Today’s I’m chatting with Amy Palanjian, a blogger, cookbook author and all-around anti-diet family feeding warrior (okay, she doesn’t brand herself that way but it’s definitely my impression).
Amy’s new cookbook is Yummy Toddler Food Dinnertime SOS: 100 Sanity-Saving Meals Parents and Kids of All Ages Will Actually Want to Eat. It’s already a New York Times Bestseller and having read this cookbook myself I can confidently tell you...this is the cookbook we’ve all been missing.
As you’ll hear Amy and me discuss in the interview, there’s a bit of a Catch-22 when publishing recipes. “Buy this frozen breaded chicken and slap it on a bun” does not really a bestselling cookbook make, but an “easy” recipe for the same meal will still probably require 15 ingredients and 45 minutes of cooking you just don’t have the bandwidth for most nights.
I love Amy’s approach of sharing crowd-pleasing recipes that feature either homemade elements (meatballs, teriyaki sauce, the dreaded breaded chicken) or store made versions of the same foods, depending on how many spoons you have left for the day.
I promote this same strategy in my Capsule Menu Planning course, a group coaching program that I’ve designed to help clients harness the wisdom of what their family actually wants to eat and plan a few weeks of set-and-forget menus to serve on repeat.
The next round launches Thursday, September 21st! If planning meals your family actually enjoys and not losing your own sanity in the process is a stressor in your life, I hope you’ll join us.
On to the interview!
(Learn more about Amy and explore her free recipes at YummyToddlerFood.com and on Instagram @yummytoddlerfood.)
Diana: Hello, Amy! Welcome to The Messy Intersection.
Amy: Thanks for having me.
Diana: So, Amy is the author of the brand new cookbook Dinnertime SOS. Or is it Yummy Toddler Food's Dinnertime SOS?
Amy: You can say it either way. They kind of wanted it to work both ways, with and without the brand name.
Diana: And Amy's brand, of course, is Yummy Toddler Food. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do out on the internet?
Amy: I do recipes and sort of reassuring tips for families with little kids or anyone who just wants recipes that are approachable. I've been doing it full time for four years. It's been something that I've, I did like for four years before that, without it really being my full time job. And it's been like a total journey.
Like, I don't think I could have predicted where the brand has gone, but it's been such a great opportunity to just share recipes without like, baggage, like all I really want is for the food to taste really good. Like that's really where I land with it.
So it's it's been a very fun process for me to sort of figure out how to deliver content where that is always the goal, given all of the rest that surrounds food.
Diana: I so appreciate that this is your niche and you're out there doing that because I absolutely want people to enjoy all their food and for it to not be a huge stressor in their lives. But then people say to me, okay, well, what should I cook? Not even in terms of like, what's healthy, like…no really, I need some ideas here.
Amy: And how, how do I pull it off?
Diana: Yeah, and I'm like, yeah, that's actually not my area...
Amy: So when I started talking about food for little kids, it was like primarily because there wasn't at that time, there was no like little kid food. There was like a lot of like food for elementary school kids. But it wasn't like toddlers couldn't chew it and it was like not really appropriate.
And so this phase when families have little kids is often when parents start cooking for the first time or when they re evaluate their relationship with the food in their house because they're seeing it through the lens of another person eating it. And so there is like, there's sort of a learning opportunity and also, there's so much pressure.
And so like I get the question a lot about, your kids are growing up, are you going to change your brand name? And I'm like, I care so much about this age group, because this is where we can sort of set the foundation for both the kids and the parents to relate to food in a way that is maybe more balanced than some previous generations.
At least that's my goal. So, I plan to stay put where I am with niche.
Diana: I love that. I love that you're going to stay true to your brand there because what I see in my work is this time when, typically a woman, becomes a parent is such a huge lifestyle shift for her. You might've in your former life been able to just come home from work and putz around the kitchen and whip up whatever, maybe you and your partner always ordered takeout.
And then bam! Such a huge lifestyle shift. That's why I call this show The Messy Intersection, it’s that you're now navigating this little one's well being along with a major shift in your own well being. And not only is there a huge draw on your resources in terms of time and energy to cook but also diet culture comes in and says you need to lose this baby weight, if you were a person who had a pregnancy.
And I'm working up a theory that one of the many reasons that family feeding is so challenging is that typically women in this period of their life, you know, there's the first like one to three years after a kid is born, they’re on this hamster wheel of trying to get food right, both in terms of raising healthy eaters but also they're on their own dieting.
And a lot of times if they're following a particular diet plan, then they're making something for themselves and something different for the kid and they don't really get into a routine of “Hey, this is what our family is all about in terms of food.” So tell me a little bit more about how you help people do that and what you believe about that.
Amy: Yeah, I think it's complicated for a lot of parents and it's confusing because just like the messaging, even when we're at the grocery store, it's like very hard to sift through it and just buy food without feeling like you need to be proving something. And I think that's the part of where this connects with kids a lot of the times is the way that we feed our kids becomes a way that we are sort of.
Not like, virtue signaling is not exactly what I mean, but it is a little bit like the brands that we buy show that we “care” a certain amount. That's sort of in quotes. So I think just that is so hard to figure out when you haven't gone through the steps to recognize diet culture yourself. So what I try to do is remind people that everybody can eat the same thing.
We can simplify what we're cooking and then just adapt it for preferences. And even if you're eating a certain way that is not the way that you would expect your child to eat, like…I'm not going to give examples. But you can, you can do that without demonizing food groups. And you can just adjust the food so that it fits you and that we can also expect that our kids are going to need to adjust food to fit them.
So I try to use a lot of language normalizing everyone having unique preferences based on their taste buds or their growth patterns or the foods that are easy for them to eat. Sort of giving the context around the stuff that makes feeding kids hard a little bit so I can help parents relax when they get to the table with a meal and the child suddenly doesn't want it.
It's like, what do you do in that situation? Or what are the steps you can do before you get to the table that can make that feel less fraught and less like a dynamic that you need to win? So that just like trying to figure out how to get the power and the control dialed like way
Diana: Yeah, for sure. And I love what you say in your introduction to the cookbook about starting with, well, what do I want to eat? Right? Talking about like what you're saying about adapting that for kids. That's actually a tactic, like one of the number one tactic that I use. I run a meal planning course where I help people plan meals, but I don't actually give them the recipes, they're not my recipes, at least.
I share recipe resources and one of them is your website and people are like, “Wow, I didn't know about this. This is perfect!” But I love, you know, in the brainstorming phase of kind of maybe getting into a good routine of meal planning and prepping. You know, asking yourself as the primary cook in the house if you are, “What do I want to eat?”
And I think part of the reason we get into trouble with this is that a lot of mothers out there don't know. Do you run into that?
Amy: Well, yeah, and also, like, if I think about when I was pregnant with my first child, I was given a list by both my care provider and the birthing class teacher that we went to of the high protein foods that I was supposed to eat every day. And I remember very clearly counting protein grams because I was like, I have to get 75.
I think that's the number and like forcing myself to like add protein powder to yogurt and like in ways that I would never normally eat. And it was like at that point I was outsourcing my nutrition in a way. And then that continues for a lot of people when they have kids because then you're looking to other people to tell you how to do this and because there is a small person their needs are so apparent and ours can be pushed to the background and it's like, just one of those things that often just falls to the wayside.
Someone asked me yesterday if I go out of my way to expose my kids to foods that I don't like and I was like, “No!” Like, well, I understand the question, but at the same time, I'm like, that is just not necessary.
Like we will all be exposed to all sorts of foods over the course of our lifetime and over the course of like a childhood because they're not going to eat every meal with us. And I'm not going to cook foods that I don't want to eat, you know? I also like get the question about like, “why don't I ever cook with whole wheat pasta?”
I don't like it!
Diana: Yeah.
Amy: Like, that's, there's literally no other answer except I don't like it, and therefore I will not cook it. But that's not something that a lot of people give themselves permission to do.
Diana: Mm hmm. But what you're really doing there is you are modeling your own satisfaction with food. And it might not be quite as overt as, “oh, they finally tried broccoli today.” But the skill that your kids are learning is that adults should enjoy their food.
Amy: Right, and that they don't have to eat something to fulfill some other goal. If they don't have to eat something that they don't like to fulfill some other goal there are lots of foods with lots of nutrients and we can get there without, like, slotting in kale if you don't like it like me.
Diana: Oh, yeah. I've heard you say that before.
Amy: Yeah.
Diana: And, you know, I think about that too. Like, that question should you go out of your way to expose your kids to foods you don't like? I do sometimes help my clients through that if the adult has such selective eating themselves that they really just want to stay in their comfort zone.
But, you know, they want to go above and beyond to help their kids, kind of. I mean, I think that there's something to that there. But like same deal, like I can't remember the last time I cooked kale. I don't even…like, if somebody else cooks it for me, it's fine, but ah, man, I can't just throw it in the microwave, so why would I make it??
Amy: Right.
Diana: And I think that that's also something that really gets lost here is, in your introduction to your book, it says that most of the recipes take 20 or 30 minutes. Something that gets lost here is the practicality of the food that you're going to ultimately feed your family because somebody could put a recipe up on the internet and say, you know, “This is a crowd pleasing, everybody loves it.”
You know, super nutritious, whatever. And if it takes an hour and a half!
Amy: Right.
Diana: It's not happening.
Amy: Nope. Nope.
Diana: So what are some other reasons that you've encountered...I feel like there's two different questions here. So why is feeding kids so hard for us and why is , like, meal planning and prepping so hard?
So start wherever you want, like, cause I really do feel like reading the introduction to your book, these are both issues that you want to address. So, you know, why, why is regularly feeding a family? So challenging.
Amy: Yeah. So there, this is like a multifaceted answer. So one of them is just, they are different people than us and they are going to like different things. And if you want to have kids who are confident, capable eaters, you want them to be able to say no in other situations. Like, we want them to be able to be at school and be like, I don't like that food.
Can I have this instead? And so when you have that at your dinner table, you have to sort of adjust your perspective of what the dynamic is going to be like. And also sort of change the approach so that the meals you're making are not quite so rigid to allow for a little bit of flexibility. And that's not to say that that's harder.
It's just a different perspective than I'm deciding what's for dinner, and this is what's on the table, and this is the only thing that's available to eat. I am a strong believer in that I'm going to make the thing, and I'm going to put the food on the table, and those are the options, but the way in which I do that involves flexibility.
So I have three kids at my table, and they don't all like the same things, and so a lot of the recipes in the book are like, multi component or are easily deconstructed or have a lot of toppings so that there are ways that you can really easily adjust the texture mix or the flavor mix or the way the food is plated without working any harder.
You're just doing it a little bit differently. So there's sort of that piece. And then I think Like, schedules are busy. I think, like, just , the logistics of it are harder than most people allow it to be. Like, we expect that we can get home at 5. 30 and, like, always have dinner on the table. Pretty soon after and there's like a lot of stuff that needs to happen in there Like you've got to have all this stuff.
You need to know where it is in your kitchen Like my oven takes forever to preheat like there there are things in there that you have to sort of factor in so I think that like our culture has maybe just like lied about like, like, I think we're just not given the, like the realistic tools to pull this off.
So when I was doing this book, so I have a lot of recipes on my website that are free. And when I was doing this book, I really wanted it to be like a cookbook. compliment to those recipes, but it's through a very particular lens. So there are no blenders. There's no food processor. There's no like electric equipment that will make you have more dishes or and there are a lot of shortcut things like.
Bags of salad mix or pre cut coleslaw mix or like things that just, or frozen vegetables or frozen potatoes, like things that allow you to skip some of the most labor intensive parts but still have the same flavor and like end result. And that wasn't something that I allowed myself to do when I had my first daughter.
It was a process of being like, No, no. Buying the jar of teriyaki sauce actually winds up being less expensive because I know we'll use it all and I won't have these like random 12 things sitting in my pantry and I can just put it on the table and it's ready to go. So
Diana: Yeah, that was actually something that came up in my meal planning course as well, is I challenged people to just go to their grocery store and like, look around and like, , you know, do they have pre marinated chicken, or is there a slow cooker starter, or like, what are the things that are easily accessible in your store that you can just add to your grocery order or whatever it is.
And I was like, go forth and find out what they are. And people came back with, but I'm having a hard time buying the sauce.
Amy: I know.
Diana: And you know, you, you mentioned that, you know, we've been lied to like, what is that? What's going on there?
Amy: I mean, I think it's like. Well, there's a lot of things like as someone who was part of media for a long time I mean, I'm still like part of media, but like I worked for other media companies like the way that we describe Recipes doesn't factor in the time. It takes you to get ready to start It doesn't factor in the time it takes you to wash the dishes and so they're like 20 minute dinner It might be 20 minutes to make the thing and then you've got 10 minutes on one side and 25 minutes on the other like So it's just it's it's hard to like Rewire your brain to sort of understand the parameters of those, that sort of language, and that language is everywhere.
I mean, I use it too. I did, I did try to be really aware of it in this book because I, like, I don't want to lie to people. And I do, and like, I really did want a lot of the recipes to be like, you literally open a bunch of stuff and like dump them in a bowl and then you use a method and it turns into like a delicious dinner, so.
Diana: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I think I have a media background as well. And, you know, a five minute teriyaki sauce with five ingredients, you know, garlic, soy sauce, whatever, you can put that on a page, right? And it's attractive. And, oh, five minute teriyaki sauce. You can't, I mean, you can put on a page, here's a bottle of teriyaki sauce, it's called an advertisement.
Right? But it doesn't, it doesn't make for good content. Right? And the good content is, look, in five minutes with just five ingredients, you can scrap the processed store bought stuff.
Amy: I was gonna say they're like the the language around homemade stuff always being better It's often similar like it's not like And the thing with like teriyaki sauce to me the two things where I get stuck I'm like I have to grate the ginger and I have to create the garlic and That means my hands are good like and then you're like if I have a kid Can I actually like get the like the mechanisms of doing those steps?
And so I think like the, the act of giving yourself permission I like to think about like how can I arrive myself at the table in a better mood to be able to sort of help everyone with whatever they might need. And some of that is just finding those ways to reduce my stress before I get there.
And like, I don't like grating garlic. And you can buy jars of, like, minced garlic at the store, you can use garlic powder, or you can buy a sauce. Like, those are ways that you can take that out of your life, and I think if you just can give yourself the permission to do that, like, if there are spots that you know you really dislike, just do it.
Like, please just do it. It's like such small things that can really have a big impact on the way that you show up to meals.
Diana: Yeah. There's a lot of parallels here with just intuitive eating in general and choosing what to eat and put into your body. If there's something you've always been told is a healthy addition to your diet, like kale or whatever, but you don't... like it,
Amy: Mm hmm.
Diana: then like, you know, the, the real trick here is giving ourselves permission to say, no, that's not for me.
at
Diana: And I will actually thrive more so by finding a way to remove that stress from my life. Then these. Supposed benefits of, doing it on a regular basis. And, you know, on the one hand, it's eating unsatisfying food if you don't like kale. And on the other hand, maybe you love the taste of freshly grated garlic.
But if you're not going to do it on a regular basis, and you're going to either arrive at the table stressed out, or just Ditch the idea of the homemade dinner you'd plan to make at all, and everybody gets either takeout or, you know whatever, like, whatever people end up feeding their families when they don't cook a meal, which always perplexes me, is that we're all eating something,
Amy: Yeah. Yeah.
Diana: And, you know, it's the whole thing, like, you know, can't pour from an empty cup, like, , But you, you deserve to not be stressed out.
Amy: Mm hmm,
Diana: And you deserve to have an enjoyable deal with your family when, and honestly, if I've, if I've opened a jarred sauce and nobody likes it, no skin off of my back,
Amy: right.
Diana: half an hour making it and nobody likes it.
Amy: a totally different thing
Diana: Definitely. And I think one thing that we're kind of touching on here is that a lot of times people hear the phrase diet culture and they go straight to dieting, being thin, and that's absolutely a huge part of it. But what I hear often is, I get it. All bodies are good bodies. You know, I, I want my kids to be in whatever body that they are.
Meant to be in, but I just don't like all those preservatives or, you know, I just don't want them eating Twinkies or whatever it is so how does that factor in like, what do you see because I know that Probably a lot of people in your audience don't know right off of the bat that you take this like intuitive eating approach So like what do you see coming from parents in terms of how they struggle with those things and the stress it might be causing
Amy: Yeah, so even if I don't say anything about sugar or artificial colors like that is where people go like I posted a recipe for strawberry yogurt which is like it's so good because it is just packed with strawberries like it is delicious and it's like I didn't say anything comparing it to, like, I talked about price, I didn't talk about nutrition at all.
Like, I just talked about how yummy it was and it was like, the comments start about sugar, grams, and like, Everyone is just programmed to be looking out for certain nutrients that we've been told are bad. And yet I think a lot of people buy a lot of the foods, and so there's just like this dance with guilt where like I know my kids want this, I'm gonna buy it, but I really don't want to be having it, so I'm gonna limit the amount that they can have, and then it's like this like awful situation of trying to control how other people are eating so I've found that For me, the only way that I can do my job, and like, handle the comments, is if I focus on how good the food tastes, and how much we enjoy eating it, and I sort of let people do what they're gonna do, and I'm kind of just modeling the way that I want other people to talk about food.
And some people may absorb it and some people may not, but I can't, for with my own like mental health, overtly take this on, on a daily basis in my recipes because it's It's too, it's like too much. So there was a point like two years ago where I was like, I can just do it. Like I can just be an example and it will be what it is.
And to be honest with you, my content has done a lot better since then.
Diana: Mm hmm.
Amy: and so I don't know if that's like a roundabout answer, but
Diana: Well, actually, what I'm hearing is that being like an intuitive eating warrior, whatever, on social media was stressing you out in the same way that mincing garlic Was.
Amy: yeah,
Diana: And you were like, no, you know what? Not for me. If somebody else enjoys that, . I mean, that is more or less what I do online.
Right. As I talk to people overtly about this. But I don't have the brain space to be developing new recipes left and right. Right. And so you're saying if I want to, you know, bring my whole self to my recipe development and bring people really yummy food here's how I'm going to go about it.
Amy: And also I do very regularly remind people that they don't have to do it the way that I did it. And if they have a problem with it, they can do something else. And I think that's like, there's freedom in knowing that, that not everyone is gonna agree and it doesn't really matter. Like some people will and some people won't.
It's fine if we decide to do it this way and I think that that is also maybe helpful for people to hear too,
Diana: yeah, although it sounds like there's an expectation put on you as a recipe developer in the public eye of you won't be using jarred sauce or you won't be using artificial color and they expect that of you.
Amy: Yes, that is, it's like the sprinkles that I use. You know, like, people will like yell at me about using the sprinkles, and I'm like, well guys, they are plant based. So it's like, like, they are, like I, like I have this collection of sprinkles that are beautiful, and they happen to be made with plants. And it's like, But like, those are just the ones I have.
When I make a cake for one of my kids for their birthdays, I use regular food coloring because it's the brightest. And I, you know, like, there are choices that I make about like, sometimes I show goldfish, even though I know I'm gonna be yelled at. So it's it's like, I have to sort of keep in mind my own bandwidth for other people's baggage but also be realistic with the foods that we keep in our
Diana: Yeah, and I think that that's, even if you're not saying, look guys, goldfish are fine to eat, if it's just like, a panorama shot of your kitchen or something, and one kid's eating goldfish, that is actually sort of neutralizing the fact that it is alright to serve your kid goldfish, if you want to, if your kid likes it, just by even seeing it.
On a video on the internet, right? Because for everyone who's like, Oh my god, I can't believe you give your kid goldfish. Somebody else is like, Alright, I didn't think you'd give your kid goldfish. It's alright.
Amy: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like, I do often, I talk a lot about like, sometimes we buy granola bars at the store and sometimes we make them at home. Like, I think normalizing. The fact that you can do both, that it doesn't have to be a hierarchy all the time. You can do what works best with your food budget and your time and like the thing you want to eat that week.
Like it's, it's not like you always have to do it the same way. So I think that that is something that is important
Diana: Yeah, I actually, I like that strategy a lot. I call it leveling up. So like, if you want to like, get your meal planning into a good place, and you know your family likes meatballs, if we, it's like, it's like New Year's resolutions, right? Like if you're like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm in there with the raw meat, and I'm gonna be cooking meatballs from scratch.
And then you do that one time and you're like, wow, that was
Amy: there's a pain.
Diana: If we can use more of an on ramp strategy of, okay, my family likes meatballs. I'm trying to order less takeout. I'm going to buy the store brand meatballs and that goes well. And, you know, then maybe in a month or two months.
You'd be like, you know what, I'm going to try this meatball recipe. And when you have time, like maybe in the winter, if your kids don't have like sports games on the weekends and stuff, you're like, okay, I can make a big batch of these. And then in the summer you're like, well, we still want to eat meatballs, but you know what I'm not doing?
Amy: Right.
Diana: kind of just up and down with it. Yeah.
Amy: in the, in the cookbook, I actually did it that way. So there's like a meatball soup recipe and the, in the ingredient list, it's frozen meatballs. And then there's a sub recipe for homemade meatballs. And I on purpose Did it in that order because I want people to know that they can use the store bought one and same with like fish sticks.
And I think there's like a chicken tender. So like the the one from the store is always the one in the ingredients and then there is a homemade option but I did not want I like both didn't want the ingredient list to have like 25 things and I also really wanted to Just be like it's okay. Like you can buy the chicken at the
Diana: And, and especially, you know, with the, the meatball soup recipe or something, if you want to just give it a whirl and see if anybody likes
Amy: it out.
Diana: you don't want to have broken your back making homemade meatballs, and it turns out nobody likes it in the first place, where it's like, you know, oh, I, you know, at least it only took 20 minutes,
Amy: Yeah, yep
Diana: You touched on this a little bit earlier with your three kids having different preferences, but I would love to know specifically how the division of responsibility works in your home, because you also mentioned using a lot of flexibility, but you're not going to make separate meals. So to some people, like it's hard to reconcile hmm.
Amy: Yeah So we have much more flexibility with breakfast and lunch the meals happen in the kitchen They happen at a set time And then, like, my oldest is 11, so she gets herself breakfast and I know the things that she usually wants. And so we have them on hand and she does what she does which is wonderful.
And then the other two usually need more help, but like almost always they choose what they're having for breakfast during the week. Sometimes on the weekends we'll make pancakes or something, but like they pretty much decide. Because I tried for a long time to have a breakfast menu and I was the one who didn't want the food.
I was like, I never want this stuff. I don't want, like, I don't want oatmeal twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. Like, it was, I couldn't do it for myself. So we do that and then lunch is kind of the same. They look at the school menu and decide if they want it during the school year and then if not, we pack their lunch and they decide.
So, but again, it's like within boundaries and it's with the food that They know that we have their options. And then dinner so we basically have, like, our staple dinners. So like every Tuesday it's something with beans, like Mexican because my girl's kind of obsessed with black beans. And then we have pasta a lot.
We do like hot dogs and burgers. We have a lot of like chicken nuggets, these are salads, and I decide what to make. Trying to include their favorites in the mix because my littlest one Doesn't always like the same foods as the girls So I try to make sure like over the week that they all see some of their favorites and then on the table There's almost always a fruit.
I can probably say there's always a fruit there's always some sort of fruit and then sometimes there's like cheese sticks or crackers or Another thing if I'm not sure that the main dinner is gonna fly
Diana: Mm hmm.
Amy: Like if I make a stir fry It'll be like the stir fry with veggies, a separate thing of rice, chopped peanuts, and like melon.
So among those foods, everyone can choose what it is that they want, and there's, like I know that one of them will have rice and peanuts for dinner, and that's fine. Like, it's, so I don't particularly care what they choose but I know them well enough to be able to include options. At each meal. And so things like last night we had meatballs that I made and pasta and cauliflower, but they're all in separate bowls, so like it's easy to mix and match what you want from that.
And I serve everything out of the pots that I cook them in, so I'm not
Diana: Mm hmm.
Amy: having extra plates or anything. So that's, that's kind of it. So I think like giving freedom at those other meals. helps when they see a dinner that they don't love because they sort of know that like built into their schedule, they've got these other outlets for,
Diana: hmm. Yeah, I also like what you said about knowing your individual kids well enough. You know, if you're making something that you're like so and so's. Very unlikely to choose this, let me put some cheese sticks on the table, or whatever it is. And I think what that gets at is through diet culture, parents are taught to know what their kids are supposed to like.
And we then go and ignore our kids individuality.
Amy: Yeah. I don't go into meals trying to convince anyone of anything because I'm like, that's way too hard. Like there are things that we do with food that allow a little bit of that interaction. That's not at the dinner table Like my kids are around like I cook all the time for work.
And so my kids are often around so like someone might help wash something or someone might help chop something or Like my son doesn't like broccoli except if it's roasted frozen broccoli or the air fryer and we eat it off of the thing that it's cooked in and we feed it to each other. Like this is a very specific thing.
He will only eat it in this context because we did it one time. I don't even remember why. But I do not try to get him to eat broccoli other ways because I figure he'll get there, like he likes it this one way and he's. For like it doesn't matter This is like a cute thing that we do now and I just I don't have like an agenda of like checking off Foods that they need to
Diana: Mm hmm.
Amy: I want them to have enough food and I want them to eat a variety of
Diana: Mm hmm.
Amy: the course of like the day or the week and like beyond that I'm sort of like like, you know sometimes we'll have things and sometimes we'll run out and so it's all sort of like A work in progress, but but yeah, like the dinner thing.
I just there's no backup meal There's no like getting up and getting other food. It is like whatever's on the table is the thing
Diana: Okay. Because backup meal is a concept that I've heard you and Virginia talk about either online or, yeah.
Amy: it when I had less children So, because she and I just went back over this and because she was doing it and it was making her meals very chaotic and so we talked through and I was like, Oh yeah, I don't do that anymore. Because I was like, if one kid gets up to get a backup meal, which is like usually like a predetermined planar option that they can get themselves that in my house will snowball, and then everyone is going to want something else and I'm like, I cannot.
So,
Diana: yeah. So I actually in my meal planning course, I talked about this backup meal concept because Virginia has a newsletter piece about it, and I do think that it just goes back to knowing your kids, right? Like if one kid might need that to feel safe, and another kid is not going to take an interest in it, or is only going to opt for the backup meal, if they truly don't want the food themselves, then great.
But I do think, like, for as much as you know, I have critiques of the Division of Responsibility, but I do ultimately always come back to it of, like, you know, no, as the parent, you get to make decisions, like, for the just logical flow of your household, right? So, I only have two kids, and I know for sure if one of them got up to go get a backup meal.
It would be over and so you know, what I do instead is kind of what we were just talking about is that I know my kids well enough to put enough things on the table that the backup meal is Probably not necessary. And then also, I mean, I think a lot of parents get really paranoid if their kid chooses to eat nothing at dinner when we forget that that actually is intuitive eating most of the time.
Of, I'm not hungry, why would I eat? Which is like a skill that most adults wish that they had, right?
Amy: Right. Or there's like this fear that they'll always wake up in the night hungry or I mean, I have gone through phases with two out of my three children where like, for like a year they didn't eat dinner. And it's like, they're fine. Like, it's like the, you know, if they're, if they're growing and gaining weight and meeting milestones, like, recognizing that they have that ability.
To be like, nope, not right now, is like a truly remarkable thing to witness, is what I love. And one other thing I wanted to say about dinner is, another thing I have learned is that the foods that you put on the table do not have to go together
Diana: Mm hmm.
Amy: So sometimes, like, I don't remember what the main thing was.
There was a meal I made recently where I was like, I don't know about this. I really wanted it and, like, I was not sure that the two kids, two of my kids would like it. So I put hummus and pita on the table. It was not remotely related to, like, Mediterranean food. But that made sure that they had food to eat.
Diana: Yeah, and I love options like that that aren't even like if you were to make mac and cheese You got to make mac and cheese, right? But hummus and pita you are pulling those out of their respective locations and putting them on the table and that's you know, that's the kind of You know if we're sitting down and a kid says Well, can we have strawberries with this?
well That's something that I can pull out of the fridge and literally put on the table if they say I wanted a hot dog Nope, that's something that I have to make and, and I, I still get the authority to say, well, strawberries are for tomorrow's breakfast. So, you know, we're not having them right now, but I think that that's um, something that gets lost with people who really do want to raise intuitive eaters is that they want to help their kids embrace their food preferences.
And then we kind of get into this pendulum swings to the other direction of. Any time my kid expresses a food preference, I have to accommodate it. And that is another way to run yourself dry as a parent of, you know not sitting down to your own meal because you're busy getting this other thing or, like I was saying, you are allowed to make decisions to keep your household Running reasonably calm and logically so just because a kid says I want to go to the park doesn't mean we're going to the park the second just because a kid says and I want mac and cheese doesn't mean we have to make mac and cheese the second and a lot of times I run into the trap of well, if my husband said he wasn't into what I made, you know, and he wanted something else, then like, who am I to tell who I, I think that your partner should probably, like, put on a good face, but, but, you know, we don't tell adults that they have limited options for food necessarily, right, but we also don't tell adults when to go to bed, and we don't tell them that now is not the time to go to the park or you should share the toy with your sister or whatever it is.
So I think that where a lot of this gets tricky for parents is in separating out these are the things that are parenting that I'm supposed to do and then these are the things that are going to help my kid develop a healthy relationship with food. What, what do you run into in terms of
Amy: And also just like, these are the things that are going to maintain my own
Diana: Yeah,
Amy: And, and it doesn't, I think there is a lot of like it, the options are not, you tell the kids what to eat for everything, or it's a total free for all. Like, there's a whole lot in the middle where you can put boundaries on things and still allow the kids flexibility in there.
So I think that's just, like, you have to try it to some extent and sort of see, see what works for your family. I mean, I do often think about. I would be the worst if someone fed me every day. Like, I, I can't even, like, I can barely feed myself foods that I want. Like, it's really, like, it's, I just, so I have a lot of empathy for kids who are in this position of, like, they didn't ask for any
Diana: Right.
Amy: of this.
But they also have to learn, like, how to be part of a system.
Diana: Mm hmm.
Amy: Because they're gonna need those skills when they go to school, or they're gonna need those skills when they eat dinner at a friend's house. so I think that there are ways to sort of accomplish that, and also like, allow some freedom when you can.
Diana: Yeah. But that definitely is sort of where the tricky part lies, so you talked about you know, your kids getting enough food and more or less eating a variety of food are the most important things to you, like, as a dietician, That is what I do with my clients. But talk to me about variety.
Like, within this system, I think, from a sort of kiddie diet culture perspective, there's the well, you've gotta be exposing them to a hundred foods or, you know, whatever it is. within system of recognizing your own preferences, your own bandwidth for cooking how can we incorporate variety?
And I think the second half of the question is what do we need to cut ourselves some slack on?
Amy: So I think most people have variety over the course of a week without trying.
Diana: Mm
Amy: Like most people, when you go to the grocery store, you buy a couple different kinds of vegetables, you buy a variety of fruit, and then at some point during the week, you eat those, and you run out, and you eat something else.
And like, that's all I sort of do.
Diana: hmm. Mm hmm.
Amy: We will buy, like, a bunch of fruit, they will eat all of their favorites, and then we'll deal with the rest. Like, I don't go out of my way to incorporate variety because I just feel like it can get so hard. So I honestly just try to buy, like, a mix of foods that are, like, good prices and look fresh and that we'll eat over the course of the week.
, even if that means, like, I almost always buy like the same five vegetables because I know that at other points, like they go to my mom's house or they, you know, they go to camp, like there are other foods that they're going to encounter. Even like reading about them or watching a cooking show or watching my Instagram feed like there are other ways to Accomplish teaching kids what a range of foods are without it needing to be like on their plate every single night So we have like we eat like mostly the same foods And then it's sort of surrounded with, like, other foods that we naturally encounter.
This is, like, a hundred percent not something that I stress about personally. I just, like, have no... And especially if I think about, like, how I eat. When I have complete control over what I'm feeding myself. I will go through phases where I'll eat like a lot of turkey sandwiches for lunch and then I will want nothing to do with the turkey sandwich and I will want like Greek salad or today I had a piece of zucchini bread like I think allowing those little phases without assuming that it's like ruining anyone's eating can be very freeing.
It's the same with like kids and snacks. If you let your child go through their phase of their love for a specific thing. Okay, not always, but a lot of the time, they will hit a point when they want something else. And if you just let it happen, they will, like, cycle through all sorts of foods without it being, like, a giant problem for you to solve.
Just as it is with adults and how they eat. So I think there's just, like, this fear that we need to be, it's the control aspect of
Diana: And there's, there's two benefits there in the framework of adult intuitive eating. That's the concept of habituation of when something is not on a pedestal, when the fruit snacks or whatever are not like, no, only one pack a week or whatever. then you, you naturally, they lose their allure.
Like, you know, you can have them or not, but it's not like the most coveted thing in the world. But also I think that parents consume this narrative that we might cause picky eating by accommodating that and completely ignores that if A parent is handing their kid fruit snacks, goldfish, Uncrustables, whatever that might be all the bandwidth they actually have at that
Amy: And also, it might be for a particular period of time. Like, , I think the black and white thinking on this is like, if you feed your toddler these foods, or if your baby doesn't get 100 foods before they're one, it's gonna cause this. Like, that's just, that's not the way that most people experience food.
And I think that there's like this thing about quote unquote picky eating where when we feel so strongly that our kids should not be eating certain foods. We're making it worse, , it is the same with like, if you want your kid to wear the green socks, they're not going to want to wear the green socks.
And it's like, you have to sort of be able to see where the, the power dynamics are coming into this. Like if you ever feel like you're like giving your kid a sales pitch to eat a certain food, like I just want to talk about something else. Like, I just feel like it's gonna not work out the way that we want.
Diana: Yeah, and well, what's interesting about that is there's a lot of research on how fostering autonomy in all areas of a kid's life and not letting them choose, you know, to cross the street without looking or, you know, to go to the park whenever they feel like it, but fostering appropriate levels of autonomy for a child is going to help that child thrive more so than, you know, my house, my rules.
You know, clean plate club, that kind of thing. And, and it's true for adults too, right? Like, nobody wants to be told what to do. Or, you know, how many people their, their mom always wanted them to, I don't know, go to medical school or whatever, and like, they just put their foot down that they didn't want to do it, but then they're like, oh, like, But then they never even got to explore if they wanted to do that thing, right?
And I think kids with I don't want to say compromised autonomy, but like, you know, there are areas where kids don't have you know, full decisions over what is going to happen in their day and things like that. And food is an area where they can channel that expression. And it just gets really tricky when diet culture comes in and the parent is like, you're going to be on health.
I mean, You know, that's every parent's, like, greatest fear is, like, they're not facilitating their kids overall health. Very sticky, very sticky stuff. So in the time we have left, I'd love to hear just a little bit more about the book itself, your favorite recipes, what readers can expect to find in there, you know, like, why does this book need to be on all of our bookshelves?
Amy: So the book really is meant to be like the place you turn when you need to make a quick dinner and you don't want a lot of work. And I sort of, like, don't want you to have to go down the rabbit hole of the internet. Like, you can just know that, like, these fit that criteria, you can start here. As with all of my recipes, there are variations to make recipes with meat, without meat, there are, like, dairy free options.
I did try to make them as flexible as possible, and for the majority of the time that I was developing the recipes, I lived in a really small town. So I was shopping at very normal grocery stores. This is not a reci like, this is not a cookbook where you need to be special ordering anything or shopping anywhere fancy.
And, , there is a photo with every recipe that was something that I fought so hard for, like you'd be amazed at how hard it was to like insist on that happening because I wanted people to be able to see what it looked like and also have the opportunity for kids to look through it and pick out what they wanted to eat.
Like my seven year old just recently went through it and was like, I want this and not this and this and I was like, it's funny that she doesn't remember that I like cooked all of these
Diana: Yeah.
Amy: in our house. Like multiple times. There are tips that surround each section, so there's like tips about meal planning, there's tips about what to do with leftovers, what to do if you make a meal that your kids don't like, so like all of that context that we've been talking about is addressed in there and I hope people read it,
I think the statistics on like the number of people who read the introduction to cookbooks is quite low, but I do hope that people read it because it does give the, like, the way that I think about food. I talk about portion sizes in there as being... Not a way for me to tell you how much to eat, it is a way to gauge whether or not that the recipe will be enough food for your family.
Which is like a practical thing that I sort of want people to understand when they're looking at that. So so yeah, so it's all dinner recipes. There are a handful of favorites from my website that are sort of tweaked a little bit. And then there's a lot of really new recipes because I wanted it to be worth people
Diana: Yeah, of course. Yeah. And I really do think that it is worth people paying for. I read the introduction right before we logged on, and the feeling that I was having I've never actually done this. on the internet. But you know, when you have on Instagram or TikTok, like a side by side it's like a remix and it's like expert weighs in.
And then the expert, the reason I've never done it is the expert is really just, you can't see
Amy: Sitting there. Yeah.
Diana: yup. That's the thing. Yeah. That's the thing. And, but I was having that feeling as I was reading your introduction of, yup, that's, that's how meal planning can actually work and support your family and, and not feel like a huge stress or burden.
Yup. Yup. So I, I hope that people will read your introduction because you definitely nailed it I really think that we can take the the specific framework of intuitive eating, which is what works for you and your body and your lifestyle. And we can zoom that out to, it's never going to work if you're trying to follow so and so's paleo recipe website, or always cooking with low sugar, all of those are those external criteria about.
Food or outsourcing your nutrition, as you said earlier that we're just really on a hamster wheel trying to chase all that stuff. And if we can say, what works for my family, what works for my lifestyle? Do I have the time and the interest in making a from scratch teriyaki sauce or, or like like I always make from scratch pesto because one of my kids is allergic to nuts.
Right. And our, my whole family loves pesto. Do I want to make from scratch pesto? But I want to see my kids having that satisfaction, right? And so that is something that I will dedicate time to. And then teriyaki sauce, heck no, like that's coming from a store, right? And so I think what you really outline in the intro and throughout the book is how can we make this work for your family?
And I imagine, I mean, don't let me put words in your mouth, but if you've got a hundred recipes in here and if like five or ten work for people,
Amy: Yeah, totally. It's like...
Diana: And 90 are terrible for them, awesome!
Amy: Yeah, it's like when you, when you write a cookbook or you put a recipe out into the world, my, my expectation is never that this is gonna fit everyone's needs, like, this will appeal to some people. And I'm really happy that it appeals to some people. But just the same as, like, even if I opened up that book right now, I wouldn't want everything in there.
Like, I would be like, oh, this looks really good, like, there's a You did ask me for my favorites, which I didn't give you. So there's a recipe that's like. I forget what it's called. It's like cheesy broccoli toast. So I discovered that if I call something an appetizer, even if I'm serving it with dinner, my kids are like all over it.
So it's like toasted ciabatta bread or baguette or like Italian bread with cooked broccoli, a little bit of lemon zest and melted cheese. And it is so, it's delicious. We like have it for dinner with like soup or something. So that is a favorite. And
oh, so the sloppy Joe. Sandwich pockets are my favorite. So it's like, loose meat sandwiches are a mess. So I figured out this way that you can like, stuff it into a roll to make like a self contained thing that doesn't fall apart. And it's better for adults too,
Diana: Okay, I will check that out because we, we are a big sloppy joe family and usually my kids eat the bread and then with a spoon eat the filling. Yeah.
Amy: Oh my gosh, you have to look at it. Cause it's, yeah, cause my son loves sloppy joe, sloppy joe meat. And so he talks about how he has it at school and they just have the bread on the side. And I was like, you need the pocket part.
Diana: smart, smart. And I like, you know, that's not something that someone before they had kids would probably have ever thought about, right? I worked with a family who they saw me like I put on my Instagram that I was having tacos and they were like, I miss tacos and they just stopped serving tacos because their child could not.
Like, functionally eat a taco, and I was like, no, no, no, like, you, you can still have tacos, like
Amy: saw someone recently fold a burrito and put a chip clip on the bottom of it for their kid. And I was like, well, that's one way to do it. Like,
Diana: yeah, yeah, I like it, whatever works for you, yeah, and these are, these are the little things that you're going to figure out as you go along with feeding your family that, like, you need to, like, remember to put the chip clips on the table or whatever it
Amy: Right. Right.
Diana: is, and I, I, I also recommend that people not go down the rabbit hole of the internet when they're looking for basic recipes to feed their family because one, you're going to get the whole story about how they grew up on a farm and their grandmother and all that but also you don't know if you're going to get to the bottom of the recipe and it's going to say, about using, you know, some kind of oil instead of butter because butter is so, or whatever, right?
You don't need that coming into your world. So I do think it's worth investing in a handful of meal planning resources to just be like, here are the things. There is little to no diet culture in these things because we
Amy: know what to expect. Yeah.
Diana: And yeah, you don't have to you know, jump through all the ads and pop ups and, and diet talk to get there.
And I just, I really do think that you've done an excellent job. Creating that kind of resource in the book, and I don't know exactly how much it costs off the top of my head, but like this is the kind of thing where if you're looking for your dinner to not be as insane as it is, and I know it's insane because everybody listening to these people are my clients and honestly I mean, the reason I even created a meal planning course was people were not having too much trouble getting past the good food, bad food stuff.
It would be that they are past it, and they're like, yeah, but, but, but planning dinner is still hard, right? Especially. in wanting to accommodate the various preferences of people in your family. And, you know, the the, the buildable meals or, you know, like sort of buffet style, everybody do their own topping meals are really a great strategy for, for this phase in people's lives.
But once you do like tacos like we need
Amy: Where, where
Diana: need more recipes. So that's what your book has. And I really appreciate it. Well, Amy, this has been really awesome. I'm so excited for this resource to be available to the world and congratulations on getting it out there.
Amy: you. Thank
Diana: All right. Take care.
Links and other goodies:
Diana’s Capsule Menu Planning course launches Sept. 21st! (register by Sept. 20th)
Get Amy’s cookbook: Yummy Toddler Food Dinnertime SOS
Join the Raising Anti-Diet Kids Facebook Group.
Learn more about Diana’s coaching services: Tiny Seed Family Nutrition.
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