The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Stop Believing the Lies in Food, Politics & Self

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

She changed the food industry. Now hear her story. In this episode, Dr. Josh Axe interviews Vani Hari, or the Food Babe as most of you know her. Join in on the conversation as she shares: How she uncovered the truth about fast food and chemical additives Her personal story and mission to help people eat cleanly and shop smartly Behind-the-scenes of getting Chick-fil-A to go antibiotic-free Her advice for entrepreneurs and moms How she has pursued truth and critical thinking in areas like politics, media and more Join this fascinating conversation with a food activist who empowered millions to take control of their health. Let Vani's insights motivate you to make better choices for yourself and family. Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter ------  Links:  Vani’s new cookbook, Food Babe Family will officially hit stores October 17, 2023!  Follow The Foodbabe on Instagram & Facebook  https://foodbabe.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

These are manufactured, processed candies full of chemicals. And I just like went through the ingredients with her. Even though I knew that there's no way she could comprehend it at that time, it was just my way of like indoctrinating her and letting her know the truth about the food system and all these shiny packages you see everywhere and what's actually in them and why we shouldn't eat them. Because if you don't and we don't, someone else will. Yes, absolutely. And they'll tell you the reverse of that, which is you have to.

eat this. It's so yummy. Look at this beautiful little, you know, cartoon character. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Growth Lab podcast where we uncover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career and relationships to the next level. I am Dr. Josh Axe. I'm a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. I'm the founder of ancient nutrition and leaders.com. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking to Vonie Hari, where some of you might know her as the food babe and talking about how to take your career and your health to the next level. You know, Vani has been a really good friend of mine for a long time. You know, we have so much in common with both being thought leaders in the House space, but also being entrepreneurs and founders of businesses.

And Vani is a food activist. She's a New York Times best-selling author. She's the co-founder of an organic food company. and she was named by time as one of the most influential people on the internet. And Vani started a company called Food Bave to really help change what's going on with American food companies that are targeting things like kids. But she's an incredibly mission-minded entrepreneur, and I'm so excited to talk to her today. Hey, Vani, welcome the show. Oh, Josh.

It is such a fun time to be here with you today because I was really looking forward to this conversation because I just love you as a human being. when we first met so many years ago, I just was immediately drawn to your aura and just everything that you were doing to help people. And I'm just so glad we're friends. So thank you for having me on. So, Bonnie, one of the things that I would love for you to share is about your story. You know, you went from being this corporate 9 to 5 employee to then going and building a multimillion dollar purpose-driven business.

And for me, every time I hear your story, it's just inspiring that you went from sort of this nine to five job you didn't love, you felt stuck in to doing something where you're literally changing the world. So can you share a little bit about your story? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I, I majored in computer science when I was in college. And so it was something that I did because I thought it would land me a good job. My brother did it. And he was like driving around a Porsche at age, you know, 24 or something. And so I was like, okay, you know, he's really successful. Look at this lifestyle he's built and maybe I'll just, you know, major in the same thing he's majoring in so I can get like an actual job. So I didn't follow my passion throughout

college. I just did the work that I needed to do to become a computer scientist. And it was just, it was really kind of draining to do that career because I just wasn't really super passionate about it. I'm super thankful now that I went through that because I learned so much through my experience of consulting after I got a job basically out of college to be a consultant. And once you're in computer science school, you know, you learn a lot of different things. You learn problem solving. You learn a lot of math, a lot of crazy hard math, physics three, because I was in the engineering school too back then.

So they didn't really separate engineering and computer science back then. So I had to take all the engineering classes. And so when I graduated, consulting firms were really interested in people that were in the engineering school or in computer science school because they could problem solve. And so they hired us to join these consulting teams that we would go then work for these sea level executives at these big banks. And we would act like we knew what we were doing. I had no idea what I was doing.

And they would teach us on the spot because we were good learners that we could figure out how to do the work that we needed to do. And I remember one of my first jobs was, converting 27 different banks into one system. And back then, if you lived in like North Carolina and you wanted to deposit a check in Georgia, you couldn't do that. And so we figured out how to switch those systems and work in that bank to do that. And I remember working crazy amounts of hours and billing so many like 60, 70 hours a week to the client. And the way I got away with that is I basically, you know, outsourced my body to the corporation. I was eating what everybody else was

eating. I was doing what everybody else was doing, not having time to work out or take care of myself or even sleep for that matter. I was eating what they were bringing in for catering for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I found myself really super sick in that environment. And that's when I hit rock bottom and ended up in the hospital with a peasant. tendicitis, and that's when I made the decision to finally take control of my health. But I continued working in that environment. So I still continued to work in these large banks, in a cubicle environment, you know, sitting for most of the day, doing this kind of work that was very repetitive, not very meaningful.

It was fun at times, and I was driven at times, and I wanted to be successful, so I did good at my job. But there was little meaning behind it. And when I started to heal my body through food and nutrition and learning about what, about the foods that I was eating and learning what was actually in them and realizing that the majority of food that I was eating was dead, processed food full of chemicals, when I removed those foods from my diet and I started to get healthier, I mean, everything changed. I started to realize a way of life that I never thought was possible. my brain started working for the first time on things that I was super passionate about or wanted to learn about. And I found this ability to like, you know, come home from work and just like sit and read

and like do all the things that I wanted to do. And I realized I was super passionate about telling people what I had learned about the food industry. And so I started foodbabe.com as just a fun thing to do. I gave up television for Lent, even though I'm not Catholic. Like, I just decided, you know, this is a good time to give up something. So I had all the free time in the world to, like, work on this blog that I wanted to start. And, you know, right before Easter, I remember I hit publish on, like, my first three blog posts. And my friends were like, well, you know, how are you going to share this blog post with us?

Like, you have to go on this thing called Facebook. And at the time, I'd never been on Facebook. I didn't, you know, I didn't want to be on social media because I thought maybe one day I wanted to run for office. and I didn't want all my personal information on the web. And so I was really scared about social media. I'd heard about people who put their party pictures online and then they get fired from their job. I mean, there was all the stigma around being on Facebook at the time.

And I was like, okay, fine, I'll join Facebook. And I just started sharing the blog on there and started to share it with my friends and my family. And then slowly but surely, I started to share ways that I had, felt duped throughout my journey as a human being by the food industry. And one of the first things I shared was the 100 ingredients in a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich and how one of the top ingredients was MSG and many other different chemicals they used to make that sandwich. And that post went so viral that like my local newspaper wrote about it and then eventually Chick-fil-A

reached out to me and invited me to their headquarters to consult with them. and to see how they could make changes. And it was at that moment that I was taking off of work, you know, my banking job, and flying down to Chick-fil-A, and it was quite the experience. I mean, they rolled out the red carpet for me. They picked me up in a cow-mobile wrapped in cow print. And they, like, sit me down in this boardroom full of all the executives at Chick-fil-A, the guy who's like the head chicken supplier guy, the head of marketing,

the head of operations, like everybody's there, and they're like, okay, your post went viral, we hear you, like, what, out of all the things you had complaints about our food, what would be the first thing you would change? And I sat there with a whiteboard like I was in my normal job and did a consulting gig, I guess, with Chick-fil-A, where I went through all the different line items of, you know, the artificial food dyes in their ice cream and in their pickles, the TBHQ that they were using as a preservative in their oils. We talked about the MSG, but the number one thing that I talked to them about that day

was something that I felt really strongly about because I had the opportunity to meet a former general of the U.S. Army, Wesley Clark. And when I met him at an event, you know, the year previous, I asked him, I said, out of all the food issues that are concerning to the world in America, what is the number one thing for you? And he said the use of antibiotics in our chicken feed because the antibiotics, the overuse of them are creating superbugs and those superbugs can literally wipe out the human race. And as a general of an army, my job is to protect humans, to protect Americans. And so for me, that would be the first issue. And that really,

you know, when Chick-fil-A asked me to prioritize all the things they wanted to change, that conversation I had with that Army General really like rang through my head. I go, okay, out of all these things, yes, I want to change them all, but the number one thing is you have to stop the use of antibiotics in your chicken feed. And the head chicken guy in the room was like, listen, there's just not enough chicken farmers that are doing this. And I said, it doesn't matter. You have to create the supply. You have to negotiate and, convince these farmers to make the change for your supply because you buy enough chicken. And, and, you know, at the time, Chipotle was on the up and up and they were doing like

antibiotic-free chicken. I said, if they can do it and they're figuring it out, I know you guys can too. And within two years of that meeting, they had, actually, within a year of that meeting, they made the commitment to go antibiotic-free. And then within three years of that meeting, they were going, they were completely antibiotic-free in their chickens. You know, Vonie, with your success, there has been, there have come a lot of attacks. I remember when you were launching some of your campaigns, you've had some of these large companies come and just come against you.

You know, with Chick-fil-A, obviously it's a virtuous company, a business with a lot of values and character. So they were open to change, but you've had a lot of other companies, I think maybe Kellogg in particular, who just, you know, took all of their resources to attack you and try and ruin your reputation. How did you deal with that? Yeah, so at the time, this was a really dark kind of period of my career because I was being attacked online. I had all of these negative comments. I wasn't sure how to deal with the hate. I mean, I was having articles written about me that were going viral telling me I was full of shit. And it was really difficult, especially when, like, for example, the New York Times came out with a piece talking about my work.

And they mentioned three different characters in them, two of them being paid by Bear and Monsanto. directly. They didn't mention their conflicts of interest. They also mentioned a guy, Dr. Fergus Clydesdale, and I'll never forget his name, because he was on the board of Sensient Technologies, the company that makes Carmel Coloring Level 4, the caramel coloring that is linked to cancer and that I was calling out being in the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks. And he was getting paid like hundreds of thousands of dollars to be on this board, and they didn't show the conflict of interest in the New York Times article. And so around this time, I remember I just used whatever I was learning about what was

happening and would share it online. And the wonderful thing about creating a community of people that not only care about their health, but they also care enough to share this information and sign petitions and go meet me at the headquarters of these companies and get them to change, they were willing to, like, you know, take on these trolls. head on. And so people would be out there like fighting on my behalf online. And it was like the Food Babe Army versus Monsanto, you know, online. And it was, it was really crazy. And I just remember there was a point in time where there was all of this negativity being launched at me. And I called my

friend Gabrielle Bernstein, who was an incredible thought leader. And I asked for her guidance. And she prayed to God with me on the phone. And she says, give, give Vonnie. you know, the knowledge and the power and the, um, and the courage to keep going because I really did feel like quitting. And I just remember her like she was channeling, you know, like her I mean, she's so spiritual. She's just like channeling these spirits and the spirits were coming down and they were like telling her like, this is the, this is what you need to do. You need to focus on the willing, the people who are willing to change and want to learn this information and stop focusing on the people that are trying to stop you. And so the first thing I did was turn off

Google alerts. So I, at that point in 2015, it's now been eight years since I had Google alerts on. So I have no idea what people say about me anymore on the internet. Before I'd always get an alert when there would be a news article or something being said about you or your name being mentioned. It would send you alert in your inbox. And now I don't receive that anymore. And it's been the biggest blessing not receiving that because my work isn't determined. anymore by what people say, whether it's good or it's bad, it's determined by my passion and what I want to see in the world and what I want to change in my mission to help everybody. Yeah, you know, one of the things that I know that I've always been so impressed by, and,

you know, I really love to be able to connect with people like yourself and associate with people like yourself who are just very authentic, you know, and so the thing is, like even when I watch, you know, if I'm reading one of your emails that you're sending out from whether it's Food Babe or Trevani or whatever company, it's, you know, you're sharing things and having a conversation with people like you would, a friend or a family member. And so that's something I've always really appreciated. And I think when a lot of times people get into, you know, their careers and in business, sometimes people start to divide their lives in different categories. And this can happen as you meant it could be spiritually. Hey, my spiritual life is over here.

My work life is over here. my family life is over here. But I think when people operate out of a really high level of authenticity, it's sort of all one, right? And so part of your maybe spirituality is your purpose-driven mission to save and transform humanity and make people healthier, right? And you're going to say the same thing to your audience as you would to, you know, and to help their kids as you would to, you know, one of your best friends and helping their kids get healthy, whatever it is. And so I think that level of authenticity, it's something that so many people are hungry for. Because as you mentioned, you felt duped in your career early on by a lot of these health companies. And I think that's the way a lot of parents feel.

In fact, one of the next questions, I'm jumping a little bit ahead of something I wanted to get into, but I just think it's so relevant right now. You know, one of the things I've heard is people went through the pandemic over the, you know, and just the, you know, the past few years is some people said, you know what? I kind of, I felt a little duped. When I've been watching the news and a lot of the stuff that's on TV and everything else, I felt like the doctors in these authorities, whether it's Fauci or someone else, was saying one thing. And I come to find out later, that's just completely inaccurate. And also, there's such a high level of leaving out the details, just the sins of a mission, right?

And so is there anything for you? And I'll jump back and ask you some questions, too, because your career and creating a movement is so powerful. but I did want to ask, do you have any lessons from COVID? I mean, has your life changed because of it or your perspective on things, you know, coming out of that? Well, what was so beautiful going into COVID that happened for me personally was because of all of the information I learned when I was reading, when I was writing my book, Feeding You Lives, which is my second book, where I go into the food industry's playbook and how they use front groups. and paid for experts to bring forth their ideas of how they want to sell their products, whether it's Coca-Cola paying Harvard scientists to say that it's exercise that is making people,

the lack of exercise making people fat and not sugar in Coca-Cola, or finding out that the majority of health information that we're getting is being funded by one of the big food companies or the big conglomerates that are selling. selling, you know, corn, soy, and canola oil, you know, finding out all of that information and seeing the inner webs of how it all works behind the scenes and writing about that. And then sharing what happened to me, like, in terms of trying to take me down as a messenger. And I, you know, I'm just like a girl from Charlotte, right? Like, I'm just out there, like, sharing what I know.

I'm not a scientist. I'm not a nutritionist. But I know that there are so many scientists and nutritionists and nonprofit organizations that were backing what I was saying in terms of taking less risk with some of these additives and the reasons why a lot of these additives that I was campaigning against were being banned in other countries because of health issues associated with them. So I knew I was in the right and I was speaking the truth. And so for me to receive that onslaught of hate and of just trying to take me down as a messenger, when COVID happened, it was an opportunity for me to become very critical of what I was being told from the media, from the different government officials who were telling us how to take care of, health at that point in time. And when I realized that nobody was talking about the main things that

keep us healthy as adults, like the exercise, the eating whole foods, real foods, doing things that would increase our immune system. And I watched politicians say, hey, you can get free McDonald's if you go get this vaccine and seeing the type of advertising that was involved, like, oh, Krispy Cream's giving free donuts for everybody who gets a shot today, you know, seeing that just complete utter regard for human health in the advertising and the pushing of drugs to the American public, that's when I realized that there was some other bigger mission here that's happening with this agenda and that I needed to look in deeper and figure it out. And so for me, I was, when I think about that time, I get so sick to my stomach because so many people that I love and that I care about were so convinced of everything that was coming down from the media and through newspapers and through our public officials.

And they didn't have this understanding because they hadn't gone through what I had gone through. And they hadn't seen the inner webs of how this all works behind the scenes and what money is at play and who's actually, you know, you know, orchestrating this agenda. Yeah, you know, one of the things that I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about this and just a few thoughts. But I think that, you know, at first, as we were going through that pandemic, I was very frustrated because it was very similar thing to you. I feel like we have a perspective. We've seen behind the curtain. And so we realize what's going on. In fact, you and I, and some people watching or listening to this as well, we can spot the manipulation a mile away, and we know what's going on.

And I was so upset because I had especially some friends, a few family members, but really a lot of people I knew. And I thought, wow, you just, you know, I thought you might have a level of wisdom around what's going on. And I guess you don't. So I even felt a few, you know, I think there were people that I grew closer to. through that process of saying, well, these are people that are courageous. These are people that are standing up. These are people that they want to fight for what's right. And there are other people saying, hey, whatever you tell me to do, I'm just going to do,

and whether it even feels morally right or not. And so, you know, I think I really, some friendships were strengthened, some were hurt or just sort of like, we drifted apart from some people. Did you experience that with any friends or anyone as you went through this? Yes. And that, I think that's what's so disheartedly. heartening about the whole situation is, you know, I mean, very close family members completely on the other end of the spectrum in terms of, you know, the information that I wanted people

to see in terms of, you know, knowing the truth about like how to take care of our health, right? Like if if there's anything that we learned through that entire episode in our life, it's like, you know, how do we take care of ourselves? Because we can't stop a disease. We can't stop, you know, if there is some type of virus that comes and tries to attack us, right? We can't necessarily stop that. But how do we get the healthiest, right? And how do we promote that?

And when I was seeing that the majority of solutions had nothing to do with actual human health and, like, how to make us healthier, that was very upsetting to me. And then just to know that, like, you know, a lot of my family are doctors. They're like infectious disease doctors. They're like working in these departments where they're getting the letters from, you know, the heads of government to do these certain things and that this is the way that it's going to be. And it's like they're so indoctrinated in their ideology that they can't see the bigger picture. And so, yeah, I did lose some friendships because of kind of what I thought. And, you know, the thing is, it's like, I'm one of those people. that don't get easily offended.

Like if you're a person that doesn't think like I am, but we have other things in common, I'll still be friends with you. Yep. But for some reason, what happened during the pandemic because it was so intense, it really did kind of drive apart the community that I had.

And I had to find a new community, if that makes sense. It does. I had an opportunity to be around a, it was a pastor, really, really just incredible guy. And he said, you know, I was, we were in the middle of this and I was meeting with him and he had flown in from California and we were chatting. And I was just saying, you know, this has been such a challenge for certain things. And he said, you know, Josh, as a leader, you should take joy in this because there are some people that never get the opportunity to display and act as a leader. He said, you know, the greater the challenge, the greater you have the opportunity to lead and transform the lives of people. And it was really good for me to hear that, too, just from the standpoint of, I shouldn't sit in a place of just feeling this pain of disappointment and regret and everything about sort of what.

Because, again, I think I felt disappointed in a lot of people in terms of how they were acting and just sort of walking blindly. But instead, I felt after he said that to me, this is kind of early in those stages, I felt more inspired realizing, you know what? God has equipped me to have a platform and a voice and I need to go out there and speak the truth and help transform lives and do what I've done all along. Only there's more at stake now. And so, you know, I think that, you know, that mindset is important. You know, I had a magazine and this was something that bothered me a little bit. I had a one of the, it might be the largest Christian magazine. I had did a, I had done a talk.

This was really early stages of pandemic the spring. And I'd done a talk on there was a study released on, uh, co-eastern. morbidities and that being the biggest root cause of a pandemic deaths. And so I in this talk I went through and I said, okay, the people that are really at risk here are people over the age of 70 and specifically people who are obese have diabetes, heart disease and major immune deficiencies. And I said outside of that, I think most everybody should be operating as is as normal, but everybody should focus on boosting your immune systems. And I go over all the stuff you and I would tell people. Eat more. more Zincrich foods, spend more time outside, just the very, very basics of just good living. And they wrote this hit piece on me of saying I'm not evidence based. And it just was, you know, it's just crazy. So we see this all the time. You know, one of the things you said, and I think this is one of the things that why I trust you more than I do most physicians.

And it's because, you know, as I was reading, I've been spending a lot of time reading psychology and philosophy recently and going back to some of the first philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And one of the things Aristotle essentially alludes to in his writings is that, you know, they started getting into a little bit about science. But they really talk about how virtue is really the most important layer. And to a degree, it's also your sort of spirituality, but your virtue and character is the foundation that science should be built upon. Because if you go and do a study and you're not 100% virtuous and displaying, and displaying,

the highest level of character integrity. It will give you false results. And so, you know, when we look at our scientific community today, when we look at the biggest lawsuits that have ever been out there, we've seen, they're almost all pharmaceutical companies or tobacco companies. And so going out there and saying for people to trust what most conventional doctors or pharmaceutical companies or the FDA is saying 100%, it's just a lack of wisdom because we see time and time again they are, uh, ruining our trust and they're not doing it with 100% virtue. And so that's the thing.

I'm not saying you're 100% virtuous, but hey, let me grade you somewhere in the 90s and other people who are scoring an F. It's like I know that when you're saying something, you are much more trustworthy than a lot of these other people. And I think that's something people are waking up to. And I also do think at first I felt, let me say, I feel like more and more people now

have decided the past year to stand their ground and say, I'm not going to take anymore, especially when it comes to the health of our kids. And that's one of the things I know you've been on such the front line of, especially as a mom now. So maybe speak to that for a minute. It's like, you know, hey, mama bear is coming for you. Like, I'm not putting up with this anymore. So talk to me a little bit about how, you know, you've gone from being a mission-minded building a company probably worth over $100 million now in what you've done to now, you know, have two kids, being a mom. I'm like, how does some of that transition from, you know, that to, to what you're doing, you know, I know you're doing both now, but to being a mom.

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, one of the things, one of the reasons I started Truvani was because I found myself in this position of like, I had just become a mom. And becoming a mom softens you. You know, you kind of lose that fight in your body. I think it's on purpose so that you're more nurturing to your child. And so, like, being on the front lines going up against these. giant corporations wasn't something that I felt comfortable doing at that moment because I was just finding my fitting of being a mom. And so I found myself in this position of like, I still want to change the food industry. I still want to make an impact. Why don't I create my own products of the products I want to see in the world? And so I started doing that with Truvani. One of the first things we did was protein powder because a lot of the protein powders out there had ingredients in there that

were controversial or had things in there that I just didn't want to have in my products anymore. And I wanted to create a product that had the least amount of chemicals in it is possible. I wanted to have the best third-party testing, heavy metals. I wanted to test it for glyphosate, which a lot of pea protein out there is contaminated with glyphosate. And so it was super important for me to create a product that I felt really good about taking and then that other people would feel really great about having as well. And so it's been just an enormous success. We just launched in Whole Foods, which is so cool.

And now that I'm a mom of two, I have a two-year-old and I have a six-year-old, I just feel like we have the greatest responsibility out of any of our generations to tell our children the truth about food. And I started when my daughter was like 10 months old. I remember she was at the airport with me. We were on a business trip. And she was sitting there playing with all of the Snickers and the Skittles and the M&M packages that were all towards the ground because she was crawling all over the ground. She was even walking yet.

And I just remember telling her at that moment, even though she was 10 months old, I just told her the truth about what she was playing with. And I was like, you know, these are manufactured, processed candies full of chemicals. And I just like went through the ingredients with her. Even though I knew that there's like there's no way she could comprehend it at that time, it was just my way of like indoctrinating her and letting her know the truth about the food system and all these, you know, shiny packages you see everywhere and what's actually in them and why we shouldn't eat them. And so because if you, because if you don't and we don't someone else will.

Yes. Absolutely. And they'll tell you the reverse of that, which is you have to eat this. It's so yummy. Look at this beautiful little, you know, cartoon character on it or whatever, right? And so like we as parents have just the awesome opportunity to tell them the truth about food, whereas my parents didn't have this information at all. You know, they didn't know anything about nutrition. They came here as immigrants and they were like, wow, this food's so cheap and it's so readily available. We'll feed it to our family. They'll, you know, they'll grow and be fine. And, you know, Little did they know that all the stuff that I had been eating most of my life was just full of toxic chemicals and overly processed and devoid of nutrition. And so I want my kids to know the truth. And so I tell them, like, there's a lot of, like, mom shaming online about saying that a food is good or bad. And I don't believe that anyone needs to be shamed about knowing the truth about our food. Like, we have the obligation to do that for our children so that they are armed with the facts. And now if they decide to eat that food later on in life and they make that decision on their own, so be it.

But at least you did your job as a parent and told them the truth and didn't try to say that, oh, this isn't a good or bad food. No, there are definitely bad foods out there, right, that we shouldn't even be consuming, that shouldn't even be produced by food manufacturers. I mean, I'm just thinking about Kellogg's right now. Kellogg's is a company that sells artificial dye free food to people overseas because in Europe, it's, has a warning label if you use an artificial dye that says may cause adverse effects on activity and attention in children. But here in the United States, our FDA is asleep at the wheel. They don't have that warning label. So instead of serving us the artificial free dye cereals that they already know how to make and are making safer and better for children overseas,

they sell us the more toxic version because it saves them money. And a company like that, I feel is so unethical. It needs to change. But also, we have to arm our children with the facts of when they pick up that box of fruit loops, like what's actually in that? Hey, Vonny, you know, one thing that we're seeing a lot right now of we're seeing companies be boycott, right? So we've seen things like Bud Light and Target and other.

I mean, there's been, you know, a number of companies. And 10 years ago, people weren't as, weren't as determined as they are to. today and I'm curious because you know one thing I know obviously you've done this in the past I really feel like if you would continue you know as you continue to do some of these initiatives I think that I'm excited for when parents take a stand and say we're not going to buy you know name the sugary laden soup you know cereal company whatever it is we're not going to support you anymore permanently and so I'm really hoping and I know this has already happened with what you've done right you've done so much and people are focusing more on now brands, but I'm really hoping that this continues to happen more and more. Yeah, it's it's been something that now that I'm in that like less of like that nurturing phase of my children. I mean, I'm still breastfeeding. So it's like I've been breastfeeding for seven years. So it's like I still have that like attachment to my children that's like, you know, innate where I have to be very close to them. But it's like as soon as like my little one just goes

to school and, you know, detaches from me a little bit. I just see my. myself going and doing a big campaign again to try to make this happen. Because like if it isn't us that's doing it, like the government's not going to do it. And let me know because I want to be a part of it. We should get a whole group of people and just all do it at the same time. Yeah, no, that would be absolutely amazing. And it's it needs to be done. No one's done it in a very long time. I think one of the first companies that needs to change is Kellogg's because they're already making these cereals safer and better. They don't have to reinvent the wheel. They have to start with a new formula. They're already doing it. And the worst part about it all, Josh,

is when I started a petition in 2015 to get them to do this, they committed to doing it within three years. They failed on their commitment. They lied to us. And instead, they created new cereals like Baby Shark and Unicorn that are more hip to children today with these artificial food dyes. And so it's maddening what's happening over there. And, you know, fast forward now to my daughter who was, you know, 10 months old. I was teaching her about the packages and the labels and the ingredients. And fast forward to her now, she's six years old. And I have to tell this story about when she was at school recently, it was like one of the last weeks of school and the headmaster sends out a note. And she says, hey, it's going to be ice cream day at school.

We just want you guys to know. And so, of course, I write back in two nanoseconds. I'm like, I would love to provide the ice cream for school that day. Just let me know how much and what to do and da-da-da-da-da-da. And the headmaster writes back. She goes, no problem. Bonnie, thank you so much for your offer, but we have it covered. And I was like, oh, what are they going to do? I wonder what kind of ice cream they're going to have.

Like, what's going to go on? Like, there's just so much bad stuff out there. You know, my wheels are just spinning, right? And I'm like, okay, Bonnie, just let this go. Kids will be kids. She's going to have ice cream day. Everything's going to be fine. And so the day, ice cream day rolls around.

And I'm dropping off Harley at school. And I roll down my window. the headmaster always greets us as we're dropping off our children. And I said to her, and I said, so what do you have on tap today for ice cream day? Because I just had to know. And she goes, oh, it's going to be great. We have an ice cream truck coming. And I'm like, oh, goodness, the ice cream truck.

Like the worst of the worst in there, right? And I'm just like, oh, gosh, you know, okay, well, she'll probably, you know, I'm wondering what she'll choose, but it'll probably be awful and I just have to get over it. It'll be fine. So she gets home from school, and she's so excited to tell me about ice cream day. And she says to me, she goes, Bonnie. She goes, not Bonnie, mom. She says, mom. She goes, mom, I just want you to know that I think I picked the best ice cream at the ice cream truck. I said, oh, well, what did you get? And she said,

well, I got the ice cream sandwich because all of the other things were really brightly colored. They were like a bright yellow or a bright red. And I got the ice cream sandwich. And I go, oh, well, you know, was it good? She goes, well, first of all, she's like, it was double the size of the ones we get at home because I get the little mini ones that are organic. And she's like, it was this big. And I was like, oh, so it was a huge ice cream show. She's like, yes. And I go, was it good? She goes, it was so good. She goes, you know, I think I made the best choice. And I said, I think you did too. I think that's great. And so as soon as she's done telling me the story, I couldn't help it. I could not help it. I immediately go Google what's in a typical ice cream sandwich just to know what

she ate, right? The ingredients. An ice cream sandwich still has artificial food dyes in it, a typical one, unless you get an organic one. It has caramel coloring level four to make the little chocolate wafer. They're not using real chocolate in there. They're using caramel coloring level four to make it brown. And then in the white ice cream, they're using titanium dioxide. And I'm just like, are you serious? Like even my daughter who thought she was making the best decision still failed in terms of making the best decision because it's just so full of crap. And that's, this is, this is the problem we have in the world right now that even these, I mean, I'm so proud of her for even just using problem solving skills and thinking about it.

I think she's probably one of the only children that actually thought about a good decision to make at the ice cream truck, just based on everything that I'm teaching her about food. But like, it was just, it was such a moment of like, I can't believe even. this that she thought was going to be healthier, it ended up being just as bad as the other stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, first off, I feel proud of her for the fact that she was, I mean, you know, using critical thinking in order to what's the best choice to make. And given her scenario, you know, of picking something, she, you know, sounds like she still made the best choice. But yeah, it's, it's, you know, they will sneak the most unbelievable things in everything. And so

it's just sort of the way it is. But I know as a, you know, I, I, I, you know, I, I, I felt this as apparent too. I'm just, you know, like, and it sounds like you're acting in a similar way to where Chelsea and I have been to where I think when I was, but especially before I was married, I was so strict in what I ate. I mean, it was like I would not touch a grain, you know, and then I think over time, I, you know, and this was out of, like, this was a conscious choice of realizing, I think some of the people that choose to, like, try and eat 100% perfect, sometimes I

see them being more unhealthy because there's a level of sort of stress and obsessive stress that kind of goes along with it. So Chelsea and I with Arwen, again, we still, if anybody would go to our home, your home the same, it's going to be, they're going to go in there and be like, okay, this is really healthy. There's a billion supplements and the foods are organic and grass fed and everything out, you know, a lot of vegetables and berries and what and that's still our house. But like even when Arwen was little, like we actually put in intentionally, like a little bit of peanuts, a little bit of like certain things, sort of like this sort of micro dosing in order for her to make sure, uh, because there's studies showing she would have a less chance of having allergies and things like that. So I think that we like there's this place and they drive me a little bit crazy with it. But in our, you know, our, our three year old is just so darn cute. They give her this pink macaroon every time she goes in there. And I may have to be like, guys, can you not like they just give it to her for free. So we have this place. And so anyway. But, you know, we're doing our best to give her as little as possible. But sometimes it's like, you know what? A little bit, a little bit, and they're just going to be just fine.

You know, so anyways. Yeah, I mean, you have to look the other way sometimes. Like, you can't be 100%. And I'm all about that because, and that's one of the reasons why I wrote Food Babe Family. My book that's coming out in October, it's an intimate look and how my family operates. Like all the habits that we do on a daily basis, how I raise my two children. children, how I've got them from breastfeeding to real food and like the process of that,

as well as like all the things we do when we're in these situations at school or we're traveling or what do we do at events? Like, you know, I just remember taking my daughter to like Daniel Tiger Live and like everybody around us is eating dip and dots and goldfish. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, like what is going on? When you're in your own little bubble for so long, you just realize that, wow, we have so many things change, but also to inspire other parents to know that they don't have to just go along with the program and go along with all the toxic foods that are out there. They can actually bring their

own foods and have different strategies in place so that they can have things available for their kids that are healthier. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. I want to jump back and talk for a minute just about coming out of the pandemic. And one of the things I think that what that I grew an awareness of is we've, you know, gone through this over the years is, you know, being very conscious of, and I'd mentioned this earlier, I've spent a lot of time studying ethics and philosophy and psychology, and, you know, and there's many different sort of ethical theories, but one of those is called virtue ethics. And the idea there is, how do you know what's ethical and what's not? And virtue ethics, and I think for many people, they would say that you know the most ethical thing is based upon what the most ethical person would do.

So, you know, when I was a kid, I was in church and we wore this little brace. It had WWJD on it, and so it was what would Jesus do? But it's that sort of idea with some of the other people. If you are running a nonprofit organization, it's what would Mother Teresa do in that situation? How does she think? What is she? And so if you want to know what to, like, if you want to do, if you want to do the most moral and ethical and good thing in a certain situation, what would somebody do, like that person that you know is the most virtuous and kindhearted and what would they do? And so the question is this, is that, you know, have you gone over the past several years? Who are some of those people that you kind of might look at? It could be in the business world, could be in your family or friends, just other people that you're saying, you know what? This is somebody. that I think I've really come to trust and I may even think about what they do in certain situations. It might be a hard question, but that's... Yeah, that is a hard question.

You know, I was thinking about this the other day about, like, people who I would just want to sit down with and, like, just be around their aura so that I could, like, gain that. And I thought about people who are actually very virtuous in that respect. And one of the people that it's coming to mind is Zach Bush. Zach Bush is someone that... that like, you know, we've been friendly online, but I haven't met in person. And I've just been listening to some of his talks and his podcasts that he's done with various people. And he's just, he's got this, this connection to nature that is, and just the, the connection of, like,

knowing the medical side of everything because he was a doctor doing cancer research and, and looking at chemotherapy and understanding how cells become cancerous. like, you know, going through all of that and understanding that, but then also understanding the other side of, like, how to become really healthy and, like, what we need to do is humans to, like, save the earth. And he's someone that, like, just came to mind when you asked that question. There's other people in my life that I've always been just drawn to because, again, they're very connected to nature. And that's like Laird Hamilton, the big surfer, who the type of of surfing he does, he has to be so in tune with like what's happening with nature and the

wave and the water and like everything. And then thinking about the courage it takes and the risk taking that he does with his body and with his work in terms of like what he's able to accomplish physically is so aspiring to me that like I really look up to him too. And it's funny. I met his wife recently in a podcast. She interviewed me. And I just was like, you know, I've of your husband. I think he's amazing. And it's not like I love him like that, but you know, it's just like he's, it was somebody asked a question at a party once and they're like, you know, who if you could come back as anybody in this world, who would you come back as? And I said, hands down, Leonard Hamilton, like to be able to have that no fear and surf those giant waves

and be like helicoptered in and all of that, like that is the coolest thing ever. And to just be one with nature all the time like that, that would be really neat. So yeah, those are the two things. that come to mind. Two guys. It's two guys, too. It's not a woman, which is so weird, but yeah, it's two guys. Yeah, you know, I interviewed Zach. This is probably about two years ago, and then actually Gabby about two years ago, a wife, and yeah, great people. You know, I was really, now let me say this. I probably disagree with Zach on how fast the climate is changing and all of the reasons why. So we have a little bit of a different perspective on that. But, I was so appreciative about he does have this sort of connection appreciation.

You know, I always love being around people that have this sense of sort of awe and wonder about creation in the world and the earth. And like he's one of those people. He's almost like in a really positive, admirable way. He loves this planet. He loves nature. He loves it. And so there really is almost a sort of just deep you can see this sort of relational connection he has. to the planet and just such a deep care. I mean, he really, really wants to see this planet

turned into a paradise. You know, I think about sort of my own faith in what I feel like I'm called to do, and it's love God, love people, turn this planet into a paradise. And so the original story of Genesis is we were supposed to take this Garden of Eden, this paradise, and sort of make the entire planet that. And that's part of what he's trying to live out. It's turning deserts into tropical rainforest or food forests, right? So anyways, I see your point. It is really an amazing thing and then again with Lard it's there there's also this level of just being in this sort of euphoric zone of doing this this you know I think about and I'm bringing this back again to sort of this biblical thing but there's a parable of the talents and it's the you know it's such a inspiring thing when somebody has a talent and they take it to the highest level possible right like an artist like Michelangelo in a way I mean he really is a practicing artist I mean when you watch him and I've watched enough surfing and watch him that it is sort of this inspiring exciting thing so anyways I think those are those are those are good answers I just love that you also pointed out that you may not agree with everything

that like Zach says or or anyone for that matter and I don't I'm not sure I agree with everything Laird or Zach do either and so it's it's it's just a certain part and I think that's what's so beautiful about humans is like you don't have to adhere to 100% of one human there could be pieces and parts that you just love and you care about and that inspire you. And I think that goes to show you like, I think everyone in my life, there's pieces and parts that I absolutely love. And there's some things that I may not like, right? I mean, even about your husband, like, even about my husband or, you know, my kids even. Like, so, I mean, there are things that, so it's just, it's, it's beautiful, like, that we can talk about people that we love, but also, like,

show the fact that, like, you know, we might not agree on everything. And I love that because I just, I think that is so needed in this world right now, especially with leadership, understanding that not everybody thinks the same and everybody will do the same. And we don't have to be all around the same people in order to like survive that we can learn from each other's points of views. And I think that's really important. Yeah. So this brings me to a question. And you can feel free to pass on this one.

But I want to talk politics for a minute. And by the way, here's what I want to say because this just leads in so well. You know, I'm going to bring up several potential presidential candidates. And when I'm going to do this for you too. When we're discussing this, we're going to stick more about sort of the health and maybe some freedom, some of the aspects, even how somebody would handle a future pandemic. So when we talk about this, we're not, you know, endorsing and talking about every single thing and agreeing with everything. And by the way, this is a major issue today. The fact that if I would bring up somebody that I admire a certain area of their life, but if they're

maybe not adabro one another, I mean, just the attacks could just be, you know, um, uh, sort of continuous. But anyways, so, so going back to this, you know, it's been so interesting. Like you said, uh, in, in your opening that you would, you had, you'd thought about politics, right? And, and, and by the way, you know, first off, I know at this point, knowing what you know and how challenging is, you might be like, you know what, there's no way ever. No way. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I figure. I figured, and I've talked to enough politicians to realize this is just, you know, I think they're, and by the way, I really respect them. I think it takes a very specific type of person to do that. And obviously, I think you and I feel like we can make an impact in our platforms and other ways. But, you know, as we have, the world is just so divisive right now.

And there's a book I love. It's called Team Arrivals. And it's about Abraham Lincoln. And Abraham Lincoln was running as a Republican, but the person who is running against him as a Democrat, he brought. on as his vice president, Seward. And so, I mean, it's amazing. Like he was, he had this idea that I'm going to take, I don't care, you know, necessarily what side they're on for those things. If somebody's very skilled in one specific area, I'm going to put them in a certain place. And so, you know, I was thinking about this as I was thinking about these political candidates. I'm not a, you know, I'm personally not a, not a Joe Biden fan and I have more probably conservative values and more maybe libertarian values too. But all the. that being said, you know, I've looked at people like, I don't know if you followed a Vivek Ramseye. I'm not sure if I'm saying his name exactly correct, but I've been really impressed with some of the things he's put out. There's some things I like DeSantis did in Florida.

RFK, there's a lot of things I don't agree with, but I will say this. There are a lot that I do on the health front. I think he would do an incredible job with. And so you don't have to say, hey, this is who I'd vote for. But do you have any thoughts on as you sort of look at this, you know, these sort of presidential landscape? Are there any sort of views or things that any of those people have said that you've thought, you know what? I think that's a really good point and that's something that's needed. Yeah, you know, I used to be really into politics.

So, you know, I grew up with a like staunch democratic family. I remember my dad voting for deco caucus against George W. Bush or George Senior Bush back in the day and I remember he was the only one voting for him and was like so proud to wear like the button and we were in line. And I just remember learning a really important lesson that day, which is to like stand up for what you believe in. And that was the message I got, whether he was on the right side of the debate or not at that point in time. And so, you know, like I grew up in this family that was just so political. We were so happy to be able to vote. It was so important to the point where I ran to be a delegate for different presidential candidates. I was at the Democratic

National Convention. I actually used my platform there to to lobby for the labeling of GMOs. I stood up in front of the Secretary of Agriculture on the front row of the Democratic National Convention and used my platform to bring this issue to light. And people were really upset at me because I was supposed to be there to like cheerlead everybody there and all the Democratic leaders. And instead I was pointing out the fact that we didn't have labeling of genetically engineered ingredients. And, you know, I was, I remember that was, you know, the point in time where I made my decision to not be a Democrat or Republican or an independent or anybody at that point in time. I just said to myself, like, I am going to pick the candidate or the party or whoever based on my own principles and my own, like, thoughts about how they would lead this country, right? And it was, it was a point in time that was really, I think, difficult for my family because I came, I went from someone very like on one side to now being critical thinking of all sides and the friendships and everybody that I had in terms of like that I'd,

built over the years that were like, wait a minute, you used to be this type of person. And now you're critically thinking and you're like telling us what Obama's not doing. And like, you know, all of this stuff, even though I was someone who voted for him. You know, like it was it was this point in time that I realized that politicians aren't going to be the ones that really change the way or the policies and the laws that I wanted to see change. Like we had to do that ourselves as citizens and like rise up. become grassroots.

And so for me, I have been extremely jaded and not interested in listening and reading about political candidates since then. Yeah. And it's gotten really, it's gone from one extreme to the other. I haven't gone back to a balance. And so when you talk about politics, it just makes me cringe a little bit because no matter like what happens, I'm not exactly confident in the systems that we have in place in terms of who's getting elected and how they're getting elected.

I'm not sure if I'm confident in the system, which is sad to say, but I'm not. Yeah, that's hard. Just with the corruption that's involved. Yeah, and I think that that's a word that I think when people think about politics, it's probably the first word right now that comes to people's minds as the word corruption. And so it's sad. Yeah, I just, you know, I've been trying to, over the past few years as I've moved kind of from being, you know, predominantly in the health space and now really trying to think a little bit more about personal growth and leadership. You know, that's, that's something I've studied so much and so looking at presidents. And one of the things I thought about is that, you know, it used to be that where, whether it was a Republican or Democrat getting elected,

I think most people had a degree of respect for who was ever in office. And now it's mostly a sense of either hatred or this sort of unhealthy at or sometimes even worship of certain people. And so I think it's just it's gotten to be anyways, anyways, we can, you know, we can move on from this. But just to say, you know, I think that as going through this sort of pandemic, that was one of the things I sort of opened my eyes. I didn't realize that I went back and started reading about American history and the Constitution and different things and sort of learning about how originally each state was supposed to act as somewhat of a separate entity within the 50 states. That's why we're called the United States. There's 50 states. There's a level of sort of independence of each state.

So it's always interesting seeing, you know, as we saw the battle between Florida and even the federal government and sort of what was happened with mass mandates and everything else, it was just so interesting to kind of see. But I will say, I do think that, you know, I do think that, you know, I told my mother-in-law this yesterday. I said, you know, I'm a little concerned that things have become so divisive that I said, this is how Civil Wars break out, you know, because you have such a level of sort of animosity towards both sides. And that's one of the things that I would say even, you know, the place I try and be, I know you're in a very similar way is that, like, I just want the truth. And I just want to tell people the truth. And I've even appreciated, you know, when you look at the people that are growing their platforms most rapidly online, I think it's the people that try and have the stance that you have and that I try to have, too, of sort of like, we just want the truth and we want to speak the truth.

And I don't really, I'm not really trying to take sides here. And the idea, you know, think about Joe Rogan. He's an example of that. Like, he's not trying to necessarily take a lot of sides. Russell Brand, I don't know that he's really trying to take a lot of sides. People would probably say someone like Jordan Peterson has decided to take the side on the right. But historically, he's always said he talked himself as a classic liberal, like for most of his career up until things went so far left in certain arenas, he was actually seen considered himself. So my point is, I think.

He's actually one of those people that I'm fascinated by. Like, I could hear, I could listen to him talk all day long. And if the friends of the past that I had on the Democratic Party ever even heard me say that, they would be like, what? What's wrong with you? Right. Oh, yeah. But, but again, you don't have to like everything. somebody says or what they believe in, right?

To understand where they're coming from and what they're talking about. And it's just, I'm open to all of these different new perspectives that I never was before. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. It's powerful. You know, one thing I want to, I wanted to ask you because, and this is for anybody who, and there are so many people, I think, almost everybody gets in a place every few years where they feel like they're stuck. And I'm curious for yourself, you know, have you ever felt in the past, you know, even 20 years?

Like you were just stuck. You feel like I was at a plateau. I don't feel, you know, and it could have been in your relationship or a career or something else. You felt like you were stuck. And there was something that you experienced or something that helped you experience a breakthrough. Yeah. I mean, I would say it was that, was that dark period that I talked about in terms of, you know, receiving all of the negative hate online, it made me not want to be online anymore. You know, it made me not want to take on these food companies and to do the next campaign and it made me not want to write another book and it made me not want to be a public figure anymore.

Because like what I was doing and the reason why I was in the news was to showcase what was happening at Subway, you know, telling people. about azodicarbonamide and the chemicals that are in Subway's bread and why I was on, you know, TV was to talk about craft, macaroni and cheese and how they were using artificial food dyes here in the United States and not elsewhere and how I wanted that to change. And but then when they made the focus on me as the person and, you know, after Time magazine came up with that piece of like being the most, you know, one of the most influential people on the internet. Like that's when the spotlight got on me.

as an individual and it was so hard because I didn't want it to be the spotlight on me. I wanted the spotlight to be on the food companies. And but they wanted it to be on me because they wanted to attack me. And I just remember making a decision not to be part of the conversation anymore. I remember ABC News, Nightline called me and they said, hey, we would like to interview you and we're going to have a debate between you and one of your, you know, one of your enemies, really, you know, critical haters online, you know, we'd like to have this debate on nightline. And I was like, absolutely not. Click. You know, like it was that, you know, it was like, yeah, okay, I could be famous

and be on ABC Nightline, but it wasn't about that. I didn't want to become famous. I wanted to tell the truth about the food industry and tell people what's really going on. And so a lot of times when you're stuck in these situations, you think the right way out is to continue the fame and like to continue to do that thing, but it's actually sometimes taking a step back and saying, and looking at your values and saying what's more important, right? And so that's what I had to do. And I had to take a break. You know, I had to take a mental break from it all and, you know, turn off those Google alerts and make that decision. And then when I came out of that break is when I started writing, beating you lies. And I feel like it's one of my favorite books that I've

written because it shows the playbook of how the food industry works. And I tell all the stories about what happened to me and like how, you know, my Wikipedia page. I mean, I just think about my Wikipedia page, how there would be like hawks on it, like literally paid for people that would literally watch what people were writing about me on my Wikipedia page to the point where one of the people that was paid to do this came and saw me at an event that I had at Costco signing books and told me that he was sorry that he was one of the people that was. go and modify and make the Wikipedia page more critical of who I was in the public eye. Wow.

And it was just this situation where taking that step back and looking at why I was doing what I was doing allowed me to become so much stronger and allowed me to make that next piece of work and to continue moving forward and, you know, eventually creating Truvani and now two cookbooks later. So it's sometimes just taking that pause, I think, is important. Are you going to incorporate any lab-grown meat recipes in your new cookbook? Absolutely not. There are so many things that upset me about the wave of the future, like how everyone has, like, beyond meat on their menu items now.

I mean, I go every year to this French little island in the French West Indies called St. Bart, and, you know, it has some of the best food in the world. And I started seeing beyond meat on these menus. And I'm like, what is going on? This is crazy. And there's so much money behind that company. And it's just complete, manufactured garbage. And I'm just, I'm so upset.

I remember the first time I wrote about it. I got a call from the CEO, Ethan Brown, I think is his name. Anyways, he threatened to sue me and, like, you know, threatened me really hard on the phone. And it was very interesting what he was trying to do. But, like, I kind of backed out. because I'm like, shoot, he's like funded by Bill Gates. Like, I don't want to get on his bad side, right?

Like, at the time, like, I didn't, I wasn't making any money doing food babe. So it was just like, you know, I was just a nobody in a way when I was telling people the truth about when it was first invented. And, and I just remember him, him doing that anyways. If he's listening, I remember that. But I'm telling the truth now. There you go. Your product is garbage. No one should eat it.

It's not healthy. Yeah. I mean, but both those, you know, the vegan meat product or the vegan, you know, quote-unquote meat products are just when you look at them, they're just, you know, they're just terrible. But I mean, I think even more concerning is the lab-grown meat, right? Like the stuff that were they're taking chicken cells and like making chicken out of it, right? Yeah, you know, I think it's going to be a while on that, though. When I was doing this, you know, I released a video a couple weeks ago on this. And basically it's five, here's the crazy part.

It's five times worse for the environment because they have to do emit so much carbon and order. order to to actually manufacture these stem cells for the chicken. And then there's just a lot of issues with it. I mean, again, the whole idea is it's better for the environment. But now they're like, well, it's worse for the environment. Five to 25 times worse, according to a study at UC Davis. But well, we're killing less animals. But you do have to kill some animals actually and get to get their stem cells to culture their meat.

Anyways, I just, there's a, yeah, they're both terrible. You know, one of the things that I wanted to ask. you about too as we think about you know I have some I there's a lot of people listen to the podcast who you know want to be more successful in their careers but also their lives and so you know you've done it seems like a great job being able to balance the sort of family life of being a mom and a wife but also being a business woman and going out there and being a great business what are some sort of staple habits you have in place that sort of allow you to be able

to manage your time well but also get the most important things done in your life yeah absolutely So, you know, I have a very regimented kind of schedule of what I do every single day. And so in the morning, my kids are usually waking me up, which I want that to, to, I've been, that's something I've been wanting to work on where I get up before my kids. But it's just the way things have been. The season of life. It's a season of life.

And I think it's going to change where I can end up doing that. But since I'm still breastfeeding, and it's kind of like the first thing that we do in the morning, and we're all laying down, and I'm half asleep. And so it just works. And, you know, I get up, I have my lemon water first thing in the morning, I have my breakfast, and then I go do my exercise. Like having exercise every single day is so important to me. I've been really into lifting weights lately just because I'm getting older.

I'm 44. And I just feel like when I'm lifting weights, like everything just looks better. I feel better. I feel stronger. And I just know that I look better. And so it's just one of those things that I love to do. And I do like a little bit of cardio and I do Pilates class two. But lifting weights lately has just been a really important thing that I've been focusing on.

And I've noticed that doing less cardio and more kind of athletic weight lifting has been more beneficial to me in terms of just feeling less fatigued and just able to keep up with my kids and all of that. So that's been great. And that, to me, like getting that hour or less, and sometimes it's less, has really been like my anti-anxiety medication. And for me, like, I am an overly anxious person in general. And if I don't take care of myself, if I'm not eating correctly and I'm not exercising, then I get super anxious. And then the only thing that can bring me out of that is acupuncture. And then even sometimes acupuncture doesn't work if I'm not really taking care of myself. So I have to do all those things in order to like feel really great.

And so self-care is super important to me. I typically tend to take, I have lunch every single day with my kids. You know, if my daughter's at school, then I'm having lunch with my son. But over the summer, I've been having lunch with them every single day. So we sit down and we have lunch together every single day. And we make, I make food. I start usually around 11.30 and I make their food. I sit down by 1230.

They're done. My daughter's having alone time. My son's going for nap. during that nap time period of like that two hour period is when I get the majority of my work done where I'm doing like the podcast with you right now, Josh, or I am, you know, doing the sit down kind of, you know, concentration work or the filming that I need to do for a video. And that period of time is like when I'm like super focused and because the house is quiet, you know, and nobody's making a loud noise.

I know one child's sleeping. It's just it's just the most magical time of the day because I can get so much done. And I'm just like so much more productive than I normally am. And I do about an hour of work in the morning too, like after I work out before lunch. But, you know, around this time is when I get the majority of work done. Then my son wakes up. We play. We have snack.

And then I'll try to do another hour of work right as I'm getting into starting to prep dinner. And I sit and we make dinner almost every single night. We rarely eat out. I like to eat out. But it's just one of those things is like, you know, the best food. are just that you make yourself. So me and my husband will tandem cook, we'll cook together some nights, some nights he'll cook, some nights I'll cook.

He's a great cook, which is great. And then in the evening, after the kids go to bed, is when I do a little bit more work. And so I'll do some, again, when the kids are sleeping, it's silent, it's quiet, I can get a lot of things done. And that's a lot of times where I'll do that work where I go and listen to people that are inspiring me or I want to learn about something. and I'll do that work then too. Yeah, we have very similar rhythms.

It's like first thing in the morning, you know, I try and get a little spiritual time, and then I work out, and then I eat something good, and then maybe it's a little time with a family, and then it's, you know, more of the sort of traditional work. Before I go to bed, it's about an hour. I do a lot of audiobooks, you know, either while I'm working out or before bed,

and so whether it's, again, Jordan Peterson or somebody else who I respect and admire doing a podcast is a very similar thing. You know, one of the things that's really impacted my life in a big way, and I think there's more seasons of this, but it's, it's mentorship. And so having somebody who's sort of passing on their wisdom to me, you know, have you had an opportunity or anyone in your life that you felt like has been able to pass on their wisdom to you? And if so, what was maybe one thing that was really impactful that you had a mentor pass on to you? And while you're thinking about it, let me say this too. I found that, again, now I don't have a statistic on this.

I think sometimes for women in the business world, it might be harder or less common to have a mentor. I feel like I hear a little bit more from men about talking about I had this mentor than women. Not that both don't, but anyways, I just thought I'd bring up that sort of observation, is that maybe sometimes it's a little bit, might be a little bit harder. Yeah, you know, I have a life coach. she's absolutely incredible. And one of the things that she has really helped me work on is the ability to dream and the ability to create your future with your dreams and what you want to see.

And there is a guy that she follows the readings for and that she taught me about, and his name's Neville Goddard. I don't know if you've listened to any of his works. It's absolutely incredible what he's done. What he's talking about is basically he believes that the Bible and God and everything that the Bible has kind of taught us. And it's absolutely, if you're, if you're really familiar with the Bible, I would really recommend going to listen to him because he takes kind of each verse of the Bible and translate it in a way that shows you that you are God, that you are actually living, breathing, God, and that you can create your own reality with just imagining your own thoughts. And it's absolutely an incredible practice. And he says the time right actually

before you go to sleep. If you sit and you visualize what it actually feels to do your next goal or whatever you want to achieve in life, and you actually embody it and think about it in that way and meditate in that way that it will actually come true. And that ability to do that is what makes you Godlike. And it's, it's, he's got so much work. He's, he, I think he, he, uh, he died in 1972 or something, but he has so much work that's been translated or put into audiobooks. And it's been one of those principles that's been, um, uh, hard to, grasp because every time, like, for example, you think of something negative about a person, you're actually creating that reality about that person.

And so he wants you to take a step back and always you recognize when you're thinking negatively about something. And if you can recognize those thoughts and stop them before they happen and think of something positive and think about what you would want that person to be like in your life and to change that, then it will actually happen. And it's almost like changing labels of people in your mind. Like, you know, if there's someone in your life that you have like a negative label to, like changing that to a positive label so that every time you think about that person, you think of that positive thing. And it starts to change the way they behave and the way you perceive them and everything starts to change.

And so she from a life coaching perspective has really helped me realize that we can really achieve our dreams if we just sit. and imagine them and really focus on what it would feel like to achieve them. And he's got this audio book that's called The Feeling is the Secret. And it's getting into the feeling of really idolizing that wish that you have and letting that embody you. And it's absolutely fascinating. I can't believe you haven't heard of him. So I really want you to go listen to it.

Well, I've heard of this teaching. And by the way, I'd love to just share some thoughts on it. So one, you know, it's always hard to, I think, for sometimes it's really challenging to sort of delineate between, is he teaching what I would consider pantheism or is he teaching more breaking down Christianity in its archetypal framework? And so basically it's this is I think what I would agree with and wouldn't agree with is I would agree with if he's saying we are created in the image of God. And so we have a divine nature. We have part of this sort of nature of God in terms of being able to create an impact. And we are, you know, we are children of God. Now, I would say that we're not, we're not like, I would very much disagree with pantheism,

which is sort of everything is God and we are all God. I would agree that we are not the exact nature of, you know, God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit that exact same person. But in terms of being made in the image and the likeness of, I absolutely agree with this. And I love the proverb as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, which is very much part of what you're saying here, which is. And by the way, there's some really good clinical studies on this. There was research done by a professor Rosenthal, and they actually ended up calling this the Rosenthal effect. Now before this, it was called the Pygmalion effect, which is the studies.

or 100% what you're just saying, it was if you tell somebody you are capable of climbing the highest mountain. I mean, the chance of them is just absolutely astronomical of how much of their likelihood of actually doing that. And so they, they've done all these studies on people. And basically it's the cycle, the Pygmalion effect, which is, you know, you tell a kid, listen, you can be an Olympian. You can be an Olympic swim or whatever it is. and then start to realize and manifest in their mind and be able to visualize it to see it. And then we'll start taking the actions in order to make that happen. So the studies just show, wow, this goes up astronomically if you're doing that.

In fact, in this one of the studies, they took a group of kids in the, they took this group of kids and they told the teachers, these kids are all exceptional. Like they have special giftings. And so the teachers then worked with these students. and they ended up getting just, you know, these just incredibly high grades and achieving really great things. And then they say in the study is, no, these were just actually these were the lowest level kids. Some of them had learning disorders. They weren't very smart. And so, but anyways, to your point, I mean, this idea of the power of belief and even limiting beliefs, you know, this is something that's impacted my life in a huge way.

When I was young, I thought I was not smart. I had ADHD. I was always the principal's office. I graduated high school. By the way, I always didn't graduate. I don't like low 2.2, 2.3 GPA and almost didn't get into college. Because I felt like my entire life, I got a teacher tell me once, like, Josh, you're not very smart. I don't think you'll get into college. And so I literally thought I'm not smart.

And then I had a teacher once telling me in college. In order to get into college, I had to take summer classes. And it was if I got above a 3.0, they were going to let me in college. This is the University of Kentucky. So I said, okay, I'm going to go. I ended up getting 4.0. I had an English teacher telling me she said, Josh, I want to let you know, you got the highest grade in the class,

and have you ever thought, did you thought about being a writer or an English major? I was like, no, but, I mean, literally, I call it like a memory transfer. Like, I started thinking so differently about myself, and I think about if she wouldn't have said that to me, like, I don't know where I would be. And so anyways, all that being said, I just, I'm resonating with that part of what you shared in terms of, like, what other people say about us, what we, the power. that we have in speaking to our kids and the people around and the belief in them, it's just,

it's just really big. And so I'm curious, I mean, have you ever had like that experience where like maybe you had a limiting belief or something going on in life and just, you know, and something shifted and you started thinking differently to anyways, yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think, I think that's part of our mission as humans, like in terms of how do we, how do we eliminate those thoughts from our brain? keep us holding back from achieving our potential.

And so that's such a good point about how we speak to our children. And I've found myself trying to be more positive and not be so critical because I think about the critical nature of like my mother, for example, like she just will come out with anything critical about anything. And so it's like, you know, in trying to eliminate that from my epigenetics and like try to determine that like, you know, I don't have to think that way too, even though that's what I heard for most of my life, right? And so it's, it's definitely a challenge. You know, I printed out these affirmations that I started reading to my daughter as I was taking her to school every day.

And I was like, you know, if we just do this every day as we're getting in the car, you know, it's like 20 affirmations. It's like, you know, I believe you are strong, you're capable, you're courageous. just like, you know, you are a nice, kind girl, you know, like all of these things that just is a list of stuff. And I thought, you know, what if I just read this to her every single day? And at first she was like, Mom, why do we have to read this, you know? And but then, like, she started getting into it. And it, I could tell it definitely made a difference in her demeanor and her confidence when

she was at school. That's awesome. You know, one of the things that I've noticed about you, and I think, a number of people are wired this way is that you're a visionary, you know. And so I think that, you know, you have an ability to sort of see this is the future you want, whether it be goals or, again, you know, looking at a company like Kellogg, like you can see it. It's like, okay, they're removing these things. Like they're, you know, they're changing everything and now they're, you know, they're putting out, you know, college and base cereal,

whatever it is, only with, you know, vegetables and fruits. So anyways, but, but, you know, when you see your life, you know, in five, 10, 25 years, both your business and sort of your personal life. Like what is the ideal look like for you? Or another way to put this, you know, what would success look like for you in those areas? Yeah, I've actually thought a lot about that lately. And for me, it really success for me right now has to do with my kids. Like, you know, how can I model and show them

that whatever they want to do in life will have like an impact, a positive impact on the world. And I really want them to think about like whatever they, the career they choose to do, like to think of it as something that would help change the world. And so I always try to share like what I'm doing with them and share like why we're doing the things we do. and I would just love them to pick a career or their life based on that. And so I'm always trying to like think about what kind of success can I create that I can spend the most time with my children. So like how do I set up my business that way? How do I continue doing the work that I love to do but also spend time with them and teach them, you know, making this next cookbook with them was just enjoy because it was a lot of cooking together,

a lot of pictures together, you know, and the writing part was, of course, alone. But, you know, it was just this wonderful thing that I included them in this. And they're the stars of the book. And how can I set up my life so that we can continue to travel the world? Like I find so much joy in showing my family different places in the world that I've been. You know, my husband and I've been to over 50 countries. And so it's like, you know, I want to show my kids like everywhere I've been and like why I find wildlife so fascinating and why I love the ocean and like why I love swimming so much. And like I love looking at fish under the water.

And like I just want them to know all about the earth and all the different places. And like to me, success is like, show. like having the ability to do all of that, but also, you know, provide for my family and, and, you know, be there for them. So that's what, what I think about. And when I think about, like, the legacy that I want to leave, like, you know, the day that I die or, like, if I die tomorrow, like what I want to be said about me, I just want people to always remember that, like, I wanted everyone to be as healthy as they could be. And that's why I did the work that I did. it, you know. I love that. I don't want anyone to feel like I used to feel. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, you know,

I think you're going to live a really long time. So that's that's, yeah, that's, you know, that's, you know, that's, you know, when I think about Yvani, again, I think, I think in what you've already done in, you know, your time here in 44 years old, I, I think, you know, you have been able to in ways move mountains because, you know, the in order, I mean, think about this, you were able to help chick filet change their ingredients. I mean, that's really, and that's, that in part is affecting millions of lives now that people are not getting hormones every time they eat a chicken sandwich. I mean, it's, it's really phenomenal. And there are so many other companies you've gone and had a positive influence on. You've inspired so many people in terms of

how you have been so, you know, you've, you've done things the right way. as well. You haven't gone and sort of bit back at people in a negative way. You've just really done things in sort of the right way. Again, ignoring the, you know, the slander and just sort of embracing the love in that way. So anyways, I just, you know, I have the highest respect for you and all these things you've done. And one of the last questions I want to ask you is, you know, I know, I know you and I have so much going on and you especially. Again, like you're a mom. You have, there is a lot on your plate right now. And I know you've got the book. and that's something I'm sure you're super excited to release. What are some other things that you have coming up in the future that you're

thinking, I'm excited, or you have going on now or in the future and you're like, I'm excited about this? You know, I'm trying to figure that out, Josh. I'm really, you know, you know, doing, writing a book and having it released into the world, you know, is a whole thing, right? Like you have to go through, you know, all the things to do to like make sure people know to get it and to see it out there and to know that it's coming. And so I'm super focused on that.

And I think about what would I want to do that would continue this mission in a big way? And I haven't figured that out yet. And so I'm just trying to work through that in my mind. You know, at Truvani, we have incredible products that are being developed all the time. and I'm, you know, leading that product development in terms of the ingredients and the integrity of those. And so that's super fun to see. And it's great to see how well that's doing. But I still, there's something still something that I haven't figured out that I need to be doing.

And I am exploring that right now. So it's something that I, you don't have to have all the answers, right? Oh, yeah, of course. And this next year, you know, it's funny is because I came up with another topic for another cookbook. And my publisher was like, I don't know. People aren't really going to buy that or it's not going to sell that many copies. You know, it's just, you know, we're not so sure about it. And they wanted to change it and they wanted to change the direction of it.

And I just wasn't super passionate about it. And I said, you know, what if I just take a break from writing books and I figure out what it is that I need to be doing? And I'm hoping that those answers will just come to me through this process. But I'm not sure yet. Well, whatever it is I'm excited for, I'll be, I'll be thinking about you with it, praying for you with it. And then if there's anything I can do, it would be a sounding board. And by the way, that's one of the things I've appreciated about our relationship is that, you know, it's been really, really great being able to kind of go to each other for advice and thoughts and sharing.

Because many of you might know that both Bonnie and I run supplement companies. And if we've been in the space, both of us have been educators in the health space. And so, you know, sometimes when we get in positions of certain industries or leadership, sometimes there's not, you know, lonely might or might not be the right word, but sometimes you kind of feel like, okay, maybe someone doesn't understand exactly where I'm at, but it's been really good just being able to, you know, have you as a sounding board and share some advice and kind of where you're at in business over the years. And so I'm always appreciative about that.

just a quick story. You know, one of the things, Vani and I met, I'm trying to think, did we meet at that, kind of like a mastermind out in California, or was it the thing? It was in Stanford, Connecticut at Consumer Health Summit.

Okay, that one with my, okay, I remember that now. That's right. And so anyways, you know, there's a group of people. And anyways, and one of the things I just, I think,

you and I are both conscious of is there's a certain, we want to be around people that have really high level values, people that are purpose driven, and people that want to, you know, are about family. And so anyways, I just really appreciated how you've really prioritized. You've done such an amazing job of this is also saying, like, I'm going to prioritize my family along with my career and doing it in such a great way.

So again, you know, it's been, again, it's just been, it's been a pleasure being your friend. Oh, well, thank you, Josh. I really do appreciate being connected to you in so many ways because, again, what you said, it's not really lonely. it's more like you're isolated in that, in what you're doing, you know, and, and we're in both the same, very similar positions in that we're thought leaders in the health space, but we also are running companies too. And so there's a lot of tricky things that happen with that. And it's so nice to be able to just, you have you as a sounding board and to have you available as a friend to

help me through those moments in time. And I just, I really appreciate that. So thank you. Yeah. Well, hey, I want to let everybody know, Vani's got a cookbook coming out very soon, October 17th. And I want to encourage you to go out and get it. And if not, check out our other books, too. I mean, they are fantastic. You can go to Amazon and just search Vani Hari. Check out her books. They're awesome.

And I also want to encourage you. Follow Vani on social media. She's always posting great stuff. You can follow her on Instagram and Facebook and watch her videos on YouTube as well. And Vani, it's just great having you on and great, great. seeing you. Yeah, great to see you too, Josh. Thank you so much. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks so much for listening to another episode of the Growth Lab. Each week we talk about the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, your career, your relationships. And it's been

so good hearing from Bonnie today in her share, how she has really kept an incredible balance of her family and her career. She's been mission-minded, transforming the world in some really powerful ways. Hopefully you've learned some things on how you can be mission-driven and improve and grow your life as well. Thanks everybody. We'll be having another podcast next week.