Speaker 1Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the night. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash acast. That's growtherapy.com slash acast. Growtherapy.com slash acast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
Speaker 2Hello and welcome to the How Not To. How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This is episode nine, and today I get to share the podcast microphone with Lucinda Miller, the best-selling author of two family cookbooks and an incredible naturopath. Lucinda joined me for a conversation about the link between children's emotional well-being and nutrition. There is mounting evidence of the link between good, gut health, and mental health and well-being. Lucinda explains how this link works in practice without blasting us with science. And then she gives us some super practical ways as parents we can encourage our children to eat more of the good stuff. Whether you are a parent, grandparent, auntie, uncle, nanny, or anyone else interested in improving children's well-being one snack or meal at a time, this podcast episode is for you. If you would like Lucinda's free resources, then hop over to drmaryhand.com forward slash library, pop in your email address and get instant access, not only to Lucinda's resources, but all the free resources across all my podcast episodes. As ever, if you enjoy this episode, I'd love it if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time, welcome. The incredible Lucinda Miller. Hello and welcome. I am so excited because I am joined today by the most amazing Lucinda Miller, naturopath and also author of two phenomenal cookbooks of which I can say that I own, The Good Stuff and more recently, I Can't. Can't believe it's baby foods. Lucinda, welcome. So lovely to have you here.
Speaker 3Oh, Mohan, it's so wonderful to see you too. I can't believe it was all those years ago when we did those workshops in Salisbury together.
Speaker 2I know it's been such, I mean, Lucinda and I have sort of known each other. We did some workshops together. I'm thinking it must have been probably 13 years ago, 14.
Speaker 3Something like that a very long time ago. That's when we were both kind of emerging out of having young children. And sort of trying to sort of carve out our sort of careers going forward, I guess.
Speaker 2Yeah, definitely. And here you are, an author, two phenomenal books of which I, you know, the number of food that we've made, the number of recipes that we followed have been phenomenal. We've got some household favourites, thanks to you. And actually, I will say my eldest is at university and there's a couple of recipes that he's taken with him that he makes quite regularly. Oh, that's sweet. My eldest. Took his copy to Exeter as well. Just wonderful. It's wonderful. Well, we, I mean, we could talk about so many things, so many things. And obviously, I'm hoping that Lucinda is going to come back and talk again. But today, I think we've decided we really want to focus on a really around this idea about this anxiety. And obviously, as you know, I work with families where there's anxiety and I tend to work with them from that sort of thinking. And so I'm going to talk about that. And I'm going to talk about that.
Speaker 3I've just, you know, literally all these doctors are coming to see me with my team, with their kids who are experiencing anxiety, OCD, etc. And yeah, it's just been great. So, yeah. And I just, you know, so much of it goes back to the raw basics of what we feed our kids.
Speaker 2And it's such an important thing. And in fact, you know, you've touched on a couple of things around this idea about sort of what we might deem as more traditional medicine. And Lucinda, maybe you can explain this to everybody, but am I right in thinking that the head of psychiatry at Cambridge has in recent years written a book that's looked specifically at the relationship between inflammation? So there's a real shift to what we might have typically thought was a very medical way of viewing mental health and anxiety and all of these things to being able to truly understand the connection and how integrated all these various aspects are. Within our bodies as well as our mind.
Speaker 3Absolutely. So traditionally, we've had psychiatrists and medical doctors and they've been divided into. And so it's almost like there's a Berlin Wall between the brain and the body and that you have brain doctors and you have body doctors and that's it. And Professor Edward Bourmore, who wrote The Inflamed Mind, who's the head of psychiatry at Cambridge, was basically bringing together a lot of research that's been found. All the way around the world, not just at Cambridge, but obviously quite a lot of what they found in their research to show that actually there is an immune system in your brain, which is affected by the immune system in the body and that there's this gut brain link. And so there's something called your vagus nerve, which is a massively long nerve, which connects your brain and your gut. And basically, it's like a superhighway sending signals up and down all the time. And 90% of those signals go from your belly to your brain and only 10% from your brain to your tummy. So if you think about it, what's going on in the tummy is more important than what's going on in the brain. And those signals, they're sending things like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, all these important things that make you happy, chilled, sleep well, self-esteem, learning, memory. All these things are made by the gut microbes in your gut. And as I said then. Sent up to the brain to actually sort of sit there and to be processed as such. So, yes, his book, as I said, is called The Inflamed Mind. And the reason that he talks about that is because he made a link between people who had chronic inflammation. So his sort of case studies he talks about are mainly people with rheumatoid arthritis or severe pain. And how he was saying, well, most doctors would say, well, you would be a bit depressed if you had chronic pain. Because it hurts a lot and you might need a stick or you might need a wheelchair. You know, that's, you know, your life is more limited. So, of course, you're going to be depressed. But actually what the research has found is that those cytokines, those inflammatory activity in the body that affects the joints, etc., can also affect the brain at the same time. So someone that's inflamed in the body can also be inflamed in the mind. And therefore, there's a very high level of people with. Chronic pain or chronic inflammation, which I'll go on a bit more about that are also depressed, anxious, etc. And it's not just because of their diagnosis. It's because of actually that inflammation is affecting their whole body. Now, we can all say, well, yeah, those are adults. You know, they're older. Aren't a lot of us going to get creaky and old and a bit sort of depressed and whatever when we're older, maybe. But we're talking about the young here. We're talking about little kids. You know, we're talking. We're talking about, you know, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 year olds, 14 year olds. And this chronic inflammation is now leading to almost all our modern day diseases. So that can be obesity. It can be type two diabetes. It can be type one diabetes. It can be, you know, all these mental health problems. And so actually what it is, is chronic inflammation can go many ways. It's not just the mental health, but it can set a child up for poor health, either physically or mentally. So it's all both going forward. And obviously there's lots of interactions between them all. So, you know, if you've got a child that's potentially overweight, maybe heading towards that blood sugar imbalance and potentially type two diabetes later on down the line, often they have poor self-esteem and that doesn't help their mental health. So this it's all, you know, a chicken and egg thing you've got to sort of, you know, so anyway, so I was looking at sort of, yes, what have I done in our clinic? What do we see in our clinic? What do we see with all our kids with mental health issues? Do we do we see these inflammatory symptoms? Signs we know specifically that, you know, from infections that they can cause a big inflammation. We've all heard about these inflammatory cytokine storms from COVID over the last year. So we know that infections can do this, too. So so maybe a child who's had continuous ear infections or continuous tonsillitis or gastric issues can again potentially become more inflamed than a child who doesn't get those. So it's all about basically trying to modulate. That inflammation. And so, yes, as I said, you know, the things that you amazingly do to help with dealing with stress and trauma and, you know, all of that is amazing, but there's a lot more you can do. And the more that you do, the more sort of add ons you do, the more likely that child is going to be in charge of their inflammation and there's less likely for it to cause issues slightly later on. And I mean, I know that in your work you're seeing younger and younger. Kids with these anxiety issues, etc. And we are, too. I reckon, you know, sometimes people say, well, actually, my baby's always been socially anxious, you know, right from the start. You know, they found it really difficult to be in crowds, really difficult to be in anywhere loud or busy. But others, they say, well, they were fine when they were little. It's got worse. And that's often when the inflammation is building up. So what we do is we always go back to right at the beginning of their life, really. And that's actually even before they're born. This is during. This is during pregnancy and say to the parents, did anything different happen in your pregnancy compared with the other pregnancies? You know, was there a trauma? Was there an infection? You know, were you super stressed? Were you sick for nine months so you couldn't feed yourself properly? You know, did you need to go on antibiotics at the birth? Was there a C-section versus a vaginal birth, which, again, can disrupt the microbiome? So we're looking at all these things and saying, because actually they can say, my child was really sensitive from the start. They say, really? And they start to say, well, actually, they were really quite calm and wonderful for three or four weeks. And then we both had this infection. I got my status. I needed antibiotics, et cetera. And then they started becoming a little bit more, you know, fractious. And then I noticed they needed to be hugged more and then they became more needing me more. So actually, sometimes it's, you know, you can actually find a moment and others would say, well, actually, they were all over the place in my tummy when I was pregnant. And of course, they're always going to be kids like that, but we're always looking for when there was a change. So the microbiome is super, super important. The gut, as I said, and this is what we discovered with my eldest and how important it was to get that right. So inside our guts, we have billions and billions of bacteria and they can be good guys and bad guys. And you generally want a load of good guys and those can control the bad guys. So we've all got salmonella. We've all got E. coli. We've all got these bad guys in our guts, but there's so little because we've got so many good guys that it keeps well controlled. And the thing. Things that feed those good guys are healthy food. So we're looking at fruits and vegetables, pulses, nuts, seeds, olive oil, cocoa, brightly coloured foods, basically good quality, simple ingredients. But the things that can disrupt it, obviously, you know, big infection, horrid, nasty. But one of the reasons we get a nasty infection is because there aren't enough good guys. So also you've got the fermented foods, so yogurts and keffirs and miso and apple cider vinegar and things like that, which are more child friendly than I think than the. Sauerkrauts and kimchis, which are a bit slightly more grown up, more slightly more grown up kids, but those are really good at feeding the gut. And if they have been on antibiotics, then I always encourage probiotics just to rebalance, because if you can catch up quickly, there's less likely to be disruption later down the line. So these are really important for all these gut bugs play a role and there are multiple roles, but some of them have some really individual, clever roles, which I just want to share. With your listeners, so basically these these gut microbes, they help you to digest some of them actually make vitamins. So even if the diet isn't brilliant, sometimes if you get the right some of the right foods in, they can actually manufacture and make some of the nutrients that may be missing in the foods. So those are really important and they help to modulate this inflammation. So they actually calm the whole system down. It helps to make your immune system. So there's immune cells all the way along your gut lining. Which is extraordinary. So again, if your immune system is low, it may be the gut bugs that need feeding the good guys. But there's just one bacteria I just want to talk about because it's so important and it just I think it's so linked with anxiety that I just want to share this with you. And it's what it's a bug that a lot of people have heard about. It's called lactobacillus. Lactobacillus is in yoghurt, it's in kefir, it's in most probiotics. So if anyone's ever considered taking a probiotic or has, they're most likely. likely to have taken lactobacillus at some point. And interestingly, is not in a baby's gut when they're born particularly but it grows over the first year so it develops and it comes in through breast milk some formulas now have some lactobacillus or some prebiotics to feed the lactobacillus in there but that needs to build over the first year but if a baby has been put on antibiotics one two three well how many times then that's going to knock it back each time and now if they're dairy free then they may not be getting any of those lactobacillus strains at all so you've got a dairy free kid who's been put on antibiotics less likely to grow that lactobacillus now obviously you can grow the lactobacillus in a dairy free way that you know you can get coconut keffirs and coconut yogurts and as I said fruits and vegetables and things like that so a really supercharged diet can really help too but that lactobacillus is so important because it makes something called GABA and GABA is our neurotransmitter it's our brain hormone it's our neurotransmitter it's our brain hormone it's our neurotransmitter it's our brain hormone that keeps us really cool calm and relaxed it's our inner yogi so if you've done a little yoga class or a meditation class and you feel really calm afterwards that is your body having made lots of GABA now there's GABA in chamomile tea there's gamma GABA in green tea now again when you have a cup of tea or a cup of herbal tea you feel really calm it's because your body's just had a whole shot of lovely GABA to keep you calm now a lactobacillus makes that so if you haven't got any in your tummy and when we do stool tests in our clinic I've got a big team and we do we run stool tests all the time on these kids we find the one microbe that is usually missing is this lactobacillus and these are the kids that are anxious they've got tics they're OCD they're very heightened they can't come they can't self-regulate because the other role for lactobacillus is to make something called acetylcholine which is another really important neurotransmitter brain hormone and that is really important for learning it's really important for memory but it's also really important for emotional regulation and self-regulation so it's all about someone who is able to basically sit at a desk and wait to be able to ask their question or you know without butting in so the often the kids that interrupt that they can't they get themselves into pickles they can't control their behavior they can't control their behavior they become is that that emotional outbursts there's just no sort of inner sort of people say oh gosh they should be more resilient they should be able to control themselves better but actually if they haven't got any lactobacillus they're not making acetylcholine that's a big problem but the other as I said important things are learning a memory and the big thing that acetylcholine does is to make working memory and the key underlying issue for those that have dyslexia dyspraxia AIDS and other mental health issues is to make working memory which are all very anxiety provoking kind of underlying learning difficulties is that all of those have a poor working memory and it's it's almost like their body their brain jumps ahead far too quickly so that's why they're unable to hold in their brains their spellings their maths sums or whatever it might be but also their emotions you know everything's they kind of can't really regulate themselves so this is where this lactobacillus is super important and the kids that are typically as I said I've mentioned this before but that typically don't grow enough lactobacillus and I'm not saying this is the only kids they tend to be the dairy free kids who've had lots of ears nose and throat issues and lots of antibiotics when they're little and for some we know then they become quite fussy with their food so they're less likely to have the fruit and veg more beige food mum and mum doesn't really know about probiotics so those haven't particularly gone in or maybe for not long enough and they just have never sort of grown and stuck and so then yes you can build these neurotransmitters through other things as I said the chamomile tea the oats the yogurts the these things can but it's much harder and the acetyl choline through eggs peanut butter sunflower seeds but lots of kids are allergic to eggs these days how many parents give their kids lots of sunflower seeds peanut butter has become quite popular which is great but you know I mean there are kind of lots of kids with nut allergies so you can see and you can't have them at school so there are lots of reasons why kids aren't necessarily eating these foods that much and anyway so that's the sort of whole gut brain thing and why it's so important Mary Han
Speaker 2oh my god I had no idea Lucinda when you were saying that we can actually that the lactobacillus can actually create up you know create these vitamins and help us in terms of that Zen that's just phenomenal I had not I mean I was aware about gabber and a lot of these things but I hadn't I hadn't quite appreciated the connection that's just phenomenal and in lots of ways surely that that should as parents that should make us feel quite empowered because we can actively make a difference to the lives of our children who may already be struggling either they've got anxiety or they've got dyslexia or ADD but it also means that we can potentially be putting things in place for those who are listening who've got children at preschool or at nursery or still very young that we can really put some mechanisms in place to try and avoid the inflammation occurring in the first
Speaker 3place absolutely so basically that's what my books are really about it's all about trying to find yummy healthy recipes that are filled with all these things already so the parents don't have to kind of go look at these long lists of food going how the heck do I get it into my child you know there are waffles there are pancakes there are smoothies etc that all have the therapy's
Speaker 1biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic break through it shows up in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that text you say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life that's what growing feels like and that's exactly what grow therapy is here for grow is therapy that works covered by insurance sessions average twenty one dollars with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan there are no subscriptions no long term commitments you just pay per session grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the u.s. offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days not the national forty eight day average see if you could pay as little as zero dollars for therapy in seconds at grow therapy dot com slash a cast that's grow therapy dot com slash a cast grow therapy dot com slash a cast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan at harmony bank we
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Speaker 3fruits and veg and yogurts and eggs and sunflower seeds all packed in there already so that people you know you can literally just pick up a cookbook and make it you make it supper breakfast snack whatever because unfortunately our supermarket food is not necessarily full of these things and partly because of allergens partly because you know they've got to have long shelf life it's really really hard to make cheap nutritious food that has a long shelf life and tastes nice all at the same time so what happens is the supermarkets take the easy line which is to make the food have a long shelf life and tastes nice but they're less concerned about the nutrients so basically what happens is with most food that we buy in the supermarkets now they've not been made by chefs they've been made by biochemists as I said to give that ultimate taste and that ultimate shelf life now that sounds quite harsh but there was a program on just a few weeks ago so Chris Van Tilken they one of the doctors the twin doctors he did a documentary and he ate only convenience food for a month and his mental health his physical health his weight gain everything just disintegrated in a month he was in bits by the end of the month and the trouble is these were foods that we would typically buy in the supermarket cereal bread margarine you know it wasn't necessarily just yes there were a few ready meals and McDonald's chucked in but it was also just the standard food that we buy in the supermarkets now and basically it's called ultra processed food and the difference between processed food and ultra processed food is is quite quite different in that so we all know about fresh ingredients you buy carrots apples rice you know those are key foods they haven't really been processed well the rice has been probably if it's white rice you know it's been stripped down so it's white rather than brown but generally it's only been minimally processed you've then got the hams the bacons the butters the cheeses things like that that have again been minimally processed yes we don't necessarily want too many nitrates etc but you know butter has been processed to some degree because it's taken the cream and it's turned it into butter so that's minimally processed. And that's all okay. That's all healthy. And the great thing about this message, by the way, is you don't have to feel guilty ever again about salt, sugar, fat, anything. If you just stick to these principles, it really is great. And then you've got these ultra-processed foods. And these are the foods that, as I said, have been made by biochemists rather than chefs that we buy in the supermarkets. And it's when you look at the label and, you know, I don't know, it's a sticky ribs or something. Now, sticky ribs, if you made it at home, you would probably have some pork ribs, some soy sauce, some sugar, I don't know, some garlic and some spices or something. And that would probably make your sticky rib sauce. If you go onto the sticky ribs in most supermarkets now, you'll see 24 ingredients. And those could be literally words you've never heard of. You think, I wouldn't be able to go and buy a pot of fatty diglycerides of ethanol or carrageenan or calcium propionate or whatever these words are, you know, or modified starch. I can't go and buy pots of those. So basically, if you look on the label and they've got lots and lots of words that you don't recognise as food, then that is ultra-processed. And those are the things that cause the inflammation, which then lead to this, you know, the mental health issues and the physical health issues. So everything that Professor Bulmore was talking about in his book is basically, the core to this is if you take away as much ultra-processed food as possible so that, you know, you leave it for the occasional packet of crisps on a Saturday night or whatever, great, no problem. We can have, bodies can cope with about 20% ultra-processed foods. The trouble is some people's shopping trolleys are now 80% ultra-processed. So there's a couple of bananas chucked in, you know, in a week, you know, maybe some milk, but that's, you know, the rest is cereals, bread, biscuits. Crisps, ready meals, vegan milks, you know, whatever it might be, you know, vegan burgers. I'm not anti-vegan, it's just more they tend to be the most ultra-processed, like ultra-processed, you know, vegan cheese, for instance, super ultra-processed. And these foods are very pro-inflammatory and they're not very nutritious. So again, if you get, say, a vegan cheese, there's one or two brands that have any calcium in it whatsoever. The rest are literally just coconut oil and a few modified starches. So they taste, and look ish like cheese, but they don't have the same nutrients. But people don't realize that. They just go, oh, I've got a vegan pizza. Whereas actually, if, I mean, some people can't, you know, some people have chosen to be vegan, that's no problem. I'm totally cool. We work with lots of vegans, or they are dairy-free and they can't. But I just say that cheese is like, you know, that little bit that you might just have once or twice a week just to make it taste cheesy, rather than to rely on that as part of your nutrition. If you see what I mean. So anyway, so going back is basically what you want to do with the diet is you want to go as fresh ingredients and minimally processed as possible and as very little ultra-processed food. And as I said, up to 80% of people are, you know, people's trolleys are about, you know, ultra-processed foods. However, even the normal standard trolley, you know, whether it's, you go around Tesco, Waitrose, Lidl, it doesn't matter. It will be 40 to 50%. So we've all gone super convenient. We don't even realize it. You know, people say, oh, well, you know, we cook everything from scratch. I say, what do you have for breakfast? And they go, toast with jam and margarine with some apple juice. And I go, well, you know what, you know, that what's in the bread, margarine's been processed, but you can have sourdough with real butter and, you know, really nice natural jam. It'd be absolutely fine. So, you know, it would be, and there was a study done in America, not on kids sadly yet, but it's been done on adults where they had a group of people who lived in for a month and one group had, they had exactly the same food, but one was ultra-processed and one was basically homemade, cooked from scratch. So the same protein, fat, carb profile and all of that. And those who ate the ultra-processed put on the weight and they had the mental health issues by the end of the month, whereas those that just had the homemade fresh food were absolutely the same as they had been right from the start, which I think is fascinating. So it's, it's all about, it's not, as I said, it's not the fats, it's not the carbs, it's not the sugar. And again, these researchers were saying, they said, we get so thrilled when we get to someone's house and we see a bag of sugar on their counter. Okay. That means that they're cooking from scratch, you know, and everyone's been berating all these things and people get confused and they go, oh, well, I better cook from scratch. And they go, oh, well, I better cook from scratch. I better have this low-fat yogurt with no sugar. And of course, then you see the ingredient list and it's super ultra-processed and very inflammatory. Whereas actually, if they got Greek yogurt and added some lovely honey and some berries, it would have been absolutely delicious. They would have been satiated. They wouldn't, they wouldn't want to be looking out for more food later on down the line and their brains would be happier and less inflamed. So yeah. So I'm basically, if anyone says, what do you, you know, what do you, what do you say? Cut from here, you'll be absolutely fine and never feel guilty about eating just whatever, you know, really good quality food.
Speaker 2No. Oh my goodness me. That is so, and it just blows those myths, doesn't it? That says we shouldn't have butter or this high, you know, this fat, we shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't be having whole milk. We shouldn't be having things that are, that have the sort of the full sugar. And as you say, the low, the low fat alternatives have so much in there. Lucinda, I want to ask you something very specifically, because I suspect that there are, I'm listening. You've got younger children who feel okay, great. I've got a level of control in terms of what my child puts into their body and I can be adaptive and, and sort of try various different things. What would you say to the, to those that have potentially got teens or those who have, for whatever reasons, got themselves into a bit of a rut where their children are diving for sweets, chocolates, high sugar, typically sort of, you know, what you might describe as sort of, sort of the beige foods, but whether they're, those are our teens who are just, you know, seem to have this unbelievable yearning for this sugar or just younger children who have got themselves into a bit of a habit. How do we begin to make that shift? So if we know that we need to help them make that shift, how do we start?
Speaker 3Okay. So yes, I've got three teens. So I so totally get this and they all do go through a phase where, you know, those ultra processed foods are just everything they want because in those, one of the reasons, why the ultra processed foods are not good for the brain is because the processing gives them, makes it very glutamate rich, which is the opposite of GABA. So it makes the brain very excited and buzzy and they love that sort of high, but that can make them very anxious too. So the glutamate can make them anxious and buzzy and excited as the GABA's cooling. And of course, teens love that kind of hit. So this is where they sort of, it's almost like they love that idea. It's, it's the beginning of, I'm not saying it's the beginning of addiction, it's for all everyone, but you know, it's that sort of feeling that it makes the brain feel a bit better temporarily, but too excited can then make them anxious. So that's why I'm so into the GABA and the cool and the calm. And so what I try and do is I say, well, basically at the weekends and in the school holidays, when you've got more time, make breakfast quite a thing, you know, and it could be a brunch if they get up late, especially teenagers who don't like getting out of bed too early in the morning is to say, okay, we're going to do pancakes. We're going to make waffles. We're going to do lots of scrambled egg. You know, we're going to actually make a bit of a meal out of this, the things they really like. So they, you know, and do it all home, cook from scratch and then get them to join in. And so for instance, in the holidays, I don't buy sweet snacks generally, but my kids will always have ingredients. And so they've started to cook because of course they want those things. So I know that, you know, they've got flour, they've got butter, they've got eggs, they've got cocoa powder, whatever it might be. And so they're going to make a bit of a meal out of this. And they can make things at home. So that's another thing to encourage them to make their own snacks because they rather enjoy it. You know, Bake Off and MasterChef and everything is really popular with that age group. So they rather enjoy being in the kitchen. So it's encouraging that and not saying, ooh, naughty cake or naughty biscuit, just saying, great, you're cooking, you know, because they've gotten bold. And the other thing is that we've always done this is to, we've always had like a big salad in the middle of the table. So even when the kids were quite small, we tried to eat together as much as possible. And that's something which my new book, I Can't Believe It, Baby Food is all about is like eating as a family, even when the baby's small, because I just think then they, they see what the adults are doing. And even if they're not ready to try that salad or whatever, that's fine, but it's there and they just see it as their norm. And they see that everyone's plates have lots of color on them. So they see the broccoli, the carrots, the, you know, it's a colorful plate. It becomes their normal. And then, so what we found was basically the kids would then pick something out of the bowl, you know, and they'd sort of choose bits of the, you know, the salad that they wanted, and it could just be the cucumber. But remember, it might have a bit of dressing on it. So that gave it a slightly different taste to plain cucumber. And by mistake, they might pick up a pea and that might go, you know, and so it was a slow thing. And, and, and as I said, eating with the kids when they're younger, I always wanted to do something a you know, we couldn't just have chef's pie every night. So I'd probably, um, either supercharge the separate pie with lentils whatever just make it a little different or I do a lentil salad on the side which I thought well that that can be my lunch tomorrow you know once they're when they're at school I've got something to eat so it was almost like I wanted to I tried to cook once a day for all eventualities so there was always something for me the next day if the kids didn't eat it but they did brilliant you know and it was my way of experimenting I'm the pain in the neck mum who's always experimenting with their kids in terms of food because I just think well I'm doing my recipes that I put out in my newsletter each week and for my books and actually it's been a great adventure you know and it's been fun and seeing what works and what doesn't work and what they like and there are some things you would have thought they'd absolutely adore and then what I try and do is with you know with the bolognese you know you know they like bolognese is trying to get as many veg in as possible and and chili you know you can get grated sweet potato and red peppers and you know or courgette all sorts of things in those and they really hide in that sort of tomato beefy stuff so they're veggie you know again you get more veggies in with and beans and getting that fiber in and then I'm also I grate you know I mean courgettes into brownies and carrots into waffles and beetroot into waffles you know all these sorts of things and making hummus with different veggies so it's all about basically just you have to think a little bit but not too much as in as long as you've got good ingredients in the fridge you can pretty much make anything from the book you know I love that and then and they're all great inspirations I mean I think any of these lovely chefs that cook you know whether it's Jamie Oliver or Joe Wicks all these people that are cooking all their food's good so that's great too to know you know you don't have to think you have to go to a specialist this it's all about cooking from scratch and breakfast again once you've got breakfast nailed at the weekends then you can think oh well you know they actually rather like that porridge or they rather like because I do things like chocolate porridge you know which or raspberry and cashew porridge rather than straight porridge so it's all about making things really tasty and different or a nice granola or whatever so that then they might be more enthusiastic about having it during the week before school and then I think the key one the really sort of cracking one to get right is the after-school snack because actually that is when a child is most hungry you don't you know they might have rushed breakfast because I know they couldn't find their shoe or they hadn't finished their homework or whatever yep totally get that break time might be a biscuit which isn't particularly nutritious it's quite ultra-prosely got lunch where I know the lunchbox got tipped over or some water got into it and made the sandwich soggy or you know it was something they didn't like so they didn't eat or you know you know you can just you can tell a story but then they come out at 3 3 15 just on their knees starving and of course they're going to eat the oreos or the crisps because they're easy so you know even if you just take a banana or a sandwich that's okay you know they'll they will eat anything you give them at that point so it's a really good time to get in new things if you're just like a little bit sure whether they're going to eat it or not because I just eat it blindsided so yeah so that's and teens you know it's just sort of being gentle on them really because if they have eaten beige food all their lives you're not going to get them eating a green sandwich salad or a you know spinach risotto on day one but you know you do get there in the end um and again it's finding things that they like and then saying well you know so over lockdown um my kids cooked once a week each and we had wagamamas we had kfc but because you know those are the sort of things you know they they love but we made them at home and they just got so much pleasure out of making them and you know they're able to go onto the website to find out what the ingredients were or whatever and they did it and it was great you know so actually you can make these things at home and just make them a little bit healthier and less processed
Speaker 2I love that Lucinda and what comes across and hopefully all of you who are listening can see this is Lucinda's not being militant about any of this she's recognising that these are challenges and things that our children want but it's about recognising what small steps can we take and starting I love this idea of starting at the weekend so you take that pressure away of the school day and you begin at a time that you're most relaxed and making I guess making food and eating and the preparation of food something that's fun and engaging and something that the whole family gets involved in rather than it being one person that's sort of squirreled away in the kitchen creating things that then get produced and your children either like or don't
Speaker 3like it so it's also really fantastic to have the children in the kitchen with you even when you're cooking sometimes you know it can be a bit overwhelming especially if you've got a small space but if you've got a big enough space for them to be doing their homework whilst you're cooking that's great because actually they benefit from the cooking smells because that actually helps to educate their taste buds and sense of smell too so they'll be more open to eating a broader range of foods just by sitting with you getting those cooking smells but it also kickstarts those gastric juices which are so important to make them hungry because I guess the key is and no one could get this right I've got as I said three kids who love to snack but if you can get more food in at meal times then they're less likely to snack in between meals and it's the snacks that tend to be more ultra processed than any other food so that's basically all you know that's why I try and make sure that each meal we sit down together we eat really really well you know so we have a proper meal it's quite French style you know what I mean as in we know we actually sit down and eat well three times a day and that means that yes of course there's the occasional snack but it's not that ridiculous grazing all day thing now some kids haven't aren't used to that that's not their norm it's not part of the where the family works we're all very busy people you know sometimes it's just not possible to do it so formally and I think we've been lucky because you know the last year the luck has been that we've all been at home you know we've all been together so it's been easier to do than when you're in that crazy time when everyone's going off to work in school and whatever so I know it's you know you can't do it every single day but yeah I just think that whole sort of educating kids to feel full enough rather than that half full or that their tummies full but their brains not full and that's the other thing I'm really into is nourishing brains just as much as the as the tummy because so often those cravings come because the they haven't actually eaten the right proportions of food so I'm always very keen on what a plate looks like and so often again kids are really drawn to carbs aren't they super drawn to pasta rice you know bread chips and so very often their plate is almost all carb and the number of kids that come to see us in the clinic and they have pasta with butter or pasta with cheese there's not even sauce because they don't like sauce you know or plain pasta maybe a tiny bit of olive oil but that's it so basically you know they're not getting the protein or the fat and of course it's the protein and the fat which are the most nutrient dense that will feed the brain so they're the ones that contain the choline for the memory and the learning and you know those are the things that contain the b12 and the iron that are so important for oxygenating and providing energy and neurological support so yeah that you know this is where you know I know it's hard and my blogs are there to help my books are there to help as many people as possible navigate this when they are having a roadblock and they go my kid will only eat pasta what can I do and I said well okay so we can get different types of pasta there are now pastas that are a little bit more protein dense what else do they like okay well actually if if they were left to their own devices in the supermarket they probably would buy a biscuit they might buy a you know a waffle or whatever so let's make waffles let's make biscuits and get some I say eggs or you know nuts or sunflower seeds or chickpea flour or whatever in there so at least when they are eating they're getting that you know that combination of fat carbohydrate and protein together which the brain needs to function and reduce anxiety overall oh Lucinda
Speaker 2you have been phenomenal incredible so much information so much really good sound advice that every one of us as parents can begin to start implementing now so thank you so much and I'm sure we'll have Lucinda back but what we will have is if you go to the show notes so drmaryhand.com forward slash library we will share all of the links to Lucinda's both her cookbooks and also to her website and her incredible shop we didn't even get to talk about her shop where you can buy so many different various products not only from supplements to food to day-to-day things really yummy yummy yummy things so thank you so much Lucinda for being here and hopefully we'll speak again soon oh it's been absolutely
Speaker 3lovely Mohan and I hope to meet up with you soon
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