Ep 16: Back to School Lunches with Jackie Vega Registered Dietitian

Episode 16, back to school lunches. 

2:41:  Jackie: Introduction

4:32:  So want to take a step back with you in regards to health and nutrition and since our children are going back to school and you do have two children of your own, what are you doing to help them with their lunches? Do you provide them, do you have them pack their own lunches or do you, do they eat school lunches?

5:33:  Letting our kids make their lunches.  

6:29:  Ideas for lunches

9:00:  Important things to have in your lunch and Jackie’s take on juice boxes

9:50:  Do you prepare the lunches ahead of time?

11:53:  Not the traditional lunches

12:42:  High Schoolers and lunches

14:26:  How do you feel about the bagged salads?

16:23:  Helping them get more vegetables in

17:36:  How to keep it fun for kids who always have “healthy lunches”

20:03: How do you talk about good or bad foods

21:07:  Are there foods you are recommending they eat often?

22:09:  Our children are watching what we eat

23:01:  Recommendations for us as moms to eat

(26:35):  Small changes they can make immediately

(27:34):  How to ensure fruits and veggies don’t go bad to quickly

Jackie’s website

Find Jackie on IG

Grab the back to school lunch recipe book

Raising Healthy Humans on IG

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 0:09

Hi. I'd like to welcome you to raising healthy humans. I am your host, Courtney, a personal trainer and health coach, and the founder of form fit a community where I help busy moms move more as a busy and sometimes overwhelmed mom of three myself. I understand that it can be difficult to find ways to live and raise healthy families is my goal. To help provide you with the information and tactics you need to help raise healthy humans. Episode 16, back to school lunches. I am happy to introduce you to a friend of mine, Jacquees Vega. She is a registered dietician and worked as a meal planner for super healthy kids for quite a few years. Although her client base has changed over the past few years. She is still a mom first and is happy to share ideas for how we as moms can help to provide healthy meals in our own homes. Today, she is discussing back to school lunches and things you can do to help to ensure your children are getting the nutrition they need throughout the day. I believe you will find her take on nutrition, relaxed and doable, and I hope it provides you with some ideas on how you can help to ensure your children are enjoying healthier meals. Let's listen in.

Speaker 3: 1:35

Hi, Jackie, how are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. So I have known you for quite a few years now. We owned a similar business. We had a franchise, we both were in stroller fitness together. So that's how I've met you. And then we've been on similar paths throughout this, the past, what? 12 years? I would say. Yeah, my youngest was one. Yeah. So about 12 years we've known each other and then we've both gone along the similar path. You ended up going to become a registered dietician and started working for super healthy kids. And you have since moved on from that. Right. So I want to have you just talk to me a little bit, let me know and let everyone know what it is that you currently are doing. And how did you move through this path? Oh my gosh. Well, motherhood was a huge, a huge emotion to make me go forward. And yeah, I was with super healthy kids, I think for eight years. And then from there I kind of took a break because I hadn't had that. Just simple. I don't want to say simple cause mom life is not simple at all, but just to have that time to not have to worry about anything or anyone else, but my kids. And I think that was about a year. And then I started looking into other avenues with dietetics and to back it up a little bit. The other thing that I did to through motherhood was, you know, the first few years was go to school, thank God for the internet. I know a lot of people hate the internet. They hate social media, but for me, social media gave me the opportunity to work with super healthy kids, which was amazing. And then gave me my education online. And the last two, about two years, I've been with substance use disorder, which is a complete flip because not only is it substance use disorder rehab, but it's also going from working with ABVD kids and their moms and dads, mainly moms, but going to adults. And I even made a switch within the last couple of years with that too. I was working with ages off from 18 until I think the oldest that I worked with with substance is, or was, oh my gosh, 62, I believe was one of them. And then now I'm just solely working with, most of them are in their twenties, which is different. And honestly it has been uplifting. And you might not think if you knew you might not think that that working in substance use disorder rehab is uplifting, but it is because this group of individuals that I work with are they're really striving to make the changes and to make permanent changes because they're in their twenties. And I love it because being that I'm 46, I always tell them, I said, look, I could be your mom. So listen to me. So it's been amazing and that's been my focus and that will be my focus moving forward. And it's also with the LGBTQ community and I think that's what else makes it so fun. You know, being a woman, I have the opportunity to pretty much go in there and be who I really want to be and not worry about judgment. So it's awesome. It's amazing. I love it. Yeah, that's great. That's great. So want to take a step back with you in regards to health and nutrition and since our children are going back to school and you do have two children of your own, what are you doing to help them with their lunches? Do you provide them, do you have them pack their own lunches or do you, do they eat school lunches and cringy? It's so funny because when I was working with super healthy kids, I always told moms, and I know I've told you this before, too, that we need to take that. We need to take that jump to let our kids do for themselves. But I think just because we were all out of this, not used to back to school and what I have been doing, because today's only day two, I've been getting them ready and, but did ask them for advice. So, and that's really one of the biggest things is, is to talk to them, no matter what age they are. I started at age two and three, where I would plop the kids down and say, Hey, what do you want? Maybe show them pictures, or just talk about things that we had in the past and get their input. I think it's important at, you know, no matter what age or how young they are, and then some other things that I've done with, you know, encourage parents of, or anybody to do is to prepare. So talk to the kids and get some things done ahead of time. And what has been working really well with my kids, especially in the early teens, is to do things like, well, for instance, yesterday was pizza ideas. So we did some pepperoni mozzarella cheese and put it in a wrap and just, I guess you'd call it a George Foreman. I know we don't want to say like names, but either way, that's what it is. And then I will put that. So one kid likes it cold and other one likes a semi-warm. So we use the little thermos and we'll pop that in there. So along with that, I always make sure that there's a vegetable and a fruit. So with that one yesterday, it was slice peppers and some orange wedges. And that went to my son was the one who wanted that. My daughter, she loves Caesar salads and throughout the last year or so, that's what she's wanted to do. So I just have a little bit of lettuce in a container. And then I also have the dressing on the side and let's see what else we put cucumbers in there, some diced chicken. And then the container that I have, which I'll have to send you a photo and you can share it in your group. It's really cool because it's a bowl. And then on the top of it, like it has an insert and inside of the insert, it's divided into four sections and the center section is the actual dressing. So it's a, and it has a top on it. And then there's another larger section that I put croutons in because who's going to eat a salad without crew con, I'm sorry. There's no car biphobia in my home. Um, and then, um, I think I did sliced carrot sticks and then there was a fruit too, because like I said, there were four sections. I think it was strawberries and then cookies. There's this one brand. And of course I can't think of what it's called, but it's always in the cooler section and it's within, I know that there's a bunch of other types of cookies that you can like just pop in the oven, but these ones in particular are all allergy free. I've had a history of my son, not us, not knowing if he's allergic to dairy. So we put that in there. Sometimes I'll make them homemade, but honestly, at this time in my life, I'm just not, I'm deciding to not take the time to do them homemade, unless I truly have about an hour set aside to do it. So that being said, I'm totally fine with putting those little sweet types of things in there. Another thing that we'll do is a lot of leftovers and that's just a matter of taking it out of the refrigerator and putting it into a container. My son loves chicken Parmesan. So we'll do that. He typically sticks to slice peppers or carrots. So we'll put that in there in a fruit. So essentially, as you can see, it's always having those components of a protein, some sort of carb, which essentially I'm talking about a complex carbs. So it's going to be a grain and then a fruit and a vegetable. And I mean, those are the big things. And of course we're going to put drinks in there will my daughter likes Waterloo. So we'll put that in there. Sometimes it's just plain water once in a while. It'll be, um, I think it's honest, those little juice box things they're supposed to be low in sugar. What have you, and because of working with super healthy kids for so long, the drinks always come into play where, how come I can't give them to, or how come I can't give them the juice boxes. It is. Okay. But you do want to make sure it's limited. Typically it's about four to six ounces, maybe a little bit less if they're toddlers and maybe kindergarten, first grade, but just don't make it a habit. Don't make it at every meal and definitely make sure that you're brushing your teeth afterwards. So that's a long drawn out answer. That's okay. That's great. Do you, when you mentioned, um, you mentioned meal planning with them or prepping ahead, do you have something that you do like on Sundays to kind of help prepare everything for the week? Or are you prepping the night before? How do you do that? It's back and forth. Like normally at the beginning of school year, I will do it on a Sunday, but I just did not this time around. So I'm, I was, I did it the night before. So last night I spent another 45 minutes or so in the kitchen, just putting each of them together and, um, you know, each of their lunches, but the really, the best thing to do is on a Sunday or Saturday, even if you're going to use things at the beginning of the week, chop up veggies, I wouldn't necessarily wash the fruits, really any of them, but just kind of put them in a section that, you know, Hey, all I have to do is open it up and I know that fruit is going to be there. And then if you're going to, oh, let's say with the PTD is you can make those ahead of time. If you're going to give it to a child that wants a heated, you're just going to heat it a little bit in the morning and then toss it in that thermos. If there's going to be any types of grains, like for instance, sometimes my daughter likes to do chicken Alfredo. So make that pasta ahead of time. Maybe not mix it all together. Maybe have the pasta in one dish and have the sauce and the chicken and another, and then whatever vegetable you're going to put with that, I think that it would be much easier. Not that I think I know it is much easier when you have all those things done ahead of time and it doesn't necessarily have to be, I have found over the years that people get overwhelmed and think that they have to have everything. And then they're worried about what is going to go bad by the end of the week. So get those first few days done Monday, Tuesday, and I think you'll be okay in regards to their lunches, you mentioned that you're making like chicken Parmesan and things like that. You're not doing a traditional lunch, right? You're, it's almost sounds like a lot of leftovers from the night before is that half and half. Okay. As my son's favorite lunch is the, and I get these from whole foods. Um, they have like the little Hawaiian rolls that essentially are like the ones that you can find at any grocery store. And then he likes to have the Turkey with a little bit of spinach on it. And then like his typical fruit or vegetable, whichever, you know, pipe that he wants in there. I, now my daughter, she doesn't want the traditional sandwich. She does. I mean, she loves those Caesar salads and she loves leftovers. So yeah, and I, that's where I think it, it really is extremely important to talk to the kids to find out because really the last thing we want to do is to send them to school and they just hate everything that you give them. And then they come home and they're hungry. And then during school they're hungry, they might get cranky. They might, you know, whatever. And the other thing is too, that I want to say, because I have a high schooler and I don't even, and maybe it doesn't matter what age they are, but I just find with her lately she's anxious or she's nervous, or she feels like she has these anxiety, you know, thoughts or whatever is going on. So yesterday, cause it was the first day of school and yeah, she's nervous because that was the first time that they were on campus since before COVID I was so glad that I thought to add like some crackers and that's what she ate. She ate the crackers and a little bit of the nuts that I had given her for like a snack and that held her over until she came home. So I think that's what else we need to think about as well. You know, what else, what, what is going on in their world when they're away from us? And the other thing is, I mean, that's something to give them something that I know they're going to enjoy. Even if they don't like everything there, it's the same thing that I use at home for dinner. If I feel like they're not really going to like what is served, I do make sure that there's at least one thing that I know they're going to eat. So just keeping with that same concept. So I have a question again, in regards to the salad, you, how do you feel about bagged salads? I love them. Are you kidding? Oh, okay. Okay. I wasn't sure because you know, they're, a lot of them are filled with a lot of ingredients, so I wasn't sure. Do you have anything that you recommend in regards to that or? Um, yeah. Well, for one thing, the reason why I love them so much is because no matter who I'm working with, whether it's moms, kids, older, whoever, I want the simplicity there because I don't want food to be what is causing stress. So grab that bag, if you feel like the dressing, maybe, you know, too much sugar, too much sodium, too much of something just use half of it. And essentially my mom will say no, but I'm going to say most people aren't going to eat the whole bag. My mom was like, so just think about that and try it with just like, if you mix up the whole bag, try it with just half of the dressing or just use your own. For instance, the Caesar, I will grab the Caesar mix once in a while, just because there are certain ones that will have a couple of other things besides just the romaine and we'll use our dressing because she loves the Bolthouse yogurt based, um, Caesar dressing. And then the, I know the most famous one I personally feel is that one that's like that poppy seed dressing and it has Brussels sprouts and a lot of the really, really hard, um, greens. And it has the cranberries and the different nuts and things like that. For some people that might be too much. So just don't use the mix, you know, that mix of the nuts and the cranberries in it, because essentially all those greens are amazing. Well, and that's why I wanted to ask you because my middle son, he loves Caesar salad. Like he loves the bag Caesar salad and prefers it over any homemade Cesar I've ever tried to make. So I was wondering your thoughts on that because one thing I noticed for our family, we always have fruits, but they do struggle with taking vegetables to school. So I was trying to figure out how could I do that? And I really liked your idea of the Caesar salad, but I was curious your thoughts on that. So that's good to know. And then to maybe even add, like you had mentioned adding cucumbers or different things that I know that the, like that may not be a traditional Caesar salad, but would still provide them those extra nutrients of different vegetables. Yeah. And ever since they were itty bitty, I had always encourage them. I don't want to say tell them, but essentially I am telling them, um, just have at least a little bit of everything. And there are times that that's really what would come home from school. Everything would be there, but I could tell that they had a little bit of everything and it's just like building up, just like you talked about building up on the healthy habits, it's building up nutrition throughout the week. If we dwell on that one particular day or that one particular meal, it's going to drive us insane. My children, I think you've heard me mention this. Oh, he's worried. They, so in the past they, and I'm sure this is other families as well. They would not get picked on, but it was always like, oh, you have the healthy lunch. Is there anything I like how you mentioned you add the cookies in for them. I'm just trying to think like, you know, my kids sometimes they'll comment about how they, they want more fun food in their lunch box. I'm really glad that you asked that because I have found with working with the clients that I'm with now, I do deal with eating disorders. And I feel like if we don't include those quote fun foods as your son had said, it, it will eventually, I feel almost likely really that it's going to backfire and it could lead to not necessarily eating disorders, but a disordered eating, um, you know, issue as they get older. So my kids will take certain types of chips. My daughter loves the rippled, lays, whatever they're called. And then, um, they also like the spicy Doritos and I do get the brand is simply, I don't know if all the ingredients are organic, but whatever, either way, they're happy with taking it there or taking it to school. And I haven't yet gotten any problems from what I put, you know, send them to school with, for my daughter. Her friends will come to me when they're over. And they'll ask me about, you know, is this, you know, should I be eating, this is this healthy and yes, the questions have come out where, oh, um, how many calories or is this bad? Or, you know, they'll ask me those types of questions. And I'm grateful that they're coming to me for that because I'm able to kind of steer away from the disordered eating mentality and help them through that. And then with my son, I mean, I don't know his friends don't ask me about any of that, but I do feel that it's important to include things like that. Okay. Well, and I know one thing that you've always taught me was in regards to like, if you are having chips, maybe do regular potato chips rather than having the ones that are filled with different flavors and things. Yep. Yep. Yeah. But speaking into the disordered eating just just a little bit, what do you try to encourage to your children? Is it because you probably don't say like, this is good or this is bad or anything like that. Right. I'll be honest with you because I am always a mom. First those words have come out of my mouth, but I am. I feel like, and I hope I'm pretty quick about kind of correcting myself and saying, you know, let's just make sure that we do include these carrots. If you want to have these cookies or make sure that if you're going to have the ice cream at lunch, you know, we'll chocolate covered strawberries or what have you for dinner instead, you know, I'm hoping that that's what I'm doing, but yeah, I, you know, I'm a mom I'm going to make mistakes. I'm a human, you know, it's, it's definitely not perfect, but just, I think it's, you know, being aware of how we are speaking. So when you are speaking to them about the different foods, are there certain foods that you ensure definitely you said fruits and vegetables, but in the way of supporting an immune system and everything, are there things that you are asking them, so to speak, to eat at every meal, it definitely goes back to us as parents and what are we bringing in the home and what are we serving? So I feel like if we're bringing in a variety of fruits and vegetables, different grains, different proteins, whether it's animal based or is plant-based and concentrating on what colors do we have? Am I always serving green stuff? Maybe I need to add some orange or maybe I need to add some red. Um, because each of those colors are there chemically as a nutrient and antioxidant or something that we actually so giving them the range of different colors and everything when they're eating. Yeah. Yeah. I remember he had to have been really young, but I remember at one point my son had said, I'm going to eat salad just like you when I get older. And not that he's chosen salads even still today, but he is, he's very aware of his fruits and vegetables. He'll have, he loves to make his muffins in the morning and he makes sure that he cuts up a fruit that goes with it. Sometimes he'll grab a few carrots if they're already cut, because that's another thing that I encouraged to. I let them know that there isn't a specific food for a specific time of day, just eat it whenever. So I just, I feel that that's the other component as well. What, not only what are we bringing in the home and what are we serving, but what are we actually eating? Which is huge because they definitely are watching us. And what would you recommend for us as mothers to be eating, not meaning specifically, you know, a breakfast, you eat this, let you eat this. No. And the reason why I respond that way is because, and I know you're around it as well. I feel like there's just there's too much. And not that I'm not that I'm opposed to anybody making physical changes. I am not, but I'm definitely not the kind of person that wants people around myself or my kids or their kids or whoever talking about the latest fad diet. You know? So if we want to be a good image or a role model for our kids and whoever's around us and you're trying to make these changes, simply adding more fruits and vegetables for one is going to be a huge, you know, component to making those changes you want to make. And that's what our kids are going to see. Like for instance, I, you know, we'll have tacos on Tuesdays. Sometimes I don't want the wrap because it is, it's really filling it. The wraps that I use are full of fiber. So I will just do a salad. And that's what my kids are seeing. Not because I'm trying to be on a diet and go quote, carb free. But just because that's what I'm choosing. But essentially if they're seeing, I add more vegetables, pasta, we love having pasta. So I'll do a little bit of pasta. And then I'll also add either zoodles or the little, sometimes it's the butternut squash, you know what I'm talking about. And that's what they're seeing. Sometimes they'll say something sometimes they don't, you know, and I feel like, because I've been that way all along, I feel like that's one reason why my daughter will choose the salad yet. Her favorite is just like your son. It's the Caesar salad. I don't care. That's the romaine lettuce, you know, I can't really complain. So I think that's the biggest thing when it comes to us moms, not necessarily, what should we be eating every day? It's what are we adding to our plate to make our kids see that we're making the choices that we want them to make. Wow. Right. Yeah. Well, in one thing you just mentioned in regards to the salad, it made me think of something else you've mentioned to me that you do is like you said, the romaine, but you could also chop up spinach, which is what I know you do for the kids with taco night, you chop up spinach. So I've started doing that as well with my kids. So they're not getting just the iceberg lettuce. We use the romaine as well or the green leaf. And then I also chop up a little bit of spinach and have them add it as well. So those are little things that you've provided our family tip why, and that's the thing it's like, it's the small little changes to move forward and to make those healthy strides or the healthy, whatever we're trying to do, to be healthier, to look healthier, to feel healthier, whatever it is you're trying to do. It's just the, and I think first and foremost, our goal should be to live healthier before anything else is not focusing on the other things. These are side, these are things that will happen. If you want to lose weight, say they will happen if you are making sure that you're eating healthy and making, you know, having more fruits and vegetables, things like that, but not focusing on that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Excellent. So in wrapping up, do you have anything that you could recommend to the listeners today? Is there something that they could do immediately to start to make small changes? Because my goal is to not change everything all at once, but to, and I know that you feel the same way, but making little changes over time are more lasting. So what would you recommend would be that one thing for families to start doing today to help them have healthier lunches or healthier snacks at home? I think if you were to choose a couple of vegetables and I say vegetables, because they're the ones that will last, I don't want to say the longest because I don't want people to just keep them in the fridge, but they will last the most or last the best in the refrigerator. So let's say slice up some peppers, maybe some carrots put them into a container and put them at the front of the fridge. So every time somebody opens up the fridge, I don't know if you're like me, even though we have that stinking little door on the refrigerator and you can see through it, they still open it up. If they're going to open it up, I want those to be in their face and they can just grab them. They won't have to worry about preparing them. And let's say a couple of days go by. And, and this is why I say those will last the best couple of days go by. And you're looking in there going, oh my gosh, they're going to go bad. At least they'll have a few days till you can finally say to the family, you know what, let's eat these vegetables while I'm cooking dinner, and then you can have conversation. Well, and you always, how do you store your vegetables? Cause that's again, another thing that I got from you. Yeah. I have found that the Mason jars, I think it's crazy. And that happened by accident. And I don't know if it's just because of the way that Mason jars are constructed or whatever, but no matter what I put in those things, it takes about a week for it to get yuck and I'm talking cut cucumbers, cut peppers. Like there's a lot of moisture in those. And I think it's just amazing. And when you open up the fridge, it just looks pretty. Yeah. With your celery, do you put any water at the bottom or no, you just cut them and then stack them. Well, I'm 0.9, nine, 9% of the time when we cut celery in particular, it's just eaten right away. Because the only way that myself and the kids like is with peanut butter. So, but yeah, there are times that I will do those little when I was with super healthy kids, we had like this really cute garden type of look with a Mason jar. So the bottom of it, so the dirt per se was a ranch, ranch dressing. And then the different, I think it was celery, peppers and carrots were stuffed in there. So, so fruits and vegetables working on the vegetables first, they're going to last the most. Cause I mean, let's be real if we're making these changes. Sometimes that change, even though they're going to be front and center in front and you know, right there, we may still not take them out. We'll need them. So the last fruits are not really going to last as long, which is so frustrating because I, I, uh, I dread when I have to throw some of my fruit away. It's terrible, depending on how bad it is. Yeah. And that's what I try to do. As soon as I start to see them turning, I grab them and I try to put them, but it's the raspberries, those raspberries there it's a day. So if you have any tips about how to keep raspberries fresh, let me know. Um, I do. Oh, okay, good. Um, and it's this container that I found at fresh market and I think they have it at, um, I believe they have it at whole foods and at Publix, which is our local grocery store. Um, it is, it's like a basket that sits inside of a container. I don't even know how to explain it. So basically what's happening is there's room for the moisture to fall off. And there's, I will send you a picture of that. I tested it to see how well does it work. I tried it with strawberries. I caught them. I rinsed them and all that. And they lasted about four or five days. And the raspberries will too. I don't mix. I don't necessarily think to, I won't mix anything else with the raspberries because the moisture, no matter what, from anything else is going to get it to mush. Gotcha. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us about back to

Speaker 2: 31:13

School lunches and how we help our children make healthier choices when making lunches, and hopefully you found her laid back approach to nutrition, refreshing and doable. You can find jackie@jackievega.com or on Instagram at Jackie Vega dot. RDN make sure to listen in on Thursday for our movement snack, where we will provide you with a fun challenge to help you and your children ensure you are eating more nutritious foods and find out how you are supporting your immune system. When eating all the colors of the rainbow. I also wanted to provide you with some recipes and inspiration. So head to form CIT naples.com backslash back to school to receive 15 school lunch ideas for you and your children and head to our Instagram at raising underscore healthy humans for upcoming pictures of the products that Jackie mentioned, we will also have all of this information in our show notes. Hope you have a wonderful start to your week and I will talk to you on[inaudible].