Andrew: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, home of the ambitious upstart, and you know I had a plan for this interview. My original goal is to find out how bloggers are getting so much traffic so that you and I can learn how to boost our own traffic.
But today’s guest is so much more than a blogger. She is a food activist and she is getting so much more than traffic, she’s getting things done. She is changing the ingredients in the foods that companies are serving us. So I’m going to broaden this interview. Yes, I want to find out how she got traffic. Yes, I want to find out how you and I can get a bigger audience. But more importantly I want to find out how to launch a movement. How today’s guest did it. Her name is Vani Hari, and she is the founder of FoodBabe, a website dedicated to organic living, healthy travel, and food policy. She is also the author of the “Food Babe Way Break Free From The Hidden Toxins In Your Food, Lose Weight Get Healthy, Look Years Younger in Just 21 Days.”
And this interview is sponsored by Toptal. They are my exclusive sponsor. If you need a developer or many developers, you can go out and look for them on your own, take you a long time. You’ll have to vet them and you may not end up with the right people, or you can call Toptal. They are a network of elite pre-vetted software developers. Individuals who’ve proven to be in the top 3% around the world among their peers.
You just tell Toptal what you need, they will find the right people for you. You get to talk with maybe one or two people who will be just right for you and if you agree that one of them is right, you get to hire them and often you can start the next day working full-time. Part-time or even if you just need a few extra hours for your team those developers will work for you for a few extra hours. It’s guaranteed. I went through the process. It’s easy, it’s human, and you end up with a really good cultural fit in addition to a good developer. Check out toptal.com. Vani, welcome.
Vani: Thank you so much for having me, Andrew.
Andrew: One of the biggest impacts that I saw that you had was helping to remove yoga mat material from our food. I want to start off with that to give people a sense of the kind of reach that you’ve had. Why was yoga mat material in our food?
Vani: Well, it wasn’t so much yoga mat material, but the chemical that they use in yoga mats and shoe rubber and items like that, was actually in our food and this chemical azodicarbonamide was banned all over the globe. I’m talking China, Australia, Europe et cetera. And this is something that major fast food chains in America have been using for a very long time, because the FDA is asleep at the wheel. And hasn’t been regulating our food additives as closely as they should. And so this chemical ingredient was lobbied by the food industry to get approved and granted a generally regarded safe status.
And this ingredient azodicarbonamide was one of the main ingredients in Subway’s bread. Subway’s bread, as you know, is considered somewhat healthy by the public. It’s eating fresh. You’ve got Jared losing a ton of weight, and you also have got Michelle Obama going live on camera with little children saying to parents, “This is something really healthy your kids can eat.”
And so I felt like something needed to be done. I actually started writing about this several years ago. Two or three years ago now and continued my campaign to get Subway to pay attention, but they never did until I actually started a petition on my blog foodbabe.com. And if you could go there today foodbabe.com/subway you’ll see that there’s close to 100,000 signatures on that petition.
People don’t like being tricked. And people don’t like to be duped and that really the basis for the campaign to teach people that there are weird ingredients in your food. You need to pay attention to the ingredient list. You need to read ingredient lists. And also we don’t need this controversial chemicals in our food that other countries have safe guarded their citizens from. And we also need to speak up as Americans and not allow these food companies here in the United States to get away with this double standard. One thing that was very maddening is that Subway had reformulated their products for all these other countries and not for us. They had taken out these chemical ingredients but not for us. This is an American company and so …
Andrew: I see that it was banned in Europe, banned in Australia. Subway understood it. I’m looking here at an article on CNN that says, “Meet the food babe who helped convince Subway to remove chemical from bread”. Not the best written headline but they are giving you credit for it. I remember watching you fight them and what I’m curious about is … First of all, congratulations. Second, how do you even find this problem that you can then go and champion and then puts you on the map, and allows you then to reach more people which gives you more impact? What’s your process for finding these problems with our food?
Vani: Well, I have that uncanny ability for investigation and for research. I learned this ability in high school very young where I was a top tier ranked [inaudible 00:05:20]. I was number one in state three years in a roll. I was nationally ranked got recruited to college via the top debate schools and I would spend every summer at either Dartmouth College or Wake Forest University and just learn how to research the old fashioned way. I mean, this was before Google. This was before the wave of the internet and all this information available out there. So I really had to learn like read journals, look at microfiches of old newspaper articles. Go look in these huge nutrition books written by people who aren’t even alive anymore.
Andrew: So then what’s one of those that led you to this? Where do you find this chemical? I don’t even know how to pronounce it, but I see it here on my screen, azodicarbonamide. What do you do? Do you go through the ingredients list at Subway and say what sticks out here is being weird and I’ll go research each one of these ingredients. What do you do?
Vani: Well, every investigation I’ve done is always a personal story. It’s always someone in my life that is spawned this idea. And I had given up Subway a long time ago because it just felt and tasted very processed to me after I started eating an organic non-GMO diet, and I started feeling better and looking better. I used to be someone who was very overweight, sick, did not have great skin. I tell you, I was not a babe. I did not look like a babe either, and my life completely did a 180 when I changed my diet.
So one of the things I gave up just naturally was just eating fast foods and things like Subway, but I didn’t really know what was in it. And one of my really good friends who had worked at several different clients with me, when I was a consultant in the corporate world, he was eating Subway every day. He would come into work and have that Subway sleeve of sandwich at his desk. And he would eat it every day and I’d ask, “Do you know what’s in there?” And he’s like, “No, I really don’t know what’s in there.” Well, I go, “Let me find out for you.” And so I started to investigate the ingredients. I started to break down how many ingredients are in the bread? How many ingredients are in the meat? How many ingredients are in the cheese? Is this real cheese? Are this pickles real pickles that are dyed with petroleum-based artificial food dyes? Asking this questions and thankfully, Subway posts their ingredients online unlike some restaurants should.
Andrew: At times, you had to go and fight to get the ingredient list and you’ve gotten the run around, and I hope we’ll get to that. So you are investigating. You’re looking online at the ingredients and then what allows you then to say, “Aha, this is the one that I’m going to zero in on” because there can’t be the only problem in their ingredient list?
Vani: They have a ton of problems, but the one biggest problem was this azodicarbonamide, because once I started to research it and look into what is this, what does it do to our food, why is it in there, like this is obviously not food. This is some chemical that’s been created in a laboratory by this food chemist. This is not something we’ve been eating for centuries. This is a brand new invention, and I wanted to know what it was. The first thing that I found, which was really alarming, was that this chemical was being carried in Chicago in a big truck, and it turned over and they had to evacuate the area because it was so toxic. And I go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what is this doing in our food then?” And then it led me to find out that the World Health Organization had studied it and said that it causes us asthma if you handle it. Another study had shown that if it gets heated, it turns into a carcinogen and that’s what actually …
Andrew: The asthma, by the way, was only if it’s in the factory. It’s not if you eat it. It’s not if you handle it by touching the bread that is baked with it, right?
Vani: Well, there are two concerns. That was one. The second concern is that it exacerbates people with allergies or prone to allergies or prone to asthma even as they eat it. And so the other thing that was really interesting is that if it’s heated, it turns into a carcinogen and that’s why Singapore will put you in prison for using this ingredient and also fine you $450,000.
So I found out all of these alarming facts of all these other countries that have safeguarded their citizens. And I felt like this particular ingredient, this particular chain that was really duping Americans by saying we are eating fresh and we are really eating chemicals that they put in yoga mats. I felt like that needed to be … A lot of attention needed to be brought on that, especially after Michelle Obama went on live on television. That’s what spawned my petition.
I actually had cleared off January of last year to work on my book, and it actually got postponed. I had to get an extension on my book because I was so fed up about this, and I remember calling my publishers saying, “Hey, I really need to work on this issue. Is it okay? I’m going to have to put this off for like a month, because I can’t focus on both.” And so when I do a petition like this, it takes my 100% focus. Not only do I research like crazy and find out what’s been happening, but I reach out to the company beforehand. I always ask them, “Hey, will you do this? What’s happening with this ingredient? Will you take it out of your food?” Actually with Subway I had been asking for that since 2012 and so they just ignored me.
Andrew: And was it in 2014 is when you launched the petition that then helped get all this attention. Once you launch a petition, what do you do to get attention to the petition? So that the people come to sign it so that others recognize it. This is an issue. What do you do?
Vani: Well, one of the brilliant things about the site that I have built and the community I’ve built is that they are so passionate about a better food system. These are the warriors, the unsung heroes, the individual people out there that are making this change happen, and I will tell you one thing. As I was never on social media, never on Twitter or anything until I started this blog a few years ago. I was in the corporate world. You weren’t on social media. I knew nothing about social media when I started the blog, and it was really just me being honest and passionate about this work, that allow people the courage to share this work with their friends and family. And so when people hear about this happening, it’s inherently viral.
Andrew: But you are not on reaching out to your friends who have blogs in the consumer … Sorry, go ahead.
Vani: So that is definitely a part of it, but the first and foremost thing I want to give all the credit to is who I call the Food Babe Army, the readers who are out there not only voting with their dollars of buying the organic non-GMO food out at the marketplace and like really shaking the marketplace but they are vocal. They will come to craft headquarters and march the headquarters and drop off petitions.
Andrew: How do you rally? So wait, so you are contacting other sites and saying, “Look, here’s an issue. If you think it’s an issue too or if you don’t, go read it on my site, and then go help get the word out.” So that gets it out. Your Food Babe Army helps. What else do you do to get attention for something like this?
Vani: I think one of the things that’s really important is that there’s so many consumer advocacy groups out there that have been working for years, much longer than I have and they have skilled experts there. They have scientists …
Andrew: So how do you work with them to get attention?
Vani: I actually become friends with a lot of these consumer groups. And so, I always reach out to these consumer groups to help as well and to give an opinion about the work that I’m doing. And so, for example, before I launched the Subway petition, I reached out to the environmental working group in the Center of Science and Public Interest who have both done work in the food space, and they agreed with my petition. They looked at the studies; they agreed. They agreed so much they actually asked the FDA to ban the chemical altogether which the FDA has been silent about, and it inspired actually. Them getting involved inspired all of the large bakeries in United States to remove that chemical. We are talking about Bimbo bakeries, the largest bakery in the United States removed the chemical after Subway did. So this spawned an avalanche of activity and attention, and it just continued to snowball.
Andrew: I also have to point out your design is really well done. I’m looking at foodbabe.com/subway. It’s just so smartly done. Like you have a roll-up which I guess Subway has an addition to sandwiches. They all also have roll-ups, but the roll-up or the wrap is using the yoga mat instead of bread to really emphasis this point, to say this is the stuff that is used to make yoga mats and shoe rubber. You also have when I scroll down the sign a petition form stays top of the screen. So it’s always available there for me to sign it. It’s really well done. What else do you do? Give me one other tip for getting an idea out into the world. I think that’s what my audience is going to get a lot of value out of.
Vani: Actually, I get criticized for it. Certain people in the media, the people who want the food system to stay the same, they don’t like this attention being brought, or they don’t like what I have been able to accomplish. Even some other food activists are threatened by the work that we are doing. So one of the complaints that I get, that I hear is that I’m a fear mongerer or I’m someone who is just a sensationalist.
Andrew: I saw that NPR asked if you are a fear mongerer.
Vani: That’s right. They sure did but they didn’t even use that in my comments about it. But anyways that’s another story, very one sided story. But I responded to that on my blog. So if you Google Food Babe scam, it’s the first one that comes up and you can read my response to that. But what I want to say about that is that Americans, the public, the world needs to wake up about our food. And we have to look at it a little differently. We have to educate people a little differently. We have to use different language to get the message across. I tell you people are crazy busy. The reason why the food industry has succeeded in making us obese, have heart disease, diabetes etc. is because people are too busy to pay attention. And they have allowed the food industry to take over every meal and allow these inventions to just invade our every meal.
Andrew: You know what, Vani? I agree. I get that. The thing that really excites me about you is not so much that you have noticed that there’s something wrong going on. There’s so many people who notice that there’s something going wrong. It’s the way you are able to rally people to your cause. The way you are able to phrase and shape the message. Like you could have said, “Hey, this gives you asthma,” and that technically would have been correct and you could have gotten a little bit of attention. By connecting it to the yoga mat and creating the way that you do that page, that’s what I think helped get attention. That’s what I think helped rally people around your message. Let’s talk a little bit about how you got here. You said you started out not being very healthy. In fact, you grew up with lack of self-esteem. It had to do with your skin. What happened?
Vani: Well, for most of my life I ate like typical Americans. I had Burger King every week. I think every week when I was little.
Andrew: What was your favorite meal at Burger King?
Vani: Just the plain sandwich, the burger with nothing on it but ketchup and pickles, like that was it.
Andrew: Ketchup and pickles, okay.
Vani: Yeah, that was it. My mouth is watering right now because I can still taste it and smell the charbroiled smell because that’s how they engineer it. They want you to remember it. I haven’t had, just to be 100% honest, I have not had a hamburger of any kind for probably over 15 years, but I still taste it in my mouth. You have to wonder like what is that. But I tell you if you ask me about one of my mom’s meals that she cooked when I was 10 or 15, I couldn’t remember that taste.
So that’s how crazy they worked to make sure they’ve engineer their foods so you remember it. You crave it, and you want it. And so anyways, I grew up like a typical person but I had an interesting situation because both my parents were from India. They really wanted us to fit in as Americans. We were the only India kids in our school for a very long times, me and my brother, and so we wanted to fit in. My mom didn’t know how to cook American food. She knew how to cook what her mom taught her which was Indian food, and we thought that was weird. So we didn’t eat it and we shunned it and I didn’t really truly eat it until I was much older. And now it’s one of my biggest regrets of my life.
But as a result, my mom in order to cook American food she would rely on Betty Crocker and the Fry Daddy or in the salisbury steak that you can put in the microwave, and I loved that food. And once you had that rich chemically induced processed food, you are not going to want anything else. And as a result I had eczema all over my face, asthma, terrible allergies. I was on antibiotics probably every single year growing up. I can’t even imagine the damage this has happened to my gut as a result. But thank God, food is medicine and can heal you.
And when I started making the changes after a huge health crisis when I was younger, I was just out of college. I got an amazing job at Accenture, big six consulting firm and they put me on the road and I wanted to excel in my job. I was very ambitious. So I did what everybody else was doing around me. Ate what they ate on the expense account. Ate all the catered meals and worked like crazy, stopped working out. All these things started to really pile up on me. And I got very, very sick. Ended up in the hospital with appendicitis. And it was that moment that I said, “You know what? I’ve got to make a change.” This is not how I want to feel.”
Everybody has that kind of moment like they want to feel better. And I didn’t know what to do at the time. I didn’t know much about health. But one of the year’s topics actually in debate that we talked about earlier about me being in high school and doing debates. One of the year’s topics was healthcare. So I actually remembered some of that material. Back then I was using that material to win debate rounds, but I was not applying it to my own health. And so I actually started to research and read what are the healthiest things I can put in my body? And then that led to this quest, this passion for nutrition, this passion for finding out what’s in our food. And I started to tell people around me and my friends and my family also saw this dramatic shift in my hair, in my face, in my body everywhere. To this day, one of my aunts thinks that I had work done. She’s crazy. She is like, “You just look like a totally different person.
And I tell you I didn’t have work done or anything like that, but it was just this food really did heal me when I started eating correctly. And I tell you I went from several prescription drugs to zero. And to think I was taking so many so much of my life is so crazy to think about because I was really walking around like a zombie. And when I look back on how I felt, and the way I looked and the energy that I had, it’s so much different than what I have now. And I can tell you there is no way I will be able to do the work that I’m doing now, this intense public pressure in the spotlight kind of work and this intense research that I do if I didn’t feel great and have the energy to do it.
Andrew: The reason that you got into this when you were a consultant is, if I understand it right, your friends started hearing you talk about this. You realized that they had no idea about what was in their food. How did you start to share what you were learning with your friends?
Vani: Well, one of the first kind of opportunities was I had taken this consulting role in Detroit, Michigan. And so I was flying back and forth from Charlotte to Detroit every single week. And there were other consultants from Charlotte also flying and other consultants from all over the globe flying into Detroit to work at this bank. And when you travel with people and you are away from home, you eat a lot of meals out with your co-workers. And so they started seeing these habits, like I would bring my tea to a restaurant. I wouldn’t use their tea bags because I knew what’s in tea.
Andrew: What’s in tea that you wouldn’t let them use their own tea bag?
Vani: One of the things that’s really important about tea that people don’t realize is that when tea is grown, it’s dried, pretty much after it’s picked. It’s not washed. So if the tea is conventional, pesticides can go straight into your cup. So I always make sure I have organic tea with me in my bag.
Andrew: I see.
Vani: That’s just one fact. The other fact is very popular tea brands like Teavana, which was actually purchased by Starbucks, has artificial flavors added to it. And these artificial flavors can be made from anything under the sun and actually can be used to addict you to a flavor as well. So I’d rather not have my taste buds hijacked by the food industry. And so I want to have control over the drinks that I drink and so that that was just one example.
But another example which was really funny is that every day at lunch we would go down to this kind of health bar and they had this soup station. And I would always ask for the ingredients for the soup before I decided on the soup for the day, and my co-workers saw this and we’re like, “Wow, you really pay attention to what you are eating. What are you looking for in that ingredient list?” And I said, “I’m looking for MSG” and they were like “really” and they are like, “Are you allergic to it?” I’m like, “No, you don’t have to allergic to it to be affected by it.” The food industry is using this ingredient to make you crave for that food to taste better and to also make food-like substances that they create to taste like food.
So I want to know if what I’m eating is real food or fake food and I tell you that really rang home with a bunch of my colleagues. So much so that they started making up jokes about, “Is this is Vani approved?” And really inspiring me to really continue following this passion. So much so that even my friends back home we’re like, “We just want to know your recipes. We want to know what you are making. Can you start a blog? First of all, can you get on Facebook? You haven’t seen our wedding pictures for the last five years.”
Andrew: You were that clueless about or that disengaged from social media, you wouldn’t been be on it. So you said all right, fine. I will start a blog. You were going to call it EatHealthyLiveForever.com and your husband heard it. What did he say about that?
Vani: He said that’s a stupid name. I mean, he was …
Andrew: Stupid name?
Vani: Yeah, he’s the technologist in the family. He’s a tech geek.
Andrew: Is he still managing your site right now?
Vani: Yes, he is.
Andrew: It’s so interesting. He must really love to do it because I even looked at the source code of your page, and even that’s done up beautifully. Where is that source code? There it is. It says, “Food Babe 2015 in this really nice design is ASCII, right?. Do you know it? You haven’t even hunted through your own source code like I did.
Vani: I don’t even have any clue what he does, to tell you the truth. I tell him I need this functionality and he goes does it. It’s great.
Andrew: Okay, what’s his background?
Vani: He is a technologist. He has a master’s in computer science. He also worked at Accenture. That’s where we met. And I tell you, it’s been a beautiful thing having him give up his career really and saying, “You know what? Your mission is much more important and I want to help you.”
Andrew: You guys are both working together on the site. What kind of tech issues do you have with the blog? It’s a WordPress blog, right?
Vani: Yeah, it is. I don’t know of all the tech issues unless it affects the end user, me or someone else, I don’t really see it. I’m sure he deals with all of them.
Andrew: What are the needs? I guess you have a membership site, right?
Vani: Yes.
Andrew: And so I can buy the membership site by going to foodbabe.com/eating-guides and there there’s a shopping cart. He created that whole thing. I guess he didn’t create the shopping cart. You guys are using an off the shelf solution, right? But is he the one managing the membership part too?
Vani: He is and actually it’s really interesting so a little bit more about my story. When I decided to quit my job, it was right after I visited Chick-Fil-A and Chipotle and decided to make some changes and some other things were happening that just this perfect storm of events. I met Derek Halpern who introduced me to Marie Forleo who introduced me to Danielle LaPorte and I …
Andrew: All those are bloggers.
Vani: And I started reading Danielle LaPorte’s book, “Fire Starters” sessions which she really asks you the questions on like why are you on this earth? And I was answering then and then the perfect email came through, that was your contract is ending at the bank, would you like to renew it. And it was the day the world was supposed to end December 12, 2012. And I looked over at my husband, and I said, “Listen, I really want to do this. This is my calling. The world really needs me to do this. Like the food system is really screwed up.” And he looked at me and I expected him to say, “How are we going to make the mortgage?” We were dependent upon both of our salaries and he looked at me and he is like, “What are you even waiting for?” And that’s how much support he gave me. And so when I got back, I was on vacation when that happened. When I got back beginning of January, I was so scared out of my mind because I was making no money doing the blog. I think I had one little itty bitty ad on it that was making a $100 a month or something, just terrible. I mean I was …
Andrew: Where did you think money was going to come for a blog about food?
Vani? I thought it was mainly advertising, I wasn’t sure. It was at that moment it was my quest to figure out how to develop this passion, get this message out and also survive. And one of the great things that my friends and my family were asking for, and this is a question that Derek Halpern asked me when I met him. He said, “What is the one thing you can bring to your users that they would pay for that they really need in their life to survive?” And I said, “Well, my friends and my family are constantly asking me for a menu plan. They just want to know the recipes, the shopping list. They want it all weight control, portion controlled, et cetera. They want to know exactly what to eat so that it’s just mindless to go to the grocery store, get the stuff, and make the recipes. Every week it’s different.
They wanted that program and I said, “Well, that’s the program I need to create”. For the next six months I learned every organic budget tip in the world so that I could still eat organically because that was my number one thing I wanted to maintain, while still living a really lifestyle that was not a normal lifestyle for me. Because I went from a consultant … I was making a six figure salary to nothing. So for the next six months, I developed that program, hired nutritionist, did all that work. And then when I launched it in July is when I couldn’t believe the demand for it and I was so overwhelmed.
Andrew: Did you test it in anyway? I know Derek talks about testing this ideas. How did you test it?
Vani: Yeah, I tested with my own friends and my family.
Andrew: You said, “Would you pay” or did you try to charge them?
Vani: No, I didn’t charge them, no. And so I released to the public, had great demand and at that moment, that weekend, I said over to my husband, I was like, “I need help with this. I can’t do this alone. It’s too crazy.” And so he put in his two weeks, and I tell you it was so hard for him because everyone loved him at his work. And I tell you he’s like, I guess I can always go back.
Andrew: The company at that point was making money after you launched and that’s why you could say, “I need help and there will be enough money if you come work with me.”
Vani: I didn’t know if there was going to be enough money. I never knew that.
Andrew: So how did you know that it was worth both of you now living on the site? What was the indicator in the business that told you we are on the right track?
Vani: Well, I just realized that the website was growing, the population was growing, the readership was growing. So if we continue to do that, then we would make it. And a lot of brands and a lot of great amazing sponsorship started coming about. Like one if the brands that has been one of my sponsors from the very start now is Netiva and their main goal is to put Monsanto out of business. So they are a perfect partner, and they sell amazing super foods, you know, coconut oil, hemp seeds and chia seeds, things that are really provide a lot of nutritional benefit to people. Plus I know the CEO who is a friend of mine. We’ve become activists together. He’s an activist. It’s like this perfect …
Andrew: There’s not that much money in advertising, right?
Vani: There isn’t and that’s why having your own product is so important. I tell you my lifestyle isn’t much different than it was when I was working in the corporate world. But what this salary and this world has been able to bring is I have been able to employ five people and get them to follow their passion about helping the world and that’s kind like building my team.
Andrew: I want to make sure I understand how you got there. So you decided recipes are what people wanted. I’m not going to sell a recipe book or a collection of recipes where there’s one time revenue. I’m going to create a membership site where there’s ongoing revenue for me and ongoing help for my customers. Do you know the platform that you used to create that membership site?
Vani: You are asking the wrong person.
Andrew: [inaudible 00:31:08] but your husband created it for you?
Vani: Yeah, he did.
Andrew: And when you do it, do you put the new recipes on your site, or do you email it to people?
Vani: We have it on the site.
Andrew: It’s on the site, so it’s some kind of a membership site. It’s not an email system that people pay for. How did you come up with the prices? How did you know what to charge? I see here 17.99 a month, 38 bucks quarterly or 119 annually?
Vani: Some of the other blogs that I was following had similar programs, but they were different but similar, and so I just kind of used the marketplace to tell me what to do.
Andrew: I see, okay. So you put that out there, people are starting to buy. How much revenue are you making right now with it?
Vani: Well, that’s a figure that we don’t release to the public because the type of work that we do, the type of activism work we do. We don’t want people to know that. But I tell you my personal salary and my lifestyle has not changed that much since.
Andrew: So we are talking about a million in 2014 from selling your own products. Am I right?
Vani: No.
Andrew: Less than a million, oh wow, okay. But it’s largely profit except for five full-time people?
Vani: There are … I don’t know the exact hours of everyone, but I do have five teammates and they are amazing.
Andrew: In addition to you and your husband, five more people not working out of the same office.
Vani: I also have like a team of consultants too that I consult with, yeah.
Andrew: It’s okay.
Vani: It’s growing right now like before it was … I started out with one person to help and then it has been growing and it is great because I tell you in order to get … As you know, as an entrepreneur you have so many ideas and so many cool things you want to do. If I could, I’d do a petition every day because there’s so much to change, but I tell you one petition or one action that you ask people to gather around you really have to have a lot of focus. You have to keep on that company so that they respond.
Andrew: What is keeping on it? So here’s what I’m finding out. You are looking at ingredients, you are finding something that is a problem that people may not be aware of, you are looking for a hook to make it interesting, you create … If it a big enough issue, you create a petition. You get your own audience to help. Spread the word about the petition, right? When people join the petition, they are also joining your mailing list so that there’s an ongoing relationship with them.
And you count how many people signed to show the world this is how many people are fed up with the problem that I have discovered. You and your army have gotten to that point, Now it’s time to broaden it. So you start to look at other organizations that have already been involved and you recruit them or share with them your message. You find other bloggers, other writers. What else do you do to get the word out so that more people come to your site and are aware of this problem?
Vani: Well, I think the main thing that I have worked on for over a year now to make it the best book I could possibly write is the book that is coming out on February 10th. There is something so amazing about being in someone’s head for three to eight hours or however long it takes someone to read the book and …
Andrew: That’s about creating the content. I know my audience. My audience is like you were when you were reaching out to Derek. You are saying, “I have this great idea. What do I do with it next?” And Derek told you based on his experience and all those other entrepreneurs he talked to, “Here’s what I think you should do.” What I’m trying to do for my audience is say, “Here is an amazing entrepreneur. The Food Babe is fantastic as a brand, as a business, as a movement. I want to break down some of what you did so they can benefit too and use it in whatever work they are doing. What else do you do to get people to be aware of your site and to get people to come to it because you got incredible traffic? What else do you do?
Vani: You act like I do things. I share things on social media a lot but the thing is it’s funny because “internet marketing” I’m just learning so I don’t really know if I do anything in particular other than really hang out with that bloggers that I love. Share their work; they share my work. I share a lot of really interesting work on my Facebook page and pictures to grow that page which brings in traffic, I guess. I’m trying to think if there is anything else special that I do and I wrote the book so that I could get it out there in book stores and in people’s hands, and so that they can spread the message. So really I count on my readers to spread my message. I think that’s my move– …
Andrew: What do you give them that they could spread the message with? How do you empower them to spread the message?
Vani: So I try to always make an image that has a lot of message in it. You notice the Subway image, you know, how that was written, how it was designed–
Andrew: Here’s another one that I noticed. I got this. I have people over in my office for Scotch night. This is pita chips that we are going to have at the event with some hummus and other stuff. I looked at your site. You have a photo of pita chips and a bunch of other brands. You say, “Here’s what is wrong with them when you buy them from a regular store. Here is what’s excluded when you get it at Cisco. One image in a second, I understood it. So you are right. You’re great at images at taking this big message and saying, “Here’s an image that clearly explains it. That shows it to you and then you can post it on your Facebook page or whatever to share with other people. And sure enough, you are top social network is not what I thought it would be. I thought it would be Pinterest, it’s Facebook where people are sharing these images.
I’m looking at one of them right here, the most recent one that you posted. Six hundred people liked it but 293 people shared the image on their sites, on their Facebook pages. That’s one of the things that you do, right? The one that I just described, over 1000 people shared that image of Stacy’s pita chips and Ruffles and Doritos selling one thing that’s better at Costco and a different thing everywhere else. That’s how powerful. That’s one thing you do. Who designs that for you?
Vani: I did that one but …
Andrew: That’s you hacking this it together on a simple design software because you are not a designer, are you?
Vani: I don’t use design software.
Andrew: So where do you learn how to visualize problems in a way that will pass?
Vani: These are things that I learned as a consultant. PowerPoint, I mean that’s about it.
Andrew: Is that what you created it in? Was it PowerPoint?
Vani: Yeah, I did.
Andrew: So that is just PowerPoint that you took a screen shot of and you were sure to put or smart enough to put on the bottom foodbabe.com and that’s it?
Vani: Yeah.
Andrew: All right. So that’s really powerful. Give me another one like that because that’s amazing.
Vani: Yeah, I mean, I tell you. You know, I think one of the things that I really learned through my experience at Accenture and being a consultant is presenting ideas, right? We had to present to C level executives that are crazy busy. Just like the American public, right? They are crazy busy. You want to get your idea across so you get funding for your project or whatever. And so you have to break it down in bullet points and really concise thoughts and in really beautiful pictures. So they can get it really quickly when they are flipping through it at their desk and they are so crazy busy.
I think that’s where I got the skills in order to do this kind of work. And so when I think about the way things need to be shared, I think one disadvantage I have is that a lot of my blog posts are very long. They are over 1000 words but also that allows me to link back to the research, link back to the science, link back to other opinion of other consumers health organizations and allow me to really explain the message.
And I think it’s so important for people to take time to explain their message and do it over and over again. I think one of the things that have been so important for my work is that if I had decided that the first time I talk about the artificial food diet three months ago, and then don’t ever talk about it again because I already talked about it. That’s a stupid way to go about your business. Knowing what’s in artificial food diets or some other principle is really key for people to getting to know about your business or getting to know about the food industry or whatever it might be.
Keep repeating that information because you get new users, you get new readers, you get someone looking at it again more closely. They see a different perspective. They notice it on a product that they buy before they didn’t buy that product. So they didn’t notice it. I mean, there so many different things that you have to do. But I tell you repeating the message is so incredibly important.
Andrew: Your message is that the food industry has an incentive to manipulate us. We have to counter it by researching what is in our food and eating only the things what we want to eat and are healthy for us. Instead of just mindlessly going along with what they say. You fought– I was going to sat Fish Fillet. I meant Chick-Fil-A, right? What was that campaign about?
Vani: It really wasn’t a campaign, it was a simple blog post that went viral. It was called Chick-Fil-A or Chemical-Fil-A. And one of the things that I found … And again, another personal story. My husband was at work. He came home, brought me a pamphlet of the Chick-Fil-A pamphlet that is like all the nutritional information. I was like so worried that he ate there and he didn’t. He was actually trying to educate one of his co-workers, and his co workers was like, “Look, you know, this is 300 calories. This is really healthy.” He’s like, “No, Look at the back. This is the ingredients. This is what you need to be concerned about,”
So I took a picture of that, put it on my personal Facebook page, not even on the Food Babe page. Even on the Food Babe page I didn’t have a lot of people, maybe a couple of hundred or something. I tell you my personal friend’s reaction was insane. It was everything from, ”
That’s 100 ingredients of deliciousness” to “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe all those chemicals are on my Chick-Fil-A that I thought was healthy. So it just ran the spectrum and it went viral within my own little community because people had never really seen the ingredients in this Chick-Fil-A sandwich which was very, very popular in the south. You don’t mess with Chick-Fil-A.
And it inspired m.e I was on my way to a party, it was a Saturday. Most weekends I blog because I was still working and so it was a Saturday I was on the way to a party. I remember just busting out that post really, really quick and just hit send. And it made me really mad because the people who said that was “100 ingredients of deliciousness” didn’t really understand what those ingredients were. I wanted to break it down for them. And so I did that in that post, and one of those ingredients I had talked about was called TBHQ it’s a derivative of butane and the FDA only allows it in our food at .02%. However, Chick-Fil-A was putting it in the French Fries too, and putting it on the side items and putting it on some more here. We don’t really know the cumulative effect of the TBHQ that we are eating, and then I found it in PopTarts yesterday. I found it on Toaster Strudels yesterday. I mean, it’s everywhere.
Andrew: And Chick-Fil-A changed because of, I call it the campaign you say it’s just a blog post. But that’s the other thing that you pick fights with big companies. I shouldn’t say pick fights, you take on big companies and when they change it, they change the ingredients because of you. Then that empowers the rest of the community to know. It matters when we do this it’s not just another site where we are going to be complaining. It’s not just one of these BuzzFeed articles that shocks you, it’s a movement. What about this, that NPR article that I mentioned earlier said that “Sometimes you got it wrong, that you misunderstood the ingredient in beer, that you thought that it was one chemical, the same thing using the antifreeze. But according to David Gorski the product used in some beers is actually a different one. It’s made from kelp. What do you say about people who say you don’t have the background and sometimes you make mistakes?
Vani: Well, David Gorski was flat out wrong. Actually Propylene Glycol, the antifreeze additive, is allowed in alcohol and the TB, the regulatory agency can go to their web site and see that’s it is allowed in alcohol, whether we know it’s in there or not, that’s the problem. We should know whether that ingredient or the kelp ingredient or whatever ingredient is in alcohol. We should know what’s in there.
Andrew: It’s not necessarily in alcohol. They’re not telling us. He is wrong that it’s allowed in alcohol. That’s the point. But there’s no proof that it isn’t in beer, right?
Vani: And just to prove my point even further, Fireball whiskey got caught using too much of that ingredient in Europe and had to be recalled off the shelves. I mean, these are news articles. You Google Fireball whiskey antifreeze. It will come up. You’ll see it, and that’s kind of the issue is that they try to manipulate what I say to benefit them, because the truth is too painful. The fact that the beer industry, the whole entire alcohol industry, has gotten away without putting ingredient list on their products for this long is a travesty.
Andrew: I’m surprised they’re not required to put the ingredients on, the way, say, a Hostess cookie or a Hostess cake would have to know, no?
Vani: When you drink tequila you drink Vodka whatever and you have no idea what you are drinking. You don’t know whether they are putting artificial flavor or natural flavor to make you remember that taste or even make you crave it and crave an addiction. You don’t know that and that’s very frightening to me that we don’t know what we are drinking.
Andrew: So what do you do if you are wrong? Here is the other thing I want us to learn from you how you create this movement and one of the reasons why you are able to create this movement is you take on bigger companies, and you get them to change. Anyone listening would say to us would say, “Great but what if I try something and I actually end up wrong. I’m pushing back on a company and then people realize that something that I did was wrong it happens.” When were you wrong and how did you fix it?
Vani: Yeah, absolutely. So there has been a time. So when I first started blogging, you know, it was a hobby. I was an amateur, and I wrote an article about airplane oxygen. And I had something written in there incorrectly, and it’s an article over three years old. And I haven’t seen it. I haven’t read it in a very long time, and that article was suddenly brought to light by some people in the net. And we removed it from the site because it’s no longer valid. I have an article that’s backed by facts, that one wasn’t. Because back then I was a amateur blogger. I was writing and based on my opinion that I had heard from different people, I had a mistake in there that wasn’t 100% accurate so we took it down. And as a result now, people are highlighting all this stuff and wanting to look back and make sure I said everything correctly. I have written hundreds of blog posts. This is just one that they had to highlight.
Andrew: You took this down. Why not write, “Hey, I made a mistake from this one. I have learned so much more since then.”
Vani: Well, that’s actually one thing that I did in the scam post is that I went through kind of all the different things and talked about that. But also one of the things we are going to be doing which I actually … If anybody is doing this kind of advocacy work, I think that people should be doing editors notes just like the New York Times and other people, that when they make a correction it’s noted on the site. So we are actually starting a new section of the site that is going to be dedicated to that so that there is no question.
Andrew: I see. So if there is a mistake, then you can come back and say, “Look, I made a mistake here. I’m not too big to admit that I didn’t do it, that I made a mistake,” right?
Vani: I think there is one of the things that you haven’t talked about is that think you are so important is that I was a normal everyday person. We all make mistakes. We are all trying to do the best we can because I did make a mistake I want to make sure it wasn’t shared any more or anything like that, or even out there for people to find. And so I think that was the responsible thing to do, but also I think that we need to realize that making those mistakes and then admitting it is important too.
Andrew: I do feel like this thing got really big at some point. That it was going and then it suddenly had this huge impact on big companies, on big media and that maybe you weren’t fully prepared for it. Because you were just a regular person blogging about your opinions and then suddenly you became this major person.
Vani: Yeah, and I tell you I did not expect the scrutiny that I have been getting to tell the truth and I wouldn’t expect someone to dig in my archives and find one little error and then make things …
Andrew: You guys took down the archives in your robot text files. I guess it’s your husband said, “No to showing older posts” in archive.org, no to showing your holiday bonuses” that kind of thing. Why?
Vani: You have to ask him. He’s doing some type of technology stuff. So I kind of stay out of all that, but he is great at what he does.
Andrew: What’s next for you? Other than your book which you are going to be publishing. I love that you have it over your shoulder. I kind of feel like sometimes when I interview entrepreneurs, I have to tell them when we talk about the book, show it. Because it has a huge impact. What else are you doing? What are you doing with the business?
Vani: Well, really I have a very lean team, you know, so it’s been a lot of work around the book. And so I have been working on that. There are some campaigns that I want to work on, some things I liked to see changed in the food industry that I really want to focus my attention on once I get the book out there. And that’s kind of the plan, and I’d really love to do more videos I think showing the product, showing the label, showing the types of food, talking about this directly to the public I think is something that I really want to focus on this year.
Andrew: How did you get so good on camera? People don’t know it, but your camera is way up high above your computer. So you have to do something that to many people, me included, feels artificial. You’re looking at the camera and not me, not my video so that the audience can see you and that you can look like you are natural like you’re really talking to them. That’s not something that comes instinctively to people. How did you get good at being on camera?
Vani: Okay, that was all by accident. I tell you my first appearance on Dr. Oz wasn’t that great. I was pretty nervous because my friend that I was with was nervous too and it just kind of rubbed off on me. But because ABC news and CNN and all these news outlets wanted to interview me, based on the work that I have done. We have been featured on several front pages of newspapers all over the globe, countless media. I think hundreds maybe thousands of media outlets last year for all the work that we did at foodbabe.com.
And as a result, I went and asked my husband, “Hey, I think I need a better camera than the one that comes on my computer to a point at least”. So have this little … and I’m looking at it right now. It’s this Logitech camera on a little tripod and it’s right in front of me. And it’s balanced and it’s easy and I just plug it into my computer, a little USB and it’s awesome. It’s inexpensive, it’s not expensive.
Andrew: Have you done any media training? You must have gotten media training, right?
Vani: No, I have not had any.
Andrew: All right. Maybe then you are a natural. Congratulations on what you’ve been building here at foodbabe.com. It’s really inspiring. I found … I think you are way out growing Derek Halpern. Derek Halpern might have helped you out in the early days, but I think you are over shadowing him. Is that too wrong for me to end the interview on? I think he’s going to be proud that he’s helped you this far.
Vani: That’s a screwed up thing to say because I tell you …
Andrew: Is it? I think he is going to be really proud of that. I know Derek. Derek helped me get going. Derek is a guy who wants to see other bloggers do well and not create more nonsense content online.
Vani: Yeah, he’s an amazing mentor to me and I tell you I’m so incredibly grateful. And people should go to his site socialtriggers.com and learn about what he is doing because he’s taught me a lot and I’m so forever grateful for that so.
Andrew: He’s taught me a whole lot too. I hope that didn’t come across as rejecting him in any way but I don’t think it does. I think it will be okay. Really it’s incredible what you have built. Can you say what size of audience out have right now? I meant to say that.Then we will end in that number.
Vani: It’s over three million readers a month so it’s awesome.
Andrew: Congratulations on the business, congratulations on the book. Thank you.
Vani: Thank you so much, Andrew.
Andrew: You bet. Thank you all for being a part of it. Bye everyone.
