That which harms our health is everywhere.
This is not a dramatic extension of truth; it is part of our reality. I’m sure that if you’ve chosen to read my Substack, you’re maybe already aware of this, at least to some extent. And if you aren’t, I believe you deserve to be.
Without taking into account all forms of harm we are exposed to daily, in this piece, through the lens of my personal experience, I will focus on the anxiety which can be experienced around harmful substances we consume - by choice, or not - mainly through the additions of unautrally occuring1 toxic chemicals in our food, water, air, clothing, objects, bathing products, medications and so on2, such as pesticides, emulsifiers, colourants, fragrances, anti-biotics and so on - in short, the ultra-proccessed trash of the capatalist, indistrialised system3.
Most of the factual information in this post is derived from the book Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulken - I would recommend reading it for yourself.
health anxiety
I’ve spent years slowly transitioning into what I consider a less toxified way of life, that feels healthier for me, shifting how I think, act, shop, relate, eat, drink, care and clothe myself and my home, and so on.
Whilst I view this shift as necessary to the improvement of my wellbeing, having my eyes opened to the toxicity that my health was being affected by was overwhelming. I imagine it is overwhelming information for anyone, though, as someone who has lived with eating disorders4 throughout my life, the repercussions of this on my relationship to food led to further disablement, resulting in fear-based restriction, with the peak of my experience being between 2021 - 2024.
The overwhelming fear and anxiety were grounded in reason. The sheer level at which toxicity impregnates potentially every aspect of our lives, means it is very hard to avoid, and we only have so much agency over our exposure.5 The aggressive business strategies of mega corporations, such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, Unilever and Procter and Gamble, have made it commonplace around the globe to consume toxic substances in place of nourishing ones, meaning we are increasingly malnourished or unwell.
One of the more predatory aspects of this is how some of these health-harming products are even sold under the guise of health improvement and self-care, including supplements and diet foods. Corporations, such as Nestle, are even funding joint ventures wth pharma companies to develop medicine to ‘treat’ the food-related health issues that they are creating6, therefore taking profit from both your harm, and the medicine you’re told you need to solve the repercussions.
We live in a culture where a ‘little bit of everything’ is seen as okay7, balanced even, whilst avoiding toxicity through fear or disgust of the repercussions has now been pathologised. Everything about this bothers me.
My health anxiety has never simply been about myself, but about the whole fucking world. I fear the consequences of consumption for my friends, family and community. I feel anger about the colonial tactics such as poor working wages, toxified environments and the removal of traditional foods, which harm people, cultures and the planet at the so-called “bottom of the food chain”. I feel confused knowing that charities hand out toxic food to vulnerable people who can’t afford proper nutrition as ‘care’ to help solve industrialised food waste. I feel sorrow and disbelief watching a young mother feeding Fanta to her toddler.
I could go on.
I am not okay with knowing that corporations are profiting in the billions off of contributing to ecocide and genocide, and the subsequent deterioration of health of all beings on this planet.
It is all wrong.
It is okay that I feel this way. I am not numb to the harm happening to the world. Why would we not avoid it? Why would we not be fearful or angry? Let’s unpack.
What do we know?
Studies have shown that the sorts of additives we are openly exposed to, for instance maltodextrin, dextrose and xanthan gum in edible substances have been linked to cancer, overweight, diabetes, digestive disease, dementia, infertility, endocrine disruption, anxiety and depression, gut disbiosis, leaky gut and much, much more; basically, they fuck with our bodies natural balance and make us unwell. These chemical cocktails, which are sold openly on store shelves without warning, are generally considered safe for human consumption8.
Worryingly, figures show that the average British and American population consume a diet of 60% UPF [ultra-processed food-like substances]. Whilst some products are openly known and consumed as ‘junk food’, others, unbelievably, are sold to us as the healthy option9. And that’s just food; you can find toxic chemicals in health supplements, medications, tap water, fresh fruit and vegetables, restaurant meals, technology, furniture, body care products, home cleaning products, and so on - I’ll call this UPP [Ultra-procecced products].
Chemicals are either hidden behind the processing, or written on sophisticated and misleading packaging with long words most people do not bother to read, let alone research to understand.10 It’s about profit, not nourishment, but they’re meant to be about nourishment.
We could consider ourselves safe in the thought that surely, our governments are protecting us through stringent testing? Yes, there is testing, but it is not stringent; there are huge gaps, and beyond those canyons, much of the scientific study around this is skewed due to conflicts of interest, with mega corporations, like Coca-Cola and Nestle, paying for the research to be conducted.
Pause with those implications.
An additional consideration here is that toxicology tests are being conducted on individual chemicals in isolation, without taking into consideration chemical interactions, aka the chemical cocktails served up in individual products, and then how those interact with the other chemical cocktails, in other products we consume, are not being tested.11
We do not yet know the full longer-term implications that this level of exposure to toxicity is having on our overall health and wellbeing; however, I feel it is safe to say, after reading only a small amount of the current evidence, and living with my own health challenges, that it is not good. It leaves me with the feeling of an even greater sense of injustice.
my journey
I was first exposed to elements of my current lifestyle as far back as 2016, when I bought ‘The Art of Eating Well’ by the Hemsley sisters. It was a revelation to me, but I found it difficult to manage this way of consuming whilst living in a state of poverty, surrounded by other people who didn’t desire, or feel able, to consume in this way. Roll forward to 2020, and I was still consuming toxic products almost as I always had, not at all connecting the dots between feeling massively unwell, and everything I was consuming12.
I had always experienced health challenges, but in 2020, my health deteriorated more quickly under extreme life stress and the potential effects of contracting Covid-19. I began working with a Naturopath, Poppie, who suggested some of my symptoms indicated food intolerance, so it was here that I began making more solid changes to my diet and lifestyle. After removing multiple foods13 and eating more fresh wholefoods, I began to feel better; my bloating disappeared along with my gut pain, and I had more energy with less pain. However, after a time of eating in this very specific way, my recovery plateaued and the symptoms of my unwellness intensified - I was grief-stricken and panicked; what was I doing wrong now?
At the peak of my experience of health anxiety, I was trying to unpick every tiny sensation after everything I consumed to connect with each symptom. The nature of my health challenges14 means that there is no conclusive ‘thing’ known to be wrong with me, which means there is nothing solid which will ‘treat’ me either. I kept trying to find the elusive key to feeling good, maintaining a very healthy, but very restrictive diet - I was doing everything theoretically ‘right’, yet I was still deeply unwell. I moved through different cleanses, diets and regimens, all of which just overwhelmed my mind and body further.
Considering that toxicity had played a huge role in my disablement, consuming chemicals which harm me is not something I wanted to continue. However, living in this way had negative effects on me, including a level of agoraphobia15, which created social isolation, making my world feel very small. Though reversing the damage that my body has endured over my lifetime understandably does take time and patience to heal, with ups and downs expected, something else was at play here: stress.
the stress of being healthy in an unhealthy culture
This kind of stress and anxiety moves beyond simply the fear of toxicity, to the stress generated in the act of avoiding it. Few people can head off into the wildness and avoid the industrialised world as a suitable solution for this, and living in a city here in Scotland, there is no way of avoiding toxicity; my agency and choice of the matter are lessened, so there are only ways to mitigate the risk and exposure.
The most challenging and disabling aspect for me has been the implications of eating and living in a way that is not normalised nor catered for widely - or if at all - within the over-culture; isolation, lack of convenience, extra resources required, feeling misunderstood, unmet and left out, etc. Forget healthy/whole options being more widely accessible, forget taxing toxic products, these toxic substances should not be made or sold to anyone, this way they simply wouldn’t be a harm to avoid in the first instance. The financial growth/greed of shareholders should not be prioritised here - food is not about profit, it is about nourishment being accessible to all.
Cultivating a healthy lifestyle living within the over-culture of capitalism is restrictive by nature; we are actively avoiding that which harms us, which is good, but it’s a lot. The fact of the matter is that there is a level of toxicity baked into almost everything, which makes avoiding it tiring physically, mentally and emotionally, which I assume is why most people avoid or struggle to cultivate it. It is not common practice.
Beyond my avoidance of notable toxicity, I also spend time avoiding many foods which are not inherently ‘toxic’, but which my body struggles to process or disagrees with, and therefore unbalances my body. This includes gluten, dairy, soya, sugar, alcohol and caffeine - my body is sensitive, and this adds additional layers of challenge!
Even within my climate communities, UPF is frequently served up at meals; meals which I therefore can’t partake in. And even if it isn’t UPF, there may be ingredients I can’t consume, and many free-from options are UPF. Communal eating situations, which should feel like a source of solace, are uncomfortable for me, and I still feel resistant to allowing other people to cater for me. In these situations, I can choose to miss out completely, eat before I arrive and refuse food - including the connected love that has been woven into the interaction - sit and eat separate food16, cater for everyone else just so that I can participate, or eat the food I know is damaging to me and deal with the consequences later. Stressors on multiple levels.
Gathering my food can also feel challenging for me, with most stores not providing all I need, leading me to shop all over the city; it can be tiring, time-consuming and expensive - sometimes my health does not allow for this. My diet had also been so restricted in the past that I was missing elements of essential nutrition, and the fear I felt meant that my body would react to foods anyway, due to my nervous system being on high alert.17
This all requires additional thought and preparation to navigate, which means an extra load of processing - I’m a single person, living with no dependents and no pressure to work, and I still felt overwhelmed and defeated, let alone if you have a family, full-time work and a life to uphold!
I decided to invest in one-to-one nutrition support, and where I had been previously advised to hold an incredibly strict diet, Tegan, in the first instance, prioritised foods to calm my gut, and explored my fear and anxiety around food. I was tasked with loosening the grips to try what I had feared. I ate a mince pie, a sausage roll, white bread rolls from Tesco, and ate (fancy) gelato on the way home (pistachio, if you were wondering) - this was a big fucking deal for me.
A scoop of ice cream wasn’t the end of my anxiety, but it was the lessening of its control over me. Some of it was tasty, others, honestly, grim (a Greg’s sausage roll doesn’t ever hit the same after this life change, trust); so even though I had eaten that which I had feared, the fact remained that I didn’t want to consume toxic chemicals because it’s gross, and harmful.
pathologisation is pants
Whilst the pathologisation created by the global northern medicalised ‘mental health’ system can be used as a tool of self-understanding and a gateway to reciving support, I do also believe it a harm in itself; experiencing fear, anxiety and depression within our current climate is both understandable and reasonable; it is not an issue of the individual, but of the violent industrialised state system we live within.
Even if I do not fully understand the intricate biological effects behind these chemical cocktails - and it may not be wise for me to continue to dig down too deep - my body is wise enough to be repelled by knowing that they’re there. Why would it make anyone mentally unwell to care, on any level, about what they are consuming, and to wish to avoid harm?
Although it is not currently recognised clinically as an eating disorder within the DSM-5-TR, in a paper published online for the National Library for Medicine, psychiatrist Dr. Scarff states that:
Orthorexia nervosa is perhaps best summarized as an obsession with healthy eating with associated restrictive behaviors. However, the attempt to attain optimum health through attention to diet may lead to malnourishment, loss of relationships, and poor quality of life.11 It is a little-understood disorder with uncertain etiology, imprecise assessment tools, and no formal diagnostic criteria or classification. Orthorexic characteristics vary from normal to pathologic in degree, and making a diagnosis remains a clinical judgment. 22
This is not wrong, but it also isn’t right. Let’s throw this out there -
Health anxiety is reasonable, valid and natural
The effects of health anxiety are unsupportive and harmful
Both statements are true, they do not negate one another. It is completely sane to fear toxicity at the level we are exposed to it.
It has been my experience that as I adjust my lifestyle to become what I consider to be healthier, I experience stress linked to the consequential implications, which causes other issues for myself, further impacting my health and wellbeing. You have to adjust. Even though the social isolation, etc, is distressing, remaining in unhealthy spaces is more harmful - it’s not normal, I don’t wish to partake in it.
I must refuse the notion that it is a sign of unwellness to avoid toxicity, and prioritise health. Anxiety is the body responding in a way that is aligned with the perceived danger/risk present. Why would you not be anxious enough to avoid exposure to harm at this level?
I do not advocate for eating disorders18, but I equally do not advocate for the pathologisation of the individual either. I believe that it is the severity of the anxiety that holds implications that negatively affect the body/mind/soul, and this is where the harm lies. But so-called ‘disordered’ eating never occurs in isolation, and it is never an issue with the individual; it is a response to the environment and experiences they have been exposed to.19
Of course we will feel stressed and anxious - whether aware or not as to why - when we have little or no access to untainted nourishment. The ‘obsession’ to seek untainted, healthy consumables is fueled by our bodies seeking that which we need to survive, and when it is hard or impossible to access, that causes great distress. Our bodies are responding naturally; they are talking to us.20 What I feel may need closer attention is the line that we straddle between supportive and unsupportive fear, or the integration of anxiety as a normal aspect of who we are, rather than the response to our experience that it is.
Pathologisation of experiences of any mental distress serves the overculture’s agenda of constant profit growth through social ostracisation to those who deny it, shifting blame from that which is causing the harm, to centre an individual’s experience of mental dis-ease as the issue. It’s not you. Unfortunately, there is no pathologisation happening at the source; the big bosses of big business are not tainted with labels fit for the ecological crimes they’re committing.
cultivating balance
I have and continue to experiment with this, and though I still find challenge and discomfort in living in this way, I have been able to cultivate more balance. Balance is not so much that I do not feel challenged anymore, it is that I have gotten better at managing and reorienting myself. I’ve landed on a more intuitive approach, where I follow the ‘best that I can’ motto of the Hemsley sisters, allowing space for negotiation, pleasure choices and slip-ups. If I need or want to consume something that may be slightly damaging to me, I assess it and see if it is either a necessary or a pleasure choice I want to make (caffeine, I’m looking at you). If I choose to consume it, I consume in the best way possible, and I choose to let the worry and victimhood dissipate; there is something here about the agency to choose.
I choose to avoid medications and supplements; I prioritise farmers markets and organic produce; I make multiple skincare products using natural ingredients, including suncream, lipbalm and deodorant; I filter my water; I prefer natural homemade cleaning products. But my life is not free of harmful substances by any means, I’m just doing what I am willing to, and can.
With the agency I hold, I wish to avoid toxicity as much as I can, even though I’m aware that it is impossible to completely avoid. I wish to nourish my body, mind and soul. I choose to live more intuitively with my body now, honouring its responses, whilst ensuring that I take time to prepare as much as I am able; if I am tired and need some convenience, that is okay, I will do my best.
Protection from toxins is more than removal; when we nourish our bodies well, they are more capable of withstanding exposure to what we can’t avoid. This is not me stating we can carry on openly exposing ourselves to toxicity, but it does mean that when those moments happen, anxiety does not need to overcome us, because we know that we have been fortifying ourselves.
final words
No one should need to experience health fear/anxiety. The fact remains that the toxicity I choose to avoid is a violence on both our bodies and the earth. I want to actively avoid and devalue it.
The idea of UPP disgusts me, so I refuse to put money into their hands to continue their harm of people and the planet. I would much rather feel the stress of inconvenience and social awkwardness it requires to live in a way that conflicts with the overculture, because that can be dealt with, and currently I hold the resources to do so.
I remain aware - yet not hyper-vidulant - of the risk and where it is contained, and I choose whether I avoid it or not. As I begin to support other people in the space of wellbeing, I need to keep myself in check; guiding people in wellbeing is not about creating fear, nor placing my views upon them. This is always an educated choice. My role is to support people on their unique path, allowing them to make their own choices, whether I agree with them or not.
Many people do not have the fullness of choice I currently experience - I have been there too - yet we all have a level of agency. It is one thing to need to buy a UPF ready meal or jar of pasta sause for dinner, but you do not need Coca-cola, mars bars, pringles, and all that other crap. There are lower-cost wholefood options available, so try to opt for the best you can; there are choices out there. Whilst it can be annoying, inconvenient and disappointing in many ways, if we can reframe the avoidance of harm as an act of love, rather than a wholehearted burden, then perhaps we can surrender the anxiety around it.
It requires a mental shift, an alteration of perception, an adjustment of priorities. Healing and living a healthier life is a beautiful choice I am privileged21 to make, to improve the quality of my life. I can, so I choose to spend the time making my own snacks and carrying them with me; I choose to save for the best restaurants I can if and when I go out for food; I can cook for my friends and share my knowledge with them if they’re willing.
Perhaps this discomfort can fuel us to take steps to change the narrative, to set up alternatives for ourselves and others. I want to make this way of eating more widely understood and easier to access. I want to demystify the facts, encourage adaptation, and in honesty, put these fucking companies out of business, so that the ones who are producing proper food get to grow to provide for more people (got to dream big).
You do not need to take my word for it, I encourage you to do your research, read the books, listen to the podcasts, etc, and see if you don’t feel weird about eating toxic food anymore….
practical ideas
Cultivating health is about making the best choices you can, at the time you make them. Here are some points that could help you start:
Check labels and do some research; avoid ingredients which are unknown to you, highly processed or harmful to your health
Choose the best options you have access to, even stores like Lidl have selections of fresh and whole foods - this is where I started
Carry simple snacks like a boiled egg, fruit, raw nuts or a homemade museli bar with you to avoid the need to buy when you’re out and hungry
Have fun trying or creating healthier recipes for your favourite junk foods; like making a wholefood version of a Snickers bar
Refuse takeaway coffee cups and carry a reusable (non-plastic) one with you
Prioritise fresh, organic and locally grown foods as much as you can - you can start small and build this up. Check and see the price difference; it may not be as much as you thought
Use reusable or organic, unbleached menstrual products
Filter your tap water
Use simple, natural and pure body care products and makeup, or make your own at home - you could buy the ingredients with friends to reduce the bulk cost and make a large batch to share (they also make great gifts)
Use simple, natural and pure home cleaning products such as white vinegar, bicarbonate of soda or multi-purpose soaps such as Marseille or castile Soap
Do you have any thoughts or ideas that you could add to the conversation? Maybe you disagree, feel a level of resistance, or have had a different experience? Please share in the comments!
I’m talking about the stuff that does not need to be there. There are many naturally occurring toxic substances, and we (hopefully) know to avoid them, but here I’m focusing on the violence of the system, which unnaturally processes, extracts and devalues food in ways which lead to human harm.
I’d say that most of these products are campaigned aggressively and hold big claims with their use.
Through my life, I have experienced Bulimia Nervosa, Anorexia Nervosa and ‘Orthorexia Nervosa'. It is my view that these pathologised behaviours and experiences of a relationship with food and eating are symptoms of an underlying problem, and not the issue, namely that my ‘disordered’ eating manifested due to experiencing trauma, loss of power and agency in my life.
I believe agency and choice are very important concerning the development of any ‘restrictive’ or ‘obsessive’ behaviours. When I choose to consume something in full awareness, it is my choice. When I have no choice but to consume something toxic, or I do not know that what I am consuming is toxic for whatever reason, that is a violence upon me, which could lead to an attempt to regain control in any way possible.
Page 284 in Ultra Processed people
FYI, it’s not. This is hands-down a floored logic, a little bit of a berry from a Yew tree will probably still kill you. Please stop making excuses.
There are suggested levels of consumption, yet Chris Van Tulleken points out that we tend to consume far more in higher doses of these foods per serving. This is due both to their addictive nature, but also how they set our bodies up to believe they’re receiving certain nutrients, when in fact we are not, leading us to be far hungrier.
Cereals with ‘added vitamins’ or sugar-free and low-fat products are good examples of this.
Why do we not look to understand what those long words on the backs of packets are? Why do we eat something with no idea what we’re consuming?
https://chemtrust.org/chemicalcocktails/
Consumption moves beyond food and products to media, energy, conversations and so on. Horror films, mainstream news, aggressive video games, bitching etc all come into this.
I removed gluten, dairy, soya, tomatoes, mint, fluoride and many more like onion and garlic. I also avoided chemical-heavy products as much as possible. This was after doing a hair test, which I now know is not totally valid. I was (wrongly) recommended to cut out the list of foods from my diet completely, forever. These items may have caused inflammation, yes, but it didn’t mean I had to cut them out forever; I just needed to allow my body to rest. Without the support I truly needed, I took it to be very black and white. This, in turn, led to other issues and malnutrition. I ate like this for 2 to 3 years, the stress of which inflamed me regardless, and the fear I felt around food created the symptoms as my body fought them off.
CFS, Fibromyalgia, IBS, Raynauds
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/agoraphobia/overview/
This one always bites, because generally it is a free meal, or I have paid for it inclusive of an experience, but cannot eat it, and then have to pay more to bring my own food!
When our bodies and in the Sympathetic nervous system - the fight/flight state - our digestive systems simply can’t digest properly, because our bodies are simply prioritising survival. We need to be in the parasympathetic nervous system - the rest and digest state.
I’ll also note that each individual will have a different underlying challenge causing any disordered eating, and it is not simply a fear of toxicity, though it may be a contributing element for some, not all will be affected by this.
The manifestation of mental distress is complicated and nuanced, with everyone experiencing it differently. I can only speak from my own experience, which may chime true for others also.
I feel it could also be hypothisised that the cellular and bacterial changes which occur from exposure to these toxic substances could bring on so called ‘disordered’ eating in the first instance, as it has been shown that multiple substances altar the microbiome, sometimes causing anxiety and depression in humans, and, our (dammaged) microbiom can control the desire to seek certain substances to feed themselves.
I acknowledge again that not everyone has this choice widely accessible to them. My set of circumstances means I can manage this at a good enough level to keep it up. It requires a certain level of resources to prioritise this. I view it as a privilege to be able to choose to live in this way, regardless of any challenges I experience. I will share that I currently live fully supported by government benefits; however, due to my health and disabilities, I receive more than someone on basic universal credit. When I started this change I was in a state of total poverty, and I started by refining my shop at my local Lidl, buying specialist ingredients in health food stores, adapting my spending as I went. I have had to do a lot of inner work around money, also.