She felt the pressure to make everything from scratch and be perfect, but like many mums, she found herself exhausted and wandering the supermarket aisles. Overwhelmed by the endless options and confusing ingredient lists, Nabula began focusing on finding products with real ingredients—no additives, no preservatives.
What started as a personal quest quickly turned into something much bigger. Nabula began sharing her findings with friends through a private Facebook group, which eventually grew into an Instagram page. Now, with Supermarket Swap, she’s helping thousands of people make better choices at the supermarket every week. Nabula’s journey shows how a simple desire to feed her family well led to a movement that’s empowering others to do the same.
We chat with her about simplifying healthier grocery shopping, and her top tips for navigating food additives.
As a busy mum, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced in understanding and managing food additives before starting Supermarket Swap?
Prior to commissioning a food scientist and an Accredited Clinical Dietitian to undertake research on every additive and preservative approved for us in Australia and New Zealand, I found that there was a lot of conflicting information available. There are a lot of social media pages that have a message that all additives are bad, but I know now that this is not in line with the latest scientific research.
Some additives play important functions and allow us to have access to so many more products that wouldn’t be available without them and current research shows that some of these are safe for consumption. This is why all additives listed in the Supermarket Swap app are coded as safe, caution or avoid.
Can you share a personal story where a specific ingredient swap made a noticeable difference in your family’s health or daily life?
It was the overall reduction in additive consumption that resulted in so many positives for my family and in turn made me so passionate about it.
My children were calmer, gone were the daily melt downs (although they still happened!) improvement in bloating, less headaches, skin rashes disappeared. Everyone is different, but for my family the tweak in our diet was such a win for our wellbeing.
What are some of the most popular features of the Supermarket Swap app?
The app was built by busy, time poor Mums for busy, time poor Mums! So all of the features are designed to make life easier and reduce the mental load that comes with feeding a family EVERY SINGLE DAY.
The popular SHOP section contains over 2,400 additive and preservative free and better choice products so that you can go to the shops without having to think about what are the best options in the aisles.
The SEARCH section gives you an easy to navigate database of preservatives, additives and ingredients found in food and household products. You can easily search for a name or number to learn more.
The COOK section has over 200 family friendly recipes plus we have a meal plan template. You can add any of the recipes to your meal plan with the click of a tick or you can also save the names of your own go-to meals or links to online favourites and add them to your plan. With this feature, you can build a meal plan for your family in seconds!
But the most popular feature is probably SAVE. We share over 400 Coles or Woolworths specials of products featured in the app each week! This helps users save at the checkout and also allows them to try better choice products without it costing any more.
Can you walk us through the research process that your team of health professionals undertakes to ensure the app’s information is accurate and up-to-date?
Two sections of the app that require so much research are SHOP and SEARCH. Search is our database of over 300 additive and preservative profiles that are approved for use in Australia and New Zealand. This research was first completed in 2021 by a food scientist and an Accredited Clinical Dietician and is currently being reviewed again to ensure any new studies are considered. We also keep on top of news from international regulatory bodies to ensure that we are aware if they reclassify any additives on their end. If this does happen, we immediately have our experts review our data as well. Our experts are phenomenal, the latest one to join our team is Emma Landorf who is the Senior Dietitian/Clinical Lead in the Nutrition Department at the Women’s & Children’s Hospital.
The other section is SHOP; our extensive shopping catalogue. Every product that launches into the app is reviewed by a nutritionist to ensure it meets their standards. This allows users to feel confident in the product selection as we consider more than just an ingredient list.
In your experience, what are the most common misconceptions people have about food additives and preservatives?
One of the most common misconceptions about food additives and preservatives is that they are all harmful and should be completely avoided. While it’s true that many additives can have negative health effects, others are safe and serve important purposes, like extending shelf life.
Another misconception is that all natural products are healthier. Many people believe that if a product is marketed as “organic” or “natural,” it automatically means it’s free from any additives or preservatives, which isn’t always the case.
It’s important to understand the specific additives and preservatives in our food and their individual effects, rather than making broad assumptions. This is where education and reliable information come in, helping people make more informed decisions about their food choices.
What are some future features or expansions you’re planning for the app? Any exciting developments on the horizon?
There are so many exciting things happening at Supermarket Swap at the moment!
In the app, we recently extended to include low tox household and personal care products and we also just expanded the shopping catalogue to include products available outside the major supermarkets with tap to shop links so you can easily purchase products from some of our favourite (non-supermarket) brands.
Oh, not sure if I should share this but I am just so excited, there is a merch line coming (very) soon, maybe a book, oh…something you can eat! Never a dull day at SS!
If you could only recommend three staple products for someone new to additive-free shopping, what would they be and why?
I would suggest they look at their everyday staples, like bread, butter and oil and recommend that they swap to a bakery bread (even if just from Coles or Woolworths bakery), a block or other butter made with just real ingredients and swap out seed (canola, vegetable, sunflower) oils for ghee, olive oil or coconut oil wherever possible. Starting with these staple products is beneficial because they are easy to incorporate into a variety of meals.
Can you share a fun or unusual fact about an additive that most people don’t know?
Colour 120, otherwise known as Carmine 120 is made of cochineal insects that live on cactus plants in Peru and the Canary Islands. The bugs are boiled and dried out so that the colour can be extracted. It adds a red, pink or brown colour to the food and is popular in strawberry flavoured products to provide the pink strawberry colour. Delish.
What advice do you have for parents who are just starting to pay attention to ingredient lists and food additives for their families?
My advice is just to make a start. It doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t have to be expensive. We are so lucky in Australia that we have so many excellent additive and preservative free products readily available in our supermarkets and on the Supermarket Swap Instagram, we share swaps each week to help make it as easy and possible to find better quality products and often, they’re available for less.
How do you involve your children in the process of grocery shopping and making healthier food choices?
Let’s be honest, shopping with kids is not relaxing. They want all the things that I generally do not want to buy! When shopping, I never say that’s bad or use negative language about food. Instead, we talk openly why they want it, is it because Bluey or Elsa is on there? We talk about ‘sometimes’ foods and foods that make us feel good!
I have found involving them in the cooking process and growing our own produce at home has been a positive in encouraging healthier choices and trying new things, which can be hard.
What are some of your family’s favourite recipes from the Supermarket Swap app?
I can’t go past the slow cooked chicken or slow cooked lamb. Both meals are not only so easy to make (seriously, what is better than set and forget) but are so versatile. You can have it for dinner with roast veggies and then serve leftovers in a wrap for lunch the next day. Definitely a winner!
Download the Supermarket Swap app at your app store.
For more information:
supermarketswap.com.au | @supermarket.swap
