As many of you who have been here a while know, we try our best to follow an additive free diet as much as possible. My kids often react to preservatives and specific colours {reactions can range from hyper behaviour to rashes and skin eczema, lucky for us their reactions are fairly mild} and so for this reason and for general health we avoid additives in our food. You can read more of my additive centred posts here.

When we first started on our additive free journey, it was completely overwhelming. One look at the back of packages from the supermarket and I wanted to cry – all those names and numbers! I would have given almost anything for a resource like The Trusted Trolley {brought to you by four awesome Aussie Mums!!} when we embarked on changing our lives and the way we shopped and ate. I relied on books and lots of research and spent A LOT of time working out better choices and learning how to make more things from scratch in order to cut out additives from our diet. But The Trusted Trolley makes going additive free just so much easier. I cannot sing their praises highly enough!


A visit to The Trusted Trolley website will provide you with information on why we should avoid additives {did you know the average Australian consumes 5kg of additives in a year!?} as well as a printable list of additives to avoid that you can find here.


Their website is packed full of great info really worth the read if you’ve been considering making some changes. I love how they also include a common-sense guide to how to get started – I have always said that it’s important to take baby steps and that is exactly what The Trusted Trolley promote too. The longer you’re on your additive aware journey the easier it gets, I promise!


With an easy to follow Additive Safety Rating, you can quickly identify additives that are not safe with the red trolley icon. But whats more is that as a member of their online safe food database, you can build your shopping list from pre-selected foods that do not contain any additives from the ‘red/avoid’ category! That seriously makes life much easier, when your choices already exclude the foods that contain additives that are known to cause adverse reactions in many children. 
But their safety ratings for additives also include an ‘orange’ rating for those additives that are suspect {for example those banned in other countries but still allowed here in Australia} and a blue ‘certain people’ rating for those additives that some people with heightened sensitivities may wish to avoid such as additives that can trigger reactions in people with asthma. 


For members, searching for safe food items on the database is very simple and they also include easy steps to follow. 



For example, a search for Vegemite comes up like this. You can see the highlighted ingredients like ‘Yeast extract’ and ‘509 – Potassium Chloride’ and ‘150c – Caramel III’. Clicking on these will give you more information on each additive. While Vegemite does not contain any ‘red’ additives, it does contain additives some people may find beneficial to avoid. I love how you can easily and quickly get this information and read more about the additives in specific products with just a few clicks!



Clicking on ‘150c – Caramel III’ brings up its info page – full of everything you need to know about that additive so you can make an informed decision.


This is seriously time saving stuff. The fact you can do this all from the comfort of your own home {instead of standing in the middle of the supermarket aisles checking out the product ingredients against the additive info in a book or on a website on your smart phone!} is unbeatable. 


Above is an example of a search through the categories provided on the Trusted Trolley Database. I clicked on the Rice, Noodles, Pasta & Pasta Sauce category on the left, and then on Pasta Sauce and I get a list of products I know do not contain ANY ‘red/avoid’ additives in them as they wouldn’t be included on the Trusted Trolley’s database if they did. I can then ‘Add to Shopping List’ with one click, or click on the product for more information. They really make it easy! And are adding products to their database all the time.

Search for products, maybe find a better alternative if needed by comparing products in the database, add the products you want to your shopping list, print it out and hit the supermarket with a list of safe foods all ready to get you to the checkout that much faster.
OR, if you’re like me and you do grocery shopping online and have it delivered it is even more useful. Most often, ingredients aren’t listed for products on the supermarket websites so it makes shopping for safe products difficult! I have been using my Trusted Trolley membership over the past couple of months to help me double check products or check on something new that I might be interested in before adding it to my online grocery cart. It has definitely been a huge help! 



If you’ve been wanting to learn more about additives and have been trying to cut them out of your food choices but have felt too overwhelmed or don’t know where to start, I really feel this could be a big help to you! 

And I am so so excited that the lovely ladies from The Trusted Trolley are giving away a 6 month membership to one of my readers! 


Enter below and don’t forget to share the giveaway with your friends! Please make sure to use a valid email address as I will use this to contact you should you be the winner. Also please leave your name with your blog post comment! Ends 11:59PM WST Monday 29 July 2013.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck! 

xx

Terms and Conditions:

By entering, you agree with the Terms and Conditions.

Competition starts now {Tuesday 16 July 2013} and ends at 11:59PM on Monday 29 July 2013.

The competition is open to Australian Residents aged 18 years and over.

Entrants confirm that their entry is original and they own the copyright of their entry and that it does not infringe on the copyright or intellectual property of any third party.

Entries will be deemed void if forged, manipulated or tampered with in any way.

Winner will be announced here on this blog post and contacted via email and will have 5 days to contact me to claim their prize. Failure to claim their prize will result in a new winner being selected.

Winner agrees to have their personal details {name and email} released to The Trusted Trolley.

Prize is not transferable or redeemable for cash.  

The judges’ decision is final and binding and no correspondence will be entered into. 



xx

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disclosure: I was not paid for this post and all opinions are my own and shared honestly.