Veggies & Virtue

Do you have a hard time thinking of gift ideas for YOU?! I know, as moms we can often go through the entire list of getting gifts for others and yet, when someone asks us what we want, we are stumped, feel guilty, or don’t want to ask for what we really want or need. That’s why in this episode, I am going to tell you 10 of my favorite gift ideas. Many of these will be on sale over the holiday seas...

You know the last thing on most people’s mind at the end of the year? Sustainability. Not in the environmental sense, but rather in how we eat, move, and nourish our bodies. The weight loss industry is expecting millions of people to failed at sustaining their goals from 2022, so you know what they will do? Try to sell you again. That’s why, in this episode, we chat about: What are sustainable hab...

Looking for gift ideas that combine fun with function? You are in the right place! I am a very practical mom, at times to a fault. But when it comes to Christmas time, I leverage this to come up with gift ideas that are fun fillers for stockings and functional items around our home and in our lives that the kids also light up to unwrap and get to enjoy. Use the upcoming holiday sales to shop some...

Ever heard of or used a capsule wardrobe? Well, just as that can serve really well without a closet, check this out for an easy visual that parallels the systems you need to have set up in your kitchen. You will learn how to streamline your efforts and organize your ideas so that feeding your family healthy meal and snack ideas doesn't feel quite so overwhelming.   That's why, in this episode we a...

When routines are off and relatives are around, parents often stress over holiday feeding for their kids. Whether it be because you have a selective eater who may struggle to eat holiday fare or an outspoken family member who speaks their unsolicited opinion about that at the table, I hear from parents each year about how hard it is to handle feeding and family over the holidays.   In this episode...

Feeding our family can feel really hard, especially when we are in a season when we have less capacity to meal plan or prep, cook or clean. So, although Muffin Club filled that gap for me amidst my third pregnancy and postpartum, what I see to matter most to the thousands of moms signed up is the fact that it simplifies alllllll the ideas.   In this episode, we chat about how we can: Save ourselve...

Welcome to the launch week for Muffin Club ! Knowing that some of you have done this every year with me since 2018 and others of you might be new to it and wondering what all the hype is about and having a little bit of FOMO about this random thing called Muffin Club, I am going to do a quick rundown on what Muffin Club for Moms even is. In this episode, we chat about: How it started Why I think i...

This can be a busy time of year. Going from Halloween right into the holidays, it seems like there is so much demand for our attention. That’s why, in this episode I am going to tell you one of the most common mistakes I have made as a mom, and how I wish I would’ve avoided it sooner. You can use this as part of your holiday planning, but also, I will share how it applies to annual events througho...

One of the best times to begin neutralizing sweets and treats in our homes is following Halloween. While our kids already have candy top of mind, take the opportunity to role model an intuitive eating approach through regular opportunities to enjoy candy, including having it as dessert with dinner. By reinforcing food freedom over arbitrary food rules, we learn to better trust our children’s abili...

Well, if the summer phrase is, “when life throws you lemons, make lemonade,” I am going to go ahead and make up my version for fall. When life throws you pumpkins, make pumpkin pie! On the day of this recording, I had two of my three kids home from school sick. Recovering but still needing to make sure she didn't spread any unwanted illness, my oldest came down into the office while my youngest na...

So, your child has dumped out their Halloween candy and begun to sort their stash. They have found all of their favorites, maybe traded a sibling, parent, or friend for more, and now, they have the Halloween candy they plan to keep. What do you do with all that's left? In this episode, we chat about: Places you can donate candy in your community (and how to transition to a spirit of Thanksgiving i...

Your kids come home from trick-or-treating, they have a mound of candy, and your mom-brain instantly starts to try to dissect what to do. You want them to have a healthy relationship with all foods - Halloween candy included. But the indecision of how much candy they can have on Halloween, in the days after, and how to taper their candy intake so they don't have an ongoing sugar high has historica...

On today's episode, I had a mom submit a question asking how much candy can her kids have not just on the day of Halloween, but also in the days before and the days following? On Monday's episode, I addressed the first part of her question with the HOW we approach this. In this episode, we will get into spelling out the structure you may want to schedule into the days surrounding Halloween. With a...

Are you stressed out, annoyed, or simply just unsure how to handle it every time your child asks for another piece of Halloween candy? If you have listened to the other episodes in this series on Halloween, you know that discerning how much is "too much" with how much is "enough," isn't always a black and white answer. However, HOW we approach this is rather straight-forward. Rather than feeling t...

Based on the analytics for this podcast, one of my most popular episodes since launching in January was this one talking about non-candy Easter basket ideas. With that, I made the assumption that many of you might also like to know some non-candy options for Halloween. I'm going to give you some really fun novelty ways that you can still enjoy the holiday with less sugar offerings. So if you are w...

Does candy make your kids act crazy? For most adults, we assume so. We blame the candy, cupcakes, or sugar-coated culprit for being the root of our child's behavioral problems. But what data do you have to support this? Observationally and anecdotally, most moms I speak to could come up with a laundry list of examples. So does it surprise you that studies looking at the association between sugar i...

When we think back to Halloween as kids, hopefully each of us have some really fond memories and funny costumes that come to mind. But for a lot of us, whether it started in childhood, came about in adolescence or early adulthood, or presented more once becoming a mom, we may have less-than-fond memories that are triggered this time of year by ghosts from our pasts. Memories where we made ourselve...

Welcome to October! When the leaves are changing, weather starts cooling off, and moms everywhere begin wondering (or worrying!) about how to handle the upcoming season of endless candy and added sugar. It can feel like a real nightmare, and yet, it doesn't have to be. Because as we discuss in this episode, you might feel like you have no vision or plan for how a "healthy" Halloween season should...

In this episode, we talk about how do we prepare for seasons that we may be expecting? I don't just mean literally with expecting a child, but it might just be that we're expecting change, or we're expecting our plans to pivot, or that our responsibilities will shift, that people will come and go, or that life will just be a little different than we know it now. As we welcome fall (literally, last...

Too often, we can get overwhelmed with all of our aspirations for healthy meal plans, easy weeknight meals, and a weekend with robust meal prep that we miss what we can do RIGHT NOW. That's why, as we welcome the fall season, I want to help you see the small yet significant opportunities right in front of you. These start with what you're already doing. Find out how this one simple mindset shift w...

Welcome to a snippet from day three of my Back to School Bootcamp! In this episode, I share part of a discussion we had on day three of three about deciding what your priorities are amidst the season you are in. For some of us, meal prep is essential. For others, leaning more on pre-packaged meals and snacks is what makes our world operate with a little less chaos. There is no judgement for what y...

So many parents confuse their role in the feeding relationship when their kids come home starving, head to get a snack, and then an hour later, want another...and another...and another. Instead of honing in on WHY this is happening and what we can do about it as the parents, we begin to try to limit or restrict them from how much they can eat of these given foods. That's why, in this episode, I te...

If you joined in for my Back to School Bootcamp, you know this story already. But for you that don't, it seemed like it should have a permanent place on the podcast. Because outside of wanting to empathize with the woes of sending school lunches our kids don't eat, I wanted you to have a bit deeper perspective on how I came up with Love it, Like it, Learning it®, how it shaped what I send to schoo...

When we don't have the time to cook and offer an early dinner nor do our kids have time to eat simply more snacks, we have to get extra smart with optimizing each bite! By layering the nutrition of bananas, nut butter, and added fats (like hemp hearts or a few chocolate chips for fun!), these peanut butter banana nachos are a great way to take your snack up a notch.   Quick, easy, and economical t...

Ashlee, a mom of a nine year old, submitted this listener question, “At what age do you stop doing a division of responsibility in feeding?" Whether you are new to this feeding approach or a veteran now and wondering when your roles in feeding shift to allow your child some age-appropriate independence, this episode will walk you through the basics of a responsive feeding style at each age and fee...