Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Changing the Healthy Eating Conversation with Jennifer Anderson

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

In this episode, Sharon sits down with Jennifer Anderson, a registered dietitian and the founder of Kids Eat In Color, to talk about public health and nutrition misinformation. Jennifer advocates for moving away from fear-based messaging around food and consumption habits in order to help develop a perspective of curiosity and open-mindedness. She also shares with Sharon her tips on how to know when an information source is using emotional manipulation to promote health products or specific types of eating styles. Join Sharon and Jennifer to brush up on your nutrition information; it may not always be as complicated the media makes it out to be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello friends, so happy you're here today. I'm chatting with my friend Jennifer Anderson, who runs the incredibly popular website and social media account Kids Eat in Color. Are you already following her? If you have young children, I bet you are because she has some of the most amazing suggestions. But what we are specifically talking about today is misinformation. Misinformation about things like public health, about nutrition. I think you're really going to have some eye-opening takeaways from this conversation, so let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Jennifer, it is absolutely a delight to have you here. Thank you so much for coming.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Sharon. It's great to be here. I think people are going to take a lot from this conversation. We have so much to discuss about things like public health and your children and the scientific method and just there's a million different directions this conversation can go. And so I would love for you, first of all, to just sort of introduce yourself, tell people who you are, if they're not familiar with you. Sure. My name is Jennifer Anderson. I'm behind the company Kids Eat in Color. We help parents feed their kids with a lot less stress, especially relating to picky eating, kids who are underweight, kids where you were just not sure how to feed. We are there. We are the leading resource for parents feeding kids everywhere.

And I have two kids. They have not been easy to feed. And that has given me a lot of empathy. Feeding kids is tricky. How did you learn how to do this? How did you learn what you know? Was it purely trial and error? Was it scientific research? Like tell us how you became the leading resource on this topic. Well, it started when my kid fell off the growth chart. It started with that personal experience of like, wow, this is much harder than I thought. From that point, it was reading, essentially becoming a specialist via trial and error, life experience, talking to other parents, reading all the books, reading the textbooks, reading the studies online. I didn't become a researcher. I haven't actually done research on my own children or

on other children yet. And what is your like educational background? Did you study biology or what did you study when you were actually engaged in higher learning? So I studied cultural anthropology with a minor in economics and in poverty and development. That was my undergrad. I did not know what I wanted to do. I worked at a food bank after that coordinating their youth nutrition program. And I decided to go back for nutrition. That's when I realized I didn't have any prerequisites. So I did prerequisites in science for three years, and then I got my master's in public health. And then I became a registered's in public health and then I became a registered dietitian. First of all, can you clear up the difference between a registered dietitian and

like a nutritionist? Great question. So a registered dietitian or licensed dietitian is someone who has gone through a study program. They've gone through a supervised practice. Then they took this big exam and then they have to take continuing education to maintain their credential. It's like a registered nurse, a nutritionist, anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, but they may also have no formal experience, no practical experience. We don't know. You'd have to ask that person what their experience is. That's interesting. So like, for example, I could never legally call myself a registered nurse because I don't

have any of those credentials. You have to have the appropriate amount of training and testing, et cetera. But I could call myself like I'm a health coach. Yes. Right. And that's like that unregulated term. And people could just call themselves nutritionists without actually having any kind of training. Yes. I could just decide that I'm doing that tomorrow. You could. Yeah. I will say this. Some states do regulate the term nutritionist, but only some, I mean, it really depends on by state, but when you're online, I mean, nobody knows what state

people are in anyway. So you, you see a lot of nutritionists and what you really want to know is what is their experience? What is their training? How long have they been trained? What are they doing? Do they have a credential? Are they doing continuing education? What is their experience? What is their training? How long have they been trained? What are they doing? Do they have a credential? Are they doing continuing education? What is like, I have an ethics policy that I have to follow. I could lose my credential, but if you're a nutritionist, you can, you know, promote weight loss tea or whatever you want. Yeah.

Do you ever get requests just like as somebody who has a large social media following, do you ever get requests from companies where they're like, you can earn so much money if you will just promote our weight loss products? I get so many requests. The weirdest things. If you just promote our XYZ, I'm like, that is not real. It's not a thing. You get people who say yes to this. Yeah, they do obviously, or they wouldn't be in company, right? I get asked to promote stuff like that all the time. And I'm always like, I don't, it doesn't even garner a response. Oh no. I don't even, I'm not even like, what are, what is, tell me what you're thinking. No. Like you can just go delete. Exactly. Not promoting your weight loss tease.

No, not when I could actually interact with a real person. That's part of my community. Not when I could do something real. What drew you to initially to wanting to create resources for other parents? I know you mentioned you had a child that fell off the growth chart prior to that. Were you thinking, you know, what I might like to do is work with parents about, you know, these kinds of topics, or was it very much organic as a result of your child's experience? So when I graduated from college, I started working at this food bank and I was in charge of their youth nutrition programs.

And I saw at that time how there were kids in high-risk areas who had never seen a baby carrot or a piece of broccoli. They wouldn't eat these foods because they had never seen them before. They didn't have enough food. They were really struggling. And I just thought, you know, if we kick the kid's bed and they're, they're having these really nutrient deficient diets, they can't do well in school. If they don't do well in school, they're not gonna be able to get jobs. It's just such an integral part of the health of all communities. And that's when I decided to go back for nutrition. I just didn't know what that was going to look like. And then of course, when I graduated, I was going to have a baby. And my, my only goal was, Hey, I got to get a job so that I can support my child. My husband

is in graduate school. We're not going to be living on that stipend. And so I took the job that worked and that was contracting to the USDA and working on their national staff ed program. contracting to the USDA and working on their national staff ed program. And that gave me a lot of opportunities, but it wasn't with kids. And it was really my own child that kind of brought me back into that, not only professionally, but also just that personal angst of this is really awful. I can't be the only person. Right. And that's what, that was the, I was making these cute little lunches to get him into eating, just like get his attention for three seconds so that he can eat. And I was like, Oh, maybe I'll just put these on Instagram and just kind of talk about why I'm doing each thing and how it's helpful. And next thing, you know, there's a lot of people who are like, Oh, this is, this is a problem for me too. I would love to hear a little bit more about areas of misinformation

when it comes to things like nutrition advice, when it comes to feeding your children, when it comes to even adult nutrition, we've had this conversation before that the amount of misinformation online that people are inundated with, it's difficult for the average person to sift through. even adult nutrition. We've had this conversation before that the amount of misinformation online that people are inundated with, it's difficult for the average person to sift through. So can you talk a little bit more about just these ideas of things people can be on the lookout for? How can you spot misinformation, health information online or nutrition information online? I think a lot about this because, you know, I don't know what each person's situation is, right? You could be in the situation where you have a medical condition,

you are trying to use food to contain that, to manage your life. Somebody else could be in a situation where their health is pretty good, but also they're so busy and they've just had a death in the family and they just like lost their job. And for them, what they're trying to do with food is survive. And so I come at it from this position of all the foods out there, they're all playing a role. And what our culture has developed is this onslaught of information that is just shouting, you have to be obsessed with food and diet and weight. You have to think about it all the time. And you can't go anywhere without getting these random weight diet or nutrition messages. If they're seeing information and it's saying things like, if you do this, you can blah, blah, blah. And it creates a sense of like, oh my gosh, that sounds like it's too good to be true. It is. It is too good to be true. If

it sounds too good to be true, it is. If they say, you don't have to do anything and you can get these health benefits. Again, not true. If you're reading information that makes you feel afraid, like, oh my gosh, I just read that eating eggs is the same as smoking cigarettes. If that is the feeling you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to die. I mean, it's a fact you are going to die. Um, but it's probably not the eggs that are going to kill you. Right. Um, we have to pay attention to these feelings of fear of too good to be true of, of I have to do it now, urgency, those sorts of things. Those are your first warning signs that this information is being served up to you in a way that is trying to get you to do something.

Emotionally manipulation. Absolutely. And when you feel like you're being emotionally manipulated, that is a good time to say, you know what? This is not the place I'm gonna get my nutrition information. The reality is if we're serving meals, if we're cooking meals, if we're buying meals when we can't cook meals,

if we're doing all these things and we're practicing some basic, call them healthy practices, but the word healthy is so loaded. If we're sitting down to eat and we're teaching our kids to listen to whether they're hungry or full and we're doing the best we can, that is going to lead to a lot more health than getting stressed out by all these nutrition headlines. I mean, I recommend scaling back your nutrition obsession. Basic nutrition guidelines have not changed over time. Eat the widest variety of food you can listen to your body, cook as much as you can, you know, do these things. Those recommendations haven't changed over years. What about the USDA food pyramid? I see a lot of people who are like this food pyramid is trash.

You're not supposed to be eating 12 servings of grains a day or like whatever it says, you know what I mean? Like at the base of the pyramid is like an obscene amount of grains and then like a very large amount of dairy. And up here at the top of the pyramid are fruits and vegetables. What do you have to say about the food? Fun fact, the food pyramid has been out since, you know, around 2005. Okay. We had a modified pyramid in 2005, and that kind of had these bands that went down that lasted for not very long, but about the past decade, we've had my plate, which is a plate and half of it is fruits and vegetables, a little more vegetables and fruit. And the other half is protein source and some sort of like whole grain or something like that. And then a little, you know, cup of milk on the side. What I like about that is that it kind of promotes variety.

It gives people an idea that yes, we need to be eating protein, but it doesn't need to fill the whole plate. Yes, we need grains. We need those energy foods. We need that color. We need all those things. It has its limitations, certainly. That said, it's better than the pyramid. It's a lot easier to use too. How am I supposed to eat a pyramid? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What I like to say to parents

and as they're teaching their kids is instead of fixating on, oh my gosh, did I feed them enough of this? Did I feed them enough of that? How many calories? I just had a conversation with a mom who's like, I just want to know how many calories my baby needs. It is a really common question and it's perfectly understandable that people would ask that

question given the environment. At the same time, what matters more is providing balanced meals and snack opportunities throughout the day so that you don't have a fuzzy kit the whole day, or so that you do get your nutrients throughout the day. So instead of kind of saying, oh my gosh, did I eat the right amount of this or that, or the other thing, the amount of calories, the amount of protein, like everything's varying day to day for your kid, for yourself. Instead of focusing on that, we're going to say, okay, did I have some color? Did I have a source of protein? Did I have an energy food? Did I have all those things on the table? And was my kid allowed to kind of choose what to eat? Picky

eating is so much about letting, I mean, overcoming picky eating is so much about letting your child have some agency in whether they're eating stuff and how much they're eating. And as parents, it's really our job to kind of give them those options, those balanced options based on what we have available to us. And in that way, our kids have options for getting a balanced diet. And so do we, and we can kind of cut through all those nutrition messages out there that are saying, oh, and you have to have avocado. I'm like, well, many people cannot afford avocados or they are not in the stores. And then people are feeling guilty that they can't include avocado in their child's diet. We can kind of cut through that

when we take more basic approach and we say, okay, do I have these things on the plate? Am I serving the widest variety that I can? Am I giving my child the ability to choose how much to eat? I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories

from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments so join us for brand new office ladies 6.0 episodes every wednesday plus on mondays we are taking a second drink you can revisit all the office ladies rewatch episodes every monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things that I think is super useful for people to hear just parents adults is that it is okay to eat frozen fruits and vegetables oh my gosh or let's talk about facts what about what about canned fruits and vegetables

does everything have to be like picked yesterday and driven via a vintage truck to the farmer's market after it was pollinated by heirloom honeybees. Like does every, I mean, that's great. It is great. Delicious. Absolutely do it. Um, but some of us live in the Arctic, no farmer's market from October to June. And some people live in food deserts where there is not a large grocery store nearby. Some people don't have the income to be able to buy produce that's pollinated by heirloom honeybees. I would venture to say that most people cannot. So what are your thoughts about like frozen and canned fruits and vegetables?

Okay. First of all, we need to bust the myth that frozen fruits and vegetables have any less nutrition than fresh. That is purely a myth. I'm not exactly sure where it came from. Frozen fruits and vegetables are a wonderful option. And I don't think they are statistically significantly different in nutrient content. People are like, well, I'm compromising. I'm eating frozen. No, you're not compromising. You're just eating a different variety. If you compare frozen food, they're picked, they're flash frozen and boom, they're in the store. You compare that to a food that was picked before it was ripe. And then it was driven on a truck 2000 miles. And then it sat on the grocery store for two weeks. And then it finally got to

you where it's on your counter for two weeks. I mean, that food is potentially going to have less nutrients. That fresh quote, fresh food is going to have less nutrients than the one that was flash frozen, ripe on the spot. So I really hope people take away. It is a myth that fresh is better than frozen. It is different. It is great by your farmer's market. The food is great. So often now canned food does have less nutrients. It doesn't mean it's a bad option. People often say, Oh, well, it has less than fresh and frozen. Therefore it's bad. No, it's still good. It still has a ton of nutrition in it, especially the vegetables.

So it's a great option. It's absolutely a great option. And if you're concerned about sodium, you can rinse your vegetables before you serve them, things like that. There's lots of options. certain about sodium. You can rinse your vegetables before you serve them, things like that. There's lots of options, but you think about like canned beans. I cannot bring home cooking beans into my life right now. It is too much for me. I just, it's not going to work. Canned beans, we can add them into all sorts of things. It's great. And obviously there's whole piles of canned vegetables

and all that stuff. Canned fruits gets a little tricky because a lot of it has added sugars in it. It's still a fun option. It's still a good option. If you can get it sweetened in its own juice, it's better. People are like, oh my gosh, it's got added sugars. Therefore it's a bad option. No, it's still a good option. People love to hate on one group of foods or one specific food. Eggs, they're the same as smoking cigarettes. Meat is going to give you a heart attack. If we took all the dangerous foods out, guess what we would be left with? Nothing. Eating nothing is the most dangerous thing you could do. So I always recommend variety, right? Every food has a dark side. every food has a dark side every food has a bright side

so when you're eating you want to say how many foods do I have access to and how many can I include in my diet based on my budget based on where I live all these things based on my capabilities how can I eat the widest variety possible so that I minimize the effect of each dark side? And I also get the benefits from all the bright sides, right? It's such a great point. And this is the other thing that I sometimes think about because I am a history nerd. I was recently rereading the Little House in the Prairie books to my daughter and it

was harvest time. Paul was out hunting because you hunt for deer in the fall, et cetera. They were picking all their squash. They were canning everything that had been, that they couldn't, they didn't get to eat over the summer. And they realized Laura in the book says that they would not have any green vegetables again until springtime because that was the nature of human eating at the time. Eating has been cyclical. It's been based on availability. Humans have always eaten a wide variety of foods because it was based on availability and sometimes

less variety. Certain parts of the year, you eat less variety wintertime in a cold climate, you're eating way more variety in the summertime. What are your thoughts about that? Like sort of cyclical nature of human eating. I would love your perspective on that. You're right on. I mean, humans have done so well in so many different climates because we can eat a wide variety of things. We are omnivores. And because of that, we can survive. We have eaten all sorts of things all over the world.

And I think that's amazing. Right now, I think especially in the United States, we live in a rich country. Depending on where you live in that country, you may be next to stores that, you know, you can get strawberries all year round, which is crazy. That's crazy. Also kind of awesome. If you live in that area and if you have the money to buy it and you know, all these things and really we are out of step with the cycles and the seasonality and all that stuff. People have the money to have these quote optimal diets. They are the ones who are promoting this sort of like eat the rainbow all year long.

And the reality is most people don't have access or, you know, seasonal foods are more affordable. So eat the potatoes in the winter, really eat the potatoes all year, but also, you know, when peaches are in season, they're affordable. You can eat them. Then we just have to remember that we don't have to buy into this idea that we need excessive, expensive variety to nourish our bodies. Mm-hmm. If you think about people who truly live in Arctic climates, they live in Alaska, et cetera. Now they have access to seasonal fruits, whereas that has

literally for millennia, native Alaskans have never eaten cherries. We can't be fear-mongering people into these diets that have allowed the survival of the human race. In the Arctic, people survived on meat. Literally whales and walruses. Which is kind of sad if you're really into whales. Which I am. but I understand that as an indigenous culture, that was their food source and it was that. Yeah. Yes. And you know, the web of life, right. It's all, it's all part of it, but we're demonizing foods that people have survived on for so long. And I think it needs to stop personally. I mean, at Kids Eating Color and

our whole team is really about this. Like we will support you however you want to feed your child, but we also expect that people need to stop demonizing foods. You can't yuck on somebody else's yum. It's got to stop. I mean, that leads to kids being biased against kids from other cultures, what they're eating. It leads to kids saying things in preschool, like your mommy gave you poison because a mom put some candy in their child's lunch or saying at school, oh, pizza is unhealthy. And then the child with severe picky eating is not afraid to eat one of the few safe foods they have. Or now a family has suddenly gone vegan with no education because they were fear-mongered into it by a quote documentary that they watched. And I just think like this sort of

demonizing foods, it really is not doing anyone any favors, not to mention the stress. Like people are stressed about what they're eating. Stress is definitely a very dangerous thing for our bodies. I will say this food absolutely can support you in various health conditions that following a certain diet pattern is really good for you. And you feel good about it. You're living your best life. That's great. But I think coming at it from kind of a curious or like, Hey, I have this health problem. I'm looking for a solution instead of this place of, Oh my gosh, I just watched that thing. And now I'm poisoning my kids. You know, there's so many fear-based messages around various foods. And I mean, you name it.

Do you ever feel like just saying, you know, I can't even talk to you about this because when you have somebody who is that sort of deeply entrenched in their belief system, they're not actually coming to you because they genuinely are curious about something or like, can you share with me more about why eating cabbage might benefit my children's health? I'm genuinely curious. That's a different perspective than like, tell me why you think cabbage is worth eating. Oh, absolutely. I just try to stay out of the fray. You know, like if you want to feed your kids, great. I feed my kids cabbage. You can watch me feed my kids cabbage. I'll actually kind of give you some talking points, like how you could help your kid understand what does cabbage do in the body?

Cause that's a fun fact to know. Purple cabbage has these antioxidants, antioxidants help keep your brain healthy for a long time. You know, that's a cool fact and it helps kids kind of make this connection. What I eat affects my body. I don't think we need to mortalize that though. I don't think we need to be like, therefore, if you don't eat cabbage, you are a bad person. Or, or if you do eat cabbage, you're a good person. Like, no, you're either a person who eats cabbage or not. I mean, you can only be a good mom. If you feed your children cabbage brought in by a vintage truck after being, after being pollinated by heirloom honeybees. True. It's true. And we

will judge you on that. I'm going to let everybody know what a bad mom you are. If you haven't done what I precisely what I tell you to do. And you know what we can, we can make fun of cabbage, but this happens day in day out. If you don't feed your baby, the quote right way or the best way or the evidence-based way, therefore you are a bad mom. And this message gets put out there loud and clear on so many different parenting things. It's a tricky path, you know? So true. I would love to hear your take on health supplements. I know many of them not regulated by the FDA. Do you feel like any of them are worth taking despite the lack of regulation? Yeah. So all supplements are unregulated and it's important to know that it's also important to know that supplements do have a role, right? So if your diet is deficient, or if you have a thing,

like I have a thing where my stomach doesn't make the right thing. And therefore I have to take a B12 supplement. Otherwise my body can't work. That was like a life-saving supplement and I have to take it. I'm glad it's there. I get one from a trusted source. And I think you really kind of have to go through a practitioner. If you want to kind of get the ones that are like, I want to say verified, but there's no actual verification, right? So you kind of have to trust brands and the supplement world is very tricky. So yes, supplements have a role. They are being marketed to an extent that people feel like they have to take them to be healthy. That's not necessarily true. It all depends. I mean,

the reality is if your child is not eating any dairy and also not eating any fortified supplemental foods like soy milk or pea milk or any other foods with calcium, you're not eating any fortified supplemental foods like soy milk or pea milk or any other foods with calcium, you're not eating any fish bones, this or that, or the other thing, which is what they do in other countries for calcium, your child might need a calcium supplement. And that would be something to talk to your pediatrician about. And so there are these things, you know, vitamin D is heavily prescribed, especially for people in the North, but also people are inside. You know, if you have no vitamin D in your system, guess what? You're going to be like, have no energy.

So we have to take this balanced perspective. health provider can really help you kind of assess, do we really need this? Or is it just marketing that is driving this idea that I need it? Um, and it's just, again, it's emotional manipulation to make you feel right. If you don't take our patented brands of whatever, then your health is going to suffer. What about this idea that physicians don't really receive any nutrition training in medical school? And so maybe are not the best source of nutrition information for their children. What are your thoughts about that? Well, yes, that's just a fact. It's just a fact. Now some doctors have gone out of their way. Maybe they've, they've actually studied nutrition. Maybe they've kind of hobby studied it on the side.

So I don't like to knock doctors because they're, they're really good at what they do. Like if my kid has this fever, that's not going away, guess who I'm going to go to my doctor because they know what they're doing. When it comes to nutrition, many are really relying on the same information that you're getting. They're relying on the headlines. They're relying on the same information that you're getting. They're relying on the headlines. They're relying on the newsflashes. They're relying on the marketing. And then they give you advice. Advice such as, your toddler is obese. You should put your toddler on a diet.

But that's not even an evidence-based recommendation, but every week someone writes me a DM that says, my doctor told me to put my child on a diet. That is not something that I want to see you doing. And as a registered dietitian, and you know, we have a eating disorder specialist registered dietitian on our team who works with kids who've been diagnosed as being too high of a weight, you know, what she always says is I want to do no harm first. So many kids are then being like funneled into eating disorders by their pediatricians or a pediatrician says, Oh, your kid is going to grow out of picky eating. Guess what? They might not. There is a good chance. They will never grow out of picky eating

or they won't grow out of picky eating or they won't grow out of it until they're teens or until they're 30. Is there something you could do now to help them get the nutrition that they need? Yes, there absolutely is. And we see that in our picky eating course all the time. Parents come to us and they say, my doctor said, just wait it out. And it's been two years and nothing has changed and it's gotten worse. It's like, yeah, if your doctor is saying things like, oh, it doesn't matter what your kid eats. Like all these messages are not based in any sort of evidence. They're just kind of like diet culture being thrust upon you by someone who's a medical expert, not necessarily a nutrition expert. Your doctor may have good nutrition advice and some do. And that's the

tricky part. If you could erase one message about food that Americans are being bombarded with just one, all the other messages are going to stay. What would be the message? You'd be like, if I could just erase that from the face of the earth, that's what I would pick. I would probably pick this food is unhealthy where this is whatever they're talking about. Does that count as one or does that count as like 2000 about specific judgments about specific foods? Yeah. That's the one I would take away. What is that doing to us when we're hearing those messages? Like this, these canned peas are unhealthy. What happens if you have canned peas in your house and you bought them and now

you've heard they're unhealthy. Now you are in this very weird dilemma of, oh my gosh, am I going to damage myself? If I eat this, like, what if I feed this to my child? I don't know. And now you're in this spiral and maybe you've had a stressful day. So now you're like in an anxiety state all over canned peas, which it doesn't matter if you eat canned peas are a great option. That's the thing is we are creating stress and anxiety for no reason in people.

Am I going to tell you to eat canned peas all day long? No, but you know what? My six-year-old came to me and he said, is this food healthy? And my other son came to me at five and asked me the same thing regarding a food. He had heard it, somebody at school or something, because we don't really call foods healthy or unhealthy in our house. And I said, that's an interesting question. Where'd you hear that? And he was like, I don't know, you know, six-year-olds. But then he, I said, well, you know,

healthy is a tricky word. Well, I was like, what foods are healthy? And he was like, you know, he kind of thought about it. He didn't really know. I was like, well, what foods are unhealthy? And he was like, candy, if you eat a lot of it, right. That was his answer. And even at six, he could understand if I just eat candy, I am not going to feel good. Right. Have we ever said anything bad about candy? We haven't, but he already understands that if you eat too much of

one thing, whether it's broccoli or canned peas or candy or anything else, you are going to be sick and it's going to be unhealthy, but also so many different foods have a role in your health. If you eat candy as part of your diet, you can still live until you're a hundred, right? So much good stuff. I mean, we could just chat about all these things all day. Tell everybody where to find you because you really are such a treasure trove of resources related to good nutrition information, not diet culture, not shame, not parent shaming, not fear mongering, like actual useful information about parents looking to make sure their kids, useful information about parents looking to make sure their kids, because the kids can eat a wide variety of foods because the most dangerous thing is eating nothing.

Yes. So true. And that's where we come from. We're not going to, we're going to shame you for, because you ate too many canned peas or chicken nuggets or fast food or like whatever. I mean, we welcome all parents wherever they're at. And we have people tell us day after day, you know what, you're the only place I come to because I don't feel judged here. We provide a little bit of space for you to think about whether or not you want to change something. If you don't, we'll support you. If you do, we'll give you some ideas. We are at kids eating color.com. We are on Instagram where you can join millions of families. And we are also on Tik TOK and Pinterest and Facebook and you know, all that fun stuff, all the places, if you need a free picky eater guide

to kind of get you on your way, you can find that on our website. This was really, really fun chatting with you. I appreciate your time so much. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Sharon. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review, or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.