REFLECTIVE MUSIC I'm embarking on a journey around the world to discover the secrets of lasting beauty,... There's snail secretion in this. ...great health... This is your pharmacy? MAN: Yeah. ...and extraordinary long life. Better skin than I've got! (LAUGHS) Look at him! I'm Rachel Hunter. I grew up in the fashion world. Now I want to see what beauty means to other people. And, really, is it a sense of well-being or achieving perfection? From different parts of the world, I want to find the secrets. This time on my tour of beauty, I go wild in Australia,... What?! ...where some of my ideas about health and beauty... There's no good news to this. ...are turned upside down. We have to start thinking of fruits and vegetables as we do with confectionary. And my search for secrets to anti-ageing... It's the most amazing sensation in your mouth. ...takes me way outside MAN: Lots of jellyfish and stuff out when the rain comes. Copyright Able 2015 DANCE MUSIC This is an incredible welcome to Queensland, Australia. The water is just turning this incredible blue as we go further out into the ocean. It's absolutely stunning. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the natural wonders of the world. It's just a little sea of treasures. But it's under constant attack from pollution and modern life,... I mean, our environment is a great example of, basically, how we treat ourselves. ...and I'm travelling to this fragile environment to learn more about my skin. I'm here with Australian entrepreneur Stefan Mazy, who's developed a DNA test that will help me create a skincare regime that responds to my personal skin type. You see, a few weeks ago I collected a sample of my own DNA for him to analyse. It's not a comprehensive test, but it's gonna help me find out how my skin will stand up to the effects of ageing. Rachel, I brought you here to see the Great Barrier Reef. We can see, you know, not only the natural beauty but also the natural devastation. Now, if you think of the human body as being like the Great Barrier Reef, we are exposed to the exact same issues. Because I know you do have my DNA results, I'm very very nervous. But this is science. I kinda have to sit up and listen. But the good news is we had the results rushed from our lab, um, and we've analysed them. And we have it broken down into five categories. Great. Category one is skin firmness, or elasticity, or to put it bluntly, how badly am I gonna sag? I'm hoping I'm better than average. The population average is 68%. You are 75%. Yes! So that` that's the great news, which means that genetically, you're less prone to having, um, laxity issues ` so things that sag. Awesome. No dropping. In the next two categories, I'm also pretty much in the middle of the pack, at low risk for developing skin rashes and allergies as I age and medium risk for free radical damage, something that would cause discolouration and lack of tone. Now there's the fourth category ` glycation. Glycation is all about converting sugar into energy. You know, if we lack the ability to do it, the body stores it, and the body stores it in fatty tissue. As well as potential weight gain, poor glycation can mean a future of wrinkly skin. So how do I rate? So, the population average for this is 70%. With this category you scored 25%. What?! < (CHUCKLES) You are technically below average. Below?! I'm, like, in the Antarctic. Argh! Look, the good news is, though, you're not prone to dropping. There's no good news to this, other than I have to stop eating sugar. Now, people would look and say, 'What has sugar got to do with my skin?' You know, 'I eat it, not put it on my face.' But essentially we age from the inside out. It's so funny. I don't eat a lot of sugar, but, then, maybe that's in the fruits, cos I eat a lot of fruits. Yep. A lot of it does come down to your diet. So by reducing your sugar diet, it won't change your genes, but it will definitely lower the amount of sugar being absorbed in the body. OK. Hopefully I'm going to do better with the final category. So with your sun-damage and pigmentation category, you are 58%, with the population average being 68%. You're high-risk. Oh, I'm better with 58% than 20%, trust me. (LAUGHS) No, it's funny. My, um, sister, two years ago was, um, diagnosed with melanoma. < Oh wow. And she had a fairly good size out of her` her back. Yeah. Knowing my DNA results, I can now target ingredients and products that best suit my skin type. Based on your results, we've sourced through hundreds of different ingredients to match up the right products with the ingredients that are going to be best matched to you as well. So, collectively, by following this routine as well as changing your diet and including things like beta-carotene, um, will basically give you an incredible future. This is actually tailored to your unique genetic code. Fantastic. But I'm worried about how badly my skin is already damaged. So, Rachel, what I'm going to do, I'm just gonna take a photo of you just so we can see the underlying things underneath the skin. We are going to look at it under a UV light, and we can look at a whole lot of things that aren't necessarily visible to the human eye. CAMERA SNAPS So there's the sun damage ` the shaded, almost blotchy areas around my nose and lips. Time for immediate action. Some slip, slop, slap and some shade ` Aussie style. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi. (LAUGHS) This is good, no? And a radical review of my diet is next on the cards. I'm about to meet this man, and he deals with what fruits and vegetables are good for your body that maybe aren't so high in sugar and my body will be able to process a little bit easier. I've shared my DNA results with Australian food scientist Vic Cherikoff. He reckons most of us have no idea about the nutritional value of the food we eat every day. With mangoes, you can have more sugar in a mango ` 3% more sugar ` than what's in a can of cola. What?! What about the passion fruit? Yeah. No` Well, look, again` Don't crush me on my passion! No, no, no, no. Sounds to me like you're addicted to sugar. Don't tell me that. But surely I'm getting plenty of vitamin C from that fresh orange juice that I drank this morning. By the time you're getting an orange that might've come from Florida or from California or whatever, there's almost no vitamin C to it, and that orange juice might be celebrating its first birthday off the tree. What?! Absolutely. Next my favourite fruit and vegetables come under attack. What?! Absolutely. VIC: This is all rubbish. I never eat potatoes. No, surely greens have gotta be good for us. Some of them are. Some of them are just standing-up water. I mean` Some?! On my Australian tour of beauty, most of what I know about the nutritional value of fruit is being turned upside down by food scientist Vic Cherikoff. The problem is these days a lot of sugar is now hidden sugar. Stone fruits, for example ` Sweet. Sweet, juicy, watery. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. The problem is that the ancestral foods from which these things came were small and often sour, but we're breeding them out of our food. Why are people breeding them sweeter? Because they sell. Like, it's ridiculous. Because they sell. It's because that's what we like. We're actually` We have an addictive taste drive to sugary foods. We have to start thinking of fruits and vegetables almost as we do with desserts, with cans of cola. Mentally, I'm already emptying my Surely, Vic, greens have gotta be good for us. Look, some of them are. Some of them are just standing-up water. I mean` Some?! Yeah. Look` (CHUCKLES) Look, again, you go by taste here, because if something's got a bit of bitterness to it, go for the most bitter. You forget most of the normal lettuces... It's just water. ...is designed just to stop the tomato from soaking in the bread. So this is all rubbish. I never eat potatoes. No potatoes. So what fruit and vegetables are right for me? It's worth eating the smallest sweet potatoes that you can find. Eat carrots, eat pumpkins, eat anything that's got colour that's either orange or red-orange. You're gonna get some beta-carotenes. For staying young and, in fact, turning the clock back, beetroot's absolutely recommended. You need to look at what's going to relieve oxidative stress,... Mm-hm. ...and it's the spices that are probably gonna play the major role. And you should me adding more and more spices to your diet. Turmeric, cinnamon, um, literally all the curry spices. And ginger is a big one. There's` So your saying for glycation, all the spices and herbs that a lot of the places in India have are really good for somebody like me? Absolutely. And, really, you should be upping your consumption of fresh herbs and as many spices as you can. Interesting. So you're gonna have to get spicier. Maybe I need to live somewhere else. BOTH LAUGH And to replace my weakness for sweet, sugary fruit... I'd be looking at wild blueberries, which you can get around the place. Lemons and limes are great, but I'd go for the native equivalents, if you can. These are finger limes, and they're one of the` the wild types of limes we have in Australia. It'll pop in your mouth. It's like a lime caviar. It` It smells like lemongrass. Well, you've got citral and also limonene, which are the essential oils that give it the, uh` the flavour. That is probably the most sensational new fruit that I have discovered. Vic believes I should be eating less store-bought food and eating more wild food ` the kind of diet the Aborigines had before European settlement in the 18th century. So, it is interesting how the Aboriginal people around Australia were living to 70, 80 years of age, when the British at the time were living 35 to 40 years of age. < Wow. So what kind of wild foods hold the secrets to a long and healthy life? Uh, this is actually a Moree eye. You're getting a stack of antioxidants from it. That's, like, got a furry feeling on the tongue. This is the aboriginal ginger root. It's got an interesting apple flavour. It's the most amazing sensation in your mouth. It's like all these` you're chewing Yep. And according to Vic, if I'd been brought up on food like this, I could sprint like an Olympic athlete. We did some studies a little while ago of Aboriginal footprints that were, uh, essentially fossilised. Here were these Aborigines running along at about 37km/h. Wow. To put that into perspective, Usain Bolt topped 42km/h. We need to go back to some of those foods to embellish what we're eating and put back what we've lost through normal agriculture. Today, I think, has been... a big slap around the face to sugar. Especially with my DNA results, um, the impact it has on my body, um, has kind of really jolted me and kind of shaken me, going 'You know what? Wake up'. UPBEAT ACOUSTIC MUSIC So my search for wild food is taking me from the forest to the coast. Linc Walker has a place on the beach in North Queensland. He's an indigenous Australian who lives off the land,... Grab yourself a spear, if you like. ...no matter how dangerous that might be. I love a warning sign at a beach. It always goes, 'I'm here to kill you'. Yeah. Safety first. Lots of jellyfish and stuff out when the rain comes. If you do get stung by a jellyfish, take it off with a stick. If it stings, pee on it. It's a little harder for a woman to pee on it. So you stay calm and get it off. The pain will go away. And our other little beautiful friends, the crocs. You've seen plenty, I'm sure, right? Yeah. Crocodiles will get up to 5m, 6m. And, uh,... And they're smart? They can be scary. Yeah. Most days, Linc comes here to catch fish, crabs and prawns for himself and his family's dinner. Today we're after just a small snack. We're gonna look for a couple of periwinkles, little shellfish, nephrites, little saltwater snails you'll find on the trees. See the little round one here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. This one's a good one to eat. Is that cat's eye? It's a saltwater snail. Yeah, cat's eyes are the same. Cat's eye. Awesome. This is where the good bits starts. Oh. Oyster there, see? Yeah. Really fresh oyster. You can eat it if you like, or I'll cook it for you. You can eat it if you like, Smells amazing. Mm. Mm-hm. Amazing. Very fresh. Within 50ft in from the beach, you've got an absolute... shopping centre of food to eat, and you would not go hungry whatsoever here. You certainly wouldn't starve here. Uh, if you're feeding yourself and your family, it'll take you about an hour to get a decent feed. Then you come back home. Little` Little snail. See the flat piece inside? Yeah. Can't eat that? You can eat it, but it's a lot of work. > Come around here, I'll do the easy` I'm not a lazy cook. Everything looks bigger. MOSQUITOES BUZZ Mosquitoes are big in here. (LAUGHS) All good? I think I'm going to, uh, cover myself in mud sand, because the mosquitoes are massive. Yeah, it's the easiest thing to do. I'll get you out of here soon. I'm protecting them. It's OK, I'm enjoying myself. (WHISPERS) I lied. Just come in here. I'm gonna try and find you a couple of mussels. Show you how to find a mussel shell. So you use your feet to` to feel them? Yep. You feel with your feet. If there's lumps there, it's a tree. If it's nice and smooth, it's a mussel. There you go. Put your foot in here. (GROANS) Well done. You're a hunter. Just feel, there's another mussel here. Amazing! There's a crab inside there. Look. Oh my God. That was great spotting. Just changed shell. Feel in here. Look. She's just changed shell. That's a new shell. So that'll be a good snack today. Do we have to eat her? We don't have to. But we will. WATER BOILS Split him in half. If you live off the land, I guess you have to kill things. Just ripped that heart right out. Yeah. But that's not gonna stop me enjoying my bush tucker ` high in protein and low in sugar. All your little periwinkles, lift up the shell, stab the meat. (SLURPS) (CHUCKLES) Every little piece of your crab, you can eat. Really delicious. So we eat very well here. When you go away and you're staying somewhere else, you always wanna come home cos you miss all your food. This is, um, definitely a way of life I could, uh, lead, for sure, and the great reward is an amazing feast at the end. Thank you. Nature has been good to Australia, except for the intensity of that golden ball in the sky. Coming up ` I'm finding I'm not the only one under attack from the sun. Maybe it's time to try some remedies the locals swear by. We call it golden oil ` the elixir of life. On my Australian tour of beauty, a DNA test has shown me that I'm under attack from the sun. So how are the locals coping? Do you wear lots of sunscreen? WOMAN: Oh yeah. LAUGHS: Can't see any! You do? When I was in my 20s, I was a bricklayer. I stayed naked except for a pair of footy shorts all day, but now I don't` An hour at a time in the sun and plenty of sunscreen. Do you put on a lot of block and stuff, or you don't care about that? No, I don't put nothing on. Yeah. And just like me, the damage is there to see. To help cope with this harsh climate, Can we have a family photo? Yeah. The Lucas family has made a papaw skin ointment to the same recipe invented by the pioneering Dr Lucas more than a hundred years ago. Dr Lucas, he knew that the papaw had enzymes in it that were just amazing for drawing impurities out of the skin, for healing wounds or cleaning wounds. You get really bad sunburn, and you put the papaw ointment on and the sting's gone. Wow. This sounds like my kind of product. This is where we start. We start with, um, fresh table fruit. So we have to sit here, and we hand-seed them and peel them. So incredible. So you wanna give it a try? Yeah, sure. Just sorta tickle it so you're not taking out all the flesh; you're taking out just the seeds. (CHUCKLES) I've just destroyed that. OK. I could eat these papaws all day, but I guess they're too sugary for the new me. So off they go to be pulped and fermented. Look at this. It's so beautiful and creamy, and I just wanna jump into it, I swear. And then, it's squeezed into jars and tubes. So one for me, one for the thing. (CHUCKLES) One for me, one for the thing. BOTH CHUCKLE I mean, would you let me work here? Probably... not. BOTH LAUGH We're amazed that, like, our little papaw ointment is just, you know, bringing in supermodels. BOTH LAUGH Oh, you'd be surprised` I mean, there's so many people using this. In fashion magazines, you know, they empty out celebrities' bags, and what usually is in there? Your product. So... Yeah, yeah. So it` it speaks for itself and its integrity. Thank you. We're very happy. The Aussies sure know how to make something special from their own backyard. But who would have thought they're turning their unofficial national bird into a product that can help sun damage? It is hot today. Yep. And according to its manufacturer, Stephen Schmidt, it's good for just about everything else as well. The elixir of life. My emu oil. We call it golden oil. Yeah. It's very easy, very palatable, very easy to drink. Yeah. Basically it's a very powerful, natural anti-inflammatory. It's very good for just, um, sandflies and midgies ` like, eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis. That's incredible. We're into 100% health immunity. I believe the most powerful part of the` the Golden Emu Oil is cholesterol health. Basically, if you have a problem, we've gone out and made something for it. Beauty; rubbing it on the skin; women with lines ` do you` do you see actually a visible difference? You'll be amazed. Immediate results. These guys here are just over a year old. Yeah. So at the moment, they're a little bit sorta feisty, because they're looking for partners. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. OK. OK. So you catch them and hold them from behind. Yeah. Can you ride them? No, you can't ride them. (LAUGHS) OK. They got little wings and, uh, I'm not scared of them at all. (LAUGHS) So even an aggressive bird, I just walk, hand up, and they just` OK. That's it, guys. Party's over. I'm practising my dominance. (CHUCKLES) I love the emus, but unfortunately there's only one way to get the oil. This is where the oil comes from, OK? Uh, the Aboriginal people, uh, traditionally, they would skin the animal, and they'd have a bit of fat on the skin, and they would put it around their shoulders and everything if they've, uh, got arthritis. We are very spiritual, so we actually bless our birds before they give up their life for us to enjoy and to` for health benefits. And they got over twice the iron that beef's got. They're of the healthiest meats in the world. And I could certainly cook you up a nice little bit of emu steak. The emu burger. The fact that there's about 10,000 wandering behind me right now is really really sad, to be honest. But I'm just not gonna look around while I'm eating this. Let's see if I can do this. Am I going too far with my wild food Australian trek here? Um, really soft meat; you don't have to chew too hard on it. Um, doesn't taste too gamey. It's not` It's very very pleasant, very easy to eat. It's not normal to eat an emu. I mean, we` we haven't grown up with that. But it's time I started looking at` at different ways to` UPBEAT MUSIC Australia ` it's completely surprised me. It's just been so fantastic to meet such passionate people about all their trees, their animals, their native plants. It's just been the most unbelievable experience. What Stefan has said about my DNA, I think I will carry that with me on the rest of the journeys with that in the back of my mind. What has been awesome is that I have a personalised skincare routine. Without a skin DNA test, I would have used anything. And Vic gave me some great ideas as far as nutrition for me, so I have to eat beets and carrots and sweet potatoes. Shockingly, broccoli ` not good unless it's raw. Herbs ` lots of herbs. Put herbs in your salad. Instead of eating a meal, sometimes I go and eat a bunch of fruit, and apparently it's like having just teaspoons and teaspoons of sugar. And I'll tell you what, even though I may have sun damage, by looking through some of these photos, I think a lot of us have sun damage ` except for the emu. From now on, I will be wearing sunblock, a hat, eating not so much fruit, not so much sugar. My life will be boring forever. Copyright Able 2015