Photograph by Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg
In a Web video that went viral in September 2013, the activist known as the Food Babe tells viewers how hungry practicing yoga makes her. Then she bites off a corner of her mat. 'Umm,' she says. 'Wake up, people. Take a look at the ingredients in Subway's nine-grain bread. Did you know that one of them is the same ingredient found in yoga mats?' She notes that people in Singapore caught using the offending compound, azodicarbonamide, face fines and jail time. 'Yes, this is a very hazardous substance that is linked to lung issues in workers who are exposed to it.' Subway ditched the widely used ingredient early this year.
Food Babe, the nom de blog for Vani Hari, a 35-year-old banking consultant turned food activist, has built an online audience by calling out companies from to Chick-fil-A for using ingredients she deems harmful. She belongs to an emerging tribe of Web activists who use attention-grabbing-some say outlandish-methods to pressure companies to change their ways. Says Hari: 'It takes courage to go against the grain.'
removed artificial dyes from some of its macaroni & cheese after Hari, who majored in computer science in college, dumped petitions with 270,000 signatures calling for the change at the company's Chicago headquarters. Fast-food chain Chick-fil-A said it would remove antibiotics from its chicken after Hari publicized that it used more than 100 ingredients-including antibiotics-in its flagship sandwich. Kraft and Subway spokespeople say changes she requested were already under consideration. Chick-fil-A said after discussing antibiotics with Hari in 2012, subsequent research convinced it that many diners shared her concerns.
Steven Novella, a Yale School of Medicine neurologist, says Hari distorts the facts. Take the chemical azodicarbonamide, used to bleach and fluff bread and create the bubbles that make yoga mats pliable and foamy. The research she cites focused on the gas form of the chemical and workers who breathe it, not its use in food. Novella says Subway uses too little of the compound to be dangerous. Hari says she's helping consumers understand what's in their food.
Her claims about ominous-sounding yet little-used additives-including castoreum, derived from sacs near a beaver's anus and used to enhance strawberry flavors in yogurt-can go viral. Because she sells ads on her site, critics say it's in Hari's interest to generate controversy to draw eyeballs. Foodbabe.com had 795,000 unique visitors in July, estimates; it hit a peak of 1.3 million in March, when she targeted Subway. Hari has appeared on Good Morning America and The Dr. Oz Show. The exposure drives readers to pay $17.99 a month to download her Eating Guide, the organic living manual Hari says is her primary source of revenue.
Some critics say she uses her TV-friendly looks to get undue attention. 'She gets on all these talk shows partly because she is easier to look at,' says Joe Schwarcz, who runs the Office for Science & Society, a department at McGill University in Montreal dedicated to identifying pseudoscience. 'Her scientific background is nonexistent.'
Hari says she wonders if the industry is engaging in a whisper campaign against her. In August she vented to her Facebook fans: 'They are attacking the messengers who are spreading the truth. They are hoping I, along with other activists, including you, just give up.' With a book, The Food Babe Way, coming out in February and a TV show under development, that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Entities 0 Name: Hari Count: 10 1 Name: Joe Schwarcz Count: 1 2 Name: Kraft Count: 1 3 Name: Jonathan Alcorn\/Bloomberg Count: 1 4 Name: Chick-fil-A Count: 1 5 Name: Chicago Count: 1 6 Name: Singapore Count: 1 7 Name: Vani Hari Count: 1 8 Name: Yale School of Medicine Count: 1 9 Name: Steven Novella Count: 1 10 Name: Office for Science & Society Count: 1 11 Name: McGill University Count: 1 12 Name: Montreal Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/Yf79j0 Title: Supermarkets Waste Tons Of Food As They Woo Shoppers Description: Supermarkets and restaurants serve up more than 400 million pounds of food each year, but nearly a third of it never makes it to a stomach. With consumers demanding large displays of unblemished, fresh produce, many retailers end up tossing a mountain of perfectly edible food.
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