In this week’s episode of The Whole Circle Podcast we talk to Davin, a 13-year-old boy about how he embraced eating additive-free.

Davin has totally rocked our world!  He is a 13-year-old boy who has embraced eating additive-free and, how cool is this, he even did a school report on it!

How it all began

Chantelle, Davin’s mum had seen one of our social media posts about dehydrating food.  Piqued with interest she looked into it further and saw that a few of her friends had completed our signature program Additive-Free Made Easy.  She then commenced her own research into this course and came across a few things that resonated with her.

When Davin was about 5-years-old, Chantelle noticed changes in his behaviour, plus he wasn’t sleeping as well as he used to.  However, she couldn’t figure out what the cause was.  Given the fact that Davin’s Dad had passed away around this time, she had attributed his behaviours to that and didn’t really think it had anything to do with what they were eating. Which, let’s be honest, is probably what we would all do.

Chantelle then discovered Jo’s story regarding why she started living additive-free (if you want to learn about Jo’s heartbreaking story, watch here.)

She noticed connections between Jo’s story and her own and started to think that maybe there was something more to understand.

The first thing Chantelle did was remove additive MSG (621) from their diets completely.  She did this because Davin used to eat chicken flavoured rice cakes, which he loved, but at the time their supermarket stopped stocking them.  Davin was devasted, but Chantelle noticed that Davin seemed happier and not as angry since he stopped eating them.  This validated to her that there was something to be said for eating additive-free.

She knew at this point she needed to know more about additives and preservatives in food which is when she registered and completed our course, Additive-Free Made Easy.

How would Chantelle’s family react?

Chantelle was anxious about how the whole family would react to living additive-free, so she implemented the changes and swaps gradually over time, being particularly careful not to make a fuss or big deal about it, but communicating each step in the process to her family.

Davin completely blew Chantelle’s mind with how well he not only accepted it but totally embraced eating additive-free.  He certainly took it to a whole other level!

It also gave Davin an explanation as to why he was behaving the way he was after having eaten additives and preservatives.

Davin’s school project

Davin had to pick a topic to do a school project on, which was right around the time they were finishing our Additive-Free Made Easy course, so he decided to do his school project on additives and preservatives in food and share his journey.  Whilst he didn’t know a lot about it at the time, he researched and learnt what MSG does to our bodies as well as other harsh additives and preservatives.

Oh my gosh, upon hearing this our hearts totally burst with pride!

Whilst Davin’s teacher was confused about it, after hearing Davin’s explanation he was interested about living additive-free as well.

Yes, that’s right, Davin was educating his teacher!

Did his school friends give him a hard time about it?

Not at all, they have created funny banter around it trying to guess and figure out if any of their food has MSG in it and have turned it into a bit of a game.

This means that Davin is educating his friends about eating additive-free and empowering them to make the decision about whether they want to follow the same lifestyle or not.

How amazing is that?!

How did the additives and preservatives make him feel?

When Davin was eating additives and preservatives he was always agitated and on edge.  But now that these have been cut out of his diet, he doesn’t have those feelings any longer.  He is now much happier and feels much better within himself.  He feels that doing the course and taking additives and preservatives out of their diet was absolutely worth it!

Empowering Davin with responsibility and choice

Chantelle feels that giving Davin responsibility around his diet has helped as well.  This means that it is not her dictating to him what he can and cannot have, it’s about Davin now knowing the information so that he can make his own choice about what he wants to eat.

If Chantelle gives him a choice between two foods, one having not great ingredients and one being additive-free Davin will simply say ‘no Mum I don’t want to put that in my body’.

There was a time when Davin went trick or treating and Chantelle was so nervous about it and pretty much didn’t want to know what he would be consuming.  Davin came back with a massive stash of additive-filled junk food.  Chantelle had some additive-free chocolate at the ready in the hope they would swap their junk for that, and lo and behold Davin happily swapped them over because he simply didn’t want to eat all those additives and much preferred the additive-free chocolate anyway.

And that’s the beauty of living additive-free, in most cases, there is a simple swap you can make to get rid of the rubbish food.

Chantelle had heard Tracey and Jo say many times over that living additive-free wasn’t hard, but she had worried it would be.  In actual fact, she found it really easy to embrace living additive-free and make the swaps from additive filled food to additive-free food.

Does Davin get in the kitchen and help cook?

Davin loves cooking and is always in the kitchen helping out.  His favourite thing to cook is meringue’s or pavlova, no small feat that’s for sure!

He also made a chickpea and carrot salad for a recent family gathering.  How awesome is Davin!  He can come and cook for us anytime ?

The best way to experiment with food is just to get in and have a go.  What’s the worst thing that can happen?  It doesn’t taste good, which is not the end of the world.

Davin’s Chickpea and Carrot Salad with Lemon-Mustard Dressing

Salad Ingredients 

2 small carrots, grated
1/4 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 Lebanese cucumber, diced
1 medium avocado, diced
1 tbsp. flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
A few baby cos lettuce leaves, torn into bite-sized pieces

Dressing Ingredients

1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Half a lemon, juiced
Pinch of salt
Black pepper to taste
4 tbsp. olive oil

Method:

  1. Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl and gently toss until combined.
  2. To make the dressing simply whisk the Dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper together until well combined.
  3. Slowly add olive oil, whisking constantly until thick.
  4. Toss the dressing through the salad until combined.
  5. Serve and enjoy.

We have found Davin and Chantelle so inspirational. It is stories like this really do make our hearts completely sing!

How you can be empowered

We have our next round of Additive-Free Made Easy starting this Monday 4 March 2019.

There’s still time to register and empower yourself with the knowledge that will serve you for a lifetime.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR ADDITIVE-FREE MADE EASY

Links and Resources