Vani Hari Uncovers the Truth About the Food Industry

James Colquhoun JAMES COLQUHOUN

Do you know what really goes on in the food industry? Do you want to find out?

Transcendence Season 1, a Food Matters original 5-part docu-series, is all about learning from the personal experiences of those who have been in the darkest trenches, healed from trauma, and recovered from great adversity, to lead us in finding our true potential. Food activist Vani Hari shares her powerful story of doing exactly that. In Episode 1, titled What’s in Our Food?’, Vani shares how a lack of education lead her to illness after illness, and in that feeling of defeat, she finally found her passion to fight.

Vani Hari grew up with two Indian immigrant parents. Being new to America, they naturally trusted the American food system and fully immersed themselves into the culture by taking on the standard American diet; McDonald’s, Wendy’s, whatever they wanted to eat, they did.

These eating habits, mostly caused by a lack of nutrition education, lead to a plethora of different health issues for Vani - asthma, eczema, endometriosis, appendicitis, & allergies - resulting in a life lived in and out of the hospital.  

Discouraged and feeling like her body was letting her down, she finally had the passion & drive she needed to really take back control of her health, leading her to question all that she knew about food.  

Comparing the standard diet to a healthy diet, her mind was blown, realizing that the majority of the food she had been eating was in fact, not food but heavily processed, dead food created in a laboratory. She quickly changed her diet and eating habits, turning her life, and ultimately her health, around.  

This great change became the catalyst for her to begin a journey of justice in the food industry. Through her blog Food Babe, Vani investigates what really goes into our food and holds big corporations accountable. From food dyes known to cause ADHD, to sports drinks chock full of sugar, she’s tackling the monster that the money-hungry food industry has become, one product at a time. Lack of education is what lead to a life of sickness for her, but she is doing all she can to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else. It’s time we all start asking, what’s really in our food?