Kids Cook Real Food Blog

If we believe food is medicine, we have to stop waiting for a diagnosis before we do something about it! On today’s edition of The Healthy Parenting Connector, I’ll share a bit of what I challenged a few hundred natural health practitioners to do in their practices two weeks ago from a big stage — the best news is that YOU can implement the same strategies (even better) in your own home starting this very afternoon. WHY do we teach kids to cook now before they’re sick? 1. Prevention using diet (and the confidence that builds) 2. Getting the whole family healthier (strong connections extra bonus) 3. Inspiring and laying the foundation for healthy eating as adults (and how creativity [Read more...]

What motivates kids to get in the kitchen? Wanting something good to eat and realizing they can make it themselves!! My daughter cuts up all sorts of lovely fruit (melons, apples, peaches) because SHE wants to eat them, and the whole family benefits. She also decided she wanted to make something fun and chose homemade vanilla pudding from my Smart Sweets eBook and learned to make it herself! Get Your Kids in the Kitchen with a Free Lesson One of the other benefits we find when kids know how to cook is an opportunity for service. Because we rarely make food just for one person to eat, there’s a built in generosity in cooking, and it’s important to me and [Read more...]

Did you know that the way your child eats can affect their speech and vice versa? Melanie Potock is a Speech-Language Pathologist who became a pediatric feeding expert through her experience as a mom of a former picky eater. She uses her SLP expertise to help parents introduce new foods to kids, form healthy eating habits, and really lay the foundation for a lifetime of good nutrition. I’m honored to host her here today in the Healthy Parenting Connector! Here’s what you’ll learn (and more): Why Melanie didn’t agree with the advice her pediatrician gave her about her “picky eater” and strategies she used to successfully infuse joy into the process. The mistake many parents make by skipping 2 of [Read more...]

What are your feet doing RIGHT NOW? Are you standing on them? If not…stand up and watch this! I learned so much from Juliet Starrett, founder of one of first 50 CrossFit gyms in America who got passionate about kids’ mobility when she saw a HUGE problem at her daughter’s field day. She launched StandUpKids.org, a nonprofit dedicated to funding standing desks for schoolchildren, and she’s nearing 100,000 kids standing up all day! Think that sounds crazy? Some parents in those schools do too, but you gotta hear why teachers <3 <3 <3 it and parents all come around eventually. Juliet taught me how to use my standing desk much better than I was already, and we even talked food [Read more...]

It seems like there’s always a new health and wellness craze around every corner, and recently we’re hearing a lot about the value of meditation. Athletes are doing it, pro speakers swear by it, actors and actresses can’t believe everyone isn’t doing it yet. But is it too good to be true? Or worse, is it woo woo??? Turns out brain research demonstrates a ton of benefits to meditation, so I asked my fellow stress mastery educator, Lisa Dorval, a therapist and trained Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Instructor, to join us today to sort it all out. We talk briefly about the importance of mindfulness and meditation for children, why meditation ISN’T woo woo and CAN be part of a [Read more...]

My family eats Caesar dressing at an alarming rate, both on salads and as a dip for raw veggies, but most commercial Caesar is made with soybean oil, highly inflammatory and NO good for us! Today I teach my 10-year-old daughter how to make homemade Caesar dressing since it’s a little bit tricky of a process and I need help keeping up with the family demand. You can learn along with her but be warned – I do a lot of “cheat” measuring! 🙂 Get the written recipe below! Homemade Caesar Dressing Video Timestamps 0:44: Caesar dressing is a little bit trickier than Italian or ranch dressing. Today I’m going to show you and Leah how to make it! 1:07: [Read more...]

This week’s Healthy Parenting Connector will be my thoughts on the challenges of raising an adult in today’s world… If you didn’t see last week’s interview with author Julie Lythcott-Haims, you are missing out! She’s amazing and had a lot of good things to say as well as some scary predictions about young adults raised by helicopter parents. But our culture isn’t making it easy… 3 reasons it’s challenging to raise an adult: 1. The judgment of others (comparisonitis) 2. When a child’s decision affects the whole family (when do we let them fail vs be fair to the whole?) 3. It’s always faster and easier to do it ourselves! (Most common reason I hear from parents that it’s hard [Read more...]

Does it sound great to have your grown-up child back in your house so that you can do their laundry, cook meals for them, and pay their bills…because they don’t know how to be an adult? I didn’t think so. We’re in this parenting game to do the best we can by our kids, and although we all want to raise healthy kids, sometimes the culture drags us into comparisonitis and we forget that part of “healthy” is “independent.” We think it means “successful.” I’m thrilled to introduce you to Julie Lythcott-Haims, lawyer turned Stanford dean turned writer, to knock some sense into all of us for a spell. 😉 She’s the author of How to Raise an Adult, a [Read more...]

Did you know 50% of girls dislike their bodies as they enter high school — and some of those habits start as newborns?!? Family nutrition expert and mom Maryann Jacobsen and I sat down to dig DEEP into how we talk about food with our kids, and why simply “not talking badly about our weight” is superficial advice destined to fail. From womb to college, this information will help you take positive steps in your parenting journey (and stress a little less at each stage). A quick overview of what you’ll learn: Why not knowing how to eat cookies developed an awful relationship with food for Maryann – and the magical moment that turned that around for her. (She knows [Read more...]

My husband is back with us again today for Father’s Day week… Let’s talk about the role of fathers in kids’ healthy lifestyles and what you should do if you just hate cucumbers! We chat about: Whether there are still foods he doesn’t like and what he does about that. How he can see our kids mimicking us as the examples in the household. Encouragement and advice to those of you who don’t feel like your spouse is on board with your healthy lifestyle goals, and to those of you who want to get on board. No time to watch the whole video? Here are the notes! Healthy Dads Video Time Stamps 0:34: My husband was on a few months [Read more...]