{"id":37039,"date":"2015-02-10T11:15:35","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T16:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/?p=37039"},"modified":"2021-05-15T04:01:54","modified_gmt":"2021-05-15T08:01:54","slug":"food-babe-way-toxin-free-diet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/health\/food-babe-way-toxin-free-diet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Food Babe\u2019s 21-Day Toxin-Free Diet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Food
Photo: Kwaku Alston \/ FoodBabe.com<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Food Babe, otherwise known as food activist and blogger Vani Hari<\/a>, is hell-bent on changing the way you eat. Best known for waging campaigns urging food companies to eliminate toxins in their goods, Hari\u2019s the woman that got Subway to remove a yoga mat chemical<\/a> from their bread. She also helped convince Kraft to eliminate artificial dyes from some of their brightly hued Mac and Cheese products. And remember when Starbucks released the top-secret (artificially-flavored) formula for their Pumpkin Spice Latte<\/a>? Yup, that was the Food Babe\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> What Are Natural Flavors, Really?<\/a><\/p>\n

Read through her blog, and we guarantee you\u2019ll be sufficiently grossed out about what\u2019s lurking in your meals within minutes. Despite her victories against the food industry, Hari says her proudest accomplishments are the healthy changes she\u2019s inspired in others. \u201cMembers of my family are changing their lives based on this information,\u201d Hari says. \u201cThey feel good, they look good. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d With her new book, The Food Babe Way<\/a>, she hopes to share her secrets and inspire healthy changes in even more people.<\/p>\n

Hari claims you can change the way you look and feels simply by eliminating toxins from your diet. Easier said than done? Here\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take.<\/p>\n

The Food Babe\u2019s Wake-Up Call <\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Food Babe wasn\u2019t always a health buff. In fact, she grew up on a diet rich in processed foods. \u201cBoth of my parents came from India, and didn\u2019t know how to cook American food, so they really outsourced that to McDonald\u2019s, Burger King and Betty Crocker,\u201d Hari says. \u201cOne of my favorite foods was candy.\u201d<\/p>\n

“People around me saw this transformation and wanted to know what I was doing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> How Bad Is Your Food From 1 to 10? Try This Food Calculator<\/a><\/p>\n

As a child, Hari says she suffered from eczema, allergies and asthma, and was often on antibiotics or steroids to control her various conditions. Later, when she was working long hours as a young professional \u2014 and eating too much Chik-Fil-A \u2014 she started gaining weight. Feeling depressed and unhealthy, Hari hit a tipping point after she was diagnosed with appendicitis \u2014 and had to undergo an emergency surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018I feel horrible, I look horrible\u2019 and I was continuing to have all these issues with eczema and allergies,\u201d Hari says. \u201cI said to myself, \u2018This is not the way I want to live.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Hari started researching nutrition, and began to realize there were some major problems with the way she\u2019d been eating. \u201cI\u2019d been putting bad food in my body\u2026and not [nourishing] my body.\u201d She started eating a clean diet of whole, unprocessed foods \u2014 and began to see results. \u201cEverything changed: My weight, my body shape, my face, my skin. People around me saw this transformation and wanted to know what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Is There a Dangerous Ingredient Lurking in Your Soy Milk?<\/a><\/p>\n

How to Eat Like the Food Babe
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"The
Photo: FoodBabe.com<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In The Food Babe Way<\/a>, Hari concentrates on getting people to eat an additive-free diet\u2014 which might be more difficult than you\u2019d think. \u201cWhen congress gave the FDA the authority to regulate food additives [30 years ago], there were about 800 additives,\u201d Hari says. \u201cNow, there are 10,000 and even the FDA\u2019s deputy commissioner<\/a> has admitted that the FDA not does not know the amount of chemicals the American public is consuming, and doesn\u2019t know how to adequately safeguard us.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s this knowledge gap that Hari aims to fill with her book. By the second chapter, you\u2019ll encounter \u201cThe Sickening 15,\u201d a list of additives to avoid that ranges from growth hormones in meat to trans fats and food dyes. Urging readers to make just one change per day during her 21-day plan, Hari doles out advice on how to shop for chemical-free foods, and even how to avoid additives<\/a> when you eat out.<\/p>\n

Already following Atkins, or another plan? \u201cIf you\u2019re on a Paleo diet<\/a>, or low-fat or gluten-free diet, I show you where the pitfalls are in each of those plans, and how to avoid them,\u201d Hari says.<\/p>\n

One of her favorite tips is to aim to make half of each meal raw. \u201cAn example of that would be oatmeal, yes that\u2019s cooked, but if you put a cup of blueberries and raw walnuts on top, half of it now is raw,\u201d Hari says. \u201cYour body is getting the nutrition it needs. It stops craving other food, naturally you become satisfied, and you won\u2019t overeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> 9 Easy Overnight Oats Recipes<\/a><\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re eating out, Hari says, \u201cI show you what to ask the servers so that you can avoid as many toxins as possible, and how to figure out what oils they\u2019re using, or how to modify your meals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of Hari\u2019s tips are fairly doable (no more soda!), while others are slightly harder to follow (avoiding GMOs<\/a>). Critics of the Food Babe say that there isn\u2019t enough evidence to support many of her claims about the health risks of food additives \u2014 and that she\u2019s fear mongering to promote her blog. But Hari says her activism is backed by research from the World Health Organization, Environmental Working Group and the Center for Science and Public Interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s really scary is the truth: Our regulatory system is completely out of control. We don\u2019t know the amount of chemicals we\u2019re being exposed to,\u201d Hari says. \u201cOur autoimmune disease, cancer, diabetes and heart disease rates are through the roof, and I want to stop that trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more, check out <\/em>FoodBabe.com<\/em><\/a> or Hari\u2019s book <\/em>The Food Babe Way<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vani Hari, the activist behind the popular Food Babe blog, wants you to eliminate toxins from your diet \u2014 and she\u2019ll show you how in her new book. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":37057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,7,18],"tags":[51,59,251,71,345,392,285],"class_list":["post-37039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diet-nutrition","category-health","category-weight-loss","tag-food-choices","tag-healthy-substitutions","tag-news","tag-nutrition","tag-tax1conditions","tag-tax2celiac-disease","tag-weight-loss"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyburn.com\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}