The Wellness Scoop - The Truth About Ultra Processed Foods

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

Welcome to another special live episode of The Wellness Scoop. We’re starting with a calming five-minute meditation led by Cordelia Simpson to help you pause, breathe and refill your cup before diving in. Then we’re tackling one of the most confusing topics in nutrition: ultra processed foods (UPFs). From the additives hiding in our everyday favourites to the impact on gut health, inflammation and chronic disease, we’re breaking down what the science actually says and where the gaps still are. We’re looking at how UPFs are defined, the most common ones in our diets, and how our eating habits today compare to our grandparents’ generation. We’re also exploring the links with obesity, mental health and cancer risk, plus why cost and access play such a big role in the conversation. Most importantly, we’re sharing simple, realistic swaps that make a difference without cutting out joy, from building more meals around whole foods to knowing when an additive is worth paying attention to. Get your copy of Rhi's book, The Unprocessed Plate To get the exclusive gift box from Shokz, order via this link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/44MSOxI⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I exams provided by independent optometrists. Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we're here. We're your hosts. I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rihanna Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know how overwhelming and confusing health advice can be. So that's why we created this podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living, simple, fun and personal.

So last week we shared part one of our Wellness Scoop live. And this week we have got part two. So part two was a little bit different for us instead of the usual headlines, trans. I got to interview Re, so obviously as you guys probably know by now, she has spent the last few years researching everything around the world of ultra-processed foods, which is obviously everywhere, such a topic for health and wellness this year. So we have dived into emulsifiers, stabilizers, preservatives, the whole lot. And then you can listen, catch up, learn it all.

So I hope you guys enjoy part two of the Wellness Scoop Live. Well, thank you guys so much for the first half. We're going to do something quite different now, but we talk so much about the various different pillars of health. We've obviously got our diet, we have exercise, we have sleep, but we also have stress management. And I think if we did a show of hands of who struggles to manage their stress, pretty universal, two hands.

It's a challenge we all face. And I know we talked recently about the power of just five minutes of non-doing and just taking a moment to just be calm, be quiet. And we also want you guys to leave tonight feeling even more empowered and inspired, as we said earlier. So to kickstart the second half of tonight, we have a very special guest. This woman is absolutely amazing.

I have been doing her meditation, her breathwork, her yoga for years and years and years, and she is going to do a five-minute exercise of calm, of peace, of gratitude with us all. So please welcome to stage Cordelia Simpson. Hey, thank you, thank you so, so much. Thank you, Matt, so much. Hello, everyone.

Hi. I'm sure a lot of you have met me on the app because you've done yoga properly with me and meditation and breathwork. But today I'm really, really happy to be here with everyone and just share a really simple meditation and bit of breath work with everyone. Something I'm super passionate about,

and I know Ella and Ria, is about making these things accessible for everyone. We don't have to be experts. We don't have to be professionals. Every single one of us can tap into these things. And meditation and breath work and yoga have absolutely transformed my life. And equally, they can do that for all of us. So I want to start by just looking at everyone in the way you're sitting. I was in the audience a minute ago and I know it's a lot of sort of slumping and stuff. So can I just get everyone to kind of sit Sit up nice and straight. And also look at your feet.

If your legs are crossed, uncross your legs, so your feet are grounded. It is really important just to align your spine before you even begin this exercise. Okay, let's all close down the eyes and turn our gaze inwards. Just begin by becoming aware of your breath. The soft inhale and exhale. As you breathe out, just notice the soles of your feet grounding into the floor beneath you. Feel the base of your sit bones connecting with the chair. And as you inhale, feel a lengthening through the spine from tailbone all the way up to the crown of your head.

Maybe you imagine a little bit of Fred pulling you up to the ceiling of this hall as you exhale can you relax your shoulders, your face your head and neck together let's breathe in deeply and at the top of the inhale just pause and then open your mouth and let it go repeat that take a deep breath in

feel the energy rising up as the breath expands into your lungs pause and then exhale and just let it go feel yourself grounding arriving one more time deep breath in through the nose feel the expansion into the lungs Pause at the top. And then as you exhale, just release, soften, and let it go. I want you to take your awareness to your heart space now. And as you inhale again, just visualize an expansion above, below, to the left, the right, in front and behind as the breath comes in.

And then as you exhale, feel this centering coming back to your heart. Like a star shape, an expansion. inhaling outwards in all directions, six directions above, below, to the left, the right, in front and behind. And as you exhale, this centering coming back to the spot, right at the center of your heart, continue to visualize this, but maybe now you see a color. Maybe it's red, maybe it's pink, maybe it's green, maybe it's gold.

And it's a glowing, and this glow is expanded, standing outwards, filling your entire body, maybe going beyond your physical form. And as you exhale, feel it concentrating and coming right to the center of your heart, to a tiny dot, maybe a glow. Continue to inhale and find that expansion beyond your physical form, expanding to the room,

the hall, to each other and beyond. As you exhale, feel it centering and coming in towards yourself, this tiny dot glow at the heart space. Continue to visualize this and breathe in this way. But this expansion, this glow, starts to become an energy of love, compassion, kindness, acceptance, radiating out far beyond yourself. But then as you exhale, it comes. comes back to you, knowing that you are truly worthy of those feelings as well.

Continue to expand in this way, feeling your energy growing outwards. And then that focus inwards, again, that balance between giving and receiving. Allow your breath to expand as you visualize this, your lungs. your lungs, your belly, your chest, your back, and feel the body's softening as you receive and draw it inwards. Now the body is softened, the heart starts to feel open. We're going to breathe together.

We're going to inhale to the count of four. Three, two, one, hold your breath at the top. your breath at the top for four three two one exhale slowly three two one hold your breath and pause three two one inhale deeply belly back waist and chest and chest hold the breath. Exhaling belly, back, waist and chest, hold your breath. And just in your mind, I want you to say this mantra to yourself, repeat it. When I am grateful, my heart bursts open and I feel whole. When I am grateful, my heart bursts open and I feel whole. Just gently and

gradually start to flicker the eyelids back open. Just connect again with your surroundings and come back into this moment. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I think I actually nearly could have fallen asleep on stage. Thank you. That was fantastic. Thank you so much.

What a way to start. Oh, my gosh. Do you know what? I kind of bang on about this the whole time, but it's because I think, again, with just so many different things going on, it's so easy to think you have to spend an hour doing something. You have to commit to a course.

You have to go to a gym. You have to do all these things. And certainly for me, just five minutes of that, and I feel fundamentally completely different. And I kind of get the sense in the room that lots of us do too. And I think, again, it's just such a powerful reminder. I could feel more of the room doing it, which actually probably helped.

maybe that's where I'm going wrong at home. I'm on my own. I have to say we do it together at home, and it is helpful. Okay, so we're now moving from a moment of full serenity and calm into something fundamentally completely different, and that is a deep dive into ultra-processed food. So I think I'm in the lucky seat for this part, and Reh has been. spent the last few years collating all the information out there on the conversation on ultra processed food and putting it together into her brand new book the ultra process plate which is brilliant and it feel very lucky tonight because it's not even out yet and we are getting the exclusive deep dive into really what is going on i'm sure you you're all hearing about ultra processed food

all the time i mean it's probably the number one topic we're seeing from a health and wellness perspective in the media at the moment and there's so many mixed messages it's so confusing but before we dive in can I just ask how many of you guys are confused about ultra processed foods are you trying to reduce ultra processed foods it may be a show of hand first are you confused about ultra processed foods and what's really going on okay okay maybe like 50 60 percent and are you trying to reduce them in your diet oh wow okay is anyone not trying to reduce them. Okay, so that's 100%. Okay, well, hopefully this is really helpful. Yeah, that was very helpful. Okay, so in the spirit of this, let's start at the beginning, because I think before

we kind of deep dive into what's an emulsifier, what's an additive, what do all of these back-of-pack ingredients mean when you're wandering around your supermarket, doing your shop, let's just actually start at the beginning. When you're looking at this and you're trying to decipher the information for everybody. How are you actually defining what an ultra-processed food is? How should people be thinking about it? It's a really good question because people, once again, scientists are undecided on the one criteria that most people use. So if you've read Dr. Chris Van Tullochan's book, which was, I think, groundbreaking for the subject to become more in the public domain and can catalyst, obviously for me to write this book in the first place to take that information,

but make it more accessible with recent data. You have to understand what we actually mean by ultra-processed foods. So processing has actually been around for thousands of years. If you look at salt, that's how we used to preserve food. We would process it technically. The act of taking an olive and pressing it and extracting and creating olive oil from an olive is a form of processing. Putting chickpeas into a can is a form of processing.

So when we move forward to what we're discussing, ultra-processed foods, that's a very different sphere to discuss because it's the invention of food science at its absolute finest. And if you have a think about it, it's all the wonders of science. And you may think, why is she talking so positively about it? We will get to it. I'm not saying it's the best thing in the world. But it is quite remarkable to think we can now buy a cake

that can sit on the shop shelves for several months and not go on. and not spoil, and Carlos Montero, a researcher over in Brazil, developed a system called Nova, which is what I refer to in the book. And by taking four different categories, and one being minimally processed all the way up gradually, you know, then you'd have olive oil in the middle, butter, flour, ingredients that have undergone a degree of processing, and then you go all the way up to category number four,

which is ultra-processed food. So currently, that's what we're talking about. And the discussion today is on category four, but there's a lot of nuance in that category, which is why scientists are very undecided on the overall defining criteria. Yeah, we're back at, unfortunately, a whole lot of nuance and not being able

to have kind of ultra rigid, using ultra again, very rigid definitions of things. But essentially, the way to think about difference between process and ultra-process is, in a way, like, could you make it at home? make it at home, would you have those ingredients in your cupboard? Yeah, no, it is a very simplified way of thinking about it, absolutely, because, you know, we don't have preservatives in our cupboard at home, apart from traditional sugar or salt, or you

might have a homemade who has a keffir kit or something at home? I don't know. Maybe you ferment your own food at home. That's another form of processing. But it is a traditional way of looking at foods. I think it's helpful. In fact, in the book, I've got a whole section in the middle on how to stock your cupboards, how to write a shopping list, what to actually do and what to look out for. Because if we even take e-numbers, Ella, e-numbers are just additives classified in Europe, which is why we stick a number E in front of it and we just name the additive. I think that's where it all gets really confusing because e-numbers, for example, is something certainly I feel like I heard about as a child. They felt

like something that we maybe was to be avoided, was a bit scary. But as you said, actually, it's an additive and then people think what's an emulsifier, etc. And we're going to come on to the more of the nitty gritty. But I think it was a really helpful way, first of all, to think about how am I defying this? People walking around the supermarket and they're turning over packets and they're looking at what's in things.

What are the kind of really common ultra-process foods that we're currently eating, particularly in this country? Do you know what I find most surprising about this subject is when I got the data and it's global data as well and then I'll apply it to this country as well? I think we were all very united

in the number one common item. So we all have cereals in the house, yogurts was probably the most surprising, I think, for people, especially parents of young children. But the number one, most commonly consumed UPF is bread, 11% actually, to be precise of our diets. So I think it's really interesting because bread isn't inherently bad for us, but there is a hierarchy of bread. But that brings into the conversation of privilege. I mean, baked beans are ultra-processed foods. Plant milks, some of my favorite milks I have in my fridge are ultra-processed.

And talk us a bit through that hierarchy because I think that's really relevant and in terms of how we're starting to decipher it. Because again, it's part of when people, 100% of us are apparently trying to reduce our ultra-processed foods, we are aware of it. And I remember when I first started changing my diets all the way back in 2012, so so long ago now trying to say, well, I'm trying to move to a whole food diet and not having those sorts of additives and ingredients in, but it was very hard to define it.

Now we have the term ultra-processed food. But talk us through that hierarchy. I think bread's a really great example for what people should be thinking about looking for if they are trying to reduce it. So let's take bread as a really, really good example. So we have to remember, first of all, let's discuss the nuance of why we have these items

in the first place. Let's have a think about up 2.8 million people in the UK as a stat don't have a fridge, or have a freezer. if you go further, and we have to look at an element of privilege. So when we developed and food scientists developed these additives and mulstifies preservatives, it was to enable food like a loaf of bread to obviously sit in our house for a prolonged period of time because that still is a source of fiber.

Flower is fortified. We've got additional iron and calcium or folic acid now that's added to our food. And we have to remember that particular nuance. So I want you to all bear in mind when we discuss this subject. that every food has a place, but what we now know with the hierarchy is that, of course, for most of us, that's on top of a load we're already getting.

So if you take a stereotypical healthy day, most people might buy a granola from the shops that's an ultra-processed food. They'd then pair it with a yoghurt, which is ultra-processed, and that's a standard healthy meal. And then you move forward to a snack bar they might be buying, which might be marketed as a high-protein bar, but actually it's a UPF.

But then to jump in, that's where it all gets confusing because not all yoghers to this point and this hierarchy. Yeah. And your whole day, your whole day becomes calculative of how much you're having at each meal. You're having a lunch that might be a shop-bought sandwich on the go. And then you get to dinner, which is a quick meal

you've whipped at home with a tomato sauce you've brought, which, again, is a UPF. And then on top of that, the bread you're having for breakfast the next morning or every single day or with your sandwiches every day has a lot of additives and emulsifiers in them. And I don't think we realize the cumulative value of how much we're actually consuming.

So the hierarchy of bread is that bread is meant to go off, isn't it, in 24 hours? I mean, look at how stale it goes so quickly. If you're not exposing it to air and oxygen, it will last a bit longer. But there's a reason that we invented these additives, but do we need the quantity of them we're currently consuming? And that's me describing a healthy diet. The variance comes in this entire conversation when we discuss a diet that doesn't look like that in a day

that contains fast food or packets of crisps or all sorts of things as your snack. And I'm not saying crisps is a bad item. I love a packet of criss. But I'm saying every single day of the week on top of processed meat for dinner, it just isn't good. But can all of us really buy that bread

without those additives and emulsifiers if 2.8 million people don't have a freezer to store it in the fresh bread, then what can we do? No, and obviously cost is such a huge factory in that to the point of bread, yogurt, granola, just as those examples. Those are all things that can be processed or ultra-process, but ultimately the process version is infinitely more expensive. Obviously, we know that through a decade in the food industry,

making things where you're using ingredients, not flavorings, to make a product. And the cost is so much higher. I know. And we see that with bread exactly. you've got to go to a bakery. Let alone the plastic that the bread is stored in on the shop shelves as well. If we go into that conversation, I'm convinced in five years' time, we will be addressing the way hopefully.

I mean, supermarkets are starting to do it, but the way we store food and how it's stored as well. When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and prepay a celebration of life with us, Every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace of mind that you've done all you can today

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Save $80 with code space 80 at Talkspace.com. But if we think about that, for example, because I think your point's exactly that this isn't about demonization. It's not about fear-mongering. It's not about, to the whole point, this question about balance earlier. saying, you know, it's all or nothing. Absolutely not. But what it is saying is I think

we're all maybe consuming more of these foods and then we think we are. And I think we're probably surprised to find them in an ingredient like bread, particularly sometimes things have very compelling health claims on the back, on the front, sorry, in the back tells quite a different story. And obviously one in five adults in the UK and now getting 80% or so of their calories from ultra-processed food. It's, it's really worrying. But I think it would be really helpful because again in a world of kind of fearmongering and not sure knowing exactly what to believe essentially in terms of how much information is not quite exactly what the research shows initially. How much do we actually know today about the health implications? And obviously I'm assuming

it varies wildly between all the different additives, emulsifiers, etc., that are used? A hundred percent. So honestly, writing this book was a minefield because I felt like every week there was a new study coming out and luckily we had a very quick print turnover so I was getting stats in this book from April 2025 when it's come out in June which is pretty unheard of so I feel really lucky that we're able to publish that because it's the health implications and I made a list of them for you and I think the biggest thing Ella that shocked me when I was researching this is the fact that a lot of it was there in plain sight that even I as a registered nutritionist someone that's done two degrees in the subject hadn't been aware of. Six of the, they're classified actually

as flavorings, but additives on the food standards agencies, the FSA and the UK's website, are linked to hyperactivity in children. And I've got them all written down here. You've got sunset yellow, E110, quinoline yellow, carmazine, Alura Red, tartazine, and I think that's Ponzo or Ponchu, however we want to pronounce it, E124. But they are in lots of. They are in lots of foods because they add color and flavor as well. So they're actually known to be linked to hyperactivity, yet nobody was really talking about it. And then the one that's plain in sight that I think we discuss a lot is the link between the

only food in the class one carcinogen statistic that we have in the database is processed meats. Yet for some reason in every child's lunchbox or offering there is at schools ham on the menu or sausages and items that are known to be probable causes of an increased risk of something, yet we sell it in plain daylight. And the more I was diving in, America then banned red dye number three, didn't they? Red dye number three, exactly, which we don't really use in Europe. It's in some very common medicines, interestingly, but yeah, we don't particularly use it. But again, this had been a case going on for years lobbying for it,

and it had been two-fold potential links to hyperactivity, but also to cancer. So the conversation feels like it's moving fast. Well, it's also gut health, Ellis. You know, we talk a lot here on the wellness group about the importance of fiber. And I'm sure you might sense sometimes how frustrated I can get sometimes with marketing in health halo claims like high protein and other things,

just purely because it detracts from what we actually need to be discussing. And a lot of emulsifiers in foods now, This was early spring. This came out, again, 2025 in the book, is that some am multifires have been shown in clinical trials to disrupt gut bacteria in those with IBDs, so conditions like Crohn's, ulcerative colitis. So we know that they're now interacting

with the live bacteria in our gut. We are going to be looking at this research more and more, but how groundbreaking that we now know that our health outcomes, Ella, a shortened lifespan was in the paper recently. We discussed that on the wellness scoop as well. And it's predominantly because if you look at the fact nearly 70% of children's diets in this country are ultra-processed, over 50, well over to 60 of adults, that means 70% of children's diets are not whole foods. They're not getting the main food groups, the fibre, the nutrition they need because there is a degree of processing that detracts from the food matrix, which is complex. I discuss it in the book,

but if you eat a bag of ground almonds and you add sweeteners and you turn it into a mushy bar or something, you're not going to be getting the same nutrition in quite the same way as if you ate the whole bag of almonds because of the way that we've processed it and then added the extra preservatives. It's a very complex issue,

but we do have health implications to consider. Do you think we're overly simplifying it in the way that it's being discussed at the moment? Yeah. I think massively, but the only reason we're oversimplifying it is because no one has been told how to discuss it. So I did hesitate to write this book. I really was unsure.

I didn't want to write a book that was going to be a trend. If any of you have got my other books, you'll know they're encyclopedias of nutrition, or I wanted them to be as timeless as you can be, helpful resources. But you cannot deny the fact that this is a major, major nuanced discussion. And because health professionals are on the fence, you've got people. people in conferences in Geneva last November saying, I don't think culture processed foods has any impact on our health versus scientists over here talking about it in the news every day.

We don't have any training on how to convey this message as health professionals to the public yet because it's ongoing. We're using, what's the phrase, burning the car, using the car as we're building it? Yeah, driving the car as you're building it. Driving the car as we're building it. Yeah, that's how it feels as though it's definitely

a really pressing matter and it's gonna complete changed our food landscape over the next 20 years, but we don't necessarily have clear enough data to say, apart from on the processed meats. But I think it says everything for the fact that we know that processed meats are very bad for our health and we should eat them very sparingly, and yet they're the core food on children's lunch menus.

And I think in terms of... And celebrational events, yeah. Yeah, so in terms of just like how that works in terms of our society and the way that we actually look at food as a country, it's quite depressing actually in terms of how we're going to take all this new information and move it forward. But then what about things?

Obviously, there's one of the things that's talked about a lot is the rise in ultra-process food consumption coupled, sort of sitting alongside the rise in obesity, chronic disease. How do these things come together? Again, we go back to the calorie discussion and the density of foods and the availability of nutrients.

This is a food matrix discussion, if you think about it. But my biggest concern is the palatable aspect. And I have a page in the book on dopamine and responses with how we feel when we digest food, when we have ultra-processed foods. You know a jumbo bag of crisps? It's so easy to eat the whole bag. Like you just don't feel full. You could get through that whole bag. Isn't it amazing? Whereas if that were a whole bag of almonds again. Almonds? Yep, almonds. You probably couldn't because you would start to feel full. And it's to do with the reward septors in our and our brain, because we need to get more and more of the same item

to get the same hit that we initially got from it. And that's clever. That's food industry genius with the research. I mean, they sit in these boobs, and they research over and over again the different flavors, the different additives, the different e-numbers. The exact, precise combination of fat and sugar combined together, carbs and fat, like a cake, is that ice cream, are these genius concoctions that we're.

we just cannot get enough of. And there's even research now that says that children's speech might be linked to ultra-processed foods because we're not chewing. How crazy is that, that we're losing the amount of chewing and that our jaw lines, so there's some anthropologists that are looking now at the fact our bone structure in X amount of years might change because we're now

eating mushy food that's been part digested, broken apart, put back together, repackaged in a packet that we're eating as a UPF. These are very small hints of studies, by the way, but I'm pulling them together to create a big picture of why scientists are so interested in the subject, because we just want more. We have dopamine receptors.

We're not chewing in the same way. We think it's affecting our mental health, which it is because we're then not getting the fiber for our gut health, because we're just eating packets of UPFs. So big, I could talk forever. But that's why it's linked to, obesity because we're eating more and more of the wrong foods. And I think, as you said, we can all attest to how addictive these foods are.

And they trick you, Ella. They trick you. They say they're healthy. Is it pringles the viral, the ad of once you stop, once you pop, you can't stop. I mean, what clever marketing, because it's stuck, hasn't it? It works. Okay, so on the gut health point, tell us a little bit more, because obviously there's the low fiber, there's the emulsifier element, and it may harm the beneficial bacteria. That's the concern around gut health. So there's a lot of research that with our gut, the bacteria that live there plays a role in our weight

and our weight maintenance and management every single day. And we know with the gut brain axis, so imagine an invisible line that runs all the way from your gut up to your brain is constantly having a conversation every day. It's not us that tells us how hungry we are. It's actually this conversation that's happening. It's not our brain saying, oh, right, feeling a bit hungry, now I'm going to go and eat.

It's all to do with this bacteria. and it's the most fascinating area because some of us that are more predisposed to certain conditions, even cancers we're finding now, have different gut bacteria to others. There's the link now with the rising rates of colon cancer, which is so sad,

and we've never had such high rates of this particular cancer, but what we've now found in people's guts is a unique strain that might be linked to this. So we're now looking at what makes us unique. And the problem with the consumption of ultra-processed foods, is we're not helping that garden of bacteria to grow. Because if 70%, like I said before, of a child's diet, is mush, I'm going to just say mush, abbreviated to mush,

and it's for no fault of a parent, no fault of anybody. These are marketed as good for us. They're marketed as natural, Ella's favorite health claim, the most difficult one, an annoying one. But there's little wonder, is there, that our gut bacteria and our mental health, if we discussed earlier the topic we discussed in the show, is being impacted by the consumption of what we eat.

Yeah, I find it hard not to feel so frustrated. It feels a bit like kind of hitting your head against the wars. You said it's nuance and it's not black and white and it's not about being dogmatic but equally and the data is evolving and I take that but equally it's also very, very clear that the way we live our lives dictates so such a huge facet of our mental and our physical health

and yet we kind of as a west and world we're just kind of brushing past it and it's really and it has devastating consequences obviously on so many people as a result you know when your when your health gets poor so when we're thinking about that and people are thinking okay obviously 100% of us trying to reduce our upfs in super practical terms how do we start to think about that and think about our shop and think about the way that we're cooking and eating this is the biggest reason why I wrote the book because I feel like we're all bombarded with UPFs are bad and then there's someone in the super market, our favorite, you know, influences online that walk down the aisles and say, this is toxic,

this is a UPF, you can never eat this again, this is my recommended swap, you just are left feeling like everything you touch is poisonous. But then the same people are also like, but by the way, buy this green powder and the green powder contains loads of flavourings, additives, etc, and is a UPF, so it's very confusing. This is just it. Green powders are ultra-processed foods and they'll never give you all the nutrition that they claim to on the pack, it's impossible from a supplement to deliver everything that it says. It's just not bioavailable in the body in that way. And protein powders are the same. They're also ultra-processed food. So we're almost living in a world where we're buying into convenience items or part of the cooking done for us to some degree,

and those items are the ones that have all these extra ingredients. Now, it's not that the e-numbers or the additives are inherently bad. However, However, even last week, there was another headline came out that one of the e-numbers that we commonly use is now not going to be used anymore. So we are getting to an exact point where I think the problem really truly lies in helping one another, being kind, empathic, this is the situation, this is the world we currently live in. We have to take ownership ourselves, but let's just show some compassion here.

And the book really gives you that step by step. By the way, I haven't explained. An emulsifier makes things creamy. It helps like a substance that has a fat in it bind with water in a way it wouldn't normally naturally do. That's how a jar of mayonnaise sits there perfectly. Or a nut butter is a great example. If you buy a nut butter that doesn't have an emulsifier in. It won't split. Exactly. You'll have some oil on the top that's naturally occurring and underneath you'll have the nut butter, the kind of thick element and you need to stir it together to make it creamy. If you use an emulsifier, you won't have that separation between the thick nut part and the oil, for example.

I think we've become distorted and disconnected on where our food comes from. Well, we saw that in this exact product of having to explain to people, oh, that's natural, that's normal, just give it a stir because it's not our expectation any longer. Because we don't know. We didn't grow up in a world or a lot of people didn't. You know, I go into schools and they don't know that tomatoes aren't from ketchup, and that might sound really funny and strange, which it is, but how sad is that? But it's dystopian at the same time. It's so dystopian.

It's not normal that we don't know how far food travels and how big the food chain is because we're not taught, but that's where I hope to help because I am hoping that this book is going to help give all of those answers in easy, accessible format. Don't worry, it's not going to be just full of jargon words. No, that's, I think, the thing that you do the best is try and break it down for people.

Thank you so much, everybody, for coming. We also just wanted to say we know the world, can seem particularly at the moment and we wanted to say this in the right way a very heavy place and we really hope that just tuning in on Mondays and being here can give some sense of warmth and a safe space.

So a big thank you. We can't wait to have you tune in on Monday and thank you for coming. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for listening. everyone we're so so grateful and I really hope that you've enjoyed the wellness scoop lives that we've had to deliver for you now we have next week some very very exciting bonus episodes for you to see you through the summer incorporating some of the biggest conversations in health and wellness that we've had since we started the podcast so we really really hope to see you next monday and reminder we will be back all singing or dancing from the first of september ready for that back to school moment thank you guys as always for listening Thank you.