How to Help Build a Healthy Relationship with Food with Special Guest Dr. Reshma Shah

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Dr. Lisa Damour:
What is the number one thing I should be doing as a parent to help foster that healthy relationship between my kid and food?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
We want to build in eating and feeding competency from a young age.

Reena Ninan:
But how do we do that? I made broccoli last night and the whole thing is still there in the fridge today.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
There is a lot of pressure on parents to get family dinner right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
How do you get kids to expand their palates?

Reena Ninan:
Is protein really as important as all the hype?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Where’s the line between a kid who’s really picky and a kid who may be pushing up against an eating disorder?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Urging that reluctant kid to jump in the pool right away is going to be a disaster.

Reena Ninan:
What’s the one thing in parenting if you could totally get rid of, you’d get rid of.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
What would I totally get rid of? Oh my gosh. What would you get rid of?

Reena Ninan:
Cooking. Dinner every night.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I know. The what to make for dinner question is the question every day. Actually today already, I’m like, I don’t even know what we’re doing and I’m probably going to swing by the store and try to make something up as I go.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Wait, but I am curious now, what was your one parenting thing you want to get rid of?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I really am just feeling for parents around tech right now. I just feel like coming and going. It’s making everybody really, really uncomfortable.

Reena Ninan:
It’s a good one.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I don’t know that you can get rid of it, but if you’re like, what’s top of mind? But if you’re asking what’s a pain in my life right now, it’s what’s for dinner.

Reena Ninan:
So we can agree going back to the flip phone and not having to cook dinner would be two things that could transform parenting.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Those would be pretty good. I would be totally down with both of those things.

Reena Ninan:
Oh, well, as we’re debating over what’s for dinner, I’m so excited about this next guest we’re bringing in. We’re diving into one of the trickiest parts of raising kids, helping them build a healthy relationship with food. Well, our guest has spent decades supporting children and families, both medically, emotionally, and nutritionally. Dr. Reshma Shah is a board certified pediatrician, parent coach, and co-author of the book “Nourish: The Definitive Plant-Based Nutrition Guide for Families.” She’s also co-director of the Learning Center at Plant-Based Juniors, a Stanford instructor and a medical contributor to Support and Feed. It’s nonprofit focused on climate and food security.
Dr. Shah, welcome.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Thank you. It’s really a wonderful honor to be here with you today.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
We’re just thrilled to have you here.
All right. We polled our audience both on YouTube and Instagram and got tons of fabulous questions. And interestingly, with our YouTube community, one of the questions we asked is, what is the thing they most want help with around food and kids? And what they said, it’s what Reena said is like, how do you build a healthy relationship? How do you really make this work? And a specific, really thoughtful question we got from a parent was, what is the number one thing I should be doing as a parent to help foster that kind of healthy relationship between my kid and food?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Yeah. I hear this from parents all the time that they want to make sure that they’re both providing their children with good nutritious food, but also creating those healthy habits. And often I think the first place for parents to start is looking at their own relationship with food, thinking about what food and family meals were like for them growing up, what aspects of that were really wonderful and they want to hang onto and what aspects of those things they want to change. So I think before we jump into sort of fixing or making sure our kids are okay, really reflecting on what your own relationship with food is like, because kids are super smart and they pick up on those things. So you can’t just tell them what to do. They really have to see you model those behaviors in the beginning. So I think I always encourage parents to start there.

Reena Ninan:
That’s so interesting because you know what? Last night my daughter said to me, “Mom, what are you going to eat?” And I had scarfed something down on the train. I was so hungry when I got in. And she asked me that question and I thought, how many times am I scarfing something down quickly and not actually eating with them?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Yeah, exactly. And we often tell our kids, “Sit down when you eat and have a balanced plate.” And then here we are eating our kids’ leftovers or a granola bar and kind of in front of the computer. So I think really modeling the behavior. And this is not a call for parents to be perfect because I think we’re busy and we do the best that we can. And so just reflecting on, am I really modeling the behavior that I want my children to have?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
If we take that a little further, some parents are bringing to the dinner table some pretty heavy stuff about their own relationships with food, whether it’s diet culture or clean your plate rules they grew up with that they’re not quite sure what to do with, and they actually really are looking to break that cycle.
As that stuff gets more intense, like what have you seen works? What really helps families move things in the right direction?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
I think one of the things that’s been sort of my north star when I look at feeding dynamics, feeding relationships and what’s working and what’s not working with the family is to really look at any behavior, any habit, any pattern, and try to discern, is this routine, is this habit increasing tension at the dinner table or is it decreasing tension at the dinner table? And I find that that’s a really great north star. And one example I can give you is the clean your plate club or you have to try a bite. And for some kids, the idea of trying a bite is really useful. So I can say in my own family, when my son was younger, he was one of these kids that if you encouraged him to take a bite, he would take a bite. It wasn’t too stressful for him. And half the time he’d say, “This is actually much better than I thought.” And half the time he’d say, “I actually don’t like it.”
And it worked because it didn’t really increase stress at the dinner table. For a lot of kids that take one bite or you have to clean your plate really mounts the tension at the dinner table. And that is your north star. Is this situation, is this habit, is this tactic increasing or decreasing stress at the dinner table? Now, this doesn’t mean that we always give into our kids. So if I serve my kids cookies for dinner, it would definitely decrease tension at the dinner table, but you have to keep in mind the overall goals of what you as a family want. So I think looking to your child, and we know this, like every child, every dynamic is a little bit different. So looking to your child and seeing, is this helping or is this harming my relationship with my child and also the nutritional goals that I might have for my family?

Reena Ninan:
So what do we do, Reshma, when it’s good versus bad, junk food? I struggle with the language of food. How should we be thinking about how we talk about food?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Yeah, I think we need to have some neutrality around food. Food is food. And I think when we start labeling things as good or bad or junk food or clean food, whatever the word is you want to use, what ends up happening for children oftentimes, especially for kids that are a little bit more on the sensitive side, if a parent is labeling a food as bad and I’m a kid who “likes those bad foods” does that necessarily make me a bad person? And so I think it’s really important to try not to label foods in these black and white terms. It ends up doing a lot of harm. I think the place where most parents struggle is they’ll say, “I hear that. I don’t want to call junk food bad or call it junk food even, but then what do I do when I want my kid to eat more fruits and vegetables?
Or what do I do when I want them to eat a more nutritious diet?” And I think that for every family, those situations are going to be a little bit different, but I really encourage parents to steer away from labeling foods in black and white terms, in good and bad terms, and try and have a little bit more neutrality around food.

Reena Ninan:
It’s such an American thing, isn’t it, Reshma? I know your family’s Indian, like my family’s Indian, and we would never say, “Oh, it’s celebration food today,” or, “This is an everyday food,” or, “No sugars, we’re not allowed sugar.” I didn’t grow up, and I feel like that was such a gift. If you wanted a cupcake, you ate a cupcake.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
I can definitely relate to growing up in an eating household, and there are many things that I’ve done differently than the things that my parents did growing up, but I think the one thing, one of many things that my parents really got right was this relationship around food. I think for us, food was love. And so how can love be sort of good or bad? Food was love. And there was so much neutrality around food, and I think it really stayed with me. And so for families where they’re struggling to identify how they want to feed their families, I think looking back to, again, that relationship of what was food like for you growing up. And luckily, I think it sounds like you and I both grew up in households where there was a lot of neutrality around food and food was really a way of offering love, of offering care.
And I think that’s a really great way for parents to think about it and look at it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, and it’s a pleasure, right? Yes. And what I hear you guys describing is pleasure in the food. And it’s one of the very few, constantly renewable pleasures in life. And we want it to feel that way in the family.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
And you don’t have to abandon nutrition in doing that. I mean, I grew up in a way that one of the things I did not take with my family is my mom spent an immense amount of time around preparing meals from scratch. And so there was a lot of nutrition woven in there too. And so I don’t think there has to be this dichotomy of, if my kids have a good relationship with food, that means I’m abandoning nutrition altogether. They can coexist.

Reena Ninan:
Another question we got from one of our parents is about protein. So many of us adults are obsessed with our protein intake, but this listener asks, how important is it for kids to eat protein? If they should eat protein bars for breakfast, is that okay? Or if they should consider high animal protein, low carb diet, is protein really as important as all the hype?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
So I think the right answer is always somewhere between the headlines where protein is so important and protein’s not important at all. And the truth is, is protein is important. A good rule of thumb is to try to make sure that most meals and snacks contain some source of protein and diversify that protein as much as possible, but kids certainly do not need massive amounts of protein, protein shakes and protein bars and protein powders or protein popcorn or whatever it is now that we’re putting protein in.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I saw protein foam on coffee now. It’s like, okay, this has really taken a long stretch into the culture.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
And I think a lot of that is also just marketing hype. I think every so often you’ll have different nutrients that are really getting sort of what I call a health halo. And protein is definitely having its moment. When you see protein being emphasized in a lot of these foods that are marketed, it is truly marketing and they’re getting you to buy these products because they have higher levels of protein. So just keep that in mind too, you’re being marketed to.

Reena Ninan:
So should I feel bad that my 15-year-old son just picked up a pack of protein bars who’s prepping for basketball training?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Absolutely not. I think when it comes to feeding kids, one of my main goals in working with parents is to really tamp down the parental guilt. You don’t need to feel bad. I think these protein bars, I use them for my own kids sometimes when they’re really busy and having a protein bar in hand is the difference between them being nourished for practice and not. I say go with the protein bar. Having said that, I think it’s important not to overly rely on them. You don’t want these protein bars and other protein supplements and things to replace real whole foods. So I think they can absolutely be part of a healthy diet, but they shouldn’t be the real primary focus.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That makes so much sense. So much sense.

Reena Ninan:
So when it comes to vegetables, how many vegetables should kids be eating in a day? How should parents think about it? Because it’s sometimes so hard to get down just one serving even.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
It’s stunning. And it’s amazing to me that, especially for adolescents, when you look at the Healthy Eating Index score, which is a score from zero to a hundred that measures sort of the overall healthfulness of a dietary pattern, adolescents have the lowest healthy eating score of any age group, close to 50, which is considered poor and-

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Out of a range of 100? Out of 100. 0 to 100? Wow. Okay. So that’s like an F minus.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
It’s almost nearly in the poor category. And I would say that the vast majority of adolescents, 90 plus percent do not meet the minimum intake of fruits and vegetables in a day. So increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is probably one of the biggest places that we can move over getting more protein into a kid.

Reena Ninan:
How do you do that? They won’t do it, Reshma. They won’t eat it. I made broccoli last night and the whole thing is still there in the fridge today.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
So I think that it starts at a very early age. I cannot tell you how many parents say, “My kids won’t eat vegetables.” And guess what? The parents aren’t eating them either. So if you want your kids to eat fruits and vegetables, you have to model the behavior. You make it sort of a standard practice in your family that fruits and vegetables are offered. I always say if you sort of cut it up and put it out, they will eat it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I find that I’ll sometimes just put a bunch of cut cucumbers or I’ll blanch some green beans and I just put them in the middle of the table on a big shared plate. Eventually they’re gone.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
I think one of the biggest mistakes that parents make is that we talk too much. We talk too much about you need to eat your fruits and vegetables and eat your bro-. We just talk too much. And I think that you just lay it out on the table. I find that especially if they’re coming home from school and they’re always hungry, you got to capture them in the moment when they’re hungry, put a fun dip with it. So at a young age, I think it’s really about modeling the behavior, exposing them and having a lot of patience. Now, if the kids are a little bit older and they’ve already decided that they really don’t like vegetables, I think getting them involved, so having them sort of choose a vegetable that they might want to have, having them maybe even help you cook it, making them … For older kids, I think when they’ve made the recipe, they’re going to try the food because they’ve invested a lot of time and effort.
So getting them involved as much as you can and then just trying different ways. I have a delicious roasted broccoli recipe. I can share it with you and it’s really simple. And it’s basically just adding a few simple ingredients, a little garlic, a little lemon zest, red pepper flakes if your kids like it. I’m telling you, I have not served that to a single person that hasn’t wanted the recipe. So just a few little additions, you don’t have to be fancy, but trying different recipes, getting your kids involved. Don’t be afraid to sort of rely on the fruits and vegetables that they already do enjoy so that they have a sense of like, “Oh, I am a kid that does eat fruits and vegetables.”

Dr. Lisa Damour:
A lot of our questions were about fruits and vegetables. And I think you just gave us so much good to go on there. So it’s so reasonable and so doable what you’re giving us and I’m so grateful for it. What about new foods? Getting kids to try things that they maybe are not used to or maybe even different ethnic foods that they shy away from. How do you get kids to expand their palates?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Lisa, I think you’ll appreciate this. I think that kids have different temperaments developmentally and just in terms of some kids are slow to warm, some kids are a little bit more easy going. And I think we have temperaments around food. There’s some kids, they’re so adventurous. There is Ethiopian, Indian, whatever it is, they’re going to try it. They’re excited to try it. And there’s some kids that are just a little bit more hesitant, a little bit more reluctant. And I think urging that sort of reluctant kid to jump in the pool right away is going to be a disaster. So the first step is to really know the temperament, the feeding temperament of your child. And if you’ve got that sort of slow to warm, cautious child- Slow to warm up.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That’s one of the temperaments. Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
You want to go slowly. And I think one of the time, one of the places where I see parents struggling a lot is they want the adventurous kid. They want the kid that they can go out to whatever kind of meal and they’re just going to be easy going and it’s not going to be a fuss. And we know this, we have to parent the child that we have, not the child that we wished for. And so if you’ve got that sort of slow to warm, finicky temperament around food, it’s going to require a lot more patience. And instead of sort of butting heads with that child, I think it’s having a sense of understanding like, “I know it’s really hard to try new foods,” and empathizing with them. And I think it gives them permission to be like, “Okay, this doesn’t have to be stressful for me.”
At the end of the day, I think kids want to please their parents. And when they feel a lot of pressure to eat at the dinner table, it can create a lot of stress and unnecessary tension. And that actually ends up taking a lot longer for them to be able to accept and enjoy a variety of foods. And so if you’ve got that sort of slow to warm, tentative child, I empathize with you and I know it can be really hard, but you really have to sort of work within the constraints of what your child is capable of doing.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s so interesting that in the temperament literature, the big takeaway always is goodness of fit, like adapting to the kids you’ve got. You might want something else. This is the kid you got. The outcomes are going to come down to your adaptation.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
The other thing that can kind of complicate this is I find that there’s often a lot of parental anxiety. And so it might actually not be an issue with the child, but there’s so much anxiety around the parent wanting the kid to either eat more vegetables. I find this a lot with kids that are in bigger bodies. Parents feel a lot of anxiety about like, “How do I manage this?” And that anxiety sort of creeps up at the dinner table and everyone can feel it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
All right. We got an interesting question that’s I think got a lot sort of built into it that you may want to unpack and it has to do with sugar. So what the parent wrote in is, “My daughter is addicted to sugar,” so I want to get your take on addiction to sugar and if that’s a thing. “She’s 13, how do we intervene at this age?” So that was the question. So I’m interested in your thoughts on that. And also just sort of generally how we talk about sweets, desserts, things like that with kids.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
I often find that a lot of times when parents describe sort of addictive behaviors so that they can’t stop eating, at the other end of that is usually some form of restriction, not always, but oftentimes when kids are so restricted around sugary foods or snack foods or fill in the blank, I often think about like a rubber band. You sort of pull it and there’s restriction and restriction and it kind of snaps. So oftentimes it’s just a question of restriction. So the kid doesn’t have a lot of access to these foods or they’re shamed about these foods. And so when they’re around them, they look like they’re addicted because they can’t stop eating. Demonizing sugar is not the way to go. We all love a delicious cupcake or a cookie- Because it tastes so good. It tastes so good. And going back to that sort of like enjoyment around food.
For me, a healthy relationship with food is not just about eating the most nutritious diet that you can. It’s also about, can I enjoy my food? Can I feel good about the foods that I’m eating? And having sugary foods is, it’s definitely not a necessity, but being overly restrictive around it, my experience is that it tends to backfire.

Reena Ninan:
I want to ask you about junk food. We got one listener who wrote in, “My teen only wants fast food and once he leaves the house, I can’t control what he eats.” What should parents do when they have less control as a kid gets older and they’re into the teen years and they’re hanging out and they’re going out to college, but I can’t be involved in those choices anymore.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Yeah. And I think this really comes to sort of what we’ve been talking about throughout our conversation, which is modeling those healthy habits. And once you’ve got an older adolescent, especially one that’s ready to leave for college, unfortunately, I don’t think you have a lot of control over what they’re going to do. And I think the best thing to do in that situation is actually to decrease the tension by eliminating those conversations altogether. You can offer the food, you can have a cut up vegetable tray available, insisting that they eat a certain way, the minute that they’re out of your house, you really do have very little control. We want to build in sort of eating and feeding competency from a young age so that when our kids are away from our dinner tables, they’re able to make good choices for themselves. And sometimes that’s going to mean when they’re away freshman year, they’re eating a lot of pizza and all the things.
But I think at that point when the kid is kind of ready to leave college, you want to prioritize the connection and the relationship with the child over trying to control their food because really you don’t have control over that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So then along those lines, super picky eaters. We got a question about kids who are very restrictive in terms of what they’ll eat and whether it even can actually bend towards ARFID, which is the avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. Where’s the line between a kid who’s really picky and a kid who may be pushing up against an eating disorder?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
And this is probably one of the most common things that I get asked about as a pediatrician as a parent coach. And so I think there are two things. One is I feel like lately within the last decade or so with social media and so much talk about picky eating, I think that parents are almost expected to have picky eaters. They’re anticipating I’m going to have a picky eater. And the language around picky eating, it’s become so much of a focus. When I was growing up, especially in an Indian household, it’s like we ate what was for dinner. There was no picky eating in our house. And I think that there is so much parental pressure to get it right, to have the perfect bento box, to have your kid enjoy the food, that our conversations around picky eating have really just catered to kids in a way that I think is harmful.
One is I think, is your kid really a picky eater or is this just developmentally normal? It’s okay if they don’t love every meal that’s served to them. So that’s on one end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum, I think that there are kids that are veering towards that ARFID where there are only five foods that they’re eating. The way that I like to think about, is this garden variety picky eating or is this something I have to worry about is, is it impacting their physical, their social and their emotional wellbeing? So an example I can give is if you have a kid, they can’t go to birthday parties because eating at the birthday party would create so much stress. They won’t do it. If you feel like there’s difficulty with their growth, if they’re having a lot of stress around eating, that’s when really you do need some specialized support.
And garden variety, definitely don’t get your information on TikTok or Instagram about how to help and support that family. So if you’re veering towards it impacting their physical, social or emotional wellbeing, it’s time to get extra support. And so that might mean working with a team. It could be a team of a physician, a therapist and a feeding specialist, a dietician. So for kids that are really experiencing sort of veering towards that disordered, eating disorder, ARFID, it’s time to get specialized support.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I love how you talk. I love how you think. And what I like is you’re giving us ways to think about this, right? You’re not saying do this, don’t do this. You’re saying, here’s what you want to be watching for and here’s how you want to sort of size up these questions. And I’m such a believer in occasional prescriptivism and then mostly here’s how to think about this in a really helpful way. And I’m so appreciative of you for that.
Talk to us about family dinner. I’m such a big believer. I think especially tweens and teens, I can be coming and going, but I also know it puts pressure on people to try to make it happen. So what’s your take on all that?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Okay. This is probably one of my favorite topics to talk about because I think I often say that if I could put in a pill the benefits of family dinner, every family would be lining up around the block to get the pill of family dinner. Now, having said that, I agree with you. There’s a lot of pressure on parents to get family dinner right. I think that you should start family dinner at whatever pace is reasonable for your family. There was a recent article in New York Times. The author was talking about how she was quiet quitting family dinner. She had just had it because she was tired of cooking, cleaning up, spending all the time and effort only for her kids and her family to be like, “I’m not eating this. ” So the frustration is real. It’s not about doing it and just gritting your treeth, but how can you find a way that is actually a time that your family looks forward to?
There’s a statistic out there that the average American family spends 17 minutes at the dinner table and my- I believe it. I believe it. And my goal in working with parents is really, let’s make the most out of those 17 minutes. And that doesn’t mean that you’re doing a gourmet dinner made from scratch with your finest china and everyone’s sharing all the beautiful things about their day. Nobody’s family dinner looks like that, but how can we create an environment around family dinner so that people actually want to come to the table? And it’s something that you can do sustainably for the long term. And for some families, it means we never have family dinner and I’m going to work towards, can we do it once or twice a week? And for some families, it means we’re going to try and have family dinner pretty much every night.
Look at where each family is starting from, what are they capable of and what small steps can they make towards having family dinner more often? The research is really robust. Families that have family meals together, the research is five or more times, but wherever you are, I think it’s worthwhile starting, teens have better outcomes in terms of lower rates of disordered eating, lower rates of depression, lower rates of anxiety, better overall nutrition. For younger kids, improved vocabulary, improved academic performance, and the benefits are there even for parents. Parents have a greater sense of family connectedness and even lower anxiety for themselves. So the benefits are there. Having said that, it’s not a panacea. Just because you have family dinner every night doesn’t mean that your kid is not going to have an eating disorder or depression or anxiety. But I find that even if those problems are present in families, the family dinner, the family table is a great place to sort of lay the foundation for caring and support.
In our family, sometimes family dinner was the only time that we all sat down and connected. So I’m a big proponent of family dinner and I really work with families to try and see how they can maximize the benefits of that.

Reena Ninan:
I think one of the questions we get from a lot of listeners was, are there special nutritional needs during puberty that parents should know about?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Yeah. I don’t think there’s any specific nutritional needs other than their caloric needs are going to go up. So as they’re going through this growth spurt, if you just continue the same regular diet of the protein, the healthy carbohydrates and the fats, their caloric needs are going to go up. So you want to make sure that they’re providing them with sufficient calories, especially if kids are participating in a lot of sports, you want to make sure that you’re meeting their energy requirements. I think for kids, some of the key nutrients that sort of come into play, we talked a little bit about protein. I think calcium is another nutrient that often kids aren’t getting enough of. So making sure that they’re getting adequate sources of calcium and then all the sort of healthy eating things that we talk about, fruits and vegetables, fiber. But there’s no specific thing in terms of once you’re a teenager, you need to start taking this supplement or make sure you’re eating this food.
It’s just making sure that they’re meeting their caloric requirements and that they’re getting a balance of nutrition. I think a lot of times the place where most parents are experiencing difficulty during adolescence is that they’re eating many other meals away from home. And so that’s why those early years are really important in terms of setting a foundation for what healthy eating looks like so that they can make good choices when they’re away from your dinner table.

Reena Ninan:
And what about fueling athletes?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Yeah. Again, so I think it’s really just making sure you’re meeting their caloric requirements. Now for certain sports, you may have an increased need for protein. So you can increase protein needs if you are going to supplement some of these protein powders or just eating more calories. So when you up the calories, you’re necessarily going to be increasing the amount of protein. I think for competitive athletes, you want to ensure that they’re … I usually say meet their caloric needs and make sure that they’re getting sufficient protein, especially if they’re participating in sports that require a lot of strength training and muscle.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Okay. So then given that, if as a family you’re wanting to move towards a more sort of plant forward approach to eating, what do you suggest?

Dr. Reshma Shah:
So I think that there’s so many benefits to eating a more plant-centered diet. Certainly many families are already vegan and vegetarian, but I find the vast majority of families are just looking to find more ways of increasing plant-based foods in their diet. And when we talk about plant sources of food, I think primarily we’re talking about protein because fruits and vegetables, grains, all these things are already plant-based. But in terms of wanting to move towards a more plant-based diet, I think start slowly, start at a pace that’s comfortable for your family. And there’s some simple strategies that you can try. One thing I often encourage families to do is maybe start with a meatless Monday. So it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. Most families can say, “I could do meatless for one day.” And people think that it means coming up with these sort of really foreign foods, but I have to remind people that like lentil soup is vegan, peanut butter and jelly is vegan, oatmeal is vegan or plant-based, I should say.
And so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You could start with a meatless Monday. For some families, just start with breakfast. So can you swap out your bacon and eggs for something that’s a little bit more plant centered? The last thing I’ll mention is you can also just try to recreate family favorites with a plant-based protein source. So maybe instead of doing a chicken stir fry, you could do a tofu stir fry, or instead of doing just like a beef chili, you could add some beans in there. So I love using an add-in approach where can I add more plants into my meals and snacks because I think it’s easier for families to do that rather than feeling like they have to give something up or sacrifice.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
That makes so much sense.

Reena Ninan:
I want that broccoli recipe. We’re going to post that in the show notes.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
I will send you the broccoli recipe. It’s delicious.

Reena Ninan:
That sounds great. Boy, you’ve given us so much to think about. I think one big takeaway I have personally is I need to sit down at a table and eat and start to demonstrate I’m eating broccoli and vegetables. And I’m just so busy at the end of the day trying to wrap everything up. I’m like a hurricane. So I think I need to take a moment.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Dr. Shah, we are so grateful for your time. I love your approach. I love how absolutely down the middle grounded it is, how informed, how practical in terms of its actual applicability and family life, like you get it about the realities of family and also like what we’re trying to make happen with food. Thank you so much for taking this time with us.

Dr. Reshma Shah:
Thanks for having me. It’s been a real pleasure.

Reena Ninan:
The book is called “Nourish: The Definitive Plant-Based Nutrition Guide for Families.” Dr. Reshma Shah, thank you for joining us.
So many great takeaways from this conversation. I think at any age, it’s kind of hard to change things around, but I think this is an easy switch to get kids excited about coming to the dinner table.
Now I’m just curious what you have for Parenting to Go.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, okay, so there were two big takeaways that I was thinking about, but of course there were like 400 excellent takeaways from that conversation with Dr. Shah. So the one is, and I say this all the time, my favorite parenting advice I ever got was on the inside of a dove chocolate wrapper, which is don’t talk about it, be about it. And I loved how much she emphasized, not so much with the talking, just put the food there, see what happens if you take the sort of temperature down around that. And then the second is that piece around the temperature, her emphasis on if this is stressful, if this is unpleasant, that’s not going to help it go better. That food should be enjoyable. Food should be a pleasure. And I loved that rule she gave us at the beginning of, is this amping up the tension or is this reducing the tension?
Because who can enjoy food and who can eat well if you’re sitting there feeling really stressed? So loved having her, loved having her on.

Reena Ninan:
I’ll see you next week.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll see you next week.