In a conversation on Facebook, I was asked to read a post or two from Food Babe before categorically dismissing her. Since I’ve only really read snippets here and there before, I decided to drop my defenses a little and read one of her posts, but to actually look up all of the claims she makes with the same critical rigueur I use for nearly anything I read these days.
The post I chose was the first food-centric one on the site this morning, You Won’t Believe What’s In Your Yogurt – And It’s Not On The Label! The sensationalist title had already gotten my guard up, but I persisted and decided to approach the claims as if they were correct until I could prove otherwise.
The article, in general, is a mismash of complaints, but most of them center upon three pillars of discontent:
1. Some yogurts aren’t Organic
2. Some yogurts may contain artificial ingredients
3. Some yogurts may contain things that were made by things that were fed GMO crops.
These pillars are the themes that keep cropping up throughout the article, but she actually organizes the article around certain ‘problem chemicals’, so this is where I began my investigation.
GMO Grains
Quote from the article:
“Conventional yogurt usually comes from milk produced by cows that are confined and unable to graze in open pasture. They’re usually fed GMO grains, not grass.” – Food Babe
Unbiased Discussion of the subject:
My Comments:
This appears to be more or less true, though the insinuation that it’s unsafe because it’s GMO is pretty unfounded (see linked unbiased source). In researching this, the general treatment of dairy cattle is probably the thing that disturbed me the most. Ultimately, though, unless the cattle treatment bothers you enough to avoid dairy, there’s no real reason to avoid animal products because the animals were fed GMO grains. GMO grains are not unhealthy in any provable way, and even if they were, the idea that those effects would pass through the animal and still make it to you through their milk in any quantity that could affect your health is kind of a stretch.
HFCS-90
Quote from the article:
“An overload of fructose in the diet isn’t healthy because diets that are high in fructose are associated with obesity and cardiovascular disease. ” – Food Babe
Unbiased Discussion of the subject:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/4/895.full.pdf
My Comments:
Food babe links an editorial here that she quite obviously cherry picked. The article itself says “Studies in rodents, dogs, and nonhuman primates eating diets high in fructose or sucrose consistently show hyperlipidemia”. It’s the quantity of overall carbohydrate intake that matters most. Where it comes from is relevant, but it’s a very small part of it. She also riffs on GMO sources again, which seems to be her major complaint.
Neosugar
Quote from the article:
“This is a highly processed form of sugar made by hydrolyzing liquid GMO sugar beets or sugar cane. It’s so heavily processed that your body can’t digest it and it just passes through you like a fiber. It’s also marketed as a prebiotic, but there isn’t much evidence out there that neosugar is more beneficial than real food and it appears to just be a marketing ploy. ” – Food Babe
Unbiased Discussion of the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructooligosaccharide
Study:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/63/5/709.full.pdf
My Comments:
First, this chemical (Fructooligosaccharide) is already naturally present in many fruits and vegetables, including Bananas. So the ‘super highly processed’ part is bunk. Second, it’s main purpose as an additive is as a low-calorie sweetener, but it also happens to be shown to improve gut flora (see study) and possibly help gut health. Overall, it seems like a positive additive, not something to fear.
Dimethylpolysiloxane
Quote from the article:
“You’ve heard me refer to this chemical in the past as the silly putty ingredient that’s widely used as a defoamer in oil fryers at restaurants, and famously used in McDonalds french fries and soda fountains. Turns out that it can also be used during the processing of yogurt – and it’s not labeled, even if residues remain in the final product. One of the biggest issues I’ve got with dimethylpolysiloxane is that the FDA allows it to be preserved with formaldehyde, one of the most highly toxic substances on earth. ” – Food Babe
Unbiased Discussion of the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydimethylsiloxane
Study:
http://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/whatsnew/whatsnew_fa/files/formaldehyde.pdf
My Comments:
First, based on the FDA brief she linked, the presence of Dimethylpolysiloxane in Yogurt can be no higher than 10 parts per million (PPM). That equates to less than 0.001 percent. Second, there’s nothing wrong with Dimethylpolysiloxane, according to both the FDA and Wikipedia. Finally, her main concern is that Dimethylpolysiloxane is preserved with Formaldehyde, but since there can be no more than 10 PPM of Dimethylpolysiloxane, the amount of Formaldehyde present (if at all) is astonishingly low. Besides, Formaldehyde, at low levels (certainly higher than the levels in Yogurt, though) are in most things. Shitake mushrooms, in fact (Organic or not), are quite high in Formaldehyde. See the study referenced.
Nanoparticles
Quote from the article:
“There’s a big controversy surrounding the results of a 2012 study that found titanium dioxide in Dannon yogurt. In May, Mother Jones reported that Dannon Oikos Greek Yogurt contained the nanoparticle titanium dioxide, but have since retracted this from their article following Dannon’s claims that, “We don’t use any ingredients in Dannon plain yogurt that contain titanium dioxide. In the event we use an added color in our products we label it as an added ingredient”. I also contacted Dannon, and they confirmed this information. ” – Food Babe
Unbiased Discussion of the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoparticle
My Comments:
This one’s actually tough, because there’s been little research on either side. The sited study seems to be legit, but the companies mentioned have denied all allegations. Still, it’s unregulated, so they really don’t have to fess up. I would like to see some unbiased sources, though. ‘Friends of the Earth’ isn’t exactly high on my list of respected sources.
Synthetic Pesticides
Quote from the article:
“Yogurts that contain fruit likely contain synthetic pesticide residues unless they are organic.” – Food Babe
Unbiased Discussion of the subject:
My Comments:
This is actually really damning. First, what she’s insinuating isn’t even true: Synthetic pesticides aren’t necessarily worse than organic ones, see the unbiased link. But even worse, there’s no information, one way or the other, that says they were or were not used in the production of fruits contained in the yogurts. She’s making a broad assumption and accusation with little to no data.
One final criticism of the article before I continue on to how this exploration has changed my views on Food Babe: The article is almost entirely sourced from a ‘report’ generated by The Cornucopia Institute, which is an organization that labels themselves as “Promoting Economic Justice for Family Scale Farming”. That line is very telling, read through it a few times.
This ‘institute’ happens to be run by Mark Kastel and Will Fantle. Will is the Research Director, but his degrees are in Economics and Political Science, which is not exactly what I’m looking for for someone directing research into biology. Mark, on the other hand, is a former farmer’s lobbyist and current organic farmer. Furthermore, the entire policy advisory staff for the institute consists of organic farmers. Not a scientist in the bunch.
I bring this up because this very tactic is often the one activists like Food Babe use to discount studies. The studies were funded by business, and therefore, can’t be trusted when they side with the business. There’s a legitimate gripe there; conflict of interest is real. But you have to be consistent about it. You can’t discount the results of one study due to this conflict and then laud another with the same conflict just because you believe that large corporations are evil and small ones are not.
Organic farming is a multi-billion dollar industry, whether you want to believe it or not. And like all industries, they are willing to resort to propaganda and lobbying to twist opinion and laws into their favor.
Back to Food Babe, after going through this exploration, I actually have a worse opinion of her than before. Succinctly, I think she is the worst kind of activist: Ambitious, Articulate, Confident, Sociopathic, and Ignorant. She believes something, with a religious zeal, and her sociopathy means she is unable to think she may be wrong, which is what causes her to ignore all contrary evidence and remain ignorant. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except her ambition and confidence leads her to try and sway others, and her ability to communicate allows her to actually succeed to some degree with folks who have not learned to think critically before believing emotionally.
The end result is that the Food Babe is to the healthy nutrition movement what terrorists are to Islam: Loud-mouthed religious bullies who will not stop until the entire world is just as ignorant as they are.
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