Illumination 2.0

Today while flying home from a scientific conference I could not help but remember the Food Babe’s warnings about commercial aviation.  Her recent post warns of recirculated filth and high amounts of nitrogen, somewhere like 50%.  Of course, that’s about 30% less than ambient air.   Her claims were widely, and appropriately criticized. Today I took a good look at the inside of that cylinder in the sky and noticed hazards that Vani didn’t catch. She failed to account for other airborne dangers on the plane, problems that likely contribute to the deadly quality of cabin air more than anything she may ever fear. But before I start, we all know that commercial aviation is plagued with funny odors.  While we sit in a chair in the sky the nose is treated to a parade of organic funk, wafting through the cabin.  Whether it is the chronically unshowered and unsleeved, the woman that insists on taking off her shoes and putting her feet all over everything, or the folks that secrete gase

It was 6:30 pm in the lab and I was just thinking about the last things I'd need to get done before I could go home.  Typical night.  Usually I'm riding home about 7 pm, but an email popped up asking me if I was going to go watch the Food Babe.  A click on a link would take me to the note on a UF Dean for Students Good Food Revolution Events website.  Vani Hari would be spreading her corrupt message of bogus science and abject food terrorism here at the University of Florida. Oh joy. There's something that dies inside when you are a faculty member that works hard to teach about food, farming and science, and your own university brings in a crackpot to unravel all of the information you have brought to students. She might have started from honest roots.  Her story says she was duped by an organic yogurt stand (join the club) into buying taro toppings that were filled with artificial, non-organic colors.  She realized that she could use social media to coalesce

IMPORTANT.  I was reluctant to make this information public because I do not want anyone to harass, intimidate, troll, or give any grief to Ms. Hari.  That's her game.   Those who condemn her tactics are not to use them.  We must define the high road.   I provide the information in this blog because I want everyone to understand the ongoing abuse of public records laws at incredible public expense.  I want everyone to see the scope of innocent people that will be potentially affected if/when she makes this information public. There are consequences of handing over 2707 pages of private correspondence to someone that has a goal to destroy you-- because you dared to challenge her with science and evidence.  Share the story.  Don't flame her or her followers.  Share it with science journalists, science enthusiasts. Let others know that this is happening, but NO RETALIATION, NO ABUSIVE COMMENTS, please LET HER CONTINUE TO SINK ON HER OWN. Today at 9AM EST over 257 MB of

I’ve been a critic of the Food Babe for a long time.   Actually, I’ve been the critic of anyone that attempts to manipulate the public perception of science, while presenting zero scientific evidence.   Especially deplorable are those that use fear to force a message, and scare people about safe food while profiting in the process. It’s an old story now, but when ‘Food Babe’ Vani Hari visited my university to sell her science-blind worldview I was not exactly thrilled.  We professors are tasked to teach from evidence, with foundation in a scholarly literature.  Why would we subject our students to the daft rants of a dim food activist that lines her pockets by frightening people away from safe food? I have always been an appropriate critic.  I’ve addressed her specific points with evidence and even have been complimentary at times.  She certainly is a gifted communicator, and can mobilize the drones that exploit social media to blackmail corporations into aggressive change, no

Nothing.  Three years ago the Food Babe, Vani Hari, submitted a public records request to my university.  I have always been a vocal about Hari, both in her egregious errors as well as her talents as a motivational pre-Goop peddler of generally poor advice. Of course, a blind squirrel does find a nut here and there, so I agree with her on some facets about food and farming.  But Hari was convinced that my criticisms were being dictated by the Biotech Industry Mothership, and that an independent scientist could not possibly find flaw with her analyses and recommendations.  This is the text from her blog about the need to file the request. She wanted to unveil how the "food industry" used me to "control science and deliver their PR and lobbying messaging." She got a big fat goose egg. She exploited transparency laws and requested tens of thousands of pages of my personal emails.  They were delivered to her promptly and at great taxpayer expense.   And

Can she be an ally? I’ve been extremely critical of Vani Hari, aka “The Food Babe”.   She freely demonstrates, without humility, her complete disregard for science and evidence when vilifying food, chemistry and farming. She has amassed a substantial group of venomous followers that subscribe to her leadership.  As we attempt to illuminate products, technology and method to feed a growing population, Hari’s shameful resistance to reality needs to be met.  We've done that, and I'm proud of the push back from Steven Novella, Kavin Senapathy, John Coupland, David Gorski, The Chow Babe and the Food Hunk.  Well done.  But when scientists take the time to show her errors, she lashes back with a string of lies and allegations that are truly curious.  She’s stated in her recent writings that I’m just a pawn doing the bidding of corporate ag, which of course, is supported by zero evidence. It turns into two groups.  One that manufactures the trash, and another that poin

Public records requests are an important tool for journalists and other investigators to obtain information to check public employees' for episodes of wrongdoing.  Today there are two alarming trends.  1. Politicians with deep pockets and plenty of attorneys find ways to make sure the records are not made public. 2. Scientists that do not have deep pockets and attorneys are seeing abuse of the system for elaborate witch hunts, expeditions that find no evidence of wrongdoing, yet result in potentially career-damaging manufactured narratives.  In other words, when you teach a scientific topic or do research that some find objectionable, your records can be used to harm your career. It has been seen by researchers in climate, vaccines, animal research, genetic engineering, and most recently, fisheries .   Last year my institution received a Public Records Request from Vani Hari, The Food Babe.  It was indeed curious, and it didn't take long to realize that this was re

A few weeks ago I attended the Food Babe's talk at the University of Florida. I listened to her talk about herself and provide lots of false information to my students, and waited for the opportunity to ask dismantling questions from one of the two microphones in the room. She did not take questions from the audience. The event ended and the audience left. She was paid $6000 for over an hour's time to promote her brand and spread her filth.  Now scientists and educators have to fix it. I first wrote about the night and the lack of a Q&A period here.  The story spread quickly through social media, the place with a love-hate relationship with Hari. Vani Hari responded by claiming that there was in fact a Q&A session, that she did answer questions from the audience. So it is my word against hers.  Via social media she explained to her followers that she did answer questions.  We know she didn't. The answer may be that she knows nothing about scientific p

Responding to the Food Babe is like telling a funny joke to my dog at a party.  Everyone there gets it-- except for the dog.  She just tilts her head to one side and looks at me like I'm stupid.  Last week the New York Times published an appropriately critical piece of Vani Hari, The Food Babe.  Writer Courtney Rubin included some of my sentiments, as I have been critical of Ms. Hari’s use of social media to force change through mobilizing group protests, that incite change through coercion and intimidation rather than through measured scientific reasoning. Festoon that attack on science with some kale leaves and a squash recipe and nobody seems to notice.  Ms. Hari fired back via her website, taking me head-on.  She didn’t approach my points, but instead took the opportunity to exercise a wonderfully textbook  ad hominem criticism of me. ******** Aside from the name and title, and the fact that I answer questions for GMO Answers, she doesn't get much cor

I thought he was going to apologize.  Instead he asked for more money to keep the crazy boat afloat, as his non-profit is as bankrupt as his scientific messages. It was only a matter of time.  Jeffrey Smith is the author of books and producer of documentaries, the origin of hundreds of talks, articles and websites, all extolling the dangers of genetic engineering. He once was one of the prominent figures in that arena, and maybe still is. However that that arena has transformed into a tiny handful of science-free experts continuing to convince the credulous that their food world is about to collapse at any second, and that Monsanto is around every corner with a frosty stein of cancer-causing glyphosate with their name on it.     Nobody is buying it anymore.  Two decades of fear-based messaging have influenced a culture by condemning failed agriculture, a corrupt regulatory system, and poison food supply.  But people keep eating. Sure there are boxes with butterflies

The new headline circulating in the pro-genetic-engineering social media space is depressing. With joy and gusto, it is being promoted and circulated by those that appreciate the utility of genetic engineering and chemical inputs to safely address specific ag challenges.     The above article appears on Deadstate . The claim is that compounds approved for, and used by, organic production are potentially dangerous. Well, not so much potentially dangerous as outright carcinogenic.   The main shock to most readers is that organic production uses any chemical inputs at all, as the organic halo implies that no chemicals are used.  Of course, we know that to not be true, it is just other chemicals that may be used.  But just like other chemicals, the dose makes the poison.  For the most part these chemicals have low toxicity, and virtually no risk if applied properly and washed from food.  Fighting manufactured fear with manufactured fear?  Why adopt Food Babe tactics if yo

When you can't discuss things scientifically, just do your best to make sure critics can't be heard.  This is the level of Hari's continued assault on science and reason in the food theater. After a rather pointy article in NPR's The Salt blog, she now throws herself on the sword, a victim of Big Food and Evil Scientists. Like me! On her website about the "attacks" she refers to me loosely... The bottom line is that the time ended and there was no public Q&A.  There was no way that the 300 students she just misinformed could question her claims.  I have posted a letter from the organizers that invited her, stating that she did not answer questions except for a small group that convened to meet her by the stage.  That's true.  However, students left without the opportunity to challenge her claims.  That is not a question. Of course, she ties me in with Monsanto.  Blatantly false.  But since when does she need evidence before maki