. Mark Hyman
we're like just we're just I think a little bit below Albania.

Vani Hari
Yeah, mean, but we spend the most on health care. And if we can start looking at the root cause of what's happening, I think that's where things can change. And you've talked a little bit about this just a minute ago, how this is a bipartisan effort. Really, health should not be political. But the way that the big food companies and big chem will win is if they make it political.

And they make it so that half the country is against the other half of the country. And so if you see these spikes start to break out where people are fighting against what Bobby's trying to do and Doctor. Marty Makary at the FDA and they're doing progress, right? Or they're trying to make some headway. Mean, I'm just even thinking about how there's already this kind of narrative like, oh my gosh, all these people got asked to leave in HHS.

It's like, what do you expect? This is a new wave of thinking. They want new fresh blood in. They want new people. And the fact that Jim Jones just, for example, resigned.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And he was the head of the FDA food program.

Vani Hari
That's right. He was head of US Foods. They had Kyle right in there to take his reins. And that wasn't something that happened overnight. That was something that's been in the works for months.

Because again, amazing

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're talking about Kyle DeMontes, who's now the head of the US Bureau of Commerce. Yeah.

Vani Hari
It's funny because I'm watching these narratives take place in the media, and I'm seeing how they want to make this administration look bad. But they don't know what has been happening behind the scenes. And behind the scenes, Bobby Kennedy has been looking at his transition team for so long and trying to work on all of the different people that are going to be in place in these different high level positions. And so the fact that they were able to announce that so quickly right after is not because they went and found Kyle and interviewed him and figured it all out. They've known him for a while.

And they've been grooming him into this position. And so it's something that, again, is I'm watching the political theater happen, but then I also have insight of what's happening behind the scenes. And so is such an interesting thing for me because, again, politically, I have been jaded because, again, I had a lot of hope for President Obama and Michelle Obama in these issues. When he said he would label GMOs, I thought he was going to do it. But he didn't mention it one time in the first four years.

And so I, again, ran again for delegates so that I can hold him accountable for that. And so I think there's this

Dr. Mark Hyman
And by the way, Voni, I'm sure you know this, but for people listening, there was a bill in Congress to label GMOs, and there was $192,000,000 spent in lobbying by an array of food companies to stop it. That's the power that they have. Dollars 192,000,000 for one little bill about food labeling GMOs. That's the kind of force we're up against.

Vani Hari
Absolutely. And when I saw that would go down, I just was like, Okay, I am not going to put my political capital behind a leader again. I am going to work on these issues and I am going to be an activist and I am going to stay out of the political game. But I kind of got thrust back in it now because we have for the first time in history, somebody who wants to fix these issues and has made it part of their campaign and has been very clear about it. It's given me more hope than I've ever had in my life.

And it has made me now get back into politics. Again, it can be so dirty when you're watching the media try to pit everybody against each other. But this is the message I want to give out to your listeners. I want you to think through the politics. I want you to think through the politics and I want you to think about what we are saying here.

Americans should not be consuming these chemicals, especially when these companies have already removed them in other countries. We should not be giving Coca Cola and Pepsi subsidies from the government for the SNAP program, for example. Like they should not be getting a handout from the government, from our taxpayer money, a sugary junk drink that provides no nutritional value to these lower income families. This is something that's got to stop. We've got to get out the conflicts of interest that allow the food companies to control our government agencies.

When you look at those three things on its face value, there's nobody that can argue against that. Right? I mean, this is something that they try to argue actually

Dr. Mark Hyman
are. They are because they say, well, you know, I actually talked to Secretary Vilsack, who was a secretary of agriculture under Obama in his first term when he was not when he came under Biden, I said, listen, why are you funding soda and junk food with SNAP dollars? It it's causing tremendous amounts of illness. There's an enormous amount of data on this. It's not like we have to to do more research on the harm it's causing.

He said, well, people are gonna bite anyway or it's kind of regressive. It's discriminatory. It's blah blah blah. And all the hunger groups, which are like Feed America Now, they're all funded by the big food companies. And on the boards, they all sit there on the boards.

And so they fight incredibly aggressively against any change to SNAP. And I I was surprised to hear secretary Rollins as the new agri secretary talk about how she wanted to look at soda and and junk food dollars that were spent with SNAP, which is probably 75% of this SNAP dollars are spent on that. And the biggest things that are purchased are basically soda. That's about 10% or about $12,000,000,000, which is probably, like, 40 or 50,000,000 servings of soda to the poor a year. The other things are baked goods and cookies and confectionaries and candy that we allowed to be purchased with taxpayer dollars that then cause illness, and then we pay for again with Medicare and Medicaid.

Now the Medicare trust funds bankrupt. I mean, there's no money left. We're we're, like, running on fumes, and it's it's a crisis, an economic crisis. It's a health crisis, and it's solvable if we really start to look at how we create a different framework for how to think about food in America, change the dietary guidelines, change food labeling, change the grass loophole, get the chemicals out of food, help people understand and be informed about what processing is, what it does, how harmful it is. So they can make a choice.

If you wanna buy a pack of cigarettes in in Europe, the entire front of the package says, this will kill you. Don't buy it. You know? Basically, that's what the label say. I mean, I don't know says you'll buy, but it says, basically, this is gonna kill you, and it's it's in giant letters, selling a little label, and it it's the whole front of the package.

That's kind of the stuff we need here, and and that will force the food companies to start to reformulate, to change what they're doing, to innovate, and create new opportunities. So we need to sort of do it in conjunction with the food industry so they actually are forced to actually change and do the right thing as as you've made them do many times. I think this is an exciting moment. We've never had this moment before. And I it's it's like I say, it's it's full of opportunity and fraught with danger.

And I think we're in we're in an inflection point. And I think Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired. I think Americans are understanding we have this chronic disease epidemic and that something needs to change. And I think now we we and we have people in positions of power in the US government that that are understanding these issues, and they wanna do something. But it remains to be seen how how they will be able to stand up to the the power of corporate influence because they they do control the narrative in so many ways across so many sectors of society in a very deliberate, methodical way.

They basically undermine American health. And I don't know if you know about this, Vaani, but the WHO has been developing a report that will come out later this year on the commercial determinants of health. And it's like the social determinants, but the commercial determinants of health is essentially how multinational and transnational corporations subvert public health and privatize profits and leave the governments to pay the bill or the populations to suffer and sort of socialize the costs while they're privatizing the profits. That's what's happening. Like any industry that has done this in the past, I mean, you know, up in Sinclair when there was a meat industry in the early 1900s, a book about the meat packing industry and how horrible the conditions were and how many people were dying, getting hurt and killed.

And it completely changed everything. So things change. But it requires concerted effort and requires consumers and people listening to do to not choose those things. And I wondered from your perspective, like, what do you tell the average person who's listening to this going like, what do I do? How do I help?

What what can I do for my family, for myself? For what can I do on the political front to actually help move this forward?

Vani Hari
Yeah, mean, I think getting involved, becoming an activist, and I think this was what has been so beautiful about the Food Bay Army, who I call the community that not only care about their own health, but they are willing to call these companies and ask for change. They are willing to meet me at the headquarters of these companies now and in New Hampshire, Washington, right, too. I just, you know, has been so incredible. And I think there is going back to what you said earlier, there is so much state legislation happening at the state level so everybody can get involved. I think there is over 23 states that have enacted some type of alleged or have introduced some type of legislation either to remove dyes or ban dyes or create warning labels.

There has been snap legislation to remove Coca Cola and Pepsi Co dollars from snap and other junk food. There has been other legislation being discussed as well around ultra processed foods and European regulations. So there is stuff happening at the state level, which is so exciting because you can get involved and all you have to do is call your House and Senate members locally, tell them how important these issues are. When you see some legislation being introduced and there is testimony, you can offer to testify even and give your thoughts about these issues. And I know that takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage, but it is really easy.

And a lot of times you can just read right off of your paper. It is not that hard, right? Like you can go there and just make your voice heard. And I think that's what's so important is that we all need to make our voices heard, whether it's at the state level or the federal level and or at the company level, like calling these companies and asking them to change goes a long way and in contacting their customer support, telling them that, you you've had enough credit petitions, doing all of that work, you know, is something that you can do as well. But again, locally in your school, you know what?

Kellogg's has figured out how to make these cereals better for so many other countries. We deserve the same at this school. I'm going to ask my school administrator to not buy Kellogg's anymore. What can we do at the local level? I think now is the opportunity to get involved more than ever because again of this just widespread awareness.

And this is what happens when we have leadership at the highest levels talking about these issues. It gives people the courage to come forward in their own local communities to do this work as well and realize that, you know, this is not, you know, pseudo scientific or fearmongering. This is real information and this is real root cause analysis of why we are so sick and we can start to get chemicals out of our food and make it so that we have our government dollars going towards regenerative farming and organic agriculture and making sure that we have a system that is not going to keep us sick, that we are going to get from a system of sick care to health care, like actual health care, which is where we have not been. And when I look at the last 25 HHSs in our history of American government, they have utterly failed the American public. If you combine that with the trajectory that we are on in terms of the rates of chronic disease, the fact that there are thirty eight percent of preteens having prediabetes, the fact that forty percent of kids have said that they have some kind of mental health issue.

This is something that has got to change. We have a stake in the ground now. We have, again, leadership at the highest levels giving us the open door to attack these issues. And the media, thankfully, is allowing us to talk about these issues in a way that has never been happened before.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Some of the media.

Vani Hari
Some of media. Some

Dr. Mark Hyman
of the media.

Vani Hari
Still, I have not gotten a call. I just have to say I've not gotten a call from anybody at NBC. NBC has not covered the Kellogg's campaign, has not asked me to talk about any of the work that I've been doing, has not talked about the Senate hearing that we had that day with so many different leaders from across the nation. It was, again, four hours of nonpolitical, nonpartisan discussion about how to save humanity. So yes, there are networks that are still not engaging in this conversation, and that is a shame on them.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, mean, listen, if you look at their advertisements, it's a pharma and basically processed, ultra food, processed food companies and junk food companies that are marketing their goods. That's probably 80 or 90% of the ads on television. So when you look at their bottom line and I actually spoke to someone who was at one of these major TV stations and networks, and they said, look, we get it. We we we agree with you, but we're told we can't, you know, from down on high. And I literally someone won't say who, but she was putting together a show on a network that you were in.

And they basically of labeled Bobby as this whole anti vaxxer. And they also said that the science is settled. Basically, the sciences have been debunked that there's a link between vaccines and autism. Now whether there is or not, I'm not arguing one way or the other. I'm saying that sentence is anti science.

To say something is settled is absolutely ridiculous. Because when you look at, for example, medicine over the history, we used to think that aspirin was great for everybody to take to prevent heart attacks until we realized that, oops, it's causing brain bleeds and intestinal bleeding and is killing tens of thousands of people a year who are taking aspirin for preventing death from heart attack. And people who who don't really need it should not be taking it. We used to think that ulcers were caused by stress, but then we now know they're caused by bacteria and antibiotics to fix it. So science has never settled.

That's the whole purpose of science is this ongoing questioning, challenging ideas, hypotheses. You know? And so I think we have to look at this stuff in a in a way that has integrity. And it's just astounding to me when the media says this science is settled or that science is settled or it's proven that and that's definitive that, you know, it's okay to have ultra processed food or whatever. And and even the, dietary guidelines committee didn't determine that ultra processed food was a contributor to obesity.

And I I understand why they were looked limited, the studies they could look at. They they didn't, you know, kinda use epidemiological studies to to kind of make the conclusions that they might have otherwise made if they had randomized controlled trials. But it it was just it's so obvious that they're they're kind of acting in ways that are misrepresenting what's really true. And I think we're finally in a moment where we can actually speak the truth and tell the truth and have people start to listen and actually do the right thing. So I think it's quite a mind boggling moment.

Still pinch myself every day and say this is real. And I think when the commission that was established, which includes Secretary Kennedy, the domestic policy advisor for Trump, and Haley as the chair as of executive director that has every secretary of almost every agency involved in this commission to really look at the root causes of childhood illness. We're going to uncover in that report the way that ultra processed food affects us, the food chemicals, the carbohydrate and sugar and starch content. We're going to identify the things that are in the food that are not even on the label that are pesticides and herbicides and glyphosate and other things that are contaminating food and affecting kids. We're going find out what are the effects of certain adjuvants or chemicals in vaccines?

For example, the flu vaccine has mercury in it. You know, we can argue all day whether it's the different kind of mercury than methylmercury, whether it's as bad or not as bad, safe or not safe. But the truth is mercury is a known neurotoxin whenever form is in. Why inject that into little babies? Why inject that into pregnant women?

Why inject that into? I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. And actually, RFKN Jr. And I went to the HHS in, I think, 2014, and we basically asked them, why don't they remove these heavy metals from the vaccines? And none them can come up with a good reason.

And and they they then they came up with a kind of a lame thing saying, well, maybe it's an adjuvant. I said, well, that's just not what it's approved for. It's approved as a preservative, and you have to have it approved as an adjuvant, which is a stimulator of the immune system. And none of them could say that they would be willing to inject this into their own kids or their own grandkids. You know, everybody would kinda got it, but nothing changed.

So, I think right now still, if the people listening, you wanna get a flu vaccine, get the multi dose vial, not that one. Don't get that one because that one's full of mercury. Get the single dose vial, which is sometimes harder to get, but that doesn't have the preservative because you're just using one dose. So there's ways around it, but we really had to kind of motivate people to sort of take advantage of the knowledge we have out there to learn more about these things. And now, you know, with ChatGPT, and you could kinda look up any chemical immediately and learn all about it, and it's it's pretty impressive.

So I think, you know, in terms of the kinda just conclusion, what what are the most heinous chemicals that are in our food that we should be 100% avoiding that you found in your research?

Vani Hari
One of the first ones that I removed from my diet was just industrial oils. So coming from genetically engineered crops like corn, soy, canola and cottonseed. First of all, those crops are, you know, the seeds are designed to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, which is the main chemical Roundup glyphosate is linked to cancer and is something that we should be avoiding. So that alone in itself is a reason. But then the way that these oils are then processed, they are extracted using chemical solvents like hexane, which the FDA does not monitor the amount of hexane residue that remains in the product, then they are bleached.

They are deodorized because they smell awful but they have been extracted. And so they have to cover up the smell. And then they add other chemicals that may not end up on the label to these products. So it ends up the way that they are processed ends up being almost a rancid type product. And then this specific type of oil is sixty percent of Americans' diets.

And when we look at the rising rates of chronic disease, this could be a contributing factor. And the fact that the omega-three to omega-six fatty acid ratio that remains in the oil is off. And one of the reasons why so many Americans are deficient in omega-three, I feel like I am preaching to the choir here. Is so.

Dr. Mark Hyman
People don't know this.

Vani Hari
Yeah, I know. But it is something that I feel like we have just been on this journey for so long. But it is very simple. Replace those oils with olive oil, ghee, coconut oil and avocado oil. If you just do that at home, cook with those oils.

And I have two cookbooks where I explain how those things work and how to use those different oils. And Mark has amazing cookbooks as well that talks about that as well. And so I would say one of the first things you do is that, okay? And that itself will eliminate so many different products off the shelf as it is. And you will avoid your biggest exposure to GMOs.

Will avoid your biggest exposure to these other toxic chemicals that remain in these products that could be affecting your body. But then I would look at kind of there is a group of chemicals that you find in ultra processed foods and those are the artificial food diets that we have already discussed, removing those from your diet. I remember when I removed those from my diet, my skin immediately cleared up. The eczema that went away and people have noticed that as well. And so then you have got different chemicals like MSG, which MSG you will find.

It is one of the first ingredients in a chicken sandwich. You'll find it and Doritos, you'll find it in several different

Dr. Mark Hyman
comes in 50. It has 50 different names. Yes. They don't even say MSG. They might say, know, hydrolyzed, you know, yeast extract or something like that.

Just don't actually even say what

Vani Hari
it is. Yeah, I detailed those out in my first book, food bank way, but it's also free on my website, food babe. If you want to go look and see what those chemicals are that create that free glutamic acid component. And when they combine that with salt, it kind of creates that irresistible flavor that hijacks your taste buds and hijacks your brain so that you remember that flavor. It's the same reason why my mouth waters when I mentioned two flavors, I haven't had it in fifteen years.

It's this component. It's the reason why PepsiCo has a robot to mimic human taste buds. How can we, as humans, stand chance against that kind of technology that is created with the combination of chemicals they're putting in our food to make that irresistible flavor? Yes, they're trying to make their product tasty. I get that.

Like that's a free market idea. But the idea that these have now become so addictive that it's causing obesity, we have to do something different. To me, I opt out of those chemicals and say, you know what? I don't want my taste buds to be hijacked. I want to be able to stop when I want to stop eating something.

That's the one thing nature provides and why I preach eating whole fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, meats, dairy, like one ingredient foods is what everybody should be going towards.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, it's true. I mean, nobody can eat 20 avocados or 25 ounces of a steak. I mean, nobody can really do that. But you could easily go through an entire sheet cake or, you know, a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies or a whole I remember when I was a kid, I would eat a whole, like, one of those package rolls of Oreo cookies, just boom, one at a time. And and your body doesn't have any way of regulating that you feel full, it changes your your satiety signals.

It changes your microbiome. It changes hormonal secretions that regulate, you know, both feeling full or feeling hungry. And so we're we're kind of, at the mercy of all these food companies that have designed the food to be addicted. Now some of it was not intentional, some of it was, but they're now wanna hold their ground. And I think it's gonna be this interesting moment coming up, and I I think we should kinda sort of come back in a year and do another podcast and talk about what happened because I I think it's gonna be an interesting moment where sort of David and Goliath are gonna be at war, and Goliath is the food industry.

It's a $1,400,000,000,000 industry, and they're not gonna go down lightly. And if you sort of add ag in there and if you add the chem and seed companies, you're talking about a 15 to $16,000,000,000,000 industry that's threatened. Because if you say don't eat seed oils, if you say don't eat high fructose corn syrup, you know, if you you're you're attacking, you know, the Iowa farmer, you're attacking the soybean growth, this corn commodities, and and and the whole way the agriculture system is set up. So there's got to be a way for us to tell a narrative that that actually takes care of the farmers, it takes care of the the people who are gonna be affected by this, but also holds companies accountable to what they're doing and and and actually puts people first, not corporations first. I think that's what the government has unfortunately become.

Not its government for the people, by the people, of the people, but government for the corporations, by the corporations, of the corporations. And I hate to say it, but if you start to dig under the of the dark side of what's happening, and it's not this is not a conspiracy theory. This is just pure investigative journalism. You do it. I did it in my book Food Fix.

I'm releasing re releasing that because all this new stuff has come out. I think I think we we have to be educated and and we have to be, active in stopping this. And the more consumers change, the more people will change their behavior, the more these companies will respond to that, and and the more the regulations or legislation that impacts it will change. I'm so excited to go to the state house and go to the Senate Health and Human Services hearing at the Texas Capitol in Austin where I live because I'm like, wow, this is just mind boggling. I was reading the bills and I was reading summary of them and I was like, well, did I write this?

Or who wrote this? Like, because, like, this is what I've been reading. They steal them from my book. It's just it's just like an incredible thing. And I'm like, wow.

I mean, it's it's must feel good to you too. Right?

Vani Hari
Oh, it it feels so good. And I think you just make such a great point that like, there is a way to talk about this in a way that will inspire more people to eat real food and whole food. And I think, you you don't really need to demonize any specific chemical in order to get the message across that people should be eating more whole real food, one ingredient foods. And that is one way I think the government can really be a leader in this and making sure that people understand the dangers of ultra processed food, but also do it in a way that inspires people that they need to be going towards one more one ingredient, whole foods. And that could really change their diet.

I mean, their life. I mean, that's how I changed my life. I really don't think that people can do what they are meant to do in this world until they achieve true health and their brain becomes clear. And I think that's when you find out why you were put on this earth and you go find your calling and you go do it. And I think that that happens when you really figure out how to put the right things in your body.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, you really you really found your calling, Bonnie, and your work has just been so instrumental in catalyzing awareness around these issues. You know, it just, again, reminds me of that quote from Margaret Mead, Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. And you're one of those committed people. Bonnie, where can people find you?

Where can people learn more about your work? Kind of tell us about your books, your website, your social media channels.

Vani Hari
Yeah, so I have four books. You can find all of that information on foodbabe.com. You can check out our products at truevani.com. We have the number one plant based protein powder in The United States right now in food stores. And we created a bar all with real whole foods that you can check out delicious.

They are more like dessert in my opinion. And they are, they're my dessert and

Dr. Mark Hyman
they're good. They're actually good. I've had them. You send them to me. Yeah,

Vani Hari
you can follow me on all social media at the food.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Babe amazing. And, you know, I am so proud of what you've done and so excited to keep working with you and catch you up, catch up with you about this in the next year to see where we end up a year from now. So let's keep going and get to work.

Vani Hari
Definitely. Thank you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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We'll see you next time on The Doctor Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health, where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests.

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