Episode 135: Picky Eaters or Kids Who Don’t Eat? Here’s What You Need to Know to Make Them Confident Eaters with Judith Yeabsley

Children  0:00  
We think you should know that Imperfect Heroes Podcast is a production of Little Hearts Academy USA.

DJ Stutz  0:09  
You're listening to Episode 136 of Imperfect Heroes, Insights into Parenting, the perfect podcast for imperfect parents looking to find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world. And I'm your host DJ Stutz.

Welcome, everybody, and thank you for choosing to spend the next few minutes here with Imperfect Heroes. And before we get started, I am just so excited. And I want to remind everybody that my children's book is out now. And it's called Roman is Bigger. And it's just a sweet little story about a little boy, who is learning to use his vocabulary and expand his vocabulary as he tries to express his emotions and his feelings that he's having to other people that are around him. And when he finds the right words, to say exactly how he's feeling, he feels better. You can always get that we're on Amazon. And the links will be oh, wait, guess what? In the show notes. So I hope that you'll go there and get a copy. 

So today we are talking about, you know, the bane of our existence, sometimes those picky eaters that just we worry about them, it's frustrating, but it's not the end of the world. And we have some answers for you today. And so today, I have Judith Yeabsley from down under. And she's going to help us with understanding so much about how to address our kids that just aren't eating or choosing the right things. And so Judith, why don't you introduce yourself for a second and let us know some of the amazing things that you've got going on.

Judith Yeabsley  2:06  
Thanks, DJ. Look, it's fabulous to be here. I'm Judith from Wellington, New Zealand, which is the windiest city in the world, not Chicago. Yeah. And I work with parents and those who work with children. Like he sees Early Learning Centers. And I support parents to get their children eating more widely. So work with children who you would probably say are fussy or picky. Or those those are not my favorite words. Those are, you know how we commonly describe them. Yes. And so my mission is for every child to be able to approach food from a place of safety and joy, not fear. Because a lot of the children in the families I work with, just feel super uncomfortable around food, and they may feel anxious about eating things, and they may get upset when they come to the table. And that's not a nice place to be particularly because eating is emotional. It's so sure, it's physical. And it impacts on all areas of our life, if we're just not able to eat comfortably, and particularly foods that everybody else seems to be able to, you know, manage just very well.

DJ Stutz  3:27  
Yeah, I know that it really kind of hits home for me. I am the oldest of seven. And one of my brothers, five of the siblings are brothers. I only have one sister. She's amazing. They're all amazing. But he has a daughter, and she's now married and is expecting her first child next month. And so everything turned out well. But she wouldn't eat as baby. I mean, from really, really young. She just wouldn't eat. And it got to the point where they had used that NG tube to theater with a tube up her nose. And to this day, she's just a skinny little cute thing. But it just was terrifying. All of us, as we saw her just seems like she was just withering away to nothing and trying to get her to eat anything was a triumph. So you've got that extreme. And I don't know what caused it or what was it because she was so young when it started. But then you've got other kids that maybe it's sensory or tactile of what's going on with them. Maybe they are associating food with you get a lot of attention when you don't eat. And so maybe that's one way of gaining attention. There's so many reasons that children will choose to not eat.

Judith Yeabsley  4:49  
Absolutely. And I'd like to just pick you up on that and say that often it's not a choice, right, your family member. That's not a choice and they've actually done studies on Bay. Babies who go on to be super selective eaters, and they have different sucking patterns, two weeks old. So just like some children are just innately good at running, or swimming or reading, and they just seem to have it from very early on. And it's just one of those genetic advantages that they have. Similarly, there are some children who just find food more difficult. And so that's why you can have a family of three children. And it happens a lot with the families I work with. Two children eat perfectly normally, one eats crackers on a blue plate.

DJ Stutz  5:36  
Yeah. Huh? Yeah. And so I can see why it's very frustrating. So this nice that I was talking to you about? That brother has six kids. And Kate is I think she's number four of the six. And everyone. Yeah, weighed down like none other, right. And so what's going on and the panic, you know, you're so worried about her growth. And if she's not getting the nutrition, she's meeting, what's happening to her brain development, and then her physical development, and so much is associated with what is the nutrition that they're getting, or not getting. And it's connected to so many other pieces of their growth and development, that parents can really get stressed out over it. And sometimes they're so stressed out, they actually make the problem bigger.

Judith Yeabsley  6:33  
And I think you've hit on the key there. And I think, particularly for mothers, because we are hardwired to feed our child, and to make them happy when doing so. So when things are going right, it's lovely and organic, and intuitive and loving, and we can use food for pleasure. And we can work with our child that way, when things go wrong. It really hits us in the soft bits, because it's our we've got that biological imperative to feed them. And when we're not feeding them, well, in inverted commas when we feel we're not doing our job. Regardless of why that's happening. We feel like we're failing. And we may have three children or six children, and everybody's eating well, except for one. But we still take on that mum guilt and say, Why am I doing this wrong? What can I do differently to make things right, and that's when all those compromises sneak in. And that's logical, because if you've got a child who's not eating, you need them to be fed. And therefore, we start dancing on tables, and we start changing all the walls. And suddenly, we have a 214 year old who is completely in charge of feeding. And that's not a criticism of parents who end up in that place. Because when children don't eat, almost every single parent I work with ends up in that place where their child is in charge of food. The problem with that is as you say, that it can often exacerbate real problems. Because if we're not in charge, we can't make changes. And if we can't make changes, often our child's just not going to go forward.

DJ Stutz  8:24  
So right, so Right. And so first off, when we talk about imperfect heroes, we've got parents who are honestly trying their best beating themselves up for it, what did I do wrong? Did I not hold the bottle? Right it? Or was it because I nursed them right? Or it was my milk not right? Or you got to stop, stop. Let that go. You are fine. You are fine parent, the fact that you're worried about it and you're concerned about it says that you are a fine parent. And so let go of that. Because that's taking up too much of your emotion and time that could be better used at finding solutions.

Judith Yeabsley  9:09  
Absolutely, absolutely. And the problem is that beating yourself up, as you say is so counterproductive. It really doesn't help anyone at all. And, and it also then impacts on your relationship with your child. And that's not a nice place to sit.

DJ Stutz  9:33  
You're exactly right. You're exactly right. So we want to get them off to the best start that we can, knowing that life takes whatever course it takes. But are there some things that we can do at the very beginnings of life, that maybe can help them get to the best start that we can give them?

Judith Yeabsley  9:53  
Well, I've just been reading about a really interesting study out of actually my university and they done a big study on feeding babies when they first come off the bottle, and they get weaned and they start first start on the purees and stuff. And what they found is, if you feed your baby, just vegetables and meat, you need the meat for the iron and the vegetables. And you do that for a couple of months before you bring in the sweeter stuff, the baby gets a taste for those vegetables, and it starts to give you a better result in those toddler years, or the number of vegetables that your child will accept. So that's a really interesting one. So if you are starting on your journey, then starting with just meat and vegetables is a really good way to go. Because babies naturally crave sweet things. So they're going to pick up the fuel. They're going to pick up the fruit and the cob, that's going to be easy. But the meat and the vegetables tend to be more challenging for young children. So that's one thing that you can do really simply just spend two months feeding them the meat and the vegetables.

DJ Stutz  11:02  
It's a great idea. So then there's that question of do I buy the Gerber or the whatever jars at the store? Or do I need to be making my own baby food?

Judith Yeabsley  11:15  
That's an interesting one. And I would say it depends obviously, on your budget, and it depends on your how much time you've got. However, the problem with the baby giraffe, is, firstly, they tend to be super sweet, because that's what baby likes. So even if you've got some chicken, it's often got apple puree in there to sweeten it up. If you've got pumpkin, it might have some apple or some pear to sweeten it up. So baby is always getting that sweetness. And baby doesn't actually need sweetness, right. Secondly, that jar of Gerber is the same today is the same tomorrow is the same next week. So baby gets used to the fact that all food is uniform. There's no lumpy bits, there's no gritty bits, because let's face it, when we remind and we make our own apple puree, or we make our own pumpkin puree, it's never quite perfect. So there's gonna be lumpy bits in it. And sometimes that pumpkin is really sweet. And sometimes that pumpkin is not so sweet. So, but that's a good thing, because then baby learns to accept the fact that food is not uniform. Because uniform is a killer for teaching a child to be comfortable with lots of different textures, lots of different tastes lots of different ways to take on food. So it's not you shouldn't have baby jars. But if you can throw in some non uniform foods at the same time. And of course, you could do that with baby led weaning, because you can do some purees from the supermarket. And then you can do some where babies just grabbing some of the family foods, which is a great thing to

DJ Stutz  12:55  
do. Right. And then there's another thing and I don't know if it's in New Zealand or Australia, if that's a big thing. But in the United States, there's a big thing going on right now about starting off babies with table food that the babies are eating what everyone else is eating, maybe chopped up and mashed a little bit, but you're not doing the whole big curae thing. Give them a piece of meat cut in a way that they can kind of hold on to it and just nah.

Judith Yeabsley  13:22  
Yes, so baby led weaning is a big thing. I think there's positives and negatives to both and I speak to a lot of parents who feel that whichever way they'd gone was the wrong way for their child because they've ended up being a picky eater. I don't think it really matters. Because with my first son, I did all the purees and I made all my own purees and obsessive about everything, you know, with my second son, it was like, Oh, this is way too hard. And I just stick whatever we were eating in the blender, and then give him carrots and everything else that you want at the same time. And it really hasn't made a difference to the way that they eat. So I think if your child has difficulties right from the start, they've got difficulties right from the start, or whatever you do. I think to be honest, a combination of the two is probably the sweet spot because it's great for children to learn to eat the purees but it's also great for them to learn to eat table foods. In fact, if your child is not able to eat table foods by 10 months, that's probably an indication that there's something a little bit awry right now that might not be a problem in inverted commas. That might just be something small that saying to you they're having a little bit of difficulty here so then that's good because you can go okay, what could be wrong here and why is my child not ate eat that table food and I know that there's a lot of common sort of discussion that food under 12 months is just playing don't worry you know milk she main source of food you don't worry about the food but actually eating works in a logical type of way and there are certain The time period where baby is designed to do certain things with food and there's a window, where naturally, they're going to be able to do that more easily. And if you miss that window pick just makes it a little bit more difficult. So they should really be trying to eat laws, table foods, the meat and the potatoes and puppies and everything else by about 10 months. Now, obviously, if you've got a child whose premium you would use that what you bought it, you know, for a normally developing child and you're looking around 10, maximum 11 months, they should be eating those table foods. Sure. Okay,

DJ Stutz  15:36  
so let's move on a little bit, then from that into our toddler stages. A lot of our toddlers are going to maybe a childcare or an early preschool program, some preschool programs will start at three, two and a half just depending on where you are and what they're doing. And maybe you're sending snacks or a lunch along with them. And so it's funny that for a few years, I was the director of three preschools for our school district. So they were a public school. They were run by the school district. And so I had three preschools that I was watching over. And it was just funny to me to see just the variety of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's like, oh, wow, that's interesting that that God put in your bags, and everything from just flat out candy, straight sugar. Two things that were fairly healthy carrot sticks are celery stick, they couldn't have peanut butter because of possible allergies. But you'd have sun butter, which was on sunflower seeds, or almond butter or whatever you could have put in there raisins, which by themselves, they're actually pretty sugary. But they're healthier than saltwater taffy. I mentioned to a parent, oh, this might be something that would help your child concentrate better at school if they had a different snack, or something different at lunch or whatever. And well, they just won't eat. If I don't, that's the only thing they'll eat. Oh, okay. I just think that we train them that they can say that there's some training that comes in early on, you know what I mean? When we get them to accept healthier foods, better foods, how do we get them started on that then?

Judith Yeabsley  17:22  
Okay, so I mean, the easiest way is to do it right from the start. Because then you have a child who, obviously then you've got a child who used to eating carrots, I think of snacks as an early part of lunch or dinner. So then what I serve it snacks fits in with that. So I'd be serving things like vegetables at snacks, rather than pretzels and chips, crackers, because those are really easy to eat. And so if you've got those at snacks, that's what your child learns to eat at snacks. As a parent, if we are in charge of what goes on the table, that's going to make a big difference. If you've got to the point where your child wants to just eat them and get some fries, then we can still serve the nugget, some fries. But we can also serve some salad or some vegetables with it because then at least our child is seeing those and they're getting more comfortable with them. I think of carrots or pick whatever food you like, I think of carrots like a book. So when we've got a child, most parents read their child books in the evening. Now we read to our child for what 456 years before they read a word back to us. But we just keep doing it. And we do it with love. And we do it with excitement. Think of the carrot the same way. Carrot, carrot, carrot carrot. We do it with joy and do it every day, just like we would the book. And that way. If you think about it, if you go to some other cultures, there will be people who were eating crickets. Now we might look at those crickets and go, Oh, no, no, no, I don't think so. Not for me, but if you brought up eating crickets you go. Cricket, cricket. So the same. If we're showing our child the carrot every day, our child is naturally more comfortable with that carrot than they are with the cricket. That's the same philosophy for you know the lunchbox. If they see this carrot in the lunchbox, even if they're not eating, they're still getting that exposure to the carrot and they have the opportunity to eat it. So if they're sitting next to their best friend who's happily chowing down on a carrot stick, they might go, Oh, I've got one of those two. Exactly.

DJ Stutz  19:32  
And I think two there were ways that we can make it more fun and if for some kids, okay, the ranch is not the best thing for them. But at least they'll maybe dip it and have it and there's ways that you can make that ranch dressing a little more healthy. So instead of using the sour cream, I hate sour cream but and that but I have found that you can buy just cottage cheese and put that in the blender with powdered ranch NYX and use that and And then add some water until it's at the consistency that you want it to be way healthier. And I've given it to my family and they didn't see the difference. And so they're like, oh, dipping, you know, are my grandkids, they'll dip it and they think it's fine. And it's just their dipping sauce. And they'll dip their carrots and their celery and tomatoes, they love the little cherry tomatoes and stuff. And so if you can learn some of those tricks that are healthier, and will entice them to eat more veggies, then go for it, right?

Judith Yeabsley  20:38  
Oh, absolutely. I say anything supports your child, anything that scaffolds them to eat, eat better is fine. And so I'm gonna go off on a little bit of a tangent here and say, ranch dressing is great. But if you've got a child who is really quite selective, and they'll only catch up, then there's no reason why you cannot get that carrot into ketchup it or if they're eating peanut butter, you can soften peanut butter in the microwave. And then that can be your dip. Don't think because they don't eat any traditional dips, that they can't do this, because there's so many things you can can use yoga, whatever your child is really comfortable at dipping into it. If you don't think it goes. So what

DJ Stutz  21:21  
if they think it goes cool? Yeah,

Judith Yeabsley  21:23  
then cool. I'm excited. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly,

DJ Stutz  21:26  
exactly. So I love that and getting them used to those better things. And I think having them on hand. So go ahead and pre cut up some peppers, you know, the bell peppers and the yellow and the red and all the different colors, and then even make them into a little rainbow sometimes on the plate and the rainbows glow girls love rainbows, and bring it in to those kinds of things that will Oh, I made a rainbow for you want to eat it? Oh my goodness. And so they start liking those things. Maybe not because they're healthy, but because it's a rainbow. And having that pre cut and on hand.

Judith Yeabsley  22:06  
And even better have your child help you do this. So I love giving toddlers a shopping list. So you can get a big sheet of paper and you can cut out the supermarket magazines are great for that. You can cut out pictures of apples and pictures of broccoli, and you can glue it on a sheet. And they can have their little wheelie basket and they can go and they can shop for these things. They can bring it home. And then you give them a squirting bottle with a little bit of vinegar and a lot of water. And they can stand up at the sink, they can wash the vegetables, you can't kill a carrot, and then you can have them in the kitchen. And they can help you great, there's so many things you can do. And that way, you're just immersing them in these vegetables in the same way as we would immerse them in a story. And then there's the carrot doesn't feel scary anymore, that they feel a lot more comfortable around that carrot. If you feel comfortable about that carrot, you're far more likely to eat that carrot than if you like, no, don't like carrots, right.

DJ Stutz  23:08  
And to they can even cut them up I've got this is a green plastic knife, and it's made to cut lettuce. Because if you use a metal knife, when you cut lettuce, it goes brown faster, right. And so I have this special knife for cutting lettuce, but it cuts carrots and cut celery just as well. And so it's not as dangerous for the kids to use. And so they can cut it using that. Also, I have found that if you've got a backup, even if you've just got a balcony cut on your apartment, you can grow some vegetables in a pot or in your backyard. And if the kids helped nurture that vegetable and helped it to grow and help them to harvest it and clean it and do all that they are more likely to eat it. If they went through that whole Farmer John process and they see where that all comes from. They understand then more about their connection to food and how it grows. And what did the seeds look like. And carrot seed is just so ridiculously tiny or a tomato seed and so maybe instead of buying the plant from the store, start them from seeds and let the kids have fun with that. They love that. Well

Judith Yeabsley  24:17  
when we were kids, we always used to grow Chris and microgreens on the windowsill in the kitchen. And all you need is chucks I don't know what you call them in America blue sort of cleaning cloths that you get, you can just wet those and grow seeds on. But also if you got a lettuce, you can just cut the bottom off the lettuce sit in water or celery you can sit the bottom of it or in water on the kitchen window so you don't need to have a balcony or anything. And then you can watch those little tiny baby lettuce leaves coming out so cute. And such a good thing to do with kids and you can look at them under a microscope and you can do all sorts of fun things with those science.

Absolutely.

DJ Stutz  24:59  
Oh Love it. Yeah. And so when you connect them to their whole world, and nutrition is part of that, and they get to see how it all fits in. It's such an amazing process to get them to that and let them sometimes have a crazy food night and let them come up with a menu. And it may be peanut butter in the mac and cheese. And, ooh, that sounds terrible. But let them try it and decide thumbs up thumbs down, or let them try some different things that are kind of weird and different. I remember I have a grandson named Sylvan. And so when they would drive from their house to their other grandparents house, they drove by a Red Lobster all the time. And he saw the sign with this red lobster, you know, neon red lobster on the road. And he would ask about that. And his mom said, My daughter said, Oh, that's the restaurant, honey. And he said, Oh, and he's trying to figure out this lobster thing. And so his birthday was coming up his fourth birthday. So it's just the little guy. And they said, Where do you want to go for your birthday dinner? Because I want to go to that lobster place. And the thing is, oh, he's gonna hate this. Right? But he wanted to go, that's where Okay, so we'll go. And he tried lobster and he tried some shrimp and stuff. And he goes there every year now. I love love lobster. But they've always like if he wanted to try a new food or try something. The kids eat sushi. And they eat hibachi food and Mongolian because if they asked about it, or worse that what is that food? Well, I don't know, should we go in and try some? And in some foreign type food. And so they're just really open to that. My kids have been so great, much better parents than me. And yet, let's go try that. You know, and the kids are usually so excited to try something new. I think even if they don't like it, they'll be like, oh, yeah, it's good. Because it's something new. But I think a challenge and challenging our kids like that. And having fun with stuff like that is an adventure. You make it an adventure. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So do you have any other tips or tricks or ideas that our parents can use that you help with your parents? Ah,

Judith Yeabsley  27:18  
about 17,000. But yeah, I think the most important thing is to make sure that you're in charge of the feeding. Now, that doesn't mean to say you're a dictator, or that you're not giving them choices. But when we give them choices, we say, Would you like the peas or the carrots with the chicken? We don't say what do you want for breakfast? Because if we say what do you want for breakfast? And they're happy with Cheerios? Or toast? Then what are they going to choose? If we say what do you want for breakfast, they're not going to go Oh, actually, today, let me have some eggs. And so that can easily send us down a narrow a route. Because if we always let our child decide what's happening with food, they're going to pick their favorite. And when they start eating their favorites, everything else kind of falls by the wayside naturally, logically. And then that's often when we end up with a child who does only want Cheerios for breakfast, and a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and now get some fries for dinner. And that's kind of not what we want for our children. And so being in charge is an important part of who you

DJ Stutz  28:27  
are so right. And it's not even just nutrition and so many other areas. I think we have a lot of parents who are I don't know, they're giving into their kids and so many ways that they've lost their authority as a parent. And I don't mean be a dictator, right?

Judith Yeabsley  28:45  
No, no, no, absolutely not. No, no, right. But I think

DJ Stutz  28:48  
it's good to maybe have the kids set out. Okay, here's our weekly menu, what are we going to do? And so every week, we need to have three nights with chicken and we get to have one night with red meat. And we need to have fish on two nights or you know what I mean? And so, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're going to we're going to do this. And which nights are we going to have our green leafy vegetables in? Which nights are we going to have? And so they're starting to learn about the elements of what makes a healthy dinner. And then they're putting in pieces of it. And it's like a puzzle, I guess, where you're going to put in all those elements. And when the kids are part of the even that planning, and then they're learning to cook part of it. We can add pasta one night a week, or whatever I mean, because you don't want to completely cut out all of those things, but you want to limit it as well so that it's at a healthy level. And so you're helping the kids decide, but you're still putting those boundaries, those parameters that know we can't have ice cream every night after dinner. Maybe that's a Sunday thing or a Saturday thing once in a while lose okay, but we're not doing it every night. And I

Judith Yeabsley  29:58  
think you know, talking about prom is a really good way to think of it because I always think of parenting in general, but particularly around food. As a parent, we have a very tight box that we prescribe. But within that box our children can run around. So we can give them lots of autonomy and lots of choice. But within those safe parameters, because children need to feel safe, and particularly around food and you struggle to eat, you need to know what's going to happen, because you don't know what's going to happen, then that can be uncomfortable. And we want our child to be as relaxed and as comfortable as possible. Right.

DJ Stutz  30:34  
And so what do we say then for families? Because it's so interesting to me that when we're having our children is when we're most financially vulnerable, mostly. General. Yeah. And when we have the most money is when we don't have the kiddos. Yep, yeah. And so I almost feel like we should, I don't know, it would be nice if it was flipped a little bit. But so you have families that you've got these young kids, or heaven forbid teenage boys who are bottomless pits, and so food becomes a financial decision. And so the process unhealthy foods seem, I'm using my words carefully, seem to be the fastest, most inexpensive way than the healthier, more nutritious foods. How do we help a family who has limited financial opportunities, choose to healthier foods,

Judith Yeabsley  31:42  
I think anything you cook at home tends to be a better price than something you buy prepackaged. So unfortunately, and I know that often when you don't have the finances, you also don't have the time. But that's when you just have to be really clever about what you do. Buy things in season, because if you can buy a big bag of apples, then that's just a great snack. Apples come in their own wrapper, you can just send them to school with your children. Same with bananas, I mean their own wrapper. But there are lots of ways that you can put good meals on the table. And what am I find is actually the body your food, you eat it, and it's gone. So you haven't for dinner, and it's gone. If you make it, you can make it so that you can have it for dinner. You can have it for lunch the next day. And there may even be some leftover, but you can start a dinner a day or two, Chuck as well. So I think sometimes it seems more expensive to buy your food upfront than it does to buy the fast food. But the fast food is gone. Once you've eaten it, that's it, you get one meal and it's gone. Where's the food that you cook for yourself, you do a big spaghetti bolognese, and you can put a lot of vegetables through it. And you can stretch the meat out. One of my favorite tricks is getting lentils, because they're really cheap, tons of nutrients in them. And I put them in my spice grinder, and I make them into a powder. And then I cook them through the mince. You don't notice the taste and don't notice the texture. But the meat you can use. You start with say 80% meat and 20% lentils. And you can usually end up with about 60% meat and 40% Lentils before anybody even starts to cottoned on to the fact that they're in there. And it's not that I'm advocating hiding food because I never advocate hiding food. But my middle aged child will go over the meats got lentils in it, and then that'll put him off. Whereas if he doesn't know the lentils are in there, he quite happily eats the spaghetti bolognese that's got all these lentils in, but the lentils are cheaper. And it's a really good news. And they're one of our fiber day. Yay. Yes, it's like vegetable oil. I

DJ Stutz  34:08  
never thought of doing that with the lentils. But I do you think of like, even things with making cookies using an alternative flour even then, yes, the white flour. So I have a chocolate chip recipe where I use the dark chocolate. And I use Splenda instead of sugar. And then with the flour, I just grind up whole oats and I grind that into a flour. And I make my cookies that way and my grandkids love them. And I don't feel bad and they don't have that gluten free stuff. But the cookies turned out great. So there are some alternative things that you can do. Plus, I gotta tell you, if most of us including myself, went into the pantry and there was isn't just rice and flour and sugar and beans and oats and basic things. I'd be like, there's nothing in the pantry. I have no idea what we're gonna have for dinner tonight. And yet, there's plenty in the pantry. But we as a society in a lot of the more industrialized countries, we've lost that skill of, oh, we've got this and this, and this, and I could put this together. But that baking from scratch

Judith Yeabsley  35:32  
kind of thing. Yeah. Well, all my teenage boys always complain, because they open the cupboards and they go, mom, we've only got ingredients, because I don't, I don't buy packaged stuff. So for them, it's like, well, we've got these ingredients. But you know what they both of them can put meals on the table, and they can look in the pantry. And they can cook from scratch, because that's what we've always done. Because it is cheaper. It's healthier, and cooking such a great skill, because if we can cook we can feed our family.

DJ Stutz  36:05  
Exactly, exactly. And we can we can make, we can bake a cake and we and we can use white flour, or we can use all of the ingredients that sugar or whatever. And it's still going to be healthier than the box that you get the you know, Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker, whatever, that you pull off the shelf, because it's not going to have all of the ingredients that are going to make it last longer on the shelves, you know, and there's so many other chemicals that are in there, at least you're using whole ingredients. And and not the additional chemicals that you know, then

Judith Yeabsley  36:48  
we just don't need that we

DJ Stutz  36:50  
don't need. You're exactly right. And even that by itself, even though you're using the white flour and the sugar and stuff, it's still going to be healthier. Yeah, absolutely

Judith Yeabsley  36:59  
anything you do at home is 99.99% guaranteed to be better for you than something you do from the store. And longer term cooking, cooking with base ingredients is more cost effective once you get comfortable with how to do that. Yes, yeah.

DJ Stutz  37:21  
I had a guest on a while ago. Lynn Lynn Bauman or Bowman, and she wrote a book brownies for breakfast. And it's got all kinds of recipes in it. But her brownie recipe has no flour in it. It's got pumpkin. Yeah, yeah. And it's delicious. It's absolutely delicious. And yet someone who's diabetic can eat it. Fine.

Judith Yeabsley  37:52  
Right? Same as black, green, black, green, black, black bean brownies are, it's very hard to say that black bean brownies are delicious. But rather than, I guess, go down that route, you can do really basic stuff, really simply in your kitchen. And you don't have to be Betty Crocker. You can do just some raw vegetables and some dip. And then you can have just a piece of chicken. And you can have some potatoes. That doesn't have to be rocket science. It doesn't have to be complicated. And you don't have to be a good cook.

DJ Stutz  38:33  
Well, thank heavens because I'm not fantastic cook, and she loved cooking. So she didn't make me help. And I did learn. Yeah,

Judith Yeabsley  38:44  
it's interesting, isn't it? So although you come from a family who cooks you didn't do it? Because she just took on that responsibility. So yes,

DJ Stutz  38:52  
she just loved being Yeah, doing her thing. She made me clean up. I know how to clean up.

Judith Yeabsley  39:01  
You can come to my house and teach my boys because I told them to cook. And the cleaning up came years later. By God is so wrong, and I'd walk into my kitchen and they'd look like they'd been a flower explosions. But they can. And that's Yeah, it's interesting when you have both where your focus goes. What you reap what you sow.

DJ Stutz  39:25  
That's true. That's true. That is true. So, Judith, what, oh, excuse me. Why don't you tell our listeners and our watchers, that how they can get a hold of you and learn more about what you do.

Judith Yeabsley  39:45  
Okay, so I'm the confident eater so theconfidenteater.com The confident eater on Instagram, the confident Eater on Facebook. Facebook is a great place to connect with me because I give away a ton of free advice. I got, I don't call them recipes, because they're often not recipes, but food concepts that work even for the super selective children, just things where if you're really stuck, we can just get them rolling again with some ideas of foods that you can put on the table. Yeah, and if you wanted to, then my website's got a wealth of resources on there, plus ways that you can talk to me directly, he wants to do that.

DJ Stutz  40:25  
I love it, I love it. And so be smart and, and look her up and get some of these great ideas to get your children off to a healthy start. Give them that brain food that's going to help them grow socially and emotionally and so that they can really live the life that they were meant to live. So I love that. Now, Judith, I always end with the same question with all my guests. And so I'm going to ask that question to you. We know that there are no perfect parents never have been, never will be. But some parents just seemed more successful than others. How would you describe a successful parent?

Judith Yeabsley  41:09  
It's a good question, I would probably say a successful parent is one that has confidence in their parenting. But I'm the confident teacher for a reason. Because not just do children have to be confident around food to be able to eat it widely. But parents have to be confident that firstly, their child is able to do these amazing things because their child isn't able to do these amazing things. And secondly, they need to have confidence in their own ability to support their child, as a parent, no one knows a child more, spends more time with them, or is is invested as a parent is and therefore you are the right person to work with your child, you're the best person to support your child. And if you feel that that is true, then you will be a far more successful parent. You

DJ Stutz  42:08  
are so spot on. Very good, well done. So thank you so much for choosing to spend that time with us and enriching our listeners and being a part of our Imperfect Heroes family. And so for our listeners, I hope that you will leave us a rating and a review. And if you're listening on Rumble or watching us actually on Rumble or on YouTube, be sure to click that follow or subscribe and spread the word. Bring a friend next time and we are always going to be here. We dropped new episodes on Mondays, so be sure to watch for us. And until next time. Let's find joy in parenting.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai