By Bethany Mandel
Friday, May 08, 2015
Imagine a world without whimsy, without joy, without the
sweet taste of childhood. Whatever it would look like, it certainly wouldn’t be
a glowing, slightly neon shade of orange. And, thanks to the anti-science Left,
the home of anti-genetically modified food activism and organic everything, it
soon won’t be hard to imagine.
When I was a high-school exchange student in Belgium, my
host family asked me to make an American meal. My choice, of course, was Kraft
Mac and Cheese. They were scared by the cheese packet, by the color and its
powdery composition (“n’est pas fromage!”), and refused to eat it.
Remember when that was an option here in America? When
people could just choose what they wanted to eat, regardless of its nutritional
content? Now, with food activists who have an overzealous fan base, it’s their
way or the highway. One particular activist, nicknamed “Food Babe,” has taken
away some of America’s best foods. Because of her, the composition of Subway’s bread
is altered, and now the Kraft blue-box Mac and Cheese recipe is, as well.
The Food Babe’s Bad Science
What is perhaps the most infuriating aspect of the Food
Babe’s activism is the fact that her crusades, which she claims are for our
collective good, have no basis in science. She has written nonsensical polemics
against microwaves (just for them to disappear down the memory hole). To say
she is the Dr. Oz of the food world is being generous—he at least has a degree
in medicine. But just as Oz has come under fire for being a snake-oil salesman
in a lab coat, so too has the Food Babe, aka Vani Hari.
Gawker published an epic takedown of Hari, written by an
analytical chemist, Yvette d’Entremont and the anti-Food Babe, who named
herself Science Babe. d’Entremont explained, “Hari’s superhero origin story is
that she came down with appendicitis and didn’t accept the explanation that
appendicitis just happens sometimes. So she quit her job as a consultant,
attended Google University and transformed herself into an uncredentialed
expert in everything she admittedly can’t pronounce.”
Two other “natural bloggers” have been in the news of
late. Each battled cancer with the same kind of pseudoscience that Hari
preaches. One died after seeking radiology treatment at the eleventh hour,
while the other admitted she never had cancer at all. One can only wonder who
these women influenced and discouraged from seeking treatment. In a Daily Beast
dive into the world of Dr. Oz, medical professionals discussed the “Oz effect,”
wherein their patients went for the quick fixes instead of established medical
science. There’s no telling the damage that’s been done from the “Food Babe
effect.”
I’ll Just Make Everyone Do What I Want
Crusades to encourage companies to change their products
is very different from buying nutritional products, which Hari also promotes.
Hari can, as far as I’m concerned, waste as much time as she wants lobbying for
more organic kale at Whole Paycheck—er, Whole Foods. But when Hari takes away
my ability to choose how to feed my family, it gets personal. The Left is all
about the freedom of choice, though only when it pertains to depriving unborn
babies of their own inalienable rights. On everything else, the Left is only
comfortable making your choices—both large and small—for you.
If the food police are going to set the menu for
Americans, is it so much to ask for them to get it right on the science? Sadly,
it probably is. The conventional wisdom on food science is one of the most
unstable in the scientific world. We’ve been told butter is good, then that
it’s bad, and now that it’s good again. Same with eggs, milk, and fat. The list
goes on. In the land of the free, we’re increasingly stuck eating whatever the
elites deem acceptable that week. Michelle Obama sets our kids’ lunch menus and
the Food Babe has irreconcilably altered our dinner.
Excuse me while I start hoarding Wacky Mac (the kosher
version of Kraft’s blue box) before the Food Babe and her minions get to that,
too. For those seeking a good old neon-orange dinner in a box, take a stroll
down the kosher aisle.
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