The Impact of Food Colorings & Synthetic Dyes on our Health with Brandon and Whitney Cawood [Episode #999]

This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Brandon and Whitney Cawood

In this conversation, Kimberly interviews Brandon and Whitney Cawood, the creators of the documentary ‘To Die For,’ which explores the impact of synthetic dyes on children’s health. They share their personal journey of discovering the effects of these dyes on their son, the scientific research behind the issue, and the challenges of navigating the regulatory landscape. The discussion emphasizes the importance of awareness, advocacy, and community support in driving change, as well as practical solutions for parents seeking to eliminate synthetic dyes from their children’s diets.

 

About Brandon and Whitney Cawood

After discovering their child’s life-altering sensitivity to synthetic dyes, parents and first-time filmmakers Brandon and Whitney Cawood set out to uncover the impacts of these additives. There journey led them to meet with the world’s leading synthetic dye experts, scientists, researchers, and impacted families in the revelatory documentary To Dye For which revealed a series of shocking stories, surprising discoveries and the truth about how synthetic food colorings.

 

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Guest Resources 

Website: https://www.todyeforthedocumentary.com/

Social Media: @ todyeforthedocumentary

 

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Impact of Synthetic Dyes
01:23 Personal Journey: The Catalyst for Change
06:12 The Science Behind Synthetic Dyes and Their Effects
10:49 Regulatory Challenges and the FDA’s Role
13:58 The Power of Awareness and Advocacy
18:40 The Broader Implications of Food Dyes in Society
26:10 Legislative Efforts Against Synthetic Dyes
28:05 Challenges in National Regulation
29:20 Impact of Synthetic Dyes on Children
30:24 Finding Alternatives to Dyes
32:15 The Cost of Healthier Choices
34:09 The Struggles of Medical Dependency
35:51 Elimination and Its Immediate Benefits
38:41 The Broader Implications of Dyes
40:11 Adult Reactions to Synthetic Dyes
43:03 The Journey of Creating the Documentary
48:41 Where to Watch the Documentary

 

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OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY!

• Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance [Episode 878]
• How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
• How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
• How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]

 

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Transcript: 

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:01.091)
Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview. I am so excited for these very special humans that I have with me here today, Whitney and Brandon Kaywood. And they are the power couple behind the new film, To Die For, which I have to say was very powerful for me and very emotional. It explores the impact on our children and really all humans.

that synthetic dyes have. They interview experts, scientists, researchers. I’m getting goosebumps even as I talk about it. Stories from families made a lot of news a couple of months ago when red dye was banned and a lot of us hadn’t really thought about the impact of food colorings and dyes. And just more and more is starting to come out and this incredible film really takes a deep dive. I encourage everyone to watch this.

and especially if you are parents. So guys, thank you so much for being here with us today. You know, it’s very impactful, your work, this film, you guys are first time filmmakers. Tell us a little bit about the passion that drove you to spending so much energy on bringing this particular subject to life.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:23.308)
Well, first of all, thank you for having us. That was a beautiful intro. All right. So our story, I guess, was really the beginning of this entire journey. So our son has a profound reaction to synthetic dyes. so between the ages of one and three, he was having a lot of trouble keeping his hands to himself with impulse control. And, you know, in that age, it’s kind of the biting, the hitting, the inability to

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (01:25.686)
you

Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:51.928)
to cope with the word no, like all of that is normal within reason. how often it was happening per day and just the duration of our fits, it was like pause for concern. And it was an issue, and you really knew it was an issue when every time we took them to church, when they stayed in childcare, it was an issue, play dates or…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (01:56.463)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (02:15.48)
He did a mother’s morning out where he was just there a couple of hours, a couple of days a week, and there is an issue every single day, write ups, and I have to pick them up. it was obviously worse than his peers in that the way that his teachers described it. And so we were doing our due diligence. We were doing behavior therapy. We were consulting doctors, but it was so early, obviously. We had referrals to a children’s hospital, but

but it was so early we didn’t want to pursue a diagnosis or something like that. And so we decided to look into diet. I have a lot of autoimmune predispositions and food allergies. So I knew the power of eliminating certain foods. It was completely transformative for me. So I was hoping to eliminate something and just to help him just slightly. And because that’s how my healing, my healing was like one thing at a time. And then over time my healing happened. But for him,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (02:54.766)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:03.886)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (03:11.886)
I found an article that suggested eliminating wheat, dairy and synthetic dyes. And so I decided to do that and we were actually on vacation. Actually, that’s how desperate we were. were on vacation and we like, we got to do this. We got to help him. And so we eliminated those things. And initially we thought that the wheat and the dairy would have the biggest impact because that’s, he consumed most of that. And when we, when we really looked at our food, we really only found synthetic dyes in his daily allergy medicine or his Benadryl or

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:16.207)
Mm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (03:40.974)
He at that time had chronic ear infections. And so he was kind of on a red 40 loop with amoxicillin and just things to try to conquer his, issues with his ears. And he eventually had tubes, which helped that. But we eliminated those things. And then obviously the occasional treat at a birthday party, we would look at that. within 48 hours, we had a child that was so easy going and

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:47.651)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (04:06.422)
And so one reason why we didn’t pursue like a diagnosis with a doctor initially is because most of his days were really rough, but we would occasionally have a day where he was like, it was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, like who is this kid? He’s so easy. And so when we eliminated dies within 48 hours, all of those symptoms went away. It was like he was easy going and easy to reason with. It was almost unbelievable. And it was almost like you,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:18.968)
Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (04:35.458)
didn’t want to hold your breath, it was actually going to stick. And so we did the elimination diet for 30 days and then we reintroduced wheat and we saw no effect and we reintroduced dairy and we saw no effect. And then when we reintroduced dyes, we saw within 15 minutes, all those behaviors came flooding back. The irritability, the inability to cope, had poor sleeping and then even some things like stimming and things like that, it just like almost immediately came back.

And so we knew for him synthetic dyes had a really big impact. And so we, I was really shocked and I almost didn’t want to tell people because it sounds crazy. If you were to tell me that story, I would say, it must’ve been developmental or something else must’ve changed. I would’ve been so skeptical. But I decided to tell people about it. And I was surprised about how many people in my immediate friend group had reactions or knew people that have reactions like that.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:20.15)
Right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (05:32.918)
And so I decided to start a Facebook group and within just a couple of years, it went from zero to 900,000 people with similar reactions to ours. so around the time we started our Facebook group, I decided to like look at the research and initially I thought it was kind of this hippie hippie thing that, you know, science hadn’t caught up with, but I was really surprised that there was so much scientific evidence and so much research. And so

I decided to ask Brandon if he would be willing to document our journey to interview researchers and impacted families so that we could share the information that we learned with those impacted.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:12.525)
Wow. Well, you know, what’s really amazing about this story is when many of us think about food dyes, we think about Froot Loops or, you know, Skittles or things that for many of us and not, you know, not all, but for many of us, it’s, you know, Halloween. Maybe my kids will have some Skittles or whatever. But you’re talking about over the counter medications. And in the film, there’s, you know, the home products, toothpaste.

Things that people are using and it’s a tiny amount can really adversely affect your child, which to me is absolutely shocking. Benadryl.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (06:51.598)
Yeah. Yes, that was shocking for us too, because if your child has a neurologic reaction in that way, a very small amount can trigger that kind of a reaction. for our son, even one mini marshmallow, which the name brand JetPuff marshmallows have blue one, he one day consumed one mini marshmallow and then we had a reaction for 72 hours and it was his teachers noticed it. His teacher met me outside and was like,

I’ve never seen him act like this before. Like was, is everything okay at home? And I was like, it was that one mini marshmallow. And then even fast forward, that was when he was in preschool. But fast forward now, he’s going to second grade and he’s been in a public school. goes to an incredible STEM school. just it, while we’ve been at this school, we haven’t had a single time where he’s had a meltdown or been upset or hit anyone.

He’s like literally in the 99th percentile in like reading and math. He’s successful socially, academically. And just to compare that to we had, I mean, initially we had a teacher assigned to him so that he didn’t hurt other kids when he was at his mother’s morning out. Like it was such a stark difference in our child. And what was even crazier as we dug in even deeper, like there were so many families that have reactions like this or worse. Many families have

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (07:44.846)
Well.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (08:10.022)
much worse reactions. And what we’ve learned along the way is like everybody is kind of on a spectrum. like not every single kid is on the end of the spectrum as our son where he has these like big reaction to synthetic dyes. It’s, know, some kids might be on the low end of the spectrum where they can consume synthetic dyes and there’s really no noticeable, noticeable difference. And then some kids, you know, it may affect them a little, they may be a little irritable or have a little bit of sleep in it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:15.897)
Great.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (08:38.262)
And it may be more like a toxic buildup. Like the more they have multiple days in a row, the worse it gets. then, and then you have our kids who are like kids, like our son, who’s on like the far end of the spectrum that just a little bitty amounts, can affect them. and the, and, and the only like thing that, that, that we’ve heard about, about like, what could be causing this with kids? Like our son is there was a big study done in Europe, which is the reason why Europe has a warning label on synthetic dyes. And so we went and interviewed.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:41.037)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (09:06.754)
that researcher, Dr. Jim Stevenson, and he’s also very interested in genetics. And so while he was doing that study, he also took a cheek swab of all the kids that were participating. And so what he found is that a lot of the kids who had those stronger reactions had this one variant in like a histamine gene. So histamines are like a neurotransmitter. So there could be that genetic variance in the kids that are having these extreme reactions to synthetic dyes. And very early on, we assumed that

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:23.566)
Wow.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (09:36.012)
the number of kids who have that type of reaction was going to be very low. like, and the data points to, know, they probably more armor on the rare side, the kids that have these extreme reactions. But like Whitney said, with a group of 900,000 people, we’re hearing thousands upon thousands of stories that are very similar to ours or like she said, even worse.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:50.339)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:54.489)
Well, as a parent, what’s infuriating, there’s a, you or there’s an interview in the documentary about scientists saying no humans should be consuming these additives that are artificial and very detrimental to the body, the gut, so many different aspects. It’s sort of like saying, we’re just giving your child a little bit of rat poison, you know, maybe they won’t react, but little bit’s okay. And so,

You know, on so many levels, how are these dyes in our system? How are they allowed in Europe? You many of them are not. And in your case, it was just these medications. But think about how many families are unknowingly consuming them in, I mean, the sources we could talk about, they’re in breakfast cereals, they’re in common foods, they’re in bubble gum, they’re in candy, they’re in Gatorade, right? They’re in toothpaste. There’s just so many products.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (10:46.126)
Hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (10:49.699)
when you start to look out there that contain these dyes. It’s like billion dollar industry.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (10:52.269)
Right.

Yeah, well, and if you look back, the approval process for these synthetic dyes happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So, I these are, this is decades ago and the FDA is not required to ever like, once they approve something, there’s no, there’s no like obligation for them to like, like reevaluate a chemical. so there’s, know, dyes luckily are a very regulated chemical. Like they’re, they’re so potentially harmful that every single batch of synthetic dye has to be batch certified. So,

Anytime the company makes a batch of synthetic dye, they have to send a sample of that into the FDA. They have to like test it to make sure there’s the allowable, the allowable amount of like heavy metals and carcinogens and things like that. So, making sure they’re not, they’re not passing that threshold. So they are pretty regulated, but the approval process for safety, these tests were done decades ago and the test at the time we’re not capable of detecting like the behavioral and neurological issues that we now know that they.

that they now know exist because of microscopic changes in the brain. Like they could not detect that. Yeah, there’s animal studies. It’s either animal studies or test tube studies that showed like certain synthetic dyes can make microscopic changes in the brain. So that’s where it gets a little bit different from like an allergy. Like a lot of people try to associate it kind of like an allergy, but allergies can’t make

something that you’re allergic to, can’t make a microscopic change in the brain. this is a different- children are allergic to synthetic You can’t have like a reaction type allergy to synthetic dyes. So that doesn’t exist, especially like, I think red 40 is a big one that people are actually allergic to. But what we’re kind of focusing on in the film goes beyond that. And it’s these neurological impacts and changes. then, know, there’s a lot of associations with cancer for certain dyes, especially red three. So it’s just this weird

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (12:21.54)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (12:45.378)
bureaucracy of, you know, the FDA has long said, you know, they’re understaffed and they don’t have enough resources to tackle these sorts of things. And their big focus is obviously on the pharmaceutical side of the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. You know, there’s multiple advisory boards for the pharmaceutical side, but currently there is no food advisory board. there’s like, it’s really crazy and it’s really messed up. then on top of that,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:10.542)
Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (13:15.682)
Like you said, industry has been using these products for so long that they’ve become a marketing tool and they have, they spend tons and tons of money lobbying anytime there’s any kind of legislation to like, to make these changes or have these dyes looked at or evaluated or regulated. So it’s a, it’s a

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:20.495)
It’s crazy.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:26.904)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:32.483)
Well, that’s the power to the people, right? This film, and you mentioned it came out right around when Red’s Eye was banned, which for many of us were like, my gosh, amazing. We didn’t think that something like this could actually happen. So it gives me hope that more and more people have this information and speak up and are pushing for that change because a lot of people, you know, you guys were talking about the film, it just wasn’t really talked about. But now people are starting to talk about it.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (13:58.834)
Yeah. Yeah. People that that’s, that’s, that’s awesome. But even with red three, like it’s awesome that red three was banned, but it took 35 years for it to happen. like red three was banned in cosmetics in 1990 because studies showed that it caused cancer in animals, but it was already permanently approved in food. So for 35 years, the FDA said they were going to take steps to remove it from food. They just drug their feet and never did it. And then of course you had, you know, the petition,

that actually it was the cause of the, of red three getting banned was supposed. think they have like a FDA supposed to have like a 40 day window to respond to a petition. Well, that petition happened in 2022. And so it didn’t like, they didn’t address it until they finally announced that they were going to ban it. think the, you know, with a lot of things happening and a lot of, a lot of this knowledge of getting out there, there was a lot of people talking about it and red three was kind of the low hanging fruit. You know, we already, we’ve, it’s already banned and

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (14:39.043)
No.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (14:51.522)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (14:55.704)
cosmetics, it’s known to be a, it’s known to cause cancer in animals. like, you know, it’s almost like they gave us a little bit like, okay, we’re going to go ahead and ban red three. But just like you said, it’s taking people making this conversation louder to actually make changes happen. And that’s not to take away from how powerful this is. Like that’s incredible. But to your point, it took so much to just make that happen. And legally the FDA is not

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:11.375)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (15:24.43)
legally allowed to because of the Delaney clause, they’re not allowed to have things in our food system that we know cause cancer in animals. Like that’s pretty intuitive. We don’t want anything in our food system that causes cancer in animals. And I don’t, I don’t think anybody could make a good argument for why we would need these high risk cancer studies on humans. If we know it causes cancer in animals, I think we should not have in our food system. But they’re legally not allowed to do that, but they kept it in our food system for 35 years.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:53.23)
Wow.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (15:53.432)
Like that’s the year before I was born to put that in perspective. Like that’s a very long time. And the reality is now, know, Brandon was talking about how initially when they were approved, you know, we didn’t, we weren’t able to do the studies that needed to be done to see if they were safe is the reality. But now we have 27 clinical trials, just looking at children and the neurologic behavior or the neurologic issues that we see. And so that’s a lot when it comes to food additives, like

that’s unheard of to have so many studies. And that’s just looking at children and to your point, like we can look at the carcinogenic risk, the genotoxicity, the issues that it plays in our gut, the allergic reaction, like there are so many and honestly, I don’t think science has caught up to the effects, to all the cumulative effects of having synthetic dyes, know, regularly, even if you just look at the sleep, like so many children, you know, they have insomnia whenever they consume dyes and so,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:25.423)
All right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (16:52.846)
A lot of people, their child will be on an antibiotic. They’re like, they’re not sleeping all night. It must be because they’re sick. When in reality, it could be the die because that’s exactly how many children happen. so if they’re on this loop where they’re eating something colorful in the morning and then they go to school and they have a pop tart for snack. then when they go home, they have, you know, a strawberry or a cherry Gatorade at basketball practice and they go to sleep and they can’t sleep and they’re up all night.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:00.312)
Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:09.912)
Mmm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (17:20.824)
you know, there’s so much healing that goes on at night in your body. And so many families have reported like ticks or certain other neurologic issues that are made worse when their child consumes dyes. And so I think that there’s a lot more issues. And the reality is that like Brandon said, that synthetic dyes are a marketing tool. They are only used to make our food look bright and beautiful so that consumers will want to buy them. They don’t add to the taste. On the contrary, they actually make food

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:47.247)
Right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (17:49.39)
taste chemically if they use too much of a synthetic dye. And so there’s really no point, especially when many of the synthetic dyes are used to market children’s food so that children will want to buy them. There’s something very dirty about the fact that like things like PediaShirt contained red 3 for decades. And we knew that, we knew that red 3 caused cancer in animals.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:02.029)
Great.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:06.029)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (18:15.8)
But like our children, they struggled to gain weight and our pediatrician suggested PediaShare. Luckily I, you know, I made something at home, like I made like a protein smoothie, but so many families just opt to an easy option like PediaShare. Because their doctor tells them to. And it’s, and I don’t even know the doctors. I don’t think that there’s anything evil about doctors. They’re just not trained. They don’t know. And we’ve educated our doctors on it. And it’s just…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:29.591)
All right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:36.548)
No.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (18:40.074)
We, our goal with our film, it’s obviously to create awareness. And when awareness happens, when people know, when people are informed, then change can actually take place. Well, and one thing that that’s like not talked about a whole lot is I’m going to butcher it. I’m going to butcher this definition, but like the FDA has a legal definition of safe when it comes to food additives. And it’s something along the lines of like a reasonable certainty of no harm, but like

That’s we’re so far from we have so many studies showing that there there is strong evidence of harm. like technically these chemicals are not like even by the FDA is on definition. I don’t think they can be labeled as safe, but they you know, they have been for so long.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:19.759)
All right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:23.385)
So a couple of things in there. When you were saying that, the first thing that came to mind is how ironic this is in the broad scope. Because when you look at natural foods, blueberries and strawberries and kale and watermelon, natural foods are so colorful. And where are we in society where we’re making all these artificial colors that are just to make junky foods look bright and fresh instead of, I know this is like a larger systemic issue, but just getting our children

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (19:51.105)
It is.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:52.879)
from the get-go used to nature’s candies, you know, like these natural foods, because there’s so much coal in nature. And then the other thing I wanted to ask you guys about all these research studies and you know, there’s red dye, and then I hear you guys talking about food dyes, like as a category, are the studies on specific ones? How many are there behind red, you know, besides red dye? I there’s yellow dye, there’s blue dye, and is it possible to create like a multi-band?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (19:56.812)
Right. You’re so right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (20:22.371)
where instead of, like you said, it took so much work to ban red dye, there could be several that are dyed at the same time. So lots of questions.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (20:28.984)
Well, most of the studies, like these studies are expensive and you know, there’s the UK government actually paid for the study, the Southampton study. But even then, they didn’t focus on one specific diet at a time because the truth is the majority of time when you’re eating food with synthetic dyes, you’re eating a mixture of dyes. So like most of the studies are showing like a blend of dyes. So there haven’t been ones that…

There’s been some specifically about like, like red three red three has had specific ones, but a lot of the studies are, know, it’s a blend of multiple dyes and things like that. but yeah, but there definitely could be like, could be like bands that encompass everything. The reason red three got its own specific plan ban is one California had already banned it. So it was already, you know, California is a huge, like, you know, economy, they’re like this largest economy in the world. So it was already going to affect the whole industry. So red three had already been banned.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:00.579)
Great.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:04.536)
Okay.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (21:27.334)
and like I said, mainly because it had already been banned in cosmetics. There was already like, there’s already like good science and good reason to do that. but with like, with legislation, even since our film came out, like not saying that it’s all because of our film, like there’s a big movement happening right now, but like there’s multiple States now that have banned all the synthetic dyes in public schools. So Virginia has been in public schools, Utah has banned it in public school, like all, all the

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:48.909)
Hmm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (21:56.022)
All the guys, so technically there are nine synthetic dyes. Well, if you, if you take away red three, like technically there’s eight synthetic dyes that are still currently approved for use. Now two of those dyes are orange B and citrus red two. Those two dyes, the FDA said back in like a, in just a couple, like a month or so ago, whenever they had the big HHS meeting, those two dyes, they’re already going to, they’re going to ban those as well. But those two dyes have not been used for years and years. Like

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:59.457)
Okay.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (22:24.764)
citrus shred two was only used for the skin of Florida oranges, but it hasn’t been used for years. then, then orange V was really only used for like sausage casings. luckily they didn’t use it. They haven’t used it for a very long time. But the fact that it at one point was used to dye the outside of oranges, like we don’t want anybody to hear that and think, okay, I can’t buy oranges. No, you can definitely buy oranges. They, we know because they have to be back certified that they haven’t used.

They haven’t used that particular dye in a very long time. So those two dyes are gonna go away. So red three, orange B, scissors head two, those are gonna go away. Like those, that’s not an issue. Now the other ones are red 40, yellow five, yellow six, blue one, blue two, green and green three. So all the rest of those, all those bands and public schools are banning all those. Like I said, Utah, Virginia, Tennessee has banned red three in public schools. Red 40. Or red 40.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:14.041)
Brandon, when you say bans in public schools, what exactly are you talking about?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (23:18.658)
So they’ve passed legislation that schools will no longer be able to serve food to have these dyes in it.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:23.703)
Right. And specifically for parents that are in states that haven’t been diet, what foods are we to look out for? Doritos, Gatorade? mean, this is all about…

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (23:29.134)
Oh, geez. mostly ultra-pro. It’s different for every school system. some schools, like our school system, doesn’t seem like it’s permeated our school foods as often. But I have seen letters from like lunchroom managers at different schools that say, okay, our spaghetti has red 40 and our pizza and…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:50.157)
Really?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (23:50.178)
just these random things that wouldn’t normally like normally when you get a pizza, it wouldn’t have dyes in it. But the reality is that synthetic dyes are used to cheapen foods.

And so, well, okay. I shouldn’t say are used to cheapen foods, but it’s used like if you use something like an artificial flavor, it’s colorless. So if you have a strawberry protein, which that wouldn’t be necessarily in schools, but say you make a strawberry protein or a strawberry part, okay. Use a natural flavor or an artificial flavor, which is colorless and you want it to taste like a strawberry. Well, you have something that tastes like a strawberry, isn’t that’s colorless. So you need to add Rev 40 to make it look.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:00.224)
Right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (24:28.128)
like a strawberry instead of actually using strawberries to color it and make it taste like strawberries. These artificial flavors and these artificial ingredients are so much cheaper. so oftentimes schools are on a budget and especially, you know, title one schools, which the school district that we live in, all of our schools are title one schools. So they’re sent this like really cheap food. But what’s crazy is

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:40.334)
Right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (24:54.894)
In many schools and luckily our schools is one that is like that. Like our pop tarts are actually like even pop tart brand. They’re actually die free. So they’re sent like the die free option, but it’s different in every single school. But realistically we don’t believe it should be lawful to put something that we know can cause cancer. Like Red 3 is allowed to be served in schools and you can look on the USDA website and see what foods are approved.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (25:04.495)
I’m not mad.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (25:09.305)
God.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (25:22.254)
for like reimbursement for Title I schools. So Title I schools can choose from a list of foods and like there’s a lot of diet foods on there that they can choose. So the person that chooses or does the ordering is the one that’s choosing the foods and the swaps. And so it’s not very hard. No. Well, I think probably the… Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (25:36.239)
So it’s not just candy, it’s not just saying these packed foods, it’s a lot of actual foods like the sauces and things like that.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (25:45.87)
I think, think the biggest place where they’re consuming dyes in school are probably going to be your pre-packaged foods. like a lot of your ultra processed foods, they’re like when they’re getting, you know, they’re getting chips as a snack or cookies as a snack that are pre-packaged or things like that. That’s typically where you’re going to see most of your- Or fruit loops for breakfast. Or yeah, fruit loops or, know, and then some of the, some of the, the legislators have tried to push to get-

to get the synthetic dyes taken out of vending machines as well. Then you run into a whole nother issue. Then there’s a lot of like, well, you know, it’s freedom of choice and like, if they’re paid. There’s a lot of money tied up. So what the, most of the bills have focused on, if the school is providing it, if the band, what the bands go into effect, if the school is providing it, then it can’t be, it can’t have dye in it. And so there’s- and I can say that we have, I don’t even know that we, I don’t even think we addressed this, but since the film has come out, we’ve worked with at least six states.

to seven states to help like legislation pass. So we worked really closely with West Virginia and West Virginia actually banned all dyes in the state. And so it doesn’t take place immediately. We gave them some lead time so that, or we were hoping to give them some lead time so that, you know, the rest of the states can jump on board because the reality is organizations like CSBI, EWG, these organizations that are, guess like our health, food and watchdogs, they…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:38.223)
Bye bye now.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:42.425)
Amazing.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (27:06.368)
They have petitioned the FDA to look at synthetic dyes and to address them on a national level and they’re not. And so we’re having to force their hand by taking legislation or by taking action at the state level. like states like California, West Virginia, like we have to focus on that because unless there is created like a patchwork of, okay, so Georgia schools, unfortunately, where we live, we couldn’t get a bill passed here in Georgia. So schools in Georgia are allowed to have

you know, synthetically dyed foods while Tennessee can no longer have Rev 40 and then West Virginia, it’s banned in the entire state. so different states are doing different things. So these vendors are having to like only ship dyed foods to the states that’s approved. And so it’s making this very difficult patchwork for them. We, it’s, you have to do that to force their hand to actually, you know, help the rest of us, unfortunately, because they’re just not, the reality is whether it’s for funding or

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (27:58.403)
Right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (28:05.004)
Whatever it is, it’s not being addressed at the national level. Foods and ingredients and additives that have been approved for years, we don’t know if they’re safe or not because they’re not reevaluating them. We are seeing a little bit of movement at the national level. So right after Easter, the week after Easter, we actually were invited. So we got invited to HHS and that’s when Secretary Kennedy and then the new director of the FDA, Marty McCarrey, they made an announcement that they are

they are taking steps to face synthetic dyes out of the food system. So they made an announcement at this press conference that, you know, they’re, they’re, they are encouraging companies to voluntarily take synthetic dyes out. So it came out after that day, like there was a lot of news that they’re banning synthetic dyes. So there was a little bit of a misunderstanding. There is no like official ban. So, but they have put it out there that they are, they are giving companies a chance to go ahead and remove synthetic dyes on their own. And if

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:04.132)
easy.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (29:04.234)
Every company did that and got on board. That would be great. But we’re already seeing pushback. There’s a, there was a big article in Bloomberg where Spangler, the company that makes like dumb, dumbs, have already said, we will not be doing that. If it’s not a law, we’re not going to do it. So confectionary association.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:16.052)
my gosh.

Again, power to the people, the more people that watch your film and get the information, hopefully parents will choose not to buy those products. Because if people stop buying them, then they’ll be more motivated. In the film, you talked about behavioral issues like with your children. But then what made me cry was the suicidal tendencies, like the increase that can create those sorts of thoughts in children and then rage and f-

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (29:22.507)
It is, yeah. Exactly.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (29:29.006)
For sure.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:47.311)
you know, as a parent that’s struggling with any of these issues to say, well, you know, maybe that’s not the whole piece of the puzzle, but it’s a piece that I can easily, you know, help ameliorate. So when you guys were cutting out these medications for your child, how easy was it to find, you know, an equivalent to Benadryl that didn’t have food dye for the average person? And I think about, you know, toothpaste, and I saw that in the film as well. Someone’s, child’s used to Colgate or

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (29:55.148)
Right. Exactly.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (30:16.948)
What do you guys use with your children and how easy is it to find these products?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (30:24.718)
Yeah, luckily, like over the counter medication is not very difficult, especially now. So you can actually find like, luckily, we we really don’t we are much more holistic now. So we don’t use a ton of medication in general. But when when they do need it, like you can find a generic Benadryl or even Benadryl brand that’s dye free. And so the generic medications have come on board. There’s a lot of toothpaste. There’s a swap for nearly everything now and even like

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (30:44.676)
Mm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (30:52.494)
if your child’s used to the sugary cereals and the pop tarts and the things like that. Like you can find those options, especially if you have something like an Aldi or a Trader Joe’s and oftentimes the swaps are cheaper. So industry has always used this argument that your food prices are going to go up, your food prices are going to go up. Well, Aldi is able to do it for $2 less without the dyes. You know what I mean? Like you can do it. It’s just they’re honestly they’re lying. Like even when we were in West Virginia, the

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (31:04.014)
Hmm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (31:21.516)
Beverage Association, even after the bill had passed the House and the Senate, the Beverage Association spent $19,000 on radio ads just to try to deter the governor from signing the bill into law. And so they’re putting a lot of, they’re putting a lot of stake on keeping these dyes because it’s obviously going to eat slightly into their profit. But luckily there are companies that have responded to consumer demand. And so they are listening. We are switching.

you know, our loyalties from the crest and the Colgate’s to brands that are synthetically dye free. so usually for most things you can do it and you can actually do it on a budget. And of course, you know, the deeper you go down the rabbit hole, there’s a lot of additives you want to avoid. So the more whole foods and real foods that you can eat and you can incorporate is even better. And luckily in general,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:08.014)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (32:15.338)
If you make something from scratch, it’s going to be cheaper than a processed food anyway. The cost is your time and things like that. But you can do it. Where it gets really tricky is if a child is sick or if a child is medically dependent on a medication. prescription. So for example, there was a mom in our group and we’ve actually heard this story several times since then with different medications. But this mom

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:20.973)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:34.393)
for you.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (32:44.876)
has a child that has an anaphylactic reaction to REV40. And so she also has, what’s it called? Like a neurological reaction or behavior reaction? No, epilepsy. Epilepsy, okay, sorry, my brain went blank. So her daughter has epilepsy and the epilepsy medication, there’s two epilepsy medications that are approved to treat her type of epilepsy and one has REV40 and the other has REV3. Once again, it’s just used as a color. Like there’s no need for it to be in the medication.

And so the mom, you know, she wrote me and she talked about how difficult it was because she’s having to take this medication daily several times a day and it has red three, which we know causes cancer in animals and causes neurologic issues with children. so daily she’s having to take this medication. And so I suggested, well, is there any way we can get it compounded? Because when you compound, you can omit certain ingredients like colors.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (33:25.238)
Enjoy.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (33:40.716)
And she said, well, I can’t do that because it costs over a thousand dollars more and I’d have to get a second job. I like talking about crying like that’s your it’s so sad for families like that. And luckily, red three in a couple of years, that won’t be an issue anymore for her. So that’s good. that’s just an example of like if a child is medically dependent. And the reality is every state we’ve worked with, we’ve tried to throw in their pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals, even

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (33:55.97)
Right.

Yes. You too. Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (34:09.486)
advocacy groups, like we need to go after these pharmaceuticals because they don’t have the same pressure as a Benadryl would because they respond to public pressure. When you have a patent on a medication, nobody has another option. You have to buy it or you just don’t buy it. And so they don’t have the same kind of pressure. And so that’s where it really gets tricky. But for anything else, you really can find a good swap. And we kind of lean toward the more like holistic brands and

And so we avoid more than just synthetic dyes, but you definitely can do it and you can do it on the budget.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (34:40.311)
Yes. Well, it sounds like in the case of your son as well, and this is experiential for each family, as you eliminated those products, it sounds like there was almost an immediate benefit, which is really heartening because if some families are listening to this and they say, you know, I have a lot of, you know, behavioral issues with my child. And then you think, well, I’ve been consuming these products for years. The research is showing as you stop.

I mean, maybe there’s some residue in the body and the system that would take some time, but it’s like you stop putting it in and sounds like fairly immediately there’s, you can experience a difference.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (35:21.858)
No, you’re so right. That’s the beautiful part about this. Once you eliminate it, they get to, they are able to go back to their base. We’ve heard, and we’ve heard, you know, there’s a, there’s a range of time, you know, so like our son, he seems to, to level out after a couple of days. Some people, it’s a couple of weeks. Some people may be up to a month, but we haven’t heard anybody really take longer than a month to like, to see a difference if there’s going to be a difference. And that’s kind of what we suggest. If you think this could be something that is affecting your child, like even in a small way, do a 30 day elimination and like,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:29.081)
I’m sorry.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (35:41.187)
Right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (35:51.0)
you know, cause sometimes it takes 30 days to really figure out where it all is because the things that you visually recognize, those are a little easier. Like if something’s bright red, that’s a pretty, telltale sign, but it’s also in things like marshmallows. And sometimes you’ll have like cake mixes and, and white icings and brown foods, like little Debbie oatmeal cream pies that are white and brown have red 40 in them. like why does a cake that’s brown need to have red 40 in it to make it? don’t know.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (36:07.863)
All nice.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (36:20.568)
So it’s crazy. there’s lots of places where people don’t realize it at first and just like, know, toothpaste is all the time something that people aren’t thinking about. Or fortune cookies or like temporary tattoos. Like our son even reacts to dermal exposure. And so I think that what is most difficult for families is to understand that if your child neurologically reacts, even a small trace amount.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (36:33.519)
We’ll

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (36:44.536)
they can react to. And so you have to really be diligent whenever you go out to eat. If you get a fortune cookie, you really don’t need to eat it because we haven’t found any that… Well, I found one brand that is die-free, but most of them have dyes. And so you really have to check every single ingredients list. And when you go out, you ask them for an ingredients list, even when you’re at a restaurant. And it sounds daunting, but once you have found your brands and you found your swaps and you know your safe places, then you’re good.

Initially, it is really overwhelming, which is why on our website, we on today for the documentary dot com backslash resources. We have a ton of like free resources and guides and and lists to help families, you know, navigate holidays like I mean, we we don’t want our children to go without candy canes, but they’re luckily they’re die free options. And so you can do it. Well, what’s been cool, too, about the film is we’ve seen a lot of people who didn’t necessarily think that their kids were reacting to dies, but they saw the film.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (37:34.499)
Yes, that’s so helpful.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (37:43.854)
Let’s give this a shot. They removed dies. They didn’t really notice like a big impact in their child’s behavior. But then whenever they gave dies back to their kid, they saw this upswing and like, and like some almost, almost like a reaction. And I think a lot of times what’s happening with that is like, they might not be super reactive to it, but over that, that elimination period, they’ve kind of detoxed from it. And then all of sudden, so it’s out of their system. All of a sudden you’re reintroducing it again and you can.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (38:06.19)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (38:11.736)
Well, you’re more mindful. You’re more mindful and you’re and you’re looking out for that sort of stuff. So it’s it’s even kids that aren’t necessarily like having these huge issues. It’s all it’s it’s beneficial for everybody to look in to cutting it out. And another thing that’s crazy is with our son, we then this was a big motivation for making this film was thinking about like if we didn’t figure this out, if we wouldn’t have figured out that that he was having this reaction because of dies, like what would his life have looked like? Like

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (38:13.965)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (38:41.549)
Right.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (38:41.898)
Where would he be at in school right now? And how many families out there, you know, either are, you know, a piece of what’s going on with their child is contributed to synthetic dyes or how many people out there are just like us and everything is happening because of synthetic dyes. How many kids are being, you know, misdiagnosed with certain disorders and certain mood disorders and things like that. it’s like, it’s exactly that have dyes and medications that have dyes to treat those things. So it’s.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (39:03.193)
I think being feeding medications, prescriptions…

And then that also affect their gut health and then they become dependent. It can affect their moods. So, you we’ve been talking so much about the effect on kids and a lot of these foods that you guys are fruit loops. mean, adults eat them too, but pop tarts, more kids are eating them. So I can’t help but wonder, is it that kids are exposed more to food dyes and so they’re affected more? Our adults, all us adults listening to this are like, wait a minute.

maybe that Gatorade I have sometimes after my run isn’t so harmful and that these food dyes are really harmful for adults as well.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (39:47.446)
No, I mean, the reality is the reason why we focus on dyes in children or the reaction that children have is that the studies that have been done, those 27 clinical trials, those are on children. And so the most, the money is going to protecting children and policymakers are more motivated to protect children than adults, but adults are definitely impacted. Anecdotally, I myself, am…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (39:59.215)
Mm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (40:03.671)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (40:11.65)
Brandon and our daughter, Aslin, she doesn’t seem to react to dyes at all and neither does Brandon. But my son and I, we, guess we’re very similar genetically, which I mean, Aslin is obviously genetically similar to me too. But we both react. it gives me insomnia. then, you know, the reality is like many adults have had the same reactions with, but the symptoms kind of grow up.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (40:17.934)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (40:25.807)
different way.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (40:38.06)
They’re no longer hitting and biting and pitching fits. Maybe they have anxiety, maybe they have depression, maybe they have suicidal ideation. Maybe it’s like making whatever issues they have in regards to PTSD and things like this worse. And so I think our symptoms just grow up. And I also think that everybody biologically is different. So where our child might have a genetic predisposition,

to synthetic dyes, maybe children where it’s more of kind of like a toxic buildup. And many of the studies have shown that the more you consume, worse a reaction a child will have oftentimes. It’s not necessarily the case for all children, but some children, it’s like that it’s dose dependent, kind of like a medication would be. And so like all medications, we react differently.

everybody that takes a medication, we don’t know what their reaction is gonna be because we’re all biologically so different. It’s the same with the chemical like synthetic dyes. Chemicals are oftentimes created as a byproduct of petroleum. We’re gonna let that sink in, a byproduct of petroleum. And so when we consume it, like we have no idea what’s gonna happen in our bodies and everybody’s body is different. And so it’s obviously best to completely avoid it.

But adults, I mean, you can definitely benefit from it. There’s so many reasons. And just looking at the genotoxicity, there are some studies that show that certain dyes can be genotoxic, which means genotoxicity is whenever you damage the DNA. That DNA can be damaged and it can turn into a tumor or cancer, or your DNA can be damaged and passed on from you to your child, which that’s an issue.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:23.521)
Yes. Or if you’re pregnant and having some of these dyes. How long?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (42:28.782)
Well, and also, also I think with kids like, the, the, there’s a higher percentage of children’s products that have synthetic dyes than adult products. So like a lot of the foods that they do have dyes are marketed towards children, but they’re also, their bodies are smaller. like it takes less to have an effect. They’re consuming it more often. and then they’re still developing their brain still developing. So I think.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:42.115)
Yes.

Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (42:51.959)
Yes, these are points. It’s true. How long did you guys work on the film? How long did it take you from this conception of your idea to when it was released in January of this year?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (43:03.95)
Probably about two and a half years. And in our mind, that was a long time, but apparently two and a half years for a documentary is pretty fast. Well, in the reality is that we did literally every element of creating this film. We had to fundraise. We used a big portion of our savings to even fund the project. we don’t have any backing or a studio. This is just literally a personal project.

created every single element. Brandon composed the music, he created the animations, we obviously directed it. I had to carry a bunch of equipment in and out of the airport. And so, like this was a very bootstraps situation. And luckily, God has provided every step of the way. And we had, you know, the first round of crowdfunding, was basically friends and family, and we raised about $14,000, which was incredible.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (43:32.471)
Really?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (43:54.574)
And then once we built an audience, we did a second round of crowdfunding and we had hundreds of families give like five to like $3,000. But we had this massive influx of moms. was a group, the post was actually shared on our group and they didn’t even know it was our group, but it was shared and they said, if we all gave $5, they would get fully funded and we could have this film made. And so, so many people just gave and so that this is really a film

by the people and for the people. Like it’s very bootstraps, grassroots. And even with that said, all in all, we did the film all in all probably for around $60,000, which is for a film is pretty cheap and it’s still considered extremely micro budget. And the majority of that money was spent on travel and legal fees and things like that. So, we are first time filmmakers. So we, you that’s part of our story, but

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (44:37.496)
Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (44:53.326)
I don’t want people to think like it’s extremely easy just to make a film. Luckily, my day-to-day job, I’m a commercial photographer and videographer. So I like, do advertising work. So I knew my way around the camera and I knew my way around like making video content. So that wasn’t new, but creating a feature length film was. And we’re Christians and we feel very strongly that like God gives you talents for a reason and you should use those for the good of everyone. And so that’s kind of where we…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (45:04.515)
Yes.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (45:21.39)
where, how this all happened, we got to a point where like, I don’t even know necessarily that we, well, I guess, I mean, parts of us wanted to make the film, but it was almost like we felt like we were supposed to like make the film. Like we were called to do this and, that’s just kind of the way it happened. Like I won’t say that making this film wasn’t hard because it was hard. It was a lot of work, you know, where I do have a, I have a business that I run that I, know, that’s a full-time thing. And so this was like a second full-time thing on top of the other full-time thing. So there was, it was, it was like difficult.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (45:31.972)
Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (45:51.256)
to make it happen, like, far as the getting the researchers on board and everybody who’s in the film and building an audience, like all those things just kind of happened organically. Like it was like a door would be open. We would meet somebody, they would know somebody and they would connect us with them. And then we would have somebody in the film that we are starting off that was like our dream to have these people in the film. And eventually they were actually like excited to be a part of the film. So it was a very cool experience and like,

We just kind of gave God the will and said, like, if you want us to make this film, like help us make it happen. Then doors were opened and now it’s out there in the world. And like when he said our film was the inspiration behind the West Virginia bill. So we got contacted by, by a delegate saying, you know, we got this bill that we want to pass. We would love for you guys to help out as much as you can. and then when we met them and got to talk, talking to them, the reason they even put this legislation forward is

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (46:34.819)
Incredible.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (46:48.396)
their wives had watched our film and then they made them watch it. And that’s kind of like where the idea for the…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (46:51.567)
my gosh. Well, it’s so obvious that this film comes right from your heart. And we could say in the larger sense, the universal heart wanting to help others, sacred heart of Jesus Christ, right? All the ways in which love pours through and being fueled with purpose, which is so magnetic when you come from that place. I think God really does supply and we don’t have to, you know, rely on the limited humanness. There’s a greater power and it’s

I mean, you really feel it in the film. You could feel it so much just talking to you both how authentic this is and how important it is. everybody does wanna join on board when I was watching it, of course, wanna spread it. We wanna encourage everyone who’s watching or listening to this interview to of course watch it yourself if you haven’t already and to share it with all your friends, your community members, your teachers, your schools, your…

know, centers, sports teams, everyone. There’s just so many people that I think, wow, 60 people, passing it to personally. That’s the kind of movement that this inspires.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (48:06.67)
Wow, that’s amazing. Thank you. Well, what’s cool is like this will be the first podcast we’ve talked about this on, but we actually have a children’s book that we’re going to be releasing soon that so the documentary was for parents and now and Whitney felt like we should we should help make something for kids to help them better understand and be able to recognize dyes on their own. So it’s like a fun detective learn how to discover, discover food dyes and how to identify them and stuff like that. So we’ve got the book. It’s about 90 percent done.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:15.799)
Amazing.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:25.959)
man.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (48:34.25)
and we hope to release it in July sometime.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:37.923)
Well, so tell us where we can watch the film.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (48:41.826)
So the film is on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango at home. It’s also, if your local library is a part of Canopy, you can watch it for free with your library card or whatever. And then it’s also, so yeah, but you can also go to our website today for the documentary backslash watch, and that will take you to all the different platforms that you can watch it on.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (48:56.725)
Okay.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (49:08.238)
And also it’s in over 2000 or not 2,200 libraries, probably more now across the country. So you can, you can check to see if your library has it. If you’re like, if you’re somebody who doesn’t necessarily have the funds to, to pay to watch it or whatever, can request that your library buys it. And, uh, typically that’s a normal thing for libraries to do. They’ll, they’ll buy a copy of the film that’s been available for your community to rent and check out and stuff too. So.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (49:13.069)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (49:33.433)
So if we go to, and we’re gonna link to this directly on the show notes, everyone, is it to die for, d-y-e, forthedocumentary.com.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (49:41.624)
Yep, that’s the website. And then if you do backslash watch, it’ll take you to the page that takes you to all the different platforms where you can click on the Amazon link and it’ll open up Amazon or you can watch it there, Apple or whatever.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (49:53.803)
Yes, that’s where I went, which I think for many is probably the most convenient. So I’m glad it’s on here. Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (49:58.7)
Yeah. Well then also we, we also just, last week, we had Spanish subtitles made and so our distributors added Spanish subtitles on Apple TV. So now it’s available in 15 different Spanish speaking countries as well. like, obviously the film’s kind of more focused on the U S but like the information is universal. So

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (50:07.309)
Easy.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (50:21.547)
Yes. Well, thank you both so much for putting your hearts into this incredible documentary, which will surely help so many people and families everywhere for being change makers in the world, for your bravery, for your courage, and for sharing some of your wisdom in your heart with us today. It’s amazing. And to see how you turned your own struggles and your own family’s authentic story into this creation of something

is so inspiring, truly.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (50:53.55)
Thank you so much and thank you for having us on and wanting to hear our story. Thank you for using your platform to get this information out there.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (51:01.547)
Yes, of course. So everyone, the film once again, To Die For, we’ll link to it again in the show notes and all the places where you can watch. Watch it, spread it. This is power to the people. We can make change. The more of us use our voices to speak up against things that just aren’t right. And clearly artificial dies have no place in our food system and especially for our children. So once again, thank you so much.

Brandon and Whitney, it was a real honor speaking to you both. And thank you everyone for tuning in. Please go to the show notes, mysaluna.com. We’ll have the links. We’ll have other articles and podcasts I think you would enjoy. We’ll be back here in just a few days. I’ll also see you on social at underscore Kimberly Snyder. Till then, take great care and sending you all so much love.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (51:33.548)
you as well.