Hi my name is Pam. My journey into food additives began some 20 years ago. As a young woman fresh out of high school, I had a keen interest in beauty, health and nutrition. This led me to undertake a Diploma in Beauty Therapy. I quickly realised that although external treatments on the body were helpful in improving the skin's appearance and elasticity, it was what we put inside our body that really made the difference. With this focus in mind, I enrolled myself at a leading naturopathic College and studied a Diploma in Nutrition.

Up until this time, I was living at home with mum and dad and coming from a Mediterranean background, our diet was full of fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes and lean proteins such as chicken, fish and red meat. Interestingly, during my childhood and teenage years, whilst on this wholesome diet, I had very few health problems. Even episodes of the common cold and flu were far and few in between.

In my early 20s, I moved out of home and it was around this same time that my own battle with food, and specifically food additives began. I started to have diverse health problems, which would eventually take doctors, another 10 years to diagnose. I'm not talking about anything serious at first, but rather small things that made me feel uncomfortable and that most people wouldn't take very much notice of.

Things like constant bloating and flatulence which would persist until the following morning. Like any other young woman, I enjoyed eating certain foods such as bread, cold meets, carbonated drinks, and of course pastries. Who can say no to pastries! Of course, I enjoyed the occasional takeaway like pizza, hamburgers (how I loved the milk bar hamburger!) and hot chips. In fact, I have to say that hot chips were my absolute favourite out of all the takeaway foods. I did not indulge in these every day but if I have to be honest, I would say at least once a week.

As time progressed, my symptoms began to worsen to such a point that they couldn't be ignored any longer. I started having severe fatigue, and aching in my joints, so much so that doctors began doing a battery of tests to determine if I had some sort of autoimmune disease. These came back negative. Two years after these symptoms, I started getting a constant sore throat, which within three days lead to severe bronchitis. During a period of two years, I was on antibioticsA substance or compound that inhibits or kills the growth of bacteria. every month to combat this bronchitis. I was sent to various specialists including rheumatologists and immunologists in the hope that they would work out what was wrong with me. They were unable to find anything sinister to account for my diverse symptoms and so was told I just had a weak immune system. By my 30th birthday, my symptoms were as such that, along with all of the above forementioned symptoms, my glands in my throat would swell and I would begin to wheeze.

Two more years passed, with these debilitating symptoms until I started to get an inkling of what the culprit was. I started to keep a mental diary of what I ate and did at the time that these symptoms appeared. I very quickly realised that it was related to certain foods. My journey to healing began from this point. I began to slowly eliminate processed foods especially those with colourings and preservatives from my diet. My symptoms began to improve. I then undertook a full elimination diet, which took approximately 12 months to complete.

As part of this process I eliminated all additives from my diet, plus dairy, gluten, fruit and vegetables which were high in salicylates and amines. Within ten days of cutting these things out of my diet, all of my symptoms disappeared!

In my upcoming posts I'll be sharing more details of my journey including elimination diets, eating (and cooking!) for allergies, and some of the other challenges I encountered.