Vani Hari has become known as the 'Food Babe ' and has built a loyal following of her food blog , where she calls multi-national companies into account . As American fast food chains are forced to tackle the issues of healthy eating and using chemicals in their products , one woman 's musings on the food industry are leading to sweeping changes . She is not a scientist , politician , policymaker or a trained nutritionist . Vani Hari is a food blogger . Her writing has earned her the nickname 'Food Babe ' and a cult following which has enabled her to influence large companies such as Kraft and Subway to stop putting chemicals into their food . Hari , of Charlotte in North Carolina , left her job as a managerial consultant to become a blogger in 2011 and began writing down and posting tweets about her concerns that chemicals were being used by some of America 's biggest food chains . Four years later she has been named one of the '30 most influential people on the internet ' by Time magazine and has influenced changes , such as Subway removing chemicals from its flour , the New York Post reported . However she has been criticised by experts who say her lack of scientific knowledge means she often mixes up the names of chemicals and their impact - and some of her comments can be likened to 'fear mongering . ' Hari 's most successful campaign was persuading Subway to stop using ingredients containing azodicarbonamide - a chemical used to bleach and condition flour , which is also found in yoga mats . The 34-year-old started a campaign by dubbing the compound the 'yoga mat chemical ' , which paid off when Subway agreed to change its recipe . 'Subway had to respond to the media blitz . It went worldwide . I was interviewed everywhere , ' she told the Post . 'Before my campaign no one in the world knew about azodicarbonamide . ' Subway changed its recipe but later claimed it had been planning to do so anyway . Hari was also involved in persuading Kraft not to use yellow dyes in its 'three mac-and-cheeses ' and has piled pressure on Starbucks , accusing the company of adding hazardous chemicals to its pumpkin lattes . Among Hari 's triumphs in getting companies to change the way they use chemicals are Subway and Kraft . She has recently been campaigning for butylated hydroxytoluene ( BHT ) not to be used in cereals as a preserving agent . Hari said she began to call for change , which is documented in her book The Food Babe Way , released in February , after she noticed the success of others who spoke up about their food concerns - such as 'the pink slime campaign ' against lean finely textured beef , after it was featured on a Jamie Oliver show . However her work has been criticised for its lack of scientific accuracy and mistakes . Hari 's book The Food Babe way was released in February and has been published on the back of her blog . Yale neurologist Steve Novella has labelled her 'the Jenny McCarthy of food activism . ' Dr Marion Nestle , of Yale University said that her mistakes were giving the industry a bad name - citing her confusion over ingredients that are used in beer and antifreeze . Nestle told the New York Post : 'She 's making scientific judgments of these chemicals that may or may not be valid or may or may not be meaningful . ' Throughout her book Hari stresses that chemicals are frequently added to food to improve profit margins rather than nutrition . She writes about her other successes , which include lobbying Chick-fil-a to remove dyes and artificial corn syrup from its products , Arts Atlanta reported .
Vani Hari is a food blogger and has become known as the 'Food Babe ' She gave up her job to write about nutrition and comment on chemicals that are needlessly added to food sold by large food chains in America . Her writing has influenced Subway and Kraft to remove chemicals . The first thing I did when I got home was look at my fridge for any of those ingredients, but there were none!