You may have seen Food Babe posts pop up on your friends’ Facebook walls, giving you dire warnings about toxins in your food, or beer that “contains antifreeze.” (“Toxins” are a fake idea, and there’s no antifreeze in beer, just to clear that up.) The socially responsible thing for our society to do would be to prevent her from making a career out of spreading misinformation, but since our society is not socially responsible, her new book is the #1 best seller in Nutrition.
She’s paid by companies who push organic/”non-GMO” foods to write articles warning readers of the largely non-existent dangers in eating food which has been genetically-modified. (Of course, breeding animals or vegetables for desired traits is also a form of genetic modification that’s been happening since the beginning of agriculture.) And she repeatedly threatens companies with petitions and boycotts for using “chemical additives” which have been repeatedly shown to be safe in amounts much larger than what’s used in food.
But fear will always win over nuance, and profit will always triumph over science and knowledge.