What’s the Snark on Half Baked Harvest?

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22:51Christy Noel:New episodes Thursdays, only on Peacock. That's all the great things about her. She's a very successful businesswoman. chef, but she has many a controversy and criticism. She was called a lightning rod for controversy by the New York Times. So let's talk about her cultural appropriation and her whitewashing, quote unquote, dishes. So in naming her recipes, she will often slap on a cultural identifier to a dish that may not actually be reflective of that particular dish to that particular culture. For instance, she shared in February 2021, a noodle soup recipe titled weeknight ginger pho gah, which is pho.

23:27Christy Noel:A lot of people are very aware of what pho is, the Vietnamese soup. And she said that this weeknight ginger pho gah could be prepared in under an hour. And she listed some of the ingredients as caramelized chicken, a sweet, spicy, tangy sesame chili sauce. And pho, for one, is known for being an incredibly time and labor intensive dish as it pertains to the broth. This broth will like stew for hours. and sometimes it could take days in advance. And it requires very specific spices, but she took some shortcuts, some liberties. And what I found really interesting is she has ingredients like sesame.

24:02Christy Noel:Pho has zero sesame. Also, none of the protein in pho is caramelized ever. Never heard of that in my life. And I literally eat pho all the time. Westminster, which is in Orange County, basically is, it's called Little Saigon because it basically is Vietnam and Orange County. And I've never seen any ingredient like this. Also naming it pho when it's not pho is misleading, dismissive of Vietnamese culture. She was also accused of whitewashing a Vietnamese dish for the sake of just slapping this title on it. And fans were obviously very disappointed and called her out in the comments. And she apologized.

24:32Christy Noel:She renamed the recipe Easy Sesame Chicken and Noodles in Spicy Broth after receiving all this backlash for appropriating this name when it clearly was not pho. But she didn't acknowledge what she did wrong and she didn't use it as a teaching moment. She just kind of left it there and just acted as if it never happened. And you would think as a food blogger, you'd be very cognizant and mindful when it comes to cooking an iconic cultural dish that is not your own because food is reflective of culture. And it's just it's a it's a very grave misstep, especially when your entire job is to be a content creator for food.

25:06Right. And I mean, calling something pho when it's explicitly not pho, the only thing it has in common with pho is like noodles is just you're supposed to be a food expert. This isn't pho.

25:18Christy Noel:You should know that of all people. Right. And a quick Google search would have led you to that same conclusion. And similarly, in March 2023, she was caught appropriating yet another dish. So two years after this pho. Another Vietnamese dish. Yes. So she said, here's a 25-minute ginger sesame banh mi rice bowl. So her banh mi rice bowls, I went online, looked at it, contained the following ingredients. and never have I ever in my decades of eating bodhmi have I ever heard any of these ingredients used in bodhmi. Correct me if I'm wrong, Vietnamese people, please. But from my experience, no. Peanuts, sesame seeds, sesame oil, avocado, lime, chili paste, all that is non-existent in bodhmi.

25:58Christy Noel:The most important part of a bodhmi sandwich, again, I'm a bodhmi connoisseur, is the liver pate, which if you guys know, it makes the sandwich very creamy. It's like a mayonnaise, but it's the Vietnamese version, liver pate. And also daikon, which is this radish root type of vegetable, is found in the banh mi sandwich. It gives it that crunch element along with the carrots and the cilantro and the jalapeno and then the choice of meat. But it's the liver pate and the daikon that makes it an iconic sandwich. Neither liver pate and daikon were found in her recipe, which again, I would argue are two of the most important ingredients in this dish.

26:31Christy Noel:A quick Google search would have shown her that just because you slap random Asian ingredients like chili paste or sesame seeds or sesame oil does not make it anywhere close to the dish. And commenters were quick to point this out. They're like, first of all, banh mi literally means bread in Vietnamese, which is typically a sandwich, not a rice bowl. So it literally does not make sense. And not only that, she totally mispronounced it incorrectly. She called it banh mai. Banh mai? That is like the craziest. Once again, she is supposed to be a food expert. She doesn't know how to pronounce badmé.

27:08Christy Noel:Yeah, and I feel like it's a pretty common sandwich. Like, it's not just because you're Asian, you know how that works. It's like calling pho like pho. Yeah. Clearly not the pronunciation. And at this point, she had about 5.2 million on IG. And people started commenting on this post. And they said, we're really disappointed. And the story got really big. It was covered by NBC News. And of course, similar to the pho debacle or scandal, She didn't respond or acknowledge any of the backlash. She was also accused of deleting any critical comments on this post. And interestingly enough, when New York Times did an op-ed on her, she said that one of her employees' jobs, she has four full-time employees, one of their jobs is literally to delete negative comments, which she has admitted herself.

27:49Christy Noel:Half-Bick Harvest, after all this backlash, NBC picked it up. She eventually apologized and changed the recipe on her website, which rinse, repeat, same old shit. And like how hard, she keeps finding herself in these situations. how hard is it to just give it a more accurate name? I want to make a sesame chili oil rice bowl. Great. That sounds delicious. Why do you have to like put the word banh mi in there when it's not a banh mi? It's right. Exactly. It makes no sense. And there's such an alternative, easy route to go if you're trying to mimic some type of Asian flavor. But in October 2023, she posted a crockpot Thai short ribs with coconut rice.

28:26Christy Noel:So the ingredients included pomegranate juice, Chinese five-spice tamari soy, Thai sweet chili sauce, and she labeled it as Thai. Critics say and criticize that, okay, this dish is mislabeled as Thai. Similar to the bonnie bowl, she just mashes up a bunch of Asian ingredients, labels it as a random country that she probably closes her eyes, points to a circulating globe and says, today we're going to call it Thai, because that's basically what she's doing. And we're going to call it that dish. Give me a break. And the funniest part to me is that in this crockpot dish, she had pomegranate seeds.

28:56Christy Noel:I am Asian. I cannot name a single dish in our culture that contains pomegranate seeds. I had a Persian roommate. A lot of their dishes contained pomegranate seeds. And that's what people were quick to point out. They said pomegranate or pomegranate molasses is often associated with Middle Eastern and Persian cooking. Not Thai cuisine. Like, hello? Stupid. There is a New York Times article by Julia Moskin that reads, Miss Gerard, who is white, has long been called out for mispronouncing dishes from other cultures and misidentifying her creations. Like, for instance, calling tacos with pineapple Hawaiian and noodles with honey and peanut butter Chinese.

29:31Christy Noel:I am Chinese. Peanuts are not in our dish. That's Thai. People, critics, accuse her of cherry picking exotic flavors to add to her comfort food, but she doesn't acknowledge or respect the cultural context of said food, spices, etc. It's basically reading to me as an Asian person that all Asian countries are the same. people assume, like when I was little, right in elementary school, when people were hella racist, they would say, oh, like, I remember one time this kid was like, well, if you're Asian, that just means you're Chinese, because it's like all the same. And just because you appear of East Asian descent doesn't mean that you're any race or another, like, oh, you're Asian looking, so you must be Chinese.

30:06Christy Noel:No, we're all from different countries with different languages, different foods, different traditions. It's literally as if Half-Baked Harvest, if she were to come out with a tapas recipe, which we all know is a traditionally Spanish appetizer found in Spain and throw a label like Italian on it. Like that's literally what she's doing when it just to put it into her perspective, if you're not familiar with Asian dishes. So in my mind, we as a Western society understand the difference between Italian and Spanish. And we know that tapas calling tapas Italian would be wrong. But that's basically what she's doing with all of these dishes.

30:38Christy Noel:And again, I'm Chinese. I don't claim to know anything about Korean culture, Japanese culture, Thai culture. They're different countries, but you're just so free to say, oh, sesame is a traditionally Chinese dish and I'm going to throw it into my Thai short ribs chili recipe and then call it Thai. Like it's so convoluted and dumb. Yeah. It's also like just you can use and appreciate certain ingredients, but show the appreciation correctly by attributing them to the right culture or just don't attribute any culture at all. and just say, hey, this is like a recipe that I threw together. It's just spicy noodles.

31:17That's all. Don't mislabel it with the wrong country.

31:20Christy Noel:Right. Spicy garlic noodles. Like that could be many. Sounds delicious. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. But calling it pho, gar, all this stuff, it's just misleading and not correct. Right. She tells people that some of her errors are due to her dyslexia and ADHD. And she specifically says, oh, no, excuse me. The article specifically says she hasn't officially been diagnosed with a learning disability, but says dyslexia and ADHD run in her family. And she says, sometimes I read things, it's literally right in front of me and I'm completely saying something totally different. I have a hard time with my lefts, with my rights.

31:49Christy Noel:Let's just put it that way. I cannot spell for the life of me as well. Okay, so I am not going to invalidate her diagnoses, even though she admits she hasn't been diagnosed with them. They just happen to run in her family. I do not have dyslexia. I know that that's a very challenging thing to have. I do have severe ADHD, as you guys know. And that's like not that's not an excuse. Yeah, right. I think there are so many times also where like I could use ADHD as an excuse for something I like for the correction corner. I miss this thing. Well, I do have ADHD. No, you don't weaponize it or use it as an excuse.

32:27It's just something that you have to deal with and manage.

32:30Christy Noel:Yeah. And I think that's a really good point, because we often get comments like, oh, you guys miss this or you guys mispronounce that or that's not correct. Listen, we're not saying we're trying our best. Yeah, we're not saying we get 100 % of the things right. And we're always open to learning. And every time someone points anything out in our comments and our DMS, we're happy to address it and issue a corrections corner in the subsequent episode. But I and I think there's a difference between actually, no, I want to take a step back. I think it's not about mispronouncing things, Tegan. And I think for me, I understand it too.

33:00Christy Noel:I don't have the best vocabulary. I don't pronounce things correctly. Oh, same. Yeah. And And I think for me, the reason it's so offensive, it's because she's assuming various cultures are amalgamated into one. Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are all synonymous. And you can just slap that label on the recipe and then call it good. It's not the same. And I think I wouldn't go so far as to say Tegan's racist. I don't think she's a racist person. I would say these are low stakes, unintentional mistakes, but it's also a willful ignorance. And I think a quick Google search would prevent you from making these types of errors about cultures.

33:37Christy Noel:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I just like that. Yeah. And again, people have done far worse and we've covered far more nefarious, legitimately racist people. I don't think Tegan's a fucking racist. OK, because she mislabeled my food. She is ignorant. Yeah. So let's talk about some allegations about her copycat accusations and recycling old recipes. So she's oftentimes accused of copying other bloggers' recipes like What's Gabi Cooking? And the New York Times article op-ed said her recipes and persona have generated so much online conflict that most of the sources I contacted refused to go on the record.

34:13Christy Noel:Other food influencers who have accused her of copying the recipes include, again, Gabi Dalkin of What's Gabi Cooking, Adriana Guevara, Adharmayev, A Cozy Kitchen. And apparently, like, all this plays out in the comments section. People are constantly calling HBH out for copying other people. To that, Tegan says, you know, I've never copied a recipe and that these accusations are mind boggling. She's like, listen, there's five million broccoli cheddar soup recipes on the Internet. So, yeah, if you find a broccoli cheddar soup recipe on my blog, you're probably going to find the same on what's Gabi Cookings.

34:42Christy Noel:And it doesn't mean that I replicated her exact recipe, which I think, yes, for certain recipes like that, very common to have infinite number of recipes on the website, on websites. but just two months ago apparently she copied the new york times strawberry spoon cake but added a couple of variations like jam and one egg and people were like two months ago new york times posted this exact same article what are the chances and there was another instance of a food creator named pinch of young yum and she posted a i can't pronounce this cheese b-o-u-r-s-i-n borzin cheese yeah she posted a borzin cheese pistachio and hot honey appetizer on june 23rd And just a few days later on July 3rd, Half Baked Harvest posted her own burrata, of course, containing fig jam and pistachio.

35:30Christy Noel:So everyone was like, that's a pretty specific recipe to have copied just a mere like week and a half after Pinch of Yum posted it on hers. Yeah, that's like a very specific combination. Yeah, it's not broccoli cheddar soup. Yeah. She has a lot of accusations against her about her potentially having food and body issues. and Tegan is a very petite woman. I think followers often just raise some eyebrows seeing that she makes such rich, high caloric foods and it just feels like a weird juxtaposition with her frame and then the type of foods that she's preparing. And I think I just want to say, like I've talked about this before, it's very common in the eating disorder community to be obsessed with feeding other people but not feeding yourself or inviting people over for food and having this decadent spread.

36:19Christy Noel:I think of Bethany Frankel and Jules from Roni. When Bethany Frankel called it out like so spot on, she's like, when people get obsessed with feeding other people, it oftentimes is an obsession in their own mind with food that they can't actually consume. And there's also just a very high positive correlation, believe it or not, for people struggling with eating disorders and having an obsession with food. I can't even tell you how many people in my eating disorder treatment facility were food bloggers or people that worked in the food industry that had an intense obsession with food, but were not eating the food themselves or binging and purging or whatever it may be.

36:54Christy Noel:So I just want to say that it's being a chef and eating disorders is far more common than one would think. And fans are worried that her food may be concealing something more dark sided, perhaps an eating disorder. And again, she's never spoken on this and admitted that she has an eating disorder. But I just want to call out that Tegan is an already very thin, naturally thin woman based on like what I've seen of her body. And around 2023, fans started to notice that she was becoming thinner and thinner. And people started accusing her on her own blogs and Instagrams, which I don't think is the most helpful because when you're bringing up someone looking underweight, it actually promotes more restrictive behaviors and it just drives the eating disorder to be stronger and stronger.

37:36Christy Noel:So I have like all my thoughts on that. I've never commenting on someone's body, whether it's what you think to be high praise or not, because you have no idea what they're struggling with. I can't tell you how many times people would say something about my body and I would fixate on that and I would continue the disorder behaviors. But Tegan denies an eating disorder. She says that she does not have an eating disorder. She has long suffered from social anxiety and separation anxiety. She said that she is treating those privately and that she calms herself down with long hours of work, often forgetting to eat and sleep, which could potentially lead to her being malnourished.

38:08Christy Noel:And she goes on to say at the end of the day, body shaming is body shaming. That is just, I think, a really horrible thing to ever do on the internet. I really don't have much to say on that because I think it is really sad and no one should ever be commenting on someone else's body. Body shaming of any kind is not right. End of story. Which like, yeah, I completely agree. That's completely fair. Again, like you said, just commenting on anyone's body is just not something you should do. If it's coming from like a place of concern, even then, because like you said, it can still be just internalized in a negative way by the recipient of that concern.

38:44It's very complicated, as you guys know.

38:47Christy Noel:Yeah. And it's tough, right? Because I remember seeing pictures of her a couple years ago and being like, this girl needs to be hospitalized. Just looking at her frame, she would be turned away at any eating disorder treatment facility she would be requesting to get into because she's too thin. Like she needs to be like she looks like she needs to be like immediately hospitalized. Is that what you're saying? Yes. And I have complicated feelings about that. Same with Ariana Grande. When I see these frames and I'm like, oh, my God, if you were tried to admit if you were attempted to be admitted to a facility, they would literally turn you away.

39:21Christy Noel:You are far too thin. And I think that's where the concern comes from. But at the same time, it doesn't help when it comes from people that you don't know, like fans or followers. these calls need to be coming from inside the house from her family and from her loved ones it's not up to us yeah to push them into seeking help because trust me she's not taking the opinion of her followers to get help she's gonna listen to well her brain's probably gonna be the most strong but she should be listening to her friends and family and it's their job in my opinion yeah exactly yeah i think it's just this is a tough one for us to to talk about but i think with when all is said and done i am concerned i think yeah and i mean it's not out of the realm of possibility Also, some people are naturally thin, but when it comes to a point of looking extremely unnatural, along with other certain behaviors that she clearly has, then yeah, it's kind of raises a red flag and I'm sure is triggering for some people.

40:15But again, it's very similar. I know that we covered Arielle Charnas a long time ago. It was like one of our earliest episodes, I think last fall. She's gotten similar accusations her entire career too. And you know, she's always like, I am naturally skinny and I get that. But then sometimes you're like, that doesn't look healthy. Right.

40:32Christy Noel:Moving on to Tegan's privilege, people are at times very critical of her for coming from financial stability as it pertains to her family and family wealth. And this is so similar to every influencer we cover. I feel like this is a tale that we tell for every single influencer that we talk about on the show. There's always going to be a safety net. If this endeavor does not work out, you always have something to fall back on. You will never be without shelter, food, healthcare. We always want to just shed light to that because I think it's very easy for us to compare ourselves to these types of influencers and say, I'm a great chef.

41:07Christy Noel:Why aren't I getting as much recognition? Which actually kind of goes back into question actually to the appropriation of food. I think the reason why people also have an issue with it, sorry, I'm kind of bouncing back, but it just made me realize it sucks when people like due to SEO, when people type in, okay, let's make a pho recipe. Half-Baked Harvest's recipe is going to come up really high because of how popular she is when creators that are traditional, like Asian or Middle Eastern creators that are trying to showcase a dish that is very much their own in their culture, they're not getting as much attention, not as many clicks, not as much money in their pocket.

41:41Christy Noel:That's why it's a problem, I think. It's appropriating another culture for your own monetary benefit and excluding those who should be showcasing that exact food. but she's a young attractive white woman tegan is and creators of color might not get the same opportunities as she is getting and since her teenage years she's lived at home in this family compound she's made blogging her full-time focus she has built this incredible beautiful studio it's kind of unclear what her family does but there's allegations or speculation on the internet that her dad owns some type of storage business in ohio which has made the family very wealthy and a lot of people feel as if the privilege is unearned and prevents her from facing any sort of negative cancellation.

42:23Christy Noel:And she, again, has reps that guard her image, her schedule. For instance, when the New York Times op-ed piece came out, it took the reporter nearly a year to even schedule that interview on the books, finally. Wow. And Half-Bake Harvest was not happy with the article, ultimately. It did kind of remind me of the Ballerina Farm article where she extended an invitation for this reporter to come into her home she observed her entire day her marriage with Daniel with Danny Nielsen is that his name all there are five million kids running around it seems similarly with half-baked harvest they invited this reporter into their home and she realized something didn't feel right she's like I should have trusted my gut from day one something didn't feel good about it to me I invited the writer here to Colorado into my home it was always it was more than a year-long process and I was speaking with her and it always was seen in a light of positivity and highlighting the recipes and cookbooks that I was writing.

43:15Christy Noel:It was very misleading. And then the New York Times responds and basically says that they don't agree with her characterization of the profile. And they said that our reporting continues to be fair and we don't make promises about our coverage being positive. Her critics say that she enjoys this unearned privilege because of her wealth and whiteness. She says she's worked hard for a decade to earn her following and success. They say that she has no particular cooking skills, no professional training. she posts the same recipes over and over again. And she just says, well, I'm just meeting my readers where they are per this New York Times article.

43:50Wow, that's kind of scathing.

43:53Christy Noel:Yeah, they did not paint her in this very good light. I mean, but that's the thing also with social media. And that's the good thing about social media is that it's democratized fame. Anyone can become successful and famous on Instagram if they work hard at it or TikTok or whatever. and so it's like I I just maybe I disagree with the not having like not being like a trained chef or not having a particular set of cooking skills that people think are appropriate because it's like well she clearly has found people that like her recipes you know not everyone needs to it's like influencers it's like none of these influencers have like fashion degrees but they're they clearly have an audience that appreciate their fashion advice right yeah and she's commodifying all this all this food culture which she very much has a right to like cooking is for everyone but then it becomes a bigger conversation when you're commodifying cultural traditions yeah that do not belong to you to begin with yep and then also being accused of like having food or making recipes that aren't even like good yeah so speaking of people say that those who have made her recipes say listen the food's not even that great is she just making this fetishy food porn that looks good for Instagram.

45:06Christy Noel:We just talked on DET a couple of days ago about how the wedding industry is becoming commodified for influencers. Same thing can be said about these food bloggers. Is the dish actually tasty? Would you want to have it again? Or are you just making sure that it looks good for the gram? Critics say that a lot of her recipes do not taste good, do not turn out at all like Teagan's when they follow the recipe word for word. And she only cares about how the dish looks because she doesn't eat it herself. And she even admits this. She said, I've always been about the visuals. I work backward from how I want the dish to look, she said in the New York Times article.

45:39Christy Noel:That's interesting. Yeah. And in her online food videos, like her reel, she'll dip bread. It's very weird. It's like playing with your food again. Very eating disorder behavior. I'm watching it right now. Yeah, she'll play with her food. Can you describe this for me? She basically is like dipping her bread around, not actually trying to like dip it and eat it. she's just like mixing it around yeah right it's like all it takes is just a quick dip then put it into your mouth but yeah she's like playing with it yeah yeah and she all of her recipe titles have words like creamy smothered crispy thick fudgy uh all that's like a dark energy word i love no like i love eating all those things but like the words together are like just the word creamy remember oh kendra lakari the unknown number oh my god yeah it's so disgusting if you guys want to listen to that we're on patreon.com slash snarkbait pod we covered the unknown number and yesterday we covered the cult that is soul cycle so if you want to check that out bonus content every wednesday but people think that these trendy ingredients and these food terms a slang is possibly for like seo bait just push yourself up higher in the google search bar and she doesn't really know how to cook.

46:57Christy Noel:And they said, for example, she uses the word snickerdoodle for any cookie recipe that involves cinnamon and sugar, no matter what kind of cookie dough is used. It's so funny. Someone wrote, the handle I think is 114631. They said, yes, the fritter lemon cake from the other day is a good example. There's nothing fritter about a cake. It's like saying fried grilled chicken or the fact that she doesn't let the pan properly heat up before sauteing. And she bakes steaks, by the way. I did come across the recipe where she baked a steak. Words mean things. You can't just call something a fritter and then it's like not a fritter.

47:33Same with like badminton. Like words mean things.

47:36Christy Noel:Right. Speaking of her, I don't know, she has some interesting beliefs that people have been quick to point out in recent years. So in July of this year, she recorded a podcast with Dr. Will Cole at a restaurant based out of cleveland ohio called town hall and this restaurant is owned allegedly by a right-wing psycho named bobby george who is awaiting so i'm not even talking about his his right beliefs he's awaiting trial for attempted murder and rape okay so from cleveland 19 news it reads george the owner of town hall and other major cleveland businesses faces multiple charges including attempted murder four counts of kidnapping two counts of strangulation felonious assault and rape.

48:20Christy Noel:People who go to this restaurant are apparently very like right-winged Trump supporters. And people wonder. They're pro murder and rape. Right. And people wonder if, did Tegan do her background, her research to understand this restaurant that she's hosting this event at? Even though she claims to be, you know, she was born in Ohio. You're an Ohio girly. did you not at least do a quick google search on the rhetoric of this restaurant and the type of people that surround themselves in here yeah it's very bizarre so will cole who she did her podcast episode with is i hate when they and again i love my chiropractor okay my chiropractor has fixed me my mom several of my friends like he i call him like you're like a witch doctor he uses a very holistic approach he uses lasers cupping acupuncture he doesn't just crack you like it's a full head to toe review holistically.

49:11Christy Noel:But I do have a problem sometimes with chiropractors just calling themselves doctors because you're not a licensed like medical physician. You specialize sometimes in functional medicine, but you're not like a licensed medical doctor, like someone who's performing brain surgery. They're just not the same. Sorry if I don't mean to like offend when I say that, but you guys understand what I'm saying? Like you just cannot compare, but he, of course, on his website calls himself a doctor, which can be very misleading in my opinion. I agree. It's also interesting that she's going on a podcast to talk about health and taking her alleged eating disorder out of it.

49:46Christy Noel:I don't understand how any of her recipes are deemed, quote unquote, healthy. All of her recipes are very highly caloric and rich and creamy. Like I wouldn't say her recipes are necessarily in the wellness space. And it's fine. Like I'm all about creamy, high calorie dishes. That's not the problem. What I'm saying is it just seems off brand to go on a show like this. Yeah, like you're talking about health, but you don't prioritize health in your cooking at all, which again is fine. That's just not your genre. Right. It's like kind of stay in your lane, be a food blogger, don't lean into this Maha type agenda that doesn't seem to be you.

50:21Christy Noel:But her new angle in the recent years has been kind of leaning into this wellness space more and more. So she's promoting the no seed oils, more that Maha adjacent. and she started posting on her blogs and socials about her health and wellness journey and her lifestyle, featuring more supplements, skincare workouts, and she was planting the seeds, no pun intended, of expanding her brand into the wellness space. And this is around the time fans were speculating about her wellbeing and like the state of her body and just how thin she was looking and malnourished. And in a recipe from June that she posted to her blog, she preferred to use raw goat milk in her matcha.

50:59Christy Noel:and as we know, U.S. health agencies heavily advise against drinking raw milk because it could be a pathogen risk. And every time I think about raw milk, who do I think of? Ballerina Farm? Yeah, but who else? Who? Tell me. Lames. Oh, Lames. He loves raw milk. You guys, raw milk is so scary. Like, why are we ever trying to normalize raw milk? I don't understand. It just, it makes me, it kind of gives off the same energy as like getting produce and not washing it before. Like, it should just be common sense, kind of, but I don't know enough about it, but it just kind of seems a little weird to me.

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53:18Christy Noel:She's also very obsessed with cooking with liver and other game meats. She said in one of her blogs, she has a thing on her blog called Nine Favorite Things. So it's just things I'm liking or loving. And she posted something saying, I'm a huge fan of creatine for women. And this article explains the benefits. I've been using a lot of Greek yogurt in place of cream and cottage cheese. I think for Easter, I'm going to cook lamb ribs. And in the same article, she says her next book is going to be very health focused, which is exactly what we really need, I think. Which again, is kind of leaning into that Maha agenda.

53:50Christy Noel:and on January 19th of this year she posted a weekly NFT nine favorite things and she says I've been listening to Ivanka Trump on life lessons leadership values and how to be resilient under pressure with a link to the podcast episode and then in that same article she said I'm watching everything you need to know about president-elect Donald Trump's upcoming inauguration which was a link to a Vogue article covering the inauguration and Trump being a very divisive political figure the comment section, of course, went off. People come to half-baked harvest for recipes, not for her political ideology and her opinions about the presidency.

54:25Christy Noel:I don't know. For me, I don't think someone who has been promoting a brand for as long as they have been working their ass off should be canceled for their political beliefs. But I do think it just kind of shows how the mask is slipping a bit and she's beginning to not give a fuck. It's kind of like what I see with Jackie Oshry, she and Claudia were very demure about their political beliefs, especially post their cancellation. They wanted to tiptoe around that. They didn't want to say anything that could stray another batch of new followers after their first cancellation. But now I think what Trump has done is he's kind of uplifted these people to be more vocal and loud about their political beliefs.

55:04Christy Noel:And so, for instance, Jackie Oshry is very loud and proud over her political beliefs that she once was very secretive about four years ago. Same thing with Half Baked Harvest. I think that she's built this brand. She's a great businesswoman, clearly, but it just feels like she doesn't care about her core fan base. Well, yeah. And it's also fair for her to feel a certain way with her political leanings. It's totally fair. That's her right. It's also fair for her longtime followers or even new followers to know what they're supporting. So if she is suddenly coming out in a way that it's obvious that she feels a certain way, she's pro Donald Trump or whatever it is, her followers have every right to be like, wait, this is not what I signed up for.

55:46This is not someone I want to support. And that's yeah.

55:48Christy Noel:Yeah, both are fine. And this kind of had me thinking last night. Do influencers, do you believe, have a duty to be political or to speak on their political views? I, okay, so I don't want to say no, but I will say that when I think about an influencer and I hate to be like, oh my God, they're all like dumb blondes, airheads, which is not the case. But I think that a lot of influencers are not equipped to speak on social issues. I do think when it's something that is black and white, like this is right, this is wrong. Yes, use your platform for good, absolutely. But like to expect influencers to speak on every single social issue or to speak on politics constantly, I don't think is like realistic, nor should we want that because I don't think that they are necessarily equipped to be speaking on those things.

56:40Christy Noel:Right. You should gather facts based on more legitimate sources of information. I'm not saying influencers aren't legitimate, but you don't know until you do your own research, which means like reading articles, reputable sources, not just someone from TikTok that you follow. Right. And obviously anyone with a platform absolutely appreciate them using their platform to speak out on what's right. Absolutely. But at the same time, again, it's like it just kind of depends because sometimes I'm like, oh, I don't think you fully understand that or whatever it is. Yeah, it's definitely like a tough area to navigate, especially in the political climate that we are now.

57:20Yeah. And I totally understand influencers that are like, I'm just going to shut up about politics because if I post about anything, I have people berating me in my DMs and yelling at me. Either way, you cannot make everyone happy. Yeah, exactly. So that's I understand the feeling of clearly taking like a stance.

57:37Christy Noel:Exactly. Exactly. And that's what I think people are upset about because they're like, we've been following you since 2013. And we feel like we know you. And all of a sudden we feel like we don't. It's that parasocial relationship that is very intense. And I can see why her followers feel very betrayed. Some people had some interesting kind of POVs. Repulsive Standard 50 Reddit user says she also said happy inauguration day or something like that on the day that Trump got sworn in earlier this year. And her mom follows Breitbart and Candace Owens. Yeah, Breitbart and Candace Owens. Or at least she used to back before her account was private.

58:10Christy Noel:I feel like she shared a Tucker Carlson video or podcast once on her blog too. I think, yeah, so it's clear that she's very close to their family. She literally had to leave Los Angeles from her fashion school to move back with her family because she was so homesick. She seems like a woman who doesn't, who's very sheltered and probably reflects the values that she was raised in. She's never been exposed to anything else, honestly. Right. Something funny that I came across was she doesn't believe in wedding cake. So in a June 2025 episode of the prenup podcast, she said that couples should rethink the five-tier wedding cake and even consider escaping the cake altogether.

58:49Christy Noel:She says that if you really like cookies, you could do that instead, which like, fine. But she goes on to say that no one eats the cake, which like, what? I love wedding cake. I love it. I love like a raspberry vanilla. Yeah, that is not true. People definitely eat cake. I understand. Sure. Like if there were brownies instead, if the bride and groom prefer brownies, I'll eat those too. I'll eat anything dessert. And wedding cake is good. It's so good. It just kind of speaks to a bit of the disordered behavior. She goes on to say that she only drinks hot water with creatine. And at events, she's been toasting with a mug of hot water while everyone was choosing a cocktail.

59:27That's so weird. Wait, what? Okay. What is the obsession with creatine? Like, I don't fully understand it.

59:33Christy Noel:I feel like people talk about it all the time and I don't get it. Every time I think it's creatine, I think of like the big juice head like Jersey Shore. It's Labor Day weekend. Get up. Gorilla heads, juice heads everywhere. You're lying. But like that's how I feel when I think of creatine. It's like juice heads on the boardwalk of Jersey Shore. Yeah. It's like a, I'm going to sound like an idiot. It's like a type of protein. Yeah. I think of like before men hit the gym, they do their protein shake with creatine. which by the way going to the Jersey Shore as often as you do do you see gorilla juice heads not at all it depends on the area that you're at but like the the Jersey Shore is a huge huge coastline so there are like different areas but the area where the Jersey Shore is the show takes place is more of like that guido area I would say the area where I go is not and also like I've been to many different areas of the Jersey Shore and I've never seen guido types a gorilla juice head It's funny, though, that people, when they think of Jersey Shore, they think of that.

1:00:34I'm like, it's really not. But it depends where you go, obviously.

1:00:38Christy Noel:It's like the same with Orange County. They're like, they have this vision. I'm like, Orange County spans. Like, it's huge. It's not just one look. So creatine, according to Google AI, is naturally occurring nitrogen containing organic acid found in vertebrates, primarily in muscles in the brain that serves as a substance for storing energy and supplying energy for muscle contraction. Sure. Sure. So yeah, it's like something you would take before working out, I guess. Yeah. It sounds like a pre-workout. I think that's different, but you know. It's so weird. We're not gym girlies. Not gym girlies.

1:01:11But like, it's fine. I understand people take their supplements. I think it's weird. What I'm saying is weird is her drinking that in hot water when she's out at events while other people are cheersing with cocktails. Like you have to go out of your way to pack creatine in your purse. Right. Like she packs it in her purse.

1:01:29Christy Noel:That's very easy. It's like someone has like a Coke baggie, but her baggie is creatine powder. I got some goods. Yeah. White powder. That's actually creatine. It's so weird. Yeah. One other funny anecdote that I remembered when, again, I used to be a Toast listener. Jackie would always, like I said up top, she was obsessed with half-baked harvest. She would always say, I tried this recipe today, that recipe yesterday, whatever. And they talked about how they were at some holiday influencer event, the Toast Girls, Claudia and Jackie. and they came across an influencer that they didn't name by name, but everyone kind of put together that they were talking about half-baked harvest.

1:02:03Christy Noel:So they saw her in real life and Claudia introduced themselves to Tegan. And she was like, oh, my sister Jackie here is a huge fan of your work, whatever. And they said, according to them, they have never encountered such a rude influencer in their life. She completely ignored the compliment and instead went on to say in a very rude tone, as if Claudia and Jackie were working for Amazon, the people that were hosting the event. She goes, so why was I booked for this event at the last minute? That's so weird. Yeah. So she doesn't, I mean, maybe she was having a bad day. Maybe she didn't like Claudia and Jackie because they're kind of problematic and people dislike them.

1:02:42Christy Noel:But whatever it is, she was not pleasant to them. And I thought that was a funny anecdote. But they didn't say her name, but it's heavily implied that it's her. It's heavily implied. And a lot of people on Reddit kind of figured it out. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, it's more substantiated by the Toast Girls. But that's kind of all she wrote on Half-Baked Harvest. She is— Again, we've covered so many people on the show that are very scary, problematic people. She's not scary. I don't find her to be incredibly problematic. She does things that for her as a public figure, I would have made different decisions.

1:03:13Yeah, definitely. There are a lot of kind of eyebrow-raising things that she has done. Is she the most problematic person we've covered? Definitely not. But yeah, I definitely am side-eyeing her decisions along the way, like you said. You're right. And I'm not really tempted to try any of her recipes now because apparently they're not good.

1:03:34Christy Noel:Oh my God. I'm curious for any of you baby snarks that are listening. If you've tried half-baked harvest recipes. Yes, please let us know. I want to know. Let us know. Did they turn out successful? Did they turn out similar to the photos that she posted? I'm super, super curious. So with all that being said, thank you guys so much for being here. I am looking at our calendar to make sure I'm talking about the same, the right thing. But we have a SoulCycle deep dive on Patreon, patreon.com slash snarkbaitpod. Please leave us a five-star review. If you are enjoying the show, we would greatly appreciate it.

1:04:09Christy Noel:Sophie is at Soph underscore Ross. I'm at ChristyNoel underscore underscore. score. Thank you to Jordan, Rachel, and Olivia, our fabulous team. Is there anything else I left out? I think our main Instagram is snarkbaitpod. Find us there. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I can't remember if you said that, but I don't think you did. And patreon.com slash snarkbaitpod. Yeah, I think that's about it. Thank you, guys. Thanks for listening. Talk to you guys soon. Bye.

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