Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Vani Hari continues her campaign to make everyone afraid of what we eat. Her complete lack of basic science is astounding. Let's make a short list of some glaring errors both in this book and from her blog: - Claim: Appendicitis is caused by eating fast food, truth is that is is caused by a number of things such as trauma to the intestines, foreign objects, parasites, and most commonly fecaloma (calcified poop) which generally is caused by other diseases and no diet. - Claim: Anything with a hard to pronounce name is bad for you, all chemicals are bad. Doesn't Docosahexaenoic Acid sound bad for you, it shouldn't because it's commonly known as DHA one of the omega 3 fatty acids. How about 3-MethylButyl-1-OL or Ethyl Butanoate? Natural flavor compounds found in fruit. Anything can sound scary, and everything we eat is made up of molecules aka chemicals. - Claim: Our atmosphere contains 100% oxygen and airliners are poisoning passengers by mixing in 60% nitrogen! This one just screams of ignorance, our atmosphere contains 78% Nitrogen 21% Oxygen a little Argon, carbon dioxide and other trace gasses. She even fails to realized that the pressurized cabin of an airplane is actually of a much lower pressure than sea level, I guess she wasn't paying attention in highschool chemistry when they taught about partial pressures. I will give her credit for giving a true definition of what is certified as organic foods to meet label laws in the USA, which does admit that organic farmers use non-synthetic pesticides (of course these must be used in much higher quantities and have a much lower LD50 dosage which is a dangerous combination). -Claim: the only way to get heavy metals in your food is via pesticides and farm-raised fish. The truth is that most heavy metals in plants come from the soil and are not added via fertilizer, and when it comes to fish, bioaccumulation of mercury happens due to predation, farm raised fish are much lower in heavy metals than their wild counterparts simply because they are not part of the fish eat fish food chain. The list goes on and on, and time and again Vani Hari has proven to be in this for the money and gains exposure through controversy and plays on our fears, uncertainty and doubts. Is there a lot of true and good information in this book? Yes there actually is, but unless you have a comprehensive science and nutrition background good luck sorting out the facts from the fiction.