Little People Nutrition
===
[00:00:00] [00:01:00] [00:02:00] [00:03:00]
Hello, hello and welcome to the Big Hearted Podcast. My name is Victoria Edmond and I am your host. Our aim here at the Big Hearted Podcast is to nurture a community of heart centered educators to change the perception and delivery of early childhood education and care in Australia. And ultimately around the world.
We want you to be inspired by our guests and the topics we bring to you to think of new ways of being as an educator. We want you to feel a sense of belonging via these [00:04:00] podcasts so that you can engage anytime of the day or night in any place that suits you. We want you to become an educator that delivers education from the heart, as we believe this is how we create great change within our world.
So join us as we discover new ways to. Inspire each other here, the big hearted podcast.
[00:05:00] [00:06:00] [00:07:00] [00:08:00] [00:09:00] [00:10:00] [00:11:00] [00:12:00] [00:13:00] [00:14:00] [00:15:00] [00:16:00] [00:17:00] [00:18:00] [00:19:00] [00:20:00] [00:21:00] [00:22:00] [00:23:00] [00:24:00] [00:25:00] [00:26:00] [00:27:00] [00:28:00] [00:29:00] [00:30:00] [00:31:00] [00:32:00] [00:33:00] [00:34:00] [00:35:00] [00:36:00] [00:37:00] [00:38:00] [00:39:00] [00:40:00] [00:41:00] [00:42:00] [00:43:00] [00:44:00] [00:45:00] [00:46:00] [00:47:00] [00:48:00] [00:49:00] [00:50:00] [00:51:00] [00:52:00] [00:53:00] [00:54:00] [00:55:00] [00:56:00] [00:57:00] [00:58:00] [00:59:00] [01:00:00] [01:01:00] [01:02:00] [01:03:00] [01:04:00] [01:05:00] [01:06:00] [01:07:00] [01:08:00] [01:09:00] [01:10:00]
We do. Hello and welcome to The Gorgeous Mandy. Thank you so much for jumping on with us. We connected just after I sent my email out, or just yeah, we connected. Because one of our gorgeous community [01:11:00] members, Laurie Smith, uh, said to me after listening to the podcast and the conversation we had in our Q and a session, um, two weeks ago now in, in the essential elements and the membership, you've got to get in touch with Mandy.
She has the most. Amazing book and community. And she talks about all of this stuff. And so you've got to connect. And so I, I looked at your socials and I popped you in our newsletter and you've now like popped up into my life. We've been talking for 20 minutes before we even hit record and I have a new best friend, everybody.
Yeah, I love Mandy too. So Mandy, Mandy, welcome, welcome, welcome. Can you tell us who you are, where you are, how you got to where you are now? Oh, lovely. Thank you so much for having me, Victoria. It really is, um, lovely. And I'm so excited to be on your, um, bloggy podcasty, whatever they call it, they call it now.
Uh, my name's Mandy, Mandy Dos Santos, and, um, I live, uh, in the central coast, which [01:12:00] is just north of Sydney in New South Wales. Um, I'm a mom to three kids who are getting older now that I work with little kids. I have my kids feel so massive and old. Um, And I am professionally. I have a background in nutrition and in food science.
Um, and I've also done some education background as well. And yeah, I, I've worked a long time in food in many different areas originally and sort of manufacturing and process foods. Um, And then, as things have gone on, I've progressed more into community health and education, and right now, what I kind of do is I create programs and resources and, um, connection, I guess, around food.
Even though my background is sort of in nutrition, I really focus on food education rather than nutrition education. Um, and I'm really passionate about that connection with not only the children, um, the families and the [01:13:00] educators to really sort of empower and explore food together, because if we can inherently build that connection first and foremost with each other, but then also with food and where it comes from, how it's prepared, um, how we cook it and how we share it.
And how we eat it, um, if we can really develop that relationship, then we'll learn power, the health of our children as they grow and the families and community around them. So, um, yeah, so I guess that's kind of what I do. It's the weirdest thing. Everyone always says, what's your elevator pitch? And I just go, Oh, like 20 minutes, but, um, no, I love food and I just basically want, um, people, other people to fall in love with it and not be afraid of it.
So, um, cause I think there's a lot of fear around food and eating and, and it's really such a beautiful thing in our lives and really just want to bring that to the forefront for, um, children, but obviously the vehicle to that is through often parents and educators as well. Yeah, a hundred percent. I, I shared in the podcast last week that when I worked in long [01:14:00] daycare, I was often the only educator that would sit and eat with the children and I wouldn't eat the food that the children were served.
It was rank, like, you know, one grade mince and you'd get this bolognese, this big Container of bologna to serve for the children. There was this layer of just grease. And so on top of that it's so hard. So I also do things, so I do kind of programs with families, but I do often do consulting with early learning services in terms of menu planning and development and recipes and things like that.
And your podcasts that you had about mealtimes and the early learning sort of setting? Not so much in family daycare, but in, um. In the early learning centers and long daycare centers. It's really is such a intense space, um, for eating. But the fact that you were eating with the kids, even though you're eating your own meal, I mean, I just wish every educator had the opportunity.
Well, I guess they do in some respects, but if they valued and saw the like sheer [01:15:00] power and importance of that, of eating with children, but then speaking to the budgetary, when you're talking about 2 per child per day, I mean, in some centers that I've worked with. Sometimes it's even lower than that. And it is quite scary because, because for some children, um, depending on their family dynamic or the situation for their family, um, they might not have any communal meal outside of that early learning service.
So then learning about. So when I talked at the beginning of, um, when we were connecting what I do, you know, um, we learn about food through our, in the environment, not, I don't mean nature, I mean, but in, in the home and, and mirroring how your parents eat and how your siblings eat or grandparents or aunties, uncles, whoever's at the table, that happens at the table.
And these, these basics of chewing your food, sit, well, actually let's just say. Coming to the table, these basics, these [01:16:00] basic elements, although they come very much from a heart perspective, they also essentially come from a health perspective. Because when we look at how we eat, if we, we sit here and we talk about with like even little babies, we don't start feeding a baby until they can sit, you know, like we don't feed solids until they can sit like this and hold their body and their neck, you're not going to sit a baby that.
That is still slouching. So if we're teaching children to sit up here, you inherently get better digestion. If you have a child sitting at the table, concentrating on their meal, they, they retain that ability to be able to sense that they feel full and so therefore they don't overeat. I mean, these basics set our, set us up for hell.
So it's not just about, Oh, shovel it in. It's about what, what can we do to set the children up to learn the, like the basics. Around eating, which could benefit their health in the long term. So, um, yeah, it's pretty powerful that eating together and definitely in the [01:17:00] early learning setting, how powerful that is to be able to eat with the children.
Oh, like massive. It is like, to me, it is. The fundamental we talk about connection and these ideas that our morning circles are disappearing and all of these things that knit us together and give us that togetherness in family daycare or early childhood education. That togetherness is key. Getting thinner and thinner and thinner.
And it really concerns me. One of the things that I see that's coming in, that I am going to go out on a limb mm-hmm, and say profusely that I do not like it and I do not think it's healthy. Um, is these. What are they? Progressive mealtimes, where children come to the table when they feel like it and they go away.
I just think from a [01:18:00] soul level, that is children being on their own. That is children, like, yes, we need to teach children to connect into those feelings. And I'm not saying if a child comes to you and says, Tori, I'm hungry, that I'm going to go, away. Man, you can't have anything. It's not 10 o'clock, whatever, whatever.
I'm, I'm suggesting that, okay, well, we've got another 10 or 15 minutes. Can we have a little drink until then? And everybody's going to come together or we look at what the whole group is doing. Okay, let's come together and have something together now. Because the question that it makes me ask is when did the individual become more important than the collective?
Yeah, look, it's, um, our free little chat. It was interesting because you were talking about your background in Steiner pedagogy. Um, and very much, I guess, from a Steiner perspective, you think about the collective and the group. Everything's kind of really, you're moving in a group in [01:19:00] that community kind of setting.
Um, You know, the, the progressive eating as well, when I go into a lot of centers and sort of talking about mealtimes and, and whatever, sometimes I feel like that progressive mealtime word is kind of really, it's been a sexy terminology for kind of sometimes whatever is already happening. So when you look at like kids, when we talk about sort of fussy eating with children and things like that, we often talk about.
Um, you know, how many mealtime occasions should a child sort of be offered? And we really talk about kind of this two hour window, right. And sort of six hours. So if we've got brekkie, we've got morning tea, we've got lunch, we've got afternoon tea and then dinner, and then maybe a supper as well. Um, we talk about that as like a nutritionist because we're, It's okay to feel hungry and a child needs to learn what hunger feels like because otherwise what we end up in is this grazing, which we know when we graze off, [01:20:00] like keep on grazing, grazing, grazing.
I remember reading the book, um, like French children eating habits. I can't remember what it was and interviewing a French lady. And she said, when you graze through the day. We say in French that it's like fattening up the ducks that you're just constantly giving like a cracker and it's, it's sort of, it feels very similar to me on the idea of when a child's bored, just give them a screen sort of thing.
Like we don't want them to feel the discomfort, but hunger is. Like a child's not going to die if they haven't eaten for two hours. Yeah. You know, in fact, you're not going to die for a couple of days. Um, but a child needs to feel hungry because then they need to know what it feels like to feel full so that they know what the sensation of full is so that then they don't over eat.
But if we're in this constant state of grazing, we never feel either or. And so therefore you really, um, dilute that sense of, um, You get that, I can never say the word, you say [01:21:00] Gabamata, you can't say his name, I can't say satiety, like the, the feeling of the sensation of, the sense of feeling full, so I wish you'd say the sense of feeling full, but if you don't feel that, you're really negating the child's Um, development of understanding that and that is what can then lead to overeating because you never understand what hunger is and what feeling full is and I, I, I can see, I understand why people talk about the progressive meal time because in terms of, you know, the broad spectrum of children that are there and they feel hungry at different times, but.
If we go back to that strong rhythm and routine of what mealtime is, which when you talk to some parents, they say, Oh, my child eats so well at, at, at daycare or at their early learning service. Um, and it's because often in those, those, um, little preschools, the educators have this really strong, You know, and we talk about them when you're coming into the home, what is your [01:22:00] rhythm at home?
So the child knows like the, it could be Einstein, and you often have the music and the song and the setting up the table. And this is all the preamble. It's the prologue and unto the meal. And so the child learns that the meal's coming and that can take half an hour before you actually eat, you know, and that's really important.
And as your podcast said, too, Breathing, bringing reverence and bringing ritual and rhythm and empowerment to that mealtime puts importance on the mealtime. So the child doesn't when they grow older knows it's important to sit down and eat their meal, not to fatten up the geese, just at the computer to get to the next occasion, you know, it is so important.
So I, I think if you're going to, if the early learning sevens is looking at progressive mealtimes. A, it's definitely within a particular timeframe because as well, you've got food safety, having food out for an extended period of time. Um, but having it within a [01:23:00] finite kind of thing, because you're right, having children eat by themselves, eating is done together.
It's a celebration of the meal that, you know, if you're eating meat, the life that has been sacrificed for us to nourish our bodies. It really is such a. beautiful time to come together. And, and I feel it should be together in some, some respects. I am, I am a champion of the communal meal time. Definitely.
Oh, look, I, I, everything you said, I'm sitting here nodding in the same hymn book, reading the same menu a hundred percent. Like it is all of those things. And like, I, I, I, I really feel like that ritual and it's a, it's a word that kind of has a little bit of connotations to it now because we've come so far from it.
But I really, when I look at our [01:24:00] society, what I feel is missing hugely are these rites of passage. Yeah. these rituals that used to signify and mark the passage of time for us. And that's essentially what mealtimes do because we, we, yeah, we wake up, we break our fast, you know, and that was a time where often we would be getting together, talking about what our plan for the day was, Going out and, and like separating from our family and our community group and going and doing these individual things or whatever it was that we were doing.
And then you would break and come back together and have smoko or morning tea, you know, and, and that was a chance to down your tools. It's touchpoint. Yes. It's the ebb and flow. It's the breathing flow, it's the breathing in and the breathing out. All the people that are in my essential elements who have done the very first module, ebb and flow, know all about the inb breathing and the out [01:25:00] breathing.
And it is, and that's what it is. It's the touch points, it's the in and out. It's uh, it's. And, and just to highlight your point of connection, I just have to say those connecting points emotionally are so important to all of us that we sit down and pause together to reconnect together. But that trust that comes from connection is the foundation from ba ba ba times for eating.
Because it's a safety thing. So when we look at things like baby led weaning, where, where you don't do periods, they eat off the mother's plate or father's plate or whatnot. It's that connection. I trust you. You are feeding me and we are connected and there's trust. You're giving me something that is safe to eat.
So I know I can eat it even more. So you're eating it. So therefore, it's okay to eat as well. That comes to trust and connection and that comes together as a group, [01:26:00] not as individuals. Yeah. It's interesting because the pouch fading, oh, do you know what? I watched a TikTok the other day of a lady who was like, my baby was, you know, like cracking, like not cracking up, funny, cracking up, crying, upset, um, when I started feeding her.
So I tasted it and the woman gagged, like she instantly gagged on that food, that food, that is not food. So I look, I, I, I think they a hundred percent have a place. And they are way better than some other options. When we talk about pouches, what I used to talk about a little bit in that sort of early, early feeding kind of time is if you are going to use pouches, pouches are designed as a crutch.
They're definitely not an every meal thing. Um, they're definitely something that if you are going to use them so that a child doesn't get attached. To the pouch, it should be [01:27:00] squeezed into a bowl and the pouch removed. It's not like we squeeze it into the spoon. So there's other ways that you can still use them.
The other thing is, as well, is then they might be a base. Mix them in with something else. Yeah. And then when I look to my food science background, when you pump something through a pipe, it is homogenous. And when you're making something from a manufacturing point of view, you want that food to be the exact same recipe, the exact same viscosity, the exact same texture, the exact same particle size.
Every single time when you feed children homogenous food, the exact same food the whole time from a flavor profile and also from a texture profile, you're really setting yourself up for failure because if you've got a child that is nervous around food, if they can control that they have the exact same thing every single time, they're going to want that thing.
It's like, we call it the nugget [01:28:00] cycle, even though they've got different plates and shapes for the nuggets, effectively, you know, there might be 15 different varieties of shapes for another, but they're going to be the same every single time. And so a child expects that then they don't learn to chew.
They don't learn to bite. They don't learn to swallow. They don't use their mouth. I mean, talk to a speech pathologist about sucking on a little tube. Yeah. They're going to be fiery, even more fiery than you and I, but not great. They don't taste great. They are cooked a buggery because you've got to do that putting them through there unless it's a cold sort of, um, Press sort of cycle when we talk about like, you know, juices and stuff like that.
So you're taking out vitamins, most of the water soluble vitamins, they get denatured. So you don't get them. So they got to add it back in. Yeah. It just, it just like, and I understand there's children with genuine sensitivities. Genuine, genuine, genuine, genuine. Like I, I'm not. I'm not counting that at all, and I know a child that has something in [01:29:00] their body is better than a child that doesn't like, but what percentage of children is that?
And scarily, I feel like that percentage is growing. How much of that is growing? Because of these sorts of things where parents are time poor and I feel like it's getting worse now because parents that the cost of living so parents are like, Oh, I've got to work harder. I've got to work more. Can't lose my job.
Like I can't be putting myself in it. So like, in order to do that, I've got to work harder, which means I have even less time with my children and less time to prepare. Like I can see this cycle and I'm by no means bagging people for this. What I'm trying to get across is that us as family daycare educators absolutely have the time in our day And we should be making this as a priority to have these mealtimes that are times of [01:30:00] deep connection because children are missing this when they're missing this deep connection around when it comes to food, quite often, the food choices that are being made.
for them are not the greatest of food choices. And when I say like the pouches and stuff like that, like I would never eat that stuff. My, like it just, yeah, I think the thing is, is as educators. Because of the sort of lay sort of general population, the speed and business of life and things like that is insane.
And the cost of living is insane, especially for young parents, you know, young families, um, or families, but just, it feels even more intense when they're little. Um, I think, you know, educators have this wonderful opportunity and responsibility in essence, to be able to provide [01:31:00] that. nurturing home feeding environment that unfortunately is for some families can't occur because of the speed of their life and their inability to be out, be with their children at those key, um, times of, of eating and coming together.
So you really do have very much the responsibility. I love family daycares. All my children went into family daycares when they were little. Um, For, and having that home environment, you have that really unique opportunity to actually mirror that sort of home environment. And it doesn't have to be fancy.
Like it literally can be chunky tomato passata or something on pasta and veggies out on plate. Like I don't eat fancy and never, um, never sort of say that people should eat really complicated, crazy meals or things like that. But, um, you know, cooking from scratch, basic foods and bringing children together to eat them together is, is.
incredible. And the flow and effect is not just nutritionally, [01:32:00] it's emotionally, psychologically, like it's, it's everything. Well, we used to, we used to grow Madagascar beans here or, um, they're, they're known as another name too. It's not an adzuki bean, they're, they're maroon and white. Yep, yep. Really chunky, like, meaty bean.
I love them. And they used to grow all on the side fence. And I taught the children, because I ran a paddock to plate program here, so we frequently ate out of the garden. It was a whole process, you know. The children would help me get the soil, we'd get the plants, we'd get the seeds, we'd do all the things, we'd maintain and nurture and, um, you know, and all the herbs were in abundance in the garden.
And it didn't take a great deal of time. Like, people have this idea that it takes a lot of time. It doesn't take a great deal of time. Um, and if you're an educator, it goes, but I don't have a green thumb. Guess what, baby? Neither do I! Learn! It is a, it's a science and it's a thing that you [01:33:00] can teach yourself and this can be part of your professional development because this is really important stuff.
But the times where these Madagascar beans would grow and they're, you know, they're yay long, they're maybe 10, seven to ten centimetres long in a big bean and when they are ready to pick the, the bean dries and you go and shake it and they rattle inside the bean. So the children would go and pick them straight off the fence and then they would sit in the sand pit and open these beans up and, and put the, take the bean out of the pod.
And put it into the, uh, strainer. And then they'd come, Tori, Tori, we've got all these beans. So then the next day, cause they're dried the next day, we would like make a soup. And particularly in wintertime, it would sit on top of the fireplace and they would help me cut everything up and put, it was simple and the joy and the lessons that they get from those experiences.[01:34:00]
Take every single box, everything. Every single box you have to tick, like, No, so I think that's the thing is people see it as an additional thing that they have to do, but whereas it's just embedding the day to day into your pedagogy and into your, um, learning outcomes. I mean, you do, you tick off everything.
So, What you're talking about there is, um, so people often say, Oh, you're a nutritionist. You talk about nutrition. I said, I am so against nutrition education. I'm about food education, which is what you've just spoken about is food education, because we're learning about food in the way that we. Use it in our lives.
We're not talking about the nutrients and sort of really, um, segmenting it in that way. Because as we know, children are concrete learners at that age, there's the abstract learning hasn't really come into play in the early, early years, and they need to learn those, those concrete hands on elements there, which [01:35:00] when you think about it, You're learning about science there.
It's the biology. You're thinking about the soil and the geology. You're thinking about, um, counting. You're thinking about using all the fine motor skills to open everything out. Music with the shaking of the beans. I mean, like it just permeates into every single, um, you know, outcome that you need to kind of achieve, but it's not nutrition education.
I'm not saying that those beans are healthy, that there's protein in there, that there's fiber in there. You, it's. It's looking at the it from a holistic perspective, which makes way more sense to everybody. Yeah. Not just children, everybody. Yeah. Try to, yeah. Don't get me started on that, like, oh no, it's so vital.
It's beautiful. It's so, it's so important. I mean, and, and this can happen, like I don't have a massive block. I know on my social medias, I share a lot of images about these huge spaces that some of my educators have. Which is, you know, [01:36:00] it's beautiful and it makes for great viewing. Let's just say it's the highlight real friends.
Um, I have a, a, like less than 800 square meter block. And we have on our space, we have a giant concrete water tank. We have, um, A shed and a double bay, um, carport. We have a pool out the back. I have a whole section of my backyard that I cannot plant anything on because it's got an absorption trench for the septic underneath it.
Like I've got a massive undercut, like I don't have a great deal of space. Right. Um, our house is stupidly big. It's a four bedroom plus a full office sized house on less than 800 square meter block. Cause so. Like, I just want people to really get, and I'll go and do a garden tour and show everybody my spaces.
My God, why did I have to clean up. I don't run family daycare here anymore. But the thing is, is that you don't need a huge [01:37:00] amount of space to create incredible gardening experiences for children. And. This, if you want to talk about how to reduce your workload, introduce a paddock to PlateGarden, uh, to your program, and you will tick every single box that you need to tick without even really having to try.
Try. Okay. I mean, there's just no, you know, I don't know the exact square meterage, but I remember reading that post war, when they started subdividing suburban blocks, it might be like 700 square meters that they said that that. Size was created because families would be able to grow enough food on there to supplement something like 50 percent of their food or whatnot.
So that size was that, like the suburban block was originally designed for that. So you, you really, of course you, you can people in all [01:38:00] developing countries around the world do as well. Yeah. Yeah. And look, there's community gardens around and hey, if you don't have community gardens, maybe that's a project you can take on and really see about creating something like that.
Like, I mean, we don't have to be stuck in these boxes. This whole idea around mealtimes and quality food, like, Children, if you see the videos of where people ask children where milk comes from, it's astounding how disconnected we are from how food is grown, where it's grown, where it comes from, how it's made, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm really blessed. Up the road from us is a bath milk factory. We don't drink bath milk. It goes in the bath because it helps spread. essential oils. And for anyone that's listening and not watching, uh, I'm doing air quote, I love bath milk. I [01:39:00] ran out of the cow's titty. Give it to me. I that's the only way I like to drink cow's milk.
If I'm going to drink cow's milk, it's unhomogeneous. It's raw. It's literally milked out of the cow and put into a bottle. And the cream on the top is amazing. Unreal and it's beautiful and and it tastes like it should and people on the Gold Coast can come up and visit Providence Farm Hall, uh, and, uh, Providence Farm and watch the calves being fed and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, incredible. So it's, you know, and I get that not everyone is close to dairy farms and they are a dying thing. Like, I don't, I don't know, like what's going to happen when we lose all our dairies? Are we going to import from overseas? Like it just, it seriously blows my mind that we are Try not to think too far in advance because or I, I have a very, um, soft heart.
So when I think a little bit too far, I get really quite, um, upset actually [01:40:00] about the sort of food landscape. We are at a very pivotal, pivotal point at the moment. I mean, we're not America, like I would, I can't even imagine raising my family in America with the food system there. Um, but you know, Australia, we're, we're.
Behind that in, in a positive way, I guess, but we're on a very similar trajectory. Yeah, it's, it, it does concern me so much of where our society's heading concerns me. And I have to stop myself and go, hang on, you're right here right now. Yeah. And that's why we pull it back to what can we control. And so, and then from a, from an early educated perspective, definitely bringing some reverence to that mealtime and enjoying it, you know, and just sharing what, when I was listening to your podcast, the happy mealtime is, um, Like the mealtimes, magical mealtimes in that even when you were talking about, so when we talk about food education as well, and talking about what's on the plate, and what we're eating, talking about colors, [01:41:00] shapes, where they're from, like, so it gives you this whole opportunity, not only to talk about That little boy that was saying, Oh, Judy, you're on the roof or what?
That was the cutest story ever. But, um, if we're just talking about food, there's so many opportunities to be able to talk about the food on there. Um, and what people are eating and why they like it and whatnot. So, yeah, it's, it's great. It's a really important thing in the book that I wrote that you were referring to at my family table.
We also have the little chorus there, which in fact, um, some families I know that have read the book, use that chorus as their kind of little mealtime verse. And, um, both you and I have that sort of interest and background in sort of Steiner education. And you often do say a verse, um, and it's not.
Religious necessarily, um, but just bringing, um, your thoughts and to that particular time to give thanks for the meal that's been prepared and, and where it's come [01:42:00] from. And, um, and also the musicality of it as well is so powerful. Yeah. I love music in terms of food education as well. My colleague and friend, Phoebe Cormack, is a music therapist, registered music therapist, and we collaborated and wrote and produced songs about food.
But she always tells me that music is the one area that when they did the, and I never know if it's an MRI or a CT scan, but when they lit up the brain, that music is the only thing that lights up the whole brain. Yeah. So then when we go to things like nursery rhymes and songs and using songs through transitions, just how that opens up the whole brain of the child to be able to take things in.
But I also see with the verses that there's a musicality of it, it really just stops pause and brings the child into the present moment to what's going on to then move into the mealtime, which is so profound. Oh, you're talking my language. [01:43:00] That's exactly what I did. I had all of this. And we had them for seasons as well and different meals and like I run into children that are now in year three and four that were in my family daycare and they still can tell me all of the songs and they, they miss.
They miss doing that. I mean, we would light a candle at mealtimes as well, you know, and then the children would snuff the candle out and this candle only got snuffed out once. Not everyone got a turn. Yeah, but that's it. And so you're teaching all of that weight, taking turns, patience, and you know, not this mediocrity of everybody wins.
Everybody gets the opportunity. It's that, you know, you'll get to do it tomorrow. Tuesday's the day that Susie gets to do it. Wednesday's the day that Jimmy gets to do it. Yeah. No, it is. There's so much beauty that you can bring to the mealtime, which I think is fabulous. Well, including like we touched on it before the setting of the table, like that is a whole process.
And like, I also. [01:44:00] And I know a lot of educators do it, and there's no shade on anybody. For me, personally, it was an expression of deeply caring for the children, that I would put a plate, and I would put the things on their plate for morning tea. I would put the things on their plate for lunch, and I would put the things on their plate for afternoon tea.
Uh, because sometimes children came with uh, foods that I didn't like, I didn't think we're going to be great first thing in the morning. So we would keep that towards the afternoon. Uh, and also when I was putting things on the plate, you eat with your eyes. So the love and the care that would go into, you know, if we had mandarins, I would sometimes, depending on the age of the child, I would either put the mandarin as a whole piece, So that they could peel it themselves, or if they were still too little, I would put it out and I would put all of the pieces around the side of the plate.
And then I would, I'd get a little [01:45:00] container for their hummus and put that on the plate with their crackers, all nicely. Yeah, we eat with our eyes, don't we? A hundred percent. And like the children would be playing and I knew that morning tea was coming up. So while the children were engaged in their creative play, as a way to keep myself.
Out of their business and away from what they're doing, I made myself busy by doing these caring, loving things for the children by setting their meal time, their, their plate up. And then I would gently ask for someone because the change always happens. Someone gets tetchy and I would Oh, I think I can hear a little fairy who's asking to set the table, please.
Josie, can you come with me? And that was exactly how I would do it. And that child that was having that struggle in that moment. And I knew it was just because they were ready for a meal. Yeah. They're hungry. Yeah, would come [01:46:00] along with me, they would set the table, it was a special thing to set the table, I'm redirecting, and then that's giving the children, the other children, the cue that that transition is going to start.
And then we would sing our transition song to pack away, because we always packed away before a meal time. Um, you know, some things we would leave out, but generally have that general tidy up. And then we'd go wash hands and have a meal and it was all ready to go. So interestingly, just to talk to you setting the table there with the what's on their plate and the way that you were talking, I assume it's because some educators might think that you shouldn't plate it up for them, that they should be choosing the food that they would like themselves.
And that's definitely one approach, a hundred percent. Um, I still think sitting on their plate is still a lovely way of doing it. We look at, um, one type of theory that we talk about for eating is the division of responsibility, which is, um, Ellen Satter. She's a, um, psych kind of psychologist, and I'm pretty sure she's a [01:47:00] dietician as well.
But the division of responsibility goes in that. The parent carer or adult, um, responsibilities in the eating situation is to decide what's going to be eaten. So what's on the menu, um, where it's going to be eaten and when it's going to be eaten. That's the responsibilities of the adult. So in this situation, even in a family, um, daycare situation.
Even though the parent has made the meal, sometimes they've provided the meal, if, if they have, um, you then are the carer at that particular time. So then you, of course, then have responsibility in, in how that, or what pieces of that are coming into that particular mealtime situation. You've decided where, because it's going to be at the table or as a picnic or whatnot, and when.
And so that again is setting up the framework of when the mealtime starts. are happening so that the child knows that it's happening so you can refer to the time that it's happening so that the child can feel hungry or and [01:48:00] not too hungry perhaps and then the child decides If they're going to eat it, and how much?
So we're separating that responsibility. So even though you're plating it there, so some educators might say, oh no, you need to ask whether what they should be putting on their plate, what not, so that it's not wasted, or you're encroaching on their autonomy about what goes on their plate. Even when it's on their plate, they still, in this framework, have that responsibility.
Ability to be able to say I'm finished. I'm done. So you still retain the autonomy of the child being able to express how much or if they want to eat what's on that plate as well. So, um, I still think there is. I felt like you might be saying that you didn't think that they would have their autonomy there for it, but I still think there's a place and still very much if you have that open communication with the child that they can still express that.
I 100 percent think they have autonomy in that. And I also would like, I'm so glad [01:49:00] you brought that up because there is this whole thing about, Oh, yes, the children need to make decisions. I'm sorry, they're two and three. The decisions they get to make are so minimal because on that though, so you can still have, um, so we call sort of like deconstructed meals or family style eating with the platters out, like a taco kind of thing.
But you, So they can have a decision, but as we know, everyone gets decision fatigue, so you have to minimize what the decisions kind of are, if that makes sense. So even if, if you have that four little kids, like you're talking to with the two, three year olds, if they're choosing, say for a taco and there's the veggies on option on offer are carrots and I don't know, grated carrots and chopped up whatever it is.
So they still have a decision. But the thing is, is you're saying, please. Because because your responsibility is to place something that's healthy on there or whatnot, um, they [01:50:00] still then can choose what it is that they want to eat but you are ensuring that all their choices are good choices. Yes, that's exactly what I was getting is that, you know, like it just drives me nuts when I see people going, Oh, you don't want to wear a jumper.
It's minus two, babe. You don't have a choice. You can wear this jumper or this jumper. So where do you create the choice? Right. So that's the thing. And that's what the division of responsibility is. You as the parent, you're the care, you're the responsible person. You've got the knowledge, you know, what should be eaten and what should be offered.
You know, like people say to me, Oh, but Jimmy loves chocolate chocolate,
but I'm not going to eat it for breakfast. I know it's not going to set me up. For a great day. And as we were discussing in the life stage that we're coming to, we supposed to be focusing on protein rather than like a high available sugars. And yeah, we know that we shouldn't, that is [01:51:00] not a great choice.
So what choices can. I choose from, or what can Susie choose from, that is a better option. 100%. So they can still have choice, of course, choice is important, but let's limit it into a space that is feasible, and sort of a little bit directed where we know it needs to go. Well, and I think too, that like across the board, Parenting has changed so much and children have far more choice available to them.
And they're not emotionally equipped to make those decisions. I mean, I read a post the other day where a three year old is given the option of which kindy they want to go to. Like, do you want to stay here or go to that one? It's like, no, you're the parent. You're the one that has to take them there. Like you've got to make that decision.
That's bizarre. I don't know how you can give the responsibility to a child. I've even seen if we look personally to us with my older children, we were giving her the choice about changing schools and [01:52:00] in the end I was, I had this real moment I was Oh, my God, this is too much for her. I have to make this decision and the relief of my child for me to make that decision.
Because as we know, really, there's never really any bad choice. It's the choice makes and the flow and effect will be, but there's no wrong decision often. It's just make the decision. But for a child, that's very hard. It can be really, really hard. Yeah, well, there, there is this whole thing about parents not being able to make decisions because they don't want their children to be upset.
But what happens, and this is what Gabor Marte and Dr. Newfield are talking about in Hang On To Your Kids, is that if you don't make the decisions and you aren't the person who is reliable, consistent, grounded. That is what children look for. They will go to their peers and their peers are making [01:53:00] poor decisions because they don't have the emotional capacity to make good lifelong decisions either.
Our brain's not fully developed yet. No. Yeah. What is it, 25 or something? Something like that. Yeah. And my husband's 57 and I still think it's questionable. I'm kidding. Um, you know, so sorry, Lorraine, my mother in law, I'm kidding. You did a good job on your boys. Um, so, you know, I, I just, I just really want us to understand that it's okay for you as an early childhood educator.
You've got to container it. And on that as well. So, um, just bringing it back to, because of what my background is, you know, when we're talking about different foods and I think in a family daycare setting as well, if, um, parents are providing lunch boxes and things like that. Um, and if you're talking about the different foods that the children are eating in conversation, you know, obviously it's going to come up certain things, [01:54:00] especially in sort of older children.
Oh, I'm not allowed to eat that because that's an unhealthy food or whatnot. Um, We need to sort of take a step back because obviously that child didn't choose to do that. To buy that at the shop, the parent did, even if the parent says, Oh, Judy loves those bars. Inherently, the purchaser of the food comes from the parents or the adults in the situation.
And so, um, being just aware of that when all the children have the different kinds of foods on there to not. And this is again, why I talk about food education rather than nutrition education. And I'm actually. incredibly against, um, unhealthy and healthy categorization when in the upper sort of preschool, when they sort of start to talk about that in the early years learning framework and whatnot.
And in schools, you can talk about food and learn how to categorize it in a way that doesn't create guilt or shame around the food for the child, because a child We don't know [01:55:00] why the child is eating that or being given that. The decision tree in that process is far more out there, out there with the pen, than just the simple thing of it being healthy or unhealthy.
We all know what's healthy and like in terms of that, Whole Foods and stuff, they're healthy, but the reason someone's bought that or put it into the lunchbox, we don't know that. Yeah. That's a decision tree there as well. It's interesting because I mean, I'm a bigger girl and I've got my own issues around that, but I'm also Like top notch healthy, all my blood markers, all my heart health, my bone health, you know, I got 65 kilos of muscle mass on body alone, which is unheard of.
My PT doesn't even have that much muscle on him. It's over six foot tall, you know, like it, like everybody is different and every constitution is different. And when we start getting into that category of, you know, unhealthy and healthy foods, [01:56:00] pissed me off when you've got an educator, that's a healthy food and that's an unhealthy food.
And I'm like, girlfriend, I just watched you drink 1. 25 liters of Coke. Don't come in here and start spouting that stuff like this is a thing, the nuance of it. So even an adult can't tell you what a healthy or an unhealthy food is because really then when we if we look at it from a food education lens and we look at a chocolate cake, for instance, that would be put in the unhealthy space when I look at a chocolate cake, I look at it from a food education lens in that You've done it from your Providence dairy place up the road.
You've got these beautiful binder dammock regenerative organic cows or whatever they are and the butter. I've got flour that Judy down the road mills in her own mill. It's white flour, but it's It's been milled or whatnot. I've made it with my grandma. It's a recipe that my [01:57:00] great grandma made. Uh, we make it on birthdays together and we sing a song and then we sit down and we eat it together.
I'm sorry. What is unhealthy about that? What is unhealthy is perhaps buying the packaged chocolate cake and eating it every single day, five days a week, um, and willy nilly, you know, doing this. But that chocolate cake So you cannot categorize that in that kind of fashion. And that's where it gets really difficult.
Plus, if you're looking at things like fussy eating, for instance, Jimmy might be progressing from Macca's nuggets to bird's eye nuggets. And for Jimmy, that is a huge outcome for him to be able to do. So where they're going to say that chicken nuggets. Or that the Macca's Nuggets are bad, but unhealthy, you've got to understand where they are in that process of learning about food and learning about eating for whatever [01:58:00] reason that may, it might be, it might be that Jimmy's mum has recently become a single parent.
And so she can't. Um, cook food in the, in the thing. And she's just trying to get the kids fed on the way there. Might be that Jimmy has suffered from, you know, had his tongue tied cut or something like you, you don't know why it is, but it's, so it's really important to, and if an educator is talking about that and not understand the nuance of every single family, the shame and guilt that comes into that child, the flow on effect of that.
is huge. It's so, and disconnects them from their family as well. Yep. And the diet culture. Don't even, I hate it. Oh, I was talking to someone the other day who's in this field and doing research and was talking about children in prep being in skinny clubs. Like, what the hell? I saw a post 'cause I've been up since 3:00 AM this morning.[01:59:00]
I saw a TikTok about talking about the nineties diet culture and there was pictures of, um, Christina Aguilera getting shamed for being fat. 'cause she just had a baby. And I looked at her, I was like, she looks so good. Yeah. Britney Spear was claimed as being fat. I, I was like, what the hell? Like these girls.
So that's why I feel if you can frame in food education rather than nutrition education, you inherently take off that kind of lens. We're not trying to categorize it in terms of health. And for those early years, because the child is very much learning through the hands and the heart, we don't need to be talking about nutrients.
We don't need to be talking about unhealthy and healthy. We can still instill. We can still instill healthy values around food and around eating by looking at from a completely different lens. And, you know, you talking about the Paddock to Plate kind of sort of [02:00:00] program, that will inherently ground you and support you in that food education space.
And you'll still tick off all the, like, you'll surpass what you need to be, to be doing in terms of food and health and, and, and whatnot. If you want to talk about good energy, it's simple. Like, let's show the children, do an experiment where there's this bag of soil that we get from Bunnings and we'll plant things in that, and then there's this soil that we've got where we've added manure, we've added worm castings, we've added sugarcane mulch.
We've added lime and gypsum and we've put all these bits and pieces in and created our own soil. Let's look at how the plants grow in that. That is that whole idea of when you're adding the good things to things, there's a better result than if you're just getting the store bought stuff and just relying on someone else [02:01:00] telling you how things are.
There is a message there that can be transferred across. multiple domains of life. Well, so it talks to the variety and diversity. So, and that's what, and so then I think that's probably the only sort of sense of nutrition education that I bring into anything is just really about variety and diversity, because as is above, as below, like everything in nature is diverse.
And varied. Um, and when you look at even just simply the soil, um, and creating that and the different layers and everything, then that's all about the variety of nutrition that's in the soil. I mean, nutrition again, but just in terms of, yeah, variety is such a powerful thing. The, and the only other thing sometimes that we talk to is perhaps the rainbow, but that's really more just about variety.
Just thinking about what kind of colors that you're having. Um, But not placing any value on making sure you have all the colors, but just to bring variety to, to the [02:02:00] plate, to the day, to the week. Yeah, and that's the other thing. Children don't eat their health in one meal, not even one day. It's in a week.
We all know that children have different ways that they might eat depending if they're tired, sick, whatnot, whatever's happening at home, new baby's been born, you know, that their eating will change because of that. Yeah, it's, it's so funny because we've got some parents that do the macros for their children.
Um, and they get these incredible meals like, you know, sushi this and like homemade and blah, blah, blah, like, and the parents put so much effort. Their child just wants the Vegemite sandwich, you know, and, and this kid has these Like, I would be like, this is restaurant quality stuff. It's like, I'll have it.
Yeah, I'll, I'll swap. I like my mac and cheese now, I'm kidding. Swap this, swap this. You know, the nutritional yeast, like, and this mum has like gone to [02:03:00] the, like, total opposite end of the scale and, and it's incredible and, but again, it's, it's the whole thing about, um, The child just wants the simple, simple thing that's, you know, because they, they sometimes want what they, they don't want what they have and they want what they don't have.
Of course. You know, and, and yeah, it is that whole variety and yeah, it's, it's just such a, such an interesting topic. If that's the situation in your, um, learning environment, I think you can start that conversation with, with the families. I mean, it is, I do see like lunch boxes or. Parents sending food is really that connection from home, but, you know, obviously my own children have always said, and we don't eat organic at our house.
I can't afford to eat all organic, but they'll say, why are we so organic, please? Why, why can't I have like, I don't know, some packet or something. And I just [02:04:00] always say, and so I have been in certain ways because then I'll say, okay, I understand you do want to mirror your peers in some way. But these are my boundaries.
This is, this is what you can have, um, from the non organic range that you think that I'm depriving you of. But I think it is, children want to see themselves from home, but they do want to see themselves in their peers cause that, you know, Biologically, they're primed to leave the home to look for variety of the gene pool.
So they are looking that acceptance, but you can frame it in a way that you can, I mean, there's a Vegemite sandwich and there's a Vegemite sandwich, you know, like you can make it a better sort of option. Um, so you can You can make sourdough with avocado and Yeah! So if that was becoming an issue, maybe in the center, I think you can say, Oh, today we're going to have a sandwich day.
Would we, we all be able to bring in sandwiches or something so that all the children have sandwiches, but then the family can do it with in their certain kind of way as well. So that child has an [02:05:00] opportunity to have a sandwich. Oh, it's so funny. My kids, they've both moved out. My son's 23 and my daughter's 21 and he came home for dinner the other night.
We do Sunday night roast and he came home for dinner and he's like straight away walks in, goes to the fridge. I'm like, dude, you don't even live here anymore. And he goes, you're still an ingredient house. Yeah, totally. So that's my kids sent me a meme the other day and they go, it was about when you're looking for a snack and all you can get is Chuck Chips, you're an ingredient house.
And my daughter sent it to me because literally that is us. That is us too. Chuck Chips again. Oh, it's so funny though. But when Coop first moved out of home, he moved in with two girls. down the coast. And like, we were helping him move in and his girlfriend, his friend, he's, that was a girl, was like, Oh, I'll cook.
A coupe said, I'll cook dinner. I'll cook a stir fry for tonight. And she's like, Oh, okay, I'll go and [02:06:00] get the ingredients. So she popped off down the shops. She came back with a jar of canned Tong, frozen vegetables and, um, like crumbed chicken. And he was like, What, what is this? And she's like, well, we're going to do a stir fry, aren't we?
And he's like, what, what? And so he took her down to the supermarket. Me and Brian were standing there, like, not at her, but getting a bit of a, Oh, okay. So the ingredient household is actually a good thing. So he took it down and he showed her, he showed those two girls how to cook because they had no idea how to cook.
And he showed them, he's taught them multiple meals. So when we look at that as well, when we talk about like, the cost of living kind of crisis and things like that, people. You know, eating healthy really doesn't have to be expensive. So when you look at things like crumb chicken, it might appear convenient, but it comes with a price [02:07:00] tag because people have put their hands into it.
So you have to pay for the hands that help prepare it. But equally, When you are low on funds, I mean, The most delicious food that we eat comes from the poorest kind of cultures. When you think about like Italian food or minestrone soup and things like that, they're from the poverty. It's like, it's risotto is leftovers.
In rice, you know, it's, you can repurpose things and delicious food doesn't have to be, and nutritious food does not need to be expensive. You can make all those stews and, and even with things like if you eat meat in your family, um, looking at all the different sort of cuts that aren't, you know, eaten as often, they're the cheaper cuts and you can make delicious meals from scratch and, and relatively easily as well.
It doesn't have to be complicated. No, my favorite thing to do in family daycare, particularly in wintertime, was to [02:08:00] get a slow cooker on. So I had children rock up at 7am. I taught those kids, people who have heard this story before, but I taught those children that the classic was the lamb shanks. Yes. I would, you know, they would be sitting there cutting up the carrots that I would put in there.
Um, you know, I taught them knife skills because they were before school care children. So I was teaching them proper knife skills. Yeah. And we would talk about this stuff. But the thing that I would put into my lamb shanks is cinnamon, because cinnamon, really emboldens the flavor of the lamb, sorry for our vegetarian vegan friends, but it really goes hand in hand to the point where, um, this child was at home, mum rang me and she's like, he's insisting that cinnamon goes in lamb shanks.
Like he's right. And she's like, what? And I'm like, do it. You'll love it. They did it and they loved it. And, you know, we talk about that all the time, but it is passing on [02:09:00] those skills. So it's, there's so much to it. And when you, yeah, I mean, I use the Thermomix heads up, anyone that wants a Thermomix, if you're doing family daycare, you can claim it on tax.
I used it all the time. We made curry pastes, we made rubs, we made skin food for parents, you know. So this is about, when you think about it, food too. I mean, my background being science, to me, I just see cooking, it's really just science, you know, and so much can come through that. And so, like you said, again, you, you, by doing that process from, Scratch to the meal.
You're really, you're doing your chemistry. It's little experiments that you're doing as well and you can frame it like that too in terms of your reporting. Absolutely. And you know, the children would come home from school at four o'clock. We'd pick them up. And so this stuff had been on since 7, 7 30. So they would get a taste test in the afternoon and fill their belly and they would.
Try what they made and blah, blah, blah, blah, [02:10:00] blah. And my absolute scientific term for cooking is measure with your heart. Measure with your heart. It's this, I call it Jamie Oliver when he used to go. Yeah, yeah. River Olmec, Salt Bay. Oh, it's so funny. So funny. So Mandy, it has been an absolute joy and clearly we are totally, you know, reading that same menu plan for sure.
Can you please tell people where they can find you? Cause I know there's going to be a whole load of educators that are like. Oh my goodness. I didn't get Victoria's email. Uh, why not? If you didn't sign up for the email, uh, message me and let me know if you want to be on there and I'll put you on the list.
Uh, but how can people find you? Because I think what you share and like the images that you share too are just so beautiful. Oh, the images are of my life. So that's not me. I am not a photographer, but I have to just preface that. I have a [02:11:00] lovely lady that works with me. Franny, Fran Luby. She's, um, is also randomly a photographer.
She's like. The most amazing person. So she works with me, but she takes those beautiful photos. That is not me. But yeah, no, so I, where you can find me is really predominantly little people nutrition. So that's my, um, website and my Instagram and my Facebook, if anyone's still on Facebook. Um, yeah, so you can just come on there.
Always send me a message on social media, or you can email me at Mandy at little people, nutrition. com. au. And, uh, yeah, I love food. So I want to share that with you. Yeah. Amazing. So you have a book, you have a book. Oh, look, it's my book. So I wrote this a few years ago, actually. Um, and I guess with, with the book, I wrote it with the idea, I mean, being a nutritionist and working with families.
Eating at mealtimes really, even like from a research perspective, would see that even as little as three times a week, the [02:12:00] benefits nutritionally, but also socially and emotionally were so profound for children and the emotional and social impacts. Even would go up into the teenage years. So there was that link to the reduction of sort of mental health and depression in children, connecting in as of a minimum of three meal times a week.
And that doesn't have to be dinner. If that's in a home situation, it can be lunch. It can be barbecues, whatnot. Um, but that coming together was just really profound from a health nutritionally and, um, mentally for eating. And so I just wanted to bring, um. Attention to that, like the basics, the basics of it, how that can really help with your health, um, rather than complicating it with.
You know, the nutrition of it. Um, but yeah, so I've written other, um, little books and whatnot, but I do programs, I consult with early learning centers for their menus and their food education programs, um, during COVID we put up a few more sort of creating content during that time. Um, but that's my [02:13:00] goal for the rest of the year.
Cause I've spent the last year creating a non for profit. Um, the Golden Grove, which is an on site paddock to plate kind of program where we run play groups with parents, homeschool groups and have schools in there. Um, and that really branches from a food perspective, like a kitchen garden environment, but also very much, um, connecting to nature and the sensory aspects, which are really profound being in the outdoors.
Um, and, um. Um, but now that we've sort of set that up and that's in a really good rhythm, I want to get back to creating more content. So putting all my, the learnings that we do in the programs that we run to be able to so that other people can use them to be able to do them in their, their settings as well.
Amazing. I would love to come and visit you. I've got team in, uh, the central coast, so I would love to. Come visit me! We're in Tugra. So we're really close to Tugra Mall. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Right, right. You wouldn't even know it's there. I know Tuggera. I stay in Tumbyumby. Oh, We're just around the corner.
Yeah, it's a little, little tiny home. One of my favorites in Tumbyumby there. And [02:14:00] I've got educators over, um, not far from there too. So, um, yeah. Oh, that's great. I would love to. 10 minutes away. Yeah. I'd love to pop in and visit. Yeah. We go Woi Woi and, um, Budgie Woi, Blue Haven and, um, Oh, amazing. Yeah. So we're in Tugra there.
That's the site there. We're there three days a week at the moment. Um, but yeah, it is. It's, it's so much fun, but yeah, it's cool. I just, I feel so grateful to get to do what I get to do and hang out with all the rad people. Kids and parents and educators as well. It's wonderful. That's so wonderful. Mandy, thank you so much for your time today.
It's been like so divinely led, I feel, you know, how it all came about because this is last week. If you're listening to it today, we recorded this last week, literally two days after we first connected and it's just like all the stars aligned. So this has been a really informative and I'm completely engaged conversation.
I [02:15:00] could keep going. Yeah, I know. I'm aware that people, you know, can't listen to it for too much longer. So, um, thank you so much. I will put all of your contact details in the show notes of the podcast. Um, if anyone has any trouble, just please message me and I'll link you up together because I just think this is such an important conversation and like the, the things that you've shared have like totally on the same page that I am and I just really value.
when people like yourself share their wisdom and their knowledge and this information because I truly feel like we need to really come back to some of the old ways and the pendulum's gone too far that way and we need to bring it back this way a little bit a lot bit and be really true to our human nature, and that is head, heart and hands, truth, beauty and goodness.
So thank you so much, Mandy. I really appreciate it. It was lovely to meet you [02:16:00] virtually, not in person yet, but soon. Up you sit. Thanks so much, gorgeous.
