Companies, heed Cotton, Incorporated’s example. Their product is soft, but they have bolls of steel.
A blogger better known as the Food Babe, Vani Hari is a self-proclaimed investigator of food and consumer advocate. Like a Pied Piper of Alarmism, Hari shot to fame with an all-too-easy exploitation of public fear of the “unnatural.” Though the mainstream media has largely discredited the blogging babe as a fear monger, opportunist and charlatan in the wake of widespread criticism from the scientific community over the past two years, she continues her crusade against beneficial technologies and ingredients.
The head of the “Food Babe Army” is known for a formulaic strategy:
• Promote bad science to condemn innocuous food ingredients.
• Demonize the ingredient with alternative industrial uses.
• Peddle alternatives, most of which help line her pockets.
• Declare victory if a company drops a certain additive or ingredient.
Some companies have unwisely caved to Hari’s bullying. Take
Hari laments that the “World Health Organization has linked [ADA] to respiratory issues, allergies and asthma,” adding that “when a truck carrying azodicarbonamide overturned on a Chicago highway in 2001, it prompted city officials to issue the highest hazardous materials alert and evacuate people within a half mile radius!”
In our 2015 book The Fear Babe, which uses the Food Babe phenomenon as a framework to discuss food myths and why they proliferate, my co-authors and I unpack ADA fears:
“[The asthma and allergy concerns] relate to pure azodicarbonamide (ADA) in its raw form and the effects on humans as an airborne dust. However, precisely the same allegation can be levelled at the other major ingredient in breads—flour."
In other words ADA in bread won’t hurt you unless you snort it in the same way that flour, which is a respiratory irritant that can cause a condition called Miller’s Lung, won’t hurt you.
Yet, in a show of corporate weakness, the sandwich chain surrendered to the Food Babe Army’s science-scarce demands, dropping ADA from its bread in April of 2014. In one fell swoop, Subway not only gave in to a food fundamentalist’s tantrum, it helped cement unsubstantiated fear in an already food-wary public.
As with all guerilla food bullying, rather than be satisfied with Subway caving to her army’s demands, Hari moved the goalposts, starting yet another petition against the restaurant chain the following year.
So what’s the point? When companies cave in or fail to refute bad science that demonizes beneficial additives like ADA (Subway’s bread isn’t as chewy or cohesive anymore), they succumb to fundamentalist, fact-light food bullying. And when you give bullies an inch, they take a mile.
Cotton, Incorporated, which does research and marketing for American conventional and organic producers of upland cotton (the most common type of cotton planted in the United States), known for the famous “Fabric of Our Lives” campaign, didn’t take Food Babe’s bullying lightly. The company’s response to Food Babe’s blog post attacking cotton as the “world’s dirtiest crop” and cottonseed oil as a food additive was a refreshing change from food industry pandering.
I spoke with James Pruden, the Director of Public Relations for Cotton, Inc. “The Food Babe post was rather shocking,” he explains. “When things like this pop up, the industry looks to us to respond.” Cotton, Inc. has a dotted line of reporting to the United States Department of Agriculture, which reviews for accuracy following Federal Trade Commission guidelines. "If we put it out there, you can bet it’s accurate," says Pruden.
“Unless you’re on the dangerous cotton ball diet, we all know that cotton is not food!” Hari exclaims in the blog. “It’s not a vegetable. It’s not a fruit. It’s not a grain. So, what is it?” she asks.
Though cottonseeds themselves aren't edible, Cotton, Inc. clarifies that “although cotton is neither a fruit nor a vegetable, it is a seed crop; like sunflowers, soybeans, or safflower. In fact, cotton is regulated as a food crop by the FDA.” Notably, the CDC includes cottonseed oil in its list of “heart healthy” monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which can help improve cholesterol levels when used instead of saturated fats.
As for Hari’s claim that cotton is known as the world’s “dirtiest crop” requiring "an intense application of agricultural chemicals,” Cotton, Inc. says, “In the U.S., cotton growers have reduced pesticide applications by 50% over the past 30 years.” Pruden explains that the 50% figure comes from data presented at the 2012 Beltwide Cotton Proceedings, which are sponsored by the National Cotton Council in cooperation with state land-grant universities, the USDA, state and regional cotton organizations and industry. Though herbicide use with cotton has remained relatively steady, insecticide use and overall pesticide use has trended downward according to the USDA.
It’s important to note that organic cotton, which Vani Hari proudly uses in t-shirts and other products she sells, isn’t more “clean” than conventional cotton, nor is it more “sustainable.” Though organic cotton farmers do use insecticides to stave off pest damage, farmers suffer crop losses without the Bt insecticidal trait in genetically engineered cotton.
This is why we plant Bt cotton. 100% yield loss from bollworm in non Bt strips. #GMO #mscrops pic.twitter.com/Umg4lf2P
— Angus Catchot (@acatchot) November 30, 2012
The most critical allegation Hari makes about cotton: “Since 2002, thousands of Indian farmers committed suicide after the costly GMO seeds they used failed. There is nothing more insidious and despicable than an industry that preys upon the health, safety, and lives of innocent victims.”
Let’s not mince words. There is nothing more insidious and despicable than the real problem of suicides in India being exploited for the anti-GMO agenda. The suicide rate in India for all people, not just farmers, is among the highest in the world. The Indian farmer suicide issue is complex, with contributing factors ranging from predatory lending practices to unpredictable weather. The suicide rate among Indian farmers has remained steady despite growing acreage of Bt cotton.
Not taking such an industry-wide allegation lightly, Cotton, Inc. says in its rebuttal, “The Indian farmer suicides you reference is another tragedy, but not a cotton-specific issue. It has also been widely decried as a non-GMO issue.” The company’s response includes a link to one of my pieces on misinformation about genetically engineered cotton, which I’ve written about here and here.
Standing up to the Food Babe has earned Cotton, Inc. an internet ovation, with the post receiving droves of supportive comments, likes and shares, far more than any other post since the company started a public-facing Facebook page. Pruden tells me that the Cotton, Inc. plans to write a more comprehensive refutation to Hari’s crusade against cotton and cottonseed oil and make it available to all of the companies slammed in her post.
Vani Hari responded to the company's statement in the comments section of her blog, repeating many of her earlier allegations against the cotton industry.
"It's gratifying that our response ultimately appeared on the site. Her re-rebuttal is well-cited; but many of the sources are outdated --- some are 20 years old --- or from non-scientific organizations," Pruden says. "I feel confident that the American Heart Association, the FDA, and the other, science-based data sources supporting our points are credible to any reasonable audience."
With recent news that Del Monte Foods’ has joined the Food Babe Army and Hershey’s submitting to unscientific anti-GMO demands, it’s refreshing to see a company with a backbone.
Kavin Senapathy is a science communicator and mom of two living in Madison, Wisconsin. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
