Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #692 Solving Lunch Box Headaches With Deb Blakley

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#692 Solving Lunch Box Headaches With Deb Blakley · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for.
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  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson. Welcome to Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: So grateful to have you here and that you're choosing
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  Speaker 2: to spend your time with me talking about your kids
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  Speaker 2: and how we can make your family happier. School's been
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  Speaker 2: back for a little while now, kids are probably if
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  Speaker 2: your children are anything like mine, showing up at home
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  Speaker 2: hungry after school, then you discover that they gave their
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  Speaker 2: lunch to somebody else because they didn't like it, or worse,
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  Speaker 2: they throw it in the bin. And you're sort of thinking,
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  Speaker 2: number one, it costs a lot of money to do this,
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  Speaker 2: to provide lunches. But number two, do you think that
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  Speaker 2: I've got time to sit around in the morning and
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  Speaker 2: make you a lunch that you're not going to eat?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the challenge with kids. Or alternatively,
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  Speaker 2: they're just complaining and winging and whining and they're saying
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  Speaker 2: I don't like anything.
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  Speaker 1: And of course it's the middle of.
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  Speaker 2: Summer, which means that lunch boxes get hot, which means
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  Speaker 2: food just doesn't usually taste quite as good as we
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  Speaker 2: might like. It to Today, I'm having a conversation with
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  Speaker 2: Deb Blakeley, the founder, director and LEE accredited practicing dietitian.
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  Speaker 1: Of Kids Dig Food.
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  Speaker 2: You can find everything that you need to know about
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  Speaker 2: Deb and Kids Digfood at kidsdigfood dot com dot au.
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  Speaker 2: Deb followed her heart I think would be the easiest
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  Speaker 2: way to say this, like just loves this work and
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  Speaker 2: created Kids Dig Food in twenty thirteen.
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  Speaker 1: It's been ten years now.
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  Speaker 2: After many years as a community dietitian, community nutritionist and
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  Speaker 2: a hospital based clinical dietitian, and Deb has a sense
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  Speaker 2: to become passionate about supporting grown ups to positively and
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  Speaker 2: joyfully connect or reconnect with food and eating and share
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  Speaker 2: this with the children that they care for. And now, Deb,
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  Speaker 2: I love food and I love sharing food. My children
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  Speaker 2: don't appreciate the way of that I do. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know if you've noticed this, but kids, they're happy to
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  Speaker 2: eat the cheap ice cream, Whereas when we get a
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  Speaker 2: bit older, we start to avoid the cheap stuff. We
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  Speaker 2: just go for the good stuff, right, Like our taste
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  Speaker 2: buds have matured, we know what's good and what's not.
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  Speaker 2: But kids we sort of say they'll eat anything and
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  Speaker 2: then it comes to school lunchboxes and they won't.
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  Speaker 1: Eat anything at all. Why is school lunch so challenging
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  Speaker 1: for so many families.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, eating at school is really different to eating in
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  Speaker 3: other places, and there's a lot to think about for
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  Speaker 3: kids when they're eating at school. So it might to
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  Speaker 3: us seem like, oh, I've given you the lunch, it's
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  Speaker 3: come home, it's either not eaten or it's all gone,
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  Speaker 3: and you're saying you're hungry. And there's different routines and expectations,
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  Speaker 3: and as we know, there's often less time to eat,
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  Speaker 3: so sometimes kids are only given ten minutes maybe to
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  Speaker 3: get their lunch done, and depending on the child, that
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  Speaker 3: may or may not be enough time. And if they're
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a chatter box, then that might get
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  Speaker 3: in the way of eating as well, or if they're
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  Speaker 3: more interested in play. So it can be really helpful
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  Speaker 3: to work out what the environment in the school is
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  Speaker 3: like around lunches, what the routine is like, because it
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  Speaker 3: can take a little bit of problem solving with your
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  Speaker 3: child and the school and with the teachers to work
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  Speaker 3: out what's going on.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes we had a situation so one of our kids
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  Speaker 2: got ADHD and we had a situation where she just said,
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  Speaker 2: I haven't got time. But what we realized is she
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  Speaker 2: was just so busy as soon as the bell went.
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  Speaker 2: She had so many things that she needed to do
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  Speaker 2: in that little period of time because she knew that
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  Speaker 2: she'd be back in the classroom soon, and she wanted
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  Speaker 2: to run and play and talk to friends and do everything,
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  Speaker 2: and eating was such a low priority. Of course, kids,
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  Speaker 2: especially kids who have any kind of additional needs, when
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  Speaker 2: they're not eating, they become even more difficult to manage.
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  Speaker 1: And we kept on trying to say.
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  Speaker 2: To her, you need to eat the food, like we've
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  Speaker 2: packed it for you. You've got to do it. You've
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  Speaker 2: got to eat first. But they just don't want to.
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  Speaker 2: And I remember having a conversation some years ago with
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  Speaker 2: one teacher. She was essentially saying, making sure that all
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  Speaker 2: twenty eight kids in my class eat their lunch is
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  Speaker 2: one thing that I just can't promise that I can do.
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  Speaker 2: Sympathetic to that, but like you said, we have this
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  Speaker 2: perfect well where we think, Okay, we'll have a conversation
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  Speaker 2: with a teacher and everything I'll be okay.
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  Speaker 1: Doesn't always work.
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  Speaker 3: Like that, No, it certainly doesn't. And I think the
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  Speaker 3: teacher is right that, you know, it's it can actually
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  Speaker 3: be quite unrealistic to say to a teacher, you.
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  Speaker 1: Know, please my child or my kid eats it.
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  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of other things that we can do,
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  Speaker 3: and kids with special needs, say who, for example, your
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  Speaker 3: daughter who isn't eating or wasn't eating very much? You know,
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  Speaker 3: sometimes they do need a bit more support around that,
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  Speaker 3: and that support can look really different in many different ways.
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  Speaker 3: But let's just say, let's take a broader approach and say,
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  Speaker 3: you know, we've got a typically developing child or a
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  Speaker 3: child who might have special needs where you just think
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  Speaker 3: they're just not paying attention. There's something getting away in
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  Speaker 3: the way for them. So some of the things we
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  Speaker 3: can do from the home perspective is do a bit
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  Speaker 3: of problem solving and go, okay, so tell me what's
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  Speaker 3: going on, what do you really want to be doing,
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  Speaker 3: like what happens in that ten minutes? And can we
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  Speaker 3: problem solve together? You know, depending on the child's age,
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  Speaker 3: it can be possible to problem solve together and say, okay,
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  Speaker 3: well if we put something in your lunch box that
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  Speaker 3: literally took you thirty seconds to eat, just so that
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  Speaker 3: to make sure that you're having something at each break
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  Speaker 3: to keep you going. What would that be do you
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  Speaker 3: think that might be possible for you? So really working
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  Speaker 3: with our kids to decide what it is. You know,
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  Speaker 3: is it just their favorite piece of cheese on cracker
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  Speaker 3: or something that's quite small, quite energy dents that they're
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  Speaker 3: going to be able to eat really quickly. That might
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  Speaker 3: be just that that thing that gets them through. The
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  Speaker 3: Other thing I want to mention is that sometimes school
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  Speaker 3: eating at school might be the smallest amount of eating
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  Speaker 3: that your child does during the day, and it may
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  Speaker 3: be that we need to help them by supplementing breakfast
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  Speaker 3: and supplementing afternoon tea and dinner and maybe supper to
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  Speaker 3: make up for that. So, just because a child isn't
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  Speaker 3: eating as much as we would like them to be
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  Speaker 3: eating during the day doesn't mean that we can't get
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  Speaker 3: them to meet their needs across the whole day. Where
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  Speaker 3: teachers can be helpful I think is establish some rules
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  Speaker 3: that we don't throw food away, that if there's anything
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  Speaker 3: that's uneaten in your lunch box, it's best to take
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  Speaker 3: that home with you because then you as parents have
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  Speaker 3: a better idea of what's actually being eaten and what's
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  Speaker 3: not and some of the dialogue that might happen is
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  Speaker 3: around Okay, so I can see that there's a lot
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  Speaker 3: coming back. What's that about? You know? Is it about
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  Speaker 3: the fact that I just wanted to go and play
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  Speaker 3: or is it that I hate everything that's in here?
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  Speaker 3: Because that then both of those things require a different
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  Speaker 3: lot of problem solving. Yeah, as a parent, and then
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  Speaker 3: from the teacher's perspective, you know, there may be some
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  Speaker 3: ways that they can help the children be as settled
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  Speaker 3: as they can possibly be in that ten minutes.
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  Speaker 2: I'd love to see the conversation in a different direction. Now,
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  Speaker 2: obviously you had that webinar with your community, and you
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  Speaker 2: were talking about the challenge of school lunchboxes. How do
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  Speaker 2: we put lunchboxes together that are nutritious and that the
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  Speaker 2: kids will eat and that won't go bad in the
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  Speaker 2: hot sun at this time of the year.
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  Speaker 1: I know that whenever I look at news.
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  Speaker 2: Articles about the average school student lunchbox, the articles are
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  Speaker 2: usually highly critical in saying, these things are full of sugar.
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  Speaker 2: It's white bread, it's jam or veggie, might have peanut
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  Speaker 2: butter or something else. It's full of sugar. There's a
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  Speaker 2: popper which is full of sugar. There's a couple of
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  Speaker 2: snacks which are full of sugar, and essentially everything that
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  Speaker 2: I've ever read about school lunchboxes seems to indicate that
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  Speaker 2: all of our typical, traditional, standard, quick and easy lunch
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  Speaker 2: options tend to be less than ideal for our kids.
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  Speaker 1: What do you recommend parents doing?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I really find a dialogue around like sugar, that
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  Speaker 3: particularly the things that you mentioned quite problem as a dietitian,
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  Speaker 3: because you know, some of the things you mentioned, like
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  Speaker 3: white bread, for example, fruit, those foods provide an amazing
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  Speaker 3: amount of nutrients. So, for example, if you've got a
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  Speaker 3: child who really at the moment they're staple for bread
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  Speaker 3: is white bread, you know, they don't like wholemeal bread.
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  Speaker 3: School is not the time really to be stretching our kids.
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  Speaker 1: I love that you said that.
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  Speaker 2: I love that you said that because, as you said
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  Speaker 2: at the beginning of the conversation, it's a different situation
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  Speaker 2: like we've got.
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  Speaker 1: We've got a completely different context.
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  Speaker 2: There's limited or little or of any adult supervision, and
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  Speaker 2: the kids have got so many other distractions and so
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  Speaker 2: much else going on. School's not the place where they're
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  Speaker 2: going to experiment with food, right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And look, they might you might have a super
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  Speaker 3: experimental kid, and you're probably not listening to this podcast
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  Speaker 3: if you because you know you don't have any problems then.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, when we're thinking about what are going
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  Speaker 3: to be foods that feel our kids up, that get
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  Speaker 3: them through, we do need to rely on foods that
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  Speaker 3: are familiar to them. Okay, so you know, some of
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  Speaker 3: the foods that are demonized in a lot of media,
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  Speaker 3: particularly where lunch boxes are concerned, I would think as
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  Speaker 3: a dietitian, are perfectly acceptable. So sandwiches with white bread, fruit.
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  Speaker 3: What else did you mention.
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  Speaker 2: Justin oh I mentioned a few of the school snacks
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  Speaker 2: and the popper, the pure apple juice popper, a.
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  Speaker 3: Juice popper, those foods. You know, kids actually require a
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  Speaker 3: lot of carbohydrate. I think that this is what we
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  Speaker 3: forget as parents and people who have a very limited
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  Speaker 3: view of nutrition in the sense that everything has to
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  Speaker 3: be healthy. You know, that's a topic for another podcast,
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  Speaker 3: but you know, really, if we can put food into
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  Speaker 3: our kids lunchboxes that are familiar, look good, smell good,
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  Speaker 3: tastes good to them, are quick to eat, they're going
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  Speaker 3: to be foods that then more likely to eat when
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  Speaker 3: it comes to keeping food safe. In terms of food safety,
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  Speaker 3: there's real value in supporting our kids to understand if
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  Speaker 3: you've got say a ham sandwich or something that is
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  Speaker 3: going to go off. Maybe you've got an egg in there,
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  Speaker 3: so you know, protein food or whatever, anything that's kind
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  Speaker 3: of wet, you know is likely to you know, not
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  Speaker 3: be great, or maybe yogurt or some cheese, that those
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  Speaker 3: foods might be better eaten at the first break rather than
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  Speaker 3: the second break. And that's a really good skill for
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  Speaker 3: kids to learn. So although we don't really want to
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  Speaker 3: be saying, well, you must eat this food first because
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  Speaker 3: it's the healthy one, you know, I would take the
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  Speaker 3: view that anything that you put in your child's lunch box,
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  Speaker 3: let them eat it in whatever order they want to.
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  Speaker 3: If you weren't happy for them to have it, it wouldn't
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  Speaker 3: go in the lunch box in the first place. That's
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  Speaker 3: okay to do. And even you know, training your kid
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  Speaker 3: to go pick the bit that's not going to be real,
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  Speaker 3: you know, get the sun on it. You know, we
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  Speaker 3: were our kids to obviously have a lunch that they're
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  Speaker 3: going to want to eat when they come to second break.
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  Speaker 2: So as I listened to what you're saying here, and
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  Speaker 2: our time's pretty well up, so we need to wrap this.
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  Speaker 1: If I was to summarize what I'm.
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  Speaker 2: Hearing you essentially say is kids can be a little
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  Speaker 2: bit tricky around food at school because of the environment,
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  Speaker 2: because of the stimulus, because there's so much going on,
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  Speaker 2: because there's a lack of supervision in terms of the
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  Speaker 2: actual foods that they eat. I'm hearing you sound extremely
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  Speaker 2: practical and pragmatic, and what I'm basically hearing you say is,
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  Speaker 2: on average, don't sweat the small stuff. Just make sure
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  Speaker 2: that they're eating. And I've jotted down a few things
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  Speaker 2: that you said as we were talking. You said, sandwiches, cheese, yogurt, fruit, salad, snacks.
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  Speaker 2: The popper is fine as well. I've thrown raps in
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  Speaker 2: as well, because what kid doesn't like wraps. It sounds
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  Speaker 2: as if we might be making a bigger deal about
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  Speaker 2: school lunches than we need.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and even you know, some throw some crunchy foods
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  Speaker 3: in there. You know, even if it is a packet
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  Speaker 3: crunchy food, if it's a carbohydrate based snack, those foods,
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  Speaker 3: actually there's a sensory feedback that we get from eating
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  Speaker 3: crunchy foods. So crunchy foods, particularly towards the end of
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  Speaker 3: the day when kids are flagging, can really help wake
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  Speaker 3: them up, like physically wake them up.
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  Speaker 2: What's an example of a crunchy food? Are you talking
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  Speaker 2: like a violet crumble crunch?
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  Speaker 3: Well, it could be, although you know, you know, many
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  Speaker 3: people might not feel like they want to put that. Sure,
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  Speaker 3: maybe you want to save that for home. But you know,
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  Speaker 3: any kind of packet, you know, cracker or something something
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  Speaker 3: that your kid enjoys. You know, there's so many of
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  Speaker 3: those kinds of things out there. Obviously, fruit and veggies
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  Speaker 3: provide crunch, but if your kid isn't a good food
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  Speaker 3: and veggie eater, it is okay to put some of
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  Speaker 3: these other foods in there. And we don't may not
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  Speaker 3: necessarily want to be totally filling the lunchbox with those
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  Speaker 3: foods if we can help it. But I'm speaking really
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  Speaker 3: honestly and openly and compassionately to a lot of the
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  Speaker 3: families that I work with where kids have a really
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  Speaker 3: limited food range. So work within your child's food range.
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  Speaker 3: If you can't put every food group in there, do
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  Speaker 3: the best you can. And if your child's lunchbox is
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  Speaker 3: looking pretty bland and pretty basic. Communicate that with your
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  Speaker 3: teacher and explain why, because I know that you're probably
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  Speaker 3: doing the very best you can to work at expanding
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  Speaker 3: food range in other environments at home, at school. We
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  Speaker 3: just need to get them fed.
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  Speaker 2: I like that kids just actually need to be fed
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  Speaker 2: because they'll be better learners. They'll be better kids if
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  Speaker 2: they've got food in their belly. Deb Blakely is the founder, director,
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  Speaker 2: and lead accredited practicing dietitian of Kids Dig Food. You
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  Speaker 2: can find out more at kidsdigfood dot com, dot you
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  Speaker 2: and the webinar that you shared with your community earlier
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  Speaker 2: this month. I presume that's online. Can we have people
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  Speaker 2: who want to hear more? They can visit your website,
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  Speaker 2: kids digfood dot com dot you defined the webinar, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. On our resources page, there's a link
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  Speaker 3: to our online platform, and thebinar or a recording of
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  Speaker 3: the webinar will be there, along with some other things.
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  Speaker 3: But certainly the lunchbox one was the most recent one
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  Speaker 3: we did just two weeks ago.
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  Speaker 2: Perfect really appreciate the conversation. I have a number of
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  Speaker 2: other questions that I want to ask you as a
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  Speaker 2: result of our chat today, so we'll have to get
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  Speaker 2: you back on the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Have a great day and thanks so much for your time.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks Justin.
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  Speaker 2: That's Deb Blakely, a credited practicing dietitian and the founder
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  Speaker 2: of Kids Dig Food. The Happy Family's podcast is produced
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  Speaker 2: by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: executive producer. For more information, check out Deb's website or
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: visit happy families dot com.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Today you