I’ve always been really interested in health, wellness and nutrition. I devour any and all articles or videos on the topic that I can get my hands on. Most of the companies and personalities that I follow on social media are health and wellness sites or gurus.

(There’s also a healthy (arguably unhealthy) dose of reality TV stars in there as well. My guilty pleasure. Yes you, TOWIE.)

I’m also really interested in relaying the random health facts that I learn, back to my friends and family – spewing them up just as they’re about to sink their teeth into something amazingly tasty, fatty, sugary and unhealthy. Much to their annoyance, unsurprisingly.

”Ohhhh, you’re eating non-organic pumpkin spice ice-cream, are you?!’, I exclaim. ‘I just read a funny story about that, last week.’

This would inevitably lead to me being glared at across the table, and perhaps a spoon being flung in my direction.

‘It’s probably not a funny story Michelle,’ they would reply. ‘It’s actually probably a very,very sad story. So, please, please, please just shut your pie-hole and let me eat my unhealthy, yes, but extraordinarily tasty pumpkin-spice ice-cream, in peace. You are ruining eating for me.’

Needless to say, I’ve stopped sharing my health facts at meal-times.

But the more I read and watch, the more I want to talk about it! This is true, in particular, when it comes to my latest obsession – the secrets of the processed food industry and the failure of the regulatory bodies to regulate. I’m truly shocked at what I’ve learned recently – how the big food companies are doing their best to hide what’s going into their products, how they trick the public into thinking there are nutritional benefits, and how they load everything with sugar to get people hooked! It’s criminal, in my mind.

Note, this is particularly bad in the US – it would appear that the food restrictions here, related to additives, are not as tight as they are in the EU or elsewhere.

I’m not even going to try to relate back the nuggets of information I picked up on this topic- I’m not a scientist, doctor or dietitian and I would probably get the facts entirely wrong.

Instead, I’ve listed out three really great documentaries I’ve watched recently on the topic. These are must-watch if you’re interested in health and are curious about what goes on in the food industry, behind the scenes.

All three approach the topic slightly differently, but for me, the one overriding message in all of them is that processed food is making people sick and the only way to stay healthy is to stick to ‘real’ food – as close to its natural state as possible.

And this message has definitely had an impact on the way I eat. I now always check food labels for wacky ingredients and I rarely (if at all) buy heavily processed items. Even the granola I binge on is all-natural, with nothing artificial in it.

So, have a watch. These are all available on Netflix or Google Play.

Fed Up: “Everything we’ve been told about food and exercise for the past 30 years is dead wrong. FED UP is the film the food industry doesn’t want you to see.” (Scariest fact from this film is that some companies put sugar into baby food, to get people hooked from the beginning!!!)

Crazy Sexy Cancer: “In 2003, when I was a 31-year-old actress/photographer, I was diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer. Weeks later I began filming my story. Taking a seemingly tragic situation and turning it into a creative expression, I share my cancer documentary of survival with courage, strength and lots of humor.”

Food Matters: “With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what’s wrong with our malnourished bodies, it’s no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide ‘sickness industry’ and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for overcoming illness naturally.”

Food and exercise:

There’s Quinn cooking up a storm. Amazing tacos!

• Breakfast: Greek yogurt, apple, pear, chia seeds, pecans, almonds
• Exercise: Barry’s Bootcamp. Soooo tough! 10 x sprints on the treadmill. Felt like puking
• Snack: Peanut butter and unsweetened almond milk smoothie. OMGawd it’s good.
• Lunch: Salad from Wholefoods – lettuce and veg with prawns, feta cheese and olives with balsamic and olive oil.
• Snack: Rye bread, tortilla chips and hummus
• Dinner: Beef tacos made by Quinn – he grilled the beef and peppers. So yum and fresh!
• Drinks: prosecco, 1 vodka tonic and 1 beer
• Snack: Tortilla chips and hummus
• Comment: It could have ended with a burrito.