Today's guest is Emily French, registered dietician, co-owner of RDs for Little Eaters, and mother of two. As a working mother with two children, she is in the thick of it with activities, appointments, and a busy lifestyle! She gets it when it comes to what it takes to have healthy eating habits on the go. Emily shares her biggest tips and tricks to helping children have healthy eating habits and a good relationship with food.
Emily shares her family's personal balance of sugar intake in order to support her children's different nutritional needs and tolerances. She has a plan for everything from daily lunches and the neighborhood ice cream truck to special occasions! Emily is both encouraging an inspiring - and gets real about how she wasn't always able to be as prepared as she is today.
From healthy snack ideas to what to say to well meaning relatives pushing kids to try new foods at Thanksgiving, Emily gives us advice we ALL need to hear. This episode is a must-listen for anyone striving to instill healthy eating habits in their children.
https://www.littleeaters.org
@thespeechsourcepodcast
If you have a topic you would like to hear about, or if you are a professional who would be interested in sharing your passion with The Speech Source audience we would love to hear from you! Email us at thespeechsource@gmail.com or visit our website www.thespeechsource.com
Also, if you haven't done so already, follow our podcast! You will be the first to know when new episodes release. We would also love for you to leave a review and rate our show. The Speech Source appreciates your feedback and support! Follow here!
Follow Kim and Mary on IG here! - https://www.instagram.com/thespeechsource/
For more information on speech, language, feeding and play - visit The Speech Source Website - https://www.thespeechsource.com/
Today's guest is Emily French, registered dietician, co-owner of RDs for Little Eaters, and mother of two. As a working mother with two children, she is in the thick of it with activities, appointments, and a busy lifestyle! She gets it when it comes to what it takes to have healthy eating habits on the go. Emily shares her biggest tips and tricks to helping children have healthy eating habits and a good relationship with food.
Emily shares her family's personal balance of sugar intake in order to support her children's different nutritional needs and tolerances. She has a plan for everything from daily lunches and the neighborhood ice cream truck to special occasions! Emily is both encouraging an inspiring - and gets real about how she wasn't always able to be as prepared as she is today.
From healthy snack ideas to what to say to well meaning relatives pushing kids to try new foods at Thanksgiving, Emily gives us advice we ALL need to hear. This episode is a must-listen for anyone striving to instill healthy eating habits in their children.
https://www.littleeaters.org
@thespeechsourcepodcast
If you have a topic you would like to hear about, or if you are a professional who would be interested in sharing your passion with The Speech Source audience we would love to hear from you! Email us at thespeechsource@gmail.com or visit our website www.thespeechsource.com
Also, if you haven't done so already, follow our podcast! You will be the first to know when new episodes release. We would also love for you to leave a review and rate our show. The Speech Source appreciates your feedback and support! Follow here!
Follow Kim and Mary on IG here! - https://www.instagram.com/thespeechsource/
For more information on speech, language, feeding and play - visit The Speech Source Website - https://www.thespeechsource.com/
Welcome to the Speech Source Podcast. My name is Mary Brazeek and I'm Kim Dillon.
Speaker 2:We are two pediatric speech language pathologists with a combined 25 years of experience.
Speaker 1:We are your source for speech, language, feeding, play and much more in between, in today's episode we have a guest.
Speaker 2:Her name is Emily French and she is a registered dietitian. And we're excited to have Emily on today because she is going to talk to us about being a dietitian and her knowledge, but also she has had to make it something that she actually uses in her life as a mom, so we really want her to talk to us about what that process has been like. Having that knowledge and teaching other parents and patients about it is one thing, but then also implementing it into your own life, especially when that's your job, is something different. So we're really excited to have Emily on. Welcome, emily.
Speaker 3:Hi, thank you. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Emily, I know that you work locally for a children's hospital, but then you also see patients outside of that. Tell us more about what you're doing right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So my partner and I Kayla is her name she and I I've started seeing patients in the private sector for people that don't have access to a dietitian in a clinic setting. There are so many patients out there that just need some sort of dietitian support, and maybe it's in a very short-term capacity, but they just need somebody to bounce ideas off of and help with. Maybe it's a two-feet transition or a wean off of the G button or even formula consultations, and so we're just really trying to fill that hole for people that don't have access to it. So we just really have heard from speech therapists and other people that there is a need for dietitians to collaborate with speech therapists.
Speaker 2:That's so exciting. Emily, what's the name of your website?
Speaker 3:RDS for.
Speaker 1:Little Eaters. I love it. Emily, tell us first a little bit about what is a dietitian. What background do you have?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have an undergraduate degree in nutrition and that is the baseline and you can't really do anything with that. I went to University of Texas and I applied to internships, mostly out of state. There's an opportunity to learn something beyond what I was learning in the Texas nutrition world and actually did my internship in New Hampshire, which was very different in eye-opening, because the way they practice nutrition there is so different. So it was a great place to learn and to grow for sure.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit more about that. What do you mean? That the way they practice nutrition is so different up there?
Speaker 3:I would say in Texas, maybe the South in general, were much more focused on diet culture, whether that diet be keto or paleo or low fat, versus in New Hampshire. It was more about whole foods and where your foods were sourced and where they came from. People tried to obtain their meat from the guy down the road who slaughtered cows and they are selling vegetables on the side of the road and people are much more focused on whole foods versus diets or fad diets. It was really great because even in my undergraduate I would say that they were still very much teaching diet culture.
Speaker 1:Interesting, so you feel like that's really more of a regional difference rather than the specific demographic of the people that you were seeing in each location.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like the kids that I worked with even had this different understanding about nutrition. It was like in their family culture it was different. I grew up this is a weird example, but maple syrup is a big thing there. I grew up only ever eating pancake syrup and not even knowing anything about maple syrup. There, even if you don't have a ton of resources, your family is buying maple syrup. They're buying real food whenever they can. It's not like they don't have grocery stores and people aren't buying actual food from grocery stores. They're not all buying things from the neighborhood on the street, but they're more focused on the whole food aspect and making sure it's sourced and quality food For kids who might need a dietitian.
Speaker 1:do they have to have a referral to see a dietitian or are you able, as a family, to just recognize a need for help with nutrition and call yourself?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. There are not a ton of dietitians that are seeing people in a private practice setting, but they are available and you do not need to have a referral for them.
Speaker 1:What are some common presentations that you see with kids coming in who need nutritionists?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my demographic that I work with the most is for kids 0 to 5 years old. It's a lot of tooth bead management, picky eating, healthy eating, allergies, a lot of formula education for infants, because there's so many types of formulas. Especially now with all the European imports, we see so many allergies present with kids when they are under one. There is so much formula change that happens with those kids Because there's so many types, it's hard for pediatricians to know everything about all of them. I feel like that is an area where we are heavily utilized right now.
Speaker 2:And probably constantly changing. So to have somebody that's staying up to date with all of those changes and able to be a resource for the pediatricians is probably huge.
Speaker 3:Oh God, yeah, it's changing constantly. I feel like it's even a struggle for me to keep up with these days. We really have to be diligent about staying on top of it, because it's overwhelming. I feel like formula companies are coming up with new stuff all the time and then dropping off other ones that didn't do well. It's like you have kids that were on a formula for years and then we're having to switch them over because they don't make it anymore.
Speaker 1:I have a genuine question because all three of my kids have used formula to some degree and we used all three different ones for all three of them. Is there actually a huge difference between them? Because it's so hard as a mom to go and you want the best for your kids and then I don't understand any of the ingredients on the back of those boxes, and then you want the best but there's a huge price discrepancy. There's the generic Costco or Target brand and then there's the specific reflux kind or the gentle. Are there huge differences among these?
Speaker 3:I would say that there are even amongst the ones that are all targeting the same thing.
Speaker 3:So let's say we have a kid that's on a formula that is hypoallergenic.
Speaker 3:Even within that there's the extensively hydrolyzed formulas and then you have a totally free amino acid formulas that for those kids that don't tolerate the extensively hydrolyzed, and even amongst just the free amino acid, it's like this one has a probiotic, this one doesn't. This one has more MCT oil, which is going to be better for kids that maybe are having a whole lot of vomiting. They might digest that a little bit better. And this one is totally from extensively hydrolyzed whey proteins and so it's like they might digest that one better if they have this other issue. So that's why it does come in handy to have somebody who knows what the symptoms are and what they might tolerate better. But sometimes it really is just trial and error and that can be hard and expensive for families because one child really might not tolerate a formula that is very similar to something else and I think that you've experienced that as well. And the brand difference does make a difference, because sometimes it is a probiotic difference or fat difference or something.
Speaker 1:How long is a trial considered?
Speaker 3:So trial and what we should say in the clinical setting versus what I feel like we do in practice is very different. So we say two to four weeks, but in practice, if I recommend a formula and then they start vomiting at every feed, I'm not going to say keep going, I'm not there to clean up your child's vomit eight times a day. So I'm going to say go ahead and stop that, let's do something different. So I think that we in practice probably do closer to three days and sometimes less than that, but officially it should be two to four weeks. And if you don't see a major difference, then I think, sure, continue trying, but if things get worse, then you should change.
Speaker 1:Isn't it tremendous sometimes, the difference between what the textbook answer is for something like the trial. And then you become a mom and you realize that two to four weeks might as well be two to four years of your life and that many things.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah, it's so helpful to have people who have walked, who, honestly, maybe have just been a parent. You don't even have to walk it with a child that has special needs of any kind, but just a parent can relate a little bit more to what that looks like, what two to four weeks, eight times a day, really, yeah, especially when you're talking about feeding that's just something that we've talked about before is already such an emotional thing that parents are working through and it happens throughout the day.
Speaker 2:so I can definitely see how day three you're ready if it's not going well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the only thing parents do eight times a day. It is so incredibly stressful. It's the feedback that we get.
Speaker 1:That is the most stressful thing that they do when they leave the NICU and what kind of support does happen when kids leave the NICU and feeding is a struggle and they have you there to be managing formula and they have their physician who's managing that kind of bottom line of weight gain but who is typically the person that's helping them with the actual mechanics of feeding the child?
Speaker 3:Whoo. That's why we need more speech therapists. I would say that is an area where we would love to be able to do more collaborative care with feeding therapists and with dietitians. I think that our jobs as dietitians we walk in and, because we do a lot of feeding type things, people have a lot of questions for us about that, but we can't fully answer those, and so we absolutely need speech therapists to work together, and I think that patients see the fastest results when we can make that collaborative care happen.
Speaker 2:And even just talking over the last few weeks with other speech therapists, I think they would say the exact same thing about you dietitians because, just like you said, knowing all those small details about differences and formulas and what's making a child react a certain way or what are some other options, that's a different world than a speech therapist that specializing in feeding would have. And so I definitely agree that having a team and being able to collaborate is the best outcome for a family when they're going through that journey.
Speaker 3:Absolutely and unfortunately, like until maybe a little bit more recently, I don't feel like parents. If they're not connected to a clinic that has a dietitian, then that's not even on the radar. So often it's a pediatrician trying to help, which is wonderful. It is a lot of information for them to know and I just don't know how often they have all that information.
Speaker 2:You finished school. You have your job. Were you here in the DFW area working before you got married?
Speaker 3:I was not no, I was in Austin before that.
Speaker 3:Shortly after we got married, we moved to Fort Worth and I started working at my current job because this was my favorite population. So I love working with this zero to five range. I really loved working in the NICU and working with babies, but you miss out on the opportunity of working with parents so often. You're working with the rest of the NICU team but not with parents directly, and I really love working with moms and dads and I just have a lot of heart and sympathy for them. I think even more now.
Speaker 3:So we have two children they're five and three and when my son was born he has just come with more medical complexities than we could have ever imagined. That has made me sympathize so much more with these families about what it looks like to feed your child, to nurse your child and bottle feed your child and pump like maybe all at the same time. I just have so much more sympathy and can relate and I think it's helpful when I'm trying to make practical plans for parents now. I really want to do what's best for them, for the mom and the child, but she's going to fight for the child and I need to fight for her.
Speaker 2:And I think it's just like you said earlier with the textbook answer for some things and how different that is for a life. Even what we feel like we know based on our knowledge, to tell the parent to do with something once we've become a parent and once we've tried to do it, sometimes that changes. Sometimes we know that's not going to work very well once you leave the clinic setting or the office and get back in the home setting. So I'm sure understanding that firsthand has been really helpful in your relationship with parents and how you want to figure out a plan for them that's actually going to work at home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely even not taking it for granted the kids' feeding schedules, trying to reduce the amount of feeds that they have as soon as possible, because that is lost sleep and that lost sleep causes them to probably be more emotional during the day. It just affects everything, the way they feel about their child. So really being aggressive with feeds I think has come after I've been a mom and especially after I had to do the whole two feet routine with my child.
Speaker 2:Did you feel that, when you were having to make some of those decisions at home with your son, that you were able to quickly just access your knowledge and know exactly what to do, or was it harder for you to do that as a mom? I wasn't sure if you had someone else guiding you along that you trusted, or if you were able to just put everything that you knew into practice.
Speaker 3:I really mostly managed all of it myself, but I would say where that was a downside was that I held everything to this really high standard, so I didn't have anyone helping me or calling me out on what was actually healthy for me. So I was managing, but it was unbelievably overwhelming and really daunting and I didn't have a lot of peace about it and I honestly, a lot of days, was probably fairly bitter about the amount of work that I was putting in, because I was holding on to this. This is what is best, this is what I must do because this is what I've been trained to do. So I was able to manage it, but I wasn't in a good place about it emotionally.
Speaker 1:That's so hard too. Nutrition, that is a never ending target, and the target is always moving, especially as babies. They're changing day to day, even just between the feeds the morning feed versus the evening feed and so how often, when you're working with families, do you feel like they should be checking in, because their appointments with you are not probably going to be as frequent as when they need to adjust, and then are you allowed to go rogue? How do you figure that out when kids are just changing all the time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I often love it when parents go a little rogue, because when patients have medical complexities, everything goes out the window with what they feel comfortable with. Normally you would bring your baby home, you feed them, you increase volume as you need. They sleep through the night a little bit more. You feel fine about that. But when you add in this medical complexity, parents don't feel comfortable doing anything without running it by somebody. But babies often really do. They do a pretty good job of like telling you when they need something and parents listening to that and responding appropriately and trusting. I think that they need to be empowered to trust their gut a little bit more and we're absolutely there to help and consult and I think like once every couple of weeks would probably be great, but I think often parents would like more than that.
Speaker 3:I don't think they need more than that. A lot of times, though, I think that they should feel empowered. If you feel like you need to make this change, whatever that may be, try it, see how it goes, and I often feel like those kids progress quickly when their parents feel like they can trial and mess around and trust their gut with their kids.
Speaker 1:And that must be such a big learning experience too, to really to teach the parents to listen to their children and to read their children's cues. And this is all non-verbal usually, and now you said zero to five, but for the first good half of that there's no way they'll be able to verbalize what they need specifically. But that's a really interesting perspective that really in like your role as a dietitian, is to empower and educate families so that they can do it themselves. Is that what I hear you saying?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and in a lot of these cases, yes, like I can give you some information and let's go forward and feel free to change some things as you go and then run it by me after you tried it. Yeah, I feel like that often works well for the family, because then they're not being given a plan by me that doesn't work for anybody in their family and it's just stressing them out. And especially families that have come out of the NICU, they're very used to this. This person increases this and they tell me when I can do this action and that's just not really real life. And if your baby hadn't been in the NICU, or if they didn't have delays, or if they were a typically developing child and had no allergies, whatever it is then you would just feel like you had free reign to do what you want. It's your child and you don't feel that. You feel like that's taken away from you.
Speaker 1:If your baby's been in the NICU, so, emily, I wanna shift a little bit and talk about families and diets, and I think we all want our kids to have a healthy diet, whatever that means. We want them to be able to eat whole foods, and then we also want our kids to learn how to listen to their bodies and listen to what they need in terms of calories and energy and all of those things. Yes, like do you see that the way families are eating now is different than it was a few years ago, or even pre-COVID? Our lives are so busy, you have so many families with multiple incomes or just less time eating meals as a family. Have you seen that's changed? Nutrition for families.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I definitely think that people are eating on the go a lot more just because we're busy. Yesterday I picked up my daughter from school and we had two appointments after that in the evening, and I think planning ahead is gonna be the best thing that you can do. Preparedness makes a really big difference If you know that you have something big coming up. For instance, my kids were really hungry when I picked them up from school and so I knew that in my plan we were going to stop at a Chick-fil-A, but I made a whole Ziploc bag of cut vegetables for them to eat, and they ate them because they were hungry and that's all we had. So there was some preparedness that we can do to supplement that fast-paced lifestyle of always being busy to make sure that our kids are still getting a variety of foods. But absolutely, I think that people are just busy and they're doing the best they can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so hard looking at our calendar. Every single person has something going on every single night. So often we're trying to figure out how do we squeeze in feeding the kids. Then there's so many activities. Drive-through is not an option every night, when you've got that many things going on. What are some of your favorite things? You said cut up vegetables. That's a great idea. I think my kids might eat that if I'm like.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I didn't bring the popcorn too, but what?
Speaker 1:are some of your healthy snacks that you like to bring.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this has become something that's very normal in my life. Whenever I have a spare moment, I will make a batch of some kind of muffins or something and I keep them in the fridge and in the freezer, excuse me so that I can pull them out when I need to Like healthy muffins. There are several Instagram and websites that I really like, one of which is YummyTowardTheirFood, the FeedingLittles and then Ambitious Kitchen. They all have really great muffin recipes that sometimes have vegetables in them, sometimes are made with cottage cheese or Greek yogurt very high in protein, that are just healthy snacks. That takes planning, because you have to use your spare time whatever spare time that is to make a batch of muffins. But doubling them and keeping things in the freezer has been the greatest thing. Kim was at our house yesterday and I was making stuff for lunches for the future. I froze 85 percent of that, so being able to pull stuff out of the freezer has saved my life.
Speaker 2:I have noticed that I feel like almost every time I'm at your house, you're either prepping for a future meal and you're in the kitchen. I was going to ask you about the muffin recipes because I have seen both of your kids eat that for breakfast, if I've been over there early and they love it. Going back to the whole foods, and I know that a lot of the stuff you use is just it's not processed and you're making that from scratch. I think the reason we get away from that sometimes is because we are too busy. But being able to take a chunk of time to prepare stuff that you can freeze and just pull out on the go is going to make a big difference in the nutrition that they're getting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. It took me two, two and a half years after my son was born to figure it out. It's not like it's easy. I even knew as a dietitian. I knew what I wanted to do, I knew what I should be doing and I was doing it some, but I wasn't doing it well. I was struggling and I was frustrated every Sunday when I would spend 10 hours in the kitchen. I'm just so much better at it now and finding little pockets of time to just do this one thing. Then I don't have to do that on Sunday and my Sundays don't look the same anymore. Now I prepare food for maybe four hours and that includes the dinner for that night. So I'm just so much less stressed. But it took me years and this is what I do for a living, so it's hard.
Speaker 2:And then do you, just as you do it realize, and the ingredients to keep on hand, to be able to just pull whenever you have 45 minutes to try to prep something.
Speaker 3:Yes, I do. I would always have almond flour, even if I'm putting some spinach in some muffins. I normally buy spinach and we don't really use it for anything else, unfortunately. Put it in Ziploc bags and put it in the freezer Truly, I like them with the freezer. These days, everything goes in the freezer. We waste very little food in my house. Even if there's one serving left of something from the dinner, I freeze that and pull it out for a lunch for my son two weeks from now, and it's one less thing I have to do.
Speaker 1:I love that Also cuts down on the food waste, yeah, and just offer some natural variety, because if you batch things, that's part of the thing is, you can't cook all these chicken breasts then you have to have a chicken like the next however many meals. Maybe that kind of gives you some variety. I do know that it helped me out so much postpartum. My family grilled chicken breasts and some just hamburger patties and stocked my freezer with them, and that was so helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was breastfeeding or with the kids, because it's the protein that sometimes I struggled. We've always got the fruit or the starch, but I was always looking for that protein to go with it. So now, when my husband grills, we'll just buy more chicken, and then there'll just be more chicken breasts that we put in the freezer for those times that it's like nope, there's baseball that's coming out for tonight.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely, I do a lot. If I'm making something in a pan, like casserole type dish or something, I will try to make double whenever I can. The prep work takes twice as long If you're cutting twice as many vegetables, twice as much chicken, whatever it is. But then I freeze that whole other thing and we do have a deep freezer so I'm able to put that in there and pull it out on busy nights, which is super helpful.
Speaker 1:Also, I feel like my family definitely is buying more at Costco these days. With the amount everyone eats and to just the price of groceries, it is more economical to plan ahead and to buy things in bulk more as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, even avocados. Before it goes bad, I'll mash it up and turn it into an avocado little dip and put it in containers and freeze it, and then I put it in my lunchboxes to dip stuff in.
Speaker 2:This is so inspiring here because I think, committing to taking that little bit of time when it seems hard, that is so helpful down the road and I'm sure that's what you've seen now at this point is that it's worth committing to doing these things because you're getting healthier food and your kids and your saving time on the flip side.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. My son can't have any refined sugar, so it takes a lot of planning anytime he's going to have a party at school or he's going to go to a birthday party, or we love family movie night and we order pizza and he often can't have the crust that's on those pizzas. It takes some rush in the moment we have a party the next day, I have to make some kind of cupcake he can have or pizza crust he can have, but I usually try to double all of that and so then I can freeze it and I have pizza ingredients that are in Ziploc bags that we can pull out. That's all frozen that he can have and I can throw together a pizza for him faster than we can order one and pick it up. It just takes that extra planning but you don't get there overnight.
Speaker 2:for sure, that was one of my questions for you, because I have seen how he gets so excited about the pizza night and the movie night, despite his pizza being different, because y'all have still created that to be something special for him.
Speaker 2:But a couple of the other things that I think y'all have done a great job with is the ice cream truck goes through our neighborhood and your daughter is always so excited about that experience, and your son also. So I love how you figured out not to take that experience away from your daughter getting the ice cream, but that you have a special ice cream for your son that you keep at that same time.
Speaker 3:That was an example of one of those times where I was like I can hear it a few blocks away. The ice cream truck is coming. I've got to whip something together for him and I was stressed out about it in the moment, but they've lasted forever. We're still using the same batch from months ago of his little foe ice cream, and so it pays off for months when you just do that little bit of prep work.
Speaker 2:And he still gets to have that experience of hearing it and seeing it and going out there, and then he ends up with something special for him. And then how did y'all do trick or treating with him?
Speaker 3:This was definitely taken from Instagram. I feel like this is being put out. There is this idea of this switch which so it's a little friendly witch that comes in and swaps out your candy for a toy, and my son had a blast going around and getting candy and then we did, we just swapped it and he was totally fine with it. So they put their candy on the doorstep and then both my kids have Tony boxes and they both got a new Tony which they were thrilled with.
Speaker 3:For my daughter, she chose 10 pieces of candy to put out and she got to get her Tony that way because I'm still 100% fine with her having candy I want her to have a good relationship with sugar, despite the fact that we don't really have any in the house, since my son can't have it, and so that has been a challenge sometimes with making sure that she knows that candy is not demonized in our eyes, especially because, culturally, sugar is this thing that everybody says is unhealthy don't eat this and they categorize it in such a negative way, and I don't want her growing up with any unhealthy relationships around sugar because her brother can't have it. So we really try to let her have it when we can make sure that she knows that it's just about his body and his tummy and that he can't have it for special medical reasons. It has nothing to do with the sugar itself and she knows enough people that have allergies and we're able to compare it to that, which is really helpful. Wow.
Speaker 1:How do you figure out the whole idea that, okay, if you don't have sugar a lot, then it becomes this wonderful thing, but then you don't want to give into it and just have it all the time and have it readily available? How do you figure out that balance of how much to have of these sweet or the desirable foods?
Speaker 3:We don't have it in the house normally, outside of her, a few things that I will put something in her lunchbox every day. So she gets a little something, whether it's a little cookie or some immanence that she came home with or something, and so all sparks goes out over her lunchbox and so she does always get something every day she goes to school and outside of that she's just used to knowing that we don't have it in the house and that has become a really easy answer. We don't have that. But then when the ice cream truck comes, I'm going to often say yes to that, saying yes when I can and when I can prepare enough ahead of time to have something for him, especially if he's around, and then on a regular basis. It's just. The answer is just that we don't have it and the kids really can't argue with that.
Speaker 2:And I think that kinda helps associate that those things are tied to not your everyday schedule, so that when the ice cream comes out special, yes, you get to go have sugar, but that it's not. You're having to make that choice every single day because it's right there in your kitchen. Should I have it or should I not?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, for me too, man. I know Same here. Oh gosh, I need to not buy any sugar. I can't get any tints or anything like that. My husband and I would just eat it all.
Speaker 2:So that is how we are with the chips at our house with, especially with the three boys, I'm like why don't we buy that? And one thing is because it would last one day I could buy 10 things of Pringles and they're gonna be gone the next day, and so it is easier to just to say we don't have that, because I don't know if that would change if we kept it long enough, but I don't think so based on past experiences. But it is definitely easier just to not to have it and it's expensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah it's more expensive.
Speaker 3:And then it doesn't last.
Speaker 2:It doesn't last. That is what's hard.
Speaker 3:So it's better. It's so sad, but my husband will be like I can't overeat in our house because there's nothing that I want to overeat. You really have to be hungry and want that food. Yeah, you can only eat so many triskets, so that's so true.
Speaker 1:I usually don't do this, but I just grabbed the bag of Oreos on the end cap of the aisle thinking, oh, they're orange for Halloween, just okay, we'll do a special treat because Oreos, in fact, are dairy free. And since my littlest one is still dairy free, I was like, okay, let's do this, then this could be something we could all have together. They lasted less than 24 hours at my house. It was horrible and it was just this feeding frenzy. It was just became this thing of can we have Oreos? Can we have them again? Can you pack them in my lunch, can we? Yeah, oh my goodness, it just becomes this huge thing.
Speaker 2:I think, mary, we may have even talked about this on a podcast before, but because we don't do the chips like that, like the Doritos and the Cheetos, and all that stuff that one of the things that we do when we travel is when we stop at the gas station.
Speaker 3:It's like a yes yes, you can get what you want.
Speaker 2:But, I know those gas station attendants think we are crazy because my kids are like coming up to the cast register with. We don't do like coax or Dr Pepper's or anything like dark sodas or anything. We don't really do soda, so it's like Dr Pepper, Doritos, candy, they all. We're spending like $50 at the gas station and I know those attendants are like these people are crazy and I want to be like they don't get it at home, but it is.
Speaker 3:I like that idea, though, because if you're stopping at a gas station, we're going into convenience store, you're on some probably some sort of road trip, so it adds to the whole element of it's exciting and fun, and this is this thing that we get to do.
Speaker 2:It is. It's become a tradition. We could go to Disney World and come back and they'd be like what was your favorite thing and they'd be like the gas station after we just spent $10,000. Disney.
Speaker 1:World. You just need to go drive out a few miles out of town and then you can just turn back around and be like that was our trip. I know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's a way that I feel like we've tried to incorporate just those fun foods, because it's not that it's always a no, but we try not to have that in our house also Because it's hard for me I would eat that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yes, if you don't want your kids to eat it all the time, they're going to be asking for it all the time. At least that's been my experience. They know it's there. Just like I can't stop thinking about it, they can't either. They just keep asking, and then I just end up frustrated with them.
Speaker 1:Right. I feel like one positive thing that has happened with COVID and changing grocery shopping is that I don't bring my kids grocery shopping with me. Then it is easier to plan ahead and set those boundaries for your family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do grocery delivery pretty much exclusively since COVID and it has cut down so much on the extra. Oh, we need that Jarvis salsa and chips. So again, we'll last one day, or whatever it is. You just don't pick up all those things that catch your eye as much. I'm only typing in the search bar exactly what I need for recipes, which, again, when you're hungry you're like there's something to eat here, unless I make a whole meal Right.
Speaker 2:That's what I think is so neat about your experience when you were in New Hampshire, with more of the fresh markets and on the weekends was it just on the weekends or was it all the time? You just had that opportunity to go.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, these people don't even run it. They just put all their zucchini out on the end of the road and you just drive up to your money and take your produce.
Speaker 2:Marketing is such a huge piece of that Is. We know these foods aren't healthy A lot of the ones that we have options for here but it's there, it's convenient, it's all in front of our face when you go to the store, and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1:Emily, do you have any tips on how to teach your kids about healthy eating Without all the negativity? Not that sugar is bad or cheetahs are not bad, oreos aren't bad, but we just have to understand the whole concept of in moderation. But do you have any tips for how to teach that or talk about that with kids?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So what we do in our families, I really don't call any I don't even call foods like healthy or unhealthy. I would say what we focus on is what the different food groups are and why your body needs them. If my daughter's had a whole bowl of strawberries and she wants more, but she's already had 20. And then I would explain to her if you're still feeling hungry, there's a good chance your body probably is needing some sort of fat and protein to fill it up a little bit more. So let's think about what foods we could have that fat or protein. So maybe some cheese or some nuts so that she can feel more full.
Speaker 3:And even if I'm serving that alongside a couple more strawberries, I have found that eating the gets eating with kids and you probably see this as well right, if you can get them eating something, then they're more likely to eat something else that's in front of them. If I want her to have cashews with more strawberries but I don't want to totally say no to the strawberries then I'll like give her some cashews with those and she'll eat her strawberries first. But once she's eating those, she'll eat the cashews too and won't ask me for food in five more minutes. So we mostly try to focus on what your body needs and what it's telling you, and that it all matters, right?
Speaker 3:I remember talking to a girlfriend in college and she was telling me how bad she's been feeling and I said what have you been eating recently? And it was like had never occurred to her that what she had been eating had an effect on how she felt, and so I really try to make that a priority with my kids, that they connect those two things. So even if I have a headache, I might say to them oh, my head has been hurting, I probably need more water. Isn't that crazy that your body tells you what it needs and leave it at that? So I try to incorporate as often as I can that food and what we're putting into it affects how we feel, and I definitely think my daughter has picked up on it. She will spit things back out to me about I had too much to eat that night. My tummy really hurt, or maybe it's that she ate too much ice cream and she will tell me I don't think that ice cream. I think they've been allergic to it because I didn't feel very good afterwards.
Speaker 3:But it opens up this door for us to talk about. Just probably you ate too much of it and that's what made your tummy hurt, but she's very used to that verbiage that what we eat changes how we feel.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. Guys, you're right, that's something you really have to purposefully talk about, because sometimes we just are in a crummy mood or we just don't feel good, like you said, if we're dehydrated or if we haven't been making healthy food choices, and what we eat is so linked to confidence.
Speaker 1:And I know we talk about confidence building so much in kids, but it is crazy how important it is for kids to eat well, to be able to learn, to be able to grow, to be able to just feel good about their own bodies and what they're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it feels like they seem really empowered if they know what different foods have. They get excited about that. Knowing that tomatoes help their heart and different like that's exciting to them. And they're just such little sponges of knowledge. They know so much random knowledge when they're young that it's fun for them to have that information and to share it and to not just think I have to eat this because my mom is making me, but this is doing something good for my body.
Speaker 1:Okay, Kim, did you know that tomatoes are good for your heart?
Speaker 2:No, I knew carrots were good for your eyes.
Speaker 1:I did not know that about tomatoes.
Speaker 2:So no, I haven't never. We knew that.
Speaker 1:Okay, where do I find these food facts? I feel like we need to learn about foods like animals or something.
Speaker 3:All the different colors all provide different vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients and they all do different important things. I think that's a cool thing to teach to kids when they're in like the preschool, elementary school age. They like love that kind of stuff because all those different colors mean and do different things for our bodies and that is a really fun time to teach them that oh sorry, we can make that resource.
Speaker 2:I've really noticed as we've moved into the middle school and the high school age, especially with my kids they're wanting their bodies to do certain things with sports and with activities and being able to teach them that what they eat and drink plays such a big role in what their bodies are able to do and their energy levels and obviously sleep also. That's a big part of it too. But I've just been amazed at what we've told them for so many years and then they hear it one time from a coach or something like mom, this is what I need to do.
Speaker 2:Okay, but at least if they're hearing it from somebody, I don't care how it resonates, but I do think that's such a great concept to understand that the food really does, like you said, make such a difference in what your body's doing and how you're feeling, and it's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that that's self-reflection. So, like us doing intentional self-reflection out loud in front of our kids about you, said, mary, I don't really feel good today and you just leave it at that. But if you say, okay, I don't really feel good today, I'm gonna say this out loud in front of my kids and then say, I wonder what I've been eating that might be making me feel.
Speaker 2:I wonder if.
Speaker 3:I need to drink more water and you're just saying these things out loud to them. They're gonna absorb that and start to make those connections to that. What they're eating affects them.
Speaker 1:What you were saying, Emily, about just feeling overwhelmed a lot when you were starting to meal plan and do all the things with your son. What if you're listening right now and you're thinking, okay, I know we eat out too much, I know we don't have the best diets, I wanna do better. What are some of those first steps that you would take towards healthy eating with your family? To not make it feel so daunting, Is there maybe a good first step that you mentor families to the road towards healthy eating?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say being prepared, sitting down and saying these are the three meals that I'm gonna make this week and we're relying on leftovers.
Speaker 3:And I think that's important, that you're not trying to cook every single day of the week and, truly, if you are running short on time, something like grocery delivery really is life changing.
Speaker 3:So you order exactly what you need and it shows up at your door and you're not having to set aside an hour or two to go to the grocery store when you don't have time to do that, so that time that you're saving can be spent putting on a crock pot or something like that. And that has been probably the biggest help for our daily schedule is me writing down what we're having and then following through with that, because even not writing it down stored in your head and then you can't remember and you're like why do I have all these groceries? What was I gonna do with that? Again, even though I did wrote the list one day ago, I already forgot. So that would be a huge help. And then if something like pre-making muffins that you can serve to your kids that morning and then freeze, double it and freeze the next batch that you can take out two weeks from now is helpful to put in your kids lunchboxes as a snack or whatever it is that has also been really helpful to us.
Speaker 2:And that was one of my questions for you as the snack. I feel like the snack world is just crazy with all the times a kid needs a snack and after the game they get a snack, and what are your thoughts on that? Do you think kids are snacking too much? Do you guys just try to focus on your three meals a day? What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:I think kids are not snacking on the right things. So, yes, they're asking for snacks frequently if they're having goldfish, because goldfish is not filling them up and so then they want to snack in an hour, which is no fault of their own. If we're feeding them something that has carbohydrate and protein and fat and fiber that their body's having to break down, they're going to need a snack way less frequently. So nuts is a regular thing in our house. Fruit or that's gonna have the carbohydrate and the fiber in there. Cheese. It's really great about carrying all the different food groups together, because that is why kids need a snack so much, and sometimes it's because they're going through a gross group, but often it's just because they're just eating one food group. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:Do you ever recommend saying no and withholding a snack, or do you think that it is more so the composition of the food itself?
Speaker 3:I say no all the time to snacks, but that's often because we have a meal coming up in 45 minutes or something and you can't have a snack right now because dinner's almost ready and it doesn't always go over. Well, I often get yelled at for that, but that's just a line that I'm not willing to cross. Or if they want a snack, what I'm offering is vegetables. You can sit and have some bell pepper while I finish dinner, because they're never going to eat too much of that, and that's great if they do. Honestly, I'm not going to be mad about that. I feel like I trust my kids. If they're saying they're really hungry, then I believe that they're really hungry.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to withhold because I think that it hasn't been enough time. I do not plan our life around snacks. I incorporate snacks if they ask for them, if that makes sense. So I'm not like okay, we always have three meals a day and two snacks. We have three meals a day and maybe no snacks. Maybe two snacks, maybe one snack, depending on if they ask for it.
Speaker 2:So you're really focusing on that idea of them listening to their bodies telling them what they need that day. Yes, absolutely I like that. I do feel like with one of our kids who is a little bit more black and white is that if he had two snacks yesterday, he has that idea that I need to have two snacks today too, whether I feel hungry or not. It's become almost this pattern for him, even sometimes I've seen at the end of the day where we've finished our day, dinner's done, we're close to bedtime and he didn't have that second snack, I think trying to switch that mindset to but is your body really hungry? Are you feeling that you're hungry? It's not really healthy to eat this time of night. So I do like that idea of switching to having them learn to self-reflect and think about how their body's feeling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Okay. The idea of mindful eating is definitely something that I encourage as often as I can with them is checking in with their body and asking what they want to need and if they really do need anything. And we don't have a household that has a ton of stuff that you just want to mindlessly eat. It's easier because they're not like oh, I just want to eat because I know we have yummy food.
Speaker 2:Dang it. I didn't get my bell pepper tonight Exactly. I need to go get that.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's a scenario that plays out a lot at our house. Now is the whole sports thing, kim, you were mentioning they always get a snack after sports, but I've got three kids, and so all the kids are there for the game, and then they're all about fairness. One person was the one who exerted all the energy for the sport and genuinely needs the snack, and then the other ones are sitting on the sideline, but then they want to have a part of the snack. What do you do with that Exactly?
Speaker 3:Do you know what the snacks are going to be at these events?
Speaker 1:It's just it's like a sign up, so it's like a different family, so it could be anything from orange and popcorn to fruit by the foot.
Speaker 3:Are they asking to have the same snack or are they okay with a different snack?
Speaker 1:They just want a snack, if you're okay with a different snack if it was bell pepper versus fruit by the foot that would not go over.
Speaker 2:Well, this is really such an interesting concept because I feel like it's the little kids who really aren't even exerting that much energy in their sporting events that get these snacks after, and then this kind of goes away, I would say, by like third-ish grade, like no one's doing snacks anymore. But then you get into, you really need a snack after that game, like once they get to a certain age and no one's there to give them snacks. No one's funny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny it's switched Like when they actually needed nobody's offering them a snack. I would say being prepared. So if there's something that you're comfortable with them having afterwards, then bring that and just don't have a battle about it and just have something on. This kind of comes back to being prepared. Take something that you're fine with your kids that didn't exercise. Eating that they are also maybe not going to be like this is the best thing ever, but it would appease them. It's okay. Yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker 1:I probably. I just need to pack something that's in the middle ground that I'm okay with. And then, two, we're not a juice family. We don't do juice or soda. And when the Capri Sun comes back with the person who did play soccer or whatever it is, then that's a thing too. But now there's actually a lot of options. There's that hint of brand that we've gotten sometimes, or my kids even just love sparkling water because I drink a lot of it, so they're happy to just have flavored water.
Speaker 1:So I think you're right. I just need to be prepared and bring those things ahead of time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but like this takes a lot of mental capacity and a lot of a lot is falling on you to remember, which is why it takes so long to get it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think it goes in seasons. Last year I couldn't have done any of this. I was just like nope, whatever comes our way, that is fine and that's just where we are at. But right now I'm just in this stage of having more time to do more and wanting to do better in the food department. So I think that it has been helpful to just give yourself grace, to say, hey, that's not something I can tackle right now, but in the periods where you can then go for it, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So you've said them only recognizing, maybe when you do have those moments in time to really try and prep. I know that we've talked about this before with Mary. Our weekly meals look very similar week to week because it's made my life easier. But then when times come up where I know our week isn't going to be as crazy, then I will try a new recipe or I will try something different. But a lot of times I just know it's okay that Monday through Friday they know what meals are coming, because it's made our lives a lot easier.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think kids are okay with that. If it's something that they'll eat, then that takes fear out of what is mom making tonight. Am I going to get to eat because I like it or not? So I think that kids don't mind it. If anybody wants more variety, I feel like it's adult.
Speaker 2:This has been really insightful. I appreciate you sharing so many of your tips and tricks and for some of your recipes, I definitely want to put them in our podcast notes and anything else that we talked about. I did have one more question. With Thanksgiving coming up, I feel like for our kids, thanksgiving foods are not foods that they're around a lot. They always will eat the meat, sometimes the bread, but a lot of the mashed potatoes or dressing or kind of past roll-y type dishes they're not used to.
Speaker 2:So do you have any thoughts on having kids just try it, letting them eat what they're used to? What are your thoughts there with that?
Speaker 3:My thoughts about kids and Thanksgiving or any meals is that Ellen Satter is a dietician that wrote a book many years ago on nutrition and she has this thing called the division of responsibility. So I, as the parent, decide what goes on your plate and you decide what you're going to eat. I'm not going to force you but I'm in control of what we're serving. But you get to decide what you're going to eat and generally always serving something that's safe with it. But Thanksgiving, this is a holiday about food and celebration and we are enjoying food and celebrating.
Speaker 3:Our kids should not feel pressure or anxiety about this holiday, so they should also get to enjoy the food and celebrate, and so I have no problem with kids just eating turkey or the one food that they feel safe with. But there's something, because your kid has allergies, that they're not going to be able to have what they cannot dairy, and we know that there's butter and milk in the sweet potato casserole. And then maybe we'll bring a bag of frozen, cut up sweet potatoes that you can pop in the microwave and serve some plain sweet potatoes alongside their meals. So, again, like it goes back to preparing if you're wanting to supplement their meal, but if the kids are fine with just eating two foods off their plate, then I think we should.
Speaker 2:I agree with that and we've talked before too. I think that Thanksgiving is not really the time to start that battle and you know, like you said, it's just a time about family and celebrating. But you always have those family members that are like eat them, try the mashed potatoes, just try one bite. I feel like why? Why right now? Totally.
Speaker 3:And I'm not like a big fan of no, thank you. Bite. Anyway, the more pressure I put on somebody to eat something or somebody were to put on me, the less I'm going to want to do it. Yeah, I would say it's more about family members. Parents probably don't have a huge problem with their kids not eating all the different foods. It's family members interjecting and saying you should try this, you should do it. So I think it's hard, especially if your kids are younger. They're probably not going to, in a polite way, say no, they're going to get upset and they're going to say it's yucky and make a scene about it. If somebody's trying to force them to eat something and I think that's our job as their parents, to probably intervene before it gets to that point and if somebody's telling my kids you need to try this, I'm going to say oh, she doesn't have to eat that, I have no problem with that and just leave it at that. And I doubt anybody's going to push back at that and I have had to do that before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like he, said, I love this topic so much. The whole pressure has gotten out of hand with kids, with food, and I think that so often family members and even parents sometimes but I agree that family members really are the bigger culprit they see Thanksgiving as this huge opportunity of oh, but you've got to try it because we don't usually have this kind of food around. But it's really not a missed opportunity. You're going to what? See it next year or at Christmas, Like the green bean casserole? Skip it, it's totally fine. That's not something anyone makes on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:But I know one thing that I've done in therapy a lot this time of year is coaching families on polite ways to address other people's opinions. Because, like you're saying, emily, you have to be prepared for the comments, otherwise you're going to have to say something. I'll cut the cuff, for your emotions might be high. Or if you've already pre-prepared a statement, like you said, that just said oh, you know what, I'm fine with whatever they choose to eat, they don't need to try anything today. If you just leave it at that and you've already recited that in your head you and your spouse or partner, whatever then you're going to be so much better prepared to walk into that and confident to address a family member. And then same with kids, because sometimes you're off talking to someone else and then the kid is just there when the aunt is like trying to shove a random thing at them. To try well meaning but to empower them too with the language of just saying oh, I'm still learning about sweet potatoes, thank you though.
Speaker 1:But I think it's so important to practice beforehand before putting yourself in that position.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of empowering your kids to do it too.
Speaker 3:We encourage my daughter to often say I don't prefer that or I'm still learning about that, but we definitely try to avoid any words like that's yucky, I don't like that because I don't love what that projects to other people or other kids, especially when I think about my daughter in a lunch room saying that she thinks some food that some child is eating is yucky, and that is not something I want to promote. We don't talk about food is yucky.
Speaker 2:food nourishes our body and we're thankful that people have it. Thank you again, emily. Yeah, we appreciate you being here and all of the knowledge that you've shared. It's been great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was so fun. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast and check out our website, thespeechsourcecom.
Speaker 1:Also check us out on Instagram for more ideas on speech, language, feeding and play.