Alexx Stuart - Low Tox Life

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This week on the podcast Mikki speaks to Alexx Stuart, creator of Low Tox Life. They discuss Alexx’s introduction into this area and the many things that are in our environment that can impact on overall health. They also discuss who might be more susceptible and steps to take to help reduce overall exposure.

Alexx Stuart is an educator and change agent who founded Low Tox Life in 2010 after seeing the lack of transparency in our food system, personal care and cleaning products. She's built a movement that's non-judgmental, positive and says low tox peeps are a force to be reckoned with! A columnist for Wellbeing magazine, she is also a sought-after speaker and consultant to businesses committing to change for good.

https://www.lowtoxlife.com/
https://www.lowtoxlife.com/podcast/
https://www.amazon.com/Low-Tox-Life-handbook-healthy/dp/1760634395/ref=asc_df_1760634395/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693033695448&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11104054897524309584&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9010328&hvtargid=pla-522111621569&psc=1&mcid=e5211b3d85a43095b1ef993a0f4920d0&gad_source=1

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Creators & Guests

Host

Mikki Williden

What is Mikkipedia?

Mikkipedia is an exploration in all things health, well being, fitness, food and nutrition. I sit down with scientists, doctors, professors, practitioners and people who have a wealth of experience and have a conversation that takes a deep dive into their area of expertise. I love translating science into a language that people understand, so while some of the conversations will be pretty in-depth, you will come away with some practical tips that can be instigated into your everyday life. I hope you enjoy the show!

00:00
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here, you're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast I speak to Alexx Stuart, creator of Low Talks Life.

00:13
What a great conversation Alexx and I have. We discuss Alex's introduction into the area of exposure to toxins in the environment and in our food and our skincare products, et cetera, and how she really started to explore the lack of transparency in the food system, personal care and cleaning products. We discuss the many things that

00:41
can impact our overall health in the environment, who might be more susceptible, and steps you can take to reduce your overall exposure. I really love this conversation because Alex is certainly not scaremongering in this space and is really practical about the things that you can do to help improve your overall living environment and who it is really important for. For those of you unfamiliar with Alex, she is an educator and change agent

01:11
who founded Low Tox Life back in 2010, after seeing the lack of transparency in those aforementioned areas, the food system, personal care and cleaning products. She's built a movement that's non-judgmental, positive and says Low Tox peeps are a force to be reckoned with. I really love that. She's a columnist for the Wellbeing Magazine, also a sought after speaker and consultant to businesses committing to change for good. Alex has a podcast, the Low Tox.

01:40
Life podcast. She has a really active website and is the author of several books, including one that we chat about, the Low Tox Life Handbook, and there's also one that is related specifically to food. I really think you're going to love this conversation. It was super informative. Before we crack on into the podcast though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of

02:09
Micopedia and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts out there. So more people get the opportunity to hear from guests that I have on the show, like Alex Stewart. All right team, enjoy this conversation.

02:26
help people not freak out. And that is the thing. So I often every time, like, you can't unknow what you know when it comes to food and products and environment. And I just seem to follow so many people who are very knowledgeable about the toxins that we are exposed to. And it can be...

02:53
What, I don't even know what the word is. What is it? It's not frightening. Overwhelming. Overwhelming, overwhelming of what, as an individual you need to worry about, what is like what you have to think about for your family, but also other things that we worry about that actually we are needlessly sort of churning it over in our mind and it's actually not a big deal. And as an expert, I think you're gonna help us with that. Yes, that is the plan. Let's do it. Nice one, Alex.

03:24
First of all, and I know that you've written, if I say three books, have I got that correct? Well, it depends. If you count e-books, I've written about 30, but I've had two books published, Low Tox Life, which was the original that looks at the whole philosophy, food, body, home and mind. And then I really wanted to do a book that calmed the landscape around food and what the intersection was between our health and the planet.

03:53
when it's just people fighting over the wrong things online and not naming the actual bad guys and the actual biggest leavers. And that was what my second book was about. Amazing. I love the way that you said that calm the landscape because that is what that 100% what it is. And, you know, and I know that we'll get into that in our conversation, but that did just remind me of, I was listening to someone else yesterday talking about how

04:24
is we talk about the environment, the health of the planet, and people don't put it above the health of the individual and humans, but they forget the moral obligation to be a healthy individual and healthy race before, the way that they put it was before the planet per se. Because I guess how can you show up in your best possible way if you yourself isn't healthy? I thought that was a really- 100%.

04:52
I actually spoke to that recently on socials because I was just seeing, well, I mean, you know, we all want to do our bit and we all want to make sure we leave our little patch and what's in our control a bit better for the next generation, of course. But you can't do that in a chronic illness and crisis care epidemic where we're just, people are just getting sicker and sicker and sicker. But the problem with discussing how to fix the planet.

05:21
through food is that has been completely hijacked by huge companies that we don't even have access to the negotiation tables that exist out there. And we don't have studies that separate out, like I mean, look at all the meat studies. And I remember watching a documentary with my son when he was doing a biomes unit in year nine geography. And I was like,

05:47
Are they trying to indoctrinate you a certain way here with this unit? Let's watch that documentary you told me you watched in class. And his teacher had shown him only half the documentary that spoke to a few negatives, but then the entire second half was a balanced perspective that said, actually, we're not doing the right kind of studies. And if you look at healthy individuals who include me,

06:13
otherwise healthy lives. It's incredibly healthful food that's very good for mental health and nervous systems and we know we have a mental health crisis. So how could this thing be bad? And it's actually about the way we farm that is not great and it's actually about the processed food that's not great. I mean imagine swapping a healthy

06:38
lamb chop that a farmer would have eaten traditionally for breakfast with an egg on toast, let's say, and swapping it for cereal and milk. I mean, it makes no sense. Then we look at the way we farm that cereal and milk and we go, oh, yeah, it's got a lot more to do with how our food is being made, where it's coming from. Frankly, access that farmers have to have their own agency. There's so much red tape in that world as well. So,

07:07
I think we think that we know what we should be doing, but actually because that has been so heavily influenced by industry with the way democracy has unfortunately ended up in this capitalist landscape, nothing wrong with capitalism, but there is something wrong with it when you can start paying politicians to veto or vote for certain bills with your unlimited lobby funds.

07:34
You know, that's how we got the food pyramid back in the 70s when you read that origin story with just all lobby groups fighting over a table about who gets to have the most important food. I mean, what a ridiculous thing to base recommendations on. It's frightening. I know. And sometimes I feel, Alex, that people think that it's very conspiracy theory to have that mindset around these ideas. You know, it's almost like people...

08:03
don't want to push back on authority because those authority groups, surely they're doing it with our best interests at heart. And it astounds me. Well we wouldn't be healthy by now if that was the case. 100% agree. We would have gotten healthier. Yes, yes, and that hasn't happened. So no. Yeah, I know. And then if we think about the substitution of, you know, if you're not supposed to eat meat, what are you supposed to eat? And then you start looking at.

08:32
the other options on the table. And they are heavily processed. They have significant costs associated with their production and of course their access. So how one particular country might not be able to farm a particular type of grain or something because of the environment. So therefore they have to ship everything in or fly everything in. What are the costs associated there? These are just not things which...

09:01
we think about because we're not, it's not easy information to sort of. It's not. And we don't have access to how things work very easily. So you see your bowl of cereal, you see the made with healthy grains, you see, you know, milk coming from a cow. So that must be natural. And that's what we see. But behind that, this soft plastic packaging that's come from petroleum. There's.

09:26
extractive farming that's taking away minerals from our soils over time. There's so many logistics levers that need to be pulled for the processing to happen and for it to end up under fluorescent blue lights in a supermarket. I mean, it's just the whole system is dead. We end up with this dead lifeless food at the end of it with all life taken out of it. That's 60 to

09:55
It drives me nuts that we still have influences having meat versus beans fights. Eat your beans, eat your meat. Eat your meat. Just do whatever you want to do. Let's attack the processed food. Please. Yeah. A hundred percent, Alex. And I sort of dive right into an area which I knew that we would discuss at some point. I know, but we just went straight for light. I know. The biggest, most complicated problem. But we have to have these discussions and we have to know that.

10:24
It is not a conspiracy theory. Uh, but there is conspiracy theorism in the world, but I feel like the concept of it and the word has been diluted such that simply asking a question of a system that is failing people is then pinned as a conspiracy theory in and of itself. I agree. It's a more dismissive tactic. Actually, it's a, it's a tactic to avoid the conversation. And to belittle people.

10:53
And it's the equivalent of calling paramenopausal women in the 1800s crazy because they talked about symptoms. It's like anyone that tries to say, hey, there's something wrong here, gets called a nutso. And it's, I mean, that is very easy to do in this system when very few voices get to control narratives these days. So I think the more we talk about it and just kind of make people.

11:22
oh yeah, that does actually sound quite reasonable when you put it that way. If we can get a couple more people to think, I might look into that. I'm not trying to sell anyone anything, but to be more open-minded, I think would stand us in good stead for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And just be curious, right? So Alex, when did you become curious about this entire area? So can you, if we do just walk it back a little bit, I'd love to hear your sort of backstory, I suppose, as to

11:52
how you got interested in toxins, the low-tox life, and obviously subsequent sort of issues that I'm sure we'll talk about. So I think I have ADHD and I've since learned that neurodivergent people, ADHD people specifically, tend to be very justice-oriented. They do not like it. They can't move past something that just ain't right.

12:19
and let it go. Some people can just go, yeah, but that's got nothing to do with my life and just move on quietly about their business. I cannot. And it made so much of my childhood make sense about things happening in the playground or, you know, doing a history unit on the civil rights movement in the States and thinking, my gosh, and you're falling in love with Martin Luther King's teachings and just thinking, this is

12:45
crazy that we have hurt people so badly for our own gain and benefit. My ancestors have and I really, that was my first kind of, wow, the world has kind of got some dark spots and I really need to understand how I might be able to help. And I was a muso as a teen and I remember me and my first boyfriend, like kind of just dreaming up these ways of being like Geldo and...

13:12
a Geldof and Bono and doing, you know, doing something really big and impactful. But then you kind of start ticking off your society checklist. You go to uni, you get the more serious boyfriend, you think about getting married. Then in the mid twenties, your life tends to blow up again and you question everything. And, you know, we've all been through these moments in our lives that kind of rip us apart. You have to put yourself back together and they're the highest growth parts of our lives. And the.

13:42
The time when I left cosmetics actually, which was an industry I adored, I was so proud of the products that we sold. They were stunning. It was one of the most luxurious French houses. Who did you work for? I worked for, I don't tend to badmouth them because they tend to be one of the good guys, but they are in the LVMH portfolio, so one of the big luxury brands. I remember thinking about the

14:10
algae from the Aegean Sea that was helping our customers with their wrinkles. I mean, it's just hilarious when you think about all the other ingredients we never got trained on in retrospect. But I remember leaving that industry because I started to just feel allergic to being there. And it was inexplicable to me at the time. But it was a twofold allergy, allergy to admin going into more seniority.

14:39
and not recognizing that I had the power to own my zone of genius, which was always teaching, training, motivating, moving around, helping people, putting out fires and coming to the rescue, that's me. And then you get more senior and you get more officey and it just sucked the life out of me, coupled with these migraines that I just couldn't shake. And I had to leave the whole thing and I didn't know why, but I just had to.

15:07
How did you feel at the time? Were you like devastated because you had this real sense of, you know, like you, because of the elements you were just describing that you felt so passionate about helping people? Like, or had you reached this point where it was just, there was no other way? I remember I started becoming quite an infective person who was just bad mouthing people, whinging.

15:29
you know, that kind of thing. Gosh, honey, you have reached your expiration date. Who knows what's ahead, but it ain't this. And that's, you know, some career advice for anyone out there. But I remember then just wanting to sing. And so I became a singer and a songwriter, and I was just happy as Larry and

15:52
I made some amazing friends who are, some of them are quite famous now. You might've heard of Lea Moore and Wes Carr and- Amazing. So we were all doing pubs and clubs and I was singing with DJs at the middle of the night and night clubs and I loved my new life. And I realized I also didn't get headaches anymore or migraines. I had no idea why, but they just literally when I left cosmetics-

16:20
I was not a migraine headache person anymore. Crazy. And not so crazy once we understand why. But then cut to getting married, being in hospitality for a bit, having a baby and then having the baby shower just before he was born. I had gone on a food journey to identify that gluten seemed to be an inflammatory food for me. I say for me because I am not a believer that there are universally bad foods.

16:49
that are terrible for everybody. And again, if we talk about gluten, it can be about the way it's farmed and where it's from, because in France, I don't have an issue the way I do here. And so I'd been on that journey of cleaning up my diet and learning how to cook and reading food labels and going, what is all the rest of this stuff, nevermind the gluten. So it had that kind of food.

17:13
wave of realisation of simplifying things and eating whole foods and a naturopath had been amazing with that. So I knew how to read labels and I thought, oh, just have a look at these things that my friends have given me for my barb. And I was just horrified. I was like, what? And so then it made me look at the stuff I used to sell, $400 face creams mind and that was $400 25 years ago. So God knows what they cost now. And I was like,

17:42
wow, they never told us about any of this. It was endo chemicals in the name of parabens and preservatives like that. It was carcinogens like dioxin, which was a byproduct in a lot of sodium lauryl sulfate or ETH, ETH kind of ending sounding foaming agents. There were a lot of harsh preservatives that could exacerbate it.

18:11
eczema, dermatitis. I thought what would, what makes sense to be putting this on a newborn, let alone a fully grown adult? I was, I was so shocked. And I think that teenager from the old Martin Luther King speech days who had prejudices, ignorance across my desk that I had hand painted as a mural just came back and said, no, people need to know this. Now, of course I had no platform. And I often say this when I mean,

18:40
with my business coaching mentees, like, please don't think that you have to wait until there's lots of people in front of you to say something. Like I just started cooking for my friends and they'd say, this is delicious. How did you make that? And then I would give them a recipe, like grandma style influencing. And I think that is how real change actually happens because in those beautiful, generous exchanges of information and knowledge,

19:09
It feels like something you want to receive versus a lot of the fear-based health landscape I see today, which is why I think people gravitate towards my stuff is I'm not there to make you panic, freak out or feel like you have no agency in an awful big bad world. I want to help you bridge the gap. I want to help you think, okay, no, you can't do everything today or even this year, but what is important to you right now? And, and so that's how it started. I started a little blog.

19:39
that my sister helped me set up, which was Alex Stewart, real food, low-tox living. And then a few years later, when some random on the internet said, you should start a Facebook page, wasn't even my idea. I did, I figured out how to do it. I'm such a tech ladite, but here we all are online because it's helpful, right? It helps us get our jobs done if we feel like we need to be a part of solutions. And...

20:09
The rest is history. More and more blogs, just picking up everyday things. Whoa, tooth floss covered in PFAS. Is there any tooth floss that isn't? Okay, let's go find some. Here are the three brands that I can recommend, you know, and just doing that with everyday things. Then it became the e-course, Go Low Tox, which that was 10 years ago now. Then that became my first book where I really realized food was very much a part of low tox living as I had defined it.

20:37
And so Low Tox Life, I trademarked in 2014, and under that was food, body, home, and mind. Because the first time I ran Go Low Tox, I'll never forget it, was with 360 women who had signed up to say, I wanna know more about all this stuff. And I called it 30 days to your Low Tox life. And it was the worst thing I could have done because

21:06
What an awful thing to make people think that they could entirely upheave their lives in 30 days. I mean, that is really poor psychological management of fellow humans. And because I had always been a teacher trainer, I picked up on the panic in the first few days. Oh, yeah. And I put so much positive psychology into everything that I was doing to mitigate that panic, to make people feel empowered. And I thought that is...

21:34
actually the most important thing. Knowledge does not matter. You know this in your field. You can know everything you want to know about macros and micros and phytonutrients and antioxidants and different ages and stages and hormone panels and testing and labs. But if you're not going to know what to do, then, and if you're not going to feel good about and excited to do it.

22:01
then the knowledge is useless. The testing, everything, it's useless. And so that is really where I made sure I put my focus from that point on. Yeah, amazing. And I can, you know, same thing with food. One of the biggest barriers sometimes to making diet change is almost guilt associated with how you feel about it. And I feel it must be the same with the people you work with. You get scared and guilted into doing everything. And that is actually what big tech

22:31
thrive, what anyone succeeding in big tech thrives on these days. It's so refreshing when you then see a positive, big influence voice. You know, I just like even in the, in the weight and, um, and personal confidence and body confidence and female confidence, I just came across. I mean, I'm just, I must've been under a rock. She's got millions of followers, but Jamal Jalil. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And I was just like,

22:59
Oh my gosh, you are wonderful. You are a beacon like Dr. Mary Claire in the whole menopause thing. There's doctors making freak out about everything out there with midlife. And she just comes in, she's like, we've got this ladies and here's what we can do. And I just think we need people that make us feel like we're being cheerlead through life and not like.

23:24
scared into falling in line and saluting attention like we're in the army. That is not sustainable change. There's a reason soldiers unfortunately end up with poor mental health outcomes because you've literally been scared into everything, scared into obeying people, scared into orders, scared on the battlefield. I mean, you know the system catches up with you at some point and you

23:53
fear and guilt based action and we need antidotes. So I like to be an antidote. Yeah, no, I love it, Alex. Now, you have alluded to a couple of things with regards to endocrine disruptors and sort of skin irritation, but why is it important for us to think about what is in our skincare products, what is around our home? Like, do you have like a really good synopsis?

24:20
Yeah, so think about food. Your audience would be very good at making that connection between, I'm putting this in my mouth, it's going into my body, some of it gets to turn into tissue if I'm optimising my nutrition and then the rest, not so much. And we want to improve what is turning into being a part of us. Same goes for what we are breathing into our lungs, same goes for what we are putting onto our skin. We are a whole living absorbing system. Yeah.

24:49
not just about what's going into the mouth. Now I'm not saying that to make people think, oh crap, now I've got to worry about everything. It is just that we have to know kind of like where our conversation started that just because something's on a shelf, unfortunately does not mean it is perfectly healthy and safe. Yeah. You know, our average mainstream cleaning product and

25:19
fragrance product and our average mainstream home fragrancing products are unfortunately made by the same kinds of companies who think it's a great idea to put a kid's band on a yogurt and then fill that yogurt full of fillers and gels because it's cheaper and the kids will still buy it and pester their moms because Bluey's on there or because the Wiggles are on there. We're doing the same thing with fragrance. We put the flowers on our...

25:46
fabric softener packaging and go, oh, that makes me feel nice. That's natural. Yeah, a picture of the ocean, or we call a deodorant ocean fresh. And that says something about who I am, I love the ocean. So marketers know this, and we have to outsmart the marketing because the chemical industry is largely self-regulated. There's over 140,000 manmade chemicals in circulation since World War II, which was really the chemical boom.

26:14
where a lot of companies both in, well, a lot of companies in agriculture and chemicals and food manufacturing started to think, well, these were emergency products that we used in war times, but we don't want to lose these profits. How can we keep using them? How can we find a place for these chemicals in modern society? Lobby groups exploded around that time as well.

26:41
And this is all very well documented in several different books. I can even, for the nerds who really love diving into this stuff, I'll send you a few recommendations, Mickey, because it really is fascinating to become so much more aware of how we got here. And I think it's a really exciting part of putting that fire in the belly to change where we're going, whether that's us personally or then as a collective with choosing a different future for our kids.

27:11
Um, and so, uh, I think it's best to just start thinking, okay, so if that is the case, how am I most easily placed to not be overwhelmed by now thinking about what goes into my lungs, uh, and becomes a part of me or becomes a toxicity, um, and the same for the skin and the easiest way to do that.

27:37
is obviously to connect with people like me who have recommendations readily available. You do not need to go out there and do it with other people who've been doing it for years, find someone you gel with, doesn't even have to be me. It's really important to gel with your person who's going to help you make good changes in this internet life because you don't want to show up and feel like...

28:00
Oh God, what are they talking about today? Or he's going to make me feel bad about something. She's going to make me feel terrified of some chemical. You know, I always say unfollow, unfollow, unfollow anyone who scares or guilts you into change, but someone who makes you think and go, Oh, I reckon. Yeah, that's important. And I reckon I could do that. Or yeah, I might look at that dehumidifier and prevent mold, or I might look at, um, ditching the fabric softener now that I know that that's pumping, um,

28:29
endocrine disruptive air into my home, which means into my and my family's lungs. You know, it's, it's easy changes if you go bit by bit and think about what your priorities are. So if you're someone who's been tendency allergic, a bit hivy, you or someone in your house is maybe eczema prone, dermatitis prone, you find you can't possibly do the washing up without wearing gloves, otherwise you get irritated skin.

28:57
then that might be the place you start. You start with your washing up liquid and you think, okay, it's running out. What am I gonna choose next?

29:08
I was just going to ask, and this is a thing because you go to the supermarket and there are a range of different products there. A lot of them say they're eco or they might have plant-based written on them. I 100% understand a nutrition information panel and ingredient list when it comes to food. I feel like I should be smart enough to understand this stuff, but I feel overwhelmed by the chemicals that are in.

29:37
even the plant-based or the eco products. So what is it that we should be looking out for? Like do you have like a top three or four? I do 100% and the best thing you can do, the best thing you can know when it comes to cleaning products is that if they're listing their full ingredients that is already a fantastically big green flag because chemical companies

30:03
and cleaning companies don't need to list full ingredients for proprietary reasons. Same reason you can have fragrance as a word on a label and it can actually hide over 100 chemicals in that umbrella term. So there are these, you can't copy me and it's not technically personal care so we don't have to, it's not technically food, it's not being ingested but our skin and our lungs do ingest. So it's a very sketchy loophole.

30:30
that ingestion loophole. Your skin's like your biggest organ, isn't it? That's what people say, right? Yeah. And so, best is to A, find cleaning products that are very happy to list absolutely everything that's in there. Second is if you see the word fragrance, but you don't see an asterisk next to it that explains it is essential oils and plant extracts, then that's a red flag, even if they've been good and they've listed everything. It's a red flag because...

30:59
they could be using synthetic fragrances. And this really is one of the things that we need to start reducing bit by bit in our homes once we clock it. So the synthetic fragrances could be the candles that we're addicted to that are 50 bucks. Why? How do we get convinced? Yeah, yeah. Do that. That's a really good point, Ashley, because you can spend a lot of money. And when people spend a lot of money, they think that they're buying a good.

31:27
product, but that's obviously not the case. No, they're not. Luxury product and good product are not necessarily mutually exclusive. No, they are not. And we have been convinced that like dried fig and creme brulee in a candle makes sense. But again, it's like the flowers on the thing. You just think, oh, they're just trying to make me tell myself something about myself to get the, okay, I get this. All right.

31:56
just start smelling stuff and go, does that smell like the thing it's saying it is? And I'm pretty sure you're gonna smell that deodorant and think, okay, I'm not picking up the ocean. I can't, quiet. Or you're gonna start smelling that fabric softener and say, so I was in my mom's garden last week smelling the roses and they didn't smell like this. And you'll start realizing how much of it's synthetic. Why is that a problem? Because synthetic fragrances in a mainstream context do tend

32:25
to have a plasticizer hormone disruptive chemical called phthalates, P-H-T-H-A-L-A-T-E-S. The plasticizer is sticky, so it's what makes the fragrance last. Have you ever been given a bag? I mean, I've got a son. Often, people with kids, they hand each other a bag of clothes when their kid gets too big and down it goes.

32:55
We then realize that three, four, five washes later, those clothes still smell like your friend's clothes, not like your clothes. That's the plasticizing phthalate doing its job to stick. That is unfortunately a type of chemical that is known to block or mimic hormone production, specifically estrogen. So this one, yeah, you think, oh, that's terrible for women. And yes, it can be.

33:25
proving to be even worse for men. We now know that testosterone and sperm are dropping in our men and boys. In phthalate studies, they actually have one that shows the female factory workers where phthalates were processed and produced had a far higher likelihood of their male baby boys being born with male genital malformations.

33:55
micro penises, a closer gap between the penis and the butthole. Sorry, I'm just having a biology and that is hugely concerning and it doesn't make front page news and I actually had this fantastic husband who came along with his wife to a workshop recently that I was running and he said, so I appreciate it and I can see the study there on the screen and I believe you,

34:25
don't we know about this? Why isn't this outlawed once we know this? And I think that's a common objection. Like if this was an issue, we would know about it. Someone would have picked it up. We wouldn't be having this conversation in little workshops with 20 people. What do you know? Like it would be mainstream. Yeah, so I love that question because it's a hard question and you have to be quite.

34:49
delicate when you open someone's eyes up a little wider than they've ever been and say, okay, well, let's have a look at the news. Let's have a look at the ads in the Sydney Morning Herald and the ads on channel seven, you know, mainstream news outlets. And you know, there's some wonderful pieces of information that also come out of these outlets. Don't get me wrong. They can be very useful in a lot of different contexts. And

35:15
Personally, there are a couple of journos that I follow in the Sydney Morning Herald that I adore. The one who just recently broke the PFAS story. Amazing journalism. So, it's not that everything's bad. I'm not a black and white person, but it is to just comment on the fact that they wouldn't exist if they didn't have advertisers. And who are those advertisers? Yeah, the very companies that we're talking about. They are the very companies that we're talking about. What happens when you continue?

35:43
to write bad things about people who pay your entire organisation's force. Yeah. They're going to pull their ads. They're going to threaten. We have seen this done a number of times and it's certainly why I have a very tiny group of brands that I would ever consider working with when it comes to sponsoring our show, for example. There just simply aren't that many who are doing absolutely the right thing through and through. And so...

36:11
Once you understand that, I remember I had a really successful idea for, you know, move through different parts of your home type show and it got to like the producer, three times it got to a producer and the producer couldn't see the commercial sense because they couldn't see how they were going to fund it because who would fund it? Yeah. How would we get the ad revenue to make this actually something no one would say yes because of the things that are in the content?

36:41
that are gonna make the people healthier. Yeah. And you know what, I often think with that, because you've got the likes of Bill Gates and the billionaires who run, who are interested in the meat-free message, and that's the stuff that they fund, and they fund things like Impossible Burger, and things like that. If only their interests lay more in the areas that we're talking about and actually coming up with solutions in the skincare.

37:08
cleaning space. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be amazing? I always say like, when was the last time you saw a bus shelter campaign for lentils? When was the last time you saw a bus shelter campaign for organic grass-fed beef? When was the last time you saw a bus shelter campaign for apples? You don't see them. Why? Because they're not

37:36
profitable enough to make sense in a business model context to have that much fat left over to do a bus shelter campaign Yeah, and that is the reality of the system We live in whether it's about the news whether it's about the products we end up having marketed to us either because of a premium shelf space position or In a magazine and once people understand the way that business model works

38:03
we go, okay, well, that means the truth doesn't always come out. Yeah. And so you then have a more delicate situation where you have to decide who you trust when you do go and seek out the truth, because there you will find people who are opportunistically trying to take you down an actual conspiracy theory path because they know you're more malleable and open-minded now. Yeah. So.

38:29
It is an interesting landscape to stay gray, stay questioning, but also question all the new people that pop up. I often find the middle is a pretty healthy space to land where you take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and the truth floats to the top once you see the fights that happen and the things that are actually inarguable, which is what is intrinsically healthy for the human.

38:58
and the land. And that always ends up being the same thing. Yeah. Alex, you know, I know that there'll be people out there who will be seemingly impervious to any chemical, any horrible food that, you know, they're the people who can drink coffee at four o'clock and then go to sleep and, you know, like all of this stuff. So are there things which make some people more susceptible than others to the dangers that are associated with these chemicals?

39:27
There can be like, think about when you've eaten sugar and we know that that means your immune system function is blunted for a little bit, goes down for a few hours while you're trying to deal with that whole insulin glucose mess that, you know, it's quite hard for your body to deal with. So the energy goes there. And then if you walk past someone with a raging cold or other virus,

39:55
you are way more likely to get sick because your immune system shut down a bit because the digestive system said, hey, I need a bit more help over here. That is how bodies work. And so if you are super stressed, again, then other parts of your body aren't getting to work as optimally. Your detox function, for example. Let's just say you're recovering from an operation and you've been given painkillers.

40:20
And we know that depletes glutathione and depletes liver function therefore. And so then your processing center of your body is not doing as good a job of things that are coming in. So it's usually when you're compromising yourself or being compromised in some way for a prolonged period of time that something gives. Uh, so, um, for me, it was living in a water damaged building for several years. I had been so healthy being low tox.

40:49
for probably about five years going into living in that apartment. I'd had a baby, it had a very successful postpartum recovery, even though I had to have an emergency C, like I was healthy. Then there was mold and then there was mold every day. And then other things started to affect me in ways that I hadn't been affected by them before because my body was dealing with this onslaught of something day after day in my indoor environment that I didn't know about.

41:19
Really think about yourself like a soup and think about your stresses, think about diet, think about relationships, think about sense of general safety in the world and in your home and a number of things if they're out of whack will, and then genetics of course as well, it is a part of it, will then predispose you to be more susceptible to things than other people at certain, it's usually about certain points in your life.

41:49
Oh, it was actually when we moved to that country. It was actually when I took that new super stressful job and then things started to get a little bit. And then I became chemically sensitive. I started to get really bugged by fragrances all of a sudden. So it's not to say that, oh, if you're not chemically sensitive, don't worry about fragrances because that could be the exposure that ends up tanking your ability to process other chemicals well. Right. So it's about lightening your load.

42:19
to something that you feel safe and can tolerate. And sometimes part of that safety and tolerating is conscious. And sometimes it's your organs just doing stuff and they're like, I'm not safe, this is too hard, I can't do it anymore. And they give up. And it's why I think a lot of stuff starts to emerge in midlife because, you know, especially with women, hormones are fluctuating all of a sudden again. Like who wasn't sick as a dog a few times during puberty?

42:46
I mean, we're like, you know, I remember sick days in high school. We all had something sometimes as girls. And it's because, you know, like our bodies were very busy trying to establish their hormone situation. It's happening again in midlife. Look at all the autoimmune conditions we get. We're stressed. We're at career peaks. We've got teenagers, a lot of us, we've got aging parents. Like, of course things start to go haywire with our health. So why wouldn't it make sense to lighten the load environmentally with

43:16
using more naturally fragrance things or trying fragrance free things, cleaning up what we're using in our laundry options, and then thinking about the health of our homes and looking after them better. So things like mould aren't present and we deal with things more quickly. Mould is a big one, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. And I think the US must be everywhere actually. And it's a big scary thing for people to consider because

43:44
you don't see it necessarily. And then to deal with it is so expensive and life itself is expensive anyway. Like I just really feel for people who realize that they've got this huge thing to, huge burden that they now have to deal with. It's really tough. I'm not gonna lie, it was the toughest thing I went through on a number of levels.

44:09
losing your life savings because it's a chronic illness that you end up developing because no one believes you. So you search and you bounce around between different specialists and you realize how broken our specialist model is. And then of course the moving, the replacing furniture, it's incredibly taxing thing to go through. And I think

44:35
The fact that you're on your own with such a big thing as a home and all of its possessions, never mind the health of the person in the home who might be affected. I really feel for anyone who's on that journey and it's why I've dedicated so much content time to literacy around prevention because not everybody has leaks. A lot of people just don't know that if your humidity is above 60% for a couple of days or more.

45:04
and you got a bit of dust, that's all mold needs to start. So keeping those drier dehumidified areas. I mean, we were never meant to have these buildings that just sat here for hundreds of years. So we've got to look after them and we've got to keep them from getting too humid. And it's an amazing mindset shift once you have a couple of dehumidifiers, you think, wow, I haven't had a moldy set of shoes at the end of winter in years or.

45:32
I haven't had to clean mold out of my bathroom for years. I don't think I've had a mold problem in my bathroom for, yeah, since I clocked that dehumidifying was actually the solution to cleaning mold in bathrooms. It wasn't. Oh, amazing. Yes. Because nothing cleans it anyway. I mean, even if you use something natural like a clove oil, the chemical reaction of trying to kill mold is actually quite dangerous.

45:58
And so, and bleach is awful. Yes, it gets rid of the look of it, but it's a food source. It's still moisture. So it's just eating in the background, quiet and transparent, like wearing an invisible cloak. Is a bathroom fan, is that the same thing as a dehumidifier? No. So those extractor fans, especially if you're living in a more modern house.

46:23
They often don't flew outside directly. They often flew into wall cavities or roofs. Oh, yes. So that's your number one issue. You're pumping humid air into cavities, which can then end up having mold grow on things like drywall, which is a really porous building material we use in modern times, unfortunately. Or you then have the issue of them just not being powerful enough. They don't dehumidify. They just take out humid air.

46:53
So yeah, it can be helpful to take out steam, but what about all the moisture that's left on all the walls once the steam is gone? Oh, what a good call. Yeah, that is such a practical and actionable thing that anyone can do. Get it dehumidifier. Yeah, mate, that was what, seriously what I'm going to do this weekend because that description that you just gave is exactly our bathroom. It's fine, but it's definitely humid and you can definitely see the moisture. You feel it.

47:21
Yeah. And then you're like trying to re-grout and re-silicone all the time and, yeah, boring. Yeah, 100%. Alex, you're, so you've mentioned obviously fragrances are a huge one. What about those products like Persil, the sensitive skin and fragrance-free air freshener, I don't know if there is such a thing as fragrance-free air freshener. Probably not.

47:45
Fly spray, maybe everyone knows fly spray is not good for you. Oh yes, no, fly spray is not good for you. I know, I know. Very bad. So, but what about those other things which we wash our clothes with or that we put on our skin that might not have fragrance? What are other things that we need to be mindful of? Yeah, so quite often when it's an unfragrance like dermatology recommended type product like Cetaphil is one that we have here.

48:12
And then you look on the ingredient panels and you see hormone disruptive preservatives and you're like, hold on, why is this recommended? Yeah, and what is a hormone disrupt? What do I look for there? The word fragrance, obviously we've covered, but there can also be paraben still. And then you have the skin irritants, which bizarrely often end up on these labels as well. Like it's methylazolome.

48:42
And it's got a twin, they're often together. It's a big long M word. Okay. And obviously we'll put resources. I just escaped me right now, but I'll put it in the resources for sure. And there is so much research to show that these preservatives irritate the skin, and yet they end up in a lot of skincare products. There's a lot of research to show that they irritate the skin and then possibly have carcinogenic contaminants, and they end up in things like sun cream.

49:12
Yeah. And you're just like, hold on, we're trying to prevent the whole cancer thing there. So that's not to say don't use sunscreen. In Australia, if you're out in the midday sun, that would be dangerous. You would get very burnt no matter how much seed oil you've taken out of your diet and all the things you've seen Dave Asprey say on the internet. You can still get very burnt and sun damaged in a hot Australian sun. I can feel it's very different to being with my French family on the other side of the world where you're like, oh, I didn't get burnt. How?

49:41
And so there is a place for it, but fantastically, we have so many low-tox options now. So if you're completely new to this game, I would say start following people in your local country who have lots of recommendations, like on our lowtoxlife.com shop page. Part of it is actually just shops that I recommend, like here, just go there because they're safe. Amazing, and Australia and New Zealand, very similar. Yeah, and when you're just learning,

50:10
can just okay so at least I know she said I can do this while I'm getting more savvy with ingredient labels because that that takes a bit of time to build that literacy but definitely don't just trust blindly as you said a little while back something that says something free on the front and then has a picture of a planet like earth on it or something because it's like this doesn't smell like it's natural.

50:38
You know, use that detective nose and really start being a bit more discerning and you'll find it's actually quite easy to make the changes and it's not a scary thing. You're actually really smart. We're really smart. And I think the age of like growing up with those Oprah Celeb diets where we externalize the whole health conversation and what was good for us and where we externalize that to advertisers.

51:03
we've ended up with these generations of people who feel like all the answers are out there, someone tell me what to do and we've lost that confidence in our own smarts. But I think if we just simplify and we look at and we think, oh, what is that brand doing that's good in the world? Don't just tell me about the stains you're going to take out of my clothes. Like what associations are you a part of that are doing good in the world? What certifications do you have that let me know

51:33
palm tree forests haven't been knocked down in the making of this product. Just start to get curious and line it up with your values and curiosity so you're interested in doing the research on those companies. You might not be interested in the chemicals, but you might be really interested in environmental things and animal welfare. Come at it from that angle or whatever.

52:03
Or if I go to a supermarket and see an essential oil, I know that I'm going to be okay. Right. So if you're just putting them into DIY cleaning preparations, no, they're all, I mean, as long as they're pure essential oils or a hundred percent essential oil, they haven't been watered down with anything or there are no other chemical names on them. You know, you should just say a hundred percent eucalyptus or a hundred percent lavender. Fine. Would I then put

52:31
those in my skincare? Maybe not. I'd probably go for a more kind of cosmetic brand like a Springfields or a 28 or a Young Living or a Dutera. Something just a little bit more where you can see a lot of testing done regularly, a lot of research and independent testing that they do to make sure things are really safe for personal care context. So I would say the pharmacy and supermarket options would probably be better for your cleaning product.

53:01
DIY than like sniffing those lavender bottles. And just let your nose be your guide. I can kind of tell that the quality is better with certain brands over others. But in terms of just using all the essential oils all the time and it's natural and it's safe, no, it's not. Dilution is extremely important. Please talk to people who are

53:27
who know about safe dilution, especially of certain oils, like you don't want to be putting clove neat on your skin. You don't want to be putting ginger or thyme or oregano neat. They're very hot oils. They can burn the skin, especially little people. So you really want to know what you're doing. And a lot of people, like in synthetic fragrance world, there'll be some fragrances that you feel like you gel with and don't.

53:55
bug you, then there'll be some that feel really strong and awful and they give you a headache straight away. It's the same with essential oils in my experience. You'll find, I can't do those really intense florals. They just give me headaches. But I love rosemary and mint and lemon and those more sort of fresh citrusy herbaceous kind of oils. Give them to me all day long. If you've got pets, you need to know which ones you can and can't diffuse if you want to use a diffuser.

54:25
If you look at the fine print, diffuser recommendations are for half an hour at a time. Yeah, not for just like willy nilly, kind of just having on all through the day, all through the night. They're therapeutic in their usage. So there is a limit to when that becomes non-effective or when it can just be too much. And I remember actually, I was diffusing a blend that I really love.

54:51
But I just kind of was working away on something. And then I started to feel really nauseous. And it reminded me of a funny story. The very first time I ever had a cigarette and like I was 16, I remember like the life feeling like it just got drained out of my whole body. I didn't have oxygen. That's how it felt. All of a sudden I was like, oh, I might just switch that off. It might be that, that's the only thing in here. And then half an hour later I was fine. And I was like, wow, yeah, that's a powerful blend.

55:20
So just remember plants are medicine and to treat essential oils in that context and to learn from and use when you really trust. And I personally don't ingest essential oils. I don't think there's enough research. I don't think there are enough PhD level aromatherapy and essential oil scientists trained people with a voice in that space to make me go, oh yeah.

55:49
brilliant. I remember asking for a squeeze of lemon at something, I was in a group and then someone pulled out their lemon essential oil and put a couple of drops in their sparkling water instead and say, oh no, I just like to use this. And I'm like, that doesn't then dilute, it stays like the little globules like right there on. So that's then going straight to your liver. Like, how do we know? Do we know that's safe? So I'm not trying to make people super, super suspicious of all essential oils.

56:19
or all people selling them. No, there's some really fantastic, wonderful educators in every space. You know, kind of like you're gonna find a shit cab driver and a good one. Like every profession has great people and people who are a bit dodged. So just make sure you're really going into that space if it's something that's really attractive to you and you think, God, that makes sense and I love essential oils. Brilliant. Choose your mentors wisely. That's all. Yeah, no, that's good because one of my questions was of course around

56:47
some of the mistakes that people can make when they go low toxin. I imagine that that would be a big one, just sort of not realizing the therapeutic nature of plants. As you said, plants are medicine and we have to be wise with how we use them as well. Yeah, we do. Any other mistakes that you might see, Alex? I think another mistake that I often see is to think that everything, once you know it's not ideal.

57:17
scary research around it is going to kill you when you are exposed to it. I often find people who've learnt from other people about toxins online, I'll end up with like some panicked DM saying, oh my gosh, we were just at my mother-in-law's and she was using fabric softener. Do you think our hormones are stuffed now from this one exposure? They've been.

57:43
cooking from scratch more, they've reduced it in their own home, they even petitioned the kindy to stop using spray air fresheners and change the soaps for the kids. These are the sorts of people who really have taken control in a number of areas. If you've done that or if you're on the road to doing that, please don't worry about the odd exposure to things. It's like with food, I often say.

58:09
Are you going to be that person who freaks out about the one scoop of ice cream when three families have come together to have a beautiful afternoon at the beach when your breakfasts are awesome, your dinners are mostly from scratch and you're connecting as a family, the snacks in the lunchbox, you're doing a really good job most of the time. Please don't worry about that because we do what we do most of the time to go with the flow some of the time. It is my anthem. I will.

58:36
die on a hill saying it because the human body is a miraculous, resilient machine and energetic being that has its own field, its own force and its own magic for dealing with so much. We really can handle the odd thing. That's not so great for us. Like you wouldn't say to a client and just remember you can't even have a cake on your birthday. Now you would never say that as a, as someone passionate about nutrition.

59:05
So why would we say, and you can never go into a house that uses air fresheners ever again. Like you just, we know that there are times where there's that five, 10% social cohesion piece that actually keeps us sane. 100%. And stops our mental health from like going berserko because we're trying to be in control too much. Yeah. And the stress then ends up killing you faster than anything else will.

59:31
So I really think it's important going into this thing. I'm not going to stress out, but I am going to have a look at a better option when that thing runs out. You might be the kind of A type who's got the budget to pair with that who goes, now that I know about synthetic fragrances, I'm going to download everything that Alex just talked about and I'm going to change it all today because I want to and I can. And that might be your personality type as well. But I always like to make room for all the personality types.

59:59
Um, because we all like to change things differently at our own paces with our own budget and time constraints. Um, so go slow if you want to, it's, it's really, I mean, it's just great that you're interested in starting to change stuff. A hundred percent. And, you know, I will say that I do feel quite sad about, um, Pantene, you know, this is the shampoo and condition. I know it just made you here feel so good. And Nivea is another one actually, like. That little.

01:00:29
The Nevia 10, I remember that when I was a kid. I loved that stuff. That stuff was really great. And I think one of the objections people might have is that they're unable to emulate those experiences with natural products. But I imagine that if you look hard enough and we follow some of your suggestions, we're going to find substitutes which...

01:00:51
it is much more than just it's the feel of the products that smell but there are beautiful products out there that don't have to cost the earth either. No. Oh my gosh, no. Like look at brands like Walida. Like your face cream could start costing you a tenth of what you used to pay and still get, I mean, I'm 48 and went through mold illness and was a pack a day smoker for five years in my 20s. Were you? Wow. I was. Hospitality will do it to you and being a nightclub singer at 3A.

01:01:21
But like, it's pretty decent, my skin. Nearly 50 next year. And I've been using low-tox stuff for 15 years now. And I've got to tell you, we are spoilt for choice compared to when I started. I remember when Seb was a baby and I had to buy low-tox sunscreen because I'd researched the mainstream stuff. I was like, okay, that's no, we're not using that anymore.

01:01:43
But then I bought the one brand I could find at the health shop and it was like an Olympic sport trying to spread this thing on his skin and he was all squirrely. I know that. It was the best. I just thought, oh my gosh, what have I done? We're not going to be able to do this. Just remember, like when you first moved out of home.

01:02:02
You probably tried two or three different, like when you started getting to make the decisions about what you would buy, it's exciting, right? And you try the first one, you think, oh, I might get a different one next time. See, you know, if there's something that fits me better. And you often try two or three things before you land on a brand that you love. Yeah. Low tox is no different. The first deodorant you try that's aluminium free, you might think, oh, my gosh, this is hideous. I stink. This whole low tox thing is awful.

01:02:32
Um, and that's okay to think that, but I'm here to tell you, most people do end up finding something that does work for them and works really well. So just trust that some of those trickier categories, like I often find it's shampoo, mascara and deodorant tend to be the three tougher ones in the personal care area. Um, that you do need to kind of ask in a group, what's the most popular, um, that kind of thing.

01:03:01
then that can be one's where it takes a little while to find your fave. But you do find it. Well, that's good to hear. I'm not a big makeup person, but I do have product from a company called, I'm going to say it's, I don't even use it enough to know the name of it, Aleph, I think. Aleph, A-L-E-P-H. Emma, she created it with the very same ethos that you talk about in your low tops. Yes, awesome. Resources and stuff. It is, it's lovely.

01:03:31
Yeah, the deodorant is one that I struggle with, to be honest. It can be tricky. Science, research, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, again, that then becomes your little project, Miki. Yeah, 100%. It's not like you've been panicking every time you put it on, thinking I'm doing something so bad, because we're focused on the good things we're doing. And that's a much better way to go through changes, I think. I love that. You sort of do the best you can with what you've got, and you continue learning, right? Yeah. Amazing.

01:04:00
Alex, obviously I'm going to share links to Low Tox Life, Low Tox Food, and your website that houses so many resources for people. Can you just share with us your website name, but also how people can connect with you on social media? Yes, sure. And of course, your podcast. Yes. So Low Tox Life, the show.

01:04:22
is on every platform and we are coming up to 400 shows soon and going into our ninth year, which I cannot believe, but it's just a treasure trove of good things. And on low tops life.com, the website in the podcast tab, you can actually click on an index that indexes out like women's health, alternative therapies, family and kids.

01:04:45
body, mind, so you can actually go to the chunk of things that are very specifically about the things you're wanting to work on right now. And then at Low Tox Life for Instagram, I came up with the term Low Tox back in 2009 and I didn't copyright or trademark that because I actually wanted it to be.

01:05:05
a movement. I didn't know it would actually work. But it was just what spoke to me. I hated the words like zero and no and all that kind of stuff. I wanted people to feel like, let's just lower the tox. And so I then trademarked low tox life. So when you see those three words together, that's how you know it's my stuff. Amazing. And you do such a fabulous job of educating and really thankful. Thanks, Mickie Lee. So do you.

01:05:35
Nick of the Woods as well, because you mentioned that, you know, some sort of, that Australia has these shops and these brands and New Zealand and Australia have very similar sort of pools, if you like, of those things. Yeah, yeah. That my Kiwi listeners will find things that they are able to access as well. Yeah. Well, and you guys have one of the best low-tox brands. EcoStore came from Malcolm and his wife in New Zealand. So, yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

01:06:05
Alex, thank you so much for your time this morning. I really appreciate it. You're so welcome. Great chatting with you.

01:06:18
Alrighty, hopefully you enjoyed that as much as I did. So lucky that I have these people come on and share their wisdom and their knowledge with us because we are just able to constantly learn, which is what I love about podcasts, right? Next week on the show, I speak to Dr. Marcus Hawkins.

01:06:39
a GP specialising in low-carb healthcare in New Zealand. Until then though, you can catch me over at Instagram, threads and Twitter @MikkiWilliden, Facebook @MikkiWillidenNutrition, head to my website, MikkiWilliden.com, pick up a PDF or print version of Saskia and I's new cookbook, 40 After 40. All right team, you have the best week. See you later.