Vani Hari details her transition from banking to exposing hazardous chemicals like azodicarbonamide in U.S. foods, driving petitions that forced General Mills to reformulate Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. She critiques the GRAS loophole allowing self-approved additives, advocates state-level bans on artificial dyes, and highlights infant formula regulations unchanged for 30 years containing corn syrup. Hari promotes her Truvani supplements, rejects moderation on seed oils and GMOs, and calls for federal action to close regulatory gaps, arguing that American hypocrisy in food safety demands immediate legislative reform over slow bureaucracy. [Automatically generated summary]
First of all, I think it's anti-American to sell safer, better for you foods for other citizens of other countries.
You know, Secretary Kennedy said it best.
He said if another foreign nation was doing this to us, it would be considered an act of war.
Can we stop being so afraid of telling people, hey, can we have options that are healthier for our kids?
For people just starting to pay attention to food ingredients, what's the first step you'd recommend?
Read the ingredient label, make sure you understand everything on it.
And if you don't, look up the ingredient.
If it's not there for a nutritional purpose, do I really want to be consuming it?
Who's the biggest poser in the Maha movement?
Oh my gosh.
This is funny.
Hi, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the Katie Miller podcast.
I'm joined today by Vonnie Hari.
I would say the OG of the mom influencers in the Maha space, someone I've looked up to and followed for years as I began my health journey when I started having kids.
So I'm so excited to be joined by you today.
Thank you so much for having me here, Katie.
So walk us a bit through your health journey, how you got to do this as your passion.
What was your career prior to this?
So I was a consultant at big banks every single, I feel like I worked at every single big bank across the country.
I was hired as a consultant right out of college.
So you're given an expense account.
You're working on these big, bulky, long projects where you're billing all kinds of hours to the client.
And you are being wined and dined.
And your boss is taking you out to five course meals and they're bringing in breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
And when I was starting my career, I was really ambitious.
I wanted to become a partner.
You know, I wanted to work really hard.
And so I just did whatever I could to fit in.
And that landed me in the hospital.
You know, as a young child, I grew up with two immigrant Indian parents and they came here to the United States.
And when my dad went back to marry my mom in India and brought her back here on their honeymoon, he said, you know, the first thing basically he introduced her to was McDonald's hamburger and said, if we're going to eat in America, we're going to eat like Americans, right?
And so that's how I was raised on processed food.
And, you know, I was in and out of the doctor's offices so much as a child.
And my parents did what every good parents would do, was take you to the doctor.
No doctor asked my parents what I was eating or what my diet was like.
They just put me on medication.
And so when I had this situation where I ended up in the hospital getting my appendix out after being, you know, put through a childhood of in and out of doctor's offices, I just had enough.
You know, I was on nine prescription drugs at the time.
I got an additional abdominal surgery a year later.
And it was a time period where I decided, you know, I don't want to feel this way anymore.
And so I channeled energy that I learned in high school where I was a top-tier debater.
I was recruited to college to be in debate, number one in the state, the whole thing.
And back then, we didn't have Google or any fast way to learn information.
You had to go to the library, look at the microfiche, look at the law journals, you know, photocopy evidence, take it to all the debate tournaments in these big tubs.
And one year's topic was healthcare.
And I just remember how screwed up the healthcare system was because I had to learn both affirmative and negative.
And it was policy debate.
And I wasn't using it towards my own health, but I was using it to win debate rounds.
And so finally, there was this opportunity to like say, hey, I know a lot about what's happening in healthcare.
Now I'm going to use that information towards my own health, and I'm going to treat my health almost like a debate round.
From Bedroom to Blogging00:06:37
So I started checking out big books on nutrition in the library.
One of the first books I came across was called Spiritual Nutrition, another one called Conscious Eating from Dr. Gabriel Cousins.
And in this book, there was this statement that just really made things clear for me.
And it was that the majority of grocery store foods that are in the Middle Isles is dead food.
And that's actually how I felt for most of my life, dead.
And it was something that I didn't understand at the time, but had this insatiable curiosity to know, which was what is dead food and why, like, what's in it, right?
And I wanted to investigate the ingredients.
And so I started to take the things that I slowly stopped eating, like the Subway sandwiches, and dissecting them and trying to understand the ingredients and what all the ingredients mean and why they're there.
And I found things like azodicarbonamide, a chemical that if you get caught using it in Singapore, you get fined $450,000 and put in prison.
It's banned all over the globe.
You know, why is this chemical so hazardous and why is it in Subway bread, the bread that I was eating every day at lunch?
You know, I found out that, you know, when it's heated, it turns into a carcinogen.
I mean, this is something definitely not eating fresh, right?
And so these are some of the things I started to figure out.
And then I started to teach my friends and my family around me what I was doing and I couldn't shut up about it.
And, you know, I went from someone who was like the candy queen eating every candy on earth and suddenly not eating candy because it had artificial food dyes.
And my friends were like, wait a minute, we're going to the movies.
Where's your box of nerge, Vonnie?
And they wanted to know these changes because they started to see the physical changes when I started to switch my diet from a processed food diet to a whole foods diet.
And they couldn't shut up about it, honestly.
They were just like, hey, what are you drinking?
What's the screen drink?
And I remember I was on a girls' trip in Chicago and my friends had this intervention and I wasn't on social media at the time because I thought I was going to run for office one day and I was like, I'm not putting any personal information out on the web.
And they had an intervention and they said, hey, you need to join Facebook.
And you need to teach us your recipes.
And I said, well, why don't I like start a blog or something?
And they're like, yeah, that's a good idea.
And so I wanted to call the blog eatheealthylivefore.com.
I'm not Catholic, but I gave up TV for Lent.
And that's how I found the time to blog.
And my husband, who's the tech geek in the family, thought that was a terrible name for a blog.
And he found Food Babe for $10 on auction.
I remember we were living in a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Charlotte and the other bedroom was our office.
And he was yelling out from the other room, you know, food babe, how about food babe?
And I was like, okay, that's catchy.
It's short.
People can remember it.
But it also made me feel uneasy because for most of my life I didn't feel like a food babe.
I felt like a food sloth, really, you know?
And so I decided that I was like, okay, well, I'm going to call Nicole, who's my best friend.
And I'm like, hey, what do you think about this name?
She's like, oh, that describes you perfectly.
And so I decided, okay, well, why don't I teach people how to become a food babe?
So for the first year and a half of the blog, I never even put my photo on the main header.
I just had these three cartoon characters and I just signed the blog post Food Babe to kind of hide my name because again, I was still working as a consultant.
Now it's 10 years later from that moment that I had my appendix taken out.
And I'm still working as a consultant, still working for C-level executives.
They know I'm the health nut at the office, but they don't really know about this side project I have that I'm starting, this passion.
And it wasn't meant to be anything.
It was just meant for fun.
And what slowly started to happen was I started to build an amazing community of mothers like you, Katie, and others who not only care about their own health, but they're willing to hold these corporations accountable.
They're willing to call the corporations and demand change.
They're willing to meet me at the headquarters of these corporations and deliver petitions and change their purchasing decisions at the grocery store and vote with their dollars.
And, you know, I didn't really put all the pieces together right away, but slowly but surely I started to see this movement growing.
And I wrote this article called Chemical Filet or Chick-fil-A.
And it went so viral that the executives at Chick-fil-A called me and invited me to their headquarters to consult on some menu changes.
And it was quite the remarkable meeting.
I mean, they rolled out the red carpet.
They picked me up in a cow-covered car.
It was quite the event.
But the most beautiful thing that happened that day was they started listening to me and they started listening to us, the food movement.
And, you know, they taking me seriously really made me take myself more seriously to the point where I decided to quit my job, cold turkey, a couple months later, and never look back.
And, you know, I remember I was on the top of Machu Picchu.
It was our Christmas vacation.
And my consulting contract was coming to an end and they were asking me if I'd want to renew it.
And this email pops up on my, I mean, this is so long ago, it feels like, my Blackberry, my Blackberry.
And I look at it and I look over at my husband and I just say, you know, hey, I'm going to do Food Babe full time.
And I expect him to say, like, how are we going to pay the mortgage?
You know, what about your 401k?
What about all this that you've built?
And thankfully, he just kind of looked at me and he said, you know, what have you been waiting for?
And it was just this awesome, amazing support that when we got back from that trip and I looked, you know, we were still in that two-bedroom apartment in the skyscraper in downtown Charlotte.
You know, everybody's going to work, you know, beginning of January and I'm sitting around still in my pajamas, wondering how am I going to make money?
How am I going to make this a career?
I look down.
I see everybody in the blue shirts and the khaki pants going to work.
The Cost of Petroleum Ingredients00:15:43
And I just started to become super passionate about investigating a specific topic, which was how American companies are selling the same product in other countries with better, safer ingredients.
And, you know, through my travels, I loved to travel with my husband.
That was one of our early loves where we fell in love traveling together.
And so we've been to like 60 countries together.
And anytime I'd go to another country, I always felt better eating their food.
And I never understood why until I started to compare the products that are being sold here in the United States compared to the exact same products being sold in other countries and comparing the ingredient list and finding stark differences.
Things like, you know, one of the first products I researched was strawberries and cream oatmeal by Quaker and how here in the United States it was artificially dyed apple bits with petroleum-based dye, Red 40, but in the UK it was real strawberries.
Here in the United States, there's 11 ingredients in McDonald's.
And in the UK, it's three.
How Doritos had artificial food dyes in the United States, but not in other countries that are using Paprika.
So this side-by-side comparison maddened me.
I mean, I was so maddened at the hypocritical nature that American food companies would do to their own citizens.
And so it spawned an incredible passion in mine to hold these companies accountable.
And so I decided to launch a petition against Kraft Macaroni and Cheese because they were using Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 here in the United States, both petroleum-based dyes that are linked to hyperactivity in children.
But in the UK, they're using Paprika and beta-carotene.
The product looked virtually the same, taste the same, and it was really unfair.
And there were, you know, at the time, one of the largest food companies in America and the most iconic brand of product that was being served to children everywhere.
And so that petition went super viral.
You know, got towards the end 387,000 signatures.
And I took those signatures to Kraft headquarters.
They sat down with me and met with me.
It was absolutely incredible that they let me in.
I was scared out of my mind.
And when I sat down with them, they told me, you know, we have to agree to disagree.
And what happened as a result of that is I didn't give up.
I kept educating people of alternatives that they could buy instead of Kraft that didn't have artificial food dyes.
I shared my own recipes that I used for homemade mac and cheese.
I did whatever I could to let people know the truth about how Kraft is poisoning us with ingredients they don't use in other countries.
And slowly but surely, people started to gravitate towards Annie's, which was a better competitor.
And then, of course, General Mills buys up Annie's for $800 million.
I was about to ask if you still thought Annie's was a good product.
You know, it's not one that I feed my children because I like making mac and cheese from scratch.
But they do have some, you know, cleaner label products that aren't bad in a pinch.
So, you know, General Mills ends up buying them.
And then, you know, the marketplace changes so much and they lose market share because these moms who now know the truth about artificial food dyes are gravitating towards their competitor.
And finally, they had to make the commitment to remove artificial food dyes.
So it was an incredible change where the petition, what it did was create awareness to this issue.
And what I found is it's very powerful to take a very specific issue to create awareness about the topic of food in general and the chemicals in food.
Because as soon as you get someone looking for artificial food dye, they're looking for other chemicals too.
And if people start reading ingredient labels, I think they start eating more real food.
And I think that's the root cause of so much chronic disease in this country because when I started eating real food, that's when everything changed for me.
Do you think when you look at food labels now or someone like, when I used to go to the market, right, I would just assume that everything had a million ingredients and it was okay not to be able to pronounce them.
Now I know that I can't pronounce it.
I should not eat it.
That's my general rule.
Do you find that now more people are also tuned into that?
And has that all started with, would you say in the last like five to seven years where everyone's kind of tuned in more?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's been a slow curve of getting awareness.
I think social media has helped a lot getting the truth out about products and showing alternatives and letting people know that there is an alternative for your favorite pastime that you used to eat that's full of chemicals.
I think without social media, we wouldn't have gotten this information out to everyday moms and the people who are purchasing groceries at the grocery store.
And so I think because of the rise of social media, we have we have an awareness that's been growing.
But I think what's remarkable of what's happened in the last year is what Secretary Kennedy did, which was he took my voice and so many unheard voices on this topic and elevated it to the national stage.
And when I took, along with amazing health leaders in this country, we took 400,000 signatures to Kellogg's headquarters back in October.
And Kellogg's wouldn't even let us in, wouldn't even sit down with us, wouldn't even entertain a conversation at all, literally sent out a security guard to get the boxes, not even someone who works for Kellogg's, and then have someone in their windows show us a sign, get off our lawns.
That was a slap in the face to every American, every American who demands safer, better for you products, the fact that these food companies have gotten away with poisoning us with ingredients they don't use in other countries.
And so Secretary Kennedy saw that.
Is it just cost or is it that they're giving us worse products or is it some other reason?
It's economies of scale.
So it's cost.
Petroleum-based dyes or petroleum-based ingredients or chemicals are cheaper than using real food.
And they last longer on the shelf.
So that increases sales too.
And, you know, you have to think when you're using a real ingredient from carrots or beets or something, it breaks down faster over time, even in the product itself.
So it's all about finding the cheapest way to make food and really putting profits over people.
So you mentioned you wanted to run for office.
Was that, I'm going to follow up on this and you brought it there.
So I'm going to go.
Was it as a Republican or a Democrat?
I promise there's a through line.
Yeah, no, I don't, I just knew I wanted to serve like in be part of change.
Like I just, that's what I, that's kind of where I started.
Now, I grew up in a hardcore Democrat family.
So it was just natural for me to gravitate towards that.
The reason why I ask is I would say that like, you know, Secretary Kennedy has brought this issue to the forefront and I think elevated people like yourself who are just trying to educate the American public as to what we're feeding ourselves and feeding our kids to create a healthier generation.
And I've talked about this with Secretary Kennedy multiple times, is did you ever think we'd be in this position to be able to make such monumental changes in our food supply and for so many additional areas of public health and serving for President Trump, right?
Did you ever think you'd be able to fulfill your promises?
And I would say that same thing to you is did you ever think we'd be in this place, which is typically, I would say, not a Republican issue of taking on big business and big companies and actually in the last six months creating real lasting change and I would credit you with a lot of that is you laid a lot of the groundwork with Kellogg, with Chipotle, with Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, that these companies are now listening more than ever and actually creating the change and not just using excuses.
Yeah.
I mean, I am thankful every single day this is happening.
This is so good for this country.
the fact that we now have people who were largely mute to these topics, really, they didn't say much about it, to now wanting to talk about it and being energized by it and being emboldened at the state level to introduce legislation and create historic legislation.
I think about the state senator and the state congresswoman in Texas who sponsored the bill to get 40 different chemicals labeled in Texas and put a warning label on that.
I think about West Virginia and how they banned artificial food dyes outright and how they felt emboldened by this national conversation and Secretary Kennedy's leadership to actually do something about it.
And I think, you know, I think back to the opportunity I had back in September where I testified at a Senate roundtable and I was able to say this line and it just made the entire room go electric and you could feel the energy in the room.
And it was this line.
You know, why is it citizen activists like me and other concerned citizens holding these companies accountable?
Why isn't it our leaders in Washington?
And I remember looking at Secretary Kennedy, who was not Secretary Kennedy at the time, in the eyes, RFK Jr., and the other senators in the room, looking them in the eye when I said that.
And they all nodded.
They got it.
They understood.
Yes, it's time, right?
And it's been an amazing year to see what has been accomplished in that short time of awakening people to the idea that they need to read ingredient labels,
that we don't need to be consuming these chemicals, that these chemicals could be the root cause of why you were feeling so sick and you need to, you know, getting them out of your diet and seeing the marketplace shift and seeing food manufacturers make changes faster than we've ever seen in any food revolution.
I mean, I'm thinking about Michael Pollan's time and other advocates that have come to the stage and really had us learn about these issues in a big, bold way.
Nothing has happened this fast as until now in terms of the awareness that is spreading across the country.
And it's an exciting time to be alive and one that no matter what political side you're on, I feel like you need to come to the table.
And it really, it makes me so sad.
I actually become depressed when I see the Democrats sit on their hands and not want to get involved in any type of Maha policy, anything to make America healthy again, right?
Or to do anything in relation to these issues because they're worried that it gives street cred to President Trump.
And that's really wrong because I think without health, we have nothing.
And it's, you know, one of the things that was happening during the election, which just, you know, I had the inside baseball and the behind the scenes purview of what was going on politically, you know, the Biden administration was holding back this Red 3 ban until the very last minute, until the last minute he was in office.
Why did he do that when Red No. 3 had already been banned in cosmetics for causing cancer, but kept it in food because the maraschino cherry industry lobbied the government along with the alcohol industry to keep it in food.
And you weren't allowed to use it in lipstick, but you still could eat it.
And it's in hundreds of kids' foods.
And they waited till the last possible second while he's in office so he could get credit for it.
And I was just like, is this really what we're dealing with, right?
And it was, you know, as someone who is as bipartisan as possible, because I really truly believe anytime we make it about the Democrats or the Republicans, it's like the chemical companies win, the food companies win, the pharmaceutical companies win, the people who are poisoning us and making us sick win.
So, and I'm not anti-corporation.
I just, you know, I'm just telling the truth.
I think that we need to put politics aside when it comes to these issues.
And I would love to see both sides trying to outmaha each other.
And I don't see that yet.
And I'm trying, I'm waiting for that moment.
And I'm excited for when that moment happens because we've got elections coming up.
And there is an amazing coalition happening of these voters who, you know, I'm speaking to and I'm part of this coalition where these are the issues that they're voting on.
I feel like it's the far left and the far right agree on food, which is a very funny conglomeration of a coalition of moms who all just want to give their kids a better option.
You mentioned, though, these, I would say a patrick of state laws, right?
Whether that be Texas or West Virginia is taking these steps forward.
Do you think it's harmful to have different states have different rules that relates to food so that way these food companies can all agree on one set of a better rule?
So would it be better that we're all like if for any activist moms out there watching, would it be better for us all to push for a federal rule or a federal law that governs the food supply and increases those transparency standards?
Historically, the bureaucracy in Washington is so slow.
And this is why I believe Secretary Kennedy and Dr. Marty McCary asked the companies voluntarily to change.
Because by the time they would go through the scientific review and do the public comment and everything, it'd be years down the road.
Whereas in six short months, they've gotten over half the food industry to commit to making these changes, right?
And so I think state legislation is one of the most powerful drivers for getting the marketplace to change.
I think it's the one that's the easiest and quickest because it's more nimble.
So I wouldn't want to see any of the state power be diminished because I think we have really bold leaders at every level in states right now looking at different various ways to,
you know, label ultra-processed foods, getting more whole foods in school lunches and, you know, making sure that the chemical corporations and the food corporations that are poisoning us are held accountable with warning labels and bans.
So, I mean, you know, I think, you know, at least a dozen states have banned artificial dyes in schools alone.
And that's coming up very shortly.
So even before these food companies are able to remove artificial food dyes, right?
Using Common Sense on Labels00:05:33
Do you think, one, if the GOP were going to push for something that would help them, again, with this Maha coalition, if there was like a federal solution that they could all get behind, do you think that's something that would eventually be helpful if it was something that they could do?
Or is it just a lost cause kind of thing?
Yeah, I mean, I would love to see a federal action on these chemicals that food companies don't use in other countries.
I would love to say if you make, you know, I would love a federal, I don't know how you would do it, but it would be great if you make a product and you can make the same product in the United States with the same ingredients that are better and safer, you should be doing that for all of your customers.
Like that could be really amazing.
I don't know how you would do that in the free market.
It'd be hard to do.
Well, it's kind of like what they did with drug pricing.
You say that they had to come under the same rules as drug pricing.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it could be very similar to that.
Because I don't think it's, first of all, I think it's anti-American to sell safer, better for you foods for other citizens in other countries.
And, you know, Secretary Kennedy said it best.
He said, if another foreign nation was doing this to us, it would be considered an act of war.
So I think that needs to change.
And whether it's looking at all of the specific chemicals and regulating those, which will take a lot of time because we have over 10,000 chemicals allowed in our food, whereas in Europe, for example, it's 400.
So it's going to take a lot of time and it's going to take much more than just this administration to fix that issue.
One of the issues that Secretary Kennedy is going to do at the federal level, which is, you know, closing that grass loophole, which is the loophole that allows food companies to approve chemicals for use themselves instead of any third-party oversight.
So that's why the food system has been inundated and there's been this floodgate of chemicals in our food supply because there's been no oversight and no safety data required.
It's like the chemical companies checking their own homework.
For people just starting to pay attention to food ingredients, what's the first step you'd recommend?
You've got to read the ingredient label.
Read the ingredient label.
Make sure you understand everything on it.
And if you don't, look up the ingredient.
Like if you're picking up a loaf of bread at the grocery store and there's monodiglycerides in it and you're like, what the heck is that?
Which, you know, I didn't know what it was either until I, you know, taught myself what it was.
Well, it's a, you know, preservative.
It's a fatty acid that they developed actually in response to removing trans fat.
So it actually still has a little bit of trans fat in it.
And it's one of the problematic preservatives you don't want to put in your body.
So it's like, if it's not there for a nutritional purpose, do I really want to be consuming it?
And that's really the question you need to ask.
And you don't need to be a rocket scientist or nutritionist to know that answer.
You can use your common sense.
And I think what's so beautiful about that phrase, you know, if you can pronounce it, then you should eat it, right?
Or if you can't pronounce it, don't eat it, is it allows people to use their common sense.
And a lot of, you know, people who are dependent upon the paychecks of chemical corporations hate when anyone says that because they think it's unscientific.
But it's one of the fastest ways you can just use your common sense when you can figure out whether you should be eating something or not.
If every American changed just one food habit starting tomorrow, which do you think would make the biggest difference in public health?
Just eat real food.
Yeah.
If they just ate real food, like no packaged processed food.
It can be packaged, but just not.
Not like Oreos, but an apple.
Who's the biggest poser in the Maha movement?
Oh my gosh.
This is funny.
Gosh.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, that's a poser.
Hmm.
Well, that's a good question.
Sorry.
You ever talk about that?
We can come back if you want to.
No, this is so good.
That's a good one.
Like, who is a poser?
You know, I mean, this is my honest answer.
I can't think of a poser because like what is so awesome about this movement to get people healthy is that everybody's coming at it from a very virtuous place, you know, an authentic place because they've had health issues or they've had someone in their family that's been sick or they see the pain that the country's going through.
And I think that's what makes this movement so powerful is because we have so much passion about not eating processed foods and avoiding seed oils and making sure we buy organic regenerative meat and dairy and how we avoid GMOs.
I think all of us are really passionate about that.
And I would say the biggest posers in Maha are the ones that like, it's kind of like this time.
Avoiding Worst Halloween Snacks00:12:46
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know if there's any posers.
I mean, there's definitely a lot of critics, but.
What do you give your kids in a pinch when you're like on the road or out of the house and you didn't bring something with you?
Oh, like what would I, I would stop by like somewhere and buy something?
Yeah.
Like if you're at like the zoo, a good example is right.
We're at the zoo.
I didn't expect to be there.
It's lunchtime.
Like, and everything sucks.
So what do I do?
All I think about is food as a mom.
Like, no one ever tells you when you have kids that for 18 years you're going to be thinking about breakfast, lunch, and dinner and a million snacks all the time.
So literally my bag is always full of food.
So I would never get caught in that situation.
But if.
Okay, so if.
Yeah, if I did, if I did, and I was at the zoo, I would look for some kind of whole fruit probably.
I'll give you an example.
We went to apple picking and we ended up staying there like two hours later than I thought because the kids were having a great time.
We had already run through every single snack in my bag and I had brought a lot of snacks and I was like, all that's left is this like farmer's market porch, which had chicken fingers, pizza, a hot dog, and apple cider donuts.
And I was like, well, enjoy the chicken nuggets, children.
This will never happen again.
Like, but that's, I mean, that's the choice, though, right?
Is that there is no one that's not.
What I would have done out of that menu, I probably would have done the donuts, probably.
At least they're like probably homemade, right?
They're not coming from Krispy Kreme or Dunkin' Donuts, right?
That's fair.
Yeah, I would have done the donuts.
What's the worst food you could give kids right now if you rank them?
Like what's top five worst food?
Happy meal, uh, formula, certain formulas, um, uh, Go-Gurt.
Oh, go-gurt's so bad.
Yeah, go-gurt's fruit roll-ups, fruit gushers, all of that artificially dyed fruit snack stuff, Reese's peanut butter cups.
They have an ingredient called TBHQ in there that affects like kids' immune systems.
So if I was going trick-or-treating with my kids, what Halloween candy should I not allow them to eat?
I would not let them eat anything from Mars Corporation.
So that's like Skittles and M ⁇ Ms. I would not let Skittles is probably the worst, the worst.
Are M ⁇ Ms really that bad because of all the food dyes?
Yes.
M ⁇ Ms are bad because of all the food dyes.
But I would say Skittles are worse.
And then because of the amount of sugar in Skittles, it's significantly more.
Then here's what I do with Halloween.
These are tough questions.
Here's what I do with Halloween.
We do the Switch Witch.
And there's even an amazing book on the Switch Witch.
And she is amazing.
She comes and she cleans up all the poisonous candy and makes her broom run faster.
And then she leaves an amazing toy for your child the next morning.
And that child, I know, because my kids love that toy more than anything in their Halloween basket.
Do you think yum candy brands are still not great?
No, I would definitely buy Yum Earth or Unreal.
Yep.
Those are great.
I'm trying to think what other.
Do you follow the 80-20 rule where I do great 80% of the time, but 20% I can't control?
Like I cannot get over that every kid's birthday party has Domino's pizza.
And at a certain point, like it just drives me up the wall.
But it's like, you know, my kids are there and I bring my own pizza for the kids.
And then it's like, do they notice that they're different than their friends?
And I just don't know where that line starts and stops, right?
I do the best I can in my household.
Right.
When they're little, you can control a lot.
But once they hit that 9, 10, 11, 12 where the peer group becomes more important, it's becoming more challenging.
Even, you know, my daughter's eight, about to turn nine.
I'm seeing the gravitation towards the junk that other people are consuming.
And even though she's my child and she's learned from the very beginning, it's going to be a challenge.
And I also want to teach her how to take care of herself.
So maybe it's also her learning the hard way in a way of, hey, I told, you know, you know the truth about Domino's pizza.
You can choose to eat it if you're really hungry, but I just want to let you know you may not feel great after or, you know, it's not the best.
And you know what?
One time's not going to kill you.
Like I never want my children to feel like, you know, they can't eat or because they're hungry, because it might be some really terrible option.
You know, I want them to enjoy life too.
But I think, again, this is where it's so important to like curate your own little commune of friends and try to share information.
I think this is where I think, again, social media is so powerful.
When one mom shares her opinion about the soccer game snacks in a group chat, you know, then all the other moms start to pay attention too.
And they start saying, okay, fine.
I'm not going to pick up the Dunkin' Donuts in the morning for the morning game.
I'm going to pick up a bag of oranges instead, right?
And so it's like, can we stop being so afraid of telling people, hey, can we have options that are healthier for our kids?
And not being afraid to be that outlier and to be unconventional.
Because really, I think that's another amazing skill to teach your child, which is in order to survive in this world, you have to sometimes be unconventional and go against the grain.
And you don't want to just be a lemming, right?
You mentioned that you said that Halloween candy was poisonous.
Do you use that language with your kids?
Because I've read a lot about like, I shouldn't label certain foods as bad or sugary or bad for you.
You should just say, we don't do that and use like softer language.
No.
Or do you call it out with the kids?
Like, what do you do?
It's impossible.
They watch all my TV.
It's impossible.
They know.
Because like in our house, we try to create all foods don't have a rank, right?
Like you don't rank dessert above dinner.
And so it's hard to not prioritize.
Like, I don't know how, but like my three-year-old clearly understands that like cupcakes is the priority food group over like the chicken parmesan.
And I'm like, who taught you that?
and it's like his own taste buds apparently.
Yes.
Fascinating.
What would you say is if you were going to the market now and you're what snacks are you buying for your kids if they're pre-packaged?
Okay, great.
I again have my bag is full of snacks and it's even full of snacks now when I'm traveling by myself.
So I love these pre-made olive packs.
They're amazing.
So a couple different brands make it.
And you can get them off Amazon and they're organic, a couple ingredients.
Do you write it?
Do you ever buy the plastic?
No, never, because packaged snacks are always going to come in plastic, right?
Unless you pick a whole fruit, which I always try to throw in a whole fruit in my bag, like an apple or some mandarin oranges or whatever, a banana that travel well.
I mean, a lot of times, you know, before I leave for the house, no matter where I'm going with the kids, I will go chop up cucumbers, red pepper, strawberries real quick, throw it in one of their, you know, lunch boxes and just have that in the car at all available times.
So then when they're hungry, they're nothing on that first at least.
And then maybe they might go to my bag for the packaged snacks.
So I love the dried olives.
I like epic meat sticks.
So they make a salmon one that my kids love, wild salmon.
So those are like the non-sugary options.
Then I like solely, which makes like a one ingredient, dried mango, gummy, and dried mango strips.
There's another company that just I can't wait to try, but it's got really cute branding called Mortal Munchies, which is they're just taking dried fruit and making it fun for kids.
We need more companies like that that are using cool, clever packaging to appeal to kids, but is one ingredient and good stuff inside.
I'm trying to think what other snacks I have in my bag.
I have pumpkin seeds.
I have all kinds of nuts.
Not for the kids, usually for me.
And then, you know, I travel with those little packs of peanut butter and almond butter and we'll put that on an apple on the go.
I'll put that between rice crackers on the go.
Have your kids ever had fast food?
They've had Chipotle, yeah, but not like...
Is Chipotle terrible for you?
You know, it's just, it's not the best.
It's not the best, but it's not the worst.
And, you know, it's the problem with eating out is actually all the things you don't know that are happening behind the scenes.
Okay, so for example, the cheese sauce that you eat with the chips at Chipotle is coming in a plastic bag.
And in order for them to make it hot, warms up in the plastic.
They warm it up in the plastic, right?
And they're putting it in a boiling pot and then pouring it out.
And I'm watching this in the background because they have the big window and you can see everything and this plastic's melting right into the cheese.
And I'm just like, I don't think I'm going to give that today.
You know, I'm just going to get the extra guac.
So, you know, so there's all kinds of things happening.
And that is happening for the rice.
That's happening for the beans.
It's happening for a lot of things is parboiled that way.
So I just say as much as you can, control the food as much as you can by eating at home, getting people to help you meal prep, whatever you need help with.
You know, my husband thankfully cooks, so we share that responsibility, which is great.
You know, a lot of times I'm the prepper and he's the cooker or vice versa.
So we're not sitting there the whole time doing everything.
so one of us can be with the kids during that crucial period of 530.
And, you know, you're going to have to eat out, but maybe pick, you know, a couple places you know have quality ways of cooking and that's your go-to when you have to eat out.
But it's not just whatever's available, fast food.
What's the best of the worst if I were to eat out?
Like I'm on the go and I didn't pack snacks because like I always forget to eat.
What's the move?
What's the move?
So I love like a sweet greens or a kava or a chopped where there's a lot of raw fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and things that you can make a really great meal from.
I love a place like that where you can make a bowl and it's really delicious.
Or you just maybe hop into a Whole Foods and hit the hot bar or something.
Do you think the hot bar Whole Foods is still better?
No.
So it's about the same.
But gosh, I just, I mean, I just, you know, it's, I don't know, when you, when you start eating whole real.
Once you know, here's the problem is once you know, I go a lot of days where I don't eat because I'm like so, not scared of eating out, but I'm like, oh, I could make such a better choice.
And by the time I'm like, okay, let me go find the better choice.
I'm like, I've missed my window to eat lunch today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I need to pack more snacks.
Yeah, pack more snacks.
There's a lot of great snacks you can throw in your bag.
I mean, I found so many different ways to keep hot things too with like using my kids' thermoses and stuff too.
Or keep things cold on the go.
I mean, a lot of times I can freeze a smoothie and take it on a plane because it's frozen.
They don't consider it liquid.
And then by the time lunch hits around, it's thawed out in my bag.
Where are you on raw milk?
High Fructose Corn Syrup Wins00:15:14
It's fine.
I mean, I think it's healthy and good for you.
I do believe that a lot of the amazing, beneficial bacteria is killed in the pasteurization process.
So, yeah.
Who are some of the biggest health and wellness influencers that you follow?
Health and wellness influencers.
Wow.
Biggest, they're all my friends.
They're all my friends.
Like, I think about, you know, Callie Means and Casey Means, and I think about Dr. Mark Hyman, and I think about Alex Clark and Courtney Swan and Health Lily and, you know, Dr. Josh Axe and Max Kohlberg and Will Cole.
I mean, I just, they're all my friends.
Like Paul Saladino and, you know, others.
Yeah.
In 2011, when you started the food babe, I don't think, I mean, there wasn't this same amount of information and accessibility into what you're doing now.
Do you ever look back and say like, wow, this is absolutely incredible and we're actually doing it?
Yes.
Or do you still think there's such a big mountain to climb that you think we're just at like the base of the mountain?
I still feel like we're at the base of the mountain.
Until I can go to a football game or, you know, a kid's show and they have organic options and healthier for you options, I'm not going to feel like we've made much headway.
Like there's still a cultural awakening that needs to happen at every moment in American life.
And I mean, even now, like when I go through the airport and I see a better for you brand, I am excited.
I'm like, yes, they have got it here.
I can buy something from this, you know, from Hudson News or whatever, right?
So it's like, you know, I think we just, we need more healthy options everywhere in every part of life.
And there shouldn't be this moment of I have to poison my kid or not.
I'm going to run through the list of your accomplishments so far really quick.
In Chick-fil-A, you got them to remove dyes and corn syrup in TBHQ.
Chipotle created an online ingredient transparency page.
Kraft Fruits removed artificial dyes and preservas from all mac and cheese products.
Subway removed the yoga matte chemical from their sandwich bread and pledged to start using antibiotic free meat.
Starbucks revamped their PSL to their pumpkin spice latte.
To include real pumpkin and remove class 4 caramel color.
Heineken removed class 4 caramel color from their Newcastle Brown Ale.
Guinness stopped using fish swim bladder and refining process to make it vegan friendly.
Anheuser-Busch and Miller Coors released their ingredients list within 24 hours of your petition.
Which of those, or I say what even the ones I did not list, has been your proudest victory thus far?
My proudest victory is probably transforming my brother because he never listened to his little sister.
And it took becoming the food babe and getting on the national stage for him to really start to clean up his diet and stop drinking soda.
And, you know, it made a lot of changes with his health.
And so for me, that was probably the most impactful thing that's happened.
It's just that personal relationship I have with him.
And really that's, you know, with family, you can't just go in their pantry and clean it out and, you know, replace everything.
It's a lot more complex than that.
And, you know, he won't even let me in his pantry anymore.
So it's, it's, you know, with family, you just can only like lead by example, really, and just hope for change and keep walking the walk and showing how to do things.
And but so for me, that was, I feel like, even harder to change than some of these big corporations.
Are there any companies you're actively working with to make changes to their products?
So right now, I feel like I'm constantly working with the entire food industry to do that, right?
I think a lot about what we're doing at Truvani, where we're changing the food industry from the inside out.
You know, when we came out with our protein powder, we were the brand that had the least amount of ingredients that had no unnecessary chemicals.
And now I'm seeing our competitors start to mimic what we've done and even our packaging and putting the number of ingredients on the front of the label like we've been doing.
And that's really exciting to me because that tells me that not only is there a marketplace for cleaner ingredients, but people really care about this.
And, you know, my partners laugh and they get really competitive when that happens and they get mad.
But I actually get really excited because that means that there's more safer products for more people being available.
And really, that was my goal with starting Truvani was to change the food industry from the inside out and create a marketplace for supplements where we don't have to have all these unnecessary ingredients.
Did you launch protein powder to start because you found that that had the most ingredients or why'd you start there?
Yes, because it was my fast food option.
So when you asked me earlier, you know, what would I go to?
The reason why I use protein powder is because instead of going to the McDonald's drive-thru or a lesser option, I love to make a quick shake.
And it's hard to like go make a quality piece of protein when you're in a hurry.
So using a protein powder is very easy.
And then you can add quickly greens and fruit and an avocado or some hemp seed or whatever in there to add a little bit of fat.
And it's a meal.
And so for me, I was always using protein powder for fast food.
But the problem is, is all of the protein powders out there had all these chemicals I didn't want to consume.
And or they tasted really bad and were very super chalky.
Or, you know, one that I was consuming got recalled because it had rat droppings in it.
So, I mean, I had all kinds of issues that happened as, you know, I was using this supplement.
And I just knew it could be done better.
And when I found out that the machines will run faster with these chemicals, and that's the reason why a lot of these protein companies use this, these chemicals in a powdered product, I was like, there's got to be a different way.
And so at Truvani, we just committed from the very start that we would use none of these controversial chemicals and we would find a way to create products without unnecessary toxins.
What supplements do you swear by?
So I take Truvani turmeric, Truvani vitamin D, Truvani immune support every single day, probiotic.
And then I take collagen and I usually put that collagen either in my coffee or in my smoothie.
And I use the marine collagen that we have.
We also have a bovine collagen.
And then, of course, my protein powder in my smoothies.
And I try to have a smoothie Monday through Friday at lunchtime because since my kids are at school, I just try to like cram in as much work as possible.
So I don't even want to spend time on lunch.
That's my fast food at lunchtime.
And my typical smoothie is always ginger, lemon, whatever greens I have growing in the garden, and then either an apple or a pear or berries, avocado or hemp seed, and water, basically.
And then I usually rotate through the different flavors of Truvani.
What industry or like category of food is ripe to be disrupted next?
Oh, that's a good question.
I think infant formula.
Yeah, infant formula needs a lot of disruption in this country.
And I'm really excited about Operation Stork Speed at the federal level because the nutritional requirements for infant formula haven't been looked at in over 30 years.
You know, I have been breastfeeding now for almost nine years.
And so I am a huge fan of breastfeeding, but there is a time and a place for a woman to choose how they want to feed their child.
And 70% of our women in America use some type of formula at some point during the journey.
And I just remember as soon as I went to Destination Maternity and bought my first maternity top, I was getting similac in the mail that had corn syrup in it.
And when I gave birth, similac was in my to-go bag when I left the hospital.
That's what they're giving infants in the NICU.
Yeah.
And I just think there needs to be better options that are using whole, organic, grass-fed milk and no additives and are doing whatever they can to create a formula that is close to breast milk as possible.
When my daughter was born and she needed a hydrolyzed formula, there was none on the market in the U.S. that didn't have corn syrup as the first ingredient.
And now I think Bobby is selling a version of that.
I think Bihart is now doing that.
Yes.
But that's it.
And there was none four years ago.
Yeah.
Serenity Kids is another one.
It's really good.
But a lot of the regulations that have prohibited the innovation in it need to be looked at.
And I think that we just need to have a whole whole overhaul of options there for people.
Because when I, I remember when I had my daughter, when she's, you know, eight again, so eight years ago, I brought a formula from Europe that I ordered. to the hospital just in case something were to happen that I couldn't breastfeed because I wasn't sure if I could breastfeed or not because I'd never had a child before and I was so worried about giving her the corn syrup formula.
So I ordered it overseas and like women shouldn't have to do that.
That's what I did.
All my formula came from Europe.
All right, so now we're going to play a game of would you rather?
We've played this on every episode of the pod.
Would you rather eat a mystery meal where you don't get to read the ingredient list or eat a donut fried in seed oils while live streaming to your followers?
Donut.
Can you tell I like donuts?
Would you rather, what would you rather ban first nationwide?
High fructose corn syrup or artificial dyes?
High fructose corn syrup.
Would you rather live in a world where every food is clean but tastes like cardboard or one where food tastes amazing but you can't trust any labels?
I don't know.
I want to go back to that.
Sorry.
That's a hard one.
High fructose corn syrup or artificial food dyes.
So can I just explain?
Go for it.
I have to explain.
So the reason why I say high fructose corn syrup is because high fructose corn syrup is coming from genetically engineered corn.
So genetically engineered corn is being sprayed with glyphosate.
And that's ending up in human breast milk.
It's ending up in our food.
It's ending up everywhere.
And we know that causes cancer, right?
And if it's being sprayed on corn, we have high fructose corn syrup in so many products.
I think if, I'd have to look at the data, but if there's more high fructose corn syrup in products, which I think there is, than there is artificial food dyes, I think high fructose corn syrup wins.
But they're both very close.
So that's a tough one.
Anyways, I had to think about my answer.
Okay, we'll go back.
Would you rather live in a world where every food is clean but tastes like cardboard or one where food tastes amazing but you can't trust any labels?
Cardboard.
Would you rather give up coffee forever or only allowed to be a drink it out of a red solo cup for a year?
Give up coffee forever.
What, no, no, I have a drink out of the red solo cup.
Out of the plastic?
I don't know.
This is awful.
Very bad.
This is like purgatory.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Would you rather be known as the organic cookie monster or the anti-additive Avenger?
Organic cookie monster.
What's one ingredient you always keep in your kitchen?
Lemons.
What do you put it on everything?
I drink lemon water first thing in the morning every single morning.
It's part of my routine in the morning.
It like jumpstarts your liver.
It's good for digestion.
It gets everything moving.
It keeps me hydrated.
I drink a huge glass of it.
And my husband does it too.
And I swear it just keeps me super healthy.
What's one ingredient you'd ban from the food system forever?
GMOs.
What's the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word seed oils?
Toxic pesticides.
What do you think of, this would be a little tangent.
What do you think of the people who are now saying that, oh, it's not seed oils that are bad for you.
It's things in moderation.
And these people have gone too crazy on saying seed oils are bad for you.
Because you've seen that in the last like few months turn, I guess.
Yeah, well I mean this happens no matter who the villain is in terms of ingredient.
Everyone always says, oh why don't you just do things in moderation?
That's an excuse to keep poisoning us.
So I don't like the word moderation.
What's your guilty pleasure food that isn't 100% clean?
Donuts.
Do you ever eat them from Dunkin' Donuts?
No.
I will never go to Dunkin' Donuts.
I will never go to Krispy Kreme, but I will eat a donut from like a local cool artisan place.
There's a place called Salty and Charlotte just opened up.
It's delicious.
The salty donut?
Yeah, salty.
Is it here too?
Do you got it?
No, it was started in Miami by actually a high school friend of mine.
Oh, no way.
Yes.
It's a fun fact.
Well, you can tell her.
I love it.
What's one food you'll never eat again?
Skittles?
Probably.
I don't know.
A lot.
There's a lot I'll never eat again.
What's the last thing you were influenced to buy?
The American diet.
Yeah, 80% of the American diet.
You're not eating.
What's the last thing you were influenced to buy?
Sorry, I don't know.
You don't get like the Instagram ads and then like click buy?
I mean, clothes all the time, right?
Like I always am, it's like the rotating thing from Neiman Marcus for Marstrom.
The carousel.
The carousel.
I'm like, oh, I like that.
Family Conversations on Food Choices00:02:46
I like that.
I like that.
Yeah, no, I mean, usually, so, yeah, usually outfits, probably.
What's your skincare routine?
Oh, gosh.
It's gotten a little bit more complex lately.
I used to be super low-key, but I had an inflammatory, like inflammation situation happen around my cheeks where I got some hyperpigmentation.
And so I started using some products, which I'm just not a product person.
So typically it's, I use coconut oil and sesame oil to moisturize.
I use a very exclusive soap from Truvani that was never released to the public, but we made a lot of.
And so I am hoarding all of the soap and it's made with coconut oil, olive oil, and sea salt.
And those are the only ingredients.
And it's an amazing soap.
So I just use that in the shower.
And then I've been using this product from Herbal Face Food.
And it's all plant-based botanicals, super clean, like the cleanest stuff in the world.
And they have this product called The Cure, which looks like you're putting orange, like tri-medic or syrup on your face.
And it stings your face.
And it almost like activates.
But I've been putting that on the hyperpigmentation and I can see that it's starting to lessen.
So that's exciting.
So, but I haven't, my typical routine is really simple.
It's like that little bit of soap and then coconut oil and sesame.
How do you get your makeup off?
Coconut oil.
It takes it off?
And then soap.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
If you could host a dinner party with three people, dead or alive, who's sitting at the table and what are you eating?
Host a dinner party.
Three people?
Three people.
Okay.
It'd be my mother-in-law, my dad, and my grandma.
And I would cook for them.
What would you cook?
Probably my butternut squash soup and homemade focacia bread and like a roast chicken, french roast chicken or something.
And for dessert, we would have some kind of pound cake because my dad loved pound cake.
Learning from Birthday Cake00:01:40
Yeah, that's what we would do.
Normally we end on that question, but I have two follow-ups.
Okay.
Do you let your kids eat real birthday cake?
Or do you make something that's like better for them that doesn't have like cane sugar?
So when they were really little, I would make all their birthday cakes without cane sugar.
But now that they're getting older, I allow them to have some cane sugar.
And they know to kind of, if they're at a birthday party or something, to scrape off the icing if it's colored to avoid the artificial dyes.
And I let them have a little bit and I let them live.
But a lot of times I usually always make their birthday cake usually.
Yeah.
And I always try to use coconut sugar instead of cane.
This is a family conversation between myself and my sister-in-law.
So I just feel like I needed to know.
And I said two, but that'll be my last one, I promise.
Thank you so much for doing this.
I've learned a lot.
I hope my viewers have learned a lot.
I know that you are the first person.
I look up at like my Instagram feed.
Like my sister and I have these conversations.
We always go to your page and reference it before we go look at the better option or go learn more.
And I know a lot of moms look up to you and look for your content as what they should do and how they should eat and how they should be feeding their kids.
So I wanted to thank you because I do think it's very powerful and important.
And so thank you for doing this.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me, Katie.
It was really fun conversation.
Thank you for watching this episode of the Katie Miller podcast.
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