Latest / Talking FACS / Episode 8: Let the Fun Begin - Using our Senses to Explore and Experience Food

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Episode 8: Let the Fun Begin - Using our Senses to Explore and Experience Food · Talking FACS

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  Music
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  Big Blue Book Club presents SNACK Club with Courtney Luecking and Anna Cason, featuring
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  Raising a Happy, Healthy Eater and How to Raise a Mindful Eater. Now, here are our hosts.
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  Feeding children is an adventure. And at some point or another,
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  you might have had questions like, am I doing this right? Or is this normal?
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  Headlines, things we see online, things we hear from family and friends,
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  and even unpacking what we see in the store can have us questioning what to feed our children.
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  We want children to have what they need to lead happy, healthy lives.
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  And it seems like as soon as we figure something out, it changes.
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  That's where we come in. My name is Dr. Courtney Luecking. I'm a registered dietitian
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  and extension specialist for family and child nutrition.
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  This means I have lots of training and expertise about child nutrition.
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  I also have two littles of my own. This combination allows me to talk through
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  practical science-based strategies for creating a nourishing feeding environment for your family.
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  And my name is Anna Cason. I'm a registered dietitian and Extension Associate in Food and Nutrition.
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  I don't have kids of my own but my interests and passion lie in supporting healthy
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  food related behaviors which begin in childhood.
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  In partnership with the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service,
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  we present SNACK Club where we share bite-sized bits of information for Supporting
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  Nourished Active Children in Kentucky.
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  So come for the SNACKS and stay for the SUPPORT.
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  Hi, Courtney. Hi, Anna. How are you? Doing well. How about you? Doing well.
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  This is a fun one. It is. And I love that we're ending our first part of this
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  series on this note, on a high note. It's fun.
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  And I think a sense of adventure, exploration, that's how we want to send people out into the world.
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  And it kind of ties up all the other things we've touched on and finding the
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  silver lining throughout all of them. Yes.
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  And so today we're going to be talking about letting the fun begin. Yes.
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  Using our senses to explore and experience food.
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  And I have to say, when I read this Raising a Healthy Happy Eater,
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  I loved that they had a whole chapter on the sensory experience.
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  Me too. I knew we had senses.
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  I've always heard five senses, I think, which people have.
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  They took it to another level there are
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  more than five yes newsflash there are more than
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  five yes yeah so might be a spoiler alert
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  for those or maybe not shocking to others yeah i think that's like the sense
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  of taste maybe we start there yeah the sense of taste because i think we used
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  to think there were only what four senses of taste there was sweet sour salty
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  bitter but now there's this fifth one. I remember being at a trivia contest.
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  I knew there was a fifth taste umami, that savory flavor.
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  And they said there were only four. And I was like, so we got it wrong because
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  of me. I convinced my group that there were five.
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  We can go back in the literature. There is evidence.
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  There's actually five. We didn't argue it. We were dead last anyway. So it was a moot point.
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  But anyway. But yeah, taste I think is one of the main ones. Yeah. Especially with,
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  eating. Yeah. Taste is important. Yes. And maybe one of the more final sensory
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  experiences that we taste leading up to it.
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  Yeah. So what was, let's talk about, we have eight senses and they are all integrated
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  through this sensory integration system.
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  So our brain is constantly receiving messages from all over our body and our environments.
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  And I love one of the examples, almost like a hair on your arm.
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  You may detect it at first, but over time you might become dull to it.
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  But it's just like all of the different processes that are happening in your
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  body and how your brain tries to make sense of it.
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  And I think what reading that really helped me better appreciate how overwhelming
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  it could potentially be to eat a new food.
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  Or just at a younger age when you're like growing into your body and your brain
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  is trying to a process, how to navigate all these senses that it's receiving.
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  Yes. It's a lot. It's a lot. I think about like a conference I went to recently
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  and eating lunch and it felt like a flashback to middle school, high school lunch.
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  You walked into a big crowded room, couldn't find any of my friends and you're,
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  you know, like your tray of food and you're like, well, I don't know where to
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  sit. There's a lot of noise.
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  The lights were dim. Like there was a lot of sensory experiences going on that
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  were like totally detracting from my interest or desire to eat.
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  Yeah. Well, I think about that even like in different environments,
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  I pay attention to the temperature a lot.
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  Like that is something that my body reacts to. If it's super cold in a room, I can hardly focus.
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  But if it's super hot, same thing. So it's all these different things that your
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  body is feeling and noticing. And then it kind of prioritizes like what...
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  Where it falls in the line of what do I need to react to and like really focus on.
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  So eating is, there's a lot going on. We're moving, we're putting new things in our mouth.
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  We're also seeing new things. We're hearing things, a bunch of different stuff
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  that's playing a role in this activity.
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  Yeah. So let's take a few moments just to talk through all of these different
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  senses and think about how they specifically relate to an eating experience.
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  I like to use that word because it is actually an experience.
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  Some are more elaborate than others. Yeah. What was one of the senses that you enjoyed reading about?
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  We'll stick with the basics first. Yeah, top five. So we talked about taste.
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  But I have some fun facts about taste. Okay, let me hear them.
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  So did you know that we can start to taste when we are babies in the womb?
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  Like during pregnancy in utero, babies start to taste amniotic fluid.
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  That's how early taste buds start forming. That is fascinating.
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  So just thinking about how our taste preferences begin so early in life.
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  Before we even know it. Yeah. Wow. Yes.
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  And then another fun fact, I learned this from previous career,
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  but that our gut has taste buds. They can like sense that sweetness.
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  We thought it was just on our tongue, but also in our gut. But we were doing
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  like intestinal samples to try to like look for and find those.
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  Wow. So it's really like a whole digestive process with taste.
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  Yes. Yes. A whole body experience.
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  Okay. I think those are my only fun facts. Those are fun facts.
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  Oh, one more. One more. Oh. And the book did talk about super tasters.
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  Oh, yes. I think it's really relevant when we're thinking about kids.
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  Yeah. There are these more bitter flavors. So if we think about those cruciferous
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  vegetables, the ones that smell awesome when you cook them in the office.
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  But you're like, who's making broccoli or Brussels sprouts?
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  Who's putting that up? Yes. Usually you get guilty as charged.
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  But those can have a more intense flavor. And one in four people are really
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  sensitive to that butter flavor.
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  I didn't realize it was that many. It is. And then about one in four are actually
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  not really sensitive at all.
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  And then everyone else kind of falls in the middle somewhere.
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  Okay. And there are some tests that you can do to kind of get a sense if you're a super taster.
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  But just something to think in mind is people, children and adults have really
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  strong reactions to some of those more bitterly coffee, for example, unsweetened coffee.
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  But it's another indication that if you're sensitive to it, all influencing
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  the choices that we make about what we like or what we don't like. Yeah. Interesting.
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  So sorry for that tangent. Just a little bit more. Fun facts.
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  I love them. So back to basics.
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  Sensitive. Seeing. That's another one. We have our eyes. We see things.
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  Everything around us. And then again, our body chooses to prioritize it on this
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  list and decide if it needs to react or respond to it.
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  So with the eating experience, this food's going to be in front of you.
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  And if it's a new food, it may look intimidating.
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  You may see it and that may be like a first signal.
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  You see it and it's something new and it's hesitant. You don't know if you want to try it.
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  And then other senses can play a role in deciding that. Yes.
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  And I think there's evidence then looking at the size of plates or the portion
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  of the plates or in the bowls and like, what do they say we eat with our eyes
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  rather than our stomach?
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  So I think sight is a really, you bring up a really good point when talking
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  about that one, whether it's new,
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  like the amount, or even, and just how quickly that turns to,
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  do I have previous experiences, like memory that we might have,
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  or the fear if we don't have anything that we can relate it to.
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  And thinking about like mixed dishes for little ones, it may be a familiar food,
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  maybe spinach or something.
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  But if it's cooked in a lasagna or a soup or something with other ingredients
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  too, they may not recognize that it is something they've had before.
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  And then it may maybe hasn't. And even if they've had all the foods before,
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  like in a lasagna, but if it's all together on their plate, it may be...
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  There may be some fear with it, understandably. I'm actually so glad you brought
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  this up because I've heard stories of parents like sneaking vegetables into dishes.
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  And while that can, the evidence behind that, like it can slightly increase
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  the amount of vegetables that children eat. At the end of the day, it usually backfires.
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  There's kind of like that evasion of trust that we talked about before.
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  And so while I appreciate that, I'm always looking for creative ways to get
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  vegetables in and being able to see them for what they are.
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  And experience them differentially as well as together is really important. Yeah, absolutely.
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  Okay. Taste, sight, hearing. Hearing, which I don't think we usually think of when it comes to food.
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  But like we were traveling for work this week and I kept hearing the pop of
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  the soda can or the pop can or like the twist of the bottle and the fizz.
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  And that just brings like there's something.
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  Yes. Yeah. Well, even thinking about like restaurants,
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  there are so many like marketing things that go into setting the dining experience in a restaurant,
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  something that I am not familiar with at all, but there's a level that they
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  play the music for a reason because you're supposed to be having this conversation over this table.
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  So like these other senses that we don't often think about, there are like specific
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  studies that look into them related to the eating experience and And we know
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  that they have a huge role.
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  It is wild. And that's something we can talk about with kids.
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  Like sound, like a crunch.
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  Just think about the crunch of like you take a bite and it's like, oh gosh.
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  And what does this food sound like if we take a bite or things like that?
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  So sound, it does play a role. It does.
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  Okay. Okay. Three down. Three down. We have smell. Smell. This one is interesting.
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  Yeah, it is. I saw like your questionable look. It could be either really great
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  or maybe not so great. Yeah, I know. I was thinking of an orange,
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  and then I went back to the cruciferous veggies, and then I immediately went to like...
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  Taking or drinking something that we don't like. And whenever we were younger,
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  they were like, oh, just plug your nose and drink the cough medicine or something
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  like something that. Yes.
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  So your point exactly is that smell and taste are so closely linked.
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  They go hand in hand. They do.
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  And the researcher that I worked with previously did taste and things like that.
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  She's like, no one has ever been born without the sense of smell.
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  Oh, that's interesting. It's really interesting now because with the lingering
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  effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, some people still can't really taste or smell.
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  And so it's really taken away that experiential part of eating.
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  Yeah, I haven't thought about that.
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  My father-in-law, he's like, how's that taste? He'll make something and he's
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  like, I can't taste it. Oh my gosh.
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  Years later. What a drastic change.
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  Wow. I know. Oh, but so the smell component and it can just bring back memories.
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  So think about like grandma's baked cookies or something.
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  And some of those can be really positive memories or it could be like that one
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  time you cooked me salmon and the smell was like offensive, you know.
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  Or burnt popcorn. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
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  So smells are powerful influence on our eating experience.
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  Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then thinking about touch, like the other,
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  kind of what I touched on.
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  No pun intended, touched on earlier, but like temperatures in the room,
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  that's not necessarily like fingertip touching what we may think of with like
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  that direct, but our body is feeling the air around us.
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  So there's that sense of like touch in some ways.
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  And so that also plays a role into to this eating experience.
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  Think about if you're in the 95 degree sunlight in the middle of the day,
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  that may impact how much you eat or your appetite versus if you were in an air-conditioned
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  room for that same meal. Absolutely.
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  And so being mindful of how we can make the environment comfortable when children
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  are eating in that regard and recognizing there's so many nerve of endings in our fingers.
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  And so that just touching with food, touching or playing with food,
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  don't play with your food.
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  There is something to be said for that. Now, do we want them like throwing it at the wall?
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  No, but I was even trying to celebrate this the other day with my oldest who's
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  eating less variety now than she was, but that like she was at least touching
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  it. And so we celebrated that win.
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  I'm like, awesome. Way to go. You know, what did it feel like?
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So now diving into the like.
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  Nitty gritty of these nuisances. Yes, but that also play an equally important role.
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  So the vestibular, that inner ear, our balance system, we are sitting on these
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  tall chairs and so we're having to keep our balance and just especially our
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  youngest of children that are building that core strength.
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  If we don't have them in the right supportive high chair or booster seat or
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  thing, their legs are dangling.
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  We've talked about that before, but it can make it real. If you don't have a
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  strong core, then it's a lot harder to like get the food to the mouth and get
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  it old while you're eating. Yeah.
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  Kind of touching on like we did before, your body is prioritizing these things,
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  these senses to respond to.
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  So if you're imbalanced, if you don't feel stable, that could be at the top of the list.
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  So they may not be focused on eating whatever is in front of them because their
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  brain is like, hey, we got to get some stability in here before we can bring this fork to our mouth.
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  Absolutely. And so that bringing the fork to our mouth naturally translates
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  to the proprioceptive system or body awareness. Yeah.
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  I was thinking, I was like, how many times do I like miss my mouth?
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  And it ends up everywhere else. Yes. Always when I'm wearing a white shirt at work.
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  Yeah. Yeah. But you're okay today. Yes. So far. I'm not going. Yeah.
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  But yeah, it's that combination of fine and gross motor.
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  So we can kind of control what our arms and our trunk are doing.
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  And then we have those fine motor skills to bring that fork to our mouth instead
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  of like slipping to our chin or up our nose.
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  And those are a lot of skills that our youngest of eaters are developing.
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  But even as we get older and like just think about sometimes like growth spurts
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  and things, children are kind of reacclimating to their new bodies and awareness.
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  Yes. Yeah. Okay. And then our last one, we've talked about this a bit before,
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  but that interoception.
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  That internal awareness of hunger and satiety all that will influence whether
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  or how much a kid wants to eat at any given time yeah tapping back into those
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  internal cues that we've touched on a lot okay so our eight senses then just
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  to recap real quick our sight sound smell.
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  Touch taste and then we have our balance we have our body awareness and then
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  we have our hunger their insanity awareness.
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  All of them play a role in the eating experience. Yes.
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  And so when we're eating with children, thinking about these different systems
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  as a way of checking in, if something doesn't seem to be quite right,
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  is anything a little bit off with this?
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  Like, do they have a cold? Do they have a stuffy nose so they can't really take it?
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  Are they trying to keep their balance because we don't have the right chair
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  for them to sit in or foot support?
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  Or is Or is the fork too big for them to try to get into their mouth?
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  These are some ways that we can troubleshoot if things don't seem to be going as we anticipate.
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  Yeah. Kind of like our previous episode, managing that mealtime behavior.
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  It could be in response to one of these situations.
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  Sensory systems being off for whatever the reason may be.
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  And talked about this with our friends, but just kind of reinforcing that when
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  people have, or children have sensory processing disorders,
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  that that can really influence their experience around food and working with
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  professionals to find the right environment to support children as they're eating. Yeah.
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  Okay. So sensory experiences also helping them explore. So as they are eating,
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  what does that feel like in your mouth?
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  What does That sounds like when you chew it, tell me what it smells like.
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  Just really helping children explore and have a sense of wonder about the foods that they're choosing.
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  Yeah. And getting exposed in a variety of ways. Yes. Oh, yes.
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  Let's talk more about that because we so often focus on, did I swallow it and
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  did it go down to my stomach kind of thing? That that's like the measure of success.
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  But there's so many other ways to measure success of being exposed to a food.
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  Yeah. So like you mentioned, playing with the food, maybe it's a new texture.
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  And so they're learning about it through their fingertips versus in their mouth,
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  they're still getting exposed to it or just having this new food in front of
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  them and they're smelling it, like they're still getting exposed or seeing it for the first time.
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  So again, reframing how we think about food waste, yes, it may be sitting on
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  the plate at the end of mealtime, but they were still exposed to it.
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  So it's not a complete waste.
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  Absolutely. And so if you are at a point with children and eating that's feeling
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  very frustrating, maybe think about a celebratory chart that tracks all the
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  ways that they've interacted with the new food.
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  You've looked at it, you've had it on your plate, you've smelled it,
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  you've touched it, and then ultimately taste can be kind of that down the road. Yeah.
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  Now, there are other ways to have fun with food. The real fun.
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  I know that there's like a topic you love to talk about. So Anna,
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  tell me about fun ways to experience food outside of the mealtime.
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  Yeah. So stepping away from the kitchen for the time being, thinking about exposing
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  in ways even outside of the house.
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  So getting involved in the garden or learning about how food grows from the ground up.
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  Or we've talked about this before, just exposing them to foods at the grocery store and giving
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  them some role in the deciding factor of what foods you're going to buy for
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  the meal or getting them involved in the kitchen too whenever they're ready
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  at certain ages with different steps of preparing these foods.
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  So again, it's involving all these different sensory systems in a variety of ways.
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  So they are still getting exposed to new foods.
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  So ultimately, maybe they end up tasting it. and hopefully liking it. Yes.
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  That's like goal, hashtag goals. Long-term goals.
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  I love this because again, it's so easy to miss these opportunities in everyday
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  life because we're like, okay, get the meal made, serve the kids meal and move on.
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  And just not that every meal has to be long and drawn out and just like overly
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  elaborate, but by us spending so much time talking about this,
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  hopefully, I'm hopeful that people can take away way just a little bit about, oh, right.
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  Celebrate that this is happening. Recognize that this is happening.
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  Instead of focusing on the negative, we can focus more on the positive.
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  We've exposed to a new food. We've touched it. We've smelled it.
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  We've tasted it. We've played with it. Yeah. Celebrating the small wins.
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  Any other suggestions for playing with food?
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  So there are some ways to make art with your food, which is another good way
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  to be exposed to it and kind of.
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  Exposed in a variety of ways. So they may be touching it in a different way.
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  Perhaps they're using a full stick of celery and doing stamps with it.
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  And maybe normally when they're exposed to celery, it's bite-sized amounts where
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  they could actually eat it.
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  So getting exposed to the full vegetable, making stamps with it.
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  Or one of my favorites, Mr.
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  Potato Head. If you have the pieces lying around instead of the plastic potato,
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  it does take a little bit of muscle, but get a full potato and have them make
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  different faces with the potato.
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  So they're being exposed to it in a different way.
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  Yes, and if people are worried about waste, then you couldn't think about crafty
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  snack time where you give some dip and fruit or vegetables to children and allow
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  them to put it together, create something and then eat it.
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  Enjoy it yeah yeah okay so i
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  think oh you know what we didn't talk about
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  yet which is so important because playing with food can be messy yes and we're
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  here to tell you to embrace the mess which may hurt like it may you may have
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  a visceral reaction like oh i would yes like oh i can't handle that but embrace
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  it and i'm just thinking of babies partially because we're in that space base of life.
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  So will your teenager eat like this? Not necessarily.
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  So, but just like we would take pictures and with like yogurt,
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  for example, and just shoving it all over the face and all over the hands.
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  And I think we eventually just started stripping down the top too.
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  Cause it was just like a yogurt bath.
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  And my dad would be like, Oh my gosh, that goober or something like funny. And I'm like, yes.
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  And like she's learned, she's practicing feeding herself and she's just really
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  experiencing it. Some of it's getting into her mouth, the rest isn't,
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  but she's totally comfortable with it.
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  But I get it. It is kind of cringy because you're like, no, I have to give you a bath, maybe again.
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  All the steps. Yeah. Yes. But there are ways to-
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  Preemptively prepare for the mess. So kind of like you mentioned,
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  maybe infants, toddlers just eat at mealtime without a top on or with a rubber
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  bib or something, a silicone one that is easier to wipe up than the cloth fabric ones.
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  Or if you're in a high chair or underneath their seat at the table,
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  you can lay out a full tarp if you have it or a trash bag, empty trash bag,
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  put it there so that anything that ends up on the ground can easily be cleaned up.
• 22:55
  Or if you have pets, there are just natural vacuums that are there to save the
• 22:59
  day. We miss our pets now.
• 23:01
  And then if older children are helping prepare things in the kitchen, that can be messy too.
• 23:06
  And also embracing the mess there. But at that point, they're also developmentally
• 23:10
  more capable of helping clean it up.
• 23:13
  So again, like we've talked about this before, this assessing breathing and
• 23:17
  just then helping children learn how to clean up that mess, Yes,
• 23:20
  because that's all part of the process of creating and exploring and experiencing.
• 23:26
  Well, Anna, this has been so fun. It has been.
• 23:29
  Final remarks, closing remarks on making food fun. Yes.
• 23:33
  Think about the senses. Again, all of these senses are playing a role in this
• 23:37
  experience, and it is a true experience.
• 23:40
  So think about if there is a mealtime behavior that you're really working to
• 23:46
  manage, maybe think about the senses. is and perhaps there's a reason for it.
• 23:51
  Or if there's not, just learn to embrace a mess that comes along with it and have fun with it. Right.
• 23:57
  It's going to ebb and flow. It's a journey.
• 24:00
  And I feel like that's why we wanted to close with this topic. It's a feeding journey.
• 24:04
  And so if we can stay curious, if we can stay present or engaged in that through
• 24:11
  experiencing the senses, is,
• 24:13
  then we as adults can actually, I think, learn a lot along the way too,
• 24:17
  or learn to like new things or see things in a new light and help our children
• 24:22
  to feel more comfortable navigating the world and all the foods that are out there for them.
• 24:26
  Yes. And get involved with foods in different ways outside of mealtime and maybe
• 24:31
  in the kitchen at a different time also.
• 24:33
  Yes. Well, we are so grateful to those who made it all the way through with us. Yes.
• 24:37
  And we'd love to keep having conversations about topics that matter to people.
• 24:42
  So email us at SNACK Club, S-N-A-C-K-C-L-U-B@uky.edu and let us know what's
• 24:50
  on your mind or what you've been talking with friends about or what you have
• 24:53
  questions about and we'd be happy to chat and explore those topics with you.
• 24:57
  And some of the topics we've touched on today, there are additional resources like podcasts or.
• 25:03
  Kids in the kitchen charts. So those will be linked in our show notes.
• 25:06
  And as always, check in with your local Cooperative Extension office for more
• 25:11
  information, ideas, activities, all the things.
• 25:14
  All the things. Until next time. Yes.
• 25:16
  Enjoy, have fun and embrace the mess. Yes. Thanks for joining us for another episode of SNACK Club.
• 25:22
  Resources related to the topics discussed in this episode can be found on our
• 25:26
  website linked in the show notes.
• 25:27
  Your local Cooperative Extension Office is also a wealth of information and
• 25:31
  can provide links to local resources.
• 25:34
  If you have other topics you would like to hear about, send us a note at snackclub@uky.edu.
• 25:41
  That's S-N-A-C-K-C-L-U-B@uky.edu.
• 25:47
  And as a reminder, the digestible bits of information we share are like navigation
• 25:52
  signs for your feeding journey, but you may need to contact a healthcare provider
• 25:56
  for more personal advice.
• 25:57
  And last but not least, special thanks to our team behind the scenes.
• 26:01
  Mindy McCulley for bringing this audio and video file to life with her technology
• 26:05
  skills and to the people through her marketing magic.
• 26:08
  And to Kelli Thompson for her creative ability to turn one conversation into
• 26:12
  our SNACK Club symbol. We hope to see you again soon.