Inspired with Nika Lawrie

Raising Awareness of Artificial Dyes and Additives in Children's Foods with Kelley DeLong

• Kelley DeLong • Season 2024 • Episode 100

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Join me, Nika Lawrie, and my dear friend Kelley DeLong as we uncover the hidden dangers of artificial dyes like Red 40 and Yellow 5 in kids’ foods and their potential link to behavioral issues like ADHD. Kelley shares her journey as a mother navigating the food industry to support her son, while we spotlight the financial motives behind synthetic additives and the need for vigilant label-reading. Plus, we explore Vani Hari’s (The Food Babe) campaign against Kellogg’s use of artificial dyes in the U.S., practical tips for healthier shopping, and ways to involve your kids in making better food choices.

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Nika Lawrie:

Hey everybody, welcome back to Inspired with Nika Larie. I, of course, am your host, Nika Laurie, and today I am joined again by one of my very best friends. Her name is Kelly DeLong. I almost called you Stout. You're no longer Stout, you are a DeLong. But anyways, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Kelley DeLong:

Thank you, I'm excited to be with you.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so this is. I think I asked you to be one of my very first guests on the podcast when I started it, like four years ago, and so I'm so excited that I've actually finally convinced you to come on the show and have a conversation with me. So we are going to talk about food additives like artificial dyes, preservatives, different things like that, and some of their health impacts on kids, especially relating to ADHD. I think that's a really big topic that's going on now and I know you have some connection to that. Do you mind just sharing a little bit about your connection and then I will hand it over to you to be my host and ask away? Ask different questions.

Kelley DeLong:

Yeah, sounds good. So I have a wonderful nine-year-old son questions. Yeah, sounds good. So I have a wonderful nine-year-old son and he has been diagnosed with ADHD, and so, as a mom, I just want to find out ways to help him and be most successful, and I have just heard so much about food additives and dyes and different things like that that make such an impact on kids' behavior, so the more I can find out about that, the better.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's such an important topic and I think I want to preface this too, because so many of the listeners are women not just mothers, but women who haven't had children yet and the thing to know is that a lot of these additives can really impact women's health as well. So it's kind of a broader conversation. It's really all people can be affected by these additives. So keep that in mind for the listener while you're listening, that you know we're going to talk a lot about how it impacts children, but I'll add in pieces about how it will impact women's health as well. So with that, kelly, take it away, be my host. Ask the first question.

Kelley DeLong:

Sure, so we'll start pretty basic. So can you explain to us kind of what food dyes are and why they are so commonly used in foods today? It?

Nika Lawrie:

from turmeric. There's paprika spirulina, which is like a seaweed. You can get it from spinach carrot juice. There's all kinds of natural dyes that companies can use to put in food. Those pretty much are all okay and safe and they really don't impact people because they come from natural ingredients.

Nika Lawrie:

On the flip side of that, the much more dangerous or concerning side of that, is artificial dyes. So artificial dyes are products that come from manufactured ingredients. So chemicals were used to actually create these dyes and then these dyes were put into different types of food to make them look more appealing, especially to children, especially to children. A lot of food diets are used in products marketed specifically to children because it's like bright and colorful, it's engaging for the kids and so it really kind of sucks them in. Those artificial diets can have a lot of different health impacts that are really really concerning, and the research is growing over and over. It's getting a much larger view on how it's impacting our health and children's health than ever before. The conversation is really starting to grow. One of the reasons why manufacturers use this is because it's also cheaper to use the artificial dyes than it is to use the naturally produced dyes.

Kelley DeLong:

My next question is when there is a natural option, why use the chemicals?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, because it's cheaper. That's the biggest thing. Pretty much anything that happens in the food industry is going to be driven by profits. So anything that they can do to manufacture the product as cheaply as possible and then sell it at the highest possible dollar amount that they can sell it at, they're going to do so. They can increase profit. The thing is with that is that many food companies that make their products and sell them in the US have artificial dyes, but they have the exact same recipe in other countries like Europe or India or Germany different things like that that don't use these artificial dyes. So we know that they are able to make and manufacture the same foods without using the artificial dyes.

Kelley DeLong:

So are there specific additives? So there's food dyes and also probably some additives too. Can you kind of go over what we should look out for, what those are specifically?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah. So the big three food dyes like there's a whole section of food dyes, but the big three that you really want to be concerned about is red 40, blue two and yellow 5. And especially relating to ADHD, the biggest two would be red 40 and yellow 5. Those you'll see in almost all colorful foods. So thinking about cereals, thinking about candies, a lot of fruit bars or different things that look healthy but actually include those dyes. The dyes are in them, they're included as well, and so you really have to flip over the box and read the ingredients to make sure those dyes aren't in the box. Those are kind of the biggest ones.

Nika Lawrie:

Some of the other additives are going to be preservatives, and sweeteners are a big one. Also, emulsifiers can be another big thing, so I'll give you a couple examples for sweeteners. So high fructose corn syrup is a huge one. You want to avoid that, no matter who you are, at all costs. It's just one of the worst things that you can ingest. But it can also really exaggerate hyperactivity and mood swings in kids, and so it's a big issue and it's in a lot of products sold to kids. Aspartame, which is another artificial sweetener, that can cause behavioral issues and inflammation in the body and so you really want to try to avoid aspartame. And then, talking about the emulsifiers, you're going to have things like, um, uh, carrageenan. I always have a hard time saying that that's a really common emulsifier. You'll see it in things like, um, almond milk or alternative milks, um, like nut milks to help it stay creamy, to help it stay kind of mixed together. Sometimes you'll see it in things like yogurts or salad dressings. It basically helps all the ingredients stay mixed together so it doesn't drop down, like the heavy ingredients don't drop down and the oils sit on top or something. It makes it look more appealing and it keeps it all cohesive and mixed together. Makes it look more appealing and it keeps it all cohesive and mixed together.

Nika Lawrie:

And then, thinking about some of the preservatives you're going to have BHA, bht and TBHQ. I remember I did a post, probably like two years ago, about TBHQ and no longer eating Reese's peanut butter cups because oh, yes, yeah, and the whole thing went viral. It's kind of crazy. It's my first viral post. It was exciting. But those can cause hyperactivity and kids are especially sensitive to those specific preservatives. And preservatives are used to extend shelf life, basically. So help products stay. I'm going to say stay good, stay usable longer on the shelf so they don't go bad. Basically.

Kelley DeLong:

Okay, so we know that there's a correlation between the additives and the food dyes and behavior, but can you go into a little more depth on how those chemicals work in a kid's brain and even, like you said, extending it out to women's health, how those chemicals react in our body to have this poor outcome? Can you kind of explain that a little bit more?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so there's in the kids. I mean, for all people there's kind of two big factors Women. There's a third factor that's not quite as prevalent in kids, so I'll go into that one in a minute. But the two biggest things to understand is that a lot of these additives, the dyes, the preservatives, so on they disrupt neurological function, and so what that means is the way your neurons in your brain are communicating with each other, interacting. These chemicals can disrupt that function so that your neurons aren't triggering correctly, they're not communicating, the message isn't getting sent all the way across. So different things can happen, but that's one of the biggest ones is it disrupts neurological function, and so, especially with a kid who has ADHD, who's already kind of their brain is functioning a little bit different than what you would say kind of the average person, having more neurological disruption can cause, can exaggerate, the behavioral issues or the mood swings and things that they're already dealing with. On the other side of that too, things that they're already dealing with On the other side of that too, there's the gut-brain connection, and so our guts can be impacted by these additives.

Nika Lawrie:

Our gut is one of the biggest controlling factors of how we feel, how our body functions, how healthy we are. If our gut is out of whack, our whole body is going to be out of whack, and so these additives can impact our gut in different ways. They can block hormones that are produced in the gut and then sent throughout the body, and your hormones are your messenger system of the body. It tells your body what to do at different times. So if those hormones are not being produced correctly in your gut, that's going to cause issues throughout your body. The other thing that happens is that the gut sends different messages to your brain, and if those messages aren't being sent correctly or being disrupted, your brain's going to have more, it's going to struggle more, and then you're going to have those dysfunctions like we talked about a moment ago with neurological dysfunction.

Nika Lawrie:

On the women's side, the other thing that can happen, which I kind of talked about with the gut and the hormones, is some of these chemicals not all, but some of them can also be endocrine-disrupting chemicals. So again, your endocrine system is your hormone system. Most of the time, this happens to women who have hormonal issues or hormonal imbalances. But you'd be surprised the population in the United States how many women actually have hormonal dysfunction. It's a large population, especially women who are starting to move into perimetopause or menopause. So any woman that's probably 30 through 60 can be especially sensitive to these different additives and really need to be considerate about how much they're ingesting and see if it's giving you issues or you're having side effects from these different additives.

Kelley DeLong:

So I know I kind of asked the question earlier about why they use the artificial dyes as opposed to natural, and you said a lot has to do with profits, of course. But I want to touch on something else. I know I've heard a lot about Kellogg's and things going on with them, and so could you go into specifically the issue with Kellogg's right now and why they continue to use these dyes?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, absolutely so. This is a crazy story that's happening right now. So, for those of you listening, we are recording on November 2nd. I know this will come out in a couple weeks, so things may have changed in the time since we've recorded when you're listening, but the Kellogg's issue has been going on for the last really couple of years, but it's kind of really blown up in the last about three weeks.

Nika Lawrie:

So in 2015,. Kellogg's the company that makes a lot of the cereals that children eat. They are the parent company of a lot of other products as well. If you want to see the products, I have a bunch of them listed on my social media account so you can go look at all the different brands that catalogs is the parent company of, but just to give a couple examples. So they they're like the parent company of Fruit Loops. Fruit Loops is the kind of the biggest one that everyone keeps talking about.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so catalogs, in 2015, came out and said that they were going to remove artificial dyes and BHT from their cereals by 2018. As of 2024, they still have not done that. They have, however, removed all of those chemicals from Froot Loops and other cereals around the world, so they don't have them in India, they don't have them in Germany, they don't have them in Europe in any of other cereals around the world. So they don't have them in India, they don't have them in Germany, they don't have them in Europe in any of those cereals. So, like I said earlier, we know that they can manufacture these foods without these dyes because they're doing it in other countries that have more restrictive rules and laws than the US does. So we know they can do it, but they're choosing not to do it in the United States, even though more and more research is coming out showing that this really is causing issues, especially in children. Children are the most sensitive population to these dyes and additives, and children with ADHD are even more sensitive than the average child. Regular children are being affected by it too, and they can have mood swings and behavioral issues and cognitive dysfunction issues, but ADHD are even more impacted by it. They're more sensitive to it.

Nika Lawrie:

So Kellogg's said they were going to remove it. They got all of the media and praise because they said they were going to remove it. They got all of the media and praise because they said they were going to remove it and then they never did. And so there's a community of activists primarily led by a woman named Vani Hari. She's known as the food babe in the influencer world, but Vani Hari has spent the last probably decade, maybe even 15 years being a food advocate, and she does tons of research and studies and puts out a lot of work about how these different ingredients are impacting our health, especially for children.

Nika Lawrie:

She's really big on protecting children and so she started to put together a petition, probably a year or two ago, to petition Kellogg's to remove these artificial dyes and BHT from their cereals. She started reaching out to Kellogg's asking them to remove this a couple, probably about a year ago, and it's been an ongoing journey. About three weeks ago let me just preface before she shows up at Kellogg's office she reached out to them multiple, multiple times asking for meetings, asking to have conversations. Lots of other activists, including myself, sent letters and emails asking them to consider removing this, and it was radio silence from Kellogg's. I did actually get a letter response, but it was basically a BS like. We're so grateful for your feedback. Thanks so much.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, I was I sent it to Kelly because it was so funny and so Kellogg's basically just wanted nothing to do with it. So then about three weeks ago, vani Hari and probably about a thousand, maybe even 1500 moms, children and other food activists, local legislatures from the area showed up, media showed up. They showed up on Kellogg's campus and asked for a meeting and by that time Vani Hari had collected 417,000 signed petitions from everyday Americans asking them to remove these harmful chemicals from the food that they're selling to children in the United States, because, again, they've already removed them from the food products the exact same products in other countries. When they showed up there, kellogg's informed their staff not to show up to work that day, so they basically shut down the Kellogg's office. There were a handful of leadership still at the Kellogg's office. They were up on the fourth floor or the top floor of the building. There's videotapes all over social media of them looking out the windows and like smirking and making kind of nasty faces at these families. I mean when I say it was moms and children, like it was kids on the lawn asking them to remove these products. And Kellogg's responded with holding a sign up through the window that said get off my lawn. And then they sent out a security guard who the security guard was like a third party security, like he didn't even work for Kellogg's he was just some security guard company guy and asked that guy was responsible for asking the people to leave the Kellogg's campus. They did not let him in. They did not accept the petitions. Kellogg's just said get off my lawn.

Nika Lawrie:

Since then, kellogg's has not done anything to remove the foods. They have not done anything to address the matters. There's several other celebrities that have been joining the movement. Eva Mendes is a good example of that. There's a bunch of them who have also asked Kellogg's to remove these chemicals and Kellogg's has instead done a PR campaign to basically make all these celebrities look like horrible people or uneducated people or people that don't know the research, when the research is very clear. These chemicals are impacting children and they impact children in different ways, but we know for sure that they are impacting children. So there's a large campaign called Cancel Kellogg's or Boycott Kellogg's. It's all over social media, but it's been picked up by the media across the country, all over the place. So there's a large movement to boycott Kellogg's right now.

Nika Lawrie:

You were talking about how, in other countries, same company however, these additives have been eliminated Now, yes, the company should. Countries. The reason that it's not in their food is because they're. I guess maybe their version of the FDA or regulatory bodies are mostly run by individuals who've either worked in big food, big agriculture or big pharma big agriculture or big pharma and they come over and they run the industry or the regulative organization for a while and then they go back to big food or big pharma and they come back, so they're interchangeable people, basically, and so there isn't a clear divide between the regulatory agency and the industry, right Like the big food industry or the big pharma industry, and so there's a lot of um conflict of interests going on right there. There's also a ton of money um that come from lobbyists, um from big food, big pharma, big agriculture and so on, that um influence how things are regulated, how bills are passed in Congress, Um and lots of other campaigns happen to help control how things are regulated in this country, and so there's a lot of conflict of interest.

Nika Lawrie:

There is that the way our regulatory bodies work here in the United States is that there's not enough money in the government to actually test and verify that all of these products are safe, and so you'll see this not just in food I know we're talking about food today but you'll see it in the makeup industry, the personal care industry, in like the agriculture, so thinking about, like glyphosate and all these pesticides and herbicides, those kinds of things. So there's not enough money in our government put towards these regulatory agencies to actually test to make sure all of these products are safe and not harmful to citizens and not harmful to animals and the environment. So we, as in the US, Americans, are dependent on these companies to produce tests that show results that say that these products are not harmful for us. So the people making the product, the people using the product, are the people that are testing and creating the tests that say these products are not harmful. If that's not a conflict of interest, I don't know what is right. So in Europe or some of the other countries that I mentioned, this is not the case.

Nika Lawrie:

The regulatory bodies are much, much stricter than we are here in the United States, and many of them either test and regulate themselves through the government, or they use third party testers to verify the safety of these different chemical ingredients, and so they have found over and over and over again that many of these products or these chemicals, these additives, are harmful in different manners to people's health, and so they've chose to ban them.

Nika Lawrie:

For food dyes, for example, some food dyes are still allowed in food in the European Union, but they're required to have warning labels on the food so that people are aware that if you're eating this, it could impact your health. Where we don't have those warning labels, there are thousands and thousands of chemicals that have never even been tested for safety, Whereas in the US, if you talk about the big grand scheme of chemicals, this is not just food ads, this is all the chemicals that are used in different products. We've only ever banned five here in the United States, where the EU has banned about 1,500. Many of those 1,500 are still used in products in the US every single day, and so really understanding that we have a very skewed, very biased regulatory system that is really not regulating anything, and so it's now up to the consumer to get educated and to be aware of these issues and to do whatever they can to protect themselves and their families.

Kelley DeLong:

Unfortunately, that's what I was going to say. Next, it sounds like we have to take control of our own health and what we're putting into our bodies. Unfortunately, we can't trust the companies to give us the right things. We can't really trust the regulatory agencies to regulate those chemicals. So I guess the next thing would be you know how? What are our additive free or healthier alternatives? And I think, like I said, as a mother, for both my child and for myself, can you give some real basic examples of how to cut those out and what we should be buying? Because you know, we know it's easy to buy, but what should I be looking for when I go to the store?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah. So the first thing is to understand that this is a journey, right Like you can't for most people. You can't just switch everything you eat all at once because, one, your kids aren't going to like that you know kids can be really picky. Two, you have your things that you love and have been your favorite things, and you're just accustomed to eating it and you're accustomed to certain brands. So what I suggest is, you know, starting kind of small, picking a few things to remove or to find healthier replacements for. So if there are things that you're eating really regularly, like you know, a daily or several times a week that have these potentially harmful ingredients, let's start looking for replacements for those specific things first, so that at least we can remove where your most common exposure is. And one thing I want to add with that too is that this is a cumulative issue. So being exposed to these artificial dyes or additives it's not a one-time issue. You're just exposed and then there's a behavioral issue or a mood swing or whatever, and then you're fine. This builds up in the body and over time, creates more and more issues, and so it's really important that we start detoxing our body from these things by removing them and understand that it takes time for our body to recover after we've removed them too. And so you know when I said that's a journey, it's really starting to understand like it's going to take time to remove this from your environment and it's going to take time to remove this from your environment and it's going to take time for your body to adjust, but it is so, so worth it. On the flip side, it can be so beneficial to your health overall, let alone just the. You know the ADHD symptoms, the behavioral issues, those kinds of things.

Nika Lawrie:

So first is figuring out what those top products are that you're using regularly and understanding what those additives are and then removing those first. That would be the first thing I would say. Second thing then I would say is get curious when you go to the grocery store and you know, see if you can spend a little bit more time there and start reading the food labels. I know when I first started going through this I usually get through the grocery store in like 20, 30 minutes I just had my things, that I, my list and the things we always bought and I went and got them in and out right. When I first started transitioning this, I would spend like an hour at the grocery store and read the labels on all the products and then I would find the product that didn't have all the garbage in it.

Nika Lawrie:

And when you go to traditional grocery stores, this is going to you'll be surprised. It's going to be harder than you think to find these products. There'll be one out of like 20 options, right, so you have like 25 yogurts. There's going to be one that's not going to have dyes or high fructose corn syrup or you know a crazy amount of sugar in it. So it's going to take a little while to figure out what those are.

Nika Lawrie:

But give yourself a little bit of time. I actually found it really fun to start to kind of navigate this and figure out what the products were, because you're like, oh, that one's crappy and that one's good, and then you start to know what the new brands are and you'll figure them out. If you aren't interested in doing that, there's a couple apps that you can download that help you. Just scan. It scans the barcode and it'll give you either a red, yellow or green, kind of a stoplight option of good, bad, sort of okay, or it'll give you a range of like 1 to 10, 10 being bad, one being good or something like that. So Yuka is a good one. Y-u-k-a and the Environmental Working Group has one specific for foods. I haven't used it in a couple of years. It wasn't quite as robust as it needed to be a couple of years ago, but I think they've added to it. Yuka has tons of products. Yuka you can also use for beauty and personal care products as well.

Kelley DeLong:

So I have seen it for beauty products. I didn't know they had one for food.

Nika Lawrie:

So that's yeah, a lot of food ingredients have been added to that as well. And then Think Dirty also works, but last I checked, think Dirty was just beauty and personal care products. So Yuka and the Environmental Working Group food app are the two big ones that you want to use there. But give yourself a month of figuring this out as you shop and then you'll get used to those new brands. You'll just know which ones they are and then it's back to your regular shopping routine. You just know you have to buy those brands instead of the old brands, but it's really taking the time to read the ingredient labels, which is key.

Kelley DeLong:

And I liked the advice that you gave by starting small and really just looking at the things that you eat every day, because it can be very overwhelming when you are used to buying what you buy and to go into a store and, like you said, almost every label that you read is going to have something on it that you know isn't good. Yeah, I think that's a really good tip is to start with what you eat every day. So maybe, looking at my son's diet, he has yogurt every morning for breakfast. He absolutely loves his yogurt. So maybe we start somewhere like that where it's an everyday item and we don't worry so much about maybe the candy, because he doesn't eat candy, yeah, you know. So we already have cut that out. But taking a look at what he eats every single day and trying to make those small changes first.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, you know, and the thing I'll add to that too is like this is not a perfectionism game. This is a reduction game where you don't want it to negatively impact your life. Like you know, I have a daughter same age as your son and you know me like she still eats candy from time to time. We don't bring it in the house very often but, like you know, I let her eat candy here and there. Or, you know, there are different things here and there that I will let her have, or even that I eat from time to time, but the idea is limiting those exposures as much as possible.

Nika Lawrie:

I will tell you, I do not bring any, any food into my house that has like that we're going to eat regularly. Like we don't even buy cereal anymore, we just don't buy it, period. Um. But like you know, for things that I'm making her for lunch, I figured out what those brands are. I no longer buy the brands that have, um, a lot of those different additives or different dyes in them. So I know what I'm feeding my kids, so that I know if she eats a piece of candy at school or if we're at a birthday party and there's cake with that horrific icing on it. You know it's not going to completely derail us, right, and so you know it's really understanding that you're doing the very best you can to limit those exposures. There's some people that take it to the total extreme and remove everything. You can be that person if you want. I find that really difficult. I find it better to just limit it as much as possible and balance out your lifestyle with being healthy.

Kelley DeLong:

All right, so I know we were talking about shopping and stuff. What are some of the additives we should be looking out for specifically, and can you give a little more information on all of those?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah. So to prepare for this, I pulled a whole list because a lot of it's in my head, but I wanted to make sure that I really hit on a lot of them. And the thing that I'll add to this too is actually I'm going to create a downloadable guide, like a cheat sheet, that you can get. So check out the show notes and there'll be a link where you can download the guide that just a cheat sheet to keep with you when you go to the store for things to look out for. But let me go through some of the additives.

Nika Lawrie:

So we mentioned high fructose corn syrup. So high fructose corn syrup is linked to blood sugar spikes, which can exaggerate or exaggerate. You know what I'm trying to say Exacerbate, exacerbate, yes, hyperactivity, mood swings and impulsivity. Impulsivity is a really big one with sugar spikes, so that's really important to know. Msg, so monosodium glutamate this is a huge one. This is really important for adults too. It's a flavor enhancer. I know it was really big.

Nika Lawrie:

People talked about it a lot, probably like 10, 20 years ago, because it was a big additive in like Chinese food and stuff. But it's. It's really important to know that. So again, this is a flavor enhancer, but it can cause kind of a toxicity in the body and it can increase, increase hyperactivity. Aggravation is a big one and then kind of brain overwhelm. It really overstimulates the brain. A lot of people used to get migraines or headaches from it, and so kids who are having a hard time focusing or easily get overstimulated.

Nika Lawrie:

Msg is a big one and you want to look out for that. Especially in dressings like ranch dressing is really commonplace to find it. It can be in all kinds of things. But so monosodium glutamate sometimes you'll just see it listed as MSG. We talked about aspartame, but artificial sweeteners impact neurotransmitter functions, so that's really important thing to be aware of. And then it also can potentially worsen behavioral issues. Artificial preservatives so we went into these a little bit. But BHA, bht and TBHQ so again linked to hyperactivity and kids are especially sensitive to these. We did not talk about nitrates, so these are often found in processed foods, so like hot dogs, salami, pepperonis, those kinds of things.

Kelley DeLong:

You know a lot of that on the research I've done myself.

Nika Lawrie:

Treats are a big one. Yeah, Nitrates are huge, and so one of the things that causes is oxidative stress, and one of the issues that comes that we didn't really get into. But one of the issues that comes from kind of this issue within the brain of how the brain's functioning and how our neurons are interacting, is inflammation, and oxidative stress really causes inflammation throughout the whole body, and so as much as we can reduce that oxidative stress the better. So eating an anti-inflammatory diet is really key. That's a really good thing to think about. For kids with ADD or ADHD, too, is that anti-inflammatory diet? So doing whatever we can to cut out inflammatory foods. So nitrates, again, are kind of an inflammatory additive, but it causes oxidative stress.

Nika Lawrie:

We talked about emulsifiers. What else is there? Sodium benzoate that is a preservative. So it again helps create longer shelf life in these different foods. But again, this is directly. I mean there's direct scientific evidence that links this to hyperactivity and behavioral issues in children. So it's really looking at those preservatives that cause the inflammation in the body long-term and so whatever we can do to avoid those Sulfur dioxide and sulfites those are common one as well, those you'll see in like dried food or processed foods, and then what else? We did? The artificial colors again. So again yellow five, red 40, blue number one, but the big two are yellow five and red 40.

Kelley DeLong:

Right, yeah, so you talked a little bit there too about there being a lot of research. Can you explain a little bit more about the research or where we can find these tests or what kind of tests have been done to make these links?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah. So what I would actually recommend is looking up research that's done in the EU the European Union because what you'll see here in the US, there are a lot of articles and different things that you'll see that have conflicting information. So you'll see one article here that says, yes, this is causing behavioral issues in kids, and then you'll see a counter article or research article that says no, it's not, there's no proof that it's actually doing this. It's all made up In the US. What you have to do is then look at who paid for the study, and what is happening is a lot of independent researchers will do the study and then they'll find the results that show that these are causing behavioral issues, and then the food industry or one of the big food companies will pay to have the research done, and then the food industry or one of the big food companies will pay to have the research done, and then the research will say, oh, no, it doesn't cause any issues. And so that's the conflict of interest, and you'll see that over and over and over again with different chemicals, not just in the food industry but across the beauty and personal care industry as well. It's like, oh, there's no proof that this is causing issues.

Nika Lawrie:

So what I really find is that if you look for research outside of the United States, you look at what the UK, the European Union, india, there's several countries in South America that are really starting to get a lot stricter on food additives as well. So if you look at research outside of the US and what it's showing, you'll start to see a much more repetitive story about how this really is impacting our health and impacting children's health. So that's kind of the biggest place you can go to places like PubMed, which you can just type in. You can go to places like PubMed which you can just type in so P-U-B-M-E-D I think it's a dot com PubMed where you can look up different articles. I believe they have research articles from all over the world Don't quote me on that, it might just be US but that's a good place that you can start at least and then start looking for articles outside of the US.

Kelley DeLong:

So one last question for you what advice would you give to parents, and just women in general, who are concerned about food additives and dyes and artificial stuff in their food?

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah.

Nika Lawrie:

So the first thing I would say is understand this is a journey we kind of went into that already and so just start small and start building from there. The quicker you move, the more results you're going to see. But also, don't make it so stressful that your life is like chaos or your kid's not eating or whatever, because that's just going to you know that's going to zero out the benefits that you would get from changing the food anyways. Right. So understanding that.

Nika Lawrie:

Two is keeping a food journal when you first start. So maybe even before you start cutting things out, one of the things people will do is track down what foods either they or their kids are eating every day and then looking at those ingredients and then following a keeping track of how the mood or activity of that person is afterwards. So you know this kid had, you know, yogurt with dyes or something for breakfast and then had a hot dog for lunch and then had cereal for dinner Hopefully the kid's not eating that, but right, like that's an example and then throughout the day had behavioral issues or aggression or hyperactivity and had a really hard time. And then this issue the next day too, because food's not going to just impact you from one meal to the next. It has a longer life than you would think. I mean it can impact you three to four, even five days after you've eaten it. So kind of keeping that journal on having an idea of how the food's impacting you over time can be really helpful as well. When you're starting out that's something you want to do. And then the last thing I would say specifically for moms or parents with kids, is get the kids involved.

Nika Lawrie:

I have started having these conversations with my daughter over the last couple of years about how food can impact them, how different chemicals can impact her, and it's hilarious. We'll go to grocery stores now so a lot of receipts have BPA on them, which is an endocrine disrupting chemical, and so my daughter won't even touch receipts now. Like she refuses to touch receipts. It's really funny, you know, and I touch them with like my nails, like I try not to touch them. I pretty much don't even keep them if I don't have to.

Nika Lawrie:

You know, and she knows she'll know what brands she can have and which ones she can't, and so she's. And it's not to tell her, you know, start a um like a issue around food. It's just educating her to understand. Let's fuel our body with good food and let's avoid the unhealthy foods that are going to make us feel like crap. And so it's educating those kids, and you'd be surprised how interested they get um when they get involved with it. And so I'd say, definitely have that conversation with your kids and get them involved in the transition too, because they ultimately want to feel good and have good energy and be able to think clearly and have good days at school too.

Kelley DeLong:

And that's important and you said, educating them about the good versus bad and not just telling them this food is good, this food is bad, explaining to them how it's good for you or how this can be harmful to you. And I think, yeah, that's setting them up for their future to make as good choices as they're going along.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, I mean what I find. You know they're miniature adults, right, and so they're going to slip up. They want the candy, just like we do, but they also want to feel good, and so they know oh, if I eat a bunch of this, I'm going to feel like crap. Maybe I should eat something else too, and so they really are a lot better about it than you would think when you actually involve them in the decision-making process. So it's really key. Well, kelly, thank you so so much for going through this with me and asking all these great questions. I'm super grateful for it and I appreciate you. So, thank you.

Kelley DeLong:

Thanks for having me and thanks for the at the end there, that advice that you had is really actionable items and doable things that make this not so overwhelming, so I appreciate that.

Nika Lawrie:

Absolutely yeah. The key is just baby.

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