BB Podcast 32 - Picky Eaters
Sarah Teeple: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Beautifully Balanced Health and Happiness aren't found in a bottle of prescription pills or with any fad diet. Instead, we can activate your body's natural ability to heal itself, and that is exactly what we're gonna do together here. I'm Sarah Tipple, a women's integrative health practitioner, and I blend the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda with the modern science of functional medicine to help you heal your gut, rebalance your hormones, and calm anxiety naturally.
Here I'll teach you the smart, sustainable, personalized, and fun way to use nutrition, herbs, and healthy lifestyle to feel vibrant, energized, and beautiful inside and out. Are you ready? Let's dive [00:01:00] in.
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Beautifully Balanced. I'm so glad that you're here. Today's episode is all about picky eaters are your kids picky eaters. Here is how to shift it now, but first I wanna offer you something.
If you feel stuck in hormone hell, if you feel bloated. Irritable. Like you're at war with your body, you're gaining weight, you're riddled with anxiety.
You're in your forties, your doctor is giving you no real solutions. Then you must join me in our next round of the radiant reset. So what you need is not another diet. Or to be stuck on hormone replacement therapy for the rest of your life. What you need is an effective and natural process to reset your hormones and bring your body back into its natural state of healing.
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Or maybe for the first time ever. This is the Radiant Reset and you have to join us. I'll add a link to the reset or to the wait list below and hop on right now. You can also hop on my website or on any of my socials, so see you there. [00:03:00] Alright.
Next we are gonna dive in to your children or grandchildren.
This episode on how to help your picky eater who's driving you crazy. It was actually, the idea was brought to me by one of my clients who recently completed our last round of Radiant Reset. She loved it. She was feeling great. She said it changed her life in all the best ways. And this is a grandmother.
But she said, my daughter is really struggling with her daughter, my grandchild. She's gaining weight, she is having some health issues already, and all she wants to eat are things like potatoes, french fries, everything's smothered in cheese, all kinds of kid food, and no healthy food. So what do we do?
So I got the idea to do this episode. Now I hear it from countless moms feeling trapped by their kids' picky eating habits. You might be in the same boat if you're listening to this episode and you want to feed your kids healthy food because you know how important it is for their [00:04:00] healthy development and for a better trajectory for their entire lives.
And when our kids are little, they're literally building their body. They're building their bones, their internal organs, their muscles, their brain. With the food they're eating. So you know how important this is, but you feel held hostage. Your kids are only wanting processed foods, sugary drinks, package snacks, chips, bars, white bread, pizza, cereals, and of course the dreaded chicken nuggets and mac and cheese.
That's all they want to eat. Or fast food. We wanna shift this gradually. First, we wanna give ourselves a little love and compassion that we are trying our best. We're busy moms and it can be hard to put three healthy meals a day on the table. Kids also need snacks. It's hard to put three meals and all the snacks.
On the table and have them be really healthy and nourishing. So we wanna give ourselves love and compassion for how hard we're trying now, and we also want to [00:05:00] motivate ourselves to move forward, to learn some new techniques, some practical strategies. That's what I'm gonna give you today. The focus of our episode is my top three tips to make healthy food taste good to your kids.
So this is a different shift of mindset. It's not necessarily about getting your kids to change their tastes. And to start only liking plain rice and broccoli instead of liking the chicken nuggets and bacon cheeseburgers. But what we wanna do. Is make these healthy foods taste good so our kids will actually want them.
So first, a little more why this is so important, and then we will just jump into our top three healthy tips. So if this topic really interests you, and if your child is experiencing gut issues. Cramping, bloating, constipation, IBS type symptoms. The two episodes prior to this episode of Beautifully Balanced Episodes 30 and 31, are all about health.
How to help your constipated kid. They give you some [00:06:00] really practical and concrete tips and also tell you the why behind it. 'cause I want you to understand your child's body, their digestive system, and their needs. On such a deep level that you know exactly what to give them, how to make it taste good and what's gonna make their bowels move more frequently and healthily instead of the opposite.
And these are tips beyond just the regular drink more water and take MiraLax. I can't tell you how many times I've heard moms say that is their pediatrician solution. And it's not a long-term solution when kids are continuing to eat the way they. Have already been eating with a bunch of kid food and just taking MiraLax and drinking more water.
They're gonna develop more and more problems as they get older. So many clients come to me saying, I've had this constipation issue since I was six years old, eight years old, 10 years old. As young as they can remember. So go back and listen to those episodes, episode 30 and 31, how to Help Your Constipated [00:07:00] Kid.
And just hear a little more about some of the potential negative impacts gut issues and constipation if our kids are getting inadequate. Nutrition 'cause they're just eating so many processed foods. It really impacts their immunity, their brain development, their bone muscle and organ development increases the risks of obesity, type two diabetes and countless other health issues.
And it really sets them up for a harder time in their teens and in their adulthood. So we wanna help build healthy habits now, and this sort of reminds me of an old saying that they. Use in investing, like financial investing, stocks and bonds. They say the best time to start investing. Was 10 years ago, the second best time to start investing is now.
So it's supposed to be a joke, maybe a little financial advisor joke. Certainly we can't turn back time and start investing financially 10 years ago, nor can we turn back the hands of time and feed [00:08:00] our children something different when they were younger, but we can do something about it now.
We don't have to sit in disempowerment. So I'm gonna give you some just easy, practical, doable tips to try today. So first off, I do wanna reiterate to minimize or try to quit the kid food altogether. No judgment for having some of these around. We're busy, but our kids are building their bodies and we want them to build their bodies with real, whole nourishing foods, vegetables, proteins, whole grains, some fruit nuts and seeds, all kinds of healthy fats.
So we wanna start to make that switch. But the way to do that in a smooth way that your kids are gonna enjoy is to make these healthy foods taste good. And before I tell you the three tips to make the healthy food taste good, first, just a quick PSA public service announcement regarding kids and kid food.
We can't change, you [00:09:00] know what? We fed our kids when they were really little, but we can tell future moms or moms of really young babies. Don't introduce the kid food or introduce it in just. Tiny ways is just a minuscule, tiny part of their diet. But wait as long as you can to introduce things like fruit, gummies, granola bars, chips, cookies, macaroni and cheese, frozen pizza.
Wait as long as you can because as we know, these foods are addictive and our kids are gonna just gravitate towards them more and more. Makers of these foods know about a concept called the Bliss Point. The bliss point is this perfect combination of sweet and salt and fat, and the human brain and body craves that perfect combination.
And there's nothing wrong with a little sweet, a little salt and a little fat, but when it comes along with tons of artificial colors, [00:10:00] flavors, additives. Things that are contributing to kids issues like hyperactivity, A-D-D-A-D-H-D, and certainly driving these other health conditions, all those chemicals that also come along with processed food.
That's the problem. So what we're gonna do is incorporate the concept of Bliss Point into the healthy things that you make at home. Groundbreaking. But first, do remember to tell your mama friends, your new mama friends, those first timers, God love them. God bless them. Don't introduce the kid food. Wait as long as you can or just never introduce it.
They'll have it over at their friend's house when they're having their first sleepover, when they're 10 years old. Just wait till then. So how do we make this healthy food taste good? This is so important because if you are like many moms or certainly some moms that I've seen, sometimes we're trying to make our kids meals.
We're trying to sneak in the healthy food. So one of my good friends a while [00:11:00] ago, I was on her porch and she was bringing her son's lunch out to him, and he had this peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Some fruit and then this plain steamed broccoli. And what do you think he ate? Scarf down the PB and J on the white bread crust, cutoff scarf down the fruit.
Did he touch the broccoli? No, he did not touch the broccoli. And that's because plain steamed broccoli doesn't taste that great. So this is why we're going to use the concept of bliss point to make your healthy foods taste really good so your kids will actually eat them. So it all comes down to seasoning them up.
Dolling them up. So when we talk about these healthy foods, the main things I'm talking about are whole grains, proteins, and vegetables. Proteins don't need that much help, although we don't necessarily want our kids dipping. Everything in ketchup or mustard or ranch [00:12:00] dressing. But so proteins would be things, non-processed proteins like chicken, grass fed beef, eggs, and vegetables are obvious things like.
Broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, squash, asparagus, mushrooms sweet potatoes are more of a starchy vegetable, but those are really wonderful too. Even some white potato, that's fine as well. Greens even. Different greens, especially cooked greens. Kids actually really like them when you doll them up in the ways that I'm gonna tell you about.
And then whole grains, so things like rice, quinoa. Those are the two main grains that we have, but I guess it could also apply to oats, even other whole grains that are non-gluten as like buckwheat. But so the first is add some healthy fat, so don't be afraid of butter. Make sure it's organic butter so your kids aren't getting a bunch of antibiotics and growth hormones.
Spend the [00:13:00] $2 extra and get some organic butter. You could get salted or unsalted. Salted tends to be a little less fresh. Unsalted butter has to be a little fresher because the salt is a natural preservative. So when it's not salted it doesn't have as long as shelf life, so you're gonna get a little fresher butter if you get unsalted.
But sometimes we get salted butter. You can also buy something called cultured butter. And again, this is all organic. All your animal foods, if possible, should be organic. You will spend the extra $2, but you'll save yourself and your kids. So many chemicals, so many, again, antibiotics and growth hormones and all just the toxic and the really icky, frankly, stuff that's in conventionally raised factory farmed milk, butter, eggs, and meat.
So we can add butter or even ghee if you've never heard of ghee. Ghee is a clarified butter. It's one of the healthiest anti-inflammatory fats [00:14:00] out there, and it really heals the gut and heals the gut lining because it's high in a constituent called butyric. Acid. So you could choose organic butter, even cultured butter.
That's something that has been cultured, almost a little fermented to make it easy to digest. But any of these sort of butter derivatives, kids love butter. It's so delicious and it is a healthy fat if you're getting a really high quality organic one. So healthy fats make all foods more satisfying. They also enhance absorption of minerals and vitamins, adding some healthy fat to whole grains and to vegetables is a great way to really maximize the nutrition that your child and you are gonna absorb from those healthy foods. Those healthy fats also have such a yummy, delicious mouth feel. I can sense it and feel it now. Creamy and coats your mouth a little bit in just the best possible way.
And these healthy fats are far better for our digestion, for our bodies than hydrogenated and inflammatory [00:15:00] oils found in processed foods. Now our two other go-to oils are organic. Extra virgin olive oil, EVOO and avocado oil. So those are some of the best healthy fats out there. So number one, these are how to season up, how to make your healthy food taste good by achieving some of this bliss point factor that kids and all humans love.
So the first is add some yummy, healthy fat. Don't be afraid of butter, just get the high quality. Two is add a good healthy dash of high quality salt. So salt is something that we don't need to be afraid of too. Our kids really need minerals and so do we. I do recommend using a high quality salt. We use Redmond rock salt.
It's from Red Rocks out in Utah, so it's higher in minerals. It also doesn't have the anti-icing agents and the extra just things that some iodized and regular table salt have. And [00:16:00] unlike sea salt, which is also really popular they're not a problem of microplastic contamination. We all know that our oceans are becoming more contaminated with plastics and those microplastics are showing up in our sea salt.
It's very discouraging, but. We want to keep the hope and just move forward and do what we can, but choosing things like Redmond rock salt is a really great way to do it. I like the Redmond rock salt from the US better than Himalayan rock salt, pink Himalayan salt, just because it has less of a carbon footprint.
So we're trying to keep several things in mind at once without driving ourselves crazy. And that's, health benefits, but plus environmental. Impact the Redmond rock salt. If you do get it, and I totally recommend it, you can find it at any natural food store co-op, online at a place like vitacost.com.
But if you live in Louisville, Kentucky, like I do and many of my clients do, I love to buy it at our local natural food store [00:17:00] called Rainbow Blossom, which is. One of my happiest places in the world. If you do get the Redmond rock salt, it is a very fine grind. So you need to use about half of it, half of what you would use of regular table salt.
This is mostly for recipes, but also we do a lot of just like getting pinches of salt and we would not get an enormous pinch of the Redmond salt 'cause it would really over salt things. So it's very powerful stuff. All right. Third is throw in garnishes. So tip number three, we've had tip number one, add some yummy healthy fat.
Tip number two, add some high quality salt. Tip number three, throw in garnishes. And this is where we can get that bliss point. We could get a tiny bit of sweetness or if we wanted a more savory garnish, we can add in some extra health benefits. So some. Some examples of garnishes are things like chopped up nuts organic.
Try to get organic always if you can. Organic cashews, [00:18:00] almonds, we love pepitas. The roasted salted pumpkin seeds. Those give such a nice crunch. Salted sunflower seeds can be wonderful if you've already. More heavily salted a dish, I would recommend not doing a salted nut on top. We just don't need to, do double salt.
Or we can also add things like a little spoonful of organic raisins, golden raisins, or a chopped up fig or date. One of our kids' favorite lunches on weekends, this is the lunch I make them often on weekends. Because we have a lot of leftover quinoa. I make a big pot of quinoa every week, and we eat it with a lot of our meals.
And I'm spicing it up and making it taste good. But one thing I love to whip up, I call it a quinoa salad, even though we serve it and eat it warm, but basically it's mama's leftover quinoa with some chopped up cashews. Some raisins and then a nice sprinkling of cumin, which is just a [00:19:00] wonderful, warm but not spicy digestive spice.
It's really great for digestion. A big hardy sprinkle of the Redmond salt, a little bit of lemon juice and a little bit of olive oil. And I mix it up. I try to let it sit for an hour or two. It just gets better. It's even better the next day. 'cause all of those flavors combine. But you guys, our kids love it, and it's just quinoa, which has lots of great fiber and protein for a whole grain.
Quinoa does not taste very good on its own, but here if we spice it up, I created the bliss point by adding the healthy fat, the extra virgin olive oil. I added a little dash of acidity with the lemon juice. I added the sweetness and depth of flavor with the raisins. I added the crunch with the cashews.
And I added the saltiness of the Redmond salt, mixed it all up, give it to 'em in a bowl and they're scarfing it down. It's really wonderful. So that is one illustration of how we can achieve the bliss point. If you have any [00:20:00] questions about this or you wanna ask more questions about your picky eater, I welcome all of your feedback.
You can find [email protected], and if you are ready, mama, to get out of the hormone hell and fall in love with your body again, you've got to join me in the Radiant Reset. Thank you so much for being here with me for another episode of Beautifully Balanced and I hope these simple tips will help you make healthy food delicious, to ease that picky eater of yours into enjoying more healthy and wonderful foods.
Alright, see you next time. I.
Thank you for being here with me today. Remember, you can feel your best naturally. Just try one new thing a week that you learn here and watch your body and life transform. And if you're ready to take this to the next level, [00:21:00] learn your dosha. Get your personalized, holistic plan, and live beautifully balanced.
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