This value-packed episode with Stephanie Darby of Celebration Nutrition has tons of great tidbits! Stephanie is a plant-based mama, with a 13-month-old, and a meat and potatoes husband. Join us as we talk about she navigates this and more.
Some of the things we think you’ll love from this episode include: navigating making decisions around feeding your kids, letting go of managing food and embracing balance, and navigating healthy eating through lots of travel and moves. Plus, you might be surprised about the easy things her family eats for breakfast and dinner! (Hint: they’re not homemade but they are still healthy).
Ever wondered what it would look like to turn your whole life around in order to be healthier? This week we’re talking to former pastry chef and mom of 3, Jesep Myers, who did exactly that.
Highlights from this interview include: insights into her journey on what she’s given up in order to gain health, how she talks to her kids about the changes they’re making as a family, and how she role-models healthy living even as she is navigating that path for herself. This interview will speak to all of you who are on a healthy living journey yourselves!
And while you (and we) may not have it all figured out quite yet, it’s conversations like these that can help us learn and feel less alone.
We can’t wait for you to hear this interview with Katie Boyle, an entrepreneur and mom of two. She has a unique and interesting take on finding the kind of balance that works for your family and some healthy hacks that we know you’re going to love.
Some of the highlights include: a shopping tip that will save your time and sanity, a cool green powder that you can use to boost kids’ nutrition, and feeding your family healthy even if you don’t cook.
Want to watch it? Check it out here:
Here are some of the things we talked about in the episode:
Ever wondered what the good, bad, and ugly of striving to eat better with a family really looks like? Join hosts, Amy and Emily, as they explore the dirty truth about eating clean with a family.
They cover everything from: how their kids respond to dietary changes, dealing with real life while trying to eat well, and what’s in their “worry spot” currently. Expect to walk away feeling less alone in your parenting and healthy eating struggles, because this is all about real life!
Things we reference in this episode: (some of these links are affiliate links)
We are so excited to share this interview Crystal MacDonald, a mom of two living in the Northeast. Crystal is a self-proclaimed no-nonsense mom, who shares the tips, tricks, and struggles of feeding your family well. She’s done this as both a (more than) full-time working mom and a full-time mom, so we think you’ll really enjoy her varied perspective.
Some of the great things she shares are: ideas on what a full day of eating looks like for 2 hungry kids, the secrets of a well-stocked pantry, the ever-changing division of labor in feeding kids, and different styles of grocery shopping.
On our 2nd episode, host Emily interviews co-host Amy about how she feeds her family well with her background as a natural foods chef.
They discuss how Amy keeps their healthy eating realistic, how food and eating-out fits into their lives, and tips and tricks for making cooking less of a chore.
They also talk about how her family’s love of food impacts the way they eat and why feeding your family well is sometimes about “choosing the less of multiple evils”.
A Very Full Plate is a podcast all about real food talk with real parents. On this first episode, Amy interviews co-host Emily about her family’s whole-food, gluten-free and paleo and ketogenic inspired diet.
They discuss why Emily aspires to feed herself, her husband and three daughters this way in light of the family’s specific health needs (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and sensory processing issues).
They also talk about what happens when life gets in the way of meal planning, how to motivate picky kids to eat, and get down and dirty on how much healthy eating actually costs.
Episode length: 55:28
Recommended Resources:
The Dinner Winner Kids’ Dinner Tray
Dinner Winner gets fussy kids to eat their meal by turning it into a board game and motivating them to reach the finish line, a covered section with dessert inside.
Transcript:
ANNOUNCER: Hello and welcome to A Very Full Plate, the podcast where we’re all about real food talk with real parents. Your hosts for today are Amy, a natural foods chef and mom of two, and Emily, a professional home organizer and mom of three. Take it away, ladies.
00:16
AMY: Hi, friends. Thanks for joining us. I’m your co-host, Amy. I turn parents into kitchen ninjas to help them feed their families healthy food more often. I’m all about balance, real life and having fun in the kitchen. You can find me at cookingwithafullplate.com and my Facebook page of the same name.
00:32
EMILY: Hey, everyone. I’m Emily, and I work to empower my organizing clients to make small changes that create a lasting impact in their daily lives. I like to keep it real and laugh a lot. You can find me on Instagram @hallharmonyhomes or Facebook Harmony At Home – Professional Organizing. Thanks for listening!
00:53
AMY: Well, I am so excited to have Emily here with us today. Emily is, of course, or maybe not of course, because this is our first episode, so nobody knows.
01:02
EMILY: Nobody knows.
01:05
AMY: Emily is not, of course, but to me, of course, the co-host of this podcast, A Very Full Plate, where we do real food talk with real parents. And I’m so excited to chat today, because, honestly, we have talked about podcasting together, and this little idea that we had that we wanted to capture conversations with parents and share the things that maybe we’re not having time to share. So, Emily, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your family, and what your daily life looks like?
01:37
EMILY: Sure, so I have three little girls. They’re one, three and five. We live out in New England, and I have my husband, Matt, and he works in elementary school, so he’s actually home quite a bit, which is a huge help, and probably the only reason why we have three, and not just two. Because I would be going crazy. And I’m a professional organizer, so that’s what I do part-time when I’m not wrangling the kiddos. I basically do that nights and weekends. We call ourselves chaos junkies because we’ve moved three times, we’ve flipped a few houses, and we just love being busy and laughing through the chaos, basically.
02:16
AMY: I think that having three kids and flipping houses-
02:23
EMILY: I know.
02:23
AMY: Anything else on top of that tells me that you guys are chaos junkies. I love that term. So you’re chaos junkies, and yet you still manage to make this healthy eating thing happen?
02:36
EMILY: Yeah.
02:36
AMY: So I want to dig more into that, because I think chaos junkie or not, you do life, and then you add a kid to your life, and in my experience, that’s chaos whether you want it or not.
02:51
EMILY: Yeah, right. Yeah, and you know what? I think that once you have the kids, you’re like, it’s already crazy, why don’t we do something interesting and challenging that’s gonna take up other mind space, that’s not just kids screaming and diapers and whatever. It’s like, oh, at least we’re gonna see some instant gratification when we re-do this wall.
03:12
AMY: Right. I would love to hear how you describe the way that your family aspires to eat. And I always use aspire because I know, and I know you know that everything with a family is aspiration, and we are not here to talk about perfection, but rather the real life of trying to eat healthy amidst the entire other reality of what we have. So tell us about your family’s eating style.
03:36
EMILY: Sure. So I mean if you’re hearing all the crazy buzz words of different styles of eating, there’s so many different words. There’s gluten-free, there’s paleo, there’s ketogenic, there’s vegan and what have you. But we basically try to eat whole foods that include vegetables, fruits, nuts, because we don’t have any allergies for that, maybe some seeds, some healthy fats, and then we try to always eat grass-fed, grass-based meats, and we have chickens, which we eat their eggs. We feed them what we think we would want to ingest. And, of course, that is difficult at times, but we’ve been able to, over the years, develop some shortcuts and stuff, but we’re basically … We work towards grain-free, but we’re mostly gluten-free.
04:25
AMY: Okay. So all gluten-free, mostly grain-free, so would you call your way of eating paleo style or … ?
04:36
EMILY: It’s paleo mixed with the ketogenic in the sense that we’re not fully ketogenic, but at times we may be in that state, depending on what’s going on with our lives, but the reason why I throw the ketogenic in is because we do eat some dairy. And paleo is no dairy. But we don’t eat as much sugars as you might find in paleo. If you’re like, I’m paleo, but you happen to be eating extra fruits or whatever, you might still feel like I’m heavy in the sugars. But anyway, it’s sort of this hybrid 80-20 rule, and there are times where we will accidentally eat gluten or whatever, so it’s not perfect, but I try to keep the in-home strict, because when we get outside the home it can be really hard to stick to it.
05:16
AMY: Yeah, I love that. Control what you can and let go of what you can’t, which I think is a fantastic metaphor for being a parent in general.
05:27
EMILY: Yeah, exactly.
05:30
AMY: So can you give us a quick rundown of what ketogenic encompasses? And I’m also super curious to hear how that impacts the way that you feed your girls.
05:38
EMILY: Sure. So the person that is most ketogenic in our family is my husband, and it basically means you lead with a lot of healthy fats, so that could come in the form of meats, that could come in the form of avocado, that could come in the form of coconut oil and lots of veggies. And then your secondary product is protein, and then you have basically only a few hundred carbs a day, which ketogenic essentially means you go into ketosis, which is a process of basically you become a fat burner instead a sugar burner, and with the girls, they eat quite a few veggies and things like hummus, and they’ll also eat cashew butter, sun-nut butter. Definitely avocados for the two of them that will eat avocados for now. We eat quite a bit of sausage and bacon and healthy meats, eggs, lots of eggs, cheese, so kids, though, I do find burn through sugars and carbs faster. And they do require it because they’re growing. So I don’t really, unless my kid had a medical reason, I don’t really push the ketogenic, they’re more of a paleo, but one of my kids I try to keep low-sugar because of some other concerns that she has. I do find that I start my kids with more of a protein breakfast, and it keeps them satiated for a little longer so they’re not hungry at 09:30 for a snack. And just being able to fill yourself for a long time means less decision-making for eating later.
07:02
AMY: Sure.
07:03
EMILY: If we get them to eat a really good sausage, eggs breakfast with some salt and cheese and they have their little juice or whatever with vitamins in it, they’re less likely to be like, now I want pretzels or, now I want this, now I want that. So it’s less of me going, what am I going to feed them next?
07:18
AMY: I love that. One of the things I often say to people I’m working with is, I would love to help you get your food so down that you don’t have to think about food as much.
07:31
EMILY: Yeah.
07:31
AMY: Because to me, and I know in my life, I’m thinking about food all the time. Let’s be honest, most of the food you’re thinking about as a parent is, oh, dang it, this kid needs to eat again.
07:47
EMILY: Yeah, I know.
07:47
AMY: It’s like, what do I have in this pantry to feed that?
07:51
EMILY: It’s so funny you say that because when my husband’s home in the summer you would think, oh, my God, you’re so lucky, your husband’s home in the summer, and it is great, except the kids behave so much worse when we’re both home and there’s no plan. It’s like, oh-
08:03
AMY: So glad it’s not just me.
08:05
EMILY: So the funny thing is we joke that in the summer it’s so hectic in the morning with breakfast and we’re like, aargh, chaos, and everyone’s like, what are you stressed about? And we’re like, we’re just preparing for the next meal. We’re just trying to fill time until lunch and then fill time until dinner. And it’s kind of sad, also funny sometimes, our days are like, how do we fill time before we eat again?
08:29
AMY: And then what are we gonna eat when we get there?
08:31
EMILY: And then, have I prepared the meal that’s next?
08:32
AMY: Absolutely. So feeding three growing girls, a ketogenic husband and yourself, who I presume needs to eat also, so what is your superpower when it comes to feeding your family healthy food?
08:47
EMILY: I think I was really lucky to have hit my journey of health when they were young enough to make impressions on them. I sympathize with people who maybe didn’t have a why or didn’t have a reason to be super strict when their kids were young and now they’re thinking, how do I change them when they’re in elementary school? So for me, I do feel a little fortunate that everything happened so I could feed them young and their palates kind of got used to that. But secondarily I have a lot of stamina with being like, no, you need to eat that. I try to give them a little control because I don’t want it to be a fight, I don’t want them to fight food, but I’m very big about, we’re going to sit down and talk about how food is fuel. It’s fun second, and fuel first. So I think having the stamina to be like, oh, I’m not just gonna give in has helped because I am home, I’m not doing just the rush of, 6pm, I just got home from work. So for me, my superpower is being able to wait them out or being able to explain to them, this is what you’re eating.
09:41
AMY: I love that. I want to stop you there because I want to dig more into that, because I know I’m not the only one who’s curious about what that looks like. I often feel like what I lack is the stamina to have the conversation, and I’m just like, fine. So can you role play for us what does that sound like and maybe even, more importantly, as a parent, what space do you go to in your head to get the patience? And how long do you wait? This is what I need to know. How long am I supposed to wait?
10:11
EMILY: I think I’ve been able to … Since I was a kid I was just like an observant person, so I’ve been able to observe what motivates each of my kids. So my oldest is motivated by dessert. She just is. And I’ve read so many times, don’t have them earn dessert. Whatever. Those people are not in my house dealing with this. So if I’m like, listen, you need to gag down these five bites of broccoli if you want x dessert? Her love language is gifts, right? So for her it’s like, I’m giving you some control to pick out something to have, like applesauce or whatever, whatever it is. So for her, I can negotiate. She’s a negotiator. And she’s definitely the pickiest. The oldest is the pickiest. And because she’s a little bit older and she’s among her friends, so she’s the pickiest. My middle child is just a really good eater, and I’m lucky because she’s a sensory craver, so she just loves to eat a lot of stuff. And so I’m not super mad at her when she’s like, I don’t really like dinner. Because she’ll eat the other meals. Sometimes I’m like, kids eat so much better when there’s only two big meals, because if I feed them a big breakfast, a big lunch and then dinner comes around, they’re usually like, I don’t want to eat this. But if they’re hungry enough, they eat it. There’s no argument. And my youngest is the pickiest. She’s one. She wants to eat bread, cheese and yogurt all day long.
11:32
AMY: Yeah, me too.
11:32
EMILY: Though sometimes she eats frozen peas, rice and a couple of bites of whatever meat or whatever, and I’m like, it’s fine, it’s fine, I can’t pick that battle with her. I don’t know, I guess I just get to know each of their styles and how they’re motivated, and I think the younger ones, it’s harder. They’re not gonna have more than five seconds of attention span to have the argument, but the 5-year-old and the 3-year-old, I can kind of talk them through it.
11:57
AMY: Yeah, I love the idea of what you’re saying, which is like, knowing your kids too. That healthy eating doesn’t look the same to everyone, right? Kind of the premise of this entire show.
12:11
EMILY: Right.
12:11
AMY: Though I hope that that’s true. But also good eating in terms of what we as parents define as like, so and so had a good day of eating might look different child by child. And I love the idea of honoring that. I also have a dessert-motivated kid, and we do the same amounts of dessert, and I equally have read all the things about don’t motivate your kids with desserts. But I just think us humans are kind of wired for enjoying sweets, and I love the idea that maybe it’s not even the food itself, but there’s some underlying like, I love getting gifts. It makes me feel good that you gave me this thing. And I’m motivated not so much by the sugar, which is what I often get in my mom guilt headspace about.
13:00
EMILY: Yeah.
13:03
AMY: And instead I’m motivated by this like, you have honored my hard work by giving me this thing that I value.
13:09
EMILY: Exactly. And for my kid, who is super visual, sometimes she literally doesn’t like the look of the meal. So she asks us to make her a line, like, make me a line and then I know how much I have to eat. Every day, can you make me a line? Sometimes I’m like, are you serious? Just eat your meal.
13:26
AMY: Yeah.
13:27
EMILY: But it’s a visual thing for her, and then she’s like, oh, and then I’m gonna get some whatever, cereal or whatever.
13:32
AMY: I’ll share a link to this in our show notes, when we have such a thing. But one of the things that we have done, because my son is like, big on, I don’t want my food to touch, and I need to know how much I need to eat to get this thing.
13:49
EMILY: Yeah.
13:49
AMY: There’s this product called Dinner Winner. It’s basically a plate that looks like a game board and it-
13:58
EMILY: Oh, that’s cool.
13:58
AMY: And it has maybe 10 little slots. They’re like little 1-inch squares or something. And then at the end there’s a dessert space that says, finish, like a board game-
14:11
EMILY: Oh, nice.
14:11
AMY: … that has a cover on it.
14:12
EMILY: Yeah, sometimes you need to just simplify it like that. Like there’s no negotiation, just it’s fine.
14:17
AMY: Yes, absolutely. So one of the things that you’ve mentioned a couple of times that we haven’t dug into yet, but I know that I’m curious about and our listeners will be too, is you mentioned that you had a couple of reasons for making this change in the way that your family eats.
14:32
EMILY: Yeah.
14:34
AMY: Would you mind digging in a little bit more, and letting us know what those reasons were, and how they serve to keep you motivated in the day-to-day grittiness of getting food on the table?
14:44
EMILY: Yeah, so there were lots of reasons why we started eating healthier. I’ve always been, sort of, let’s eat healthy, but we didn’t really know what we were doing. And then when my husband, he got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which is basically like a hyper thyroid where it’s an autoimmune condition. And he was a pretty healthy person. Like he was a triathlete. We didn’t really eat a lot of junk, but he always kind of had extra weight on him that drove him crazy, but he didn’t really have any other symptoms, so he got this blood work that was like, you have this, and now you have to go on this medication, and that’s it, and eventually your thyroid’s gonna fall out, or whatever. It’s gonna fail, and we’ll take it out. And they were like, we’ll just do surgery, it’ll be fine. And he was so uncomfortable with that, but for five years he was on the medication and whatever. it was okay, he didn’t really see any side effects at the time, but it just drove him nuts that he was on medication, so I see a chiropractor, and he was like, listen, if you want some advice, he needs to try an anti-inflammatory diet, which is basically paleo, or low sugar as well, to try and remove some of the processed stuff out of his body so his body stops fighting itself. So without getting too technical, he went and saw a naturopath, and he was basically, get all this diet, let’s do some supplements just to help detox you at first, and we’ll see if we can get your numbers better, and see what we can do. So the long and the short of it was it was about a year of him being dedicated, not knowing whether it was going to work, and within a year he stopped taking the medication on his own regard. And for three months his levels were perfect, like as if totally healthy thyroid. His doctor actually was stumped. He was like, I don’t understand what happened. Did I diagnose you correctly? He questioned his own diagnosis. And my husband’s like, no, this is what I did. I fixed it. He’s like, I don’t want to say you’re totally healed. I can’t really say that. But you don’t really have to come back to me again. You don’t have to take the medication. It’s as if Hashimoto’s was never in your body.
16:46
AMY: Wow.
16:46
EMILY: So huge gratification, but it took literally a year and a half to two years because we don’t know how long this was developing. So I said, fine, we’ll do this, we’ll eat this way. It’s definitely expensive, but we’re gonna do it. If this is important to you, who knows, one autoimmune disease often leads to another, so this could be saving you from further pain in life. So we did it, and it was so gratifying that we were like, okay, this is what we’re eating, like forever. Like occasionally he can dip into something that’s maybe a little more inflammatory because his body now knows, like, ooh, detox, get that out. Move it along. But it’s worked for him, and year after year he does get tested again and no problems. He has no issues, so we were really lucky.
17:29
AMY: That’s amazing. I feel like that’s a huge source of motivation, especially in the day-to-day when it’s hard to get any food on the table, let alone really good food on the table. But to have that in the back of your mind must be a really powerful motivator for him and for your family in general.
17:47
EMILY: Yeah. Yeah, and you know what? I do feel like I’m glad we have it, because how easy would it be to be like … And while we were doing that, we noticed the behavior of the children changed. Because I was like, I’m only buying one grocery shopping list. I still buy them their little snackies and whatever. And plus I thought, well, if this is healthier and it keeps inflammation out of your body, it’s gotta be pretty good for the kids, so we kept it with the kids, and then over time we learned more about … Our middle daughter has sensory processing issues, and the more we learned about that, the more it was best to keep her on more of a ketogenic diet, where her brain can function properly. It has plenty of healthy fats for her brain to function. The sugar high highs and the sugar low lows won’t be part of her meltdowns.
18:27
AMY: Can I stop you there, because I want to know more about if she needs to eat differently … You were talking earlier about honoring your different kids’ personalities in the way that you work with them with food. What about when one kid has different dietary needs than others? What does that look like in terms of kid dynamic in your house?
18:50
EMILY: Well, up until recently it was like I would let my oldest kind of sneak gluten. She’d be like, I just really want goldfish, and it’s not in our … I don’t buy it, but let’s say we go to an event and there’s goldfish and I’m like, oh, no, you know what I mean? Because my middle daughter will be like, oh, the only thing with gluten, let me just shove it all in my mouth.
19:10
AMY: Yes, they have a knack for that, right? By the way, so do I.
19:14
EMILY: Yeah, I know. I know, I know.
19:15
AMY:
Oh, look at this pantry full of all of these healthy things. At Costcos I bought some goldfish, which we almost always have if my husband has been shopping.
19:24
EMILY: Yeah, so that is the bane of my existence. In fact I usually don’t even go to birthday parties when I know that my kid can’t eat anything, which is unfortunate, but I don’t blame those people, but it can be alienating when your kid is like that. But just recently she’s started understanding that she can’t have certain things. We were at, I forget where we were, we were somewhere, and they were like, we have cookies, we have crackers, we have this. And they did have some gluten-free stuff. She didn’t want it. I said, you can’t eat those. I’m sorry, honey. And so she said, okay, I’ll have my orange. And I was crying, like, you understand. But that wasn’t always the case. It was years of being like, no, don’t touch that, don’t eat that, spit that out. And I felt bad for her. So the long and short of it is when I have just the oldest or just the youngest, occasionally they’ll be able to eat something that I don’t let them. And I kind of make it like, ooh, it’s special. Like, you get this-
20:14
AMY: But when all three girls are together, you try and make it so that they’re all eating the same sort of-
20:19
EMILY: I’ll just say, listen it’s not fair to Elly. Occasionally we’ll let you do it, but it’s not even that great for you either, so-
20:24
AMY: Right.
20:27
EMILY: … whatever. And the youngest doesn’t really understand anyway.
20:31
AMY: Sure.
20:31
EMILY: But we just don’t have it in our house, so it usually only happens in public places, and I’m just so glad that she finally understands that she has a different brain chemistry and-
20:44
AMY: If you don’t mind me asking, what are some of the things you’ve noticed as effects when she does have gluten? How have you narrowed in on that being something that has a real impact on her?
20:54
EMILY: Yeah. So this is how I know that at school they accidentally fed her gluten. Because at school they know she’s not supposed to have it, but once again, she’s handsy, and if someone’s like, I brought in muffins, it’s like oh, no. So she will usually have an accident. She’s almost four, and she’ll usually, in the next day, poop her pants. And that doesn’t happen often. She will act more emotional. She’ll be big on the meltdowns and big on the, I want this, I want that. She’ll seem tired. She will fight with her sisters a lot, a lot more hitting. She will just kind of act in that way that looks like bad behavior, but it’s really more of a sensory processing issue. She’s overstimulated. You can just see that she herself is suffering. And that’s how I pitch to myself. It’s like, you’re not doing her any favors, she’s a child. You’re the adult in this situation. She may want to eat that stuff, but clearly it doesn’t help her, and it makes it hard for her to process it. So you can just tell. She’ll have a rough day. You know, the kid’s having a bad day. For her she’ll just have a bad day and she usually poops her pants. That’s how I know. And that’s when I was like, the common denominator was that.
22:17
AMY: I think that must be so challenging to stand your ground on, so kudos to you, Mama, for not only figuring it out, but standing your grand, but also how powerful to know that so early. I think that so many of us go through our lives with things that aren’t serving us.
22:37
EMILY:
Yes.
22:36
AMY: Things could be so broad. Like food habits that aren’t serving us. And we don’t get to the root of them until much later in our lives.
22:47
EMILY: Yeah, like 25, and you’re like, I can’t have dairy.
22:50
AMY: It turns out I’m lactose intolerant.
22:52
EMILY: I had no idea. I thought I was just gonna be bloated my whole life.
22:56
AMY: Right. Exactly. And so for you to know, to take enough time to observe that, and then to work with her on learning that from the get-go, that’s really cool.
23:10
EMILY: Yeah.
23:10
AMY: Thank you for sharing that.
23:11
EMILY: Thanks. And thanks for the kudos. Honestly, I think I got used to this idea of like, well, let’s just try. Because when I was nursing my kids couldn’t handle dairy. So I was like, oh, my God, I’m never gonna eat cheese for a year, are you kidding me? No. But I thought, let me give it three days. And when my kids were sleeping after three days, I was like, okay, I can give up cheese for a whole while to get sleep, or whatever it is. So I always take it in increments. So if you’re thinking, my kid, I don’t know if there’s an issue with them, but you’re like, let me just give it a few days. Let’s just survive three days without either grains or dairy or something, there’s something you’re testing, you get that gratification, you start to go, hmm, maybe there’s something here, and that’s-
23:50
AMY: I love that idea of take it in increments. I think that so many people that I talk about with lifestyle changes, especially when it comes to food, are like, I can’t never have that again. And I agree. I’m the same way. Like I can’t never have sugar again, right?
24:09
EMILY: So daunting.
24:09
AMY: Think of all of the things I want to do and the experiences I want to have. And this idea of take it in increments. Take three says, test it out, see how you feel. If you notice a big difference, that might be your motivator. If you notice no difference, go back to it. Maybe that’s not for you. And it’s a lot of how I have ended up where I am on my healthy eating journey, so it’s cool to hear that someone else had that same experience of, don’t try and tackle it all at once. Focus on this one single thing ahead of you, make that change, internalize it, and then go on to the next thing.
24:45
EMILY: Yeah. And quite frankly, as a parent, there’s always the days where we’re like, she can have a little of this, and then the next day I’m like, she cannot have this. Why did I do that? But we all fall back to, it’s probably fine, she’s been great for two months. And then you’re like, why did I do that? But you need to relearn those lessons.
25:06
AMY: I’m not gonna lie. I have the exact same challenge. So my younger guy, I couldn’t have dairy when I was nursing him. Well, I’m still nursing him, but I couldn’t have dairy in the first six months of nursing him, but then I went back to having it because I love cheese and dairy and basically everything. I love all food, that’s the truth.
25:28
EMILY: Yeah.
25:30
AMY: That is my greatest asset and my greatest challenge when it comes to healthy eating. So I put it back in my diet and I didn’t notice any effect for him, so too this idea of testing, and I was like, cool, I can have dairy again. Now he’s eating solids, and he’s a great eater, and his older brother eats cheese every once in a while, he won’t drink milk, but he’ll eat some cheese. So I started being like, oh, maybe he can have a little bit of cheese here and there, and I was telling you, he had his worst night’s sleep ever, and I-
26:00
EMILY: Oh, no.
26:00
AMY: … suspect that he had a couple of bites of cheese, and that may have been the impact. So you’re making me motivated to take it in increments, take a few more days-
26:10
EMILY: Yeah, there you go.
26:10
AMY: … and see what happens. I love it. You told us what your superpower is.
26:15
EMILY: Yes.
26:17
AMY: What about what’s your kryptonite when it comes to feeding your family healthy foods?
26:20
EMILY: Okay. Okay, well, I guess I have my own kryptonite of things that I eat that I shouldn’t, but-
26:28
AMY: I’m glad you’re not superhuman.
26:30
EMILY: God, no. God, no.
26:33
AMY: What’s your personal kryptonite?
26:33
EMILY: My personal kryptonite back in the day was Thin Mints because that-
26:37
AMY: Oh, my gosh.
26:37
EMILY: … all at once, or Oreos, so some of the worst stuff, but at the same time, some of the best stuff. But my kryptonite now, my personal kryptonite, is definitely still of the chocolate realm, so have you ever had Unreal Peanut Butter Cups, the brand Unreal?
26:55
AMY: Yeah.
26:55
EMILY: I could eat like a whole bag of those. Those are like a caramel dark chocolate. I mean, chocolate is my kryptonite, for sure. And of course wine or [inaudible] cider on occasions is the thing that I’m like, I need this. And I don’t know about you, but I find that the chocolate thing happens when that happens.
27:12
AMY: Oh, yeah.
27:12
EMILY: I’m like, oh, my God, where’s the cabinet of chocolate? And then they’re like, what are you doing? And I’m like, nothing, just let me eat.
27:21
AMY: Here’s the truth. In the middle of the night last night while our nine-month-old was just screaming, because it was at the point where he wouldn’t even go to sleep when we were holding him. He thought it was time to party. So we just had to leave him because it wasn’t time to party, clearly, and there’s a peanut butter cookie that’s half covered in chocolate in this cabinet that’s still there at the moment because my husband bought a six-pack of them when I asked him to buy me one chocolate chip cookie at the grocery store.
27:48
EMILY: Oh, yeah.
27:48
AMY:
The rest have been gone in a fit of those moments you’re talking about during the day where someone’s crying and I’m just like, aargh.
27:58
EMILY: How funny is that?
27:57
AMY: [inaudible] at one o’clock in the morning coming downstairs and having that last cookie, and I was like, it seems like a lot of work to go downstairs, and that’s the only reason it still exists. So I totally identify with that. What about your kryptonite for getting healthy food on the table?
28:14
EMILY: Trying to think. I mean, I definitely give them potato chips a lot.
28:17
AMY: Lucky.
28:19
EMILY: Something I do often go to when I’m like, I need to keep it simple, is frozen French fries. So I think potatoes and French fries are a [inaudible] ingredient because I know they still fit in with the gluten-free world. Cheese, cheese. I’ve just shoved cheese down their throats because they generally can handle it.
28:39
AMY: Right. So do you think that’s a preparation thing or just life is crazy thing?
28:47
EMILY: It’s usually like I didn’t prepare or let’s say something happens where like my husband’s like, I’m gonna be home late, and I was depending on something. It’s usually a change of schedule thing where I’m like, crap. Or it was errands all day, and maybe part of that was grocery shopping. I usually plan … My grocery shopping day, there’s no prep for it, like, time to prep. So that’s the day I usually am like, okay, sausages and French fries with salad, and that’s all I can handle.
29:16
AMY: Is that like the college version of laundry day?
29:19
EMILY: I think so. I’m in my pajamas.
29:22
AMY: As a parent, you’re like, sorry, it’s grocery day.
29:25
EMILY: Yeah. Sorry, it’s laundry. It’s-
29:27
AMY: You can eat these crumbs that I found under the couch and-
29:30
EMILY: Yeah.
29:31
AMY: … that’s dinner tonight.
29:33
EMILY: Or like if I’m really good, maybe I’ll have something in the freezer I can pull out, but half of the time I’m like, when did I make this, can I still eat this? But I’m finally starting to label things. But-
29:41
AMY: Labelling, that’s a real thing. I teach labelling, and I still have unlabeled things in my fridge.
29:47
EMILY: I know.
29:48
AMY: Why is it so hard?
29:49
EMILY: And then it goes to waste. But I do find that if someone’s sick, or I’m not feeling well, that’s when I’m like, oh, God, what’s my go-to? And sometimes I’ll just be like, Matt, you’re cooking, sorry. And I don’t know how [inaudible] that’s gonna be, but … And, luckily, he’s home for dinner, so that’s a whole other level of stress for other people.
30:09
AMY: So I’m super curious about this. This is one of the things I want to know about our guests, and part of the impetus for this show is what do the food responsibilities look like in your house, in your marriage?
30:24
EMILY: So I cook. I plan and prep.
30:28
AMY: Okay.
30:28
EMILY: He will cook if I ask him to, but quite frankly he’s better at occupying the kids for the most part, except for that-
30:37
AMY: 100%.
30:38
EMILY: Because he likes to play.
30:39
AMY: Mm-hmm.
30:40
EMILY: And I get really like, oh, I need to be cleaning that while I’m watching them play.
30:47
AMY: Same.
30:47
EMILY: So he can cook, and by the end of the week, I’m like, can you just cook? I just wanna sit on this couch.
30:52
AMY: So will he then be cooking things that you planned?
30:56
EMILY: Yeah.
30:56
AMY: Okay.
30:56
EMILY: Unless I’m like, you do it, I don’t know, I’m so done. You know what I mean?
31:01
AMY: Mm-hmm. This is something that I’m not very good at. So how do you delegate that? Like, honey, I need you to cook tonight. Tell me what that conversation sounds like so that I can copy it.
31:15
EMILY: Okay. Well, you know what? Early on in our marriage we would hover and be like, um, you’re not cooking that right. Um, you know what? That’s not what I meant. You know what I mean? Or what is that? Oh, God. I don’t think anyone’s gonna eat it.
31:28
AMY: This is the problem we have. Greg will come up with an idea and I’ll be like, that sounds awesome, but you should do it this way, with quinoa instead of white rice, and I make all these changes, and he’s like, why-
31:39
EMILY: Why’d you ask me to cook, then?
31:40
AMY: Exactly.
31:41
EMILY: My husband’s like … I’m like, what do you think about this? And he’s like, this. And I’m like, that’s now what I thought. And he’s like, well, why’d you ask my opinion? You didn’t really know what I had to say unless I agreed with you.
31:51
AMY: Right.
31:51
EMILY: So-
31:53
AMY: So don’t hover is your number one tip.
31:56
EMILY: Yeah, I don’t hover. Sometimes I question the quality of the meat. I’m like, did you cook this all the way? That’s still a problem I have, where I’m like, is this fish all the way cooked? Because I’m so paranoid, you know? Because there have been times where my kid’s gnawing on a raw bone, and I’m like, Dad, that’s raw chicken. Okay, we’ll see how that goes. But since then we’ve kind of hashed out that I just don’t say anything. And I’m like, the meal, you made it, fine, whatever, I didn’t make it. But I almost always do the clean-up because he just hates it so much. I mean, if I asked him to, he’d do it. But then he’d be like, I didn’t want this.
32:34
AMY: Right.
32:36
EMILY: And it’s like, fine.
32:36
AMY: And it’s not worth the battle?
32:36
EMILY: Yes.
32:37
AMY: I think that there’s two important lessons in there. The first one is something I’ve really done with parenting, which is if you want your partner to be involved, you need to not be involved with your partner being involved. And so-
32:52
EMILY: Yeah.
32:52
AMY: And not even when it comes to food, specifically. But just like, in general. I’m like, that sounds awesome. You guys should do that together.
33:00
EMILY: Yes.
33:00
AMY: Go along now.
33:00
EMILY: Tell me how it goes.
33:02
AMY: And I sort of shut it down because I have the ultimate trust in that my husband has my best, our kids’ best interests and mine, and he’s always gonna keep them safe.
33:12
EMILY: Yeah.
33:12
AMY: And I realize that anything above and beyond that is just me putting my parenting style on him. Which, by the way, I’m not a perfect parent, so why does he need my style? One. And then the other thing that you said was, I could get him to clean up, but he hates it so much, it’s not even worth it. And I think that that’s such a good lesson in choosing your battles. This really bothers you and it doesn’t bother me so much, so I’m going to be the owner of it. And that’s actually, in our family, how we’ve divided the cooking. It feels not very like modern-day woman to be like, I do all of the planning and cooking in our house, and frankly I do a lot of the clean-up, though he’s better at it than I am. But I’m just there in the kitchen, so I try to do as much as I can. And then on the other hand it feels like, well, you just have to be honest about what’s going on in your marriage and what your strengths are, and by the way I think about food all the time, I do it as my career. It’s sort of ridiculous to expect someone else to jump in and do what you do.
34:23
EMILY: Yeah. And I think part of it is when you maybe have your first kid or whatever, you’re still really trying to relinquish control of the situation. And then you get to a point where you’re like, I will hire anyone who’s safe to babysit my children, so I can just get out of here for five minutes. I want them alive … You know? And you just do it-
34:44
AMY:
That’s true.
34:44
EMILY: You need your sanity more than you need your child to eat x snack instead of y snack.
34:50
AMY: Mm-hmm.
34:51
EMILY: And that’s okay.
34:52
AMY: Yeah, yeah. I have a motto for this year that is some variation, depending on the day, on progress, not perfection.
35:01
EMILY: Yes.
35:01
AMY: And I think that applies to food, and I know it applies to parenting, and it applies to business, and it applies to all of these things, but it certainly applies to this healthy eating space, which is like, I’m not going to drive myself crazy over all of the details of this. I’m gonna do my best. And that’s gonna be good enough.
35:20
EMILY: Yeah.
35:21
AMY: And I’m not gonna stress myself about being perfect because frankly, especially when it comes to … If health is your goal, stress is such a huge contributor to bad health.
35:30
EMILY: Exactly.
35:32
AMY: And it’s like you’re actually not serving yourself by spending all this time trying to be perfect and adding stress to your life.
35:37
EMILY: Exactly. I agree, I 100% agree. You have to balance the … When it comes to healthy eating, there’s the cooking and meal prep stress and the clean-up. There’s the stress of the financial, right? Because it’s expensive in most cases. And then there’s the stress of all the outside factors that affect your ability to do those things.
35:56
AMY: Yep.
35:56
EMILY: And so you have to really find a harmony, you know? Because balance is really hard to do, but harmony is like, okay, everything needs to work well together.
36:09
AMY: Mm-hmm.
36:09
EMILY: And so I … Yeah.
36:13
AMY: I think harmony over balance is such an interesting way to think of it, right? Which is that it’s not all gonna be balanced and everyone’s not going to share every task, and you guys are gonna do things-
36:28
EMILY: Perfectly orchestrated, yet-
36:31
AMY: But how can you find the harmony where it doesn’t become another thing to figure out on your plate. That’s part of why we came up with this name for the podcast, A Very Full Plate, because it’s like, yeah, I hope you have a full plate of healthy food, and by the way, I know you’ve got a really full plate as a parent.
36:47
EMILY: Yeah.
36:49
AMY: Whatever those factors are.
36:51
EMILY: I think, like you were saying, in our marriage we’ve really nailed down the parts we play, and there’s no resentment built behind it. The parts we play is I prefer to control what they’re eating and how they’re eating it, so most of the time I do it, and that’s because it’s me. It’s not that he’s not willing, it’s that that I’m gonna choose … I know what I bought, first of all. I know what I plan to cook, so occasionally I’ll be like, here are the three things, just cook them. And that’s simple. It’s like Brussels sprouts, rice and ribs or whatever. And he knows how to cook them, right? So for me, it’s like I prefer to do those things, even though sometimes I can’t believe I have to do all this. It’s like, well, that’s not fair. If I’m gonna be like, I want it to be this way, and I want it to be my way, but you have to do it, that’s not fair. And then also he’s the guy who when the plumbing breaks, he takes over. So that’s just our dynamic, that’s how it works. He knows how to fix that, I have no idea how to fix that.
37:42
AMY: Right.
37:44
EMILY: And we’ve had a lot of arguments over that, don’t get me wrong. Like, oh, well, why don’t you help me with this? And it’s like, because I was doing this. I’m like, okay, fair enough.
37:53
AMY: Yeah. So one of the things you mentioned is things getting expensive, and when we created our list of questions that we want to ask to our guests, we put down, what’s your average grocery budget per week? Which makes me cringe, because I don’t want to have to share it, but I’m gonna be brave and ask you, and let you share first. And then next time I’ll share.
38:12
EMILY: I’m gonna air my dirty laundry because I think it’s important for people to know, because when I see people say, it’s so expensive to eat healthy, I’m like, yes, it absolutely is. I do not disagree. I do want to say that the argument is, how expensive is it to have a disease, though? So you have to really know. You have to have a motivation to be like, I’m pre-empting my health versus something worse later down the line. And you really have to believe it’s gonna happen. However-
38:39
AMY: I was exactly thinking that when you were talking about your husband making a change in his life. Yes, it’s expensive, and so is taking medicine for the rest of your life and dealing with the effects of what might happen.
38:49
EMILY: And to think they had said, we’re gonna just do surgery, take your thyroid out. And I was like, how is that gonna … First of all, how expensive is that gonna be? How is that gonna affect the rest of his life? What else is this gonna lead to? So for me it’s an investment. However we have had to really swallow it because we actually sold our house and moved to a smaller home and completely scaled our life down because we realized, we’re never gonna stop eating this way. So we had to re-evaluate our entire financial situation to say, this isn’t gonna change, and our children are only gonna get hungrier as they get older. And we didn’t wanna change our lifestyle, as far as our work-life balance, so what were we gonna do? And so we did that. And weekly, this includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, natural deodorant and all that stuff I buy-
39:35
AMY: Everything you buy at the grocery store?
39:35
EMILY: Yeah, exactly. Weekly we have budgeted $300 a week, but to be honest with you we more spend like four to … Depending on whether it’s Christmas time, and you’re like, I’m gonna make this and that, and you’re like, $500 later, you’re like, I just spent $500 at the grocery store for one week. So we fluctuate between probably per month, $1500-2000. And, clearly, we live in New England, which is kind of expensive, sort of up near you. But it’s because we don’t go out to eat, really. So there’s no other bill of food. Occasionally we’ll get Thai food or something, but it’s so super expensive. I mean, it’s basically like another mortgage. But what I’ve learned, also recently, is that historically food has never been cheaper in relation to your income than it is now in this modern-day society. It’s just that we also now have car insurance and student loans and this and that and keeping up with the Joneses. And so we say it’s expensive to eat, but back in the day you basically paid your house, which sometimes was paid off, and you paid to feed your children, and everything else was kind of like, oh, we got a car, but we paid it off. And now we have all these other bigger bills that make us feel that food is super expensive.
40:46
AMY: Yeah. Well, thank you, for your bravery and your honesty in sharing that. I know it’s not easy because I feel the tension of sharing it, but I love what you said, which is, we realized we were always gonna eat this way, and so we made decisions so that we could make it happen. And I really identify with that because I often feel like we have a generous food budget, and yet I’m always fighting against it. Like, oh, gosh, we spent too much on this, or we did too much of that, but we absolutely have other places in our lives that I recognize that we could cut back to give a little bit more breathing space to our food budget, specifically. And you’re motivating me to think more carefully about that, because you’re absolutely right. It’s one of the best investments that you can make, in my book. And I love that idea of, we weren’t gonna change our lives in terms of work-life balance and the way that our family dynamic is, but we knew that we needed this money to live healthy, and you have three growing girls. That’s not cheap.
41:58
EMILY: Mm-hmm.
41:58
AMY: I should say that I have a 3-year-old, but he’s such a small eater that I feel like he didn’t really impact our food budget when he joined our family. And now I’ve got this 9-month-old who just eats everything. He’ll eat a carton of blackberries in one sitting, which are not cheap in the middle of winter. Oh, my God, I never used to buy blackberries in the middle of winter. I would teach people like, don’t buy berries [inaudible] because they’re not in season, and they’re so much more expensive. And I’m like, I gotta feed these kids, and this is what they’re gonna eat.
42:28
EMILY: Yeah, and this is what’s here, in front of them. Yeah, I know, I know.
42:31
AMY: And that creates a real uptick in my budget, but what’s the alternative? I’m gonna buy some, I don’t even know, I can’t even think of what I would buy to give him that’s going to take the place of that, that I’m going to feel really good about him chowing down on and-
42:49
EMILY: Yeah. No, I agree.
42:49
AMY: … and going and getting nutrients from.
42:50
EMILY: I know. I agree. And I also try not to stress to my kids, like, that was expensive. I don’t want them to relate stress to eating, but at the same time sometimes I’m like, you just ate the entire snack that we have for the week, so there you go.
43:05
AMY: Right.
43:06
EMILY: I’m not shopping again, you know?
43:07
AMY:
Right. We’ve been talking a lot about natural consequences in our house, so not the kind of consequences that I as your mom impose upon you, but like yesterday when there was a total craft disaster in the living room, which by the way is partly my fault because why would he be doing crafts in the middle of our family room?
43:20
EMILY:
That’s right.
43:25 AMY: And then his little brother woke up, and there are tiny cuts of paper everywhere, and he’s like, Mom, I want you to play with me, and I was like, listen, this is a natural consequence of the fact that you didn’t clean up your mess, because he wouldn’t help me. I can’t play with you because my job is to make it safe for your brother, so now … And you, by the way. So now I’m gonna spend my time doing that and I can’t play with you. Not because I’m mad, and not because this is a punishment, because this is just-
43:55
EMILY: This is just life.
43:56
AMY: … what happens. This is life. Yeah. And I think you’re right. There’s something important there around natural consequences too, which is not ever shame or guilt or, like you said, stress around cost of things, but really this, you can eat all of this snack now, but we don’t have any more of that snack. It doesn’t magically appear. There’s not a fairy. And there’s not an endless supply of all these things, so now you get to eat carrots for your snack, right?
44:25 EMILY:
And I’ll say to my daughter because she’ll be like, can I have juice again today? And I’m like, if you have juice again today, you’re not gonna have it tomorrow because I’m not shopping until Wednesday or whatever, and she’ll be like, okay, I’ll have a Seltzer. And so she’s older, right? She can rationalize that, but I try really hard. It’s almost like a blessing to be on a strict budget because if you’re not you’re like, why not just give them what they want? It’s fine. You want to give your kids what you can, you want to give to your kids. That’s your love in some ways. But at the same time there’s something to be said for purposeful, what’s the word, deprivation. You need to know that the world is plentiful, yes, but there’s only so much of this, so you need to learn how to problem solve. 45:08 AMY: I think that food can be a tool for that conversation, to say it’s not that you can’t have juice, but the choices that you make in this moment now are gonna affect the choices you get to make in the next moment tomorrow. And for a 5-year-old that’s like, if you have juice today, you can’t have it tomorrow because there’s just not any. It’s just not that I’m not giving you any, there isn’t any here. And that becomes a larger life lesson, I guess is what I’m thinking.
45:38
EMILY: Yeah, I know, absolutely. And you don’t even realize you’re doing it, until you have to say it out loud, so if something happens organically. If you are on a strict budget and you stick to your, you know. You’re not gonna go shopping just because your kid’s like, I want juice now. And I understand wanting to resolve that, but at the same time eventually you’ll be surprised how quickly they’re like, okay. They’re disappointed, but they need to sit with disappointment sometimes. And I hate it because sometimes I just want them to stop crying or whatever. But I’m like, that’s life. We kind of forget that it’s okay for them to feel disappointed. In fact, they need to feel disappointed, so they can learn. Because sometimes she’ll come to me and say, you know what, Mom? She’ll verbalize how she’s thought through it. I’m like, wow, you’re so much smarter than I was at your age. But also she’ll just … She went through this circular reasoning, and I’m like, that’s gotta be some kind of good exercise you just did.
46:33
AMY: Right. Absolutely. I am teaching you things without sitting down and teaching you things, right? We are living life here.
46:40 EMILY: I like to think so, you know? But …
46:42
AMY: So I have a couple more questions before we wrap up. One is that. it sounds like must be a meal planning pro, because you’re feeding three growing girls, you’re feeding a husband who’s on like a more strict diet than probably what most of us are operating on. What is your number one tip for getting better at meal planning?
47:03 EMILY: Number one tip? I think that it’s important to find the five meals everybody will eat two out of three items of. And then you kind of put them on repeat with the occasional mix-up, you know? Like depending on the season. In the summer I find it much easier to grill up a bunch of stuff. Burgers and fries and a veggie or whatever. I do love the InstaPot. I guess my number one thing is just knowing what you’re gonna cook ahead of time, and if you have the time, do some of your chopping. Because the bane of my existence is when I’m trying to chop garlic, which is the most annoying thing to chop, my kids are pulling at my legs, and I’m like, I just want to chop this garlic. So kind of thinking ahead of what is gonna be super stressful. If it’s 4 o’clock and you haven’t planned dinner, I get ooh, panic, panic. Not only that, but it’s so nice to be like, ah … Everybody’s so much calmer when dinner’s already prepared or you know what you’re going to make or it’s pre- chopped. Then you can actually have conversations with kids and you’re not like, get out of the kitchen!
48:09
AMY: Right.
48:10
EMILY: So for me it’s all about, I want a harmonious everyday week, so if you know what you’re gonna cook, and you shop what you’re gonna make, or you make based on what you shopped for, and you know these are the six meals I’m gonna make, and four out of six of them my kids will eat, and that’s fine. It’s all about prep. The chopping and what have you, or you’re gonna buy a frozen bag of something you know it’ll be easier. 48:36 AMY: So what’s your family’s favorite meal? the thing that you know you always have stuff on hand for, and you can get them to eat it.
48:40 EMILY: So believe it or not, there is no one meal that everyone will eat.
48:46 AMY: I believe it. EMILY: I know who I’m gonna make happiest. So my kids really do like Brussels sprouts, of all things. There’s other things they hate, like they won’t eat asparagus or green beans, but they love Brussels sprouts because I cook it in bacon fat. Just so good. but I can usually make Brussels sprouts with a sweet potato, a roast, a chopped up, almost like home fries. And then some kind of either chicken legs. They love chicken on a bone. They’ll always eat chicken on a bone. We’re dinosaurs! Blah, blah, blah. whatever.
48:19
AMY: I love that.
48:20
EMILY: They love that.
48:22
AMY: Doing it in kid language.
48:24
EMILY: Yeah, totally. Being a dinosaur. And that’s an easy thing for me to make. So I guess chicken on a bone is a meat that they’ll always eat, or a bacon or a sausage. And then some kind of potato. But my oldest daughter hates pasta, whereas the other two love it. So if I can get gluten-free pasta, my oldest daughter’s like, I hate pasta. She won’t eat anything. So forget the whole mac and cheese kid thing. It’s just not happening at my house. So anyway, usually chicken on a bone with sweet potato that’s really well seasoned and a Brussels sprout or a salad or burgers are usually really good, you know, without a bun. My kids are great meat eaters. You know how some kids don’t like protein? 50:02
AMY: You know it’s awesome because what you’re describing is something that I really identify with, which is this idea of something that’s tasty and something that’s healthy, but not super complicated.
50:13
EMILY: Yeah, always very simple.
50:15
AMY: Often when people come to me, they’re like, what great ideas do you have for dinner? And I think they’re searching for some Pinterest-perfect fantastic weeknight dinner. And those might exist, and you might find ones that work for your family, but so often in my family it’s some amalgamation of … Like a stir-fry that’s not at all glamourous. And there’s not really a recipe for. And you wouldn’t serve it to guests. But it feeds your family healthy food, and you’re done with it. And I think utilitarian meals. Like just what we need to eat when we need to eat.
50:58 EMILY: Yeah, like for real. Stir-fry is once a week in our house, and then we’ll do chicken on a bone and then we’ll do hamburgers or meatballs. These are basically all we do. And lots of veggies or salad. And when the kids don’t like the veggie, I’m like, here’s some peppers. That’s how I augment the situation. I’ll chop up peppers or cucumbers, and I think a lot of parents do that. They know their kid’s not gonna eat whatever. They’ll try it, but at least they get some fiber. Because you don’t want to have a kid eating just meat.
51:28
AMY: Or just anything.
51:30
EMILY: Just one thing, yeah. And like I said, for me a home-run meal is if each kid eats two out of three things, I’m fine with that.
51:38
AMY: I love that criteria, and you’re like, it doesn’t have to be everything, right?
51:42
EMILY: No. Because I want to give them a little bit of feeling they get to control something. But then we’ll be like, it’s so good, though? Don’t you wanna try it? No? Okay. I’m gonna eat yours. And make it kind of like this forbidden food.
51:53
AMY: Right. Make it fun. And that’s where it helps to have three kids, right? You can pit them against each other.
52:00
EMILY: Yes, peer pressure, bribery, I’m not above any of that. The other thing is we always eat together. We’ve never separated Mom and Dad from kids unless we’re going out to eat, which I think helps because they see us eat it. And I’m not saying it’s possible for everybody’s life, but when it’s possible, I think it makes a huge impact, because they’ll associate healthy eating with their parents eating it, and, also, they’ll associate this bonding time with healthy eating. Like I want to hear about your day. what was your favorite part about school, what happened at school, you know? They’ll have a positive memory with it rather than a battle of, eat your meal, you need to go to bed, whatever.
52:37 AMY: Yeah, we’re definitely not always perfect about that in our house. One night a week we go to the gym till 6:30. We have childcare at our gym, so the kids go in childcare and we essentially get home and do the bedtime shuffle, and then we have dinner together without the kids. but for the most part we eat together, and I think that that is a powerful thing to show them I’m not just feeding this to you because it’s healthy, we are all eating this because it’s the food our family eats. 53:10
EMILY: Yeah. And if you just go back to the world all started, that’s what people did. They gathered around a fire and they ate their meal, and that’s a very instinctual habit that people want, whether they can articulate it or not.
53:20
AMY: Yeah. Well, I know I have a kid alarm that is about to go off. 53:25
EMILY: Okay. That sounds good.
53:28
AMY: But, Emily, thank you so much for opening up and sharing so many insights about your family. I know two big things that I’m gonna take away from this conversation is I love the idea of what you talked about of taking healthy eating in increments and then just the idea of being together and making it a ritual that your kids don’t even question because it’s always been a part of their lives. I think that those are really inspirational things that are not just to do with eating healthy, but building a healthy family, and eating food in general, so thank you. 54:03
EMILY: Of course. I’m happy to share, and you know I’ll add that I didn’t necessarily have all these habits as a child, so for me these are all new things for me to learn to appreciate. So just because you didn’t come from that doesn’t mean you can’t create your own rituals starting from your own little family if you’re the parent. It’s not like, oh, of course, she might have had this perfect … It wasn’t, you know what I mean? So for me it was even more important we’re gonna start this out right.
54:32
AMY: Well, I can’t wait to dig into that more with you throughout our conversation, how you have been so intentional about what you do with your family, and then also the realities of what happens when you are trying to be intentional and life happens. So get ready for more questions about that. I want to learn from you.
54:52 EMILY: And I cannot wait to hear about yours, especially with your background in cooking. and I’m hoping to pick your brain for ideas.
54:58
AMY: Absolutely. well, thank you so much for chatting today. Thank you all for listening. Really appreciate it and look forward to talking to you again next week.
