How To Dad has got it right

Listen, if you haven’t yet watched How to Dad‘s YouTube Channel, you are missing deadpan humor, adorable kids, and surprisingly helpful parenting tips. Checking it out is worth a few minutes of your time – most of his videos are less than 5 minutes long and they always make my day. But today, I’m going to talk as a dietitian about what I like in this video. ↓

Watch this first 🙂

This video illustrates so many true things about teaching kids to eat vegetables – intentionally or unintentionally I’m not sure – but let’s break it down. How to Dad is trying to convince his toddler to eat a plate of broccoli and carrots with varying amounts of success.

She starts out by biting a carrot, and then putting it back on the plate without eating any

This is normal and good and it is how kids explore new foods. Any exposure to new foods is a step in the right direction. Licking, biting, touching, or even just smelling a new (or less liked) food gives a child more experience with a food and means they are becoming more interested or less scared of it. Even if they spit it out, it’s still progress. (And teaching them to politely spit out food can take some of the pressure out of trying new foods)

When the vegetables are covered with cheese or ketchup, she just eats the cheese and ketchup

There’s nothing wrong with using other preferred foods to make vegetables more palatable, but know it won’t always work. Kids will eat what they want. Same goes for hiding veggies – it might work, but kids are also pretty smart and might just see right through it.

“Pounding the table” doesn’t work

In this video it results in oh my goodness tiny adorable table pounding! But in real life, ordering or forcing kids to eat vegetables is more likely to result in a power struggle than learning to eat vegetables. They might eat them, but they’re more likely to view it as a chore than to learn to enjoy eating them, and who likes chores?

They play with their food

This has varying degrees of success – in fact most of the play doesn’t result in eating any vegetables, not until the end of the video. However, it does have the advantage of increasing exposure to and familiarity with the food (see point 1)

She eats the broccoli after watching her dad eat it

This is HUGE. Kids learn by watching and imitating you. If they never see you eating vegetables, they’re much less likely to want to eat them. On the other hand, if they see you regularly eating vegetables along with all other foods like it’s no big deal, they’re likely to grow up learning that vegetables are just something you eat, like hamburgers or toast.

She is having fun

Obviously these two have a positive relationship. Even when the dad is “pounding the table” she thinks its a fun game. And every interaction, even the ones that don’t result in eating vegetables, is happy. Obviously it’s unrealistic to expect you to have 100% happy moments with your kids (especially with a toddler), but making mealtimes an overall positive environment by having positive conversations, promoting good table etiquette, not creating power struggles, etc. can make a big difference in promoting an overall healthy relationship with food, not to mention trying new foods.

She eats the most vegetables when How to Dad isn’t even paying attention to her

The food is there in front of her, but there’s no pressure on her, and no one’s trying to get her to do anything.

There are a lot of attempts and not a lot of actually eating vegetables

Studies show kids may need to be exposed to a food up to 20 times before they even try it, not to mention liking it or eating it regularly. Being exposed to a food can eating it, but it can also include playing with the food, helping prepare the food, and smelling it, touching it or licking it (see the first point). It may seem like kids will never eat new foods, but don’t give up! If they never see it or interact with it, they will surely never learn to eat it!

I know it can be hard and frustrating, but you can do it! They can do it! You’re just helping them practice the skill of eating new foods, which like any skill, takes practice!

In summary, what should you learn from this?

Keep serving the vegetables, keep eating the vegetables (and let your kids see you doing it), don’t make it a big deal, be prepared that it might take a long time, and know that that’s ok.

Note this also applies to any other food that you want your kids to learn to eat, just substitute “fish”, “beans” or “croissants” for vegetables in the article above 🙂

If you’re looking for more information and encouragement on this topic, I also recommend checking out feedinglittles.com or following @feedinglittles . Great accurate information (they are a dietitian and occupational feeding therapist team), practical tips, and overall great positive attitude!

Want to read even more? Here are more resources:

https://www.eatright.org/food/nutrition/eating-as-a-family/end-mealtime-battles

https://www.eatright.org/food/nutrition/eating-as-a-family/keep-kids-out-of-the-clean-plate-club

https://www.eatright.org/health/pregnancy/breast-feeding/introducing-new-flavors-to-babies

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666317308784

https://www.romper.com/p/how-many-times-does-a-child-have-to-try-a-food-before-they-like-it-more-than-you-think-17999317

https://www.healthyfamiliesbc.ca/home/articles/preventing-picky-eating-toddlers

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17635306

https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/how-to-feed/childhood-feeding-problems/

When Meal Planning Tips Are More Overwhelming Than Helpful

Finding and choosing recipes, constructing meals out of ingredients we have, grocery shopping – these are all valuable skills. But they are skills that take time and effort to learn!

"Meal Planning Tips"
Before buying, see what food you have at home.
Practice "first in, first out" rule to eat oldest food before newer items.
Create menus around foods you have on hand.
Choose recipes for the week that incorporate overlapping ingredients.
This is a post from @eatright_pro on Instagram. Embedding the post directly didn’t work, so this is my solution.

It can be overwhelming to suddenly find yourself cooking at home 5x more than you’re used to, or meal planning because you can’t grocery shop as often as you normally do. (Especially if you are dealing with an extra stressful environment, which so many of us are right now). So if the tips above seem like just ONE MORE THING to think about, it’s ok. You just do your best and it’s the best you can do.

I started Nutrition for Real Humans to make healthy eating less overwhelming. My goal here is to make things like meal planning, and using the tips above, easier and more accessible. I hope the resources you find on my blog, resources page, and my Pinterest help provide some inspiration or helpful advice.

One super useful resource is Yummly, a recipe search engine, where you can look up recipes by the ingredient you want to use. They even have a new meal planner that will generate a shopping list from the recipes you’ve chosen!

Also, I’m super excited about this

I will soon have meal plans available for instant download!

They will include:
  • delicious and nutritious recipes
  • a complete shopping list
  • easy to follow directions, including
  • step-by-step directions for prepping ingredients all at once to make each day’s meal time super easy
  • friendly and positive nutrition notes

Look for them early next week! Sign up for my email list or follow me on social media if you want to know as soon as they are available!

(Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page for email signup and my social media)

I can also work with you personally to create a meal plan just for you with the things you already have at home – or with the things you usually have in your pantry – or a flexible meal plan that has a little give so it will still work if you can’t find a specific ingredient. Click here to schedule with me for a free, no-obligation consult.

Take care!

Tuna Tomato Pasta: The Pantry Friendliest Recipe I Know

Tuna tomato pasta – simple and flavorful. Basically a meal in a dish although I usually try and add a side vegetable.

So I am writing this post because I wanted to link to this recipe but realized I have been making it so long (and have changed it so much) that I no longer know where I learned the original recipe. It is one of my brainless crowdpleasers and an easy and affordable way to eat more fish (for those healthy omega-3 fatty acids).

This is probably the meal I am most likely to be able to make from what is in my pantry. I realize not everyone has the same pantry, but the instructions are pretty flexible so you can adapt the ingredients to what you might have available.

Here’s what you need:
  • 1/2 an onion (or like 1 small onion, usually my grocery store has giant onions)
  • Garlic, a few cloves (or you could use 1 tsp garlic powder or granulated garlic)
  • 15-oz can tomatoes/tomato sauce or 1 small can tomato paste + enough water to make it about 15-oz/2 cups
  • 1-2 cans tuna (you can probably also use canned chicken or canned beans/lentils)
  • 1/2-1 lb pasta (I like to use whole wheat, but use what you have – gluten-free, lentil pasta, or rice pasta should work just as well)
  • Oil of some kind – I used olive
  • Spices (I like dried basil primarily for this, but last time I threw in some thyme and rosemary as well and it was good. You can also use an Italian seasoning)
  • Salt
In this picture, there are the ingredients I use: olive oil, canned tomatoes, salt, onion, garlic, tuna, whole wheat pasta, and a container of dried basil

You will also need a cutting board and a knife to chop your onions, a small pot/pan to make the sauce in, and a pot to boil your pasta. And a stove.

Here’s how to make it:
  1. Cut up your onion – smaller is better, but don’t stress too much about it.
  2. Put a few tablespoons of oil in a pot over medium-high heat and once that is warm, add your onions and a little bit of salt (like 1/2 teaspoon) and let them cook while you…
  3. Mince up a few cloves of garlic, or if you are using minced garlic or garlic powder, skip to the next step.
  4. Once the onions are soft and translucent, add the garlic and cook for just 30 seconds-1 minute (garlic burns fast).
  5. Add your spices. I like to use a lot of dried basil, but you can use Italian seasoning, rosemary, thyme, oregano, or a combination.
  6. Dump in your canned tomatoes or tomato sauce or the tomato paste that you have mixed with water.
  7. Stir this so it’s combined, then turn up the heat to bring to a simmer (so it is very slowly bubbling). Then cover it with a lid and turn it to low.
  8. While this is simmering, cook your pasta according to the directions on the box – I find this takes 15-20 minutes counting the time for the water to boil which is a good amount of time for the sauce to simmer.
  9. Once your pasta is cooked and drained, drain the tuna as well and flake it into the sauce and stir until it’s combined, then combine the sauce with the pasta

This is even pretty good leftover and doesn’t even smell too fishy when you warm it up. It’s also good with Parmesan on top.

This is what the pasta looks like

As you can see the amounts are flexible – if you like a saucier pasta, use less pasta or more tomatoes. If you want a higher protein/lower carb ratio, use less pasta and more tuna. If you used canned tomatoes and don’t like chunks, mash the sauce or use an immersion blender or food processor (in small batches please) to blend it before you combine with the pasta and tuna.

This batch was made with ~1/2 lb of pasta, 2 cans of tuna, and 1 can of tomatoes, just give you an idea of what those ratios look like.

Below is the recipe card I dug out of the box – in case you want to just have a picture of the recipe 🙂

Happy eating 🙂