Food Babe Is Selling Carrageenan

Vani Hari (the “Food Babe”) is upset about being called out over her blatant profiting from fear mongering regarding carrageenan,¹ a safe food and beauty product additive derived from seaweed.  While of course Hari does have a financial interest (she uses fear to drive readers to carrageenan-free products and recipes that she happens to sell²), there’s a larger problem: Food Babe sells products that contain carrageenan.

Of course Food Babe has a financial interest. But she also SELLS carrageenan. (click/enlarge)

It’s been a while since we last put on our Food Babe Investigator Hats^TM and visited Vani Hari’s online store, doing a product investigation according to Hari’s own rules.  Do you remember where you left your hat?  Now would be a great time to fetch it.  Let’s go shopping!

Anyone in the mood for some Honeysuckle Rose Shampoo?³

Food Babe sells a wide variety of Aubrey Organics products, including Honeysuckle Rose shampoo (click/enlarge)

You just know what’s coming, don’t you?  I confess, I’m not a very good poker player.  I gave it away somewhere, didn’t I?  Perhaps in the title of this article?  Alright then, off to the shampoo’s ingredients:⁴

Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose shampoo, sold by Vani Hari, contains carrageenan. (click/enlarge)

Did you catch it?

Vani Hari fans who are still in denial, allow me to zoom in:

Lions and tigers and carrageenan! Oh my!

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: Food Babe is selling carrageenan!

Yes, carrageenan.  When I wrote about Ms. “All Natural Ingredients” selling this shampoo back in December, 2014, it was to point out that although she raved about the fresh honeysuckle in the product she hawked, there wasn’t actually any honeysuckle in it–Aubrey Organics faked it.  Oops.  Since then, they’ve added honeysuckle oil, but also tossed in one of Food Babe’s favorite ingredients: carrageenan.

Thirty-six times and counting, Vani.  You keep selling the very things you tell your followers are dangerous.  

For the #FoodBabeArmy members who would stubbornly insist that The Babe says carrageen is only carcinogenic if you eat it, not when you get it on your hair or skin, I’d point you to her seminal work “So Fresh and So Clean–Skin Care Tips”,⁵ where your Dear Leader solemnly warns against putting toxic substances on your body, not just in your body:

“Your skin is your largest organ!  What you put on your skin, is absorbed into your blood.”–Vani Hari⁵

Food Babe very clearly (though disingenuously) tags carrageenan as a carcinogen.²  So what happens if her shampoo dribbles onto your skin while showering?  Let’s ask her:⁶

” I also don’t like the idea that something I wash my face with can potentially cause cancer over time.”–Vani Hari⁶

Egad!

In the battle over toxins, Vani Hari stumbles around like a punch-drunk boxer, swinging wildly, essentially punching herself in the face by claiming her own products can cause cancer.  Fortunately, there’s nothing dangerous about carrageenan, Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose Shampoo, or anything Food Babe disparages.  Buy Aubrey Organics products with confidence, just don’t buy them from Food Babe.

(Updated 11 August 2016: For even more carrageenan from Food Babe, see this new story.)

References
(1) Food Babe Facebook Post
https://www.facebook.com/thefoodbabe/posts/1249661371735238:0
Food Babe Store (Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose Shampoo)
http://foodbabe.com/shop/for-your-beauty/

(2) Food Babe: Watch Out For This Carcinogen [Carrageenan] In Your Organic Food
http://foodbabe.com/2012/05/22/watch-out-for-this-carcinogen-in-your-organic-food/

(3) Food Babe Shopping
http://foodbabe.com/shop/for-your-beauty/

(4) Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose Shampoo (Amazon.com)
https://www.amazon.com/Aubrey-Organics-Honeysuckle-Rose-Shampoo/dp/B0006GZAKI/

(5) So Fresh And So Clean–Skin Care Tips
http://foodbabe.com/2011/08/09/so-fresh-and-so-clean-skin-care-tips/

(6) Be A Drug Store Beauty Drop Out
http://foodbabe.com/2011/07/31/how-to-find-safe-beauty-products/

Image Credits
Food Babe screen captures and Aubrey Organics/Amazon.com product images are used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

“Food Babe Eats Words” parody by Mark Alsip/Bad Science Debunked.  Vani Hari video capture and ABC logo used under parody provisions of Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.

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Dr. Mark Hyman Selling “Dangerous” Toothpaste

It’s not uncommon to find quack doctors contradicting themselves on the internet these days, giving medical advice that directly contradicts facts about products that they’re selling for a profit.  Case in point: Dr. Mark Hyman and his guidance on toothpaste.

First, we get a Facebook post warning us that toothpaste can be toxic.  But never fear, the good doctor links us to an article written by a dentist friend, with instructions on making our own paste, and, significantly, warning us of ingredients to avoid:¹

Dr. Mark Hyman Facebook post on toothpaste

The Hyman Facebook post leads us to “The Complete Guide to DIY Toothpaste“² written by Dr. Mark Burhenne, DDS. I’ve linked the full article here so I won’t be accused of quote mining, but one of the ingredients Dr. Burhenne warns us we must avoid in a toothpaste is:

“Glycerin, which isn’t toxic, but has no place in the mouth as it’s a soap that strips your body’s natural oral mucosa and leaves a film. This film could coat the teeth, messing with the structure of the biofilm which could alter the microbiome in the mouth and impact the natural remineralization process — your body’s natural cavity-fighting mechanism.” ²

It just so happens that rather than make his own toothpaste as he’s just recommended, Dr. Mark Hyman sells a commercial brand in his online store.  It’s known as PerioBiotic, and he highly recommends it.  Let’s take a look at the ingredients in this toothpaste:³

Dr. Hyman’s PerioBiotic toothpaste contains some interesting ingredients

Oh dear.  Is that glycerin I see listed there?  Didn’t Hyman just post an article by a dentist telling us that glycerin has no place in our mouth?^1,2  Why yes, he did!  The toothpaste Hyman is hawking can, according to his own reference material, dangerously alter the microbiome of your mouth, strip its natural mucosa, and alter the body’s ability to naturally fight cavities.

Ouch!

If you get the impression that woomeisters such as Hyman take a shotgun approach to posting self-contradictory articles, ostensibly to cross promote others of their ilk, then you may be on to something.  Notice that I highlighted the (misspelled) ingredient carrageenan in Hyman’s toothpaste.  No, the dentist didn’t disparage carrageenan in his article, but Hyman and one of his compatriots certainly–famously–have.  Let’s look at a Hyman Twitter post:⁴

Dr. Hyman congratulates Food Babe, celebrates removal of “controversial” ingredient carrageenan/Twitter. (click/enlarge)

Hyman is congratulating our old friend, the Food Babe (Vani Hari) on her purported part in the removal of the “controversial” (hint: it really isn’t) ingredient carrageenan from a certain company’s products.  Yet here we find it in the toothpaste being sold by Dr. Hyman, who wrote the foreword to Food Babe’s book, The Food Babe Way.  Hyman hails Hari as a hero,⁵ but doesn’t think twice about earning money from a product containing an ingredient she falsely links to cancer.⁶ He can’t feign ignorance–he tweeted her congratulations on its removal!

This “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” theme runs rampant among the woomeisters currently pushing their pseudoscience on the web these days.  Hyman helps Burhenne and Hari with links and referrals, and they do the same for him^7,8–but none of them seem aware of the fact that they’re contradicting each other (and themselves).

Or, as long as the money rolls in, maybe they don’t care.

References
(1) Dr. Mark Hyman “Toxic Toothpaste” post
https://www.facebook.com/drmarkhyman/posts/1040445272652888

(2) The Complete Guide to DIY Toothpaste
http://askthedentist.com/homemade-toothpaste/

(3) Mark Hyman Healthy Living Store: PerioBiotic Toothpaste (Spearmint)
http://store.drhyman.com/Store/Show/ListAlphabetically/827/PerioBiotic-Toothpaste-%28Spearmint%29

(4) Mark Hyman celebrates carrageenan removal (Twitter)
https://twitter.com/markhymanmd/status/502810272294109184

(5) Do You Know What’s Really In Your Food? (Hyman blog)
http://drhyman.com/blog/2015/02/05/know-whats-really-food/

(6) Watch Out For This Carcinogen In Your Organic Food (Hari blog)
http://foodbabe.com/2012/05/22/watch-out-for-this-carcinogen-in-your-organic-food/

(7) Burhenne Tweets Hyman
https://twitter.com/askthedentist

(8) Food Babe’s Special Mark Hyman Section
http://foodbabe.com/markhymanmd/

Image Credits
PerioBiotic, Facebook, Dr. Mark Hyman screen snapshots are used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.