Ep 43 - The harmful impact of additives on our health, with Tracey Fry and Jo Ling
Joanne Ling and Tracey Fry are sisters, mothers and wives who co-created additive-free lifestyle and are on a mission to educate everyone (especially their own families) on exactly what harmful ingredients can be found in everyday food, household and body care items.
They weren’t raised in a holistic way, however, after discovered additives to help Jo’s daughter back in 2013 and learning about how toxic these can be to one’s health, they made it their mission to not only educate themselves, but to start educating the world!
These ladies have since gone on to create life-changing online programs to educate the masses and have four everyday additive-free cookbooks. Together they have sold well over 10,000 copies which are helping families create simple home-style meals.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast and more.
Broadcast: December 9, 2022
Duration: 52:48
Here’s a snippet of the full podcast...
It all started with a thermomix cooking demo...
And the lady who was making the custard powder, she said, “…1 0 2 can be found in custard powder and I don't really like to give it to my kids because it can be linked to behavioural issues.” And so that was enough for me to open my ears…go home and google additive 1 0 2 side effects. I was really shocked as to what it was all linked to - it was everything that she (Jo’s child) was displaying. It was hyperactivity, restlessness - we couldn't even read her a book, we just couldn't have her sit on our knee, he would just try and rip the pages – it was a nightmare to do those normal kinds of things that you do with your children.
The list of numbers (additives) that saw the beginning of incredible change.
I can't remember ever being overwhelmed because I just started where I thought I should start - I've come up with this list so let's just get rid of anything that has any of these numbers. And honestly, overnight her behaviour changed, she just calmed down, she started sleeping.. she would get this look in her eyes, it was like she was possessed, and it was this scared “What's going on Mum, help me” look of be her being terrified. We haven't seen that look for a really, really long time.
The multi-billion dollar food additive industry.
We uncovered that the food additive industry is worth something like $38 billion. It is a profitable machine, and they're not going to get rid of additives in our food because it makes so much. The food colour industry was a billion-dollar industry as well. So just like food colours in our food, which are in there for no reason other than to colour it and to make it look more palatable, it doesn't taste any different. Dried apricots are a good one. So dried apricots shouldn't be bright orange - if they're orange, they're full of sulphur dioxide. They should be brown and shrivelled up and quite ugly looking, and they're so much tastier as well. But sulphur dioxide is heavily linked to asthma and breathing problems.
It starts with simple swaps, and not buying grated cheese..
We started slow, we made simple changes, and there are so many little simple swaps that people can make. Stop buying grated cheese, buy block cheese. That white powder on your grated cheese is an anti-caking agent. It's made from wood pulp. Our body doesn't need to digest that!
The toxic load..
But think of it like this. We weigh each individual person and we have this exposure level of toxic load. So every time we expose our body to another little bit here, little bit here, little bit here, little bit here - hand wash, fragrances, perfumes that spray when you walk through Myer, you go to the public toilet and there's the little canister on the wall that sprays every five seconds while you're on the loo. And then in our homes, we're exposed to toxins. We sit in a car, we drive. Then add food onto that. So every day we're eating something, eating something, eating something, eating something, eating something.. and our toxic load just gets overloaded. So something has to give and that's either our health, our skin, our organs, our heart.. and we need to lower that toxic load, we need to reduce that toxic exposure.
Spinach wraps don't actually contain any spinach.
If you flip the ingredients over, you'll see that there's a spinach and herb seasoning. And the only reason they're green is because they're coloured with food colourings. Artificial food colouring 1 0 2 and another colour blue. So yellow and blue make green. So your spinach wraps don't actually contain any spinach. All you're eating is about three types of preservatives, two food colours, and some flour and vegetable oils.
More:
Follow Tracey & Jo on Instagram at @additivefreelifestyle or visit their website here.
Don't miss an episode of 'Woman. Conversations for the Curious':
subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast and more.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I’m so honoured that you’re here and would be so grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in Apple podcasts or on your podcast app, so that together we may inspire more women in the process.
