22: What Is Really In Your Food?

In this episode of the Wellness Mama Podcast, Vani Hari, the Food Babe, and I talk about what is really in your food that you might have no idea you are consuming. Vani and her website FoodBabe.com have become incredibly popular for her work in exposing the dirty secrets of the food industry, especially chemicals that are added to foods in the United States but banned in other countries. She has successfully launched petitions against many food giants and has gotten them to remove artificial dyes, colors, chemicals and even antibiotics from their foods. Vani shares her own story and health journey from being an over-stressed and over-worked corporate employee with a poor diet to being a crusader for real food. Her transformation began with an appendicitis attack and a resulting investigation into the foods she had been eating that led to her poor health. Vani’s research revealed many problems in our current food supply and she set out to expose these problems and educate the world so that consumers could make informed choices. Listen to the whole interview and find out what foods you may be eating that contain ingredients you would never knowingly consume! This interview is a replay from the Wellness Family Summit, a seven day event that brought together experts in health and wellness who shared the common goal of working to create a healthier future for our children. Read Transcript Katie: Hi. Welcome back to the Wellness Family Summit. I could not be more excited about today’s guest. She is a personal friend and an incredibly inspiring human being. Vani Hari writes at the wildly popular blog, Foodbabe.com. She has been on every major news outlet and has successfully petitioned major companies to change the ingredients in their products, with the help of her massive Food Babe army. What’s even more amazing is that this all started as a personal journey for her, and then now she’s this amazing activist to help so many other people. So Vani, thank you so much for being here, and welcome. Vani: Hey, Katie. It’s great to be here. Thank you so much for having me as part of this summit. It’s amazing. Katie: Awesome. So most people know that you are widely known as the Food Babe, and you’re doing some amazing things in spreading awareness of food ingredients. But can we start at the beginning? Have you always been interested in health and real foods? Or was there a pivotal moment in your life that started this journey for you? Vani: Well, I was actually more interested in candy and fast food for the majority of my life, to tell you the truth. This healthy lifestyle has been minority in my lifetime, if you can believe it or not. I grew up as a typical American child, but I had two immigrant parents that didn’t know how to cook American food. So they relied heavily on processed packaged foods, fast foods, and really wanted me and my brother to really fit in with everyone else around us in Charlotte, North Carolina where I grew up and where I live now. So they basically allowed us to eat whatever we wanted. As a result, I had so many issues as a child. I had eczema, asthma, allergies, always had stomach aches, never felt well, never felt like I had a lot of energy, didn’t ever really feel like I could really concentrate in school, and didn’t really understand that food was actually affecting my body negatively until I started to change my diet after a health scare in my early 20s, where I was working for a big s