Dhru Purohit Show - Why Are Kids So Addicted to Ultra-Processed Foods? with Vani Hari

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Butcher Box and Rupa Health. Ultra-processed food consumption has increased to a mindblowing 70% among children in the United States. With our fast-paced and stressful lifestyles, processed foods have become a more convenient option for parents and families. These foods often contain chemicals to give them additional flavor, create addiction, and hijack our taste buds. In order to create better health for our children, parents need some go-to tips and meal plan inspiration to bring real food back into their family's lives and reclaim health.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Vani Hari, more commonly known as the Food Babe, to discuss her top strategies for creating better health for your family. Vani Hari was named one of the “Most Influential People on the Internet” by Time Magazine. She is the revolutionary food activist behind foodbabe.com, co-founder of organic food brand Truvani, and New York Times best-selling author of The Food Babe Way and Feeding You Lies. Her new cookbook, Food Babe Family, will officially hit stores on October 17, 2023. She has led campaigns against food giants like Kraft, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Subway, and General Mills that attracted more than 500,000 signatures and led to the removal of several controversial ingredients used by these companies. Her drive to change the food system inspired the creation of her new company, Truvani, where she produces real food without added chemicals, products without toxins, and labels without lies.  In this episode, Dhru and Vani dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): -Increase in processed food consumption amongst children (2:31 / 2:31)  -Is removing natural flavors from your diet practical, and what are alternative options (14:24 / 11:46)  -Vani’s personal story navigating school lunch choices for her children (28:20 / 25:44) -Early lessons and habits learned in childhood come back full circle (45:48 / 43:14) -Vani’s tips for family meal preparation (52:00 / 49:26)  -How eating meals as a family can help create better habits and the power of connection as a family (57:25 / 55:07)  -Recipes and meal plans available in Vani’s new book (1:06:19 / 1:03:45) -Small changes that can lead to better health (1:08:14 / 1:05:35)  -Politics and changes in our food industry (1:12:52 / 1:10:17)   Also mentioned in this episode: -Organic Bread of Heaven -Sweet Nothings -Vani's website -Order her new cookbook, Food Babe Family, here Right now, new members of ButcherBox receive New York Strip steaks for a year PLUS $20 off your first order. Go to butcherbox.com/DHRU to sign up and use code DHRU. Access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests with Rupa Health. You can check out a free, live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're in a situation right now where we have American companies that continue to poison us. They've figured out actually how to make their products better for people overseas that have more regulations around processed foods and the chemicals that they contain. And because the FDA is asleep at the wheel and doesn't regulate our food chemicals, these companies get away with just continuously service these ultra-processing. processed ingredients. Welcome to the Drew Proet podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Vani Hari.

Vani Hari, also known as the Food Babe, was named as one of the most influential people on the internet by Time Magazine. She is the revolutionary food activist behind the website, foodbabe.com, the co-founder of the organic food brand Truvani, and a New York Times bestselling author of multiple books including her newest cookbook, Food Babe Family, which will officially hit stores on October 17th. In addition to being an author and entrepreneur, Bonnie truly is an activist. She's led campaigns against food giants like Kraft, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Subway, and even General Mills that have attracted more than 500,000 signatures. And she's led through her Food Babe Army to the removal

of several controversial ingredients used by these companies. Today we have Vani back on the podcast to talk about how to create a healthy and happy home. If you have kids at home, if you're a family that wants to create a healthier environment, today's episode is absolutely for you. Stay tuned. Vani, welcome back to the podcast. A pleasure to have you here. I want to jump right in. A mutual friend of ours, Sean Stevenson, shared this mind-blowing study with me,

the last time I talked with him. And it was a study from the Journal of American Medical Association. And it looked at processed food. In fact, it looked at ultra-process food consumption amongst kids, age two to 19, over the last 20 years. Ultra-process food consumption is up to 70 percent, almost a 10 percent increase in the last 20 years. And I would imagine that we probably have had at least another 3 to 5 percent increase since that time because of all the ramifications of the pandemic. What the hell is going on with our kids? kids and the consumption of ultra-processed foods and all the consequences that come along with it,

obesity, prediabetes, diabetes, behavioral issues. Basically, you're the expert here. I'm asking you, what the hell is going on? Yeah, it's really screwed up. And we're at an unprecedented moment in terms of the responsibility we have as parents. And it's one of the reasons why I felt like it was my obligation. to write my latest book, Food Babe Family, because I wanted families to know that they don't have to be one of those statistics, those kids and those upper ranges of ultra-processed food consumption, that there's another way out,

that there's other brands, other products out there, there's other strategies that you can have in your family that shield you from the dangers of processed foods. You know, I saw a headline today, you know, Yahoo News, and I think it was actually referencing that study that you mentioned. And it was like ultra-processed foods, harm your health. And it was like, finally, the news is telling us the truth, right? And we're in this situation now where we have convenience foods available to us all the time. You know, every single grocery store, every single gas station, every single place you go to the Starbucks, all of the fast food. It's constantly available. to us. But real food, things that are made from scratch for at home, made with great ingredients,

great oils like coconut oil or ghee or butter or olive oil, a lot of those things you really have to seek and go find. And if you don't know how to find those things, then you end up in a situation where you're consuming the worst of the worst ingredients. And right now, like when I think about how I raise my children. I really wanted to set an example and share an intimate look into how I was raising my kids on a diet that's mostly real food is the least processed that I can think of, that I see anybody around me, and then give those strategies to parents everywhere in a book that they can follow and they can read about, but also like 100 recipes that are easy to make, fast that don't take all day in the kitchen because who has time to spend all day in the kitchen.

Like, you need to be in and out of there in 30 minutes, you know, in terms of the fast-paced lives that we live, right? If both parents are working and your kids are in school all day and you are struggling in terms of trying to figure out how to get real food on the table because you're busy. And, you know, it's easy to go by that Chick-fil-A-Dur. drive through and pick up Chick-fil-A. But I wanted to give parents an option, hey, you don't have to do that. Here's what you can do instead. And we're in a situation right now where we have American companies that continue to poison us. They've figured out actually how to make their products better for people overseas that have more regulations around processed foods and the chemicals that

they contain. And because the FDA is asleep at the wheel and doesn't regulate our food chemicals, these companies get away with just continuously serviced these ultra-processed ingredients. And these ingredients have been created largely to either preserve a product, so it lasts on the shelf longer. It's there to make a product taste better than it should. So putting like a real food flavor in a product that isn't real food. It's creating a look and feel of something that would otherwise just not taste good at all, but by adding these chemicals, it actually creates an irresistibility to that product. And so it's making our taste buds basically being hijacked by these foods. And so we just want them more than we should. And it's actually created

an enormous amount of picky eaters. Like, if I were to think of the number one thing I get asked from a perspective as a parent is my kid's picky, how do I solve that? Like every single, I would say, dietitian I follow, nutritionist I follow that is in the parental space in terms of getting kids to eat real food, their number one request is how do I solve my picky eater? Like, how do I make them not picky? And I'll tell you what happened and why they became picky.

I believe the food industry is to blame in terms of making our society and the people that have grown up on these processed foods picky, because when you eat a bag of goldfish, it's the same damn thing every time. It's that white processed flour laced with MSG additives that turn on excitotoxins in your brain. You remember that flavor. You taste that flavor. You can't stop eating at just one. And it tastes the same every single time.

But when you eat a blueberry, sometimes it's juicy. Sometimes it's sweet. Sometimes it's sour. Sometimes it's mealy. And so it's different every single time. and if someone's used to eating real food and blueberries for a snack, they're going to have a much wider palette, a much more variety in their taste buds and what they're accustomed to,

as opposed to the person who gets the goldfish for the snack every single day at snack time. And so we have to undo this mess that the food industry has created by getting our kids hooked to these chemicals very early on. And it's alarming what's happening in all of the foods that are targeted towards children at the grocery store. Even organic foods. Like I would say the number one ingredient to avoid right now, it may not be the worst for your health or may not be related directly to a health issue. But the number one food, I would say, or ingredient that you would want to avoid in a product at the grocery store would be called natural flavor. natural flavor can mean a thousand different chemicals behind that one label on the ingredient label.

The FDA doesn't regulate what natural flavor actually can contain. It doesn't require food manufacturers to label all of the chemicals behind that one name. And so they can put anything that's been created in nature behind that one label, including thousands of chemicals that trick your brain into remembering a flavor, creating that irresistibility, that food addiction. And I believe in the creation of the picky eaters out there because they're creating the one million best part of a taste in a laboratory and then putting it in a food that's a food-like substance that isn't real food,

that's full of processed ingredients that are really cheap to put together in making it taste good. And when they do that, they're robbing your child. of nutrition, but they're also robbing your child's taste buds from them so that they continuously seek out those hyper palatable foods. And that's what's happening, I think. And that's why, you know, natural flavor is something that I see in 90, probably even more percent foods across the grocery store shelves that are packaged in process, especially geared towards children. And it's one of the reasons why I won't let my kids have any natural flavor. I mean, you know, you know,

you know, occasionally it'll enter the house, right? Or it'll be at a party or something like that. And I talk about those strategies and what to do in those situations. But it's something that it's, if it's in a product, I just won't bring it into the house. This episode is brought to you by Butcher Box. You know, when I made the decision to include animal foods into my diet after I'd been vegetarian for years,

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That's RUPAhealth.com to sign up for free today. Yeah, I mean, I always appreciate, you know, people sharing their views on things. And I'd love to talk about that a little bit because I think we can have a good back and forth. And, you know, I don't have kids. You have kids. So I'll be talking from my own perspective of only being. And uncle, first and foremost, I definitely agree that because we live in this ultra-processed food climate, of course, there's the next category, which is processed foods, which is separate from ultra-processed foods. We primarily through just a large amount of concentrated calories, fat and sugar being a big part of it, have hijacked the taste buds of not just kids, but adults as well, too.

I'd love to drill into the natural flavor side because the part that I genuinely have maybe changed my mind on over the years is that of the data that we have available to us, we know that anytime somebody starts to restrict items from their diet. Let's say people here might eat all different ways, but generally they're going to be individuals that are eating clean and everybody has a definition of what their version of clean is. the more restrictive a diet is and that somebody tries to stick to, the harder it is, at least when it comes to the major marker of obesity, the harder it is to be compliant with that aspect. And I understand where you're coming from on the natural flavor side. The part that I would bring in on sort of a national level, like a like a like a statewide level, is that where we have maybe certain things are optimal, right?

like, hey, here's an optimal way that I want to go about stuff. But when we put in a recommendation for everybody to avoid all or you're sharing what you recommend, but also explaining out to the audience that I avoid natural flavors and that's my number one thing that I want people to watch out for, my biggest genuine concern is for people who are already trying to make sure their kids are eating the right amount of protein, moving away from concentrated sources of liquid sugar that are regularly in their diet, making sure that they have better alternatives in school, which you have a bunch of hacks for inside of the book. Now we've removed a whole other category of, I would say, probably a good for kids,

especially, probably a good 80 to 90 percent of the packaged foods that are there that especially moms are making the decision on to sort of supplement, to have them eat cleaner in general. So that would be my concern. And I'd love to talk about that a little bit more because I'm sure you have some great perspectives on it. Do I think an ideal world? It would be great. Do I think it's functional, even for a lot of people who are listening on this podcast? I don't have kids, but I actually just, I don't know if it's very functional. So I'd love to expand on that a little bit more. Yeah.

And so, you know, one of the things that I did was I put together a list of 100 better snacks than goldfish. Because what I'm hearing in your debate here in terms of understanding the real world implications of avoiding natural flavor. And I love that we're having this debate because we are in a situation that's very dire. And you opened up this whole conversation with the statistics that are so dire. And when I talk about removing this one chemical from our diets, it automatically will reduce the worst chemicals in your diet because the food manufacturers that are using natural flavor are also using artificial food dyes linked to hyperactivity in children. They're using enriched flour that's been bleached and devoid of its nutrients. They're using the seed oils like canola

and corn and soy that have been genetically engineered and, you know, have been farmed with heavy doses of Roundup and glyphosate that's linked to cancer. So you're automatically going to be removing some of the worst of the worst foods where you're going to be left with some of the best of the best products. And when you look at that list of 100 snacks that are better than goldfish, they're very accessible to people. They're like one ingredient dried apples, you know, they're one ingredient dried mangoes. They don't even have to be organic, right? It's a better snack that's more nutritious and has less of an ability to hijack someone's brain and the reliance on processed food.

Like when we're eating processed foods or when your kids are eating these processed foods that don't have any nutrition left in it, you're just feeding them garbage. And for us to sit back and think that like goldfish are necessary in this world, things like that, I feel like that's what everyone's been doing. you know, the last 20 years and why we're still in this situation where we're seeing that rates increase in terms of the amount of people being exposed and their diets comprised of these processed foods. So we have to be a little bit more radical in the way we think. Because I can tell you, Drew, the way I used to feel like a zombie, hyped up on nine different

medications, eczema all over my body, asthma, you know, I had to go through so many surgeries in my early 20s, things that I know I didn't need to have to do if I just paid attention to my diet. And knowing who I am today, knowing what I've been able to change in the world, I would have never been able to do had I not taken control of my health first. And I truly believe that when people realize the true nutrition in their body and they start to feel great about themselves, they start to give back to the world in a way they never thought was possible and make the world a better place. believe that nutrition is the foundation for like literally like solving the world's problems and also raising our kids to be the best humans possible. Because immediately when your brain's

not hijacked on all of that sugar and the caffeine and the chemicals and all the other things that kids are exposed to these days. I'm thinking about prime drinks that are real popular in high school. When they're not exposed to these things, there's all sorts of behaviors that get eliminated in these kids and they start to think more critically, especially when they're going through these really interesting phases of their development and puberty. And so, like, I think we do have to think a little bit more radically about what we bring into our house. And we, thankfully, there's been an enormous amount of innovation in processed foods, not

ultra-processed foods, but processed foods that are making, like, for example, one or three, you know, three ingredient olives readily available in a little pack that you can stick in your backpack and your kids can eat olives for a snack instead of the goldfish, right? And the salmon sticks, the salmons that are, you know, I'm thinking about epic salmon sticks that have wild salmon cured in a little bit of maple syrup and salt and you're giving your kid omega-3 fatty acids protein in a snack. And I'm thinking about the, the, the, the, the rhythms, rhythm foods makes these amazing dried cauliflower bites and broccoli bites and kale bites. Like, you can get real ingredients into your kids in the form of a snack that's

packaged in process that doesn't have natural flavor. That doesn't have any of the other ingredients I mentioned, the artificial food dyes, the seed oils, the enriched flowers, the high volumes of sugar in it. And you can get real nutrition in kids. And it can be really tasty. You know, my kids love like just plain old beet chips. They're getting something that supports their liver and their detoxification. And it's a fun to food, you know, it's a fun food to eat. It can get into your backpack. And you can, you can take that on your way on a long trip overseas or wherever you're going, you know, it's like you just have to prepare in advance. You have to stock your pantry with the real stuff. And this is what I've created with this book is I wanted people to know it's possible

to live this lifestyle and not, you know, throw your back out trying to figure this out. That literally all you have to do is prepare, look at this list of snacks, get what your kids like to eat, and just keep that in the house. You know, one of the things that I love about are my pediatrician. Her name's Dr. Anna Maria Temple. You should have her on here. She's incredible. She and I were having discussion. And my little one who's two gave me a little bit of a hard time when we were traveling recently and he just wouldn't eat the vegetables the hotel was making. He'll eat my vegetables at home, but just wouldn't eat the vegetables like that would be brought to the table at a restaurant at the hotel that we were staying at. And he knew that we were going to be ordering like

french fries and we were going to be ordering other stuff. And so like he's just become more aware of like what's going on. And he knows that like, oh, they're going to bring a bread basket. And he's going to, you know, he just suddenly started to become aware of this situation of like there's going to be some more tasty things coming. So I'm not going to eat these vegetables, right? And she told me, she says, Bonnie, you were stronger than squishy. That's her nickname for my son. You are stronger than squishy because he grew up really fast. He's a big, he's a big dude for two. And you're stronger than squishy. And I was like, really? I'm stronger than squishy. I was like, he's telling me no, he won't eat him. He just wants to eat the French fries and he'll eat it like a sweet potato,

but he won't eat anything else. And it's crazy. He'll eat every. at home, but as soon as we leave the house and someone else makes it, he won't touch it. And I was like, what do I do? And she's like, you lay down the law. You tell him, this is what we're eating for dinner today. This is what they're going to be making for us. We're going to be eating our vegetables and we're not going to be eating any other things until you eat your vegetables. And you just lay down the law and you set the boundary. And even someone like me, you think that's really strong and like, you know, you know, adamant about the way I believe about food would be able to handle this two-year-old who's my son. But I found myself in a

situation where I was like, oh, geez, I have a picky eater. What's going on? And it wasn't that I had a picky eater. It was that his job as a two-year-old is to push back and see where the boundary is. And it's your job as a parent to create that boundary and to create the situation in your world so that they know how to live in this over-processed world where we're being inundated with the worst of the worst foods. I mean, the way I live, I know is very unconventional compared to the rest of America. And I think that's why I'm an activist and I think that's why I've had the passion to take on the food industry in a way that I have. And but I also believe that this lifestyle is accessible to the majority of people if they make it a priority and understand the value

and that it creates in the child's nutrition and in their mind. And I truly believe if I create the right environment at home, have the right boundaries with food in terms of here's the foods that we're going to bring into the house. Here are the foods that we don't bring into the house. And I'll tell you why. And we'll read the ingredient list together and we'll understand what these ingredients are and why they're created. And guess what? There are a million other companies out there not using these chemicals and they taste just as good and introducing my kids to the yum earths of the world and the, you know, unreal candy and like all of these other brands out there that are making better for you, fun for you products, especially for Halloween and other things

in the holidays. And so I believe that if you set the foundation for your child to, to be as healthy as possible, literally they're going to become the best human possible. They're going to read well. They're going to play well. They're going to want to learn and be at school. They're going to be on time. They're going to have a good attitude. They're not going to have outbursts. They're going to be able to handle conflict resolution better because their brains are going to be working correctly, like the way they should be. They're still going to be kids. Kids are going to be kids. A lot of this is navigating and creating a better environment.

So people don't have to think and there's better choices. Obviously, you've been doing that since the beginning with your food beta world, with your activism. You know, most individuals, like when we talk about that study and the 70% ultra-processed food, we just have to look at the data. You know, the most common consumed vegetable in the United States, I think top one and two is like potatoes and tomatoes. Tomatoes primarily in the sense of pizza sauce and pasta sauce and potatoes in the source of French fries, right?

And ketchup, right, ketchup for tomatoes as well too, right? So on these extremes that we have, which again, there's always different categories, you know, there's people that are at that extreme that are literally, you know, families that are having, trying to figure out how to go from like a liter of Coke that their child might be consuming a day to bringing it down to like a can or a half a can, right? That's obviously one cohort. And then there's a bunch of other cohorts that are there. Generally with podcasts, you know, we're preaching a lot to the choir of families who are, for the most part, on board of like, yes, something needs to happen.

I want to make better choices. I want to do things. And I'm doing my best, right? Here's the things that I'm doing. And here's the areas I want to get better on. And food is only one component. There's the fitness aspect. And the more data that's coming out over the last few years is that actually our lack of

activity for a lot of kids and adults, they would be significantly healthier if we look at all the biomarkers that we have just by being more active to the degree that we were actually, you know, designed to be. But we'll come back to activity later on. But part of this is that because we have so many different cohorts of different groups of people, it's like how do you change the environment so people don't have to think and they can just enjoy things? They don't have to know about natural flavors versus not natural flavors. They don't have to think about this. They don't have to think about that. And when it comes to kids, people are always thinking about school and how to have better options at school.

You have a great story in your book that you talk about regarding Pizza Fridays that I'd love to have you share here with our audience if you'd be open to that. Yeah, absolutely. So my daughter started going to a monastery school when she was three and she would get picked up around noon. And eventually when she turned five, she stayed throughout lunch and she'd get picked up at three. And one thing I noticed when I was picking her up at noon was there's this big delivery truck of Domino's being delivered to the school for their Pizza Fridays. For all the kids that stayed until three, they would have Pizza Fridays with Domino's. And I just remember seeing that truck going, oh no, okay, here we go.

This is going to be the first kind of lesson for her to understand what Domino's is. and I'm going to bring her along the journey with me and my thinking about this, and I'm going to teach her along the way. So we had many discussions about this since she was three, and when she turned five and she started going to school, that season right before school started about a week before they had a big parent meeting. And I remember going in there going, I'm going to bring this up. I'm going to talk about changing Pizza Friday to a better pizza, and I'm going to see how it goes. And I remember being super nervous because the headmaster, I love the headmaster, and she is, but she's very strong in terms of, you know, her beliefs. And, and I really respect her.

And so, you know, when I walked into the room, I was a little nervous and, you know, seeing all the other parents in the room, you know, and I didn't know anybody that well, like in terms of, like, I didn't have a lot of friends that were parents that were there previous to my daughter going to that school. And so everyone was kind of like a new acquaintance to me. And so, you know, didn't know me as the food babe, they just knew me as Harley's mom. And a couple people knew, right? But not a lot. And so when a mom chimed in and yelled, hey, can you bring back Pizza Fridays this year? I use that as an opportunity to educate the parents in the room about what was in Domino's pizza. And the ingredient that I mentioned that day in that parent meeting was TBHQ. It's an

ingredient that's used as a preservative in their phase oil, which they use. It's like a combination of soybean and some other seed oils. And they put it on the outside of the pizza after it's already been cooked and also on the bottom of the pan when it's being cooked. So it's like one of the worst kind of oils. And then it's got this very controversial chemical in it. And the latest studies on this chemical have shown that it actually inhibits immune response in kids and adults. And adults. And so around this time also was the pandemic happening. And so I thought for sure, this is an ingredient that would, you know, get the attention of other parents of like, how do we keep our children well? Well, maybe we shouldn't be serving them Domino's Pizza

every Friday with this TBHQ chemical. And the headmaster chimed in and she said to me, she goes, you know, we've tried another pizza place in the past. We weren't sure if the kids liked it. So we'll see. And so I use that. will see as an opportunity to send a detailed report on the ingredients in dominoes, as well as I looked at some other pizza chains like Papa Johns, and I couldn't believe actually the strides that Papa Johns has made in the last five to ten years in terms of removing a lot of the artificial ingredients. They actually have a very clean profile, like basic ingredients.

They weren't using a lot of, like, super harmful additives in their pizza. and I said, you know, if at all, I think there's an opportunity to switch to Papa John's, but, hey, I know this organic pizza place in Charlotte. And, you know, what about them? You know, that would be really great. And she writes back and she says, you know, Vani, food is a very controversial subject. It's very tricky on how to navigate these discussions. there's families that believe in all sorts of things. And she basically told me in not so many words that it was going to come down to price.

So the first call I made after I got that email, and it was kind of a discouraging email, but I didn't let it get me down. And just to give everybody who's listening the kind of resilience that I have in terms of the nature that the kind of person I am, craft foods told me no, four or five times that they were not going to remove artificial food dyes from mac and cheese until they finally did. And so, you know, I'm used to hearing the word no multiple times before I hear the word yes. And so I kept going and I called this organic pizza chain in Charlotte and I told the owner what was happening at the school and she was like, yuck.

dominoes. And she goes, I'll match the price. And she matched the price. And she delivered organic pizza to the kids for the all last year of school. It was absolutely incredible to watch. And I wanted to include that story in this book because I wanted people to know that it's possible to get a giant that's like $4.5 billion company out of a school if you just persevere and keep asking and get the right person to say yes. And I know that was a very unique situation where she matched the price of $7 a pie, which probably isn't the case that most companies could do, especially in an organic pizza chain. And actually, I have some, very disheartening news that happened about two weeks ago.

And yeah. And I haven't told anyone this story yet. I'm actually going to do a live on this because I want everyone to know. And I don't know when you're going to release this, Drew. But I think next week. Okay, fabulous. Great. So it'll be perfect timing to tell people what happened.

And what I'm about to share with you shook. my world. I was mad. I was frustrated. I was angry. I was every single emotion that you could imagine entered my body when I got this news. The start of school happened at the beginning of September. And right as the start of school happened, I said, hey, I need to do my due diligence on this pizza Friday thing. And I'm going to contact the headmaster, tell her thank you so much for having organic pizza every single day, you know, every single Friday of last year. Pure Pizza is excited and ready to do Pizza Friday for the rest of this year.

I sent a note to Pure Pizza thanking them for the last year and everything that they've done. And everybody was so excited. We had the first pizza Friday. It was awesome. All the kids had organic pizza. And then all of a sudden, the next Tuesday, I'm dropping my daughter off at school. The headmaster came up to me and said, Vani, we're going to be switching back to Domino's. And it totally took me off guard.

I couldn't believe the statement coming out of her mouth. I said to her, I said, why? What happened? And like, what's going on? Like, is there anything I can do? Because I have this relationship with the organic pizza company. And she said, well, you know, they're just really busy. And I'm not sure.

I think the scheduling is just not going to work out. And we're just going to have to go to Domino's. It's just much easier. And I said, okay. And it was just like this fly-by moment to the point where not even a second after leaving the parking lot of school, I have the owner of pure. pizza on speed dial and I'm going, hey, what's going on? What broke down? Did something happen? Like, they're moving back to dominoes I hear like, what's going on? And she's like, oh, I've been waiting for

the school to call me. And I said, oh, well, what's happening? She goes, well, you know, our food costs have gone up and we have to increase the price a little bit per pie. And I said, well, how much? and she's like $4. And I was like, okay, I was like, that's easy. We can get this covered by the parents. I can donate to the school. Like, we got this, right? Like, this is something we can figure out, right?

And so I immediately emailed the headmaster, and I said, hey, I want to talk to you about a proposal before you send the email to all the parents saying you're switching to Domino's, I would like to discuss this with you. Well, she wrote back right away and said, Bonnie, we've already made the decision. I'm sorry. And I'll be sending the email out shortly. And she sent the email out that day.

And I just remember trying to figure out what I could do, what happened, like, why she wouldn't take a donation, why she wouldn't continue this relationship. And I thought about the letter that my pediatrician sent to her. And I published that letter actually in the book because it recognized. the headmaster as a pioneer in terms of standing up to the harmful ingredients that are in processed foods and putting kids' bodies first. And so the next morning, I met with her, and I told her, and I gave her a cop. My book had just been hot off the press.

Like literally hot off the press, Hayhouse just sent me a copy, my publisher. I gave it to the headmaster. I said, I want you to reread this letter that the pediatrician sent you and see if you would reconsider. And that's kind of where we've left it to right now. And so it's to be continued. I still have 29 more pizza Fridays in the school year to figure this out. But let me tell you, let me tell you about what happened with my daughter. And I want to share this because I hope it's inspirational to parents everywhere.

When this was all going down, I casually mentioned to Harley, It was now almost seven. She was in the bath, and I casually mentioned to her, I said, hey, you know, how would you feel? Because she's been part of the conversation since day one. I didn't have to explain to her what Domino's was, right? She knows that it has ingredients in it that could be harmful to your health. And so I said to her, I said, how would you feel if your school switched back to Domino's on Pizza Friday? And she goes, mom, can't you just make pizza for me instead?

I want olives, red peppers, and green peppers, please. And I said, okay, sure, no problem, done. And I was like, is it really this easy? Like, you know, I was like, okay, you know, this is cool, right? And so I said, well, if it's that easy with her, I want to make sure the other parents know that there is another option available on pizza Friday, which is to make their pizza themselves. And we're at a school where everybody makes- I thought you're about to say that they can put in their order with you and you're going to make pizza for everybody.

I will do it. I will do it. No, I've actually thought about that. I will do it every Friday. Make pizza from scratch. Your daughter's going to come in with a bunch of boxes with a pizza for everybody. Exactly. No, I would do that in a heartbeat. But let me tell you this. So at that moment, I said, well, I definitely have to send an email to the entire school because we're at a school where everybody makes a lunch. There's no school cafeteria. So you have to make a lunch, you know, Monday through Thursday if you don't participate in Pizza Friday. And even on Pizza Friday, most kids bring in something else to fruit or some vegetables or something else too, right? And so I said, I sent a note to the parents telling them how disappointed I was, that I reached out

to Pure Pizza and they still want to work with us. But the headmaster, or not reconsidering. And here's what we're going to be doing on pizza Friday. And I said, I will be making Harley's pizza every Friday. And I put it in this really cute warmable pouch. Here's a link to it on Amazon. If anybody wants to go get one. It was like, you know, 15 bucks. And you, you warm up these little cherry pits in the microwave and they stay hot in this, like, warmable bag. It's so cool. And you can stick a little, you know, pizza pie in there. And they can take it to school and it'll stay warm until lunch. And a lot of parents wrote back and were so thankful for this information and also just, you know, saying, I agree with you, which was so wonderful to hear.

And so I wrote back another email and I said, I just want to let everyone know, thank you for their letters. I'm so happy to know that Harley will not be alone on Pizza Friday eating pizza from home. Like she won't be the only one not eating Domino. So this is cool, right? So I wanted to encourage other parents to, you know, that they're kids. if they decide to opt out, that they won't be alone either. And I love the fact that she's not alone now eating Pizza Friday from pizza from home. But here's the cherry on top, the icing on the cupcake.

Okay? First Pizza Friday where I make her her own pizza. And I pick her up from school. And I say, Harley, how is your lunch today? Did you like the pizza I made? She goes, Mom, it was so good. And I said, really? I go, was it better than pure pizza?

And she said, yes. And I said, my work is done. My work is done as a mom. I'm done. And, you know, what this taught me is that I'm teaching my daughter maybe an even more valuable lesson in the fact that she is one of the only ones not eating dominoes in that classroom and that it's okay to be unconventional, that it's okay to stand out and stand up for your beliefs and stand up for your health. And that lesson, I think, is more valuable even than getting

the whole school maybe to eat organic pizza, although I'm going to still keep trying for that and I'm not going to give up. But that lesson, it taught me a lot in terms of a parent. You have to let your kids be in these situations where they're going to be exposed. I mean, this is the first of so many situations where she's going to be exposed to a situation where she's going to stand out. She's going to be different. And I want her to feel very confident to know that she's still going to be eating tasty,

delicious food if she says no to a product because it has bad ingredients. And I feel like it's our responsibility as parents to teach them the truth about food because we have access to this information like we've never had before. I think about my mom who came here as an immigrant Indian parent who had no access to any of this information. She was used to making everything from scratch from using medicinal spices and all these fresh vegetables to make her foods, her traditional traditional foods in India, right? And when she came to America and was exposed to, quote, unquote, American food and didn't know how to cook it, she thought she was doing the right thing by going and getting the

Betty Crocker and the hamburger helper and going to McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's. She thought she was doing the right thing for helping me fit in. And she had no idea what chemicals were in any of this food and how it had been completely industrialized. But now we had this information. We know what these chemicals are. You can look up all of these chemicals. You can look at an ingredient package and understand everything that you're eating.

You can understand why it's there because that information is available on Google. And so if you are listening to this and you are a parent, I believe it's your ultimate opportunity to raise the next generation of the best eaters and the most aware eaters in terms of what the food industry has done to our bodies and our food and completely adult. in a way that's making us so sick as a society. And you can say no and you can opt out and you can have a different life and you can be unconventional and it can still taste freaking good. I love it. Amazing. Going back to that story, I think that lesson, you know, every family has its own set of values of things that they really prioritize. And they want to instill inside of their kids that we can respect and understand that people come from all different aspects.

of, you know, life and cultures and other things, but we shouldn't ever be ashamed or feel embarrassed for sticking up for our values. And that could be a family that comes from a particular religion, could be a family that eats a particular way, could be a family that has certain values about, you know, what's taught in school or how to treat other people or, you know, all sorts of different things that are there. And I think that any exposure that kids get to the fact that we don't have to all fit in with the crowd puts them in a position in the future where it's like, actually, you know what? In most categories of life, being weird actually is a good thing.

If most people are broke financially in America, you know, and there's a lot of different reasons why, you know, there's a lot of people that have three, four jobs that being underpaid, there's other situations. But let's say even people who have a decent income, they are spending a lot of money on you know, credit cards or they have super high car payments and nobody taught them how to manage money. So if most people are broke by all the stats we have, it's weird that at whatever income you are to be financially appropriate to that income, to have savings, things like that, right? That's weird. If most people are unhealthy, especially as they get older and they don't

have those youthful genetics and that metabolism that you have, if that's normal, if you're It's normal to be obese. It's normal to be metabolically and healthy. Then being weird is actually pretty cool. Like I celebrate the fact that I like to be a little bit weird in my life and do things different. And the earlier that kids get that contrast, the more natural it's going to be that when they get to, from what I've heard from all my friends that have parents and the guys in my men's group, kids will get to their teens and they're going to push back and they're going to have their own boundaries, the teen brain, right? I did it, you did it, we all did it, right? And there's going to be a natural aspect of they're going to be eating things that are going to be different than what they had.

They're going to want to fit in. Unfortunately, in this day and age, the world that we live in, even in really well off private schools, the drug aspect is a big component, right? Vaping and other things like that, how pervasive it's been. Whatever it might be, right, excessive social media or other stuff. But then naturally those years can often be tough. not for every family, but often is what I hear. And then gearing up, especially for that high school period, there's a return that when you're finally living out there in the real world with

everybody else and you see how crazy people eat or live or kind of think about stuff, you're like, you revert back to all the lessons that your parents taught you with these values that kept you healthy, kept you from not being sick all the time. And then you have a college roommate and they're sick all the time. I know for me, that's what happened, right? I ate like shit in high school. I ate all the processed food. I would skip out on lunch.

And at the time I was vegetarian and I would just go to 7-Eleven. I'd eat skittles, mountain dew and like a honey bun, right? That was like my lunch. Yeah. But in the evenings, I would eat, you know, whatever my mom would make, the traditional Indian food that would be there. You know, and but then I got to college. And a lot of those things kicked in and you realized, wow, there's a reason why. my parents, if they had a values-based approach to some aspect of life, there might have been some

things. Sure, they're not perfect. Nobody's perfect. But there might have been some reasons that they did what they did. And then now you have that lesson baked into moving forward from there. So that can only come from these early lessons. And you were very fortunate to be able to give your daughter one of those lessons. Yeah. Yeah. And it took several days of, you know, exploring what had happened and writing the emails and talking to her and figuring this out. And I remember I was reading Rick Rubin's book, The Creative Act. I think it's what it's called. It's a new book that just came out.

And I was reading it in my bed. And I remember something I read in there just, it just sparked it. And I go, what I'm learning through this whole situation is actually so much more valuable to her. than I ever thought was possible. Like the silver lining of it is absolutely incredible in terms of what she's learning. And I shouldn't feel bad about what's happening. And I felt really bad about it because it was like, you know, something that I felt very strongly about and felt like it was something that I felt almost like unjust that it had been undone, you know.

Let's go through some other tips, some things that you work through your routine, your schedule as a family. Like I know one thing that was there for me in the family that I grew up in, right? I never saw my mom making. And, you know, let's be real. My mom was making most of the food. My dad sometimes on the weekend would take over, but my dad was, you know, was busy. He was at, you know, his job and often had to travel for work in the position that he was in. And so a lot of the brunt of it fell on my mom.

And like a lot of the brunt of making food today falls on, you know, many women that are in the household. even with more awareness there. I never saw my mom making a single meal. Anytime she would cook, it was always for at least two to three meals. And that was one thing that I always remembered growing up. My mom would never sit down and just say, here's one single meal, because she also had a job, especially when we were younger. And she had a part-time job when we moved to the United States.

We were living in Nashville, Tennessee, and then we moved to Texas. She had a part-time job, and so she was trying to figure out. And today, you know, you see a lot of people, you know, not always necessarily embracing that sort of meal planning or sort of bulk prep opportunity. Is that one of the tips that you recommend? And if not, feel free to go into any other tips that you have inside of the book. No, absolutely. So I think what, you know, because I want to eat as much real food as possible, not relying on

something that's fast and easy. You have to have things available, ready to go. And so one of the things that I love to do is make a huge batch of muffins, a huge batch of pancakes, a huge batch of waffles and freeze them so that mornings are super easy. You can take those out. You can defrost it. I have this little mini oven from Bremel. It's also an air fryer too. It's stainless steel. It's amazing. I have a regular oven, but I use that oven more often because it warms up faster and I don't use a microwave. Yeah, it's faster. It's faster. It's so much faster. And you can turn it on and you're at 350 degrees already. It's awesome. So you don't use your microwave for anything other than to warm up those little cheers for the pizza oven. Exactly. It's the only thing I use it for. Yes. And my heating

pad occasionally because I'm getting old. But so, but yeah, yeah. So in terms of heating food, I'm using that little oven all the time. And it's perfect for like warming up a pancake or a waffle or something that I've, you know, made a bulk of on the weekends. And I do the same with my other meals and other things that I buy. Like there's this company that I buy bread from. It's called organic bread of heaven. They make the most amazing from scratch organic sourdough products. So they have sourdough buns, sourdough tortillas, sourdough, um, loaves of bread, sourdough, sourdough, little mini slider buns, like all of these things that if you were to go to a regular grocery store, you would be inundated with all kinds of chemicals. Like, you know, they make the equivalent of like a Hawaiian

roll, but in an organic version. And so they send it to you, you freeze it, you have it ready in the freezer for whenever you do make a little slider or you make a, or it's taco night and you want a nice tortilla. I used to make my tortillas from scratch, like before I had two kids. Who has time to do that anymore, right? So I go and I buy organic bread of heaven. So I have like little tricks like that where I stock the freezer with real food things that I can bring out any time to help prepare the different meals that I'm having. I think the second thing other than picky eating that I always get asked about in terms of kids and eating is how do I get my kids to love vegetables? And one of the things that we do in our house is we eat in courses.

Every single course, the first course, is always the vegetable course. And now we're seeing data that shows that when you eat vegetables first, it actually helps benefit the insulin spike later on in a meal. If you eat vegetables first because it lines the gut, it populates it with good fiber, good bacteria. And then when you eat the other carby things or the other sweeter things in the meal or even dessert, it impacts your blood glucose level differently. than it would if you ate the vegetables at the end of the meal.

So there's actually a scientific reason to do this now. I just did it because I felt like it was important for my kids to eat the vegetables while they're hungry. I mean, if you bring out, for example, all of the food in a meal at the very beginning for a little kid who hasn't been really trained to really enjoy all the different types of foods, they're going to be overwhelmed. kids are very overwhelmed by a lot of choices. And so you want to keep the choices minimal. And then you also want to have a situation where you're exposing them to a variety of vegetables every single day.

Not always choosing the steamed broccoli that you know that they're going to eat. You do cabbage one day. You do bok choy the next day. You do carrots. Then you do sweet potatoes. Then you do cauliflower. And you have a variety every single day. In that first course, it's served.

You get them why they're hungry. they eat that vegetable and then they'll happily go to the protein of the meal or the the carbohydrate of the meal. And then, of course, dessert, we usually do some type of smoothie or fruit or some kind of frozen treat. There's this amazing company out there. I have no affiliation with it, but it's called Sweet Nothings. And they've made these little smoothie pops that are in these cute little packages with little smiley faces. And they're made with like organic spinach and pineapple and dates and chia and no added shirt. It's absolutely incredible for kids.

And my kids, that's like their one little process sweet treat at the end of the night. They don't even know that it's like so good for them, right? It comes in one of those like packages that you would never know that it's actually really good ingredients. So I love that company for creating something like that because I wish there was more stuff with like smiley faces and like, you know, princesses and Mickey Mouse and all that on like some of the good food products out there. You know, one of the things that we talked about, we took a couple's trip. And we all went to Matt. We kind of rendezvoused in Mexico at one point in time.

And you brought your kids too. And my wife got a chance to meet your kids and meet your husband. And we were all chatting a little bit about it. You know, my wife and I don't have kids yet, but that's something that's definitely in store for us from the future. So we always have a ton of questions. We're always learning for people. And one of the things that was the topic for discussion when we were all together was how many percentage of your meals, you know, you guys get a chance to eat together. And obviously in this world that we're in today,

everybody always wants to hear the caveats. Of course, not everybody's going to be in that position, but there's actually really strong data, again, going back to our mutual friend, Sean Stevenson, sharing about just even how the difference in, in major outcomes that people are looking at for health choices, but also social choices, you know, avoiding hanging out with the wrong people,

getting involved in drugs, getting involved in, you know, poor activity or sort of any kind of like, you know, the wrong group, basically, just families eating dinner together, right? And how much of a difference that makes that's there. You talk a little bit about your guys' approach and some of the lessons that you might want to leave with people about meal time and, and yeah, what do you want to say about that? Well, I think, first of all, I want to have one caveat in that I've designed my life so that I can have almost every single meal with my children. And not everybody's that. That was one of your kind of

core important things. Like even before you were probably thinking about kids, you were thinking about this is something that I want to get a chance to do. Yeah. And I think they learned so much about your eating habits, what you're doing. Like you're the ultimate teacher. Like if you're going to be eating Doritos and burgers from McDonald's and all the stuff in front of your kids, they're also going to want that. So if they're watching you eat, the best of vegetables and the real food and looking at the ingredients and going to the supermarket and picking the best produce and the farmer's market and all of that, they're going to want to do that too and eat some of that. I think that's the reason why my daughter, one of her favorite vegetables,

was bach toy because we were actually growing it on our front porch and we were letting her pick it and feel it and touch it. And then she wanted to eat it. And she was like, wow, it's like so delicious when it's made with like olive oil and garlic and lemon. It's so good. And so because I've exposed my kids to the way I eat by eating with them, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They're the most amazing eaters as a result of that just from watching myself and my husband. Now, my husband has a chip addiction. He loves a bag of chips. And sometimes he'll go into the pantry right before dinner and eat a couple chips.

And it drives me crazy because the kids just run right to the pantry. You're like, chip please, you know? He loves to have a chip, right? So we're not perfect, right? We have our, you know, things about us. I guess I could say like my kryptonite is sugar, right? Like I would love a good dessert at the end of the day, right? And I've incorporated that in our family in terms of I let my kids have, you know, their quote unquote dessert. It's a good, you know, healthier version of a dessert. It's, you know, mostly real food, not a lot of sugar, but something that's decadent and yummy too. And so I've incorporated kind of like my habit. it's in them, and it's been so beautiful to watch. It's almost like non-negotiable to me in terms of missing a meal time for my kids. Now, I've had to do it for meetings or if I'm on a work trip or, you know, I'm on a business trip. Something's happening, right? And I do miss those opportunities, but I do make it a priority every single day to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them.

And it has been so awesome to watch my kids as they have created how. habits and manners in a way that now I can take them to some of the fanciest places in the world in terms of restaurants. And they can sit and dine and have a sophisticated meal and sit there for over an hour, sometimes two and three hours of your grants, and sit there and entertain themselves with their sticker books or their toys, but also enjoy the multi-course meal because we eaten courses at home. And so it's so fun to go out and enjoy these situations that I love. I mean, I love a good, wonderful dinner that is multi-course and you sit and have conversation with your friends

for several hours. Like, that's like one of my favorite things to do in life. And so to see my kids being able to handle that situation and enjoy that, it's like the ultimate joy. And I just believe that like, like we as parents give up so much of our lives and so much of our autonomy when we have. kids and it's so cool when we're able to raise our kids to enjoy the things we like to. And so it's a beautiful moment when that happens. Yeah, that's really beautiful. Just thinking back again in high school, the fact that I was having dinner every night. Obviously, I had sports and other stuff and there'd be times that I wasn't available,

but the times that I was at home, my family, even my dad who was very busy unless if he was traveling, we all tried to have dinner together every single night. And a lot of my friends thought, wow, that's weird, some group of them. And another group felt a little bit of, you know, they didn't say it because it's high school boys, but it's like, I wish I had that, right? Like the fact that it's there and you guys are interested in your day, you're getting a chance to talk. And especially for kids as they get older, if I could just put myself in that situation. When they're young, it's like you want to talk, talk, talk, talk. And then they get into their tweens and kind of teens.

And it's like the least interesting question to you as a teenager is like, so how was your day? Because, you know, you're like, oh my gosh, like you're asking the same question. And I think meal time and just the natural way that conversation ends up coming up when everybody's just there together and the focal point. The conversation can kind of happen in the background without too much pressure and everybody's eating. And it's just like you naturally see that people are starting to open up a little bit more versus even. families that have the means today to have meal time together, it's just less likely to happen because everybody kind of wants to do their own thing. They all want to watch their own thing on their devices. And listen, I'm not a purist. I know that it's going to be difficult. I don't know

if necessarily that's my, you know, main goal to have all my meals together with my kids, but I'd love to do what I had growing up, which is have, you know, dinner with them. And I'm sure I'll go through my own unique challenges when I hit the, you know, teenage years and stuff. But I think that if we don't have it, we have to be asking ourselves, well, who's now influencing our child's behavior? Yes. Who now has their attention? Yes.

Who now can sort of steer them in a different direction. It's not that if we're not there, okay, great, they just don't have access to their parents in the future. It's no, somebody's going to be filling that void and, you know, that can lead to a bunch of different, you know, directions, especially if your kids, you know, have friends of you know, which I hope they would do. They have friends of all different backgrounds and things, but who knows what they're watching on YouTube or this or that?

And at least that family aspect regrounds them. If you don't have that family component, you know, I truly do feel you're probably going to end up missing out on something in life. Yeah, totally. Vani, this has been great. Any sort of last messages, tips, anything that you want to leave the audience with when it comes to the new book out, which is out, Food Babe family, more than a hundred.

hundred recipes and full-proof strategies to help your kids fall in love with real food. Any lasting things you want to leave the audience with? Yeah, absolutely. So I just want to say that this book is something that I really wanted to create because I wanted to leave parents a guidebook on how to live in this over-processed world. And I wanted to make it easy for them. And so all of the recipes are super fast to make. You don't spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

They're really easy. You take a couple minutes to prepare something, and most of the time it's just cooking in the oven, and you're playing with your kids. And that's kind of how I run the situation in terms of food. And some of the other things that are more labor-intensive to make. You make in advance and you have in the freezer ready to go. And so this is your opportunity. If you're listening to this and you're a parent, this is your opportunity to make your life easier

and have more real food available in your life. And it's going to be an amazing thing that I know that I had to write because I am witnessing how I'm raising my kids and I'm just watching them be such amazing eaters. And if I left these tips untold, I would feel so sad. Like I would feel like I wasn't living up to my purpose in terms of getting people to understand the truth about what's really in their food and giving them an option of how that they can opt out of this big science experiment that we're all. part of right now. So yeah. Important. Are there any recipes that are online that we can mention here that we can link to or that you get for like signing up to your newsletter or anything else like that? Is there a recipe in the book that you want to highlight that people have available to them? So one of the things that we're doing, which is totally crazy that I'm so excited about,

is when you purchase the book, we're giving away 12 months of meal plans and a database of recipes that you can turn to in a community of people that you can ask any question to and grocery lists and pantry lists so that you have all of the resources at your fingertips to implement this book and also implement it into your lives and be there for support for you. And so that's what we're doing. And it's available at foodbabefamily.com. You just go get your book wherever it's sold. It's everywhere where books are sold. And then you just put in your info and we'll send you the link to that info. So is this famous pizza recipe inside of here too?

Yes. Yes, it is. What's the name of it? Just so people can look out for it. What is the name of it? It's a pizza, homemade pizza? Homemade pizza? We gotta look at the name. I know the picture.

Hold on in a second. Let's find it real quick. Photos are great. You guys did a really good job. Thank you. Oh gosh, don't even talk to me about the photos. Imagine taking like 60 family 60 family photos within two days with two little ones, right?

Quick and easy home-baked pizza. There it is. Okay. Yeah, it's there. Page number. Page number 228. 228. So pick up the book, page 228, and then try to convince your school to switch over to this pizza.

If Vani can make it for everybody, you guys can too. Bonnie, this has been awesome. Thank you again for coming on the podcast, sharing the work that you do. And really, you know, I always think in terms of, We need the advocacy on all sides. The vast majority of people, they're not listening to podcast. They're not even listening to Health Podcasts, right? First of all, they're not listening to Health Podcasts.

They're not listening to Podcasts. They don't have that time that's there. And there's a whole bunch of economic reasons and the reasons that people' lives are busy that they don't have that ability. So all the work that you've been doing over the years of getting these companies to change the environment, we know that when the environment changes in the options, change and even if they're a little bit better, right? You didn't convince, you know, craft to get rid of, you know, processed macaroni, right? You just said, look, these few ingredients

that are there, this actually significantly makes a difference on a population level when we take them out because we know people are going to be eating processed foods. We know that it's there. And we can have a dream one day and maybe robots and AI are part of it that everybody has a homemade, you know, home robot chef one day, like Jetson style that's cooking food for them. And the government, you know, gets this act together. You know, we get, you know, better leadership in. And they start subsidizing some of this food for people who don't have access to it. But in the meantime, people are eating processed food. So anything that people can do to head in the right direction, any meal that they can replace, even if that's one meal a day that they're eating

better, more real ingredients. And then, of course, you know, you also can be an example for how you run and live your household, right? And you're saying, look, this is what we do. Because of my values, food is so key and my journey and my story. That may resonate with some people. That may not resonate, but at least they see your thinking and people know that it's possible. Then everybody in the middle gets to figure out where do they want to be, right? Where do they want to be? Do you want to just make a few healthier choices and you have a bunch of brands that are inside here that they can choose? Or do you want to really swing for the fences because you've done a lot of that stuff? And you're like, no, I actually really want to shoot for this idea of having more meals together as a family

or actually making more things from scratch and having better meal planning at home. So the options are all there. And, you know, I think that your work is a perfect array of all those options. And I thank you for, you know, doing it all over the years. Thank you, Drew. I really appreciate it. It has been, you know, it's one of the reasons why I felt like I fight. for the people that don't know any better.

And it's like there's so many people out there that still don't understand what's happened to the American food supply. And our work is kind of like never done, right? I mean, the fact that, you know, the headmaster at my daughter's school just switched that nonchalantly back to dominoes, she doesn't understand, right? And I just feel like we have an opportunity. now more than ever to get this information out there. And for the people that don't know any better, like, what can we do to support the companies that are doing the right thing, vote with our

dollars, call out the companies that are doing the harmful things? And I mean, I think of, and I know we're wrapping this podcast, but I just think of this one company because it makes me so mad, is I think of Kellogg's who in 2015 decided to remove artificial food dyes from their cereals, told everybody, got the press involved, the press wrote about it, they said they would do it by 2018, and they never did. Instead, they created more cereals that were more hip to children of today, like Baby Shark and Unicorn with artificial food dyes to market that to kids of today. And no one's holding them accountable. The FDA isn't doing it. The media is not doing it. Nobody's saying, hey, you said you were doing this, why didn't you do it? It's people like me, activists,

podcasts like this that get the information out that lead to people making better choices at the supermarket that eventually allow these companies to lose their market share to the point where they start discontinuing some of these products. And I've seen that across the board of every single major brand out there in terms of discontinuation of certain things like Kellogg's just decided to discontinue unicorn waffles. I'm so happy about that. I just found out about that. And it's because I've been on their case about that and telling people not to buy it. And but that's what it's going to take. And it's again, it's going to come from all sides, like you mentioned. It's going to take all angles to make this a world a healthier place.

Yeah, you know, one more question here. You know, you've got a lot of your start, sort of the intersection of food and politics, right? There's that. classic photo of you, I think it was at the Democratic National Convention where you were trying to get people's attention about, was it GMOs? Yeah. Yeah. GMOs. Do you want to weigh in on sort of the political landscape right now and any kind of thoughts that you have about, you know, are, do you feel like there's more conversation or candidates that are there that are at the top level that are starting to talk about any of these food things? You know, there are some candidates running that are more hip to what's going on in the food world. However,

I've realized not to get too excited about any candidate. I think what's important is personal responsibility in understanding what's happening in the food world and learning that information on your own. And I'm never looking for a hero to like solve everything for me. And so something really great happened this week in California. California banned several different additives in food, brominated vegetable oil, red number three, potassium bromate. And red number three was a very interesting one in that this is an example of how corrupt the FDA is. Red number three was prohibited and banned from cosmetics several years ago because they found in lab animals that it caused cancer. But the Marasino Cherry industry, who is largely influenced by the alcohol industry where all the fancy drinks have those little red Marasciro cherry industry.

cherries, they were using red number three. So they lobbied the FDA right before they signed the law to still allow it in food. So you couldn't put red number three on your lips and lipstick, but you still were allowed to eat it in food, and it was linked to cancer. And so this is an example of the industry's powerful nature in terms of creating policy that impacts our health. And until we get rid of the corrupt politicians and the corrupt people in the government that allow these loopholes to continue like that, we're going to be in a situation where citizens are going to have to take control and make the best choices for themselves and hold these companies accountable and the government accountable for what they're doing. One of the things that happened, which is really sad, in that bill in California,

titanium dioxide was in there originally. It got removed. because it's such a widely used products. It's over 11,000 very popular brands out there. It's in Skittles. And it's banned in Europe because it causes cancer, but it's still out here in the United States and California got it taken out of that bill because of the powerful nature of the lobbyists.

Sad. Well, we can all do what we can do on our own. And then when you have a little bit more time, resources, and awareness, You start advocating on behalf of society, kind of like you did. And then you want to take it a step further, you know, people become entrepreneurs. And they go and create a brand. You know, that's like one of the most exciting things I think that's going on in this day and age is that you see people. You obviously have your brand, Truvani.

And then there's people like our friend Jason Karp, who started, you know, his wife and the wife's brother. They started, you know, Hugh Chocolat. And, you know, there's so many examples of that, you know, people saying, I want better options that are out there? Why do I have to put up with all these options from these food companies that are like literally 100 years old or older? Why can I have a better option? And that entrepreneurial spirit, that uniquely sort of capitalistic, conscious capitalistic approach of putting out better options, that is the part that gives me the most amount of hope because I don't think that we solve this. If I'm honest, I don't think it's just solved through education, right? I think education

is most important for the people who have the means to be able to do something about it, right? Because they can influence their own family. But when those people have means and can do something about it, get educated, now those individuals go and create solutions, whether it's technology or companies or other stuff. And then all of a sudden, the landscape changes and people wake up and there's just healthier, more healthier options that are available or better tech that ends up making it easier for people to live healthier lives. And you mentioned such a good example in Jason, and the product that I think about, that he created Snow Days, which is a better for you.

It's organic pizza bite that is in the freezer section. You can have it available at any point in time in your freezer, and it takes eight minutes to make in the oven, in that small little oven, probably even faster. And it's just, it's incredible in terms of, like, you can get like a little pizza alternative to your kid that is grain-free, organic, using organic. dairy and all organic ingredients is pretty awesome and no additives in there. And so there's all these companies that are being innovative in terms of using processing in a way that actually makes our lives better and are still able to create really healthy products for us. So it's cool.

Totally. So if you've been, if you're listening and you're on the edge, you have an idea, something that you want to start, know, the world's counting on you. You know, we're cheering you on over here. You know, we need better options, better solutions that are out there for people. Bonnie, this has been great. The book is out. Food Babe family.

We'll link to it in the show notes. Thank you again for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Drew. It was an awesome. It was just, it was awesome. I really enjoyed the conversation. I can't wait to share it with my audience. Like, I think they really need to hear this.

I appreciate it. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this.

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If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-H-I-T dot com and click on the tab that says, try this.