Season 1, episode 10: kitchen confidence, empowerment and fun

Transcript

Conner: (00:00)
Welcome to Kiddos in the Kitchen, a podcast hosted by my mom.

Stephanie: (00:17)
Margie Saidel cares about what we feed our children. She's the vice president of nutrition and sustainability at Chartwells K12, a contract food service management company that serves school meals to 2 million students per day. And how she got here is a good story. Her son was born with several food allergies, and when it was time for him to start school, she was concerned about how to manage those allergies.

Margie: (00:42)
So I called the school because they had on their menu, vegetable of the day or entree of the day, and I asked them, how would I know ahead of time what those foods are? Because my son is just entering first grade, he doesn't want to be separated from the other kids in the cafeteria. What the food service director told me at the time was that there was really no way for me to know what was going to be on the menu ahead of time. And he suggested that I bring food from home.

Margie: (01:08)
If anybody knows me, even for five minutes, they know that I really don't take no for an answer. About a year or two later, I became the food service director for my hometown food service program, and he was out. We really started to take food allergies very seriously and had a good protocol in place. We also took care of their emotional well-being, too, and didn't separate them from the other kids. And we planned a menu so that there were less allergens in it and that parents were free to talk with me about what we could exclude from their menus. It really was a good learning experience. And that's where I really began my passion for school food service, not just for kids who have particular needs or special needs, but for our kids all over.

Stephanie: (01:54)
Welcome to Kiddos in the Kitchen, a podcast about helping busy adults find the inspiration and information they need to teach the kids in their lives how to cook. I'm your host, Stephanie Conner. And today, we're going to talk about how we can make food that kids will eat that's healthy too.

Stephanie: (02:19)
Margie is a registered dietician who works with other dietitians and a culinary team to determine what kids will enjoy eating that's also healthy. So I wanted to know, what has she learned?

Margie: (02:30)
So the first thing is kids like to customize their meals, and they don't like to be told what they're going to eat, they like to have choices. A parent at home might say, "I have this and this in my pantry, or we have some this and this in the refrigerator, so why don't I make this, or if you'd rather have that?" So they have a little bit of a choice, but by all means, I'm not saying that parents need to be short order cooks because that's one of my big pieces of advice to parents that they shouldn't be making something different for their kids. But those decisions can be made for the entire family. So kids would be thrilled if they had input into what the entire family is eating.

Margie: (03:12)
And then the other thing is customization. So kids, let's say you're making a taco at home. Maybe they'd like a choice of whether they're going to put lettuce, tomato, salsa, avocado. So you might have a plate of those foods on the table, and then they can choose themselves what they're going to put on their taco or what they're going to do with their shell. If it's a hard shell, are they going to crisp it up and make a salad out of it, or are they going to put the ingredients in the shell and eat it like that? So as long as there's a little bit of customization and choice, kids love it.

Margie: (03:45)
Some other things, kids are liking strong flavors these days. And it really obviously depends on their age, but we're talking school-age kids. So they like bold flavors. And then of course they like something to look like what they might see outside of school. So that's what we look for. The trends outside of school and in the customization. And we recommend for parents to do that at home too.

Stephanie: (04:10)
Margie's pretty sure that if she did one thing right as a parent, it was food. So I asked her to share what she did so that we can steal from her playbook.

Margie: (04:21)
Well, the first thing I want to say is that being a parent is difficult, as we all know. And we always said in my family that the most important job in the world of being a parent doesn't come with any instructions unfortunately. But I do feel like I did a good job helping my kids develop a healthy relationship with food. And I do joke that maybe that was the best thing that I did, but sure, there are other things about parenting that were a lot more difficult. Kids have the natural ability to self-regulate. They will eat when they're hungry and they won't eat when they're not hungry. So it's important that we don't interfere in that process for them.

Margie: (04:59)
Parents are responsible for what kids eat, but kids are responsible for how much and whether they actually eat it all. And that really depends on their age, of course. We feed babies when they're hungry, but as kids get older, they can determine when they're hungry and when they want to eat. But parents are responsible for what they eat. I really took that very seriously. I was responsible for feeding and they were responsible for eating. I didn't make a control issue out of what they ate. And the other thing I did was never feed them something different than I was eating. I was able to model good, healthy eating behavior, and they saw me eating healthy foods. And that in turn just made them think, "Well, that's okay. That must taste good. So I'm going to taste it."

Margie: (05:49)
But if they didn't taste it, that was okay. So all the food was on the table, family style obviously, and then they were able to choose the amount that they wanted. I put out the healthy food, but they could choose not to eat it at all, eat a little bit. And as you probably know, it takes quite a bit of time for kids to get familiar with food. So you can put something out 20 times and they won't eat it. Patience is a virtue. I don't have a lot of it. And this is an area where you really have to be patient. Try it, try it, try it. How often do you hear parents saying that? In my house, we didn't say that. They had complete control over when they ate. And I think that that really made a big difference.

Margie: (06:35)
The other thing we did was make it fun. Lots of people talk about making food fun. So we talked about the food. We didn't do a lot when they were younger at the dinner table with the food, we didn't do any kind of sensory thing with them, but we talked about the food. So we called the vegetable something interesting and fun, like x-ray vision carrots. And you'd be surprised how exciting that makes the food. You wouldn't believe it. They get very excited about it. The other thing we did was call food different things. Like we're going to have instead of chicken, "Oh, this isn't chicken tonight. This is aardvark. We're going to try aardvark tonight." So they thought but that was so much fun. Your creativity and ingenuity doesn't always have to be touching the food, although obviously, that's a very important part of it. It's also how you talk about the food.

Stephanie: (07:28)
When you talk about food service directors and parents, we share this same desire to make sure that kids are eating. And one thing that I think we're all focused on is how do we weigh nutrition and taste and how do we blend these? And I know that's something that is really important to you and your team. So how do you do that? How do you make sure that the meals you're serving kids are nutritious, but also really flavorful?

Margie: (07:56)
That's a really good question. And that balance is really something that's important and difficult to acquire. Taste is number one. If the food doesn't taste good, kids in school won't eat it and kids at home won't eat it. But that's really not very difficult because in school, we have dietitians and culinarians who are very skilled at making delicious food. So that's number one. Number two is presentation. When you go to a restaurant, it makes a difference how the food is presented. If it's not colorful, if it's not presented well in any way, then it's less appetizing. And then the third is nutrition. And not necessarily in priority order, but those are the three things that really have to come together.

Margie: (08:43)
So for nutrition, all you really have to do is to work with whole foods. By whole foods, I mean food items that are as close as possible to how they were grown or raised. So for example, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, because that's how they were raised. So even getting the fruit or the vegetable as if it comes out of the garden or comes off the tree, a carrot maybe with the greens on it, anything that already has the roots on it. Anything like that will help kids understand where that food came from. So that's what a whole food is. If you stick to foods like that, you can't go wrong. It will always, always be nutritious.

Margie: (09:28)
And then the second thing is minimally processed foods. So if you don't have a whole food, it's not always that important. You want to then have minimally processed. So by that I mean, instead of eating an orange, you could drink orange juice, always 100% juice. That's sort of one step away from the whole food. Another example is marinara sauce. You could look for marinara sauce in a jar that doesn't have a lot of additives. That's one step away of making yourself because we have to be realistic. Not all parents can do all of that, and it's totally understandable. So if you go one step away from the whole foods, then you'll be okay.

Margie: (10:12)
My next tidbit is fruits and vegetables are the secret to a long and happy life. If you make your plate half full with fruits and vegetables, that's perfect. Your kids will be happy, it tastes delicious, and they will be so healthy and strong and alert and smart and calm. There's all kinds of phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables that not only help you grow and develop as a child, but also that feature phytochemicals that can help your emotional well-being.

Stephanie: (10:46)
When putting together a menu, Margie is thinking about a sensory experience.

Margie: (10:51)
When you think about the senses, of course, taste we said is number one, but what about sight? It needs to be colorful. And that's easy when you put whole foods on the menu. And then what about sound? Is it going to be crunchy? Are there different textures to the food? And then touch. Touch can be about mouth feel. What does it taste like? What does it feel like in your mouth? With small children, they are very sensitive to that. And then also smell. Smell is just so important. The food that we make in school and your own kitchen at home, the smell is so important. So we put together menus that meet all those sensory demands, and then we make sure that's nutritious.

Margie: (11:34)
When we think about cooking, I think of that as a big word, cooking. What do we really mean by that? And at Chartwells, we don't talk about cooking with kids any longer. We talk about helping kids to discover food. What we really want to do is ignite their curiosity about food so that they want to cook with it, they want to touch it, they want to smell it. Instead of thinking cooking with kids, what exactly does that mean? So igniting the curiosity and discovery is how we talk about it.

Margie: (12:03)
Also think about the kind of cook you are at home. Are you a scientific cook where you measure everything precisely, or are you a creative cook at home where you just have the skill to throw things together? Think of your kids in the same way, and they'll be different kinds of cooks at different ages. So very young kids will just play with the food, and you can teach them about it as they play with one or two ingredients. As they get a little bit older, maybe give them one or two or three ingredients and see what they do with it. Have them put something together and think it's fabulous, no matter what they do with it, even if it wasn't what you would have done with the three ingredients.

Margie: (12:45)
And then as they get older, you have them help you with the recipe and to the extent that they can on their own. It's always important that they're independent and can do it on their own without having somebody interrupt them all the time, which is one of the mistakes that I made. I'm what you call a scientific cook. So I was way too obsessed with the details of the cooking. But if you can remain relaxed and let them do it, that's best for them. And then as they even get older, what I find is really helpful is to just give them a recipe and have them be responsible for the entire recipe, because then there's a product that they can say is theirs.

Margie: (13:24)
So it really depends on where they are developmentally, but they have to be in the driver's seat. And it's really similar to what we've talked about before when kids like customizing their foods because they like to be in control, as well as the theory of how kids really will eat when they're hungry, but they need to be in control of it. It's the same thing with kids in the kitchen. They really need to feel independent and that they're really contributing to the food, but in their own particular way so that their personality can come out in what they're doing, and they're having lots of fun. And as you know, fun is really the best part of it. So that's what I would say is my philosophy on kids in the kitchen.

Stephanie: (14:07)
Now it's time for Kitchen Questions where I asked my guest a few quick questions to understand her kitchen a little better.

Child: (14:15)
It's time for Kitchen Questions. I have a question. What would happen if you put a little bit of the wrong ingredient inside a cookie? Why are cupcakes squishy? How often do you burn things on accident? Do you like cake? What is the difference between baking and roasting? What is your favorite recipe?

Stephanie: (14:40)
What is one ingredient you always have on hand in your kitchen?

Margie: (14:44)
Basil.

Stephanie: (14:46)
What is your go-to easy weeknight meal?

Margie: (14:50)
Stir-fry chicken with vegetables.

Stephanie: (14:52)
Oh, I do that a lot too. What is your go-to menu when you host others?

Margie: (14:58)
Eggplant parmesan. It's my signature recipe.

Stephanie: (15:01)
Do you make your own sauce?

Margie: (15:03)
Yes, I bake the eggplant in the oven and I use a couple of different cheeses, and it's vegetarian. I don't use meat sauce and it's quite delicious. Italian food, I would say is really my specialty. Whenever we try to eat it in a restaurant or for a caterer, it's just never quite as good.

Stephanie: (15:23)
What is your favorite healthy or healthy-ish dessert?

Margie: (15:29)
That's a good question. I don't know if you're going to believe me, but yogurt. Yogurt, even if it doesn't have fruit in it like vanilla yogurt or lemon yogurt, is very sweet. So what I like to do is yogurt with fresh fruit in it.

Stephanie: (15:42)
I believe it.

Margie: (15:43)
Okay, it sounds a little bit like I'm making it up. Like cake or cookies that have carrots in them. I don't do that.

Stephanie: (15:51)
I was waiting for black bean chocolate cake, but...

Margie: (15:55)
Exactly. That's like a typical dietician dessert, right?

Stephanie: (15:59)
Yes.

Margie: (16:00)
I don't generally hide ingredients. I don't think that that's... I just don't agree with that philosophy. If I'm going to eat cake or cookies, it's going to be a real cookie. And the same with cake. But I think that there are alternatives to that. There's always a place in everybody's life for that. So enjoy it. There's always alternatives like I said, and I'm really pretty well known. There's always tons and tons of yogurt in my refrigerator because it's so healthy. We call it dessert yogurt in my house. It's so funny. You ready for dessert yogurt? As opposed to regular yogurt, which is the same thing. Yeah.

Stephanie: (16:38)
I guess it's all in the spin.

Margie: (16:41)
That's right. Exactly. Yeah, make your food sound fun.

Stephanie: (16:46)
Right. Do you clean up as you go or wait till you're done?

Margie: (16:50)
Wait till I'm done.

Stephanie: (16:51)
Finally, somebody who says that. Arugula or spinach?

Margie: (16:55)
Arugula by far.

Stephanie: (16:57)
Cast iron or nonstick skillets?

Margie: (17:00)
Cast iron.

Stephanie: (17:02)
Coffee or tea?

Margie: (17:03)
Coffee.

Stephanie: (17:04)
Farmer’s market or garden?

Margie: (17:06)
Farmer’s market.

Stephanie: (17:08)
Thank you to Margie for sharing her thoughts with us. You can also catch her in episode 5 of the podcast and in our Thanksgiving bonus, episode 2. You can follow her company, Chartwells, on Twitter and Facebook at Chartwells K12. My next guests are two students from Middle Tennessee State University, Carmen Bell and Diana Romanach. They recently graduated with their degrees in dietetics. And while they were in school, they worked in a pretty cool program called MT Nutrition. Here's Diana.

Diana: (17:36)
The MT Nutrition team is the team of dietetic students that partners with MTSU's Recreational Center staff. We've worked together to develop educational materials and exhibits and activities all about nutrition. Our main goal is to educate the students that go to the Recreational Center or that we find anywhere on campus, about healthy lifestyles and how to make those small steps towards living a healthier life.

Stephanie: (18:00)
Their teacher, Dr. Lisa Sheehan-Smith, chimes in.

Dr. Sheehan-Smith: (18:04)
The program was established in the academic year 2014-2015. This year marks our sixth year in existence. It was originally designed to provide nutrition, programming nutrition education at the Campus Recreation Center, and to provide dietetic students with some very beneficial hands-on experience. Since that first year, it has somewhat stayed the same in terms of its original purpose. It's still providing nutrition education and partnering with Campus Recreation, but I'd say there's been significant changes during the past few years.

Dr. Sheehan-Smith: (18:46)
First, we finally found a name that fits their purpose. We have had a few different names for the students, but now MT Nutrition team is the perfect fit because they are a team to provide nutrition education, but they also team up and are part of the entire team at Campus Recreation. And that's brought nutrition into more of an integral part of the programming through campus recreation.

Dr. Sheehan-Smith: (19:13)
Also like Diana was saying, we do provide education at the Campus Recreation Center, but now they've expanded beyond those walls. They provide dining room tours on campus, they go into the dorms and do cooking demonstrations, they'll take the mobile cart and just stop on the sidewalk and do a cooking demonstration as students are walking by and going to class, and I think that's really made a big difference in expanding and letting people know on the campus community, what the MT Nutrition team is for and what we can do for them.

Stephanie: (19:50)
In addition to helping students on campus, Dr. Sheehan-Smith notes that this program has played a role in helping dietetic students like Diana and Carmen.

Dr. Sheehan-Smith: (19:59)
I think the program throughout the years has had a tremendous impact on their readiness to take the next stage. And in order to become a registered dietician, once you complete that undergraduate degree, the next stage is to complete the post- bachelor's dietetic internship. Therefore, the team members, they have had so much experience gaining hands-on activities, developing marketing, delivering nutrition education in a variety of formats. They can talk about the numerous people they have educated, the numerous programs they have developed to provide nutrition education on campus. And this title MT Nutrition Team Member is pretty unique. I think that sets them apart. We've had tremendous success as a result matching our MT Nutrition team members with dietetic internships.

Stephanie: (20:57)
One thing these future dieticians have observed on campus is that college students lack the confidence to just dive in and cook. They recommend looking for recipes that have few ingredients and simple instructions. Then it's really just about going for it.

Diana: (21:12)
There are a few steps that come to mind immediately, and one of them is to just get into the kitchen and get familiar with the equipment because lots of people can go into the kitchen and see knives and chopping boards, and they don't know what to do with it. So the first thing to do is just have in your hands, get something nice and easy, start practicing how to cut food. Start really simple like that. And the second thing would just be to take time to go to the grocery store, get familiar with your ingredients, get familiar with foods that you can find in a grocery store, particularly on the outside and not so much on the inside of the grocery store, because you're going to find a lot of your whole foods and healthier items on the outside of the grocery store. So just walking around, getting familiar with the foods can make it less daunting.

Diana: (21:56)
Also, now in this age, we have so many platforms of social media. We have Instagram, we have YouTube, we have people all over social media videotaping themselves, recording themselves cooking recipes and making foods. And I, for one, really enjoy watching those videos. And I know I wasn't always about cooking for myself, but after watching these videos and watching people, it seems a lot more fun and it made me want to go into the kitchen and start getting hands-on with the foods and preparing meals for myself. And also just doing it with friends and family can make it a lot more fun and a lot less daunting.

Stephanie: (22:31)
I love that. Carmen, do you have anything to add about ideas for developing competence?

Carmen: (22:37)
I feel like five times out of 10, the recipe never turns out the way that Pinterest says it's going to be, and that is okay because it's definitely all about trial and error. And Diana and I have experienced that so much. Well, we just had to learn that sometimes you have to make it your own. Sometimes you have to switch a few things out or sometimes you just have to wing it a little bit, and it's going to come out okay. And if it doesn't, that's fine.

Stephanie: (23:02)
Carmen and Diana have also worked with younger kids ages seven to 12, where the approach to engagement is a little different.

Carmen: (23:09)
With the younger kids, we noticed that they were very hands-on. They wanted to touch things. If we had something set out, we had to say, "Don't touch it yet. We're going to let you touch it." And we noticed that they wanted to be very involved. They want to pour the oatmeal in the cup or help us pick out which fruit to put in a fruit parfait or something. We just had to make it fun for them and make it very engaging. And we also did things where we would hide ingredients into our recipe and let them guess what it was. Making it like a game for them was really cool. And then letting them choose what to put into the recipe and letting them actually do it themselves was the key.

Diana: (23:57)
The kids are very much attracted to colors. They want to touch things. They want to interact. They want to have things in their hands. Sometimes, the kids are curious enough to want to taste it. But that's definitely one thing that I found that was different between the college kids and the younger kids. The children, when those younger ages, they're just so naturally curious. They want to know more. They want to see what you're doing. Isn't that's just naturally going to attract a kid's attention?

Stephanie: (24:25)
Thank you to Middle Tennessee State University's Carmen Bell, Diana Romanach, and Dr. Sheehan-Smith for joining me and sharing your insights and thoughts.

Stephanie: (24:42)
Listening to Diana and Carmen made me think about my own college days. I think my cooking in those days entailed a lot of boxed mac and cheese and spaghetti with jarred sauce. It was years after I graduated from college before I really started experimenting with food and getting a better understanding of nutrition. My college experience was different in another big way. I got to stand shoulder to shoulder with my peers as we received our degrees, and we got to drink beer together in a crowded college bar that night. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carmen and Diana didn't return to their campus after spring break. They completed their coursework online. Their graduation ceremony was virtual. My son, too, finished his school year from home.

Stephanie: (25:27)
As we wrap up our first season of Kiddos in the Kitchen, the world is a lot different than when we began our conversations about cooking with our kids. When I spoke with Margie, no one had heard of COVID-19. The economy was seemingly doing fine, and you didn't have to worry about finding eggs at the grocery store. The world will continue to change as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. We'll all be adapting our daily activities for some time. Perhaps distance-learning school and working from home are bringing your family closer, or maybe you're under greater stress than ever. Perhaps cooking is less fun because of the circumstances, or maybe you found a way to successfully incorporate life skills like cooking into your homeschooling regimen. These are the things we'll be talking about in season 2, but I continue to return to the central question, how can we prepare our kids for a healthier future?

Stephanie: (26:19)
From Margie, Carmen, and Diana, we heard that if we can help our kids understand what helps them feel their best and help them become reasonably competent in the kitchen and to not fear experimentation, they'll be empowered. And we can do this by engaging their senses, inviting them to interact and giving kids input and control. So as we begin perhaps the weirdest summer break ever, I'm thinking about how I can use this time to engage with my son in the kitchen in meaningful ways that aren't stressful. How can I teach him and empower him as we savor our time together this summer? I hope you, too, are able to spend time in the kitchen that brings your family joy. Have a great summer and stay healthy.

Stephanie: (27:12)
Thanks for joining me for Kiddos in the Kitchen. I'm your host, Stephanie Conner, with a reminder from my son.

Conner: (27:18)
If you like my mom's podcast as much as I do, you can subscribe on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Stephanie: (27:38)
That's right, Conner. You can also view the show notes, subscribe to our newsletter and check out all of our other content at kiddosinthekitchen.com, where kiddos cook on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And I'll be back next month with another fresh episode. Until then, I encourage you to get your kiddos in the kitchen.