57 // Looking for healthy new meals and snacks your kids will actually eat?
Looking for healthy new meals and snacks your kids will actually eat?
Eliminate mental fatigue for mom by having your kids do this...
It can be such a challenge to come up with meal and snack ideas the whole family enjoys, especially if you have picky eaters at home. That's why, I love sharing this tip with families so that kids can get involved in an age-appropriate way, offering their suggestions and reducing overwhelm for moms.
Eliminating mental fatigue of what to plan and prep each week is a must during the busyness of back to school, so don't miss my secret to doing so as a busy mom of three myself!
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to this show. I'm excited to chat with you today because I just got back from dropping my son off at preschool. And at the time of this recording, we were able to do a little mix and mingle with the moms at the preschool, which was really sweet for them to coordinate. But the preschool director has asked me to help the school with some nutrition initiatives.
[00:00:19] So I was just chatting with the moms about some different resources and just wanting to be available to offer some support. And I just wanted to share this little snippet. It was like, I could see eyes light up when I mention this. And with it being the last day for you to get your combination cards before they're exclusive for members of my meals made easy method.
[00:00:41] I wanna walk you through how you use these, because I realize it's something I haven't even covered on the podcast yet. I've shared. It's endless number of times on social media, our family using them. But considering today is the very last time I will ever have them available for you to purchase. I wanna make sure that you even know what to do with them, if, and when you do choose to purchase them or maybe you have purchased them and you just haven't actually started using them.
[00:01:04] So that's what we're gonna dive into today.
[00:01:10] Hey, mama. I'm Ashley, and welcome to the veggies and virtue podcast. In this podcast, you will find simple menu ideas, kitchen, organizational systems, spelled out for mom life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence based in grace lace. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen.
[00:01:29] As a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself, I want you to break free from the mealtime battles and to feel equipped while feeding your kids all day long, pull up a stool at my kitchen counter. And let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the meal times messes moments and ministry of motherhood.
[00:01:50] As I mentioned in the intro, I had the chance to talk to some moms at the preschool that my son goes to. And that's another episode for another day of a lot of the things I would love to share from my experience and just some of the opportunities that I'm getting to have there. But today, what I want to talk with you about is how to use my combination cards, because I know that hundreds of thousands of you own these and you may or may not have pulled them back out for this school year.
[00:02:12] So I wanna make sure that they are a trustee resource for you, that you have them in your back pocket. If you have the digital. or that you have them front and center in the kitchen so that you and your kids can constantly use them or at least rely on them. Because I know in my home, since I created the combination cards, goodness, maybe four years ago now, I think I made them maybe before Owen was born, maybe the year after.
[00:02:37] I can't even remember now, but I've since rebranded and reprinted and updated them. And soon they will be going in the veggies in virtue vault for my members of the mealtime made easy method to. Whenever they want, but I want to make sure that you know how to use these because they really are a. That any time, you're just in a position of having a mental rut where you can't think of ideas or you're kind of feeling at odds with your kids on what to send, pull them out.
[00:03:04] They're a really objective and yet visual tool that you can use so that you and your kids can communicate through pictures of what options that you're either having for breakfast, that you're sending to a school as packed lunches, or that you're having as snack options. And, you know, this is stuff that yes, I came up with the.
[00:03:23] But I just needed to do a dietician mom brain up. I could not store all that information in my brain all the time, because even though I live and breathe this with my own three kids and I live and breathe it in the hours that they're at school, working with other families on this, it just takes a lot of mental energy to keep up with different ideas and how to add in variety and how to make sure it's something that will fill my kids up for the proper amount of time and yet give them the nutrition they need.
[00:03:48] And it's just a. And this is coming from someone who yes, is professionally trained and has the credentials. And this comes relatively easy and naturally to me, but in the hustle and bustle of life, I just don't have added brain capacity to spare. Really, honestly, that's what it comes down to. And I honestly don't want to utilize a lot of my brain capacity on things like this that I can.
[00:04:14] take outta my brain, put on paper and then not have to spend as much time thinking about it. So that's kind of where the combination cards came up with the idea, because I just knew I needed to either be able to show my husband, show my parents, show a babysitter. These are the options. And they could just physically pack a lunch based off of like paint by numbers.
[00:04:34] This is what's in the lunch. This is the picture of it, copycat it. And it was very self-explanatory because I just didn't have the time or. Two have to continue to say the same things or to think up the same ideas. And so if you're not familiar with my combination cards, let me walk you through really quick what the, what the general principle is.
[00:04:53] And then I'll dive into really quick down and dirty how to actually start using these if you haven't started already, or if you wanna buy them today, layer your last day on sale then you can go scoop 'em up and you'll know exactly how to be in putting them into action in your home. But the combination.
[00:05:09] First came because what I was finding is there tend to be some base combinations that myself and many of the families I work with and that I hear from offer their kids. This would be oatmeal or eggs or pancakes, waffles toast, kind of those like low hanging fruit ideas, but also those ones that we can very quickly get in such a rotation with that, we find yourself in a rut and it may be that you're offering the same toaster WAFF.
[00:05:38] Monday through Friday, it may be that you just are bored and you feel uninspired. And when your brain wants to think up something new, it just almost takes too much mental energy. So you just go back to the default. You go back to the staples because what I hear from mom after mom, and what I know is easy for me to fall into myself is that.
[00:05:57] We're restocking the same staples every week. And that can be a good thing and that can help reduce some of the mental energy that we expend on what we need to buy. And we can just press reorder cart, go pick up our groceries, call it a day and there's routine and consistency to that. That can be really helpful in forming healthy habits.
[00:06:18] But the reason that I found a need and I saw the need for the combination cards is because sometimes we just need new ideas and we need to just come up. New combinations of things that we could offer our kids. Especially if you have a child that's a more adventurous eater, you have a lot more limitless potential to just start exposing them to, but where this takes the next step is if you find yourself with a picky eater and you maybe let's say you're having a hard time packing lunches for your picky eater.
[00:06:43] And so you're relying on those staples so much so that you're sending the same PB and J every day, or you're sending the same cheese squares and the same red crack. Every day with the same few sides. And that is when not only do we mentally feel in a rut, but nutritionally, our child is getting in a rut because if you've listened to me for a very amount, oh, very long amount of time, you know, that I say, it's not about just what a child eats in a day.
[00:07:08] It's what they eat over the course of a week, over the course of a month, over the course of a year. And majority of the time, it will kind of balance out if our child is being exposed to a variety of. However, if we're exposing them to those, say those same, say base combinations of freezer waffles every single day.
[00:07:24] I can't say that inherently, that freezer waffle is not a great choice. There are some, of course that are, you know, more nutritionally dense than others. However, there's a missed opportunity for added variety when we only offer one variation of that, given. So, if you are gonna go with freezer waffles, you just know that fits your flow for the day, your morning routine, you know, that's what you wanna send or say for packed lunches.
[00:07:48] You just know that PB and J or sun butter and jelly sandwich, it just works. I'm not here to fix. What's not broken. If that is something that works for you. What I want for you to do is to look at these combination cards and find those combinations that. Either functional and doable for you or appealing and interesting to your kid, and then flip the card over and look at the different variations of how you can offer that.
[00:08:15] So again, going back to like, let's say the sandwich or the waffle example, you can offer something that looks like a waffle, endless different number of ways. And in doing that, you can leverage the familiarity of waffles and you know, the routine that you have with offering waffles and start including. A new option of waffles waffles.
[00:08:34] It may be one that's a different color. It may be one that's. Instead of having little squares, it has big, like more Belgian like squares. It might be one that instead of being in a circle, toaster waffle, it's one that you made on a square waffle one and, you know, prepped and froze. And so it's, it's just a different shape.
[00:08:50] That way. It could be one of the ones that, you know, is more yellowish in color. It could be more brownish in color. It could be a pink or orange in color. You know, I know they have different varieties out there that just from the frozen ones. So it's literally just pivoting the ones that you're buying at the store.
[00:09:04] It's not even saying, oh, you have to make this, you know, fancy recipe and then prep it and freeze it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes it's just in the behavior change that you're making. But what we need is these visual examples of how we can just. The slightest bit to begin, including more variety and the combinations that we.
[00:09:22] No work and know that our children love. So that's what these combination cards are. Front side is the combination ideas in the general sense, you know, the eggs, the waffles, the PB, and JS that kind of thing, because there's a breakfast deck, a lunch deck and a snack deck. So they eat your specific, you know, to what you might be offering at those given times.
[00:09:41] But then on the back is ways to make endless variations of any of these given. So it's kind of like what your Pinterest board would be. And I do have an associated Pinterest board that I share with these combination cards. So if you're looking up pancakes, you can see what are some of my favorite pancake recipes when I reference them in the variations, but I just want.
[00:10:00] some of that brain power that I know so many of us are lacking, especially when we're trying to coordinate all these new logistics of back to school routines and kids in school and kids in different schools and different communications and different apps and different platforms and different. There's just so much to coordinate and.
[00:10:17] Just delegate and mentally delegate some of that, so that it's on paper and you can just reference it, but you don't have to store it in your brain. And I personally, as a mom find that very freeing. And so that's what the combination cards are. I would love to make sure that you have access to them through today.
[00:10:36] I'm running a labor day sale. So hop on over to veggies for two.com. You can get them for the final flash day labor day sale. But after this they're gone, they're only available within the veggies and virtue vault from my meal times made easy method. So that's what they are in a nutshell, how we use them.
[00:10:54] Okay. So I'm gonna go with I'll first talk to the digital card, cuz I think that's kind of the simplest and then I'll dive into the physical cards. So if you buy the digital decks, you will save them to your device. You can of course save them to your desktop desktop computer. They can be really handy, especially if you order groceries.
[00:11:11] from your computer. That can be really helpful. Cuz you can have 'em pulled up. You can kind of reference them as you're, you know, adding items to your cart or you can save them onto your phone, which is something I like doing because then when I'm strolling through target and trying to like focus on something and not get distracted by all the different things or I'm just at the grocery store and a kid is in the cart.
[00:11:32] Maybe I have a couple on the side of the cart and I'm just trying to wrangle my. Then, what I can do is I can just pull the deck up and I can look at what was that product. Like, I just wanna know the product package so I can just have product recognition when I walk up to it. And I don't have to like waste time.
[00:11:45] And I shouldn't say waste time, invest the time. Of course, I think it's important to read nutrition, facts, labels, and ingredients. But I also know as a mom, even a mom who loves doing that. So if you're a mom who doesn't like doing it, it's gonna feel even lower priority, but I'm a mom who does love doing.
[00:11:59] But I've also grocery shopping with three kids enough times in my life to know that that's not always doable. So I just want the product recognition, even for myself, the creator of these combination cards to say, what are the GRA or what are the granola bars that I already pre-approved because I don't wanna have to look at all of them.
[00:12:14] And sometimes if I'm trying to branch out and I am trying to make that little pivot from one granola bar to another, or offering, you know, this bread versus this or this cracker versus this, I just wanna know, you know, which way am I pivoting and which product am I. Have as my, you know, different switch.
[00:12:31] So if I'm going to buy freezer waffles, and I'm gonna buy a different. Pull up the PDF. You can see the box, you can see the option. It takes 10 seconds and then grab the new box. You've already taken the action that you need to take to then go home and begin offering something. That's a small variation of what combination you've already found works.
[00:12:51] So the PDF can be super handy, especially if you're more of like a digital download type person. You do more like either mobile, grocery shopping or online grocery shopping from your computer. That can be super. The other resource that can be super helpful, especially if you're wanting to get your kids more involved, is the physical deck, these physical decks, as I mentioned, all the decks come in, either whether it's digital or the downloadable PDF is a breakfast deck, a lunch deck and a snack deck.
[00:13:19] And if you've watched my stories and you've watched me do. Hundreds of times over the last few years, because I have three kids, it works out really well. Each of 'em get to start with a different deck. Each of them get like a little sticky note post-it note and they just flag the pictures that look appealing to them because this gives me a starting place to see, okay, well, they picked these lunches this week, these breakfast, these snacks, how can we work these into the week based off what we already have on hand.
[00:13:43] So I'm not necessarily like coming up. Extensive grocery list with ingredients that we don't already have, but I can look at, okay, we, we already need to use up this. Okay. I can add this to my grocery list. And it just gives me approved territory to begin building off of that the kids have already given their buy to, but they know that it's kind of consolidated to options.
[00:14:02] They know that we're not gonna be repeating the same thing every day, or if they are, you know, say you are starting to use these. As I mentioned, my family's been using these since conception of when I made them three, four years. But if you're just starting to use these, or maybe you're just reintroducing them because you kind of forgot about them and need to go back to start using them, or you're just about to get yours in the mail.
[00:14:23] I want you to think about how can you bring these before your kid? And if you have one kid or if you have multiple children, you can engage your kid in a lot of different ways. But what I would suggest you do is just get some sticky notes and give them some little flags and start walking through it with 'em.
[00:14:37] If you have specifically have one younger. And this is not something that they're as comfortable doing independently, sit with them and talk about the options and look at it and ask them, what do they enjoy? What do they not enjoy? What are they in the mood for? And just elicit some conversation, but this isn't a power struggle.
[00:14:56] And this isn't like a battle or dualling of priorities. This is you partnering with them and you sitting with them and it's so objective because it's a picture right in front of you that they can. You can read all the details, you know, the dietician mom details that you might be interested in knowing, but your kid doesn't really need to know that they just need to look at it.
[00:15:13] Because as I've mentioned, numerous times on the podcast before visual tolerance is often the first step. So if your child can see a picture of something and visually tolerate it enough so that they may say yes, I may want to eat that. I may want to try that. I may want to make that they may or may not eat it, but it at least gives you a starting place to begin to incorporate some variety.
[00:15:35] So sticking to some of the same core examples that I've already been leaning on this episode, if we're talking about the freezer waffles or a PB and J or a derivative of a PB and J at lunch, you could just look at that one combination card that. Waffles breakfast combination card. And you could just talk through that with them.
[00:15:52] What's the next pivot that they're most comfortable to make, especially if you have an extreme picky eater or a child who, you know, if you listen to my episode on removing the packaging, if you have a child who's extremely loyal to a given type of freezer waffle, and it's the same one that you've bought them their whole life, and you don't even buy a different flavor of it.
[00:16:10] Well, then you are gonna wanna take smaller baby steps and say a kid who has no idea what brand you buy and really doesn't care. They just like. But you can look at that card and you can say, which is the next one we might wanna. We're gonna start going every other day on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, when you go to preschool or, you know, when you go to school or when you're at grandma's or whatever your day looks like, if you're going to daycare, these are the ones we're gonna have.
[00:16:30] And then Tuesday, Thursday, let's try having this and make baby steps. You know, your child's comfort level with expanding and exposure to new foods. So you can make as teeny, tiny AST steps as possible, but you're getting them involved. You're partnering with them and you're bringing them into this process.
[00:16:44] So they know that there is little bits of change that they can begin to expect. But also that they can begin to become more comfortable with. And so you can sit and you can look at that card and maybe you're just starting with one card and one change at the very beginning, or maybe things aren't as you know, difficult in terms of including variety and your child is not as particular about which items you're buying.
[00:17:09] You just need some new ideas. Well then by all means, bring your child or your children in and ask them, Hey, you know, we have three breakfast ideas. We've been rotating. Let's add another one or two this week, which one looks most interesting to you and let you know your child pick one, you pick one, or, you know, one of each child gets to pick the two remaining ones for the school week and things like that.
[00:17:29] And just begin to use them in that capacity. Or if it's for a PB and J at lunch, if you're offering an identical lunch lunchbox every day, ask them what's something I could do different tomorrow. That looks interesting to you. Do you like, can I do it in a different shape or, and I'm catching myself, you can kind of hear me stuttering here, because something I often say is not to ask questions, but to make the suggestions.
[00:17:55] So even as I'm saying, can I, it would be better for us to even. You know, I catch myself, you can see I'm catching myself here, even on a recording, but I don't wanna edit it out because I think it's important. And it's something I catch myself on often in talking with my kids. It's so easy for us to ask them a question.
[00:18:11] What can I do different? What can I change? But if your child has any anxiety around eating or school is still a more anxious experience or eating, the cafeteria is already. Overwhelming for your child. We don't want to be asking questions that could peak any type of anxiety. Instead, what we wanna do is we can say, look, we can change the flavor of jelly.
[00:18:31] We can change the shape and pick your flavor cookie cutter. We can. So I'm including this here and not gonna edit this out because I think that's important catch for me to just make, but also for you to know, and to hear me, you know, fumble my words on that. We can walk them through those changes of the variations in a way that.
[00:18:50] Confidence courage and also changing comfort levels. It's okay to push our kids outside of their comfort zone, but we have to be tendered to the fact that it is still a new school year. And these are things that they might feel a lot of security in the consistency of their PB and J every day. So let's talk to 'em about, you know, W like when we go to the cookie cutter drawer, letting them pick one and engaging them.
[00:19:15] And so we're not putting the pressure on, we're not, you know, raising any any feelings of discomfort through questioning them, but we're partnering with them. We're inviting them and we're utilizing these combination cards to engage them in ways. You know, in an age appropriate way are helping them to expand the foods that they tolerate, that they're open to.
[00:19:35] And ultimately that they're willing to try. So if you do not have combination cards first, if you do have my combination cards, go find them, go save them. If you didn't. I have a lot of people who are remembering, normally this happens at the beginning of school year when we. Have, you know, fresh energy.
[00:19:52] I've had several people say, oh shoot, I forgot to save it. Or I don't know where I saved it. Can you resend me the digital down? If you can just send me your order number, like the email or the email address, even that you bought your order with? I can pull it up. It's no problem. I don't mind at all. I'd be happy to resend it to you so that you have a fresh digital copy.
[00:20:09] So make sure that you pull up your digital copy. Or go find the physical copies so that you can flip through 'em the physical deck is printed on like a plastic type paper. So there's spill proof. There's sticky finger proof. We've used the same deck for multiple years and they still look brand new. So you can wipe 'em clean super easily, but if you don't have them, make sure that you go to veggies.
[00:20:28] Number two.com forward slash shop, and you can order those on my flash flavor mix sale.
Important links from this episode
Combination Cards are now available only within The Mealtimes Made Easy Method