Make Your Meals Less Stressful With These Podcasts
When we want to find new ways for our children to appreciate food, we often turn to cookbooks for advice or search for the latest food trends online. But now we can also turn to the podcast app on our smartphones for advice from parents and professionals to help us get kids out of this culinary rut and make mealtimes less stressful for everyone.
We recently found five shows that have inspired us to find new ways for our kids to develop positive relationships with what’s on their plate. If there are others you like that aren’t here, share them in the comments.
Children in the kitchen
Like any parent, Stephanie Conner wants her son to develop a healthy bond with food. But when he was diagnosed with “multiple food allergies, including dairy, peanuts, and soy,” she felt “stuck” in helping him build that relationship.
She created the Kiddos Cook blog and its audio offshoot Kiddos in the Kitchen to help her son develop a love for all things cooking. In every monthly issue, Conner shows that cooking with kids can be messy (literally and figuratively), but it doesn’t have to be difficult.
Her questions to doctors, nutritionists, chefs and restaurateurs reveal a genuine curiosity that is both inspiring and comforting. And for anyone who is under stress parents may be relieved to hear the author of the cookbook chef Del Sroufe said that, like most parents, it is also cyclically repeats the same recipes week after week, when not entertaining guests.
Healthy Family Project
Simple things like growing food in the garden or planning meals can seem intimidating or drain your precious time. Amanda Keefer, mother of two girls and host of the Healthy Family podcast , knows how overwhelming parents are when they hear buzzwords about food trends, and she takes it into account when talking to her guests.
We especially love that she is not shy about discussing her own shortcomings, and the bloggers, doctors and nutritionists she talks to give her valuable advice in a fun way; it’s not a boring lecture series about everything they think you should do. The tone will make the listener feel less alone in the struggle to feed their children.
Dirty crossroads
Like any good podcast, Diana K. Rice‘s Messy Intersection has compelling stories to tell. Her guests certainly have interesting stories. These range from shame on the part of a pediatrician for feeding their Lucky Charms children to breastfeeding and attachment issues in episodes of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.
Rice encourages listeners to “embrace the clutter” and creates a safe space for her interlocutors – usually registered dietitian peers – to share evidence-based insights from their stories of “parenting food-tolerant children.” And she’s not afraid to play devil’s advocate when their opinions get a little passionate.
Tube to table
For all the confusion and social anxiety that comes from their babies getting the right nutrition, parenting a tube-fed baby can be stressful. But getting them accustomed to eating more traditional meals comes with a set of challenges.
Hosts and feeding specialists Jennifer Berry and Heidi Lifer Moreland invite their guests to share how-to tips that help overcome the conflicting information parents often receive and help shed light on a condition that many parents and doctors still don’t know how to treat. One Apple Podcast commenter even wrote that Tube to Table “normalized every feeling I’ve ever experienced” while raising a child addicted to the tube.
Food crimes
Podcasts aren’t just for parents. Food Crimes is a parody of courtroom procedures, where real kids argue in front of a judge about real food to figure out who should get their desserts for not sharing a milkshake or for forgetting to put yogurt back in the refrigerator (guilty!).
The episodes are designed around the length of the drive from school to home, so your little games will be entertained while you get your real crime fix. There is one catch: the podcast is on the Pinna platform, which requires a subscription, but you can take advantage of the four-week free trial to see if the service is right for your family .