Eco Friendly, Low Toxin Life for Kids’ Physical & Mental Health

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Hi, everyone, welcome to the show. I’m Dr. Nicole, and today we’re talking about how to help ourselves, our kids and our families live a more low tox life. We are surrounded by more toxins than ever before, and they impact our physical and mental health, not to mention the health of the natural environment around us. Kids are especially sensitive to toxin exposure. And these exposures can be one of the root contributors to common learning, attention, mood, anxiety and behavior issues for children. It can feel a little scary or maybe overwhelming to think about these things and take action on them, but I have the perfect guest to help us understand the key things we need to know, and simple, practical changes that we can start making. Alexx Stuart from Low Tox Life is on the show today. I want to tell you a bit about her.

Alexx founded the online community and education hub Low Tox Life in 2010 and is responsible for birthing the Low Tox movement with the phrase Low Tox, which has resonated with people around the world. Through the online community published books, podcasts, e-courses and live workshops, leading a Low Tox life is a choice for people to inch forward, doing better for themselves and the planet across food, body, home and mind. Her international bestselling book, Low Tox Life and podcast by the same name have supported millions in achieving their personal, home, and planet health goals. She’s a sought after speaker and consultant to organizations committed to change for good, whether it’s focused on people’s health or the planet’s health. Welcome to the show. Alexx, I’m so excited to have you here.

Alexx Stuart

I have been looking forward to this for weeks. Thank you for having me, Nicole.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

You and I could talk about this topic and probably many more topics for days. We’re going to try to fit as much as we can into this episode because as I said in the intro, what I love about your work is you really bring it down to a practical level for people, and you get that as a parent, as a person living a busy active life, we need to know how to actually do this stuff. So I’m excited to provide people with strategies. I want to start though, by actually having you share how this topic came on your radar, how did this intersect with your life such that you not only became aware of the impact of toxins and reducing them, but it became important enough to you to start your whole business and career around that? I don’t know the story, so I’m excited to hear this along with our listeners.

Alexx Stuart

Well, it was definitely something that chose me, not the other way around. That is one thing I can tell you for sure. And as you said there in the intro: Food, body, home, mind are the pillars of leading a Low Tox Life and always looking after our planet as an overarching theme, because I believe win-win is the way forward. We can’t just do something selfish for me, and then screw the planet, or something great for the planet, but then I’m suffering because I’m mentally stressed out of my mind trying to do the right thing. I’ve just seen so much harm in perfection, so much pain in striving to the point where you’re no longer in touch with your inner conversation about how that’s working out for you to try this new thing. And I think we’ve all been there, right? Like anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, 90s especially, where we started to see all these gurus on TV be pitched as the expert with all the answers, with the new diet. How many of those did you try? The brown rice Susan Powter diet? I remember it, I did it. I thought it was going to make my life so much better. And so externalization of health and health answers, which I appreciate the irony of someone now listening to us for external advice. I get that. But it can be really harmful if we do it at the expense of what’s going on inside our hearts and minds and bodies. And I was not listening to my body at all when it kept telling me “You’re going to get tonsillitis again, here we go again”, and I would go to the doctor, I would take the pills, I would get better, I would be well for like three months, and then I get tonsillitis again. And then I’d get migraines. I was on this horrific, merry-go-round of recurring, these two recurring symptoms that were with me throughout my whole teens and early 20s life. And I had no idea what was causing it because I wasn’t thinking causal. Our culture does not make us think causal, it makes us think “What will fix this today?” And while that is a miracle that we have all these amazing things that can fix things in crisis care, I don’t see tonsillitis or migraines as a crisis, now that I look back. Those are things that are caused by something not happening in the right way for that individual. And it took becoming antibiotic resistant to the whole amoxicillin family that treats strep, to the point where I was on the strongest one, and I was on the third round, and this thing was not budging. And I was spitting into a cup instead of swallowing because it was unbearable, pain wise, and thinking “What is the next step?” And thank gosh, I was living in my little one bedroom apartment, and a girlfriend dropped me some soup one night, she was worried about me. And she said, “Have you thought about seeing a naturopath?”, and I was 28, I’m nearly 47, so this was a while ago. And these were not health professionals that were in everyday conversation. It was certainly not someone you would typically put in your health care team. And so I said “No, what is that?”, and in the end found one. I went to this incredible woman, lucked in big time. She’d been in practice for 25 years. She sat there and asked me more questions than I think any individual has ever asked me about my life, my history, my family, and prescribed a couple of key vitamins, a really disgusting tasting herbal mixture, and three days later I was better. And I was like, “What is this crazy magic? How did you do that? I didn’t even take any medicine.” That was still where my brain was at. And I mean, people will be listening now thinking, “Oh my gosh, that’s me too.” We’re so stuck in this relatively new culture, and yet we think it’s normal, so therefore we accept it. But normal and optimal are not the same things. And so yeah, that’s where it started for me. And then of course, I got tonsillitis, another three months later. I went back to her. She was like, “Well, we’ve got to figure out why you keep getting this.” And I was like “Well, how are we going to do that?”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

That’s the million dollar question I wish someone would answer!

Alexx Stuart

And she had read some emerging research on the connection between non celiac gluten sensitivity and strep overgrowth. So immune system depletion, and then a flourishing of whatever little bug is not so great, lying under the surface. So if that happens to be strep for you, then gluten removal, turns out, is one of the best things you can do. Now, that’s not for everybody. I’m not one of these crusaders that calls this an evil food for everyone. I got friends who can wolf down half a loaf of sourdough, who are fighting fit, wonderful, and happy in their lives. But for me, it turns out that it was really the key to unlocking something I’ve been trying to figure out for years, or something I’ve been wishing away, probably more accurately, for years. And in the beginning of that journey, having to remove gluten from one’s diet. I was 28 years old, I was running one of the best bars in the world. It was a very stressful job, and very fun, very active, very crazy hours. So I would very easily just go into the supermarket and pick up some ultra-processed options. It would be the breakfast popper that has “All the minerals and vitamins you need for the day!” Or the Lean Cuisine meals where you dunk the plastic. Oh gosh, it just freaks me out now to put plastic in boiling water. But these were very common things in my arsenal for managing life, as they are for so many people. So then to read the ingredient list, and she gave me this little handwritten checklist — talk about vintage, that’s how you know I’m middle aged. And she said “These are the things you need to avoid.” So it’s not just seeing wheat on a label. It’s seeing glucose, potentially, or it’s seeing hydrolyzed vegetable protein. There are so many different words that could have been used, and 20 years ago, gluten was in everything.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Right, it was a different time. Yeah.

Alexx Stuart

And you know what? That is the best gift ever, because it meant I had to quit packaged food. If I had gone gluten free today, I would have been like, “Oh great, my gluten free cheesy puffs. Oh great. My gluten free breakfast.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

My Gluten Free Oreos, my —

Alexx Stuart

Oh my goodness, you can even get organic Oreos these days. So processed food is, processed food, is processed food; it still sucks no matter how organic or gluten free you make it, it has still been processed to within an inch of recognition, if recognizable at all, and we should try and stay away from it. So it was a gift because I had to learn how to cook, I had to learn how to enjoy myself in a birthday situation, I became the best “I will bring dessert” kind of queen, and I would make things, and I got really good at it. And I had been creating drinks and writing cocktail lists for years. So it was kind of a natural progression to take that curiosity and mix the logical mindset into baking. It was really gratifying. It was gratifying to learn how to make good sauces. And I felt clever, knowing that I could thicken something with an arrowroot starch instead of wheat flour, and as I started to tell friends, for some reason, it was just at this time where lots of people were waking up to “I don’t feel quite right, what’s going on?” And I was able to then start helping friends and family. And then once you do that, it takes a friend of a friend to say “Hey, can you put this on the internet so that I can have it somewhere to store?” and then I was like, “Okay, sis,” my sister is very tech, I am not, by nature. “Can you tell me how to do one of these blog things so that I can help people?” And in between that time, I’d had a beautiful baby boy, so we’re now talking 13 years ago, and in the baby shower, you get all the gifts, everyone’s setting up for the nursery. I’m like, “I’m really good at reading food labels now. I wonder what’s in all of this stuff? You get a blank canvas of a gorgeous, healthy little kid, and you don’t want to stuff that up. And this is often a time, I know a lot of parents listening now will be like, “Oh, that is absolutely when I started to ask some more questions.” Oh, my gosh, these personal care products were horrific. And as I researched each, and I remember initially, I had to go to the library and find books.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Where we used to go to look up information.

Alexx Stuart

Thank heavens for PubMed, I can tell you that. But yeah, so I found two emerging families of chemicals that were sus. We wanted to stay away from these, and I was certainly going to do my best. That was potential carcinogens and endocrine disruptive chemicals. And I didn’t know about these at all, carcinogen cancer, we kind of knew that from just being sun-aware here in Australia, it’s a big issue for us. It’s a very harsh sun. But I had never heard of a hormone disruptor, and I had never considered that anything would be on the shelf that could impact our health in a negative way. Like surely there were checks and balances in terms of what was allowed, but if you look retrospectively at how agricultural chemicals started to be used, you start to see how powerful industry was allowed to become around the First and Second World War and onwards, at a very accelerated pace, where they then started to own politicians. And then you see, I follow American politics very closely, Citizens United was one of the worst things that could ever possibly have been done for human health, because that was carte blanche blank check, write as big a check as you want and own the people who are supposedly there to represent the people. And we’re America-like in that respect. Here we have the same very loose election funding situation. So it’s a really big deal, and it affects every aspect of the political spectrum, and it affects every aspect of human life. So it was this year where I woke up to sugar, it’s chemicals in cleaning products and personal care as well. It isn’t just the food. And so I thought “Wow, people need to know this.” And I mentioned running a bar, I was a trainer, teacher. I had always trained and motivated large groups of people. Before that, it was in cosmetics, actually, the beauty industry, which I mentioned migraines, they stopped when I left the cosmetics industry. So there’s another alarm.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I was going to say an industry that also is full of toxins.

Alexx Stuart

Oh my gosh. Oh, every woman on that cosmetic floor, when I first started out in cosmetics, when you’re a counter girl in the department store, every one of us had either polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, fertility issues. For me it was migraines and the Clarins beauty lady had a room for her facials, and when the manager would go on lunch, I would pop two super strong painkillers and go and take a nap and try and shake the migraine off to hit the afternoon shift. I mean, folks, this is not normal. So that was my life. And that was all what drove me to want to teach and train in this space, and to bring a can-do vibe. I always like to think my thing is helping people articulate where they want to go, what they want life to look like, and then stepping them through what that looks like for them. I don’t need everybody to move to the country and become a homestead DIY. I don’t need everyone to want to live in the middle of the city and be doing that life either and buying everything. Everyone can define what life looks like for them, and that’s one of the reasons it’s called Low Tox. It’s not “No this, chemical free, zero that, quitting this,” absolutes are not good for human health. Certainly not mental health, as you would know, as we’ve talked about. Polarization is the enemy of a sense of peace. And so I really wanted people to feel like they could define leading a Low Tox life as they saw it, and prioritize in the way they want to prioritize. I’m not your guru. I’m just going to teach you how to do your life the way you want to do it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

It’s so important. I think that what happens, especially with a big topic like this, some of what you’ve shared is new information for some people listening and they’re going “Wait, what? I’ve got to listen to that again. You mean, this stuff isn’t all safety tested? You mean it’s not the fact that if it’s on the shelf, it’s totally safe for human consumption or human use?” And other people are going “Yeah, I know this. I’ve heard this. I’ve read about it.” I think it feels so daunting, because as you said, this stuff is everywhere. I think people hear about it, and they go, “Okay, I get it. Yep, that’s a problem. That sounds bad. Boy, I get migraines all the time too/my kid is super hyperactive, nobody’s been able to figure it out.” But I think what stops people is the idea of “This is an insurmountable problem.” That idea of like, “This is so overwhelming, it’s everywhere. There’s nothing to do. So might as well just say, ‘Well, this is how it is.’” And that’s what I love about the approach that you take of there’s no perfection. This isn’t like you have to get every element — First of all, you can’t. Even if you move to the country and are homestead or whatever. We live on a planet now, where there is no way to live a No Tox life. So I love this idea of Low Tox, and that can be defined wherever we each are now, whatever our current baseline is. We can just make however many improvements to just lower that exposure, to improve our health in the smaller ways. And I just really want people to hear that because I hear from so many parents who are just like, “That is totally overwhelming, totally insurmountable. Talk to me about something else”, right? Yet, as you talked about in your story, so many different symptoms and things you had experienced, ended up being connected to different toxins that were in your life. And I loved what you said about what’s normal isn’t the same as what’s optimal. I believe firmly, at least in America, and I think this is also true where you are in Australia, we are so used to not feeling great, and we’re so used to ourselves and everybody around us, our children having some kind of issue, that we don’t even think about it anymore, and realize, wait a couple of generations ago, it wasn’t common at all for children to have multiple ongoing chronic pain. Now more than half of our children have at least one issue that can be called a chronic health condition, mental health or physical health. Wait a second, that’s not normal. We consider it normal. We say “Well, everybody has that” or we go, “Well every woman my age has migraines and IBS and whatever”, and we lose perspective on it. Wait a second. We actually shouldn’t have these problems. Our children shouldn’t be having these chronic issues with chronic infections, chronic eczema, chronic constipation, whatever it may be. So I think like just even that reset for people of, “Wait a second. It actually isn’t normal for us to have all these things.” And then when we realize that we go, “Oh, okay. So then I need to look at what I might need to do here.” And I would love for you to share how you define toxins. I think when people hear the word toxin, they think of pollution in the air or, “Oh, don’t let kids chew on things with lead paint,” they think of Toxin with a big T, like the things that will kill you. But actually, toxins, you’ve alluded to several places where they are, can you just define for people how you think about a toxin, and what are some of the examples that maybe people wouldn’t initially think of as a toxin?

Alexx Stuart

It’s a great question and a big one. So are we starting the 3 day seminar?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

That’s right! You’re going to give us the 90-second version!

Alexx Stuart

So for me, a toxin is something that impacts our immune system, usually, that’s the first thing that gets hit, our endocrine system, or, in fact, any part of our body. It could even be our brain. We can talk about mold for example, and prevent us from living optimally. So it disturbs the environment, the inner environment of the human body, we know toxins to disturb the external environment. “Oh, this is killing the planet”, for example. And so a toxin really is anything that can disturb an environment. Now, toxins have functions, like if you think of toxins in plants, they’re self-protective. So it’s not even like they’re universally bad. It’s just that if it’s disturbing a natural environment and negatively impacting the life of that species, then that’s something that that species should want to try and prevent from being exposed to, and what we are learning in the last 20 years, especially as more and more independent research is done, because it’s not very profitable to do big scale studies on this stuff, because that’s a lot of people that are going to have to change the way they do things. Thank goodness, some independent scientists are studying it, because we’re seeing that if we constantly are exposed to say endocrine disruptive chemicals, like your phthalates, for the people who want to look it up, or your BPA, which people might know more. Now we know BPS is just as bad, the stuff they replaced it with, and parabens and so forth. The human body can take the odd hit of a lot of things. It’s pretty darn hardy. But what we cannot take is the relentless day to day exposure as a permanent norm. That’s what’s really screwing us over. And I have this saying “We do what we do most of the time so we can go with the flow some of the time.” And I think that’s where we can land with our mental health intact. Because trying, as you said, No Tox is not possible. It’s actually not possible. And so if we just accept that we’re never going to get there, what does the next step look like for me to do my best? And I think we often lose touch with “Do my best” as a concept because we’re so guru-driven. And I think that’s unhealthy. We just want to do our best. If you can only fit in a 10-minute workout, but you’re following the 40 minutes a day, 40 Day Challenge, like forget it. Don’t torture yourself about it, just get your 10-minute workout done and feel good about it. And I like people to feel that way about environmental toxins as well. You don’t want to stop your kids from having a trampoline in the backyard and jumping up and down and experiencing the joy of that just because there’s a bit of PVC padding that you couldn’t get around. That can be in your 80/20. Just chuck it in the 20 pile, focus on the really massive major changes you can make that make a huge impact. So if you want, we could talk about the biggest gains we can make.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I do, I want to. Yes, I definitely want to get into that. I want to spotlight something you said, especially for those of you listening who have a child who has been diagnosed with one or more medical or mental health or developmental issues. One of the things that’s really interesting that we’ve seen come out more and more in the research literature over the last 20 years, 10 years, especially is that many kids with these kinds of diagnosed issues: Autism Spectrum Disorders, ADHD, seizure disorders, chronic infections, whatever it may be, have very vulnerable systems where they have a lower threshold for tolerating toxic burden. We know that now. Alexx, I think you just explained it so beautifully. Our bodies can handle the occasional exposure and hit. It’s the relentless all day every day substances in the foods we’re eating and the water we’re drinking and the products we’re using on our body, the air we’re breathing, all of that. We maxed out our threshold for our bodies to be able to manage, and what I think is important for parents to understand, or even if you as an adult have a chronic illness or symptom that you’ve not been able to get a handle on, some people have lower thresholds. And we know that especially for kids diagnosed on the autism spectrum. We’ve got a lot of research about that now. It takes less exposure to chemicals, to toxins, to things like gluten, whatever the triggers for them are; It takes less of it to max out their body’s ability to handle it. And then what happens is we get a buildup of those things that wreak havoc in the brain that puts them on this totally different developmental trajectory. That’s not to say that that’s the issue for every single person diagnosed with any condition, but we have good research now showing us some people, kids in particular, just are more vulnerable to that. And I think that’s something that’s not talked about when kids are struggling, when you’re bringing them in to see practitioners, when they end up getting a diagnosis. People don’t talk about these things and what we need to do, what we can do in day-to-day life to support reducing that toxic burden so that their bodies can function better, and then their brain can function better. I’m so glad you talked about it in that way, and just wanted to spotlight that for people, I think it’s a really important thing to understand.

Alexx Stuart

It’s so important. And then we have the situational issues. One home is going to be completely different to the next home, and is going to be different to the next climate. So a kid in New Orleans with ADHD is going to perhaps have arrived at that issue in a different way from the kid in California. And then you have the family dynamics, and so many different layers. And so I think accepting the complexity and the bio-individuality of the situation is one of the most important things we can do. Because then you’re really empowered and you go, “Okay, so I’m going to see this from my unique perspective, and build my unique priorities based on what we are going through as a family.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Beautiful. I love that. Let’s get into the things that are the low hanging fruit. What are the things that, in your opinion, in your own life, with your own family and all the people you’ve worked with, what are the things that we need to really be thinking about to move in this direction?

Alexx Stuart

So I’ll do a couple from each pillar, because then it’s nice and easy. With food, the most important thing you can think about is the sliding scale of your shopping trolley. On one side of the scale, you got products, and on the other side of the scale, you’ve got produce, so fresh food. And you want to look at how far towards the product side you are, and start moving the scales across to fresh food. And you do it however comfortably or however much time that takes. Maybe it’s like, okay, we’re going to try one recipe or we’re going to go to one cooking class as a family. We’re going to try and learn something new, and be empowered. We’re going to go to the fresh food market once a month. I’m going to stop taking my kids to the grocery store. I’ll do their shopping online so they’re not exposed and don’t have all the cute pictures.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Begging for the cereal.

Alexx Stuart

Oh my gosh, the other day I walked past, and beautiful Bluey. I know you guys love Bluey in America, the cartoon. So, now they’ve got chocolate crackers. And I’m like, “Oh, no, not bluey.” These branded food environments that kids get sucked into, if we can just take them out of the environment so they stop seeing their daily exposure, and start moving that scale across to fresh food. You’re not going to get it perfect. My son is now 13 he’s now surrounded by all his mates, they’re going into the train station food court, and there’s a whole bunch of interesting things happening there. But a wise person once said to me, “Focus on the bookends of your day: The great brekkie and the great dinner.” If you can make that a family dinner, even better for mental health. And so if you can focus there, unless you have ASD or PANDAS, we really have to be very, very careful about everything for a while there, then the odd little thing is just really not going to break the bank. And like I said, we do what we do most of the time so we can go with the flow some of the time. We’ve got to teach our kids that practice as well.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I want you to talk a little bit, for people who are like, okay, so you’re saying move away from the products, the processed stuff in terms of produce? I can imagine there’s some people thinking, “Well, if my child doesn’t have a gluten issue like you talked about for yourself, what are the toxins in food?” I want you to touch on this because I think people do not understand. From the stuff in the food to the packaging surrounding the food, from your perspective, just to share with people, why is that an issue?

Alexx Stuart

Yeah. So soft, thin plastic packaging is packed with endocrine disruptive chemicals. And if you think about the way that food is made and where it comes from, you see endocrine disruption every step of the way, right from the agricultural chemicals that contain endocrine disruptors on the raw materials, like your soy, corn, wheat, these would be the major crops that are used for these ultra-processed foods, right through to then processing them in hot plastic tubs to turn them into flours, then the truck takes them in plastic bags on hot highways to the processing center, where they then get processed again, through plastic tubing and hot plastic. So everyone knows now, at least most of us do, that you wouldn’t microwave something in a plastic bowl in the microwave, you would move it into glass, and then microwave it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I actually think most of the world does not understand that. I think in our world of health and wellness, people get that, but I will say 8 times out of 10 when I ask that question or raise that with families who come into the clinic, when I ask “How are you microwaving foods? How are you heating things?” People are using Tupperware, people are using Gladware, people are using takeout containers. I think there’s a lot of people who don’t understand why that’s a problem.

Alexx Stuart

Okay, so I’ve mentioned hot plastics and food processing like three times in 30 seconds. The reason that is an issue is because transference of the chemical compounds in those plastics happens with heat. And so to avoid the endocrine disruptive transference, it would be cold at the absolute minimum, none ideally, but we’re not in a perfect world. So let’s journey back. We’re in the factory where the funky crackers with barbecue flavor are being made, and then they’re being spat out onto a conveyor belt, again, either rubber or plastic. And then they’re being put into their plastic container. If it’s a soup, a ready soup, that’s been hot poured into the canning material with the BPA plastic or BPS plastic lining, or into a soft plastic pouch and vacuum sealed. And then these things are put back on a truck. And then trucked out on another hot highway. So more plastic and heat transference into a supermarket and the hot lights could be there for months, more transference happening, and then into our homes. So if you think about that as an endocrine disruption disaster, that’s obviously our number one goal of the day. But as I mentioned in the beginning, we want to try and create a win-win for human health and the planet. Step back through that whole process, how much energy is being used to make these things? How much soil destroying work is being done at the raw material level with those agricultural chemicals designed to kill everything, including all that good beneficial fungi and nutrition in the soil? So the raw material kind of sucks as well. It’s nowhere near as good as it used to be. And then at the worst end of it, we’re then wasting a fifth of it all, eating it or using it. And so food waste, everyone’s fighting about beef and beans on social media, but actually, food waste, if you made it a country, it would be the third largest emitter behind the US and China. So like that’s really the environmental disaster of food, not what the food is, per se. So yeah, back to what we want to try and ditch and why we want to do it. Hopefully that gives you a window into the implication of how the ultra-processed food is produced. To give you enough ammo to say, “No thanks.” And then what’s beautiful about it is that when you really understand it — you’re a psychologist, so from a psychological perspective, one of the toughest things to give up is stuff that tastes amazing, right? Our brains are like whoa, you light up like a Christmas tree.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Big old dopamine hit.

Alexx Stuart

Yeah, “Once you pop, you can’t stop” is a slogan for a reason, you literally cannot stop. And so psychologically, if you take the time to really understand the negative impacts of how that thing is produced, what it does to nature, what it does to your body, what it does to the factory workers exposed to those conditions, then it stops being “Oh, I shouldn’t have that, I should try to cut down” or “I shouldn’t get my kids to eat that”, like a willpower thing, it becomes that “No, I’m no longer in agreement with that as a food system, I’m opting out.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

That’s the best explanation of that whole thing that I’ve heard. That’s powerful. It hit me, and I’m familiar with all these concepts. But just you walking through the parts of that process. You go “Oh, my goodness” because we tend to focus on what’s in the food. Yeah. And yeah, there’s plenty of toxins there too.

Alexx Stuart

Oh, yeah. I mean, we could talk about additives and preservatives.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Artificial sweeteners, preservatives, that’s where the focus tends to be. But really what you just followed it with is so important, that even the act of making these products, transporting them, packaging them is also hugely problematic. So I really appreciate you going through that. So I think that is motivating, psychologically, for people to go, “Oh!”

Alexx Stuart

I want my lady farmer to grow her apples, turn up on the market stall, sell them to me, boom, done. So many less steps. And I think it’s why we’re seeing so many wonderful young people realize this, and they are starting to open small farms again, and they’re starting to become part of market stall culture. Because it just makes sense on a deeper level than many can explain at this point. But it feels right. And once you connect to real food, in that really deep sense and understand what we’re trying to dismantle in a way, just what we need to do, it then becomes a beautiful, peaceful transfer of power back to the farmer. And that’s a very exciting thing to think about.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Yeah. I love that. So this idea from the food standpoint of moving from, how much do we have in products in our car? To produce and shifting more in the produce direction. I love that. Let’s talk for a minute about the other stuff we buy at the store to use in our home. Let’s talk about personal care products for our kids: Bath soaps, shampoos, things that we’re putting on their face today. All of that stuff, where do we start there? What’s important to be thinking about?

Alexx Stuart

So for me, I think let’s just simplify. We have the pump for the hand wash, then we have the different squeezy bottle for the bath gel, and there’s so many different products to clean ourselves. And if you actually look at that, the medical science research, and I think it was a couple of administrations ago in America where they commissioned a study to say, “Do we really need this antibacterial triclosan in everything?” Which is a hormone disruptor as well, for people who don’t know, it has been shown in the literature to affect thyroid health. And so a commission study was done. It went “If you guys can prove to us that this is better than soap, then by all means, let’s keep it in there. That makes it a public health concern, and therefore a public health benefit. But if you can’t, we’re going to take it out. We’re going to basically create a law that says, ‘No, it’s not allowed in hand wash, bath products or toothpaste,’” and you guys succeeded in getting it out, 2015, I think it was. And that is incredibly exciting. Our market is still using a ton of it because triclosan has to go somewhere. And these companies then diversify and hit either the developing world or countries who haven’t had laws come in yet. But just go back to that bath soap, the simple bar; have one at the kitchen sink, have one at the bathroom, vanity, have one in the shower. You do not need a fancy synthetic fragrance, creme bruleé and apple bath gel. That is packed with endocrine disruptors. I mentioned phthalates earlier. These phthalates are sticky plasticizer compounds that make fragrances last. So when you kiss someone at the gym, maybe you’ve had a yoga class together, “Bye! See you next week. And then you’re doing your day. And then at night you’re cooking, and the wind blows into the kitchen window, your hair kind of goes like this, and you’re like, “Oh, it’s Jeanette. It’s her fragrance!” And you can still smell it. Even though you saw Jeanette eight hours ago. That is the phthalates doing their sticky “make the fragrance lasts longer” thing. So that is the picture of success from a marketing standpoint, where we were shown this problem we didn’t realize we had with fragrances that don’t last a long time, and then the answer was these phthalates being introduced into perfumes, and all of these synthetic fragrances being born and introduced into personal care products. But what that creates is a disaster, in this circumstance, for estrogen production or signaling in our bodies. And one of the most heartbreaking studies I’ve ever come across was in the phthalates factory, where they studied a birth defect cluster of male baby boys where they were born with abnormal genital formation. So micro-penises or distance between anus and penis much shorter. And some really, really hectic issues that are heartbreaking. And I have had parents write to me in my DMs and say, “O my gosh, this is my son.” And that gives me goosebumps every time I say that because it’s so preventable. It’s just devastating. And so stuff it! You don’t have to have your fragrance lifelong. Change the success metric. Say “Do I want healthy hormones? Or do I want my fragrance to last five hours?” I know which one I’m picking for me and my family. And so again, it’s like the food system. Once you realize that actually, long lasting fragrance isn’t success, and it’s a recipe for health disaster. Then I don’t see that thing as a feature or benefit anymore, and I’m going to change what I buy. You guys have the wonderful Dr. Bronner as a fantastic American brand, very widely available. Gorgeous bar soaps of every different potential natural fragrance. And no, I can’t smell my bath soap three hours later, but I don’t care. It’s hard enough to balance estrogen on the most perfect day of the month, let alone all of these extra external influences, right? And then for our kids, the examples are things, you extend that, and you think of the funky scratch and sniff sticker exchanges that a lot of young girls do, or do you remember the Care Bears and the Strawberry Shortcake?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Strawberry Shortcake! You would squeeze their belly and you would get that. I’ll tell you, my mom saved all that. stuff from when we were kids. There are still Strawberry Shortcake dolls from 40 years ago in my mom’s basement in totes, that when the kids get them out and play with them, they still smell like that. That’s probably not a good thing.

Alexx Stuart

It’s really not a good thing. No. So for personal care, just start to rein in those synthetic fragrances. Start to clock where it’s showing up and realize that the reason we are ditching these is to give our kids the best chance of healthy hormone development as they hit puberty. And we know precocious puberty is a thing. Younger and younger girls are getting their periods. And I’m not saying phthalates are the number one reason, but there are a slew of reasons that are contributing to that, and absolutely, hormone disruptors in personal care. And these fad-like fragranced products, whether it’s a pencil case or a sticker or a book, even, these are the things that we really want to start reining in. And just explaining, “No, it’s going to give mommy a headache.” If they’re too young to understand, just say “It makes mommy ouchy, and then I can’t give you cuddles, and we can’t go for a bike ride. So let’s go choose something else.” And make it an exciting exploration. It doesn’t mean they can’t have anything. That’s the first panic of a kid. It’s like “You’re taking everything away from me!” You need to go get the new thing, “Let’s discover what might not give mommy an ouchy headache and get your really gorgeous pencil case”, or whatever. It’s going to be different stories in every home, but just to give you the idea of the approach to take, it’s always discovery, not deprivation as a parent. You’d never want to go “You can’t have that”, and then not provide an option B, that is not going to work for you. You’ll end up in this struggle dynamic.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I love that: Discovering, not deprivation. What a brilliant way to think about that. I love that.

Alexx Stuart

I’ve got a chapter on it, that one.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

That’s great! It’s a great way to think about it. And especially if you have a child in your home who is sensitive to things, has allergies, whatever it might be, and the reason that you give the other kids in the family, “You can’t have this because of your sister”, that’s a terrible way to set that. Focus on the discovery, “Let’s figure out what we can do. Let’s figure out what we all can have. Let’s figure out what we can eat or put on our body”, or whatever that’s going to help all of us feel better. And so I love that, discovery, not deprivation. I want to ask about what you touched on, and explain heating things in plastic. So as we start to think about things in the households, we’ve talked about some things with food, some starting points with personal care products and things in the home. People should be thinking about storing and heating food products in glass, right? Or what do you recommend?

Alexx Stuart

Absolutely. Glass is your best pantry friend. Modern day glass. I do lead tests on things every now and then to just make sure that a new brand that comes out is okay for me to recommend. I haven’t found lead in any modern glass storage system like Ikea or really good value cheap swing top lids. I haven’t found any lead in the last few years. So you’re pretty safe these days to go the glass route for pantry storage and for heating things up. Do you guys have Pyrex over there?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Yes, we do. Yes. It’s one of the most common ones.

Alexx Stuart

So my caveat here is op shopping. So do not buy vintage Pyrex because you think “Oh, it’s so cute. Look at how they used to make it!” Nope. Lead. Definitely stay away from your vintage stuff.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

So I’m thinking “Oh, so that one thing that my grandma gave me when she moved out, right? Yeah, that should probably go.”

Alexx Stuart

Decorative, Nicole, decorative. Just keep it. I have the most stunning lead crystal champagne coupes from my grandmother. There is no hope in heck you are making me throw those out. Am I ever going to drink champagne out of them? Also, no. But if you can keep those sentimental objects, you just don’t want to use them in your daily life. But that’s just a caveat because a lot of people go op shopping thinking that’s good for the planet. But like I said, we want win-win. You don’t want that to then impact your health. So around the home as well, I think one of the number one pollutants in the home is fabric softener. A lot of people don’t realize that their fabric softener that says Spring Fresh or Ocean Breeze on the on the front — I just want everybody who’s listening today to think about the fabric softener or the scented candle, or the scented reeds, or the fresh air automatic spray system, whatever it is, those super smelly things that you might get, the car air freshener: Look at what the fragrance is called, and then think about the natural version of that. Are those two things the same? If they’re not, there’s your red flag, just stop using it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

It says ocean breeze, and I’m like no synthetic breeze I’ve ever smelled actually smells like the ocean.

Alexx Stuart

No, definitely no. So they become a hard no. You just say no, no more. And then again, discovery not deprivation. So what can we use instead? Is there a local beeswax candle maker? I love having a candle on in the evenings. Such a beautiful, settling, calming light. And so I have a fantastic local beeswax candle maker, Queen Bee, for anyone who’s in Australia. Gorgeous. But you’re going to have a ton of options in the States as well. Could you get into some essential oils? Get a really nice diffuser that you like the look of? Make sure they are Pure Therapeutic Grade is a bit of a made up name, so you don’t really need to go for that, but pure 100% essential oils. Again, you’re going to find local farms that are distilling some lavender oil or some lemon right there down the road, or in the next state from you. Or you could buy one of the trusted international brands. It doesn’t matter. The point is we’re starting to move away from those synthetics. I wouldn’t also say essential oils are great for everybody, because if you think about it, some people are allergic to some plants. Floral oils for me, like ylang ylang, geranium, I’m trying to think of other ones, the florals tend to be a nightmare for me. They make me feel stuffy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Lavender is terrible for me.

Alexx Stuart

There you go. Exactly. But for me the earthier things like rosemary, vetiver, or the fresh lemons and peppermint, that kind of vibe I can totally do. And so again, that’s a discovery. It’s not deprivation. It’s a lovely new world to look into and find something that works for you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Can you talk about the dryer thing for a minute? A lot of people were like, wait, wait, wait.

Alexx Stuart

What do I do instead!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

What am I going to do when my kids’ clothes and my towels and everything are all static and stuck together, or they’re going to stink or whatever, what do you tell people about that?

Alexx Stuart

Yeah. So you have joined the Low Tox movement in a time where you are spoiled for choice. There are so many fantastic natural products now. Just stop, go to your local health shop, you will see so many things to start deciding. And I will say: You will not necessarily find your perfect favorite Low Tox product with the very first thing you choose. Kind of like when you move out of home and you start thinking “What shampoo would I like if I’m paying the bills?”, and you try two or three before you land on the one you like. Low Tox is no different. So don’t think, “Oh, this natural shit doesn’t work. I’m going back to the old stuff.” So definitely give it a chance and try a couple of brands before you decide. But in terms of keeping things soft and not with static, all you need to do is put a couple of heaped tablespoons of bicarb soda in your wash. And then you can also put a little bit of vinegar in the rinse cycle. Again, one or two tablespoons, not a lot. Very cheap, very accessible, DIY, and then you don’t have those issues, you have fluffy towels, everything’s fine. My hack for fragrance is to always put a tea towel in your wash and in your drier because it doesn’t matter if you douse it in essential oil and there’s a little bit of an essential oil kind of patch on it or something. You don’t want to ruin your clothes, but your tea towel, you put a half teaspoon of, say lemon, that’s a nice, cheap, easily accessible essential oil, or orange. And you put that in with your wash or in with the dryer cycle and it just gives this beautiful natural fragrance. You’re not losing anything, you haven’t had to deprive yourself of delicious smelling fresh laundry. But yeah, that’s my hack and it works.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I’m going to start doing that. That’s a great hack. I wonder what you think about the wool dryer balls, because I’ve used those and they actually seem to work pretty well. The balls that you throw in the dryer. They seem to keep the towels and things from sticking to each other. Is that an okay choice?

Alexx Stuart

They do. It is a really great anti-static choice. And research kind of shows that it helps take a few minutes off the drying of the load. So there’s a bit of an energy saving aspect there too if you’re using a dryer, but I will say, and to lead into talking about mold, I will say you definitely want to make sure that you are using either a condenser dryer that collects the water If you use a dryer, or you stick a little compact dehumidifier in your laundry space to deal with the excess moisture that happens when you are using a dryer to dry clothes. Some people live in wet climates, some of the states up in far North America, it is wet and dark for months. And so many people say “Just stick it on the line.” That’s not realistic for everybody. Maybe you’re in an apartment with no balcony in the city. We have to have solutions for everybody. So if you have to use a dryer, use a condenser dryer that collects water and doesn’t emit humidity into your home space, or get a dehumidifier. Invest in just a little compact unit, it is going to be fine for laundry space to keep the moisture levels down and stop mold from growing.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Awesome. Let’s talk about mold for just a second. I know we’re going to have to wrap up here. I’m going to have to have you back because there’s so many more questions. But I do want to touch on mold while we’re talking about stuff in the home. We’ve talked about food, personal care products, things we use in the home. Mold seems to be an increasingly problematic toxin issue for people. We’re seeing more and more children coming in with mold-related problems. What are a couple starting points? what should people be thinking about or aware of there? You just gave a great tip about the dryer. What else should we be thinking about? Because I think a lot of people think, “Well, I don’t have mold in my house. I don’t look up and see mold all over. I don’t have water damage.” But mold can be a toxin that is sort of in lots of places. So where do we start?

Alexx Stuart

Oh, absolutely. Well we have these modern buildings that are built like energy efficient bubbles. But if the airflow hasn’t been addressed, you end up trapping humidity inside. And so again, it has to be win-win. We have to figure out a way to do both, and for people, because you have a lot of people building gorgeous new homes that end up with mold issues three years in. And so think about your airflow, you need an airflow strategy. Bring in a consultant if you’ve got a new build, or if you realize it just feels stuffy inside, then when you go out, you’re like, “Ah”, that’s not normal, you need to actually get more airflow in that place and get the humidity down. So as long as you can eliminate the, let’s say, possibility of water damage, so you don’t have any flaking paint, you don’t have any tea staining colors on your ceiling from potential roof damage, you don’t have any bubbling paint on the other side of a kitchen or bathroom wall or skirting boards coming away down on the floor, you don’t have any visible mold, you don’t have any leaks under your sinks that you know of. If you don’t have water damage, then you just have potentially indoor excess humidity. And we want to be keeping the humidity below 60% to stop mold from being able to grow. And if you can’t do that by just opening the windows, like let’s say you are living in Louisiana, if you open the windows, it’s just going to be 90% humidity inside as well. So you really need a strategy. Some HVAC systems, air conditioner reverse cycle units have dry functions. But if you don’t, you need dehumidifiers. You’re not going to get around needing dehumidifiers. How many you need and how powerful you need them to be, will depend on the type of layout of your house. If you’ve got a big open plan living/dining/kitchen, it’ll be really hard to find one unit that’s going to do an area that open and wide. And so you might need one in one half and one in the other. We are actually on the east coast of Australia, it’s humid half the year. And what we do is we have two units that we move to the laundry and bathrooms. So after the family has their showers in the evening, the dehumidifier goes on in the bathroom to just dry everything up. I do not want to see another DM with someone asking me how I clean mold. We should be preventing it from turning up in the first place. You cannot clean it, you have to remove it. You have to take the grout out, it’s very, very, very dangerous to just get in there and try and clean it. It usually acts up. It’s a living thing that gets angry and releases a whole bunch of toxins to protect itself. So remove, don’t kill is my slogan with mold. But the best slogan of all is prevent mold in the first place, and dehumidifiers are your number one way to do that. So those units will then go into the living space overnight if it’s raining at the moment, and that’s while we’re sleeping so they’re just on, doing their thing, keeping everything nice and dry. Then during the day I’ll give each bedroom a unit to just dry them out. The amount of moisture we release into our mattresses is actually quite frightening. So just that alone, or if you’re someone who really likes to make broth, and you’ve always got a pot bubbling on the stove, that’s releasing a whole bunch of humidity into your indoor space. So just to give people a little idea there on how many ways we can introduce moisture into the home, it stands to reason that for me, a dehumidifier is literally at the top of my appliance list because preventing mold prevents a whole bunch of issues. And we now have researched that the introduction of WiFi and cell towers has actually increased the rate of growth of mold in a way that physics can explain, but I cannot. I am not a physics professor. But it’s not to terrify people, but it’s to say, “Okay, so we need a strategy in this modern world.” Try telling your teenager “We’re not going to have WiFi in the house anymore”, that’s not going to work for you. It’s so much easier to just pop down to the hardware store and buy a dehumidifier.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

Awesome. So many great tips. You’ve given people so many awesome starting points, I’m going to have to have you back at some point because there’s so many more areas that we could cover. But I want to make sure that people know where they can get more information, because there’s a lot of people listening who are like, “I need more of Alexx in my life. I need more of this info. I love the practical focus.” So where should people go to find out more?

Alexx Stuart

So Low Tox Life is the only combination of words that you can know for sure it’s me. The one downside about birthing a movement is that everybody’s created some sort of variation of it, then people are like, “Can I just check if this is you? Did you endorse this?” I’m like, “No! I don’t know that person.” So Low Tox Life. And then we have the podcast, we have had 300 shows now. You have been a wonderful guest just recently. And then there’s all of our courses. So basically, if you pop onto lowtoxlife.com, you can hit the different tabs. We have a whole bunch of safe shopping resources, ebooks, courses, podcast.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

A lot of great resource downloads, too. You’ve got a great array.

Alexx Stuart

Yes. So if you go to the Explore tab, and then the Free Downloadables, I’ve actually got PDFs that you can download. If you want to have a conversation with your teacher at school about the fake air freshener that they’ve just put in, or at work. there’s a lot of these in the workplace bathrooms. If you don’t know how to have that conversation yet, we’ve done that. We’ve done it for synthetic grass football fields, we’ve done it for all sorts of topics so that people can just download and go “Okay, here, I’ve got my research, I’ve got my words, let’s go.”

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

I want to spotlight too, for people, you’ve got a set of resources that they can download and access, specific to kids as well. And I just want to spotlight that because some of you may be thinking, “How do I approach this with the kids? How do I talk about this? How do I help kids understand these things?” And you’ve got great resources. So yes, the website is awesome. And then I also want to encourage people to follow you on social media. You’re active on Instagram, I know for sure. It is @lowtoxlife. And you’ve got great resources, great things there. So definitely go follow Alexx there. I so appreciate the education, the advocacy you’re doing around this. And just again, really, the focus on practicality that you bring to it. You’ve given us some great tips. So thank you so, so much for being with us today. Really loved having this conversation with you.

Alexx Stuart

You’re so welcome, Nicole. Anytime.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens

And thanks as always, to all of you for being here and for listening. We’ll catch you back here next time.