Radically Genuine Podcast with Dr. Roger McFillin

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (00:02.585)
Welcome to the radically genuine podcast. I am Dr. Roger McFillin. We live in an era of skyrocketing childhood diagnoses, ADHD, anxiety, depression, oppositional defiant disorder, childhood bipolar disorder, autism, and then the range of medical conditions. The list keeps growing. We medicate millions of children, often with multiple prescriptions.

treating these labels as if they're fixed medical conditions rather than a series of symptoms. When a child acts out, hits, can't focus, we often end up blaming the parents. Trauma, neglect, bad parenting, genetics. We put families through behavioral therapy, psychological evaluations, and sometimes even threaten child protective services. But what if we're missing something fundamental?

What if some of these behaviors aren't psychological or behavioral at all, but chemical reactions, biochemical reactions to everyday toxins that are hiding in plain sight. Today's guests, Brendan and Whitney Kaywood discovered their son's severe behavioral issues, the hitting, biting tantrums that got him expelled from daycare or in a parenting failure or a psychiatric condition. They were a reaction to synthetic food dyes.

Within 48 hours of removing these petroleum-based chemicals from his diet, they met their real son for the first time. This journey led them to create the documentary, To Die For. Just watched it last night. It's excellent. It reveals how these dyes affect millions of children and why they're still in our food supply, despite being linked to cancer, DNA damage. Their work has influenced legislation across multiple states and built a community of nearly 1 million parents who've discovered the same truth.

Sometimes the problem isn't in our children's minds, it's on their plates. Brandon Whitney, welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (02:07.96)
Thank you for having us that intro. Holy cow. That was amazing.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (02:12.867)
Thank you. It's an honor to have you here. you know, I really do see this as I'm a spiritual man. So I see this as guided by God. and the influence that you're, you're having is absolutely amazing, but I want my audience to hear the story. So let's take us back to the moment. I guess it's when your son, your son's in daycare and he actually, you know, he's asked to leave. I just want to get a sense of what that is like.

for the two of you as parents, what you're going through at that time.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (02:43.894)
Yeah. So we, our son, he's always been very sweet, but between the ages of one and three, he really struggled with impulse control, the biting, the hitting, grabbing toys, just like not being able to cope with no, and all the impulses that go along with that. And so, you know, a lot of that can be normal. We consulted doctors, but it really started ramping up about the age three because it was really becoming such an issue that

They had a teacher at his mother's morning out and this is just a half day daycare a couple of days a week, just a few hours a week really. And during that time they had to assign a teacher to just him to keep him from hurting other children. So she would just run around and kind of grab him before he like tackled a kid or bit a kid. And you know, I'm a former teacher and

I am a planner and I read all the books. did all the things. And so it was so traumatizing to me to have a child that was struggling so much and to have a child that didn't have friends, obviously, like the children didn't want to play with him. The teachers dreaded him. and ultimately, yes, we were asked to leave that school. And right around that same time, we decided to do an elimination diet because

Up until this point, nothing worked. I mean, we had done to your point behavior therapy and we had consulted doctors and really the only thing left was to go to a children's hospital and find a diagnosis and start like even further therapy. And we didn't feel comfortable with that. And that was in part to his behavior. Most of the time was what I described the fits and the hitting and the biting, but we would occasionally have these days where he was such an easygoing child.

And it was like Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde. And I didn't believe that, you know, these diagnoses could necessarily be turned off to that degree. It was such a dramatic shift. And so we decided to look into diet and I eliminated wheat, dairy and synthetic dyes. We eliminated it for 30 days and we saw within 48 hours a completely different child.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (04:55.756)
that child that we had on those easy going days, we had that child for 30 days straight and where he was hitting us before up to, you know, 10 times a day and just almost constant fits to, we might've had two or three in that 30 day period. And it was just such a stark difference. And I like to say that really that initial elimination, we, it eliminated like 98 % of his issues and the other 2 % of the issues, his mind was able to slow down and we were able to reason with him. And there was just so much.

growth. And so after the 30 day elimination diet, we reintroduced wheat and we saw no effect. And then a while later we reintroduced dairy and we saw no effect. And then really to our surprise when we reintroduced synthetic dyes, all those behaviors came flooding back within 15 minutes. And it was so shocking. We looked at each other and we were like, Holy cow, this is it. You know, we were kind of waiting.

for everything to come back, you know, after we eliminated dyes completely again, obviously we knew that was such a big issue and we were just so shocked that he stayed the course and his once when we were avoiding dyes, like we didn't have those behaviors at all. And, you know, it wasn't perfect in that originally we assumed that all synthetic dyes were just in like colorful cereals and things like that. We really kind of.

had to dig deep and look at every single label and find it in really like unassumed foods like marshmallows and spinach wraps and fortune cookies and things you wouldn't assume. But we really, we figured it out and he really is doing so well. Whereas I had a child when he was three, we were doing obviously the behavior therapy and I...

I thought that I was going to have to homeschool him and I still go back and forth between homeschooling. It's a great option. I'm not saying anything negative about that, but I thought that was his life. I thought that was the only option for him to protect other children from him and to protect him, you know, from getting in trouble constantly. And fast forward now, he's in a STEM school. He's in a gifted program. He's doing so well academically, but more than anything, he's so happy and he has friends. His teachers love him.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (07:09.696)
We have been in public school, he's in second grade now. He's been in public school since pre-K and we haven't had a single issue with him hitting anyone. We haven't had a single meltdown. We haven't had a single bad day. I mean, he's a boy. So like he talks too much. But aside from that, like it's just crazy to see the true Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde effect it's had on him. And not every child is that dramatically impacted by DICE. But we've learned along this journey.

You know, I was feeling really lonely as a mom and I created a community and we have nearly a million people in this group and we really learned how it really isn't this uncommon of a reaction. There are many families that have this kind of Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, such a dramatic shift in behavior and personality when introducing synthetic dyes. And so it's been a wild journey and you know, our

story was really so shocking to us really and we decided to kind of dig into the research and I was really surprised that there was so much scientific evidence on the risk of synthetic dyes and so that's what really kind of spun us and or inspired us to create to die for the documentary because there we believe that there are so many families that would have these questions and if our child was this dramatically impacted.

then there are probably millions of other people that dramatically impacted. And one thing I forgot to mention in our story is that when we removed dyes, we were really shocked by that having such a dramatic impact on him, mainly because in our regular food, he didn't contain, it didn't contain synthetic dyes. So when we went through the pantry, was mostly organic, mostly clean already, but where we found the dyes were his daily allergy medicine.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (09:01.946)
Wow.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (09:02.136)
He had chronic ear infections. So the doctor said anytime he had a runny nose, give him Benadryl. And so of course we, we did what the doctor suggested. And then on that year, that his three year old year, he had several ear infections. And so he was kind of on a red 40 loop with antibiotics. And so really once we eliminated those, the medications, that's where we saw like this dramatic impact. And so I did want to point that out that even a small amount of synthetic dyes.

really can make such a dramatic impact and that was the impact it was having on him.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (09:36.549)
What stands out from watching your documentary is how we interface with these dyes all the time and don't even realize it. Right? So right there, great example, like Benadryl or taking some kind of medication that's prescribed from a doctor. I want to just go back a little bit before you made the decision to do the elimination diet. I'm curious to know, you know, what happens when we interface with the medical system? Everyone has different varying opinions based on their specialty and background. Was there ever like a...

a concern where they were they pushing diagnoses on you that would have put your kid down the path of being like forever in the mental health system.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (10:17.41)
yes, absolutely. So his daycare, and this isn't something that we've discussed on many podcasts, but him being kicked out of daycare, really what that was is the daycare, you know, they had a teacher assigned to just him. And of course that costs money. They have a teacher that they've pulled from somewhere else in the assigned to just him. And so they were really pushing us to get him evaluated by the school system so that he could buy the school psychiatrist so that he could start an RTI and have a diagnosis so they could have funding.

to that would then follow him from three years old all the way through 12th grade. And that of course made us feel so uncomfortable, especially because we were already doing behavior therapy. We had a therapist we enjoyed and we felt good about that. And of course we were actually able to stop the behavior therapy right after we eliminated dyes. But when we consulted doctors, it was kind of along the same vein. Some of the doctors would say, you know, let's see if this tapers off.

when he's six and then if it continues when he's six, then let's look at a diagnosis. But we had at least four referrals to a children's hospital to get him evaluated by doctors. And some of those came from just like regular yearly visits. We weren't coming with concerns. He would just have a meltdown and for the doctor and they're like, this is not a normal meltdown. We really need to like get this under control. So yes, if we would have...

gone down that route, he would have had a diagnosis that was inaccurate and that really was shocking to us. And what really freed me in that is I was speaking with one of my friends and she has a child with autism, severe autism. And I was talking to her and I was telling her about what the school system was wanting us to do. And I said, I just don't feel comfortable with it. It doesn't feel right. And she explained, you know, if you have a child that needs these services, it is advantageous to have a diagnosis because insurance will cover it.

But she freed me in that she said, if your gut says that this is not right, God made you his mama for a reason and there's a reason why you feel that. And that moment, I was literally freed from feeling like I was not being compliant with both the school system and the doctors to like empowering me that God really did make me his mama for a reason. And I am so thankful for that conversation and that we didn't just blindly comply with what we were asked to do.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (12:42.936)
Unfortunately, being willing to be non-compliant is often saving families. saving people's health right now. it's getting outside of the system because the system is often just driving you towards quick diagnoses and pharmaceuticals, never getting to the root causes. How did you even get to the point where you've figured it could be something in his diet and doing an elimination diet? Was that

Did that come from your own research or did that come from another professional who gave you that recommendation?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (13:13.568)
No, sadly, we've never had a therapist or a doctor actually suggest looking at diet. And we have been lucky enough to explain to our doctors and our therapists and kind of teach them a little bit about what we've learned. But really that came from my personal experience. so when growing up from, you know, elementary school all the way through high school, I really had a slew of medications that I was on.

from birth control that was unwarranted. I was not even sexually active. It was just something that everybody had to, I was occasionally taking an antidepressant and I was tachycardic and I had so many medications to fix these little things going on. And ultimately I had underlying like autoimmune issues in every organ system that I had. so it was wild to me.

As I grew up and as I was getting more exposure to different ways of living, I started eating cleaner. But before that, I had a doctor that was prescribing an antibiotic once a month for me. I would get my ADHD medication and I would get an antibiotic at the same time every single month. the antibiotic was to clear up something ridiculous. It was just dermatitis that I had.

just a little bit around my nose and he had never explained that it was probably a product I was using and what dermatitis really was and I was only 18 so I didn't look it up. I just did whatever my doctor said and so about a year after being on this antibiotic once a month, my gut was terrible. I had IBS type symptoms and I had all of these other issues that had come up and so after that I became sensitive.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (14:54.321)
Mm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (15:03.758)
to many foods and I went to an allergist to try to figure out do I have any true food allergies and after that I was allergic to wheat, I was allergic to dairy, I was allergic to yeast and eggs and cashews and so my life completely changed and so that kind of forced me to eat very, very, very, very clean and after that all of my autoimmune symptoms went away after I started eating

um, you know, this super clean diet and changing, changing my lifestyle. Every single autoimmune symptom I had from joint pain and RA all the way down to my tachycardia. And I'm talking my resting heart rate was 140 to 170. It was out, out like off the charts. And so for me, I knew diet was powerful and I'm not saying that everyone can cure everything wrong in their life by changing their diet, but

For me, that's what really changed my life. And so we knew the power of that. And so that's really why we wanted to look at diet for our child and to see if that was impacting him. And also even on top of her changing her diet, once we started trying to get pregnant, she came off the birth control and she came off to her ADHD medication and the tachycardia medication. like getting all those medications out of her system and then actually having a pregnancy and having a baby did something to her body too. It kind of...

reset a bunch of things, her heart rate is normal now. And so it just sounded, it was kind of a a clear understanding of the things that we're putting in our body, the things that we're ingesting really can make a dramatic impact if we're not careful about that. So that's kind of a, that was kind of what opened the door to our understanding of, what we're eating and what we're ingesting could be potentially causing problems with our son.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (16:53.251)
It's fascinating the more that we get disconnected from nature, the sicker we become mentally, physically, spiritually. And there's so much about our current modern lifestyle that exposes us to unnatural things, from the pharmaceutical industry to synthetic chemicals and dyes and pesticides and, even unnatural ideas, know, certainly just like separating ourselves from each other, avoiding the sun, not being as disconnected to nature. All these are like really critical aspects.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (17:13.836)
Mm-hmm.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (17:22.361)
of health is that you started to realize this. And from what I understand, I do want to learn more about how the documentary came about, but you ended up starting a, I think it was a Facebook group. Can you tell us about that and what you've learned?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (17:35.438)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I really just wanted to start a community of, you know, parents and moms that were avoiding synthetic dyes so that we could find swaps together and so that I could begin to help people and to help people who were just beginning this transition into like a dye-free lifestyle because for a lot of people it's really overwhelming and for us, it wasn't as overwhelming because we were already eating relatively clean.

But it's still the exercising the muscle of reading every single label was somewhat new to me. And so we really wanted to create this community to help families come together. And it really quickly grew. And within a year, we had hundreds of thousands of people. And really what we learned from that is how dramatic of

or how many people have this kind of dramatic reaction to synthetic dyes? I originally thought that we had kind of a rare case and I don't think that everyone, of course, not everyone reacts as severely as he does, but we've heard thousands and thousands of stories similar to Atreyu's or worse. Many children experience suicidal ideation and then there are even reactions that go even beyond what science has shown.

We know from the OEHWIHA report that synthetic dyes can cause hyperactivity and attentiveness, restlessness, sleeplessness, irritability, and aggression. And so the OEHWIHA report takes into account 27 clinical trials and in malistic evidence and in vitro evidence. And so we know those, but in the group, many families have even said dyes, when we remove dyes, my son's seizures went away or when we remove dyes, my son's ticks went away.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (19:31.322)
or my children's migraines went away or when I removed dyes, my anxiety got better, my insomnia went away. And so there's a lot of, I believe that there is a lot more to synthetic dyes than even science knows. And that's kind of intuitive because synthetic dyes are a chemical and chemicals are like drugs in that everyone reacts differently to them. So I think that there's, I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've learned from this group is that

Dyes are impacting us in many more ways, not just, you know, and even in our film, we focus on the hyperactivity and the effects on children. And that's because that's what the science says. We really wanted it to be scientifically accurate, but I think it goes much, much deeper and farther, or more beyond that. and with the Facebook group too, like, I think one of the big driving forces that caused Whitney to want to start it was we looked at us and realized, okay,

We have the time and the know-how to do all this investigation because of her past and, and like, so, but if we're that far into the rabbit hole and it took us this long to figure this out, how many people out there could this be affecting? And they're so far out of touch with it. They, they may, their children or them or their children may never know that this is an issue. And so it was just kind of a way to spread awareness. And like when he said it grew very quickly, think.

We probably started the page about three years ago at this point. And like you said, we're about to hit a million people. it's, it's, and we've had some stints in there where it's like exploded and like we've getting 20,000 new followers a day. It slowed down some, but I mean, it's still growing. Like we just hit the 900,000 threshold a month or so ago, or maybe even less than a month ago. So it's, it's continuing to grow. I think, this conversation is becoming more, more prominent in like the

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (21:09.658)
Wow.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (21:24.546)
the bigger discussion mainstream discussion. that's, that helps a lot too. And so I don't know, it's been a, it's been a really cool tool. It's been really cool. Like when he said, we've seen thousands and thousands of families share their story or find the page and, report back that they, tried it out. removed dies and their kids are seeing dramatic positive changes. So it's been really encouraging. It's been very, cool to be a part of that.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (21:49.457)
And I think that speaks to the scope of the problem is once you start bringing awareness to it, then people are willing to start doing their own investigation. I don't even think we've begun to even get understand how large this issue is because I agree with me with what you just said scientifically. Yes, maybe we acknowledge that there's hyperactivity, some behavioral disturbances, in science, if you don't reach or research something, then you don't have these conclusions. So what about cancer? What about autoimmune conditions?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (22:16.459)
Mm-hmm.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (22:19.59)
What about all the range of other health effects that could be related to these poisons? And we're just talking about symptoms and what happens in the allopathic medical system is when we just throw these labels at something ADHD, whatever that may be, that stops investigation. You it's just like you assume that, I have ADHD as if, as if it's a discrete illness without ever trying to investigate all the potential causes to it. And I think that's where I hope your work.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (22:34.798)
Hmm.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (22:49.24)
your willingness to put your story out there to do the investigation to get the stories of everyone else and start the Facebook group starts this process, this cascade of awareness where people can try things and get off these harmful pharmaceuticals. So let's get to the inspiration to do this documentary and in the process of getting it done, because that's interesting to me is how do you go from where you are

And then all the steps to actually get it to where it is now. know Brandon, you know, you have an artistic background, you have a skill set, but I just want to hear the story about how you got this.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (23:30.582)
Yeah, so really we knew that something was going on with our son. And so to find that there was so much scientific evidence, it was surprising to us. It was surprising that no one was talking about it. And so that's when I decided to ask Brandon if he'd be willing to document our journey as we travel to interview researchers and impacted families and try to really get to the root cause of or really try to get to like what's the impact of synthetic dyes, I guess. And so

Well, you were you were reading the studies. Uh huh. Yeah. And that was really overwhelming to me, honestly. Like even just that. it's funny because one of the researchers that we met in this journey, her name is Lisa and she's been kind of the cornerstone of our film, really. And so I'll ask her like, what does this mean? What does this mean? She's like, well, read the abstract. I'm like, I am reading the abstract. I don't understand what that means. And so.

We really knew that this information really needed to be broken down into bits that people can understand. And I think that science is disconnected in that you do research and then you publish it. And it's in this jargon that is confusing and the general public doesn't usually see it. And it's not very often that you turn on Good Morning America and they're talking about new research. And so I feel like there's a disconnect between science and research and the public. And we really wanted to

to create something easy to consume so that families, everyday families can figure out or can learn about synthetic dyes in an easy to absorb way. so Brandon has a background in video, so he's his day job. And the job that he's continued to do through this process is he's a commercial photographer and videographer. So he obviously has a lot of skill sets.

he also traveled in a band, in his twenties. So he is very musical. So he composed the music for our film. He, obviously we both directed it and I have a background in marketing. And so I knew that I could help tell the story and put the pieces together, build an email list. And really what we were missing was the funds. We probably put about 30,000 of our savings into the film. which was no small feat for us, but it.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (25:50.068)
We really had to also fundraise and we were really surprised at how a community was able to come together to get this film produced because we didn't have any backing. were literally just two parents that wanted to create a documentary. And so that was kind of a hard pitch when we were talking to researchers and talking to families. like, we've never done this before. It's literally just the two of us. We've done every single aspect of this.

Aside from a lawyer, we had to hire a lawyer to, uh, you know, get, you know, insurance and things like that. But it, when you look at the credits, it literally says Brandon K would, Brandon K would, Brandon K would, Brandon K would, Brandon K would, Brandon K would, it doesn't mention any of the little things that I do, but anyway. You're in there quite a few times too. But yeah, like what you said, like my background, I, I do photography and video like on a day-to-day basis. So I have a, a pretty good understanding and I work with some pretty big companies I do like, so like.

creating good looking and good sounding and like putting stories together. I had that, like putting together a feature length film with all the intricacies and all the footage you have to shoot all the hours and hours of interviews and things like that. I like to say that we were, we were optimistic or naively optimistic. Yeah. We're naively optimistic. like, hard, you know, how hard could it be? It's we'll do, we'll work on. Right.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (27:10.417)
Which you probably need to go out and do something like this, right? If you knew how challenging it was going to be from the beginning, then you might never get it off the ground.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (27:16.142)
Exactly. Exactly. If I would have known what was going to go into it when she came in, like, and we started talking about it, there's a good chance I would have said, I don't think we can do that. but because we, you know, we thought we would take a couple months, you know, maybe half a year to shoot everything, a couple more months to edit it. we thought that we would probably just stay local, you know, in our tri-state area, try to find some researchers and families. And, that just wasn't God's plan. And,

doors just continued to open. would connect with one person and they would know somebody else and then we would reach out to them and that would give us credibility with this researcher and things like that. So making the film, obviously it was hard. Putting together an hour and 20 minute film over the course of two years and all that, I'm not going say that's easy, but the way the pieces fell into place, that was easy. And I don't know that we could ever do anything that would replicate that.

Obviously it was God's plan for us to do so maybe, but just like the way it all came together and the way our social media grew, like out of nowhere, we had a day where we were, I think we had, we had worked really, really hard to get our Facebook page up to like, I think like 10, 11, 12,000 people, which is pretty good on its own, especially for a indie film. And we posted a post, it was just a picture of our, our key art, which is our, you our movie poster. And we actually shot that.

at very, very beginning and a picture of the two of us, and we didn't just kind of posted about our story and what we were doing. And for whatever reason, over the course of two or three days, our Facebook group grew to 30 something thousand people. And so that was kind of like, just things like that happening over and over. And now our Facebook group's like 80,000 people. And like I said, the page, I Facebook page, our film page is at 80, 81,000. And then our group is at almost a million. I mean, numbers matter to us just because indie films is.

very difficult to be successful with an indie film to build an audience. And so it was super helpful that I am the key audience. I'm the person that would drag their husband to watch this kind of a documentary. And so that was super helpful in that way. But you would be surprised, know, at the literal thousands and thousands of things we had to overcome, every single one just fell into place. And it was difficult in the time that we put into it, but

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (29:39.724)
We've never seen God move like He moved in this. It was very evident that God loves people. And I believe that God loves children so deeply and that I don't think that He likes what's happening. And I really believe that we're going to have a lot of healing that comes from people knowing this information and not just our documentary alone, but just so many people talking about it on podcasts and

And now it's somewhat in the mainstream media. And so we really feel like that matters.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (30:12.648)
Definitely divine intervention. I want to get back to the funding. Did you rely on just donations and how, what did you get as far as like donations and what do you, what is like a total cost of something like this?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (30:21.729)
Yeah. Well, well, probably 30, 30,000 from our savings around 30 that we quit counting on. I think the full film costs. we'd rate, did, like we did two crowdfunding campaigns. One we raised about 14. The other one we raised about 10,000. We, we got a really good grant, like a really kind grant, a local grant. Yeah. That really helped us out a lot. And then we put audience, I think we probably spent

50 or 60,000 on the film, is like in the big scheme of films and documentaries like this, it's very, very low. like we've done just, we just crunched some numbers if we wouldn't have done everything and like literally everything. Aside from what Whitney said, obviously we had all of our, all the extras and things like that in the film or all our friends and people that volunteered to be in it. And of course all the interviews and stuff, all those are voluntary and

We're voluntary to be part of it. like we crunched numbers and probably if you were, if we weren't making this film our own, we had to hire out everything. It might've been like a $250,000 project. We were able to do it for around 50 or 60. And I would not have put in the work that I would have put in unless I myself were making at least 250,000. That was a lot of work. But that's, mean, in the ballpark of documentaries of the scale that we have, that's still very, very small. Yeah. So we.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (31:40.084)
Yeah.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (31:46.52)
We kept it lean and we were really careful with what we spent the money on because we knew that people gave their money and so we were really careful. We stayed in crummy hotels. We tried to find the cheapest flights, the cheapest rooms and things like that because one, we didn't know how much we were gonna need so we were trying to make it, to stretch it as far as we can.

It would have been great to hire somebody to compose the film or to create graphics, Brandon. Yeah, it would have been great. It would have been awesome. It would have made things go faster and like throughout the whole process. And we kind of kept having this feeling like, okay, we're taking too long. It's taking too long. lo and behold, would we would have never even dreamed that our film came out when it did in the, in like the timing that it came out of, of this awareness. And the day after our film came out,

the FDA announced, know, that they're banning Red 3, which was a big part of our film. So like, it just like the perfect timing, the perfect climate people. timing. People had heard about it. People were interested in it. And so it was just kind of a, everything just kind of lined up. So it all worked out. Well, was this very like grassroots movement, like in terms of fundraising, because the first 10,000 covered our travel for the most part. And that was all friends and family.

And then the second round of crowdfunding, we had already drained our friends and family. They did not give as easily as they did the first round. And we really relied on our audience. And so in our group, a girl posted what we were doing. And she said, if everybody gave $5, they'd be fully funded today. And people literally were giving $5, $5, $5, $5, $5. So it was this like kind of like grassroots Bernie Sanders style, like

fundraising, for the people, by the people. like, that really is the reason why we create our film. We could not have done it any other way aside from completely draining our savings. so, I I think too, I that might've been what helped the social media and things like that, you know, keep growing because people, people felt invested. They had given to us, was kind of like they were a part of it. They were along for the drive, the ride. And you know, we tried to keep posting updates, but we also,

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (34:08.606)
even more so than posting about our film, we were always posting resources and, like giving things for free, like advice for free. when he would make little documents that people could save on their phone or pass out to friends or teachers or whatever. So we constantly like kept feeding our audience and serving our audience and, they kept sharing and kept spreading the word. So it's been, it's, it's really cool to see that was.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (34:34.343)
And how's the film doing?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (34:36.302)
The film's doing great. course, every film has a initial, I mean, especially when you build up like we did over the course of like two years where people are excited about it, you have this really big push at the very beginning. And then it's just a natural tendency for things to taper off. think we actually don't have like all of our analytics in totality. The only analytics we have are from the first like two months on Amazon, but the first two months on Amazon, they were killer. And so,

We're excited and I feel like there it's going to continue hopefully with distribution and with dealing with distributors. it has been difficult to kind of lose. I like to look at every single number and see like the impact that it's making. And so we're excited to finally get that formal Q1 report from January and see like all the numbers but first quarter from the first quarter. Yeah. But really it's.

been kind of surprising how many people have continued to share it and, and how many people have been having us on their podcasts. And, so I do think that it's going to continue as the conversation continues, but yeah, it's done really well, especially for like an indie film. We were not able to get picked up by like anyone major like Netflix or Hulu still has not said no. So put in a prayer for Hulu, but it would be great to be able to land on a major streamer where it could be completely free. and typically with a, with an indie film.

You usually taper off of that, at least what we've heard, you usually taper off your, your S-VOD or which is, not S-VOD, your T-VOD, which is your transactional video on demand, which is where people pay to rent it. Typically your indie films do that for a couple of weeks. And then it goes into some sort of a VOD, which is advertising based video on demand, like to be your YouTube. But because our film has continued to, to be successful, we're still in T-VOD. So.

We'll reach a whole new audience once, I mean, every film eventually gets to that avod where it's kind of a more of a free way to watch. our heart really is to have it for free. want everyone to be able to watch this film. It's just the natural course of film. So I think we're probably heading that direction soon, but so eventually it'll be available for a whole new audience that probably wouldn't pay to see it, but would watch it.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (36:51.842)
And so, but we did have a free screening with Consumer Reports, which was huge. That was a partner with Consumer Reports. They like us a lot. I don't know why, but they love us.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (36:56.628)
Mm-mm.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (37:02.088)
Well, let's wake some people up. I guarantee you there's people who are listening to this right now who are hearing this kind of information for the first time. You've been great with your advocacy work. I kind of want to get an idea. Well, let's start with this. You went over to Europe and why don't you tell my audience what's different in Europe versus the United States?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (37:19.149)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (37:26.604)
Well, okay. So yeah, we went to Europe because we went to interview Dr. Jim Stevenson, who is the researcher responsible for the European Union's warning label on foods with synthetic dyes. so back whenever this called the South Hampton study was the study that he did. And this was a study that they did, in public schools, like with the general population where they, you know, they had a

placebo group and a, and a group that was actually ingesting dyes of kids, different age, age ranges and their research basically, you know, they would, the kids would either get a drink that had like fruit juice that either was just plain fruit juice, or it would have a mixture of the, of the, the Azo dyes, red 40, yellow five and yellow six in, in that cup. so the, you know, those are people serving the kids didn't know which kids had which the, teachers that were observing the family members didn't know. so those

parents and the family members and the set, the people doing the research observed the kids over a matter of, of weeks. And basically their, their research concluded that synthetic dyes were having a causal effect on, on these behavioral issues, hyperactivity, which they break down into different categories, like the ability to sit still, the ability to, you know, to focus and

Well, and what they were really looking at is the general population because there is a lot of research on children with ADHD or children with dietary sensitivities. so what the European government, what the EU wanted to look at is are children in the general population affected like my child, which doesn't have an underlying condition. And so they created this study. And when we interviewed Dr. Stevenson, something I was really interested in was his funding because

Everywhere we went, all the researchers we interviewed in the US, I said, well, why don't we have a more recent study like they did in the EU, following what they did? Because a lot of American politicians will throw the European study out with the bathwater because it contained one additive that we no longer use in the US. And so I was like, well, let's replicate it without that. And so everyone had said,

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (39:44.493)
Well, we don't have the funding. We don't have the funding. We don't have the funding. So when I asked Dr. Jim Stevenson, you know, this, this European researcher, he said, well, it was a government funded study. And so the, the government, you know, in the EU, they were curious to see if the general population was impacted by synthetic dyes. And so when his research came out, the year out of caution, they removed the, or they added a warning label. They required manufacturers to add a warning label.

if their foods contained the Azo dyes. And so in response, manufacturers, even American manufacturers reformulated their products so that they could sell their products without the synthetic dyes. Without the warning Without the warning label. So they were bypassing the warning label because no one wants a warning label in their food that says, you know, it can have an adverse effect on children and their behavior. And so...

A lot of people and even manufacturers as we're doing our advocacy, a lot of groups will say, it's going to cost us so much more money. It's going to take us three years to reformulate. When it's just interesting because most of these manufacturers, they reformulated within a year for the EU and they already have the formulas. It's just a matter of creating the products here in the US. so European palates are different than American palates in that they don't have like the aisles and aisles of sugary cereal and

and junk food as much as we do here in the US. But it's interesting to see that London actually is no longer part of the EU. So American manufacturers are now sending the dyed products to London, whereas the European manufacturers have just decided to continue to use the natural dyes, like the turmerics and the spirulina. so...

It's really interesting because the argument that, you know, it's going to be more expensive and costly is not really a valid argument because they're already doing it for the EU. And when we did our cost analysis, what European products to American products, they were either very, very close or even, even cheaper in the EU, which is interesting. And, and we thought when we went to London, part of our, you know, while we're in London, we'll able to get all these American products that are die-free that we can use in the film to show.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (42:05.474)
Like when you said, when we got there, it was a little disappointing and a little disheartening to know that at one point these manufacturers were sending products with the natural dyes formulations to London, but because they no longer have that requirement, I guess it's cheaper and, and easier to make them with dye. like, like she said, most of the American products that we tried to find that were dye free did in fact have the dyes in London because they're not part of the EU. But if you were to go to some, another part of the EU, like

your &Ms and your Skittles and your Doritos and things like that. They all have natural colorings instead of synthetic dyes.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (42:43.424)
Well, I'm curious to know if you think about this the way I think about it. And I got angry, you know, kind of watching this. I'm sure a lot of people do who are going to watch this film and those who will watch it, because what you, what you see is that we have this good scientific data regarding harm. The companies know it. You kind of debunk the fact that it increases costs by going natural. During the film, there's taste tests.

People can't really tell the difference, right? Or it's difficult or the natural product is actually tastes better. So it makes me believe we're under attack. Like we're being poisoned purposefully. Is that your conclusion?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (43:21.41)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (43:27.83)
Well, I mean, possibly. Another possible scenario is that, you know, synthetic dyes make our food look brightly colored. And so I think as a marketer, it's easy to sell, especially to these children. Children love brightly colored foods. And so many of the synthetic dyes on our shelves are in children's products. So I think they know their audience. think children like brightly colored foods and

You know, realistically, whenever we spoke with manufacturers that avoid synthetic dyes, it is very difficult to get a cohesive, like if you have a strawberry protein shake, you use real strawberries. Every batch of strawberries is going to look slightly different. And so we as Americans, we're used to our products looking exactly the same and cohesive and perfect and beautiful. And like we've forgotten what real food looks like. And so, you know,

Oftentimes manufacturers will choose an artificial flavor, like a cherry or a strawberry artificial flavor, which is colorless. And they've created this protein and then they decide to use the synthetic dye to make it look like a strawberry instead of actually using strawberries. And so I think we've gotten into this habit of using fake things like flavorings instead of actually like real food. And so I think it's just easier and I think it's cheaper and

You know, they are, we have seen in our advocacy work that the beverage association, the confectionary association, they will fight for pennies. They will, they will fight and fight and fight and fight and they'll lie and they'll lie and they'll, and it's, I honestly think it has a lot to do with money. And you know, even though it's gonna, it's not gonna be, they are not gonna charge us more money. It might.

cost them a little bit more to have real strawberries versus like synthetic dyes or byproducts of petroleum. Very, very cheap compared to like a turmeric or a spirulina. It's going to cost them slightly more. I mean, for the consumer, we have not seen any evidence it's going to cost us anymore. In contrast, actually, if you compare Fruit Loops brand cereal to an Aldi brand Fruit Loop, which is synthetic dye free and doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup, you compare the prices and Aldi is like $2 cheaper.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (45:52.962)
So they can do it. can, I don't see Aldi not making a profit. I see Aldi's popping up everywhere. They can do it. It's just this lie that it's going to cost consumers more, but it's just more of an inconvenience for them. so, I mean, maybe, maybe it's, maybe it's something deeper than that, or maybe it's just they're cheap and lazy. think too, think these, these big conglomerates and these big food companies.

have grown so big and it's become, you know, they have shareholders, it's all become like about the bottom, the bottom line. And so anything that's gonna affect that bottom line is an issue. Like when you said they'll fight for it and they'll, you know, they'll push and push and push. Luckily, I think what's kind of happened over the course of these past six months are in these states that you've seen like West Virginia and Virginia and Utah.

all these states that have actually had legislation move forward. A lot of those states, were, we were a part of that, that conversation. We were, you know, we were brought into West Virginia to help out with that and testify. And then because of, because of that, we were able to bring in a lot of the experts from the film to testify as well. And I think that gave us an edge in a lot of those States because you had these experts who actually know this science, like the back of their hand and they were able to like,

to poke holes in everything that these associations had to say. And so that was really powerful. We saw these legislators get the real information and the truth and make the right decision. so- well, and that's a very good point. These associations, they're literally spending money and sending people to lobby. And a great example of the corruption is in West Virginia.

West Virginia was the first state to ban it in the entire state. The only one so far. And it was actually, not to brag, but it was inspired by the documentary, which is just kind of a full circle, beautiful, like it's so worth it for us, like so incredible. But, okay, so the bill has passed the House and the Senate almost unanimously. Support from Democrats and Republicans. This is a mega majority Republican state, but I remember specifically a Democrat stood up and was like, this is the kind of legislation I can get behind.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (48:05.77)
Everyone cares about people and it was just so moving and powerful. Well, it's sitting on the governor's desk and the beverage association spends $19,000 on radio ads saying, we're not going to send food to West Virginia. Your shelves are going to be bare. We're going to take our factories out of West Virginia, making these nasty, evil almost like threats that they're not going to, well, hopefully they won't actually. Essentially saying that West Virginia is such a small state.

These companies, these companies are not going to make a special product for you. If this, this legislation passes, your grocery shelves are going to be, are going to be bare. Like Whitney said, one of the delegates, like they were threatening to pull jobs out of his district. So he, you know, to keep him from getting reelected in the future is like really weird and crazy stuff. And like, and we're talking, you know, the beverage association, this is just like, I mean, I guess you think so does, but realistically, like when you're talking about PepsiCo and things like that, they also own tons of food.

food companies and things like that. So it's a pretty, a pretty big deal. So it's been really interesting. mean, we heard when we were doing the film from the interviews that lobbyists were a big issue with why we're not getting any movement. But we've, seen it. We've seen it firsthand. Like, they'll spend money and they, have so much more money. Well, in contrast to like us, like we're, we're paying money to travel there, like out of our own pockets, out of just for the, for the cause. But when we approach certain nonprofits, like

Can you cover this scientist's pay or this scientist's like travel to get here? Like no one has the money to do that, but these associations have so much money. And it's just like, we are just like this group of like ragtag like scientists and random parents coming together to like, say the truth because when these bills, when you have a bill on the table, you really only have a few minutes to persuade this.

group of people and to teach them everything they need to know about synthetic dye so they can make an accurate decision. That's a really difficult feat. Well, that sounds like they'll give you two minutes to talk and they will cut you off. You two minutes to speak and they will like up your time's up. And so it's it's it's an interesting process, but it's been cool.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (50:10.095)
Yeah, there's so many dark elements to this when you really understand how the entire system works I call it the sick care system. So everything kind of works together. So if you have these poisons available in our food source and So food dies, but you also talk about like pesticides and other chemical based industries They work hand-in-hand with the pharmaceutical companies because the sicker we become

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (50:32.908)
They do. You're right.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (50:35.083)
The more we turn to their pharmaceuticals or the more we turn to the allopathic medical associations, the large scale hospital networks, it's one big system that works off each other. And that's what makes this so dangerous. They also fund the politicians clearly, obviously, and you're willing this to be able to stand up against it. This is where I do see the divine nature of all of this, because I do see it versus this is good and evil because you, when you know,

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (50:51.426)
Mm-hmm

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (51:04.779)
And there's something called business ethics. When you're running a company and you know your product is going to harm people and you don't care. In fact, you're trying to protect your ability to continue to harm people. That's violation of business ethics. Obviously it's a violation of law if our legislators don't do anything about it. So, I just, so many dark elements. I'm glad people are, are waking up and

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (51:20.695)
Mm-hmm.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (51:31.159)
The Biden administration, they banned red three in the final days of their administration right before RFK took over because this is some of the low hanging fruit. You know that you're going to be able to get some of this done because it's so, so clear. We're learning, I'm just exposed really for the first time watching your film is that these dyes are like genotoxic. They damage

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (51:34.262)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (51:59.053)
Mm-hmm.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (52:00.685)
DNA that passes to future generations. My goodness, why are we not talking about this more?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (52:09.068)
That's what we're saying. think, you know, speaking of diabolical,

really when you look at it and when you watch our film and you realize that we've known since the 80s that red 3 causes cancer in animals, really legally the FDA is not allowed because of the Delaney clause is not allowed to have foods that can cause foods or additives that can cause cancer in animals or humans. And so when we know that it's been left in our food for that long and especially when we know that in 1990, which was the year before I was born to put it in perspective,

35 years ago, they banned red 3 and cosmetics and externally applied drugs. And they said, we're going to look at it in food. We're going to get around to it. We're going to address it in food. it's been decades. And for decades, it's been in things like pediatric, which our child, our children have always been small. So I can relate to this. They're little. I'm a little person. I'm a little human. And so I have little babies and

You know, we were always encouraged to do things like Pediatrics. Luckily, I opted out of doing that and gave them something much more natural with real foods. But for years and years and decades, things like Pediatrics has had red three and medications have red three. And we know, you know, the argument is, well, it's just a small amount or it's in animals or no, no, no, this is not okay. Like it's terrible. And in the corruption and whenever you actually go to the FDA's website,

You can find the study where, where the FDA themselves concluded that red three causes cancer in animals, but yet they've allowed it in our food and organizations like CSPI for decades have been begging the FDA to address this. Not, not only address red three, but all dies and they will literally unlawfully not respond to like their petitions. And so it gets really deep and dark. think red three is like a great example. Cause you know, a lot of the pushback.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (54:11.502)
Even, even from the lobbyists is the FDA says these dyes are safe. They've said they're safer for years and years. Um, and that's kind of a lot of the argument, but red three is this perfect example, example of, know, the color additive amendment was passed in 1960. Um, which basically put the dyes that we had on like this provisional approval list, cause they thought, you know, more studies needed to be done, but they had this petition process where companies could petition for permanent approval.

In 1969, the food and internally adjusted drugs like industries petitioned. was permanently approved in food and internally just ingested drugs for some reason the same year when cosmetics and externally applied drugs applied for the, you know, petition for approval. The FDA decided they needed to do more research and more studies. Studies were done in the eighties that showed basically showed that when, when rats ate red three, so they ingested red three, they got tumors.

And so basically it was showing that red three was causing cancer in animals and you have the Delaney clause and a lot of the argument or a lot of like the people that have been saying, they know red three isn't that big of a deal in our food because the mechanism that it causes cancer in rats is not the same in humans. And so we asked Lee, so we were, we were traveling to West Virginia about that. I said, so when people make that argument, like what, what is there to counteract that argument? And she told us that like,

actually they never, they never identified the mechanism. So when those studies came out in the eighties, they essentially kept giving those industries extensions to prove the mechanisms of why that was causing cancer in rats first. And if it would, you know, be the same in humans or not, they were never able to identify that. So from like 1983 to 1990, they were given extension after extension to

to do the research to, why so much leniency, leniency, that's, that's why in 1990, they weren't able to identify that mechanism. That's when they banned it and cosmetics. And it was just like, because it was already approved in food, it was like this bureaucratic process and it just kind of, you know, unless there's a fire to put out, the FDA is not going to, they're not going to worry about it. So it was able to be swept under the rug for 35 years until last year when like it really, you know, people started making a lot of noise about it.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (56:36.128)
At that point, you have the Delaney clause. It's a clear violation of Delaney clause. Like you said, it's a low hanging fruit. Get that into the last days, you know, cause RFK is coming in. So it's a, it's the bet, but like I said, that's the perfect demonstration of you can't say something is safe just because these three letter agencies say that they're safe.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (56:54.585)
Oh, God, no. You know, I've this battle, I'm still waging with FDA and psychiatric drugs, right? They have never been determined to be safe and certainly real questionable efficacy. And then I'm thinking about what we're doing to children, hospitals, schools, like they literally have these vending machines with these soft drinks and with candy that have these dyes in it that kids are actually

targeted. This is such a predatory business. And then what happens they go into schools, they have to sit still, they're under this artificial lighting, they're not allowed to move. And then we label them ADHD, or anxiety disorders or whatever it may be. And then we go right into the medical system, then we drug them, the drugs have themselves the side effects, which allows for a new diagnosis and a new drug. It's just one horrific cycle.

that just feeds off of itself. I know you have to get your kids at some point and so I don't want to keep you on too long, but with all your information that you've been able to arm yourself with through all this research, I'm just interested, like if you had to give some advice right now to parents who have young kids who are having behavioral issues and maybe they're just not fully aware of how what we eat or what we're exposed to can affect those behaviors.

What are some product swaps that you think every family should like make immediately that you should say, Hey, wake up, be aware of this. You can do this instead. And we'd love to hear your recommendations on this.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (58:35.382)
Yeah, so the most important thing you can do is to get into the habit of reading labels on everything from foods to products that you wash your hands with and soaps and detergents. Just start reading labels because synthetic dyes and other chemicals creep into places that you wouldn't expect. And so we have created on our page, todayforthedocumentary.com backslash resources.

I've created tons of resources for families that are getting started. So if you are looking at synthetic dyes, I have a blog that will walk you through, you know, the steps you can take to go through your pantry, go through your kitchen cabinets, your toothpaste and your soaps and things like that, and then products that you can swap with that. I would say if you have it in the budget,

And if you have an Aldi or Trader Joe's, those can be really cost effective ways to purchase products on a budget. But if you can buy products that are organic, you're bypassing a lot of issues. And by nature, synthetic dyes cannot be in something organic because synthetic dyes are a manmade chemical, a byproduct of petroleum. So it cannot be organically found in nature. So switching to organic foods, that's a really great option, especially for like processed foods and snacks.

But more than anything, the more whole foods you're adding into your child's diet, the more whole foods that you're eating, you're really just avoiding so much. so we always like to encourage people to start reading labels, obviously, but then also incorporating like real foods into your diet, get into the habit of after snack instead of a processed granola bar, giving them fresh fruit and peanut butter and you know, like real foods. so

And that's not to say that you can't ever have like this process. You can have a good life and a fun life and our children do not go without the fun and the celebrations and we just do it in a different way. And if your child is in public school, I would say the best advice I can give you is to create a box, a swap box for parties because

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:00:42.29)
Every single child in your child's classroom is going to want to have a party. That's what we've decided in a birthday party. so you're going to need the Cheeto swaps. You're going to frozen cupcakes in the freezer so that the teacher can pull them out whenever they have a party or a frozen dessert and like the candy swaps and things like that. But really what I would love is to one, stop eating so much candy.

but really to just start looking at foods as foods that are gonna fuel us. I think it's so important. would eliminate a lot of the issues that we have in society. But I do want to point out also, and you were talking about school systems and I haven't touched on this and I would really like to, is that really synthetic dyes and the Ouija report even pointed this out and found this to be true that

There are certain populations that are more impacted than others. And so whenever you go into a low income area, they're going to have less opportunity to have the Trader Joe's, the Whole Foods, and they're going to have less resources to purchase swaps like this. So really, you know, a lot of people like to make the argument that the synthetic dye thing is like an elitist thing, but really this is more of a human rights thing than anything because, you know, for We Created To Die For The Documentary, not

because we wanted our son to live in this dive free world. Like our kid lives a really good life. Like we provide for him. He has everything that he needs. He enjoys his life. He loves what he eats. But really we created to die for the documentary for like the students that I taught whenever I was teaching, I taught in an inner city school. Some my students didn't have mattresses. Some of my students, their parents were illiterate.

Like, and so to say, okay, I expect that mom to have personal accountability, you need to figure out that your child has a synthetic die allergy and then you need to accommodate for all those things. You need to pack all the lunches. You need to pay for that. You need to send your own snack swaps. That's not fair. And she's never going to do that. She's there. Our doctors had never even heard that synthetic dies can cause neurologic issues. Why do we expect, you know,

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:02:50.196)
everyone to know that and especially people in poverty when you have less resources, you have less access to healthy foods. These are the people we need to be protecting. And we really believe that synthetic dyes have no place in school systems. And so that's why we've advocated for that. There's really no excuse. And even if it's just impacting a small portion of the population, which the science is suggesting that it's a pretty significant portion, but they're worth protecting.

And every child that there's every, there's this in every single school, there's children, they're impacted and we believe that they need to be protected. And we also get a little pushback about, well, you know, really the foods that have synthetic dyes are not foods that people should be eating anyways, which, know, that's true. And like what he was saying, like process, the ultra processed food, the more you can step away from that, the better, but you gotta, you gotta meet people where they are. Right. Like she said, there, there are food deserts and there are.

Just a lack of information. People assume if the government allows this food to be on the shelves, that it's, that it's healthy. I mean, honestly, that's really how it should be. It should, like foods that can hurt your body and do all these crazy things to you really shouldn't be, but that's just not the way it is. So we look at, we look at it as, you know, synthetic dyes are the perfect gateway into like looking at.

at what you're eating. One, because they're easy to identify. have a very, especially in the United States, have a very specific way they're listed. They have to have that color and the number on the label. And so you can identify them. So once you kind of get into that rhythm of turning everything over to see if it has synthetic dyes in it, almost naturally, you start looking at all these other ingredients that you don't know how to pronounce or you've never heard of. And it's just kind of a natural gateway into healthier eating and

knowing what you're eating and what you're putting in your body. like, and it's, and it's also such a big part of our story. Like obviously not every kid is impacted by synthetic dyes and even kids that are not all of them are impacted as dramatically as our son, but we felt that this was, you know, this was put on our plate for a reason. We were meant to share this and to get this done. And I think it's, it's becoming a talking point because it kind of has become

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:05:09.014)
It's of become like, now this is a Republican thing. So I don't, so it really is a bipartisan thing and it really should be. It's just kind of, it's an unfortunate side effect of what's going on. so there's a lot of like, well, dyes aren't really that important. What about, what about all the other stuff that's way worse than dyes? And we get that there. We're not claiming that synthetic dyes are the only reason that

that kids are being affected is because synthetic dyes and if we remove them, everything will be better. We get that. This is our lane. This is where we were put in. So we, like I said, we feel like it's a great place to start and it's a great way to start a journey of understanding what you're eating.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:05:48.826)
Well said. And this definitely should be a bipartisan issue as is everything with Maha and that movement. It should be a bipartisan issue. This is about the health of our nation. This is about the health of our children. I see it as a national security issue. I mean, how are we going to be able to defend our nation when we have sick people? It's an economic issue. How are we going to be able to maintain economic suppressed, supremacy when, when we're just so sick and,

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:06:01.826)
We agree. 100%.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:06:15.991)
It's already at the point where our largest industry is healthcare. You know, there's really no future for a sick country, not economically. Certainly not our ability to protect our own, our own freedoms. So listen, the two of you are absolute heroes. It's certainly a documentary and a movement that is inspired by God. I totally believe that. Where can people find the film and get in touch with what you guys are doing?

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:06:44.498)
It's available on Amazon, Apple, Google, Fandango at home, or you can just go to our website. You go to to die for the documentary.com backslash watch. That'll kind of give you a link to all the different platforms that it's on. And that's our website too is today for the documentary.com. we also just released a children's book, which is pretty cool. We wrote it like a little children's detective book. where they, know, it teaches kids how to read labels and find dies on products and.

kind of explains to them the difference in natural color and stuff like that. And it's called a case of the color fakes. So that's you got our website that'll pop up for that. So yeah, today for the documentary.com and you can find us on socials just under to die for the documentary.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:07:20.142)
it.

Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (01:07:31.609)
Love it. Go, go watch the film. I'm a clinical psychologist and I learned a ton just by the 90 minutes, you know, of, dedicating last night to watching the film. you know, medical professionals out there, psychologists, mental health professionals, these, this is critical knowledge and it's kept out of our textbooks. These are not things that we, we learn. So therefore we are labeling these conditions when there are

other root causes, there are other factors that are influencing behavior. So I want to thank both of the two of you, Brandon and Whitney Kewood. I want to just thank you so much. I'm incredibly grateful for a radically genuine conversation.

Brandon & Whitney Cawood (01:08:12.623)
Thank you for having us. Thank you.