Did you know you are eating yoga mat ingredients in your fast food sandwich or Silly Putty in your French fries? You should.
Once or twice in a generation a brave citizen or scientist stands up to the status quo, tells the truth about what most of us would rather ignore. It changes everything about how we see the world, about the choices we make and how we live our lives.
And sometimes it changes the world. Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Vani Hari, the Food Babe, has single-handedly, with her computer, blog and very clear voice brought food companies into real conversations and forced them to change their products. In her new book, The Food Babe Way, she pulls back the veil on what we are really eating. And it will (or should) terrify you.
Rachel Carson first alerted Americans to the dangers of pesticides and chemicals in our environment and helped launch the environmental movement. Linus Pauling, at great risk to his career, spoke about the dangers of war and nuclear radiation, and this lead to the nuclear test ban treaty.
And there are thousands of other souls in far corners of the world who are inspired to tell the truth at risk to themselves and their families. Most of them are unsung heroes who quietly stand up for what is right, and we are all better for it.
Hari is a modern-day David, facing the Goliath of the trillion-dollar food industry that in the guise of fun, colorful, hyper-tasty, easy to eat, convenient foods is creating suffering and sickness across the globe.
Most of us are completely oblivious to what we are eating and its impact on our health and our world. We know little about how our food is grown; how our seeds are engineered; how our farming methods harm the soil, air, and water, and contribute to climate change and dead zones in our oceans.
We are mostly unaware of the chemicals that are added to our foods; how the hormones, antibiotics, plastics, and toxins we eat in our everyday foods harm our bodies. How could we know that we are eating Silly Putty in our French fries and Yoga Mat softeners in our bread; or cancer-causing preservatives such as BHA and BHT, which have been banned in every other country but ours; or that dyes and coloring agents in our macaroni and cheese cause hyperactivity and behavioral problems in our children; or that natural flavorings are made from ground-up animal parts; or that common foods contain secretions from beaver’s anal glands?
How could we know that apart from the calories we eat, many of the chemicals in our food are obesogens, contributing to an obesity epidemic that is weighing down our nation and increasingly the world as we create the worst diet on the planet and export it to every other nation except Cuba and North Korea? How could we know that most of the 10,000 additives in our food supply have never been proven safe and are given a free pass by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)?