Kid-Friendly Meals on a Budget | Nutritional Education | Stilly Valley Health Connections

Good morning everybody. My name is Christina Wigrin and I am here with Stilly Valley Health Connections. Thank you for joining us this morning for our budget-friendly webinar on kid-friendly meals. For everyone who is joining us live today, please note that this class is set up in a Zoom webinar format. This means that all of our participants are muted and your videos are turned off so that we can record this presentation. If you would like to leave any questions or comments, we encourage you to do so by using the chat or the Q&A box, both which are located at the bottom of your screens. Now I will pass it over to Kelsey Baker with Sound Dietitians who is presenting on today's topic. Thank you Kelsey for joining us and I hope that you all learn a lot from this class. Thank you Christina and thank you everybody for joining today. Today's budget-friendly topic, as Christina said, is kid-friendly meals on a budget. So this goes out to all our participants who are dealing with the struggles of feeding children, especially during summertime. It can be a little bit trickier without them being in school and having at least lunch provided for them. So hopefully you can walk away today with some ideas of how to stretch the dollar a little bit more this summer and also maybe diversify your child's intake. We'll begin. So what we'll cover today, well our goal is to leave with practical tools to feed your family well without spending more or fighting over dinner, which I know is a big ask and maybe a big goal and it's definitely going to take a lot of practice and patience, but hopefully some tips will help you along the way. We will cover some themes that we've talked about in all of our previous budget series classes of how to plan and shop smart. We'll just kind of do some summary and reminding, especially if there's anybody new joining today or watching this. And from there we'll look at specific recipes for kids that are kid-friendly and how to make a recipe for everybody so you're only having to cook one meal. And then we're going to look into some research of how to help kids expand their intake and how much they're eating. I like to say selective eaters. When our kids hear us say picky they kind of will accept that title and maybe just run with it and continue to be picky. So I really try to be careful of how I'm talking about it in front of children. And then we're just going to put everything together at the end and along the way we'll have a few poll questions just to see how people are engaging with the material that we're learning today and if there's anything that I can answer along the way. So please feel free to use the chat window. So why this topic matters right now? There's kind of two realities for every family that we're juggling. We're trying to lower the grocery bill because it's just groceries are insanely expensive and we know that the with research that if families who plan meals and cook more from home instead of kind of waiting till the last minute to put something together they can cut their spending by 20 to 30 percent which is an average roughly average $1,600 a year of savings and this is per the USDA and the estimates that they come up with right and like within the last couple years. And what also we know is that kids can be very selective especially in the windows of about two years to four years and it's really important to just keep exposing them to foods because it will take it can take up to 20 times before they want to try a new food and it works for them they like it or they're willing to eat it. And this is very very developmentally normal and we'll go into more detail later in the presentation but these are kind of the two big reasons why this topic is important and why we're talking about it today. So what is your biggest mealtime challenge right now in your household? This is where people can participate in the chat. Is A, not enough time to cook. B, the grocery costs. C, but just picky selective eaters in the house trying to figure out what to make them. Or D, this is probably my recipe burnout just trying to figure out something new to put on the table that they're willing to eat that they haven't seen before. C, so picky eaters yep okay that's so great Karen thank you for sharing we will definitely go over some tips and it's going to take a lot of time to hopefully get over that hump but there there are I do have some ideas and some personal experience with picky eating. But yeah like I said mine is probably recipe burnout and then maybe even not enough time but that's probably just because I haven't been planning so like some of the information today will be a good reminder for myself as well. Okay so we will move on. So let's talk about planning and shopping smart and just some budget-friendly grocery habits that can help you save money on a week-to-week basis. So as that first slide said we know you can save up to sixteen hundred dollars on average a year if we put some time aside to plan and to think about what we're going to roughly make for the week even if it's just dinners that we're doing. So what that looks like is a little bit different for everybody. You could use an app, you could get a like a paper calendar something like this and write it write it out. You could have your grocery list divided into categories of like making sure you have vegetables, fruit, whole grains, dairy, protein up foods. Assuming your family can eat dairy if they can't that's totally okay we can get those nutrients in other in the other food groups but if we're buying foods from each of those food groups then we know we can put a balanced meal together that has all of the components that we're looking for and then we can learn different ways within those categories to make those more budget-friendly. Keeping a list going like is there stuff that you know that you use on a weekly basis so just always having that on your list and always making sure that is something you shop for and if there's a sale on something and it's within your budget to buy a little bit extra just to stock like the pantry or the freezer with then that then that's a good idea too. But on the flip side just because something's on sale that doesn't mean we want to buy it unless it's something you know your family goes through a lot because that's where those flyers and those ads when we go get into the store can become a little tricky because they they're there with big displays on purpose to try to get you to buy it even if it's not something you would normally eat so just being careful of that sticking to your list. Review the weekly flyers and coupons and see if you can plan your meals around what you know is going to be on sale that week this is especially important for if your family eats animal products because those tend to be the expensive part on our grocery list so if beef is on sale or a certain kind of chicken that you like maybe planning some meals to have more of that protein that week knowing that it's available or and or if you have room in like the freezer to buy a little bit extra to put it in your freezer so you can pull it out and thaw it out and have it for another week. And the budget tip at the bottom a shopping list isn't just for groceries meal planning alone can shave 20 to 30 percent off your weekly bill bill and that's because we're less likely to rely on like a pre-made meal or going and getting takeout if we have a plan um because it's not going to be like 4 30 or 5 o'clock and we're like what are we making for dinner you already know the items are already stocked and then you're making it from home and we can control the nutrition and making sure our kids are getting and yourself getting a well-rounded meal. So some more budget smart grocery tips choosing the store brands we all know those typically tend to be less expensive often 25 cheaper than like your name brand item sometimes the name brand items go on sale to compete with the store brands so you can decide if that's important to you and if you want to buy that or if it ends up actually truly being cheaper than the store brand and maybe stocking up on that but that is usually a pretty good tip to just choose the store brand using your loyalty and rebate apps so I know Fred Meyer if you scan the eye like you're going through the grocery store and it'll say it's on sale and you get that sale item but then there's like an additional barcode that you can scan with your smartphone and it's like your loyalty card is connected in there and it will give you an additional savings when you go through the checkout line and you scan your loyalty card or you put in your phone number so just kind of going kind of like a video games around the grocery store scanning the extra things or the extra barcodes to get the additional savings and then there's also apps out there like ibotta or fetch that stack additional savings if that's something you're interested in in looking at buying produce in season oh right now in Washington state our produce is delicious and the all the berries um so many different veggies right now are in peak season or going to continue to become into peak season and they definitely will cost less in the grocery store um and then if you go to your local farmer's market they they'll be there and a note on the farmer's market depending on which where you live um i know one near us if the kids complete a scavenger hunt that the little info booth gives us they give each kid i want to say it's a five dollar coupon to use at any of the produce stands within the farmer's market so if you have more than one kid that could potentially be you know five ten fifteen twenty dollars however many kids you have in savings um to buy to buy some produce there so definitely ask the info if you go to your farmer's market ask the info booth if this is something that they participate in and if not i know if you have wick or if you have ebt they do the many of the farmer's markets will offer um like produce dollars so you get a certain amount each week to buy the produce from from the farmer's markets uh choosing low-cost proteins like beans and eggs and that maybe sometimes the frozen fish or canned fish um those or even the canned chicken will tend to be less than like the fresh meats and making sure you kind of build meals around some of these ingredients just to cut down we don't have to have like fresh chicken or um fresh fish every single meal we just kind of plan it throughout the week and then sub in some beans or some eggs um at different meals to kind of balance out that protein cost because it definitely is our probably the most expensive item on our grocery list as i kind of already mentioned buying staples in boat bulk but also using maybe not like the big box bulk section of like a costco or winco but going to like a not winco costco or walmart but going to like a winco to use those actual bins to buy maybe some of these grains that's going to be a lot less per pound or per ounce however they're selling it and then always remembering to compare unit prices so checking the price per ounce per unit not just the sticker total so if you know your family goes through a lot of yogurt for example sometimes um you'll see the little containers that like 88 cents or a dollar for like an eight ounce container and the bigger one costs like five dollars but really if you look at the out the cost per ounce that five dollar one is actually cheaper per ounce and if you know you're going to go through it and use it all and and it won't get thrown away then buy the bigger one because you'll save money in the long run but if it's something that you don't use a lot and you're going to end up throwing away then maybe it is smarter for your family to just buy a single little one if that's all you're going to use so that's just one example um but many different items you can compare the unit price and see and just think it over is this something that my family uses a lot is this something that i can throw in the freezer if i don't go through it um because we really want to try to reduce waste as we all know that's just throwing money away if we're we're not using the item so we've done a whole webinar series on how to stock your kitchen um but just in case you didn't get to make that one or didn't have the um presentation sent to you this is just a reminder of how to stock a budget-friendly pantry to if you have these items on hand and let's say you didn't have time to do your weekly grocery shop um like let's say it's like monday or tuesday and you just weren't able to get around to the planning that doesn't mean you have to get like a takeout item if you have some of these items just kind of always on hand in the pantry you can usually whip up something that is nutritionally balanced and budget friendly so as i mentioned canned beans and fish you could also put chicken here too um that's going to be a protein option just always having that when i'm doing like my costco run i always look to see where i'm at in my canned tuna um that's just something i always have on hand knowing that i can make either sandwich out of that or i can mix it in a salad it's it's really versatile or just like eat it on its own um and i know it's a nice dense protein option um having some low sodium canned or frozen uh veggies or soup because usually you can just add like a protein to that to make it a well-rounded meal and it can come together quickly and easily and inexpensive having some whole grain pasta brown rice or oats on hand so we can fulfill that whole grain category when you're thinking about your what should be on your plate uh i already mentioned the frozen vegetables i would say frozen fruit would go in here too um i think especially when we're not when items aren't in season and especially around here like in the winter times i feel like the only fruit that you can get that doesn't really fluctuate in prices like bananas and apples so if your family is a little burnt out on those going somewhere like costco or winco where they have frozen fruit that's the same price year round we know it's picked at peak ripeness so it's very nutrient dense it's just a texture thing that's a little different so that might be an adjustment for some of your kiddos that can be a big reason why kids don't want to eat something is because the texture is different for them but it's it's repetition it's getting them getting used to it um or preparing it in a different way so maybe you make a smoothie out of the frozen items instead of just serving like a handful of like frozen blueberries or something having eggs on hand again i know that cost of eggs have gone up however it's still there's still a cost effective protein option and extremely versatile can be used for any meal throughout the day or snack and just a really dense source of protein and then always having some seasonings maybe some flour herbs and oils to do the cooking of these other items and putting a meal together so if you have like some salt some pepper maybe a mixed herb of some sort usually you can throw something together and then some kind of cooking oil and maybe some kind of vinegar those would be like your main base components to keep in your pantry or fridge um so you can season your food and and prepare something easily with flavor so for those who are joining today um with what we just reviewed which budget tip would you maybe consider trying first if you aren't using store brands maybe switching to store brands b try a rebate app c shop the season or d lean on beans and eggs for your protein instead of heavy meat options i think for my family i am going to continue shopping this season i also just signed up for uh uh what is it a c c s a c i can't remember a box of vegetables and fruit that gets sent to the house and i'm going to see i'm going to trial it and see the amount that the box is costing me and see how much actually comes in the box and then i'm going to compare it to what i would normally buy on a weekly basis and just see if there's a wide difference i think people have shared in the past and i know it's true for my family utilizing like the delivery options or the where you shop online and you go pick it up um i end up spending less money because i it's less of those impulse buys for us and just sticking really sticking to the list because i can't see what else is available um so that's something i'm going to look into in the summer and just compare and see that what is there anything else or maybe maybe there wasn't something that i shared but you know is a tip that other people could benefit from that would help with their budget of shopping there we go d okay yeah leaning in on more of the i think that can make a huge difference on your budget is by choosing more plant based proteins or the eggs so let's talk about recipes and how to put them together and some specific recipes just to give some maybe ideas um that are what we call kid friendly but adults will enjoy it too so the first one we're going to look at is sheet pan chicken fajitas on average making this at home costs about two dollars and fifty cents and should take about 25 minutes to prepare if you're not super comfortable in the kitchen and cooking it could take longer until you kind of figure out the steps of how to put a meal together um in the cooking and and as the caregiver that's going to require some change in patience if you're not used to cooking a lot um but just knowing that your savings can there can be quite a bit of savings over time you'll get faster in the kitchen and you'll be like okay i know i should get this stuff chopped up because that's going to take the longest and then prepare my meat or whatever the recipe calls for and you'll get more comfortable in your kitchen so i just really encourage if you don't cook a lot at home maybe aiming to cook for like one meal a week just starting there and then building off of that but this recipe is very versatile very kid friendly um the chicken thighs or you can do the pinto beans which will be even more cost effective chicken thighs tend to be cheaper than you like the chicken breasts and they tend to have a little bit more flavor because of the fat and you can trim away some of the fat on them as well and they cook they cook faster i feel like um because they're usually smaller and a little bit thinner some bell peppers and onions diced up or sliced up or really any veggie that you think your kiddo will go go for um getting like a simple taco seasoning packet or you could definitely make your own and just kind of always have that available plus an oil and then some tortillas cheese and salsa or whatever kind of toppings you want to put on that i would even though i know it's fajitas and lettuce when it typically go in a traditional fajita i would probably still throw some fresh lettuce on this at the end or have it on the side as like a little salad depending on the age of your kid and if they can chew lettuce yet might be more appropriate for like three and up but basically you're going to toss the chicken and the veggies with the oil and the seasoning you're going to roast on it roast it on a pan it for like 20 minutes probably at like 375 400 and then serve with the tortillas and the toppings i probably would saute up the peppers and the onions um just to make it more kid-friendly and that's a traditional way of having fajitas but while the chicken is roasting is when you can be sautéing up the veggies so everything's kind of happening at once and hopefully will come together pretty quickly and then you can build on there now let's say your kids a little bit younger or we're working on expanding their palate um you can deconstruct this it doesn't have they don't have to eat it as a fajita you can just maybe have a tortilla that's warmed up and a little pile of the veggies and a little pile of the chicken and just have it separated out and then they can choose on there what to eat and then on here starting with a mild seasoning on the side um because some kids palates are a little bit more sensitive on the flip side though too i have worked with ots before that said some kids the reason they're being highly selective or they don't want something is for the kids that are more like sensory seekers some of them do want a lot of flavor so kind of experimenting with that with your kiddo and asking them or having them smell the seasonings and like telling you what they think of it that can help you cue in like oh my kid actually wants a little bit more flavor and enjoys having a strong flavor and then other kids they may not they might just want it kind of a salt and pepper oil flavor um are there any tips tricks to using the frozen bell pepper and onion mix for sheet pan meals it's usually cheaper than individually buying and they're already chopped yes and the much more convenient a robin right having it already chopped i would say those do roast up um i would i would rinse any of the like in a colander like a fine mesh one like maybe rinse it just to get any frozen bits off and then kind of dry it a little bit toss it in the olive oil like you would your chicken thighs um and then put it in but because they're so small and chopped up i would probably add it to the sheet pan if you're trying to keep it on one single pan with the chicken thighs like uh midway through of the chicken cooking or while the chicken's cooking if you kind of soak out um soak up some of that moisture with a paper towel you could then just toss it in um a pan on the stove top with some olive oil and and have it cook that way it might not be as crisp but i think still pretty good i have done this before where i've thrown it in the stovetop and i i've even roasted frozen veggies and it's come out pretty good but you mean there's a little bit notice a little bit of a difference in the texture but the flavor is still there um so kind of play around with it with roasting or frying it i think the key is just trying to remove some of that moisture before um okay the next recipe is a one pot veggie pasta kids love pasta i feel like this is universal for most kids um finding which shape of noodle that they like and then this is a way of using that kind of as your base to get more variety in their diet of like the vegetables um and then in this case the cheese is kind of their protein source you could also maybe add in some chicken or um at one time i tried to stir in like cooked lentils into the pasta my kid did not go for that but my other one of my kids did the other one did not but you can play around with it but pasta i feel like is a really good base to add different things to and play around with if your kid is overloaded with having everything mixed together this is another meal where you can deconstruct and have the pasta plain and have maybe the marinara sauce where they can dip like a noodle into it um have the cheese in a section and then have the veggies in another or in the marinara sauce you could put the cooked grated carrot or broccoli or spinach like mixed within that sauce as long as it's like finely cut up and usually kids don't notice it in that sauce and they'll eat it right up so you you have you choose your whole wheat pasta or if your family goes for it to pour any of those like protein type pastas you could do that here just trying to get more fiber in their diet instead of like a like a white pasta and then marinara sauce that's just a super basic one because remember you can add whatever to it to for flavor um so i usually just get a basil one or just like a roasted tomato marinara sauce that i add different things to and then you could add some grated carrot or frozen spinach while you're heating up the sauce and then some shredded cheese on top or like i said deconstruct it and put it put it on the side um oh and then yeah on the bottom it says blending the grated veggies um in the sauce is great for kids who just if they see a vegetable they're like no way i'm not gonna eat this if it's blended in in a red sauce they typically don't notice um on average this costs about $1.75 per serving and should take about 20 minutes to prepare freezer egg muffins so this is something you can batch cook and thaw out later if you want or just keep them in the fridge for like four-ish days but it's making like using a muffin tin and taking your eggs like you're making scrambled eggs put a little bit of milk or um if it doesn't have to be milk if your family doesn't do dairy you could do some water or some a plant based milk if you do do dairy adding some shredded cheese any kind of diced up vegetable and then mixing it all together and putting it in the muffin tins and then baking them for 18 to 20 minutes and then you can pop them out eat eat them fresh reheat them later freeze them reheat them something great for batch cooking or for really busy mornings just having for the week this is something where we're going to talk about how to reduce picky eating is getting the kids involved in the kitchen so letting the kids pick what goes in the tin that gives them a little uh independence or autonomy and they feel like they're getting to try to make the food and so therefore they might want to try what they made um so any way you can get them involved in the kitchen can be really really helpful in expanding their palates and their intake on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis pizza night i am i feel like most kids love pizza again it's more of that marinara bread combination we're just trying to boost the nutrition by choosing maybe like a whole wheat english muffin or flatbread or maybe you have the time to make your own dough adding the marinara sauce this is where kids can get super involved of sprinkling the cheese adding different veggies maybe you have some canned chicken that you put on top um or you could serve um maybe some like beans on the side or something just to get a little bit more protein but they can pick what they put on it um and it's really really fun and something to look forward to and a lot less money than ordering a pizza out i feel like ordering pizza out these days is pretty expensive usually not very many veggie options or when you start modifying things it just gets even more expensive so just having like maybe every other friday be pizza night this gets the family together um cooking together and then you can really control like what you put on it and and expand their intake with and then a quesadilla of how we can boost the nutrition of a traditional quesadilla we can get the whole wheat or corn tortillas just to get a little bit more grains we can add beans in there or again any type of meat if it's like leftover from another meal you can just dice it up really small you could add i always add really chopped up fine spinach and put it in there my kids usually go for it spinach is like a very bland uh green compared to other greens it doesn't it's not super bitter so i feel like it mixes really really well in a lot of different dishes and i i'll put it in smoothies i'll saute it up in foods i'll put it in their pasta just anywhere so i know that they're getting some kind of green intake um and it it's usually not offensive to their taste buds uh so unless your kid sees a green and freaks out uh in a tortilla we can could also have it kind of hidden in there um but you cut it into triangles i think making food fun is another i mean i know we can't do this every single meal but every now and then trying like different cutouts like that can be something different for them and interesting and and make them want to try it and this is also probably another one depending on the age of the kiddo in your house that they can get involved in helping prepare and every time we involve a kid in the kitchen even if they don't eat what is helping being prepared that counts as an exposure it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to eat it or try it um they could be grocery shopping with you in the grocery store they could they could you can ask them to like help wash it um depending if you want them like older kids can maybe help chop it up whatever you feel comfortable with but age-appropriate tasks having them see it touch it smell it they don't necessarily need to taste it this will count as an exposure and eventually hopefully once they've been exposed to it enough times they want to try that item so cook once eat twice this not only um is a big time saver but it also help makes the week a little bit calmer so you're not having to like prepare a meal every single night and also when we're cooking once and eating twice we're usually saving money is because we're the batch cooking cuts down price so cooking on the weekend this time of year when it's hot maybe these are not foods but thinking of this maybe for more of the winter the soup stews and casseroles but if you are eating um animal products double cooking like your ground beef or your turkey for chili one night or for tacos one night or um just to have over some rice or something like that just having that protein readily available i feel like the protein is usually if it's not a plant-based one it usually takes the longest to cook so when it's already pre-made you can usually find components of the of the other items to put a meal together pretty quickly putting extra portions in the freezer so you have that option to thaw it out later is always a great idea um usually you can thaw it out pretty quickly if the item's already pre-cooked if not just think kind of in the morning i'm going to pull this out so it's ready for night time um recipes with oh that was supposed to say flavor sorry flavor recipes with a few ingredients so recipes with five or few ingredients are faster to shop for cook and clean up um so choosing really simple meals like the ones i just presented to you there weren't a lot of ingredients to that and it it doesn't have to be fancy it can be very simple we can meet all the requirements to have a nutrient-dense meal and it this also can keep it more budget-friendly when we're not having 20 different ingredients put into the meal always having a no cook option in your back pocket that you know your kiddos will eat so i'm lucky my kids will eat canned tuna um i always have like a sweet relish on hand and a little mayo and a little i usually use like some italian dressing and i just mix that all up with the tuna and they'll dip crackers in it or just eat it out of the bowl but trying to find something that your kids will eat that you don't have to cook and prepare can make life really a lot easier um a simple sandwich if your kiddos are into sandwiches um i'm trying to think of other no cook meals usually kids don't go for salads yet but some might depending on how old they are like a grain bowl like cold grain bowl could be easy to batch cook different grains and then putting like the cold chicken on top and some like tomatoes or cucumbers and just having this like bowl situation again it depends on kind of the age of your kids but that is nice to have just knowing that like you can put that together and instead of having to get like takeout so were there any recipes that you all were excited to maybe try or incorporate into your weekly routine um any any way you would modify them maybe to make it work for your family that could be helpful for other participants on this webinar so tonight i'm actually going to batch cook well maybe actually this afternoon so i don't have to worry about it in the evening i'm going to chop up my chicken and then i had like a square of beef pulled out so i have like a few random items that i well it might be enough for one meal with just one of the proteins but i'm just going to get them all cooked up so then and i have or got some taco shells in my grocery order so i think tonight we'll do tacos and then we'll have the leftover proteins just to eat as is as like a lunch so a lot of times i'll batch cook chicken or i'll make a little bit extra for dinner knowing that the next day for lunch for the kids um i'll just like serve it cold like chopped up and then i'll put some carrots and cucumbers and a fruit usually like apple slices this time of year we do get more berries um and that's it's done like they i've they've met their components they um it's really quick to put together and what made it easy was batch cooking some of of that meat so instead of fajitas we'll probably be doing tacos tonight um i'm using those leftovers for other meals throughout the day okay so maybe the reason more of you joined today is just um to talk about how to help our more selective eaters and this is based on a woman named ellen satter who um really dove into why a child eats the way they do and um how this maybe gets changed along the way and just the developmental stages that our kids go through um of of eating and what's normal and how to just make mealtime less stressful because it should really be a time of joy because we want to associate food with just ease and joy and not it be this stressful time like what is our kid going to eat and you don't want to have to cook you know three different meals in the house it should be just cooking one meal so let's see if any of this will help some of the battles going on in your household so i just want to say picky eating is extremely normal it's developmentally appropriate and it usually peaks around age three and four maybe even two i have a two-year-old and i'm seeing her be more selective i was like oh you he was a one-year-old you ate uh everything and now she's wanting to assert a little bit more of her independence she has a few more opinions and i just have to remember like maybe not that meal she's going to eat all of the components but if i take a step back in that day did she get some protein sources did she get some vegetable sources did she get some fruit sources did she get some whole grain sources and usually yes maybe not maybe we went a day and she didn't eat any protein i'm not going to stress about it i take another step back and look at that week what what was she eating is there an area can we work on do i just need to keep introducing it to her um for example for a long time she'd eat scrambled eggs and it was great and i knew she was getting a really rich source of protein with a lot of other nutrition in it and then one day she just stopped and she wouldn't eat it and i found that i wasn't even giving it to her anymore because i was like oh she's just not going to eat it i don't want to throw it away but then you know i remembered my training and i remember what the research says and my other kid he's six and he'll eat scrambled eggs so i make him some and then i just take one or two bites from his plate and i put it on hers and i was like well you haven't had eggs in a long time i haven't been serving shrimp and she ate them today she didn't so it's kind of back and forth but you just have to keep with that exposure you have to keep with that repetition there's no pressure about it it's just on her plate if she chooses to eat it yay if not like okay that was an exposure i know there's other things on the plate that she's gonna eat and we just we just keep going with it and by only providing that like one or two bites i'm not feeling like super guilty that i'm throwing that away or you know if she didn't touch it maybe i'll just even eat it um or the dog um but it it's then we know we're not wasting a whole bunch of money because we're throwing a whole bunch of food away that's i think also very key and maybe i i say this later but just giving especially the younger the kiddo only a few bites of the items on their plate um that way they're not overwhelmed and like don't know where to start or what to eat and that way you're not throwing away food at the end of the meal if um they decided not to eat it i'm just gonna pause there to see if there's any questions this is kind of i know it's a lot of information and i know this can be so frustrating um to know that this is normal it's like when is this going to change but it's just kind of sticking with it this is something i work with families a lot or friends who are like you are only cooking like one meal like how do you do this um and it it took a lot of practice and it kind of takes a lot of just standing your ground of your job as the caregiver is to provide the meal the food and a time of the day and hopefully you're consistent throughout the day so the kiddo knows when food's coming um but the kid's job is decide if they want to eat it and and again i know that can be extremely extremely hard um but usually i try to design meals where i know there's going to be an item that both of my kids will eat and then the other items it's like well maybe they will maybe they won't but at least i know there's something on their plate and if if it's an item because neither of my kids like things all mixed together i try to make the meal where i can deconstruct it for them but for me maybe i'll eat it as a taco or a bowl with all the things um so those are kind of the two things i think about when i'm planning a meal and then am i serving something from each of the food categories is there a fruit or a vegetable and a fruit um is there a protein source is there some kind of starch source and then and then i i just i serve that and it's usually within something that i enjoy as well so i only have to cook one meal um maybe i know that like my kids don't like as much spice as i do so i'll put theirs aside and i'll add a little bit more spice to mine but again i'm only cooking the one meal and then as it says on the bottom offering that familiar food that you know that they'll usually go for um especially when there's something new that you haven't tried that will help them be like comfortable and they'll start eating that familiar food and then maybe they'll see the other family members eating the the new food and they'll be curious and want to try it and it's okay if they didn't just serve them like one or two bites and see see what happens but i really try to encourage my parents to not be um line cooks and preparing a different meal for everyone and it's it might feel really daunting of like well how how am i going to like start this practice and i think it's just like having a discussion with the family and saying like this is something we're going to try this is how it's going to work and yeah there might be some pushback and so i just i'm it's just kind of having that conversation and knowing that you might receive some words back and that's okay and then and but just stick with it and and just keep trying and over time hopefully it gets easier um and you know especially new parents or parents with like one kid they were like well they didn't eat at that meal and they get really really worried and at the end of the day the kid will end up eating they have these uh responses that they're they're born with their they know like when their body needs to eat their their appetites change day to day hour to hour so it's some days they might eat a lot other days they might not as long as they're kind of continuing to grow every time you go to the doctor and you're staying within that percentile they're okay it's just we're just trying to relax around that a little bit and knowing that our kids will eat and it just it just takes time um so pairing new foods with favorites can kids tend to dislike bitter or sour flavors at first so you want to pair them with something more salty or sweet be careful with the sweet um but broccoli is a bitter food so maybe you put some cheese on it if you know they really like cheese that provides that salty flavor um and if cheese is something that they really like it's also a familiar food and then you're showing how these two things combined together can be delicious keeping the portion small we've already talked about and their pressure off remember the goal is exposure and not to clean their plate so just very minimal amounts getting them to look at the food maybe touch the food smell the food maybe there's a conversation you can like role play with another person in the house so like oh what do you think of of this broccoli and the other person can respond like knowing that they're playing like this tastes salty to me or this tastes i can really taste the lemon if you sprinkled lemon juice on it or something i'm not saying like this is really good or this is really gross like we want to just describe what the food actually tastes like not putting labels of like good or not good on it i mentioned this before but the more we can get the kids involved in the kitchen the this is more exposure they're going to have and this gives them that independence that they're looking for and usually kind of why they get to be picky um they're just trying to insert that independence so finding age appropriate tasks whether it's washing the produce maybe stirring something up maybe measuring something out or even just setting the table just having them involved in the process can be really beneficial it doesn't have to be every single meal it doesn't have to be every single day i know um when you're in a hurry or you're tired the last thing you want to do is try to manage the kids in the kitchen so just making sure it's a time where you have a little bit more time um a little bit more patience in the tank and and you're willing for maybe stuff to be a little bit messier this bring them in have them help and it's a really great way to expose them um if you're going to do the grocery shopping in the store or the farmer's market bringing them along every now and then and to help them like choose the vegetable or a fruit and see if it's something that they're wanting to try and then kids are more willing to try food that they had a hand in choosing or preparing this could even be like maybe on Sundays you sit down and you're preparing that grocery list or your meal planning out just because i have burnout of picking what to make everybody in the house i have tried to start being like hey you guys what do you want this week what sounds good um just so i don't have to choose that that it takes a huge stress off for me and then i see that because they were involved in the decision making they are more likely to eat that item um offering choices eat together so offering two to healthy two to three healthy options instead of what do you want so this is like do you want if you know you you need a vegetable on the plate do you want carrots or cucumbers you gave them two options but they get to decide in the end and so this choice builds the buy-in instead of just here are the carrots and eat them like if you have the opportunity to offer them two or three options that you're okay with and then they get to choose in the end then they're more likely to eat it trying to have a family meal without tv or phones or other distraction this really helps the kids tune in to the eating and what they're putting in their bodies what it tastes like what it smells like um what it feels like in their mouth they see other people eating it and hopefully enjoying it um maybe we're not even talking about food we're just talking about the day or talking about upcoming plans or something that's not stressful and everyone's at the table together we research does show that this can really help with um expanding a kid's diet again i know this isn't always possible people have very very busy schedules but if one time a week you know that uh sunday night is family dinner night and everybody knows this and it's just kind of a rule in your house then then that is when you would do it um but see what works for your family and then try to have a family meal model try new foods yourself so kids are always watching us especially the little ones um and they really listen to what you say and how you describe a food so just being mindful of that and and knowing that that can be really really helpful or detrimental depending on how we are talking about the food and we're eating the food so something i'm personally working on is i tend to be a very fast eater um and i'm trying to really slow it down because i i want my kids to register what they're putting in their bodies and not and not feel rushed at meals so that's something i'm being mindful about and like putting my fork down in between bites and talking about chewing my food thoroughly um or i just sometimes will randomly throw out like oh this item's very sweet if i'm talking about a fruit or um just just describing the food and stuff saying i don't really like how this turned out because then they'll be like well i don't like it if you don't like it um so yes just choosing your words carefully and and modeling the behavior for them okay i feel like that was a lot um so again whenever i'm working with patients one-on-one or families one-on-one and we're talking about implementing change we usually just try to pick one thing to focus on for a week or month or three months just kind of depending on on the the goal um so if there was something from there that you'd really want to focus on and share it whether it's one meal for everyone just trying to get it get out of being a line cook if that's going on in your household um food pairing so that this is like the broccoli with the cheese example or whatever it would be like what's a food your kiddo really likes that you can pair with the food that they haven't tried or they're they haven't been willing to try maybe you want to get your kids involved more in the kitchen or just offer choices that you're comfortable with great so it sounds like getting um offering different choices and then maybe trying to prepare the meal for one it's good so this is a sample week um built entirely from the five recipes and pantry stable staples so monday maybe you do the veggie pasta tuesday you do the the sheet pan chicken pitas but you double the batch so then you can use those leftover fillings and throw them into a quesadilla the next day so it's pretty much the same ingredients you're just adding cheese and preparing it a little bit different way so it doesn't feel like leftovers or it's very minimal work um and then or you could do on thursday a bean and cheese quesadilla or some kind of mishmash and then friday make it your pizza night for breakfast on saturday you could do the freezer egg muffins and then maybe you make a little bit extra so you could have them for the following week and then maybe you pull out a super stew that you have in the freezer and and have a simple side salad with it so this is just one example there's different there's many different ways to put put items together but just having just like a list like this can be really beneficial like okay this is what i'm making this is how this is going to come together i'm just like roughly thinking about it um and we're saying just as a reminder when you build foods around like the beans and the eggs and then you add your frozen vegetables and your grains and some seasonal produce this may usually will make a nice balanced meal and you'll fulfill those categories of having a protein having a vegetable or vegetable and a fruit and having a starch so when you look at your plate if you were to deconstruct it it's fulfilling those categories so then we're meeting our nutritional needs and then um a lot of these items we can buy in bulk and that will be a little bit more budget friendly and we're preparing it at home so it's going to be a lot less expensive than um like eating or buying a prepared meal out or takeout so we talked about planning your week and using a list it's definitely the biggest budget oh sorry um saver you want to build your meals around the least expense or around items that are maybe on sale and then thinking of nutrient-dense staples to kind of always have on hand we want to batch cook on the weekends so weeknights are easier if you if that's possible or if that seems doable for your household and we want to serve one family meals and let kids customize rather than cooking separate dishes and then we want to stay patient remember that repeated pressure-free exposure is what turns picky eaters around some resources and further reading we want to if you want to take a screenshot of this or you will get the handouts after the presentation but this is what came from this is kind of what the presentation was built around i also sent a handout kind of specific to this topic to christina and you guys will receive that later today when she emails out the presentation but these are something to look into you could also screenshot it okay so does anyone have any questions um do you want to talk about your favorite budget meal hack or something that you like that helps your kiddos eat more varieties of foods this would be the opportunity to share with the group if not thank you so much for joining and we'll see you in july thank you karen for participating thank you kelsey great class um while we're waiting for any last minute questions to come in i just want to say thank you to everyone who joined us today the next class in our budget friendly series will be on tuesday july 28th and we'll be discussing flavor on the budget so that'll probably look like some different spice blends some different sauces ways to enhance the dishes that you're making also as you are leaving today's webinar there will be a quick six question survey that will pop up on your screen we love any ideas for future classes or any feedback that you have on our current classes um so definitely feel free to check that out and thank you again for joining us spending this last hour with us i'm not seeing any questions so i think we'll go ahead and wrap up so thank you everyone i hope you all have a lovely rest of your week thank you christina all right