Episode 1: The Lunchbox Reformation Begins

Feeding your kids has a way of stirring up your own childhood food memories—old wounds, fears, and the pressure to “get it right.” In this first episode of The Lunchbox Reformation, Dr. Liz Daniels shares her origin story and why pediatric nutrition must go far beyond labels, ingredients, and rigid rules.

As a board-certified pediatrician and registered dietitian, Dr. Liz reflects on formative moments from her early career—patients who taught her that food is never just food, and families navigating illness, barriers, and impossible choices. These experiences ultimately led her from nutrition into medicine, motherhood, and pediatrics, where she saw firsthand how deeply feeding decisions are shaped by systems, access, time, and emotion.

This episode lays the foundation for the podcast: real nutrition science without clickbait, compassionate conversations about barriers to health, and support for parents who want to nourish the whole child—without fear, guilt, or whiplash from conflicting advice.

If you’re a parent who:

• Feels confident reading labels but still doubts your decisions
• Wants better nutrition for your kids without diet culture
• Feels overwhelmed by nutrition claims and influencer advice
• Is trying to “rewrite” the food story you grew up with

You’re in the right place. This is where the Lunchbox Reformation begins.

Register for the Breastmilk and Formula Masterclass in January 2026 here!

NEW COURSE! "Read the Pattern: Feeding Your Baby 0–4 Months" — because a healthy relationship with food starts earlier than most people think. Course Link!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's not until you start feeding your own kids that you start suddenly being reminded of the things that you experience as a child or the things that you, you know, really want to be able to rewrite, right? Like we have all of these old wounds that get stirred up when we start feeding our kids. And I think that we can do better. Welcome to the Lunchbox Reformation with Dr. Liz. This podcast is for folks who are craving better nutrition for their kids, but are tired of clickbait and whiplash of nutrition claims and dye culture influence. You're reading labels, you're paying attention to ingredients, but you still doubt yourself. And for good reason, food goes deep. And often we fear making costly mistakes that as parents we hope to prevent. If you're ready to explore the ins and outs of your child's actual nutrition needs and nourish the whole child from the inside out, hang with me, Dr. Liz Daniels. I'm an award-winning board-certified pediatrician plus registered dietitian, and I'm here to bring you real deal nutrition science, honest talk about barriers to health, and real stories that I help to address. Let's dig in. All right, guys. So let's get started. My first podcast is going to really be about my origin story, who I am, what I've been through, and what I'm hoping to do for you, what I'm hoping this podcast will represent for you. So let's get started. I grew up in Texas and uh chose to go to University of Texas at Austin. And when I was there, I started out as a nutrition major and I knew from very early that that was my goal. And I always saw food as medicine from the beginning. And so thought, okay, yeah, well, let's do like an MD PhD or let's do an RD PhD or something where I can get nutrition science blended with, you know, some platform for being able to do research, to dig deeper, to really nerd out on this stuff, to be able to teach, to be able to, you know, just be in this space, um, but not be confined to like one particular hospital system or one particular job, or, you know, I I initially saw that I wanted to do kind of a blend of things and had some role models who were doing that. So I go to my advisor and she is, you know, this very seasoned and mature advisor who's been doing this for probably 40 years as a second career. Okay. And um, point blank tells me, um, you're cute, but like if you want this career, then you have to give up the idea of a family. Like, ain't no way, girl. You're not gonna be able to do both and be a mom. And I just want to break it to you now so you can like plan your future. And let me tell you, I hated that response. Now, I've given a lot of grace. That was, you know, over 25 years ago. So a long time ago. And and I, and I get it, but it made me feel like, you know, I don't think so. And pretty much any time in my life when somebody said, Yeah, we can't do that, it's almost always been my like a little, you know, a little thing in my head of like, I'm gonna find a way. And so I did. And fast forward, I years later became an RD. But, you know, at the time, I didn't have this great elaborate plan. I was impressionable. I was actually super young. I was like 16, going and 17. And I thought, well, she must be right. She knows what she's doing. She's done this a long time. And so I listened to her. And I was like, well, I'm just gonna be an RD. It's gonna be fine, it's gonna be great. I remember my very first job as a registered dietitian, and it was my first patient. Like, this was so green. And I really felt like imposter syndrome, you know, and put on my little white coat and I go to my first patient's uh room, and the order was to provide medical nutrition therapy for a patient who had a chronic illness, and they were, you know, clearly they'd been ordering off menu, and the doctor was concerned because the labs sort of reflected that there was, you know, not much nutritional adherence, and so he was concerned, and so, you know, that was my task go in and and straighten this out. So I knock on the door, and mind you, I grew up in a small town and I'd moved away to a city, and in that exam room or in the in that hospital room was my childhood crush. Like not expecting this. And he was somebody who I, you know, we he he lived with a lifelong chronic illness and um hadn't seen me in a very long time. Yet his family immediately knew who I was and they recognized me and they were so kind and compassionate and basically just forgave me for, you know, needing to do my job. And we had a lovely conversation. But instead of walking in there and reading my script and deciding to just talk to him about why I was there and then get in and get out, we connected. And I learned that he ex you know, he knew his diet. Obviously, he'd been doing this for most of his life. And he was so tired. He was so tired. He wanted to get out of the hospital. He was sick and he knew it. Like sick, sick, and knew that this was part of the end process. And so, yeah, it wasn't priority on his list to eat specifically the hospital food that the hospital wanted him to eat. He just wanted to get out of the hospital. And at home, his mom gracefully shared that they had a pretty elaborate system and plan in place and uh method for how he would, you know, go about his his food to ensure that he was trying to do his best. Um, and I quickly recognized that his barriers were very real. And I had to pivot and I had to, in real time, instead of sticking to my my plan and my itinerary, I just needed to connect. And that that was what he needed. And it turns out that's what I actually needed too, because it gave me the opportunity to see that I didn't just have to be my job, I could also be a human in my job. And I I left that encounter feeling just so much gratitude for that opportunity. And it didn't occur to me until many years later how important that one encounter was for me. And patients do that to us, you know, like, and you may be listening as a parent thinking, gosh, my doctor never hears me or I never have experiences like that, but they really do. They sit with us and they're important. And so, you know, I say all that to say that the connection was my gateway. And I thought, you know, actually, I kind of like this. So I continued, and about, you know, a year and a half later, I remember being on a weekend shift, again, going into a room. I was supposed to give diabetic education to a woman who had recently received her diabetes diagnosis. The reality was, though, is that it was a Saturday. She was one of the last patients I was going to see. And I was sort of allotted like 20 minutes to go in, 20, 23 minutes to go in and do that education. And I was supposed to sort of link her up with here's what to expect on the outpatient side. And here's some of the things to kind of get you set for the weekend before next week. And um, you know, I go in and she, I quickly find out, is so stuck. This patient had likely had diabetes for many years, but hadn't been diagnosed until she had complications that brought her into the hospital. And all she could think about was her brother and her other family members. Her brother was very sick with diabetes, had had amputations, was wheelchair bound, and was facing dialysis very soon. And her other family members were aging, and she was the healthiest one. She was the anchor for everybody. And how could she go home with this diagnosis? And what would that mean? That would mean in her mind that she was going to be looking at herself being in a wheelchair and that she was going to be facing dialysis. And all she could think about in that moment was that she couldn't be sick. It couldn't happen. She clearly was so stuck and so just in in a in a very shocked kind of place. And so, again, here was my task to sort of provide her with something that she wasn't really ready to hear, wasn't in the state of mind where she could really listen to the instructions. I certainly couldn't do nutrition education and go through counting carbohydrates and planning her meals or coming up with some a strategy for something that was going to be able to help her for the next week. She wasn't in that state. So being, you know, a little bit more experienced this time around, we we got some we got some other tools in place and I was able to pivot in my conversation. But clearly, I also recognized at that point in time she was not only stuck, but I I think she hadn't had the opportunity to really even express where she was at with a different healthcare worker. And she may have had other opportunities, but what she had disclosed to me at that point was that she hadn't yet talked to a social worker. She didn't know anybody else who was able to help her. And, you know, it turns out, as we continued to talk through her barriers and her world, was that she didn't have a vehicle. So being able to get to outpatient nutrition classes and then another day go to see an endocrinologist, and then another day to see her primary care was like just overwhelming because she relied on the bus system to get around. And especially, you know, challenging navigating the healthcare system meant that she would also have to spend a lot of time on the phone. And she had a prepaid phone plan and couldn't afford unlimited minutes to sit on hold. She also really just needed to be at work in order to take care of her other family members. So going to appointments meant that she wasn't going to be able to bring home money. And how was she supposed to choose between those two? It was just, she was so overwhelmed. And I recognized in that situation, gosh, these systematic barriers are huge. And how can we talk about the tip of the iceberg, these little details in nutrition when she didn't have the basics? And right as we're in that deep conversation, her internal medicine doctor walked in and, you know, just wanted to sign off. And I'm going to be discharging you today. So, you know, here's your insulin prescription, and we're going to, you know, have the team follow up with you out, patient. Bye. And now being on the other side of that as a physician, I fully understand his schedule and what he had going on in a better way than I did at that point in time. But I realized, holy cow, two things. Well, lots, but one of those things is in our health, we live in an ecosystem, a healthcare ecosystem, and we need all of those parts to be healthy. We need all of them. And in that moment, her physician needed me. Her physician needed the social worker and the nurse educator and even the coordinator on the phone needed everybody in the healthcare system within the hospital to help this patient. And she needed them. I needed the internal medicine doctor to write the prescription for her sighting scale regimen and to be able to write the orders for other systematic things that she needed. And he needed me to be able to have this conversation with her. And it just like we all needed each other. And it's really hard to navigate that ecosystem. And I knew she wanted better, right? Like that was clear to me. But the desire to do better and the obstacles to get there were just feeling, they felt insurmountable. And I'm sure you've probably been in a situation where you felt like the changes you want to make are insurmountable too. And, you know, for me walking away from that, I thought, okay, I really should ignore this old lady who told me I can't do all these things because we need every part of it addressed. And maybe, just maybe, as a physician, I'll be able to have a voice for advocacy and a voice for um systematic changes or a voice for patient education in a different way. And and after that encounter, where I realized we got to do better. And I want to do better. So I decided to go to med school. She, by the way, did get her social work referral. And but clearly she needed more than just the social work referral, obviously. And I hope she got all of those things. So then I decided, all right, med school it is. And wouldn't you know it? Another obstacle decided to jump my way. I applied to med school. It's like a year-long process, if you're not familiar, and you it's pretty arduous. You go through a ton of obviously prerequisites and testing and applications and interviews and all of this stuff. And you find out everybody in the country finds out on the same day that they got into medical school and where they're going, like where they're matched to if they got in. And um, you know, if not, the whole cycle starts all over and it's a whole nother year-long process. I, at that point in my life, was like, you know, I'm just gonna apply one place, one thing, and that's where I want to be. I knew I wanted to be a DO and doctor of osteopathic medicine. We're on that another podcast, perhaps. But I knew I wanted this particular place, and so I was like, that's it. And I found out I was pregnant with our first child a week before match day. You guys, I my head was spinning. I was excited, um, but I was not ready to do both. And again, I heard this woman in my head like, you can't do both. So anyway, naturally I decided to do both. And I had him, I had my first son 10 weeks into med school, and um it was really tough. And this is a huge shout out to my husband who amazingly stepped up to the plate, um, had never changed a diaper before, and just we figured it out. And and here we are, you know. He did a great job being a stay-at-home parent during those years, and I was able to go back to med school six days after he was born. Also, 10 out of 10, don't recommend. Um, there wasn't really a space for maternity leave. You have to restart the whole academic year if you take time off. So um we just did it. And um, it wasn't until I was in the throes of being a mother that my perspective once again sort of shifted. I went into medical school initially thinking I was really interested in pathology. And I loved breastfeeding him, and I love it, it was hard, but I loved it. And I loved feeding him his first foods and making his own foods. It was hard and it was awkward and messy, but I loved it. And I then when we got to the toddler years, had new challenges, but I loved it too. And I realized that mamas want to do anything they can to feed their babies. I mean, if you have barriers in your life, then you know what? That mama is gonna figure out a way. She is just gonna do it. And it was kind of this awareness to me that as a registered dietitian, at the time a medical student, that's where I wanted to go. I had this foresight one day where I realized that's it. That's where my loves really intersect in this conversation piece of being able to feed yourself well, pursue the healthiest of foods that you can with a holistic and a systematic understanding, but also for the next generation, because that is what I find mamas, fast forward as a pediatrician, want to do the most. And I love being a pediatrician and I'm very happy in that job. But I find that the conversations that light me up the most and light up most of my mamas are the ones about our nutrition and the ones about how do we set our kids up for success. And, you know, it's not until you start feeding your own kids that you start suddenly being reminded of the things that you experienced as a child or the things that you, you know, really want to be able to rewrite. And our parents did the best they could, but a lot of the times, you know, you remember, gosh, oh, I never want that experience, fill in the blank for my kid. I don't want that to happen at the dinner table. I don't want to hear that come out of my child's mouth. Right. Like we have all of these old wounds that get stirred up when we start feeding our kids. And I think that we can do better. And I think that we are in a lot of ways doing better than the last generation. But it's really tricky to know where to go, who to trust, how to have these conversations. They're uncomfortable, they're awkward. And frankly, a lot of the times I think families want to talk about them, but we just don't always have enough time in our room. And so that is why I'm here. I can't wait to connect with you. I'm excited to hear about stories that, you know, are keeping you stuck, what things are holding you back from being able to feed your kids in the way that you have dreamed of or desired. And and I want to do better even still for my kids. And I have teenagers. So, you know, I think that this is a bit this is a platform where my hope is it will be able to connect, inspire, and encourage you. Um, I'm looking forward to being able to um bring you real science-based nutrition, maybe, uh, maybe kind of scratch your head a little bit and say, gosh, I didn't know that. Or wow, that's a different thought. I didn't realize that was actually the recommendation. Um, so, you know, all that said, I'm excited and I'm hopeful to connect with you and to be able to inspire you, encourage you to feed your family in the best way you can. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this episode of the Lunchbox Reformation resonated with you. If it did, please hit subscribe or follow and share a review. It would really mean a lot to me. Join me next week as we talk about protein in kids and common misconceptions.