Wisdom From a Foodie Dietitian

In my industry, there are different types of dietitians.  My claim is clinical dietetics and practical wellness nutrition.  Dietitians that specialize in the culinary end of eating are usually nicknamed "foodie dietitians."  Since I consider myself more of a foodie wanna be,   I recently caught up with one of my favorite true blue foodies, Robin Plotkin, RD, LD, to get her perspective on family feeding for Mommy Dietitian readers.

Robin Plotkin, RD, LD and her son having some
fun with food.

Q: What are 3 top things that families can begin doing today that would help them pull healthy dinners together faster/more efficiently?

A:
1. Make a meal plan! We make plans for our after school actives, our workouts, our social lives....it’s critical to make plans for dinner. I encourage people to start slowly-just plan for 3 nights worth of healthy dinners at home and go from there. That way, you know you have at least 3 meals covered for the week. There are great resources out there for meal planning if you are someone who struggles with this-I love http://www.sixoclockscramble.com/, http://www.mealmakeovermoms.com/ and http://www.myfridgefood.com/ are a few websites I routinely recommend.

2. Gather the groceries! Once you have the meal plans in place, having the food handy seals the deal. Take your plan, make your list and off you go! It can be on a sticky note or an Excel spreadsheet-whatever works for you. If you are a beginner at meal planning, I recommend taking recipe ingredients word for word-as you hone your skills, you will be able to mix and match ingredients and find different uses for them as you go along.

3. Relax! Kids take their cues from the parents. If you enjoy preparing healthy meals for the family and look forward to spending time around the table, the kids will, too. If you are stressed, frustrated or would rather have a root canal instead of making dinner for the family, they will know and will feed off of the negative energy that you may be inadvertently sharing with them when it comes to food.

Q: From a culinary perspective, how important do you think exposure to a variety of foods impacts a child's palate long term? Please explain.

A: Reports are showing that kids are more adventurous with their food choices these days. The traditional PB &J is giving way to more organic, healthful and locally made. In addition, kids lunchboxes are filled with more ethnic foods which shows the diversity of the foods available in terms of takeout menus. Parents want to share their excitement of their new finds with their children. Speaking from the culinary side, kids are developing more distinguished palates at an earlier age which allows more creativity and acceptance long term when it comes to food.

Q: What are some techniques that you recommend to increase food acceptance in children?

A: You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again-get kids involved! I’ve taught kids cooking classes for twelve years and there is a world of difference between a hands on cooking class vs. a demonstration only. When kids are encouraged to take part in the process, the sense of empowerment, self sufficiency and acceptability of the food itself skyrockets. And, the pride they feel after making something on their own to feed themselves and their family is indescribable.

Got tools? Get Cooking! At any age, kids should be allowed into the kitchen. Give them their own age appropriate tools-cutting boards, measuring cups and spoons, whisks, etc. Assign age appropriate tasks as well. Smaller kids can stir or pour, older kids can chop softer foods (i.e. Kiwi, banana, pasta) with child safe knives, and preteens and teens can take on complete recipes-start easy-scrambled eggs with cheese, guacamole, etc. Of course, adult supervision is necessary as are proper food safety and sanitation.

I also love to give fun tools and resources for parents as gifts. For example, http://www.fredandfriends.com/ has great plates, utensils, and other creative and fun tools just for kids. Ellyn Satter, RD books are terrific http://www.ellynsatter.com/ for introductions on how to feed your baby well. Cooking school gift certificates are unique gifts for kids adults alike-they allow the individual to gain confidence in the kitchen and are a lot of fun!. Finally, subscriptions to kids cooking magazines like Chop Chop (http://www.chopchop.com/) or Relish Kids (http://www.relish.com/) are gifts to encourage and inspire-all year long.

Q: Care to share one of your favorite, quick and healthy recipes that you make for your family?

A:
Easy Turkey Meat Sauce with Whole Wheat Pasta

Ingredients:2 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 pound lean ground turkey breast
1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce
Frozen broccoli, thawed (as much as you’d like)
Fresh spinach (as much as you’d like)
Oregano (to taste)
Basil (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
Whole wheat pasta-cooked according to directions
Mozzarella cheese, grated

Directions:
Heat a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Add olive oil. Add diced onion and cook for approximately 5 minutes, or until onion becomes translucent. Add turkey and quickly break into small pieces. Once cooked through, add spaghetti sauce and allow to simmer for 5-8 minutes. Add broccoli and allow to heat through. Season with oregano, basil and pepper. Stir. Add spinach and stir, allowing it to wilt slightly. Remove from heat. Serve pasta in bowls and spoon sauce over the top. Add cheese. Enjoy!

Use the leftover sauce for Turkey Sloppy Joes, as a sauce for pizza, as filling for tacos, enchiladas or any other place you would substitute traditional meat sauce.

Robin Plotkin, RD, LD is a culinary and nutrition expert based in Dallas, Texas. She blogs, tweets, teaches, talks and tastes food for a living and wouldn’t be happier doing anything else. For more information, visit http://www.robinplotkin.com/ or her Robinsbite blog at http://www.robinplotkin.blogspot.com/.

Yogurt Emergency!!

Our morning started off like any morning. My 2 year old son wakes up with his first words out of his mouth. No, not "Mornin', Mommy" nor "Hi Mommy." It was more like, "Yogurt. Yogurt, Mommy." You see, for him yogurt is like most adult's coffee in the morning. "OK, honey. I'll get you some, I said." Oh wait...oh no! I just remembered that the kids polished off the yogurt this weekend and there is no more left. Uh-oh, this is not good. (Pause) "Um, Evan, we are out of yogurt. But Mommy will get you some today when I go to the grocery store" (notice I spoke in 3rd person as to separate myself from the issue). Well, you might as well have pulled his small toe off because that's what his whaling and crying must have sounded like to anyone standing at the end of our street. Wow! Toddlers are dramatic, aren't they? Sheesh! Needless to say, Daddy had lots of fun getting him dressed while he was going through his complete and total meltdown. This is the same boy that has absolutely hated to get his diaper or clothes changed from day one and still does. Now he's being messed with and he hasn't had his yogurt!! Not pretty.

Now my Twitter followers now know part of the backstory of my getting to the grocery store without a grocery list this morning. Yes, I blame it on the yogurt emergency. Mommy to the rescue! After getting my daughter dropped off at school, I trucked it up to Kroger to re-stock the yogurt supply. At that point I realized that my weekend was way too relaxing because I did not pre-think this grocery store visit and we needed more than just yogurt. I needed to capitalize on this grocery store run and re-stock our pantry and fridge. This doesn't happen often with me, but when it does I remember that many other moms run into this situation and we need to find avoid this situation from ruining our food plans for the week. What do you do? I found myself using my Notes app on my Blackberry to make a list in the car before going in (after tweeting my no grocery list confession, of course). Unfortunately, situations like this do not really afford you to try new recipes, therefore, promoting food variety. But I was able to plug in family favorite meals in which I knew the ingredients like the back of my hand. I called the hubster and he added some items to the list as well. Next thing you knew, I had a somewhat of plan before I walked into the store. No coupons, no new recipes this week, but I had a plan. Even if you don't make your grocery list before you leave, have a plan before you walk in or else you will certainly leave without enough food for the week and that promotes too much dining out. At least that's what I've experienced. I'd love to hear from you, moms and dads, on what you do to get it together when the week's planning doesn't happen. Share it so we can learn from you!

By the way, we have yogurt now! Thank the Lord for that.

Making Dinner Happen

I don't know about you, but making dinner happen for my family can be a challenge. Both Jeff and I have our own careers, my daughter has school activities, Girl Scouts and gymnastics and my 2 year old son's hunger does not like to wait for anything! I've tried so many different tactics myself and I've spoken to hundreds of my clients about their own struggles with this issue and I've found the easiest and most successful process in making dinner happen:

1. Make a realistic goal for how many home meals vs. eating out you will have in a given week. If you are eating out 4-5 times per week right now, making a goal of not eating out at all would be unrealistic for you. Start with decreasing your eating out and then move it down over time. In general, I believe the ultimate goal of keeping the eating out down to 2 days per week is a good goal to shoot for.

2. Plan your meals for an entire seven (7) day period. Make a spreadsheet or worksheet that makes it easy to write each day of the week and beside that day, put the meal you have chosen. For example, our family chooses to eat out every Friday evening, so I write that in next to my Friday spot. Plan out lunches the same way. Use your recipe books, online resources and family favorite meal ideas to fill in your sheet. Make sure you take into consideration leftovers! Either plan to redo leftovers to make something else or stretch one meal over 2 dinner nights. Or plan to eat leftovers for some of the parent and/or child lunches. This saves time and money.

3. Now make your grocery list and go shopping for those items. Take the worksheet from above and list out all the food items you need at the grocery store. Include healthy snacks and basic everyday food and beverages along with sundry and cleaning items. Note that you will be shopping for an entire 7 day period. This allows you to go on auto pilot for the week! Pick the same day each week to plan the week out and go grocery shopping. For many people it is a weekend day, but for others that have time during the week it could be a day when less people are out grocery shopping. That is the best scenario.

My very favorite meal planning resource is The Six O'Clock Scramble. It is a monthly subscription that you can pay for which will provide you with 5 fast, healthy and great-tasting meals in your email box one a week. What's so awesome about this subscription is that each week comes with its own grocery list of all the items needed for the meals! And if you don't like one or more of the recipes, no problem. Go onto the Scramble website and pick/choose your own meals. Once you are done, it calculates your grocery list! Aviva Goldfarb, the author of both the subscription and the cookbook The Six O'Clock Scramble is a genius. She's got another book coming out in April, place your order now on Amazon.com for delivery upon release.

Happy Eating!!