The Food Babe SOUNDS OFF On Kellogg's Toxic Cereal, RFK Jr.
What this video covers
A roughly 17-minute interview on Breaking Points with host James Li, recorded weeks after the 2024 election, in which Hari discusses her campaign against Kellogg’s cereals and the incoming role of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at HHS. The interview sits at the intersection of Hari’s two biggest storylines of 2024: her October protest at Kellogg’s headquarters over artificial dyes and BHT in cereals, and the MAHA movement’s arrival inside the federal government.
Hari tells the origin story: in 2019, shopping with her two-year-old, the toddler spotted a Baby Shark cereal, and when Hari checked the label she was shocked to find artificial dyes and BHT still in it — a year after Kellogg’s 2015 pledge to remove them by 2018. She started a petition that quickly gathered 50,000 signatures, but pandemic shutdowns stalled a delivery. The issue, she says, stayed on the back burner until she was invited to Senator Ron Johnson’s Senate roundtable (at Calley Means’s suggestion; she almost declined). She made her testimony about the US-vs-abroad double standard, and RFK Jr. — in the room — said that if another country did this to Americans “it would be considered an act of war.” That momentum took the petition past 300,000 signatures and drew roughly 1,000 people to the October 15 rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, which she calls the largest on-the-ground food-activist rally she’s ever seen. She recounts Kellogg’s telling employees not to come in that day and a building executive displaying a whiteboard reading “get off my lawn” to the crowd — and predicts the company is quietly reformulating but will claim “it had nothing to do with our movement.”
On Kennedy, she says she only met him the night before the Senate roundtable but admires his work: she points to his Monsanto litigation, claiming he exposed EPA–Monsanto government collusion and won a $2.2 billion jury award proving glyphosate causes cancer — her characterization. She backs his FDA agenda, asserting that roughly 48% of FDA funding comes from industry, and names getting pharmaceutical ads off television as a third priority. Asked about the American Council on Science and Health’s criticism that she “makes millions of dollars creating fear that is based on nothing,” she calls the group an industry “front group” taking money from Kellogg’s, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi — citing U.S. Right to Know FOIA documentation — and argues attacking the messenger means they’ve lost.
Counter-position worth noting: WK Kellogg has said the colors it uses in its cereals have been deemed safe by scientific bodies around the world — the company’s standing response to Hari’s campaign.
Key points
- Hari’s Kellogg’s origin story: the 2019 Baby Shark cereal sighting with her two-year-old, a year after Kellogg’s 2015 pledge to remove dyes and BHT by 2018 — she says neither was removed.
- Her petition went from 50,000 signatures (stalled by the pandemic) to 300,000+ after the Senate roundtable, culminating in the October 15, 2024 rally in Battle Creek with roughly 1,000 attendees.
- She says Kellogg’s told employees to stay home that day and an executive displayed a “get off my lawn” whiteboard to the crowd; she predicts the company is reformulating behind the scenes.
- She discusses Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s incoming HHS role, praising his Monsanto litigation (her characterization: $2.2 billion award proving glyphosate causes cancer) and backing his FDA-corruption and pharma-ads-off-TV agenda.
- She rebuts the American Council on Science and Health’s criticism by calling it an industry front group funded by food corporations — her claim.
- Counter-position: WK Kellogg maintains the colors used in its cereals have been deemed safe by scientific bodies worldwide.