Hi.

I'm Laura Vanderkamp.

I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer and course creator.

We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

Welcome to best of both worlds.

Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.

From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.

We want you to get the most out of life.

Welcome to best of both worlds.

This is Laura.

This episode is airing in mid August of twenty twenty five.

Today, Sarah is going to be interviewing doctor Raishmashaw, who is a pediatrician, also a parent coach and has expertise in nutrition.

I guess plant based nutrition in particular and feeding families.

Got They're going to.

Talk a lot about family meals and family rituals.

Correct Sarah, Yes, we are, and I get into some details.

So since you're not part of the interview, why don't you share how your family meals are going lately?

Well, we do try to eat together.

Whoever is in the house is generally expected to be at the table at the time that dinner is happening.

That's different times, Like we don't have a set dinner time.

It's sort of based on the schedule for the day, although I would say it's generally sometime between six and seven is when it happens.

I am relaxed about some things related to family dinner.

Alex likes to sit at the counter rather than at the table with the rest of us.

I don't really know why, but I pick my battles.

He's in the room, he's in the same room, so there's that.

Henry will sometimes sit for about three bites.

I had a rule at one point that he had to be on his bottom, sitting down eating three bites of something healthy that was on his plate before he could run up elsewhere in the house.

And so sometimes he would sort of literally be sitting there like wait, because again it was when everyone was sitting down, he had to have the three bites.

So he'd be like Michael's taking his leisurely time filling his plate at the stuff, and Henry's sitting there like when's daddy gonna sit down so I can eat my three bites and go.

But we're trying to enforce proper behavior at the table here, and we're slowly training people with that.

We rotate.

Another thing we do on the other end of dinner is that each kid has a night for dishes.

That's really only the older four where that happens.

I don't think Henry's quite ready for doing dishes himself yet, but I'm happy to report that the older kids just do it.

They don't argue about they know that.

Yeah, so far, this will obviously have to change.

But Monday is Jasper, Tuesday is Sam, Wednesday is Ruth, Thursday is Alex.

You do the dishes on that night.

Alex sometimes needs a little assistance, but it's good.

It's nice to not have to do it.

I love it.

I'm like, I need some more kids.

And so you guys do talk selective eating, correct I hear that.

Yes, we do have some discussions about selective eating, and I think you will approve of her very gentle approach and philosophy.

How is that going.

I know that that has been something There's been multiple selective eaters in your household, isn't that right?

Yeah?

Yeah, I mean I'm pretty relaxed about this too.

I mean, it is one of my pet peeves of parenting, writing that people seem to feel sometimes that they've done something that makes their kids adventurous eaters versus more selective ones.

That is clearly the result of bad parenting.

Because the upside of having five children is you could know that you didn't do anything different but from one to the other, and yet their tastes are incredibly different in what they are willing to eat what they enjoy.

That you can have a child who.

Likes spicy mustards and basalmic vinaigrettes and ethnic food, and you can have another child who will only eat fruit in the form of apple sauce.

And you know, I don't believe that I was an awesome parent for one and a crappy parent for the other, And so I'm more inclined to believe that people are who they are, and sometimes you just have to work with what they are and try to make things happen as they can within that it also can change over time.

I'm pretty sure I've told the story on here of my little brother being a highly selective eater growing up and into young adulthood, and then at some point he's got a great tech job living in San Francisco and a young man in possession of a good fortune must soon be in want of a wife.

Is that the start to Jane Austen pride and prejudice, And it turns out that young women do not always wish to go out for pizza, so eventually you have to deal with that.

And I'm happy to report that he is both married now and also eats a lot of different things.

So there is hope.

And I like to believe that my selective leader, the highly selective leader in particular, will see that same success.

Someday.

They should talk someday.

Someday, I don't know anyway it will happen.

It will happen, but kids are different.

We work with what we've got to So I'm excited to hear what doctor Rachma Shaw has to say.

Well, I am so excited to welcome Rechma Shaw, doctor Rachmashaw to the podcast.

A fellow pediatrician.

Chema is a pediatrician, a parent coach, and has expertise in plant based nutrition and feeding families.

And we know at the start of the school year that dinner is often on everyone's minds, but we're going to even talk about dinner and beyond Doctor Rachmshaw, So welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

So am I.

And I did want to provide you with the tiny bit of my own like disclaimer stuff before we get into the discussion, just because I've talked about my family's kind of dinner habits before, and hey, maybe I'll end up with some advice from you as well.

But just for some background, my husband's a surgeon, I'm a pediatric endocrinologist.

We have three kids between the ages of seven and thirteen, and we've talked on this podcast a bunch about how family dinner can we think sometimes be kind of like over emphasized, because in reality sometimes it's harder to make that work for some families and for others, and there can be other ways that you might sub for that, and I am sure you have a lot of insight there, and I would say, as of now, we have a true family dinner once a week, then often another time a week, usually on the weekends we might all eat out, and then the rest of the week nights it's usually like me and anywhere from zero to two kids because somebody is out doing something else.

My husband usually comes home later, So that's like where I am.

So maybe you're like, oh my gosh, what a disaster.

I will say we are lucky, and that my kids do enjoy a lot of different types of food, so with like, the food battles aren't really a thing.

My kids will eat vegetables like they're pretty reasonably non picky.

So we're going to talk about that as well.

But I don't know, how does that strike you off the bat.

I actually think it's the perfect place to start, because I think the goal of family dinner it's not to just chuck something off of our list of things to do.

It's actually to really foster a sense of connection and thoughtfulness around food and meal times.

And so my definition of family meals does not mean that all the members of the family are sitting down precisely at six point thirty eating the same thing with perfect manners.

Nobody does family dinner like that.

My definition of family dinner, or any family meal for that matter, is that whoever is at home is sitting together at the table in conversation, eating food together.

And so if it's one child, that counts as family dinner in my mind, and I think that as parents.

We really have to take the pressure off of having to do everything perfectly because our kids will pick up on that.

And so if you actually end up having family dinner where everyone, every single member of the family is together and everyone is feeling stressed about it, you've defeated the purpose of family dinner.

So, believe it or not, you are actually having family dinner pretty much every night of the week.

I love this conversation already.

Yeah, so that's the first disclaimer.

It's whoever is at home.

It's really to combat the idea that you're eating dinner at the dinner table, your kids eating dinner in front of their computer screen in their room.

That doesn't work as family dinner.

But if you're pausing whoever's in the house.

And I've had teenagers in the house with multiple sports activities, and sometimes family dinner means that we're not going to wait for the kid that's getting home at eight thirty or nine from practice.

But when that kid does come home, they're sitting down for dinner, and I'm going to sit and have a conversation.

That counts as family dinner too.

So it's really letting go of this idea of perfection of having a home cooked meal at the same time, everybody has to be there with great manners and say thank you mom for making a delicious meal that happens in zero percent of family.

So you are doing family meal really beautifully awesome.

Okay, well, now that we've dealt with my issues, and I love that love.

I love the more flexible approach, the open mindedness, and I guess yeah, it does reflect what's actually important about being together, the presence versus like some specific imagery that probably came from like nineteen fifty.

Anyway, Yeah, I.

Remember one time when my kids were much younger, the sports and other activities.

I remember sometimes family dinner would be me and my younger child having a little pit make dinner while my older child was at practice.

So you just have to be creative.

And the point really is is are you present, are you sharing a meal?

Are you having conversations?

And is it a pleasant experience for both you and your children?

Okay, well, then let's start there, because I think a common challenge we get in this realm is that the kids are really young, or maybe there's even just one really young kid, because you know, you can have a couple of school age kids but you throw an eighteen month old in there, and like all of a sudden, things are wildly different.

Stuff is being thrones, there's crying, whatever.

So what would you say to families who are like, we keep trying to make it work and every time we end up disappointed because we just end up with tantrums at the table and it's misery.

What advice do you have for that situation?

Yeah, and I think it's really sort of being curious about where you think the friction is.

So and for every family it's going to look a little bit different.

And that's why I think really like a personalized conversation.

There's no one size fits all model when it comes to pailing nails.

So if you notice that your eighteen month old is starting out okay at the table, but fifteen minutes in, twenty minutes in, they're just done and ready to be out of there, it might be changing your expectations of how long can an eighteen month old reasonably sit at the table.

The average American family spends seventeen minutes at the dinner table, So wanting to have your eighteen month old, two year old, or even four year old sit at the table engaging in pleasant conversation for half an hour might be an unrealistic expectation.

So the first thing is set reasonable expectations and they pick up on our stress.

So if you're really anxious and you're always correcting them around the behavior at the table, it's going to really create a tense environment.

So come to the table, have reasonable expectations, and then when you're noticing if they keep throwing food off the table, maybe you need to start with a really small portion size and then kind of add in from there.

So focusing it in on where is the friction, having reasonable expectations, and then getting really curious and creative about the problem solving you can do.

So, whether it's serving smaller portions once they're done with their meal, maybe the eighteen month old is allowed to play with some blocks at the table, whether rest of the people finish it, or so really coming up with some creative solutions to whatever point of friction you're facing.

But I think the number one thing is really having realistic expectations of what your child can reasonably do.

Totally makes sense.

Yeah, all right, Well, the next common dilemma, and I'm sure you saw this one coming, is very selective eaters.

My co host Laura has five children, and some of them are not very selective, and some of them are extremely selective, and she uses that, I think to reassure people sometimes that people love to be like, it's what you did, and she's like, I didn't do anything different.

They are their own people, So it can still be a certainly a point of friction and a lot of families, especially when you're trying to serve things that are not going to cause a lot of drama.

So, yeah, are your go to strategies for those with selective eaters in the family.

So I think the first thing is it really depends on how selective we're talking.

So there's some kids that are sort of garden variety I won't eat green things or this week I like this, and that's what I call garden riety picky eating, and there's a lot of strategies for that.

Some kids have highly selective eating, often with underlying neurodevelopmental or medical issues.

So if you're dealing with a kid who perhaps has autism or significant food allergies or swallowing dysfunction, these are kids that probably need some specialized support, whether it's an intervention from a gastreenrologist, a feeding therapist, behavioral therapist, neure developmental pediatricians.

And it represents about one to five percent of kids who have that really highly selective eating.

It's not a parenting issue, and it's not a kid doing something wrong issue.

It's the families often need a lot more support the other sort of garden variety picky eating.

I think it comes down to two things.

One is individual pat child temperament.

Some kids are just more selective and some kids are more adventurous, and that's not really anything that you can necessarily change.

It's kind of like a personality thing.

Some kids are more outgoing and some kids are a little bit more introverted.

And so knowing the temperament of your child, are they really eager to try new things or are they really that slow to warm, they need a lot more exposure.

So that's the first part, and then the second part really is the parental response to that.

So what happens is you might have a garden variety picky eater and they need a little bit more support, they need a little bit more encouragement, and the parent can kind of overreact and then you start this sort of battle situation.

Where the parents are either bribing, they're negotiating, they're forcing, they're making dessert contingent upon how many mites of broccoli you have.

So you take sort of a mild feeding difficulty and you just explode it by the parents reaction.

And parents are very well meaning.

They're doing these strategies because they're afraid their kids aren't eating a variety of foods, they're not getting the new dreams.

So I've heard parents saying, I'll do anything.

I'll stand upside down for twenty minutes if that's what it it takes to get my kid to eat more broccoli or fill in the bank blank.

So what I often recommend is that parents sort of backtrack some of the pressure techniques.

And it feels really scary because oftentimes parents will say, well, if I don't promise them this, or threaten this, or negotiate this, they won't eat any vegetable for weeks on end.

And the truth is, I found time and time again, is that if parents take the pressure off and they go back to core feeding dynamics principles of the division of responsibility which we learned in pediatrics, which is parents decide the when, the what, and the where of eating, and then it's up to the child to decide how much and whether they're going to eat the foods.

It seems really scary at first, but the less pressure that kids eat, the more capable they are to try new foods.

And if you've got the kid that has the more selective temperament, just knowing that it's going to take a lot more exposures, a lot more pleasant experiences before they're going to try the food.

And I often this is not just for feeding, but this is for general parenting.

It's like parenting the child you have rather than the child you wish you had or the traits that you wish.

We all want adventurous eaters, but sometimes if you have a child that's really got selective eating, they just have that temperament, you actually have to go slower and have more patience, which is often not easy.

I know, which totally makes sense.

I sometimes also feel like sometimes people are looking for some badge that their kid eats X, Y Z, you know, food, and the truth is, if it's not interfering with their lives and they're getting enough nutrition overall, like looking zooming out of the big picture, maybe it's like less of a problem which might take some of the pressure off, which would, paradoxically, from what I hear you saying, maybe even improve things.

Yeah, And I think it's like parents, like we grade ourselves very harshly on all the things many how much wealthly, how much sleep, how much screen time, and we can just sort of pat ourselves on the back and say we're doing the best that we can and be open to the possibility that your child is actually going to have a normal diet as they are adults, because I know a lot of parents are thinking, like, I'm going to have a kid that never eats a vegetable in their entire life, and that's not the case.

I think that oftentimes, really the number one thing that parents can do is to make the eating environment, the dinner table, a pleasant environment, and it gives kids the permission to relax and be able to try new foods because they're not feeling so much pressure around it.

I love that.

Well, we're going to take a quick break and be back with a few more dilemmas, maybe for some older kids.

All right, well, are back, and I already hinted at one of these fairly common dilemmas that can get in the way of the family table or the family meal.

But many kids these days have a lot of activities, and I do feel like there is this very common arc where people say, I am not going to do that.

I value my evenings, I want to be home, so I'm not going to put my kid in x y Z.

But then their kids friends end up at X y Z and their kid wants to be an x y Z and you're like, okay, yeah, And I'm absolutely one of those people.

I think I said, oh, we're not going to do that much, and I ended up with like a competitive gymnast and a travel soccer player at one point.

So okay, knowing that, how can we still cultivate some of the family dinner feel in a context where everyone might be going in different directions.

Yeah, And I think this is really going to depend on the age of your children.

So when you have kids that are younger and they need to have, like especially if you have spanning younger and older kids, and the younger kids really need their bedtime and you want to make sure you get all the things in, it might mean that you're doing sort of different dinner times for different people.

But as their kids get older, you can sort of if your family can tolerate a little bit later of a dinner, that might be a way to sort of include everybody.

And that's certainly what we did.

We would push dinner back and so we could get all the kids at the and for our family, that was a real priority, So I was willing to push dinner back.

For some families, it doesn't working.

You just do the best that you can.

I think limiting sports can definitely be one approach, and many families have found success in that.

Our family, i think is more like your family.

If our kids were committed to an activity, they showed an aptitude or a real desire to participate.

As long as it wasn't interfering with their other important things like sleep and friendships and things like that, we tended to let them have the experiences.

And for one of my kids, for both my kids, actually their sports activities ended up being a really great source of community and friendship and leadership skills and commitment and all these things that we really want our children to have.

So every family's going to have to find their balance with that.

One of the things actually from a preparation maybe we'll touch on this is I think making it as easy as possible for about six to seven to eight windows, So if that means prepping some ingredients ahead of time, having some quick, easy go to meals that don't require my was when the kids were ready to eat, to have dinner ready, so there wasn't that extra time of like we just got home from soccer, Now we have to think about what's going to happen for dinner.

So I think some amount of just probably feeds really into your sphere of excellence and influences some planning and some preparations so that you're not planning to decide what's for dinner at six thirty when everybody's already hungry.

And there's definitely certain type even getting into the weeds, like certain types of meals that are easier to like maybe serve over two shifts, or like you know, you have younger ones, you can give it to them at six, but it's very easy to like keep the crock put on and it's still hot at eight thirty when everyone gets back from soccer or whatever.

So even the logistics of what it is can make a difference.

I'm a big fan of having a meal that can be like reheated or can be put together really quickly.

Totally.

Okay, Well, I love that, and I like the idea.

I have to toy with the idea of trying to go later.

Some of my kids are just like too hungry and then they'll eat fifteen snacks and then there is no dinner.

But maybe maybe they can eat their dinner but then sit there with like a cup of tea later and you know, everyone can still hang out around the table for a little bit.

So yeah, and I think sometimes what we used to do is we used to do like a staggered dessert.

So if you're a family that does dessert, then the older kiddo that just got home from practice is having dinner and the rest of your having dessert or playing a card game or something.

No.

I love that.

Well, how about in terms of selecting meals and even preparing meals, how do you recommend kids get involved with that at what age?

Any tips for doing so?

Because I can imagine that engaging in the process itself might make it more fun for certain families, might feel more like a burden in other families.

So I don't know that there's like a one size fits all here, But how have you seen this play out the.

Way that I what's worked for our family and I think is probably useful for a lot of families.

Is I like to think about it is an invitation because for some families, getting the kids involved with cooking and meal planning and prepping is a nightmare because it adds actually more work to their plates.

My bottom line is, if it's useful, if it's going to make your life easier and it makes your kids feel more engaged, go for it.

But if it feels like another tour or another thing on your to do list, kind of rethink it.

So the way that it looked in our families, when my kids were younger, they actually really liked to be in the kitchen, especially when it came to baking or other things.

And sometimes it was like they'd help chop some vegetables and then they'd go off and do whatever it was that they were doing.

And as they were older and they had homework and sports and all the things, they had very little to do with meal preparation.

Now they always had a job at the end, because I don't believe that parents should be doing all the work.

So my kids always, even if it was a small thing like setting the table or clearing the table, or helping with dishes.

They always had a job or responsibility, but I think the involvement is really going to depend on if it's making things easier for you, what phase you are.

One last tip that I'll give that was really helpful to me is oftentimes you'll have kids complaining about, like that's for dinner.

So when I'm doing my planning in my grocery shopping when they were younger, I would always say, give me your wishes for the week.

So they might say, could you make surfy this week?

Could you make a pasta this week?

And we had a few things that were always on constant rotation, and the deal was I would try to honor their wishes as much as possible, but they weren't allowed to complain about dinner once it was served, So that was kind of I never intentionally tried to serve foods that they weren't going to enjoy, but like I would ask for their wishes for the week, and I think eventually it kind of faded out, and the beginning it was a I think it just makes kids feel heard and like they have some say and they have some contribution.

So I think find what works for you, and if giving your kids more jobs or responsibilities works in their schedule and it makes life facier for you, go for it.

But if it feels like torture trying to get them to help in the kitchen, then maybe let it go for a while.

In our house, this definitely depends on the kid because we have certain kids that seem to have more interest than other kids.

Although it seems like everyone's gravitated towards having more and I agree, it is definitely more work.

My husband's like, why don't you get them to help?

You know, I'm like, ye, in the zone, I'm like listening to a podcast.

I'm so happily making dinner.

Maybe not this time, but then other times it is really nice.

Or to watch them like learn a technique like oh, you can make an omelet?

Now, like how did that happen?

Yeah?

And like maybe don't do that on the night when you have like two different practices and half an hour apart, and that sort of thing.

The one caveat I will add to that is as kids get older, you do want to give them some skills around food preparation and things like that so that they are able to actually cook for themselves, or if they're in college and at a dorm, that they can actually put together a reasonable meal.

And both of my kids, I will say, are fairly good at being able to cook for themselves, and I don't have a lot of concerns about them being able to put together a nutritious, delicious meal for themselves, even if it's something really simple.

Oh that's awesome.

Well, we're going to take another break and then get into some specifics beyond the table.

All right, we're back, and we've been talking about dinner in general and dinner time kind of like routines and just some tips.

But doctor Staw is also an expert on plant based nutrition and also on parenting in general from all of her years working as a pediatrician.

So we're going to move into some of these topics.

And my next question is for those who are more plant curious, Like maybe they're not looking to make a change to say we're a vegan family now or anything like that, but if you are somebody who is just interested in incorporating more plant centered foods, and maybe there's resistance from different members of the family, I don't know, where would you tell people to start.

Yeah, I love working with families that are fully plant based or even just plant curious, And I would say the best place to start is to really use an ad in approach.

And what I mean by that is is that instead of thinking about removing things in the I think the first place, especially f you of resistance from kids or even partners in the household, is to just simply add more plant based foods to your diet.

So if you're having eggs for breakfast, maybe you're adding greensmovie or you're adding some fresh fruit or some blueberries to your oatmeals.

So just adding in more plant foods.

So it could be really simple.

It could be like some cut up vegetables and dip at lunch.

It could be a cup of lentil soup at dinner, having a green salad.

So just really thinking about where are the places that I could add some more plant based foods in.

And I think the more that you do that you're going to necessarily kind of crowd out some of those more animal heavy foods.

Another thing that I found is to sort of treat the meat or the animal foods as a flavoring.

So if you're making a chili instead of doing an entirely ground beef chili, maybe half of that could be beans.

So you're sort of just adding more plant based foods into the meals that you already love and enjoy it.

I love that.

I also think I'm going to add money in myself, which is that if you have a meal where everyone can choose the components, you can have like maybe one meat option, but then other options as well, and then people can kind of adjust the ratio how they see fit.

And if you make the non meat ones enticing and colorful, then probably there's a good chance that they'll be taken.

And in general, I love this idea of a build your own bowl or a build your own thing for because kids love doing that, and again, it can take some of the pressure and give them If it's not a whole plate of tofu, they might give themselves permission to like, hm, that looks kind of good.

Maybe I'll try a piece of that.

So I love this sort of build your own plate or bowl approach.

Yeah, it's like low pressure.

I'll just put a little of that in the corner and we'll see how that goes with everything else exactly.

Now, one thing that you mentioned in your kind of kind of pivoting away from eating specifically, although of course if there are links there, feel free to share them.

But you help parents deal with overwhelm.

Now that is a very vague and broad topic, but I imagine people come to you with all types of overwhelm, and I'm curious as to kind of where your starting point is.

Honestly, I think the most important thing that parents need when I work with them in the beginning, I think they just need to be heard and to have some validation, because parenting is probably one of the hardest things that we ever do, and oftentimes we're kind of doing it alone and we see other people with the perfect Bento box or the family meal or the manners are great, and we feel like we're doing something wrong, and so just having the space to be able to talk about your experience, having some validation, and I think the problem solving comes like way later.

I think in the beginning, it's just not feeling so alone in the experience that you're having, And it could be something as small as like dinner time feels really chaotic.

To managing a new diagnosis in a kid, something like Celiac disease or type one diabetes, which I'm sure you have a lot of patients like that.

It's a really overwhelming thing and their world has just been turned completely upside down.

And oftentimes in the office as a pediatrician, you just didn't have the time to offer parents that kind of support and understanding and acknowledging what you're dealing with is really really tough and challenging, and you're doing a great job and then going in with the specific resources and tools that might help to make things a little bit easier, whether it's at the dinner table or at bedtime or whatever the situation may be.

And I think you're right that the common theme is probably taking the pressure off more than any you know, secreator tip there.

And you mentioned families with Nuancet type one diabetes and they talk about like usually when we're still in the hospital, they're like, Okay, that first dinner at home is always kind of like a big deal.

And our party line is like, you can't mess this up, Like, you know, as long as you don't we like, don't mix up the two insulins, but beyond that, like you're gonna be fine if you have a problem, let us know.

But like you don't have to be perfect, like you can do this just like everyone else can.

Oh my gosh.

But yeah, it's hard.

Yeah, and I think just not feeling alone in that journey, you know.

It's just like it can be really isolating, especially in childhood getting a diagnosis like this and feeling like one of the families I was working with their child who just gotten diagnosed with Celiac disease and they're imagining like never ever going out to ice cream with their friends.

So it's just it's a lot to take in.

Yeah, or foodologies too, Oh my gosh.

Yeah, all right, well, nourish yourself too is also something that was mentioned on your site, and I think definitely.

You know, one of the things we talk about on this podcast a lot is how we love being parents.

We love our kids, but our lives count as well, and sometimes in the like Mama sphere, people just kind of forget that, and even the things that people do for themselves it's couched as so that I can be a better mom, And it's like wait, wait, wait, like that's great.

And also these years of our lives are going by and we deserve to be happy even without you know, a benefit for our kids.

So I would love your take on nourishing yourself or how you advise people to start give them permission to do so, anything about in this category.

Yeah, and this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, especially as like in the last couple of years we've become empty nesters.

And I think that if yes, you want to nourish yourself so that your kids can sort of learn to prioritize their own well being and also learn some patients.

If we're one hundred percent always there for our kids in every moment, they don't learn sometimes that patience is required.

I may not be able to like drop everything and come deliver the thing that you've forgotten.

But I think also if we aren't paying attention to nourishing ourselves along the way, when the kids are out of the house, you're going to be left wondering how do I take care of myself?

So I think it's really important to find that place of figuring out the ways that you're going to get a little bit of a break, a little bit of nourishment.

And it can come from getting to yoga every now and then, it could come from actually making a meal for yourself instead of just eating the kids leftovers.

It can come from like finding even ten or fifteen minutes to read.

I realized during the pandemic and since the pandemic, my practice of just reading a book, whether it's for pleasure or for work, My capacity to sort of just sit and read a book was diminishing, like my attention span.

And so I've started a simple practice of every morning making myself a cup of coffee and I just read for ten or fifteen minutes.

And it doesn't have to be expensive spin classes or things that require a great amount of time or money.

It can be just a really simple thing.

And I think building in those places that are intentional for yourself.

It seems small, but I can tell you it were so far in twenty twenty five, I've already read more books than I did in twenty twenty four.

So those small things do end up batting up.

Oh my gosh, I love that.

Well.

I forgot to warn you about our love of the Week segment, but this will give you time to reflect on it as I'll share mine, and if you want to share one of those books that you have loved this year, that's always a fun one.

But really, guests, can share anything from the sunset to something they're partnered, to anything anything in the world that's making you happy.

So my love of the week, I'm going to go on theme today just because sometimes it's fun to do that.

And my sister in law is vegan and she got me a lovely cookbook called Life Changing Salads by Danielle Brown, and it is just so beautiful and it's a little bit aspirational, but I am absolutely making some of these salads.

And if you want a cookbook that is very beautiful to flip through, but actually I say aspirational, the ingredients are not like crazy or weird or hard.

So if you just want a starting point to put some more plant heavy items in your rotation, then I would check out that book.

Well, that sounds like an amazing book, I would say.

My love of the week is our weekly farmer's market.

The summer produce is in full bloom and everything is just so delicious, from the summer corn to the nectarms and the strawberries and the berries.

So I have just been loving our weekly farmer's Market.

I'm they're pretty much every Sunday.

So and you were in California, so I bet your weekly farmer's market is an absolute bounty.

Yes, I think it's one of the best parts of living in California is the farmer's market.

It's year round.

When we used to live in the Midwest, I think we have a farmer's market for like two or three months out of the year, but we haven't year round.

And I will say that because of it, my kids have really learned about seasonal eating.

And I know we're very fortunate that way.

But right now we're not eating any apples, but in the next couple months apples will be in heavy rotation.

I love it.

Well, tell our listeners where they can find you and your work.

Yeah, so you can find me on my website it's rachmashawandparentcoaching dot com.

And actually on my website, I have a list of I have several free resources, including a guide to making family meals more manageable, as well as a guide for parents that are wanting to explore more plant based eating.

It's a plant They started a guy that has some easy recipes as well as some new traits that you might want to pay attention to.

And the place that I tend to be most active is on Instagram.

And it's just my name Raschma Shaw so it's r e Shma Shah and I try to post parenting tips and lots and lots of recipes.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

This was so much fun.

Thanks so much.

I really enjoyed chatting with you.

Well we are back, Sarah doing an excellent interview with doctor Rashmasha about family meals, about eating.

With kids in particular.

So this question is from a listener who says, I am in a rut list your top three crowd pleasing dinners.

So, Sarah, what do you have?

I'm going to go with some bowls.

I've been into bowls lately because sometimes I don't even feel like using a recipe.

And they're just so customizable because you can have the kids pick which components they want.

So here's three balls for you, bowl number one, and my kids like all of these are various, at least some components of each of these would be like a Asian sushi type bowl, So you could do salmon just easy, Like it's one of my favorite proteins to cook, just because it's so easy to just throw in the oven and do it for like, but.

This isn't sushi salmon.

This is cooked salmon, regular cooked salmon.

You get rice, maybe some of those like seaweed packages at amami, which comes frozen avocado, some kind of Asian dressing, maybe shred some carrots in there.

People can choose what they want and then make your kind of sushi themed salmon bowl.

You could do a Mediterranean bowl.

I did this recently.

You could throw and actually I did it recently with all Trader Joe's components.

So we had couscouse grilled chicken.

I think I made it myself, but of course you could also get got routisserie chicken.

You could do pre cooked chicken, breast, whatever you want, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, cheese, they're premds hat siki, sauce, olives, and then I toasted some peda and then just choose the components you like, put it in a bowl, delicious, healthy dinner.

And then finally one that we very commonly at our house is like a rice and bean like bowl.

They kind of like a make your own Chipotle style thing.

So we'll have like rice, available beans, maybe some frozen corn that was heated up, salsa, cheese, avocado, sour cream and then whatever protein you want, maybe some leftover chicken or sliced up cooked sausages.

My kids love this.

We could probably serve this like every night for a year, and I don't even know if there would be complaints, so maybe for me.

But yeah, those are three bowls, none of which require recipes, none of which are fussy, and depending on how selective your kids are, are going to please most palettes, maybe not all.

Yeah, well the plain rice could always get eaten, Yes.

Plain rice, and maybe a little bit of plane beans or chicken like done.

Yeah, well, I'm gonna actually sing the praises of a rut.

I gotta say there's nothing wrong with serving the same crowd pleasing meals over and over again.

So don't call it a rut.

Call it it like doing best of right routine, routine, it's greatest hits.

Like, it's not a rut, especially if people can customize them, like taco night.

Right, if you have people who want nothing on a taco, who just want a tortilla and some cut up cheese on the side, they could eat that.

But there's also people who could put everything on their tacos and be happy with it, Like make your own pizza is another one that allows people at all different flavor levels of comfort to doctor it up as they might wish.

We do a pasta night every week.

Some people have sauce that is jazzed up with like a pre made sauce that's jazzed up with our own ingredients to our veggies and Italian sausage and things like that.

Other people prefer.

Plain marinara sauce, which can also be pulled out of the same jar before you put the rest in with the sausage.

Some people like just butter or just cheese on their pasta or whatever.

That is an option too, But you can sort of introduce variety by having a strategically takeout night in your week, so you can decide like Monday's pasta, Tuesday is tacos, Thursday is breakfast for dinner or pizza night, and then Wednesday is when you order in something different to make it feel a little bit less like a rut.

And I think that could help make those crowd pleasing dinners feel like it's not just you're eating the exact same thing in the same order over and over again.

It's like you are a couple nights a week to make it easy on yourself, and then you introduce variety when it makes sense to do so.

Awesome.

Well, now I have even more ideas.

Excellent.

Well, this has been best of both worlds.

Sarah's interviewing doctor Rishma Shaw on family meals and family eating in general.

We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

Thanks for listening.

You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.

Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.