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food babe vani hari

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Vanie Deva Hari (a.k.a. The Food Babe) (born 1979) is blogger, former banking executive and food and Democratic party political activist who publishes the food blog “Food Babe” from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina.

...Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, testifies during his Senate Environment and Public Works confirmation hearing on Jan. 16, 2025. photo by Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call via AP Images

Recent EPA decisions around pesticides “will inevitably lead to higher rates of chronic disease, greater medical costs, and tremendous strain on our healthcare system,” the group stated in a petition circulating online.

Several prominent MAHA influencers have joined the petition, posting anti-pesticide messages on social media under handles such as The Glyphosate Girl and the Food Babe. “The EPA is acting like the Everyone Poisoned Agency,” wrote Kelly Ryerson, on her Glyphosate Girl Instagram feed.

As the EPA advances pesticide use, the Trump administration has also asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that federal labeling laws invalidate state-level lawsuits.

“After careful scientific review and an assessment of hundreds of thousands of public comments, EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings,” Trump’s solicitor general wrote in an amicus brief with the Supreme Court.

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infowars

http://www.infowars.com/food-babe-the-shocking-email-from-monsanto-why-i-am-submitting-a-foia-request/

I’ve always said that food and chemical corporations work with public university scientists “behind closed doors” to manipulate the public—and now our movement has irrefutable PROOF. But first, let me start at the beginning…

When our movement got big companies to change, Dr. Kevin Folta, from University of Florida appeared on the scene. Every time we made headway on an important issue, Kevin Folta, who claimed to be an unbiased scientist, was there to refute our claims and throw some ad hominem attacks. Here are a few examples (many more are documented at the end of this post):

“The fact that she is able to mobilize this army of blind followers who reject science and follow her words, to smear and harm the reputations of companies that are doing nothing wrong.” – The Atlantic, 2/11/2015

Kevin M. Folta, the chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, described Ms. Hari’s lecture at the university last October as a “corrupt message of bogus science and abject food terrorism.” – quoted in New York Times, 3/15/2015

“There’s something that dies inside when you are a faculty member that works hard to teach about food, farming and science, and your own university brings in a crackpot to unravel all of the information you have brought to students.” — Folta’s Blog, Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

My intuition and common sense knew that this guy HAD to be connected to these corporations in some way, but he kept denying any connection. And I believed he was causing irreparable harm to our healthy food movement because the media believed that he was an unbiased scientist.

Well, NOT ANYMORE.

This week an unprecedented major investigative report was published in the NY Times about how the chemical and food industries work with public university scientists to advance their agendas to the public. Hundreds of emails have now been revealed between University of Florida Professor Dr. Kevin Folta, Monsanto, the biotech front groups, and their PR firm Ketchum after a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request was submitted by the nonprofit group U.S. Right To Know.

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Why would Monsanto work with a public scientist in the first place?

Some powerful entities in the chemical and food industries have a financial incentive to try to discredit us in the work we have all done together and now we know how they are using public scientists like Dr. Kevin Folta as sock puppets to advance their message. We’ve come a long way in our food movement and things are finally starting to change –  people are getting healthier and the food industry is responding to us, but why is someone like Dr. Kevin Folta on a mission to stop our progress?

Newly discovered emails reveal that Folta received a $25,000 unrestricted grant from Monsanto, and even wrote to a Monsanto executive, “I’m glad to sign on to whatever you like, or write whatever you like,” and “I promise a solid return on investment.”

However, Folta previously denied ties to Monsanto, here are 9 different examples:

-“I have nothing to do with Monsanto. I’m not, you know, I don’t work for them… I am not a shill (laughing)… I’m a public scientist.”

Not only was Folta repeatedly dishonest about his ties to Monsanto, but on “several occasions” according to the NY Times, Folta took word for word answers and commentary from Monsanto’s PR firm Ketchum to use as his own words. Previously he claimed he never used the text written for him by the PR firm Ketchum.

[ad]Monsanto sells Roundup, the chemical that is sprayed on the majority of GMO seeds. The main ingredient in Roundup was recently classified as a probable carcinogen. They are in panic mode trying to repair their image and will do anything to confuse the public.

Folta attempted to derail my speaking event at the University of Florida. He has also been interviewed by major media outlets such as The Atlantic, NPR, and the NY Times acting as an unbiased third party source, telling reporters he has no financial ties to Monsanto or the biotech industry all while acting as the ringleader and chief of my critics.

Monsanto thanks Folta for attending my talk at The University of Florida

One of the emails discovered by USRTK.org showed Lisa Drake, an executive at Monsanto cheering Dr. Folta on after he attended my talk at his University last fall. Dr. Folta wrote a blog post attempting to discredit my talk including a false accusation that I refused to answer questions from the audience. (FYI – Here’s the photographic evidence of the long line of teachers and students that I answered questions from.) I still find it bizarre that if he wanted to ask me a question so bad that he didn’t stay to meet me face to face. Instead he spread dishonest information about my talk all over social media, in forums and on his blog, acting more like an online troll than a distinguished science professor.

Seeing this email sent shivers down my spine and left me with a lot of questions. First and foremost, my talk was not about the dangers of GMO foods, it was about the story of quitting my corporate career to become a food activist sharing examples of major food companies changing their policies. Who wrote that paragraph summarizing my talk that Lisa Drake referenced? Why was a Monsanto executive sending this message to Folta? Did they ask him to attend my talk? Are they paying him to attack activists like myself? At the time I had no idea why this professor was so aggressive towards me but now it’s starting to make sense.

I’ve tried to explain to various reporters in the past that many of our critics are part of the larger entrenched food and chemical lobby that doesn’t agree with having more transparency (labeling GMOs) or doesn’t want to remove the controversial chemical additives from our food. The reporters have always said but what about the “public university scientists” that have no ties?

This investigation finally begins to explain that.

Why I am also submitting a FOIA request

In light of this email and the incredible amount of reputational damage Dr. Folta has waged on me personally and our healthy food movement (see a sampling of his public comments below), I am submitting a formal request to the University of Florida to have all documents and correspondence released to the public from Dr. Kevin Folta regarding my name Vani Hari and Food Babe.

I believe obtaining these correspondences will serve the public in greater transparency on how the food industry uses “independent” third-party scientists and professors to control science and deliver their PR and lobbying messaging.

I’ve often wondered why companies like Monsanto go through such great lengths to stop transparency about GMOs… If their food is safe, why don’t they want to label GMOs? Why would they pay public university scientists to advance their message?

Xo,

Vani

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Quotes from Kevin Folta:

Folta calls me a crackpot, accuses me of food terrorism, blackmail, villifying farmers and compares me to a dog.

“Vani is very good at marketing herself and telling people what they want to hear. She is very good at playing into the current popularity of vilifying farmers and large-scale agriculture. But really, she’s her own company, and she’s the spokesperson.” – The Atlantic, 2/11/2015

Kevin M. Folta, the chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, described Ms. Hari’s lecture at the university last October as a “corrupt message of bogus science and abjectfood terrorism.” (Her fee was $6,000.) Dr. Folta added, “She found that a popular social media site was more powerful than science itself, more powerful than reason, more powerful than actually knowing what you’re talking about.”. – quoted in New York Times, 3/15/2015

“She really conflates the science. If anything, she’s created more confusion about food, more confusion about the role of chemicals and additives.” – NPR, 12/4/2014

“To have someone like Hari go out and make up nonsense that only digs into public opinion against these technologies is really frustrating for us.” – The Atlantic, 2/11/2015

“That’s not healthy activism or change based on science. That’s coercion, fear mongering and (yes) terrorism to achieve short-sighted political non-victories in the name of profit and self-promotion, ironically the same thing she accuses the companies of.” — Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“Luckily, Starbucks didn’t fold… Otherwise, Hari would have blackmailedthem too.” – Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“Vani Hari would be spreading her corrupt message of bogus science and abject food terrorism here at the University of Florida. Oh joy”. – Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“Responding to the Food Babe is like telling a funny joke to my dog at a party. Everyone there gets it– except for the dog. She just tilts her head to one side and looks at me like I’m stupid.” – Response to the Food Babe. This is Boring, 3/19/2015

“There’s something that dies inside when you are a faculty member that works hard to teach about food, farming and science, and your own university brings in a crackpot to unravel all of the information you have brought to students.” — Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“If this is a charismatic leader of a new food movement it is quite a disaster. She’s uninformed, uneducated, trite and illogical. She’s afraid of science and intellectual engagement. She’s Oz candy at best.”- Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“What if Hari were to take a long look in the mirror and decide that while scaring people into boycotts and book buying pays the bills, the legacy associated with it is embarrassing. Time will frown on Hari, and it already is happening.  While adored by internet fans, scientists, physicians, the food industry, farmers and science fans see her clearly as the empty information vessel she truly is.” – The Value of Vani, 12/12/2014

“Her discussion was a narcissistic, self-appointed attack on food science and human nutrition. There is a vein in my head that pulses when I hear someone deliberately misrepresent science for personal celebrity, and it was pounding.” – Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“I was really proud to see that the student audience was not buying it. Throughout her presentation that was about Hari in the spotlight and “me-me-me”, students got up and left. She left gaping pregnant pauses where previous performances got applause– only to hear nothing. Not even crickets.” – Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“While microphones stood ready in the audience to answer questions, there was no public Q&A period where a scientist that knows the research could publicly challenge her false assertions.”- Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“I guess I’m just angry because I didn’t get to lock science horns with The Food Babe. I would have liked to have asked a few questions that she could never answer.” – Food Babe Visits My University, 10/21/2014

“I listened to her talk about herself and provide lots of false information to my students, and waited for the opportunity to ask dismantling questions from one of the two microphones in the room”. – A Letter To Support My Claims Against the Food Babe, 11/16/2014

“She did not take questions from the audience. The event ended and the audience left”.- A Letter To Support My Claims Against the Food Babe, 11/16/2014

“She was paid $6000 for over an hour’s time to promote her brand and spread her filth.  Now scientists and educators have to fix it.” – A Letter To Support My Claims Against the Food Babe, 11/16/2014

“As we attempt to illuminate products, technology and method to feed a growing population, Hari’s shameful resistance to reality needs to be met. We’ve done that, and I’m proud of the push back…” – The Value of Vani, 12/12/2014

“Recently I’ve given a number of talks and interviews where I’ve been described as the “guy that stood up to the Food Babe”. While standing up for science is important, I’d rather be described as the guy that changed her mind because I took the time to teach the facts.” – The Value of Vani, 12/12/2014

“I cannot think of someone so clueless that thinks she’s so clue-full. The bravado to manufacture completely wacky statements is beyond arrogance, and to criticize students who approach her from a scholarly evidence-based point shows she’s fully subscribed to her own deception.” – Vani Hari’s Kooky Response to Critical Students, 1/26/2015

Folta discredits Food Babe campaigns to remove controversial chemicals from the food supply:

“Bread is a foam. Even culinary experts will tell you. It was a perfectly safe food additive for years, until she came along and decided that Subway bread was essentially a yoga mat.” – The Atlantic, 2/11/2015

“The fact that she is able to mobilize this army of blind followers who reject science and follow her words, to smear and harm the reputations of companies that are doing nothing wrong.” – The Atlantic, 2/11/2015

“Safety always has to be the number one concern. And an understanding of safety is contingent on an understanding of the chemical in question. But she lacks the scientific prowess to be able to tell when something is truly a threat, and when something poses no threat.” – The Atlantic, 2/11/2015

Additional Evidence: Folta denies any ties to Monsanto on his blog:

“In another thread she encourages those curious to call the university, because “a certain professor who promotes Monsanto… has spread a lot of nonsense”. Again, she speaks from no evidence, leveling false allegations against a public scientist that only wants her to back her claims with science.  How do I ‘support Monsanto’?”- A Letter To Support My Claims Against the Food Babe, 11/16/2014

“She also took the liberty of making a false association between a public scientist and university professor to a company that does not exist, purely to discredit him. Here are two clear falsehoods that Hari stands by.  Why anyone would take any advice from her, ever, is beyond me.”- A Letter To Support My Claims Against the Food Babe, 11/16/2014

“Of course, she ties me in with Monsanto. Blatantly false. But since when does she need evidence before making a claim?” – Vani Hari (Food Babe) and Silencing Critics, 12/7/2014

Folta’s personal email to Food Babe (3/19/2015):

“I work as an independent, public scientist. Companies have no control of my research, my results or my opinions.”

“You’ll also see from my publications that almost all of my funding comes from public sources, like USDA, NSF and NIH. I’m not a “Monsanto scientist” as you’ve suggested. My only “industry funding” is for strawberries– a strawberry industry of family farmers that grow a nutritious fruit. Yes, I answer questions on GMO Answers. I am not paid, I’m grateful for the forum, and if you gave me a page on Food Babe.com to answer questions the answers would be exactly the same.”

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SEE MAHA ZEN HONEYCUT

We Uncovered A Conspiracy To Poison Your Food - YouTube

We Uncovered A Conspiracy To Poison Your Food

Fundraiser

More Perfect Union

3.31M subscribers

527,745 views Mar 20, 2026

Four former chemical lobbyists control America’s pesticide regulations, letting pesticide companies pump the country full of toxins. For every 1 meeting with an environmental group, the EPA met 25x with corporate interests. We revealed the corporate lobby poisoning America:

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wow

https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/vani-hari/

Vanie Deva Hari (a.k.a. The Food Babe) (born 1979) is blogger, former banking executive and food and Democratic party political activist who publishes the food blog “Food Babe” from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina.[1] Her blog is sponsored by alternative health, natural and organic product marketing advertisers. Hari announced the launch of her own television program “Food Babe TV” in September 2013.[2]

Hari has come under increasing criticism over the past year from journalists and bloggers for a number of her public stands and statements:

Career

Education

Food Babe

Vani started FoodBabe.com in April 2011 to “spread information about what is really in the American food supply. She teaches people how to make the right purchasing decisions at the grocery store, how to live an organic lifestyle, and how to travel healthfully around the world. The success in her writing and investigative work can be seen in the way food companies react to her uncanny ability to find and expose the truth.”

Frequently called a “mom blogger” and while married Hari has no children. She claims, “After receiving tremendous attention on her posts about Chick-Fil-A, she was invited by the company’s leadership to meet at its headquarters to consult on specific improvements to ingredients used by the national chain. Other major food companies that have responded to her writings include Kraft, Whole Foods, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Chipotle, Yoforia, and Moe’s South West Grill.”

Hari writes her, “activism brought national attention at the Democratic National Convention when she used her status as an elected delegate to protest in front of the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture on the issue of GMO labeling. Vani has been profiled in the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Times, Chicago Tribune, appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Good Morning America, CNN, Inside Edition, NBC News, Fox News and is a regular contributor on NBC’s Charlotte Today.”

According to the Independent Women’s Forum (IFW) Hari commercializes here advocacy for profit through various alternative, organic and natural health sponsors and programs targeting health anxious moms, noting, “She now offers a pay-for-service meal plan that promises to keep you on course and far away from all those GMOs. Her plans range from $17.99 a month to $119.88 a year. She also makes money by selling advertising on her website for organic food products.”[3]

The Charlotte Observer noted in 2014, Hari’s blogging has earned her “a book contract with Little, Brown (“The Food Babe Way,” due out in February, on her organic lifestyle), a William Morris Endeavor agent to handle her TV appearances and a website packed with advertising and product endorsements. You can even buy an eating-plan subscription for $17.99 a month…”[4]

Advocacy

Vani Hari became a food blogger and food health campaigner in 2002 to follow and promote personal health issues.[5] Her website notes frequent paid or sponsored speaking engagements at organic, natural product and alternative health conferences. Hari has also amplified anti-vaccine advocacy urging her followers no to get annual flu shots.[6] She has campaigned against Chipotle, Chic-fil-A, Anheuser-Busch, Kraft, and other corporate targets.

Chick-fil-A antibiotics

Claims here publicity and meetings with Chic-fil-A starting in 2012 forced the company to adopt an antibiotic-free sourcing of their chicken.[7]

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

Hari with ally Lisa Leake launched a campaign to have Kraft remove artificial food coloring from their brands of Macaroni & Cheese including a 2013 petition via Change.org.[8][9]

Beer Ingredient Labeling

In June 2014 Hari launched a petition to ask Anheuser-Busch and Miller Coors, America’s largest beer brands to disclose their full set of ingredients including GMOs.[10]

Subway Bread and Azodicarbonamide (yoga mat) campaign

Hari targeted Subway for the use of azodicarbonamide, a bleaching agent and dough conditioner used in a number of products. Subway announced in April that it would remove the ingredient. [11]

GMOs, Labeling & Wheat

Hari claims to be “a passionate advocacy for GMO labeling” and was a featured speaker at a 2012 California Prop 37 campaign fundraiser.[12] and has used reports (May 2013) of findings of unapproved GM wheat linked to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese UK labels claiming “may contain GM wheat” to lobby mothers to stop feeding their children these products as unsafe.

Hari claims, “the whole reason she became a delegate was so she could lobby against the increasing prevalence of genetically modified food (GMOs)—agricultural crops that have had their DNA changed by genetic engineering techniques. Opponents of GMOs believe those foods may have serious health risks that are not yet fully understood. Many countries require special labels for food that has been genetically modified, but the United States does not.”[13]

Hari is a member of the “GMO INSIDE” steering committee with Jeffrey M. Smith and sponsored by Nutiva and Nature’s Path Organic.[14]

Criticisms

Van Hari responded to mounting criticism with a summary post in December 2014: Food Babe Scam: My Response To The Attacks On Me and Our Movement

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. – Mahatma Gandhi

We are close to winning.

Over the last three years, the coalition we have built, the Food Babe Army, has had an incredible amount of success and been featured in major newspapers, magazines, on radio stations, and TV shows across the globe. Together, since we as customers control the income for corporate agribusinesses, they are starting to pay attention.

With this much game-changing activism and success in a short period of time, it comes as no surprise that some powerful corporate executives and some “independent” voices they help to finance, disagree with our work. An intelligent debate is welcomed, but not all the discussion has been civil.

There’s a group of aggressive scientists, biased doctors, skeptics, agribusiness publicists, lobbyists (and their anonymous webpages and social media sites), along with in some cases, well intended but misinformed people (influenced by propaganda) attacking our work, other consumer advocacy groups, my partners, my friends and me, personally.

Did you think the powerful chemical companies and food giants of the world were going to let us waltz right into their world and turn it upside down?

No – they won’t and, as I expected, the people who wish to keep the status quo are attacking me personally while simultaneously trying to discredit the entire Good Food Movement.

Bibliography & Resources

Other Contact Info

Home: (704) 554-1810

230 S Tryon St, Apt 1106, Charlotte, NC 28202-3215

References

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Why Are We Being Attacked? The Gory Details On A Dirty PR Campaign Finally Revealed.

By Food Babe

76 Comments

Recently an activist friend reached out to me in desperation looking for advice, counsel and support. My friend is being attacked, threatened, cyber-bullied and harassed because of her recent critical work in exposing Monsanto’s glyphosate in popular food products that children eat. Unfortunately, I know all too well what’s happening to her because it’s happening to me too. This is why I think it’s absolutely critical for us to stick together and not be afraid to tell the truth. These bullies want to intimidate us into submission. They want us to be too scared to write, investigate and share our findings. So scared, that we quit.

Slide1

Well, we cannot let that happen. I need you to read this shocking new report and tell everyone you know. The non-profit group U.S. Right To Know‘s report “Seedy Business: What Big Food is Hiding with Its Slick PR Campaign on GMOs” couldn’t have come out at a better time! This is an expose (with lots of details, evidence and facts) on the shady public relations tactics that the biotech industry has been employing. After reading their report, everything is starting to make sense to me now. I have personally experienced these tactics and finally can pinpoint what’s happening to me and other activists.

The big players in the industry – Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer – are engaging in an extensive public relations, advertising, lobbying and political campaign to make sure that genetically engineered crops (GMOs), and the pesticides they require, continue to proliferate in the U.S.

To improve their public image, they are attempting to manipulate everything we see and hear about GMO crops in the media and on TV, the internet and print articles – using propaganda-laden commercials, “mommy-blogger” articles, farmer endorsements, and front group websites. The biotech industry is feeling threatened, and their profits hang in the balance. This is their last stand.

Slide2

Their agenda is clear. They desperately want you to believe:

GMOs are safe,

Anyone who disagrees is untrustworthy, and

The biotech companies that produce GMOs care about our farmers, families and a sustainable environment.

I’m not going to go into great detail about all the juicy details that are aptly described in the U.S. Right To Know’s report, because I want you to read the entire report yourself. But – here are some of the most important highlights:

The Biotech Industry is using the same PR firms used by Big Tobacco.

The tobacco industry wants us to forget their deceptive advertising from the 1950s that depicted smoking as “Best for You” as approved by “50 years of scientific tobacco research”. The truth is the tobacco companies only cared about their own profits and not about the health of their customers. They hired big public relations (PR) firms to spin their message and to help them manage the flow of information and truth that was coming out about cigarettes and disease. This is similar to what’s happening in the biotech industry today. Several of the PR firms hired by biotech companies were “once employed by the tobacco industry in its efforts to evade responsibility and liability for the millions of Americans they killed. These PR efforts on behalf of the tobacco industry – perhaps the most significant and destructive PR campaign ever – raise questions about whether these same firms are spinning a similarly deceitful PR campaign for the agrichemical industry to hide any health or environmental risks of genetically engineered food”.

Fleishman Hillard – Monsanto retained the PR firm Fleishman Hillard in 2013, to help them “resuscitate its image”. A couple decades ago, Fleishman Hillard represented The Tobacco Institute, the main tobacco industry lobbying organization that was forced to disband following a suit brought against the tobacco industry by the U.S. National Association of Attorneys General. Fleishman Hillard has been implicated in converting Healthy Buildings Institute into a front group for the tobacco industry to hide the dangers of second-hand smoke. So, next time you see those Monsanto commercials on TV (and ads in Oprah’s magazine!), keep in mind that this is who is behind them.

Ogilvy & Mather – DuPont Pioneer hired this PR firm that had an agreement with The Tobacco Institute to provide strategy development, writing assignments, media tours, and contact with target coalition groups.

Ketchum – The Council for Biotechnology (a biotech industry group openly funded by BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta) recently hired the PR firm Ketchum to run their website, GMO Answers “to help promote the industry’s views on genetically engineered food”.  Ketchum worked on cigarette advertising campaigns in the 1970s, trying to convince Americans that Fact brand cigarettes were safer than regular cigarettes. Now their focus is on GMOs. This firm is actively communicating with some of my detractors, who brag about getting included in news media about me.

Jayne Thompson & Associates and White House Writers Group – Both of these PR firms hired by Syngenta, previously worked for cigarette-maker Philip Morris to help them with a public relations crisis a little over a decade ago.

Attack anyone that disagrees…

Scientists that speak out against GMOs do so courageously, knowing they will likely be attacked by the biotech industry’s PR minions. If a scientist publishes findings that go against what the industry wants the public to believe, they are harassed, their findings are suppressed, and some careers have been destroyed. Syngenta has been known to have “trained critics” that have undergone media training follow scientists to speaking engagements that have dared to speak out against their products, in an attempt to discredit them. Some notable victims of the biotech industry’s wrath are Dr. Tyrone Hayes, Dr. Ignacio Chapela, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini, Manuela Malatesta, and Emma Rosi-Marshall.

This same thing is happening to myself and other activists as well…

As part of their “multi-million dollar” campaign for the biotech industry, Ketchum closely monitors Twitter conversations and “seeks out negative (biotech-related) tweets on Twitter”, and attempts to counter their arguments. They are being paid by the biotech industry to discredit any negative information about GMOs, just like Monsanto’s new Director of Millennial Engagement, Vance Crowe, who recently claimed on Twitter that he’s “paid to help untie the knot of fear and misinformation woven together by people making money selling snake oil”.

Ketchum is described as “notoriously secretive” and has a history of targeting consumer and food activist groups like the Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, and GE Food Alert, through their work with the private investigation firm Beckett Brown International (BBI), which apparently hired officers to spy on the activist’s computers, phone records, and trash during Taco Bell’s GMO scandal in 2000. Likewise, Monsanto’s PR firm Fleishman Hillard has targeted public health advocates in the past, conducting espionage and secretly taping tobacco control meetings and conferences. Monsanto has also been caught using “mommy bloggers” to promote the idea that they are a sustainable company that cares about farmers, and about you. Meanwhile, they are largely responsible for the millions of pounds of harmful pesticides that are dumped on crops, polluting our land, water and food.

GMOs don’t benefit customers, just the biotech industry’s pockets.

Don’t believe for one minute that GMOs were created with your best interests in mind. Companies are spending over 100 million dollars to prevent us from knowing the truth!

Most GMO crops were genetically engineered to either be (1) pesticide-resistant or (2) herbicide-resistant (or both), and not to be more healthy for us.

The GMO crops that we eat most here in America – soybeans, corn, sugar beets, canola – are not more nutritious or tastier than non-GMO crops, and are definitely no improvement.

Just like the overuse of antibiotics can create “super bugs”, these resistant crops are creating “super weeds” and “super bugs” that require them to be sprayed with heavier doses of poisonous chemicals – which are often made by the same companies.

The biotech industry is contributing to a “pesticide-treadmill”, by creating an environment that fosters the growth of pesticide-resistant weeds and pests. This allows them to sell more of their toxic chemicals along with their GMO seeds, to further increase their bottom line – and it’s escalating fast.

Remember that the companies that produce GMO seeds often also produce the chemicals that are sprayed on them – it’s a win-win situation for them!

The USDA recently approved Dow’s new GMO corn and soybeans (Enlist) that are billed as being resistant to Dow’s herbicide (Enlist Duo) made with glyphosate and 2,4-D, a component of Agent Orange. Just last month, another USDA approval was made for Monsanto’s new dicamba-resistant crop, with plans to roll-out a new herbicide system soon.

If you are not following U.S. Right To Know (USRTK) on Twitter, please do here – they are doing some great things and really need our support! They just filed a Freedom of Information Request for correspondence from science professors employed in public universities who write for the GMO Answers which is a website funded by the biotech companies. U.S. Right To Know wants to better understand how these professors (including one that has attacked me personally) are working with biotech companies and PR firms, such as Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow, Ketchum, Fleishman Hillard, Ogilvy & Mather.

I never thought in a million years I would be subjected to this disgusting PR game. The only way I and other activists can continue our work is for you to share the truth and spread the word!!! Please share this report with everyone you know.

Thank you so much for standing with me and with everyone who is working for a better food system.

Xo,

Vani

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About Vani Hari

Hi there! First of all, I want to say welcome and thank you for stopping by.

My name is Vani Hari, but I’m now better known as “The Food Babe.” For most of my life, I ate anything I wanted. I was a candy addict, drank soda, never ate green vegetables, frequented fast-food restaurants and ate an abundance of processed food. My typical American diet landed me where that diet typically does, in a hospital. It was then, in the hospital bed more than ten years ago, that I decided to make health my number one priority.

I used my new found inspiration for living a healthy life to drive my energy into investigating what is really in our food, how is it grown and what chemicals are used in its production. I didn’t go to nutrition school to learn this. I had to teach myself everything spending thousands of hours researching and talking to experts. As I began to learn more, I was no longer duped by big business marketing tactics, confused by lengthy food labels, and it became easier for me to live in this over-processed world. Most importantly, the more I learned and the more lessons I put into action, the better I felt and wanted to tell everyone about it!  My hope for you is that by assimilating the information you learn on FoodBabe.com into your own life, you can experience a richer sense of health and well being than you ever imagined possible!

Before

I started this blog in April of 2011 to share my healthy lifestyle with friends and family. Little did I know at the time, that this blog would change the world. My first name means voice in my native language, but I never thought I would be the person to carry the voice of millions. I am forever inspired by the number of people who not only want to change the quality of the food they are consuming but take control of their own food and health. Over the last four years, FoodBabe.com has become a powerful vehicle for change due to the dedication of those that come here to read and share the information they learn.

Through reading the investigations and information I post on FoodBabe.com, you can expect to learn the truth about harmful ingredients in processed foods and how to avoid the stuff the food industry is trying to hide! You will also learn how to make the right purchasing decisions in the grocery store so that you can create a life long habit of choosing healthy food.  I would love you to join my personal email list to stay up to date on hidden truths the food industry doesn’t want you to know about and the big changes that are happening in our food supply.

Creating FoodBabe.com has shown me that it is possible to change the world. Over the past four years, I have seen friends, family members, and the Food Babe Army voting with their dollars like never before. When we all vote with our dollars by choosing to buy products that are sustainably produced, we actively shape the market place. Companies have no choice but to respond to us and improve the quality of their products. We have made some big changes thus far and there is still work to be done! I look forward to what the future holds. What are you waiting for? Join the Food Babe Army today!

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But that video would soon look like child’s play (pun intended). A far more vicious campaign to impugn the integrity of “pro” GMO scientists was launched, led by U.S. Right to Know. This group, funded by the Organic Consumers Association, filed FOIA requests at several universities, seeking the email correspondence of these scientists in order to find any communication with biotech companies like Monsanto. You can read the full story here. The end result was the character assassination of notable public scientists like Dr. Kevin Folta, who has now suspended his informative podcast and ceased communicating with people on social media. His experience has had a chilling effect: many scientists pledged to withdraw from science communication altogether for fear of having their personal and professional lives maligned.

Earlier this month, the OCA was at it again, announcing at the COP21 event in Paris they would hold a “Monsanto Tribunal” at The Hague next year. The mock trial, designed to look authentic, will accuse Monsanto of “ecocide.” OCA president Ronnie Cummins made clear the objectives of the faux tribunal: “Monsanto….we are going to show that you are trying to poison us all. And we are going to take down your business and the whole factory-farm industrial agriculture empire that goes with it.”

Pro-Science Moms rising

It’s clear that the anti-GMO movement and their mommy foot soldiers have run the table over the last few years, commanding the public debate. This year changed that. A group of science-minded women (including many moms) met in Washington, DC in September to talk about how to advance our cause. It is an impressively diverse group: scientists, farmers, writers, activists representing a wide range of political affiliations. But our passion about promoting genetic engineering transcends any other differences. It’s a formidable group of highly-motivated women.

Science writer Kavin Senapathy, whom I met at the March Against Myths that she helped organize in Chicago last May as a counter protest to the annual Millions Against Monsanto, authored a book this year entitled The Fear Babe. The book carefully counters many of the pseudo-science claims of The Food Babe who helped save the world from pumpkin spice and yoga mat bread. We are joined by other mothers – Julie Gunlock, Amy Porterfield Levy, Jennie Splitter – who are taking on a decidedly assertive tone to push back with some great (and funny) columns. I expect more to come, and more like-minded women to join us, in 2016.

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Due out on October 29,The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House, by Marc Draco, Kavin Senapathy, and Mark Alsip, examines the claims and impact of Vani Hari, better known as The Food Babe, a self-proclaimed “food activist” and New York Times bestselling author who abhors biotechnology, thinks sugar is “toxic”, is controversially famous for denouncing Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte for (gasp) not containing “real pumpkin”, and bullying Subway for using a so-called “yoga mat chemical” in its bread.

The book, with foreword from University of Florida plant scientist Kevin Folta, is a methodical point-by-point refutation of claims by the blogger and her loyal “Food Babe Army”. Vani Hari, the self-styled investigator of what’s “really in your food”, known for the statement,“There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever”, has a tried-and-true formula: Identify a scary-sounding but innocuous food ingredient (like carrageenan) or process, choose a company with household name recognition (such as Starbucks), encourage followers to petition (read: bully) the company and rake in affiliate fees and subscribers to her $17.99 per month food guide.

Sound scary? Don't ditch your morning Joe.

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Whether you’ve wondered about iffy, unscientific claims about food, or need fodder to help assuage the concerns of your well-meaning relatives’ food fears, look no further. This book is a systematic, science-based, entertaining debunking of myriad popular myths about food, using the all-too-popular Food Babe’s claims as a basis to teach the reader critical thinking.

Covering issues from preservatives to pesticides, Stevia to celiac disease, and beaver butt flavoring to BHT, the book is a reference on some of the most popular food fads, frights and myths of our time. While The Fear Babe discusses Vani Hari extensively, the authors also examine other popular misinformation vectors, including Jenny McCarthy, Andrew Wakefield, Joe Mercola, Gary Ruskin, Mike Adams, and Gilles-Eric Séralini.

What follows is an excerpt from chapter 5, “Fear and Loathing of GMOs”:

“The great GMO debate rages on. In this chapter we’re going to look at what GMO is and what it’s not. As of publication, none of the writing team work for any corporation developing GMOs for market. This book was inspired entirely in response to Food Babe’s quest to make money by terrifying an already misinformed and fearful public.

A GMO, short for Genetically Modified Organism, is a living thing that has been modified slightly to give it an improved feature or function that already occurs in nature. Often the trait comes from a related organism.

Food Babe describes the process:

Genetic modification occurs when genes, viruses, or bacteria from one organism are artificially injected into a fruit or vegetable in a process that occurs in a laboratory and not in nature.

–Food Babe Way, pg. 27

Fear Babe meme apple

While an awful number of people believe this to be the case, the idea that something is injected into a plant or animal with some kind of hypodermic syringe is utterly preposterous. Opinions differ as to whether a virus is a living thing or not because it consists primarily of DNA or RNA, but is itself made up of genes. Viruses are special because they live inside other organisms, including bacteria. Regardless of the technical description, this isn’t how genetic modification, which is achieved by a number of methods, is performed. It’s just plain wrong. Injecting a live virus or similar pathogen willy-nilly into another living organism is likely to make it sick and die: assuming it has any effect at all.

Genetic modification is done to make a fruit or vegetable more hardy or impervious to the application specific pesticide. These pesticides are linked to myriad diseases.

–Food Babe Way, pg. 27

That’s partly true at least, except the part about pesticides and disease. It’s true that pesticides may cause ill health at very high doses because they are, by nature, toxic, but this has nothing to do with GM technology. Crucially, the amount of pesticide residue consumers are exposed to is far too low to cause harm.

We have a right to know what’s in our food just like people in countries like China and Russia do–especially when studies have linked GMOs to a wide variety of diseases like infertility and cancer.

—July 2013 Q&A with Vani Hari

Gee. That sounds bad and such studies do exist. But just because someone writes a paper doesn’t necessarily make it true. Scientists work outside of their field, experiments are badly designed, and rarely, people flat out lie.

Take, for example, her claim that GMOs are linked to infertility. We believe that she’s referring to a study linking glyphosate to male infertility, though the link is weak if not non-existent. “Roundup: The sneaky and cheap contraceptive hiding in your food”, a 2013 headline from Natural News declared about the study. Then again, Natural News is infamous for fudging science at best, and at worst, actually making stuff up.

The study in question was an in vitro rat study, and its conclusions in no way demonstrate that glyphosate in our food causes infertility. The results showed that “acute Roundup exposure at low doses (36 ppm, 0.036 g/L) for 30 min induces oxidative stress and activates multiple stress-response pathways leading to Sertoli cell death in prepubertal rat testis.”

Crucially, the study wasn’t done on live rats, it was done on rat testicular cells in culture. And the most important part? 36 ppm (parts per million) is way higher than the typical residues found on crops, around one ppm. Suffice it to say, don’t pour Roundup on your genitalia guys, though even that would be unlikely to render you infertile. If you want sterility, stick with a vasectomy. And ladies, keep your IUDs, pills, implants, and other birth control.

No matter how you look at this, we know that every living thing on the planet contains a unique blueprint called genes. Genes are essentially instructions that tell the organism how to build itself into a complete, working offspring of its parent(s). Be it plant, animal or fungus, we all have genes.”

The “Fear Babe”, which the authors hope will arm readers with a misinformation radar, and the ability to smell BS from a mile away, is currently available for pre-order at major online booksellers and from your local independent bookstore.

Kavin Senapathy is a freelance writer and co-author of The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House, due out October 29th and now available for pre-order. The science advocate and co-founder of March Against Myths’, her interests span the human and agricultural genomics and biotechnology realms.  Follow Kavin on her science advocacy Facebook page, and Twitter @ksenapathy

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