Food Revolution: Vani Hari's Impact on Corporate Giants | Vani Hari EP 564

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11When I realized someone as large as Chipotle or Chick-fil-A or Kraft or any of these big companies were listening to someone like me, I knew I could no longer stay at that job. And you started this at the other job that you were doing, right? And then it started to pick up. I remember you doing a video, like eating a yoga mat. and then later seeing like three months later seeing Subway come out with a commercial saying they no longer have that ingredient because you were specifically talking about it and I thought to myself wow if one person can create enough of a conversation so that a large company like a Subway or a Kraft or Chipotle or Chick-fil-A listens and takes action to change something I said that is really powerful and you've worked kind of solving a lot of the issues with Kraft Subway, Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, and Starbucks, and having them change their ingredients.

1:06And what was the thing with Kraft? What actually happened? Well, one of the things I realized, as soon as I quit my job, which was the scariest thing ever, by the way, because I wasn't, this was a pure passion project, so I didn't know how to sustain myself when I quit my job. And I was in the house, and I was sitting here, and I'm living in a condo, surrounded by the banks that I used to work with in downtown Charlotte and going, oh my God, I have no boss, I have no job, and I'm a food activist now. Wow, this is crazy. You know, when you're working on a passion project and you're also working in the corporate world, you're not putting your 100 % effort into it, even though it's like kind of taking over your world and your thought and you're sitting at work and you're thinking about your next investigation instead of what you're supposed to be doing.

1:54That started to happen, but I was still straddling these two jobs. You had to take the leap. Right. And then when you put your 100 % focus in something, wow, the doors just start opening. And so the first thing I started to investigate was how food in Europe is healthier than the United States. What has happened is Europe has been regulated on a precautionary principle that these chemicals are considered guilty before they're innocent. Here in the United States, they're innocent until proven guilty. And so in Europe, there are several chemicals that are either banned or not used or have warning labels.

2:36And one of those chemicals is artificial food dyes, yellow 5, yellow 6, red 40. They don't use any of them. there? They label them with a warning. So they are banned in certain countries, but in the UK, they have a requirement that you have to put a warning label on it that says may cause adverse effects and activity and attention in children. Kind of like cigarettes, basically a warning on a cigarette box. Right, but it's a warning on a box of candy or a box of mac and cheese. Like if you were to import a box of mac and cheese from the United States to the UK and sold it in a specialty store, it would have to have that warning.

3:13But you know what Kraft did to try to get away without putting that warning? They reformulated their product without yellow 5 and yellow 6 and used real ingredients, paprika and beta carotene, for European citizens, but not for us. Why not? So they found out that there was this health issue associated with especially children. Who's the biggest population of mac and cheese eaters in this country children yeah and to say you know what instead of putting that warning label on the box we're just going to reformulate for them and we're not going to do it for all of these millions of people in the United States is immoral and unethical so why do they do that because it's a lot more expensive to put the natural ingredients in I'm assuming and it is a little bit more cost but in the long run it's not that much.

4:03These corporations are making billions of dollars collectively. So it's really unfortunate that these companies have gone unregulated like this and it's up for us consumers to hold them accountable. Sure, because if we keep buying, they'll keep selling it to us. That's right. And so I started a petition and... Against Kraft. Yes, to remove these artificial food dyes. And I tell you, it was... So you weren't saying don't make mac and cheese anymore, don't sell us this. You were saying take these specific ingredients out that other countries don't have in their foods. We should be able to eat junk food without the risk of hyperactivity or cancer.

4:42Because some of these artificial food dyes are contaminated with carcinogens. You know, we should be able to have things without them harming us. So I tell you, that period of time really changed me. Because what I realized quickly, the petition got over 200 ,000 in a week. Amazing. The story of what happened when I went to go deliver those petitions to their headquarters is the first introduction chapter in this book. And it's gut-wrenching. You know, I don't hold back on how I felt when that was happening. And the really unfortunate thing with Kraft is that they weren't really willing to cure all of these consumers.

5:23Now this petition has close to 400 ,000 signatures still to this day. They're starting to slowly take out the artificial food dyes. They've taken it out for kids products and they've taken it out for their deluxe products and I think they're going to eventually get rid of the rest. It's just going to take them some time. But the most critical point of that petition, what it taught me, is that there are thousands of people really being affected by these issues. Thousands of parents sent me letters. Their kids' asthma went away. Their kids' eczema went away. Their kids' activity improved at school.

5:55their kids got off their ADHD medication, their autism lesson, the symptoms of autism. I mean, personal letters from parents actually took those with me, printed them all out, it was a stack this big, took them with me to Dr. Oz, the show, and like waved them in the air on camera at Kraft. When I was carrying those boxes of signatures, I mean, I really felt the weight of those parents in those children that have been affected by artificial food dyes. And it still remains a problem today and a problem that I'm going to continue to fight for.

6:37Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:34Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.