Comfort Food

"Healthy" is a word that gets used and overused on recipes, food packaging, and in diet and wellness marketing. It's also a word that many of us strive for—but what do we really mean when we use the term? And how is our belief about what "healthy" really means impacting our relationships with food and how we feed our kids? We have Maryann Jacobsen, RD, author of Fearless Feeding and many other books on family nutrition here to help us sort it all out.

More resources in our show notes at comfortfoodpodcast.com.

Follow us on social media @v_solesmith & @yummytoddlerfood, and email your questions or comments to [email protected].

We're welcoming Amy back from maternity leave with an episode focused on her expertise — feeding toddlers! This episode covers what to do with little ones' food obsessions, fickle appetites, and non-existent table manners... and Amy helps Virginia figure out how to persuade her 15-month-old to actually use a high chair.

Have a question or a family mealtime challenge? Email us at [email protected] or find us on social @yummytoddlerfood and @v_solesmith.

Visit our shownotes at comfortfoodpodcast.com.

Sponsor Spotlight: Bumkins

Comfort Food is about to go on a short hiatus while Amy has that baby. So for this week's very special episode, we're rebroadcasting a fun interview she did with Stacie Billis and Meghan Splawn of Didn't I Just Feed You?. Then we're bringing 6-year-old Linden on to give us some insider perspective on what kids really think about dinner.

We'll be back with weekly episodes in March. Until then, check out our archives for the gems you might have missed — and continue the conversation with us on Twitter or Instagram: We're @yummytoddlerfood and @v_solesmith. And send any questions you'd like us to tackle in upcoming episodes to [email protected].

Join the parent conversation at any birthday party and you might come away thinking that sugar is more addictive than crack. But how much of this is fact — and how much is fueled by our culture's food anxieties? We ask eating disorder and addiction expert Lisa DuBreuil to sort through the science with us, and talk about how to take a saner approach to the sweet stuff in your house.

Show notes available at comfortfoodpodcast.com. Find us on social (@v_solesmith @yummytoddlerfood @yummyfamilyfood) or email [email protected] to tell us how it's going with sugar at your house!

There's a lot of pressure to make family dinners work—and a lot of guilt-inducing headlines preaching that we can avoid everything from drug abuse to failing grades by making them a priority. But what if we can make them work due to schedules or early bedtimes? Or when we just want to share a grown up meal and conversation with our partner at the end of the day? Are we dooming our kids? (Hint: No!)

Visit our show notes at comfortfoodpodcast.com and send us your questions about family dinners (or all things feeding families and yourselves!) to [email protected].

It's January! Which means we're getting bombarded with "new year, new body" messages. But what if you just… didn't start a diet this year? What if you did an anti-diet instead? We're talking to Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CDN, an anti-diet dietitian and host of the Food Psych Podcast about why January is such a tough month for our relationship with food, and how you can protect yourself from the onslaught of toxic diet culture messaging. Plus, Amy and Virginia share a few body positive resolutions we can get behind.

Send your questions to [email protected], or find us on social: @v_solesmith & @yummytoddlerfood. And check out our show notes at comfortfoodpodcast.com.

Tis the season... for a house full of guests, a fridge full of food, kids hopped up on present stress and even Virginia is making menu plans because holiday hosting is no joke. If you're stressing over how to get big holiday dinners on the table, or what to do when your kids only eat rolls (spoiler: They will only eat rolls), we've got you covered with 8 strategies for simplifying and enjoying this most magical time of the year.

For more tips and resources, visit our show notes at comfortfoodpodcast.com. Have a holiday hosting (or general food) question? Email [email protected] or find us on social media: @v_solesmith & @yummytoddlerfood.

Note: Comfort Food will be off for the holidays but we'll see you back here on January 3, 2019! Happy/Merry Everything, friends!

Baking (or cooking, or just inhabiting the kitchen) with your children sounds so great in theory...but the reality is often sticky counters, broken egg shells, and bored littles wondering when you're going to get to the fun frosting part already. (But you're making soup.) This week, Amy and Virginia ask Samantha Barnes, founder of Radish Kids to share her best strategies for having fun in the kitchen with kids of any age. Be sure to listen to the end for a special discount code on a Radish Kids membership of your own!

Visit our show notes at comfortfoodpodcast.com for links to the recipes and other resources discussed in this episode. Share your best tip (or funniest fail!) for cooking with kids by email ([email protected]) or on social: @v_solesmith, @yummytoddlerfood, @yummyfamilyfood.

And don't forget to leave us a review before the end of December to be entered in our giveaway for a free copy of The Eating Instinct!

You've heard us mention Division of Responsibility a million times by now. And you may have encountered this feeding philosophy, developed by renowned therapist and dietitian Ellyn Satter in mom groups or on parenting sites too. But while DOR can be pretty life-changing, it's not always simple to put into practice—and it's easy to get stumped along the way, as your kid ages or goes through phases of picky eating or food fixation. We've got Katja Rowell, MD —the feeding doctor and co-author of Helping Your Child With Extreme Picky Eating standing by this episode to answer all of your DOR-related questions.

Don't forget to visit our show notes at comfortfoodpodcast.com. And scroll down to leave us a review! If you do it by December 31, 2018, you'll be automatically entered to win a free copy of Virginia's new book The Eating Instinct.

Got more DOR questions? Email us at [email protected] or find us on social media: @v_solesmith, @yummytoddlerfood, and @yummyfamilyfood.

Virginia's new book, The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America, is finally here! So today, we're chatting all about how it came to be — from Virginia's daughter's dramatic story of feeding tube dependency and learning to eat again, to the interviews Virginia did with dozens of other folks, from all walks of life, all struggling to feel good about food. She also discusses easy strategies parents can use to protect our kids' eating instincts. Plus, Amy has a pregnancy-food update.

Check out our show notes at comfortfoodpodcast.com. And leave a review for us by December 31, 2018 and you'll automatically be entered to win a free copy of The Eating Instinct! (Just scroll down on your podcast player and you'll see how to do it. Then keep listening -- we'll announce the winner on our January 3rd, 2019 episode.)