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Feeding Time at the Zoo: Tips and Tricks for Meal Time {Episode 39}
95 Plays5 years ago
Has meal time got you down? Don't fret! Audrey and Bonnie are back with another episode, this one all about the logistics behind feeding your wild ones.
Whether you struggle with what to feed your kids, how to avoid the dinner time hustle or how to maintain your sanity at the grocery store, we've got answers to help you cope!
Sweet Peas Meal Plan
Clean, Simple Eats Meal Plans
FODMAPs diet
Keto diet
Macro diet
Audrey's Recommendation:
Eat Right for Your Blood Type
Bonnie's Recommendations:
Cookie + Kate Blog (love her recipe book!)
Oh She Glows Blog (also love her book!)
Mel's Kitchen Cafe (tried and true recipes for ALL the things)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Outnumber the Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Episode 39 Overview & Listener Feedback
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Today is episode 39 and we are talking about feeding all the children. Like the worst part about parenting, if you ask me. Yeah, why do they have to eat three times a day anyway? Seriously. I seriously question the wisdom in that. Can't they just eat once? Couldn't that have been arranged that our bodies just need to eat once? But I mean, I like to eat three times a day, but not my children.
00:00:58
Speaker
Okay, so we're going to start off with a review. Audrey? Okay. All right. This one is from Sarah radiant home. She says, fun and relatable. Bonnie and Audrey obviously have fun chatting and the joy comes through in their conversations. I love the things I thought I'd never say segment. I need to start writing mine down to share.
Humorous Parenting Stories
00:01:14
Speaker
Oh, you really do because yeah, we'd love to hear those. These moms of many don't mind sharing a peek into the everyday chaos in their homes. You'll laugh and be encouraged listening to their stories and advice. So thank you.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yes, that was so sweet. Thanks so much. I also love writing down the funny things my kids say, just because sometimes in the moment you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. That's kind of funny. But then later on when you look back and you're like, that was really hilarious. Sometimes in the chaos of parenting, you don't quite realize just how funny your kids are. That being said, I just have to share something really quick. And this isn't our humor segment. I just have to share this. The other night I was laying in bed. I hear my baby. I realized my four-year-old was in bed with us asleep.
00:01:58
Speaker
I get up to go get the baby and my four-year-old rolls over and goes, it's okay, mom, I'll save your spot. And then she rolls onto my pillow. I'm like, uh, okay. So I get up with the baby, come back to bed and sure enough, she rolls off my pillow. Gives me my spot back. Sweet thing. So cute. I had a really good laugh about that the next day. I'm like, who is good? Okay, nevermind.
00:02:29
Speaker
Okay, so, but on to our real humor segment. This is hilarious. And this is from Taylor made tailors on Instagram. Okay, that's a little bit long. She says, I have an embarrassing mom story for you. We had recently moved into the fixer upper on our road, a gorgeous 10 acre piece of land with an ugly never updated 1970s ranch.
00:02:47
Speaker
All of our neighbors are new construction houses and my immediate next-door neighbors had just finished construction on the most Joanna Gaines house ever built outside of Waco. The lady of the house is a cool mom. You know the type. Beautiful home and possibly clean car. My van is a disaster. Perfect hair, perfect kids, etc. Her three kids are about the same age as my oldest three and I just want her to not think I'm weird. Every occasion I've had to run into her has ended poorly. This particular day I was driving my riding lawnmower with a wagon attached. Nothing to see here, just normal neighbors.
00:03:17
Speaker
Back to a dead oak tree at the edge of our property to dump all our fall pumpkins. In my wagon were three of my little homeschooled blessings. As we approached the dumping spot, I saw her shiny black SUV come around the bend and head toward us. No, I whispered scream just under the sound of my lawnmower putt-putt-putting. I had no makeup on. My hair was greasy and falling out of the haphazard ponytail. I looked the part of the weird neighbor.
00:03:39
Speaker
My girls spotted their car and ran across the field to greet their friends. They stood 100 or so feet from me and played while I dumped old pumpkins and prayed I wouldn't have to be seen up close. Just then my oldest yelled back at me, can we play? Neighbor mom said, it's fine with me. I said, sure, sounds good. Please just let me go home and shower real quick. My daughter shouted, well, I just wasn't sure if I was contagious or not. I'm confused but still shouting, you're not even sick. Oldest daughter, yes, remember, I have diarrhea just like you do.
00:04:13
Speaker
She says, I died there that day. I putt putted back home on my riding mower with my empty wagon, but I left what dignity I had in that field with the rotten buckets. Oh, it's so awful.
Sweet Peas Meal Sponsorship
00:04:31
Speaker
I have probably been on that lawnmower.
00:04:34
Speaker
Leave the diarrhea talk at home. Please. That's so awesome. Oh, thank you for sharing. I thoroughly enjoyed that.
00:04:45
Speaker
Okay, so we are going to move on and talk to you guys about feeding time in the zoo. And I hope you guys like the title of this episode. It was particularly funny to us. But this episode is brought to you by Sweet Peas Meal. So this is a meal plan that I personally use for my family. It is a weekly plan emailed on Thursdays, and it includes six family dinners, a grocery list with everything you need,
00:05:06
Speaker
a handful of sides, a drink, and an occasional dessert recipe. And they're all delicious. They come with a great combination of vegetarian and different protein meals. And my kids almost always love what we have. I say almost always because is there a child that always loves what you put in front of them? Absolutely not. But this one is pretty dang close to five stars as far as my kids come.
Challenges & Solutions for Feeding Children
00:05:28
Speaker
So we will put a link for this meal plan in the show notes. So when we talk about
00:05:33
Speaker
feeding our children. We came up with this idea because we just know that it is probably one of the top three stressors in any mom's life is the feeding of these children. Whether you have one or 13, it just takes a lot of mental effort, takes a lot of preparation, takes a lot of time.
00:05:50
Speaker
and makes a big mess. So I know it's a stressor for everyone. In fact, people are always asking, okay, if you had all the money in the world, you could hire full-time help for one task in your household, what would it be? And a lot of people pick cleaning, a lot of people pick chauffeur service, but I would pick meal planning and chef service hands down every single day. I actually enjoy cooking, but not for my children because they're rude.
00:06:14
Speaker
I know my common tagline when I have company over is that, and they're like, oh, thanks. This was so good. I always say, you know, I just enjoy cooking for people who don't say
00:06:26
Speaker
How many bites do I have to eat? Can I be done yet? This is gross. Exactly. Thank you. There was a time in our early marriage that I subscribed to Bon Appetit magazine because I love that magazine. They have some of the most decadent things. I'm definitely a foodie. I could eat a different meal every day of my life. And the other day I was just thinking,
00:06:47
Speaker
I will never have a reason to make a gourmet meal again in my life. Nobody cares. Everybody. And the nice thing is actually my oldest two do appreciate like really good food now, especially my second. He's my foodie too. He'll go out to sushi with us or something, but it's really disheartening. So we totally get that. Today we are going to talk specifically about what to eat, what to feed your kids, grocery shopping, meal prepping,
00:07:09
Speaker
the actual cooking and cleanup. So talking in depth about all these things could take us forever. And if you want to know more information specifically about one of these areas, let us know, email us, outnumber the podcast at gmail.com or leave us a review and we can go in depth on another episode, but we are going to just kind of give a broad pass on all these things and the things that help us out.
00:07:27
Speaker
Yes, we are looking forward to talking about this with you. And I feel like I'm a little further along in my family and food journey than you because I have kids who are old enough to be interested in food. Sometimes when they hit those teenage years, girls especially, they get really interested in cooking and trying new things. And that's kind of fun because then sometimes you get a night off or a meal off every once in a while.
00:07:51
Speaker
So yeah, but I definitely remember it seems like the baby always gets fussy when it's time to cook supper or you know, so you're trying to cook supper and jiggle baby at the same time and you're just already, you know, frustrated over a hundred different things that are involved in feeding this family and keeping them alive. So yeah, totally understand. And then add in the picky eating situation that we covered that in depth in episode 13. It's enough to drive you crazy, like make you
00:08:23
Speaker
institute some forced intermittent fasting in your family. No kids, it's good for you. That's it. We're never eating again. It's all your fault. So we're going to address all these just broadly, all these stressors today. But we're going to start with what to feed your kids. So I know you say what to feed your kids. The first thing everybody thinks about is like mac and cheese, whatever they'll eat. I don't care. But really, a lot of us, most of us, I think, have some pretty lofty aspirations.
00:08:50
Speaker
as far as what we would like our kids to eat, but we fail for a number of reasons, mostly because kids won't eat things the first time we serve them or sometimes the fourth or fifth time we serve them. And that can be really frustrating when you know what's healthy or you're trying to learn about what's healthy and feed them accordingly and they just won't cooperate. Yeah.
00:09:09
Speaker
Yep. To reiterate some really good points that we said in our picky eating episode is, um, don't buy the junk and cause I always choose that first. Just don't have it available. And when they get hungry, they'll have to pluck up the courage to try something that's more nutrient dense that you haven't provided and slaved over and sweated over and spent time on for them. Right.
00:09:32
Speaker
Right. Yep. Yeah. So tips for picking a diet strategy for your family. Ours have evolved over the years and every family of course is going to look different because everybody's different dietary needs. You might remember us discussing with Delia in our Mother's Day episode on her allergies that her daughter has. And that has
Exploring Different Diets for Family Health
00:09:52
Speaker
a huge effect on the way that she cooks and shops and feeds her family. So, you know, lots of families have different
00:10:01
Speaker
dietary needs, allergy needs, and so on. Our personal family way of eating has evolved over the years, trial and error. Of course, we have favorite foods, things we like to eat and things we don't like to eat.
00:10:15
Speaker
like we talked about in our picky eating episode, we try to introduce a wide variety of food just to introduce and have available a wide variety of nutrients. We have discovered one pretty hard and fast thing that nothing good comes from sugar. And one thing I'm trying to do is not use sugar as a reward for my kids. It's really hard because they almost never have it. So ice cream is a huge motivator for them because they almost never have it, except in the sauna, right?
00:10:47
Speaker
Sorry, that's a reference back to our episode on emergencies and we have sauna in the basement, ice cream when there's tornadoes.
00:10:57
Speaker
However, other than that, my kids don't get ice cream very often. So it is a big reward and a big motivator, but I'm trying to come up with other ways to reward them than sugar because sugar isn't a good thing that I want my kids to be looking forward to or rewarded with. And this is such a struggle for me because they automatically see it that day. They had that way. They have a sweet tooth. We all have a, you know, the sweet sensation in our mouth. So anyway, so working on that one.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, same here. It seems like the only thing that really truly motivates my kids is sugar or electronic usage. The two things I want to, I would like completely eliminate from their life if I could, right? But that's tricky. Yeah. And food especially comes with some emotions and can create some issues later on. So that's a tricky one. Yes, absolutely. Um, you want to introduce good habits when they're young around food and around the emotion and all that so that they don't struggle with that when they're older and that whole emotional eating.
00:11:55
Speaker
I mean, you know, there are some emotions attached to food because it's what keeps us alive. So we have found one thing is that the fewer carbohydrates and sugar that we have, the more nutrient dense, the better, healthier that we eat. Actually, the less hungry our kids are, the less food they require. So we don't really have to have snacks in between meals very often anymore.
00:12:20
Speaker
because their nutrients are holding them from one meal to the next. And that's always nice because then it's like you never get out of the kitchen. If you do breakfast and then a snack and then lunch and a snack and supper and a bedtime snack, then you're just never out of the kitchen. So that is kind of a nice thing. More nutrient dense means they actually need less food.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah, we have also had kind of a trial and error path on finding the best diet for our family. We like to focus on plant-based foods just because I feel a lot better when I'm doing that. For years, we tried to eliminate a lot of meat, same with eliminating sugar, trying to do that. But the one thing that we have succeeded at over and over is to avoid the processed stuff, so just getting in the habit of making things from scratch. Yes, it takes more time.
00:13:13
Speaker
It takes a little bit more effort, but the reward is really, really worth it. Same with Audrey. We just don't buy snack type foods. We don't buy chips or cookies or junk like that because that's the first thing they eat. If there's a bag of chips in the house, it will be gone in 30 seconds and my kids will be starving for the rest of the day. It's like nothing worth it. Also, it all makes the biggest mess ever. So do you want pretzels? No, we're not buying pretzels. Sorry. Tough life.
00:13:40
Speaker
And then we've also had to look into a handful of specialty diets for kids with needs. So we've had a couple of kids with some dairy intolerances, which is what made us look into more of a plant-based diet for a while.
00:13:55
Speaker
use the FODMAPS diet for, for a while. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but no, I haven't heard of that. Very common for kids with irritable bowel syndrome or other digestive issues. And I highly recommend that one. It's not a long-term diet. It's usually a short-term one that you use for several months until they clear up whatever bacteria or issue is causing them problems. But there are lots and lots of dietary solutions for lots and lots of issues. So if your family is struggling with something, I encourage you to research and see if you can find something that will work for you guys. Right. Exactly.
00:14:24
Speaker
Um, we have tried many different things through the years as well. Um, one thing we can link this book in the show notes is eat right for your blood type. And, um, we, we don't go a hundred percent by that, um, by that book because it's, oh, there's just kind of some weird unavailable foods that are on blood type lists. Like for example, ostrich, you know, where are you going to find ostrich?
00:14:49
Speaker
Well, I think you should raise some, Audrey. Okay, we'll put that on the list. But that is one thing that has helped us figure out some different things with different kids. Like for example, for an A blood type, if they have hot water with fresh lemon juice squeezed in it in the morning, that will help them through the whole day with some stomach, building stomach acid and some dietary needs. For example,
00:15:16
Speaker
Type O, if I have, I don't know, four or five type O blood type kids, and if they're getting out of sorts, if they're getting frustrated or hungry or crying a lot, I know that immediately that protein will clear up their behavioral issues. With type O, they're the meat eater, you know. So anyway, sometimes you can figure out a little thing with a kid from the Eat Right for Your Blood Type book.
00:15:43
Speaker
Currently what's going on in our family is we have switched two of the little boys we call them two of the youngest boys onto the keto diet and It's 20 grams of carbs or less per day high high protein high fat and the reason we're doing this is because one of our little boys was exhibiting some Pretty severe reactions. He would get hives whenever he got around
00:16:13
Speaker
chemicals, long backstory on that, that we're going to skip for now. But like for example, you know, we have farm fields around us and if the farmer had sprayed and some of it, you know, he happened to brush the plant on the field, he would break out in hives or something really. It was getting pretty severe and we were worried about it. So we decided there was something inside of him that was making his body react this way. And we decided to do a big cleanse using the keto diet.
00:16:41
Speaker
So he has had no sugar and no carbs and hasn't broken out knives for
00:16:48
Speaker
since he's been on the diet actually. Well, once or twice afterwards as he was cleansing out. But we went ahead and put our second little boy on it because, well, for one, these two little boys, what one does, the other one does. They're like inseparable. And the second little boy, we had him at the dentist and he had some cavities in one of his back molars and they were giving him a lot of pain. Well, put him on a keto diet with no sugar and there's no pain because there's nothing
00:17:18
Speaker
back there to cause the trigger, the nerve or whatever until we could get him to the dentist and get it filled. Well, when we put him on the keto diet, he instantly stopped complaining about
00:17:29
Speaker
the pain in his tooth because he wasn't getting any sugar. And so we haven't actually gotten that cavity filled yet because he doesn't even act like it's there anymore. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So side benefit of that. Interesting. But anyway, so my husband was also doing the keto diet and our oldest daughter. So people were already doing it in the family. So it was easy to throw a couple more kids on that dietary restriction.
00:17:55
Speaker
So do you prepare separate things for them, or does everybody pretty much eat that way now? We're pretty close to all eating that way with a few caveats. We do provide a little bit of more carbs for the others. For myself, personally, the keto diet is pretty dairy-centric because there's so much fat and protein and dairy, and I'm avoiding dairy because the baby gets more
00:18:20
Speaker
colicky or spit ups and gets all these issues if I'm too much too intense on dairy. And so I'm not able to do the keto diet. So we all eat the same meat and vegetables, but then, you know, some of us will have, you know, like maybe a piece of cornbread or something along with our ribs
Meal Planning & Grocery Strategies
00:18:38
Speaker
and... Gotcha. Yeah.
00:18:41
Speaker
So not everybody's on it, but I'm not specifically fixing special foods for them, except for fat bombs. They love fat bombs. Oh yeah. Yeah, me too.
00:18:51
Speaker
Okay. So the one thing that has had a huge effect on how our family's diet has evolved is that my husband's family has had a health food store before I married into the family. Like he grew up eating this way. And so I didn't, but since I've married into the family, I've really seen the benefits of eating healthy and nutrient dense and low sugar and low carb and all that. And so having the health food business in the family has had a big effect on the way
00:19:20
Speaker
that we eat and a lot of anecdotal stories from people coming in and saying, hey, you know, I noticed that such and such radishes, eating radishes help to clear up my gallbladder pain. And so, you know, that sort of thing.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the big takeaway from what you're saying is that there really are specific foods that help certain ailments and specific diets that are better for certain people than others. So it always kind of frustrates me to see a diet trend.
00:19:51
Speaker
really gain popularity and everybody think, I'm going to try it because I really do think that everybody's body functions best on a certain base of foods and it's up to us to kind of figure that out. Obviously, you can't do that for each and every one of your kids probably the best way. They should because you would be driving yourself crazy making 14 different meals. I'm not going to do that.
00:20:11
Speaker
But as you experiment with different things, you can kind of tell, like Audrey said, I can tell my kids do really poorly when they eat a ton of sugar or a ton of refined carbs. They're often hungry all the time when they're snacking on breads and crackers and those sorts of things. So just don't give up if there's something that is really frustrating you about your children's behavior or how they approach food. I think I really feel like there's always a way to fix it.
00:20:38
Speaker
Um, just a side note, the child that had to go on that FODMAPs diet that I was talking about used to be my pickiest child. And we went and saw a holistic doctor and he was like, look, I think he's dealing with this kind of bacteria. You should try this diet out for a while.
00:20:51
Speaker
And his pickiness will probably improve because he's no longer craving the stuff that's feeding the bacteria, right? So we put him on this diet and like three, four, five months in, all of a sudden the kid was experimenting like I had never seen him experiment. He would try any kind of vegetable, any kind of, he didn't like mixed foods, you know, and he would try anything. And I thought, that is so fascinating to me. I just thought he was a picky eater for life and he's definitely not like that now. So very interesting. Yeah.
00:21:20
Speaker
So we're gonna move on to meal planning and grocery shopping a little bit. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I use the Sweet Peas meal plan for my family. Actually a combination right now. We're using some of those meals and some of the Clean Simple Eats meals just for my own fitness goals because it's like a macro-based meal plan. But a meal plan can really be a huge key in
00:21:45
Speaker
simplifying your family's eating process. So you can even do it yourself with your family's favorite meal. So I've done this in the past. Let's say there are five meals that my family is obsessed with. I decide this week we're going to eat every one of those meals. I write down all the ingredients for them. I make sure that we have them at the beginning of the week, and then I do some meal prepping, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But it's really not as difficult as it seems. The important thing is that you plan ahead
00:22:12
Speaker
and that you get the groceries for every meal ahead of time as well. So you're never scrambling at 4.30, 5.30, 6.30 going, shoot, everybody's starving. What are we going to make? And I feel like it eliminates a huge portion of that stress at dinnertime. And sometimes we feel pressured to come up with a ton of meals or get a meal plan that has tons of variety.
00:22:31
Speaker
And I personally do like variety because I'm kind of a foodie, but really, I think most people only eat probably 10 to 15 different types of dinners. We're mostly just talking about dinner in a month. And then you just rotate them, right? Most of us just have a handful that we really enjoy. And as long as they're fairly nutritious, there's no problem with repeating them over and over again, especially if it's something you know your kid will like.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree about having a meal plan. If you don't have a plan, you're just sunk. I was just gonna say, if you fail the plan, you plan to fail.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah. So my daughters, my teenage daughters and I will sit down at the beginning of the week and plan out our meal. And we actually do it on our phone with our reminders. We have one titled groceries and one titled dinner. And we just, one of us will be on dinner because we share, we sync our phones. So one of us will be on dinner and one of us be on groceries and say, okay, let's have enchiladas on Tuesday. And then the one on groceries and say, okay, for that we need
00:23:28
Speaker
tortillas and we need ground beef and we need okay so just working working through it together it's so much nicer to have somebody to help plan with instead of you know trying to come it up come up with it all by myself
00:23:43
Speaker
Make your meal plan though when you're not hungry. Or maybe make it when you are hungry because you'll think of different things. I mean, try it both ways and see what works better for you. Definitely don't go grocery shopping if you're hungry. You'll come home with your bill double the size you want it to be. Yeah, and mostly just donuts.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah. Or whatever looks good that day. Yeah. And it's not like you, your mind thinks, okay, I got my donuts. Now I can just stick to my list. You're like, oh, cashews. And then in the next hour, you're like, oh, cinnamon rolls in the next. Yeah. Yep.
00:24:18
Speaker
So you can also get input from your kids and your husband. Um, what do they want to eat this week? Say, I'm tired of thinking of meals. You guys decide what we're going to eat this week. And since that's something new and different for them, they can get, they can all get up excited about that. And then we always start with our meat or our main dish and then plan a side and a vegetable to go with that. But it's just somewhere to start. It's just where we start. Um, we start with the meat and then plan what, what would taste good with it or what we haven't had for a while or what's growing in the garden.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, what's in season, what's on sale. Yeah, totally. I love the idea of asking your family what their idea is too, because sometimes we feel really pressured to come up with it on our own, but really they're the ones that are going to be complaining about it. We might as well ask what they want. And it's a really good life skill too to say, okay, we need four meals for this week because we're going to be eating out one day and going to grandma's one day, whatever.
00:25:12
Speaker
come up with four meals, and then I always give my kids a few requirements. So they have to have a vegetable, they have to have a protein, they have to be something that at least five kids will like. So no, it can't just be cereal, it can't just be whatever they want to choose. Moving on to grocery shopping. So in a perfect world, I drive all over town for the best prices and the highest quality and my favorite products, but in real life,
00:25:41
Speaker
Grocery delivery is my best friend. I actually did strictly grocery delivery for a long time and it was fantastic. And then I found my local Kroger store did their click list, the pickup, which Walmart also does.
00:25:58
Speaker
So I do that almost exclusively now because I really like the produce and the offerings there. They have a lot of healthy options, but I can do it all online. So I meal plan, I write at my grocery list and I do it on my phone right then. And then I pick it up or my husband picks it up on his way home from work. And that's usually on a Saturday or on a Monday.
00:26:16
Speaker
and then we have it for the whole week. But honestly, you guys, that has been a game changer in getting my act together because I hated grocery shopping so much. It was absolutely my least favorite thing to do of all the meal planning activities that I would put it off and put it off. And then it'd be Thursday. We're completely out of food. Everybody's hungry. I'm more frustrated at dinner time because there's nothing to do. So huge, huge, huge resource. If it's available in your area, I highly recommend a grocery pickup or grocery delivery.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. I haven't ever tried it yet, but I can see how it would be so helpful just so that, um, like for example, I asked my husband or one of my teenagers to pick up cottage cheese and they bring home the wrong kind, you know, and then you're stuck with it or whatever. So it'd be really useful in that, in that way.
00:27:03
Speaker
Okay, so my grocery shopping tips and hacks, although I have to say my husband does the majority now because he really enjoys it. And also because it helps cut down on the amount spent because he...
00:27:16
Speaker
He doesn't see chocolate and want it or whatever. That's funny. My husband does have impulse purchases. He comes home with extra ice cream all the time, but I will say the grocery delivery also really cuts down on impulse purchases and I rarely go over my budget now. It's pretty great.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah. I think my husband also enjoys the social aspect of grocery shopping. Um, just seeing the people and being around and whatever. And we also do like Costco once a month. So like a big Costco trip. And then, um, so before we go grocery shopping, we check and see what we have and you know, make our meal plan off of that and then go at, you know, get what we need. I also have my teenagers, um, if they're on their way home from work or I'll send my card with them.
00:28:03
Speaker
and have them pick up in between items that I just ran out of or whatever. But this is the way that I used to grocery shop. When I did the grocery shopping, and it was pretty effective, so I'm going to share it. It might work for you if you don't have grocery pickup in your area.
00:28:19
Speaker
So I would let my kids make one request, one thing they wanted before we went in. They had to think of it while we were still in the vehicle and they could have basically whatever they requested, but they had to think of it so that it wouldn't be an impulse purchase or they just wanted it because they saw it. And they usually came up with pretty healthy stuff like, oh, I want to get apples this week. Okay. And then the next go to say, well, can we get gum this week? And okay.
00:28:42
Speaker
But then they weren't allowed to ask for anything else in the store. And it just cut down on me having to decide if they could have that thing because grocery shopping is all about decision making when you're there, right? You know, you've got five brands of peanut butter, crunchy, creamy, all this. You're doing all this decision making, then some kid is yapping you in your ear because you're sitting next to the jelly by the peanut butter. Can we have this?
00:29:06
Speaker
So it helps with the decision making, cut down on that. So they would all get one request before we went in. And if they asked for anything else in the store, then they wouldn't get the thing that they requested. Oh, I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah, that helped them out. And then the way I would do it was I would push the cart and I would have the kids that were too little to walk or keep up.
00:29:30
Speaker
or couldn't be trusted to do the next thing that I'm going to say in the cart or having to have one hand on the cart. And I would push the cart and I would say to my helpers, so these were usually oh, eight and above, I would say tortillas and they would run and get the tortillas and come back as I'm pushing the cart past.
00:29:48
Speaker
And the next one, cake, cottage cheese. And that one, that helper would run off and get the cottage cheese. And the next one I would say, okay, grated cheese. And, you know, as we, and I would just keep walking. It wasn't like, you know, a fast walk, but I would just keep walking and pushing the cart, never stopping and sending off a little runner, runner here, runner there. And, um, so it was, we would get through really fast without them getting lost. They felt like they were on a mission with mom. We would time ourselves, how fast can we get through this time? You know?
00:30:19
Speaker
And so it was just our way of grocery shopping. We got the job done without a lot of impulse purchases and with them helping me instead of wandering off or begging for things. And it was for several years when I couldn't leave kids at home or have a helper do grocery shopping for me. That was what worked for us. So anyway, I just went through that in depth because it might help somebody else too.
Meal Prepping & Involving Children
00:30:42
Speaker
Yes, I love that idea. And kids are always wanting to help, and they're much more useful running to grab something than they are holding onto the cart or doing whatever you're asking them to do, which is not fun. I recently went to the grocery store with my six youngest kids, which was, in hindsight, a terrible idea. It's been a long time since I grocery shopped with that many little children. And in the produce aisle, I'm wearing the baby. I've got two toddlers mouthing down on the floor. A couple others are fighting in the cart. And this lady comes up to me and goes, oh, honey, I will pray for you.
00:31:12
Speaker
I was like, uh, okay. Thanks for that. That was helpful. So grocery shopping can't be stressful. I totally get it. But we're going to move on to talking about meal prepping. So this is a step that not everyone takes. And admittedly, I don't always take it either, but it can be huge in helping
00:31:32
Speaker
eliminate or at least lessen that dinnertime stress because the big jobs are already done. So the key for this is to choose a day ahead of time that you're going to do every time. So like Saturday, Sunday, Monday, usually sometime towards the end of the beginning of the week is helpful. And you write a list of all the things you need to do to get your meals mostly ready for the rest of the week. So some ideas are cooking the things that take a long time. So grains,
00:32:00
Speaker
meats, beans, things that need to simmer or pressure cook or saw or whatever. You work on those that day and then chopping vegetables and you can store them in the fridge, making sauces or salad dressings ahead of time. Anything that is going to stress you out
00:32:19
Speaker
at 5 30 when everybody is starving and there's a baby hanging on your leg or three. Um, it can be so helpful. So this week, admittedly, this was the first time I'd meal prepped in a long time. And I was like, when it was time to eat, I'm like, Oh my gosh, pull this out, pull this out, pull this out, throw it together. Done.
00:32:36
Speaker
So nice. So if that's something that you're really, really stressing with is that dinnertime hustle and you don't have a lot of help, or even if you do have a lot of help, you can, you can assign it out as well. Hey, meal prep day, you're, you're cooking chicken, you're doing this, you're mixing this, whatever. And
00:32:51
Speaker
That being said, if you have kid helpers, but it's too stressful to have them help during the dinnertime rush, having them help on a meal prep day is so much nicer. They can take their time, they can make messes, they can screw things up, and it doesn't matter, because there's no pressure of, it's time to eat right now, it's not done, you know? Yeah, that's such a good idea. We don't do as much meal prep as when I'm making dinners. I wish I would have done.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah. Oh, I saw Jordan Page on Instagram. She's doing shelf timber. And I know this episode is going to air after she's done, but I think she has a highlight. You can go back and look it over. And she's eating out of the supplies that she has and getting real creative with it and going through her refrigerator and only spending, I think, what, $25 a week? And they have a bunch of kids. So anyway, interesting just how to get creative with
00:33:47
Speaker
you know, okay, we're not going to buy any groceries this week. What do we have here that we can eat? So enter in creativity. Yeah. And in addition to that, what that does is it helps stretch your creativity for the future. So like right now you're scrambling to see what you can make with, you know, ground beef and carrots and some random salad dressing leftover. But maybe next month you'll have those same supplies and think, Hey, actually, remember that meal we came up with? That was kind of good. You know, so I really, I really love those fields that can be used in a
00:34:17
Speaker
in a challenge like that. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I do to help, or I used to do more often, it was I'm subscribed to food magazines. You said Bon Appetit. I used to subscribe to the Martha Stewart, her everyday food one, and those were shorter, shorter to prepare meals, but still really good recipes. And so yeah, you subscribe to different people on Instagram who have really awesome food feeds or whatever, just to kind of break you out of your
00:34:47
Speaker
routine. Something we do for prep is, and we do this especially like when we're getting ready for an event where I won't be able to
00:34:56
Speaker
help in the kitchen as much like the birth of a child or travel. If you're making supper and lasagna is on the list, make two lasagnas and freeze one. So whatever meal you're making, you can make two of that meal and put one away in the freezer for later in the week or for later in the month or whatever.
Assigning Cooking Responsibilities
00:35:15
Speaker
So that is one way that we do prep often is we're going through all this effort. It doesn't take that much more time.
00:35:21
Speaker
or effort to make two and stick one in the freezer. And then we'll be so glad we did when it's a busy night and we all come home and we're tired and all we do is pull it out and bake it.
00:35:31
Speaker
That's one way we do prep. Yeah, nothing quite like a finished meal waiting for you in the freezer. We actually used to do that a lot more in the past, but now my family's gotten to the point where we kind of need one and a half 13 by nine inch pans for dinner. So I'm like, hmm, I make three? This is going to be tricky. But yeah, I love, love, love that idea. You'll get to the point where you need two nine by 13 pans for your family.
00:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, right? It's funny because like it just kind of snuck up on us. I remember for years we're like, my kids aren't even really eating that much more than we were when we only had three little ones. But all of a sudden it hit us. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you guys eat so much food. We used to just buy like a pound, a pound and a half of fish when we had like salmon or something. And now my kids like clear through that in about five seconds. And they're like, where's the rest? I'm like, oh, okay, you guys like that. So it's tricky. I remember when two pounds of hamburger was enough to feed our family for me.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, seriously. Seriously. It means they're growing kids. That's good. Yeah. So we're going to move on to a few tips for cooking on the day of. So whenever you're cooking that day's dinner or whatever, we mentioned having kids help. But like I said, this is
00:36:41
Speaker
only helpful if they're actually kids that can help, if that makes sense. So usually that means kids over eight or 10, if possible. We have started doing at least one day a week where my husband's in charge, which I love. It means I don't think about what we're having. I don't think about whether we have the ingredients for it. He does everything, which is awesome. It's on the weekend, obviously, when he's home.
00:37:02
Speaker
Um, or, um, we've also chosen days for each kid to help. So like, I think I talked about in a previous episode, each day of the week is assigned to one of my children. That's their like special day to say all the prayers and to pick the favorite seat or whatever. That's also their day to help with dinner.
00:37:20
Speaker
So if I'm working or I'm busy with something, that person starts stuff and the older ones can go from start to finish and do the whole thing, but the younger ones obviously can maybe just chop something with a butter knife and then I come help them finish or whatever. So that's pretty great. And then the other thing that's really helped me on the day of is choosing a time to start dinner.
00:37:41
Speaker
When I'm trying to plan on how to get someplace on time, I work backwards, right? Like I have to be there at five. I got to leave at 4.45. Same thing with dinner. So I'll think, okay, this dinner is actually going to take more like an hour and a half to make. It's a little bit more labor intensive. I'm going to have to start this at 4.30. And most days at 4.30, I'm not thinking about starting dinner yet. It's like, oh, six o'clock, shoot, we got to get moving. So to think, especially specific days, like this is a little faster or this is a little bit longer.
00:38:07
Speaker
to plan ahead so that you're not caught unawares and defrosting meat at 6pm.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lot like what we do. I think I mentioned in an earlier episode, we have a four o'clock afternoon shore time. And that's the point where my daughters and I will talk about how long it's going to take to prepare supper and when we need to get started and that sort of thing. But my husband has taken over a lot of the cooking of the meat because, man, he's so good at it. He got a smoker and
00:38:42
Speaker
I tell you what, we have been eating high on the hog, sort of pun intended here. But he has been smoking brisket and ribs and steaks and bacon and you name it, he'll throw it in the smoker and smoke it. Or he'll text us from work, hey, go turn on the smoker to this many degrees and throw in some steaks and I'll finish him on the grill when I get home or something. So he just, man, he's so good at it.
00:39:11
Speaker
I think it's part of the keto diet that he's on that he's just really craving these good foods and they're really good and he can make them really good because he's hungry for them. So he has taken over a lot of the meat part of the cooking for dinner.
00:39:31
Speaker
And, um, so then we'll, we'll do like the vegetable or whatever else we're going to have with it. And then, um, we also split obligations. So, you know, I'll talk about it with my daughters or with, you know, whoever's helping me that day. Okay. I'll do the vegetable. I'll, you know, steam some broccoli and why don't you make some biscuits to go with it or whatever. And we'll just split up the obligations. Um, we've also gone back to our chore card system that I talked about in one of our first episodes on kids and chores.
00:40:01
Speaker
And it's working out really well because we'll have instead of a helper for the day, we'll have a, like a kitchen helper for the week. And it's their responsibility. If the dishwasher needs emptied, they empty it. And if you know, mom needs help making a meal, then they're the helper and for, for the whole week. Um, and then to get kids ready for the responsibility of running their own home, I do give my kids a meal responsibility for the week. Like they get a tour card that says lunch. And so I usually give the.
00:40:29
Speaker
the lunch card to somebody who's not very good at meals yet because
Post-Meal Cleanup & Closing Thoughts
00:40:35
Speaker
it's a meal that they can mess up on and it doesn't really matter because dad's not there and the older kids are gone off to college. There's less mouths to feed and everybody's had breakfast and will get supper.
00:40:47
Speaker
in a snack in between if they need it, if they're still hungry, but it's kind of a meal you can mess up on. And it not be as important. And then another kid will have the breakfast chore card. So breakfast and lunch are usually a kid cooking or taking the responsibility for cooking. So it does give me a break. And when I have
00:41:11
Speaker
like I have more energy or more creativity to put into the meal that I'm responsible for instead of, uh, this is another meal that I have to cook. And I'm so tired from just, I just cleaned it. Bugs. Nothing bugs me more than just being in the kitchen, washing the last dish. And some kid wanders through, Hey mom, I'm hungry. What can I eat?
00:41:32
Speaker
I'll tell you what you can eat. How about a knuckle sandwich, kid? Just kidding. So moving on to the last portion, and that's the cleanup. The thanks for this excellent meal mom said no one ever. Now go clean it up all by yourself.
00:41:53
Speaker
What's worked out fairly well for us for the last couple of years, we've finally hit on something that's worked for us. Granted, my kids have been little for most of their lives. So now we're having some success with a chore chart that gives kids a dish responsibility that they're stuck with the whole week, like you were saying. So Liam will be on setting and clearing the table and sweeping every day that week. The next person will be on unloading the dishwasher and putting dishes away all week.
00:42:21
Speaker
So I know who to get after if it's not done. And I love the week-long thing because it's enough time for them to really learn how to do it, but not so long if they just get so burned out, they won't do it anymore. So that's worked really well for us. And it helps that it includes a job for getting dinner on the table. So even when kids haven't been helping and I'm doing all of dinner on my own, someone still has to set the table, fill the waters, et cetera.
00:42:47
Speaker
And that's because if they don't pitch in, we can't eat. Nobody really cares about cleanup, but everybody cares about eating. So that's really helpful to have someone help you get it on the table. And then when it comes to cleanup, we've started instigating the
00:43:02
Speaker
like no one leaves the kitchen or no one goes to do anything fun until cleanup is done. So even for the little kids, can't start a game, can't have dessert, can't do anything until everything's done. So they're either pitching in or egging on the older kids. Come on, come on, come on. And we don't watch TV every night or eat dessert every night, but there's always a little something, read books together or play a card game or something. So it really helps to have a little bit of a bribe to make them do that. Then we can have some family time together. Yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
Okay, similar at our house, everybody helps clean up the dining room in the dining room, which includes cleaning off the table, vacuuming the floor if it needs it, putting the food away, that kind of thing. And then in the kitchen, we kind of split the responsibilities for kitchen cleanup between my daughter and I and whoever's the kitchen helper. Our kitchen isn't really big enough to have everybody in there at one time helping clean up.
00:43:56
Speaker
So as an aside, the other day on Instagram, Lily Shine Creates, we mentioned that at their house, whoever cooks doesn't clean up. So if you cook, you don't clean up. And if you don't cook, then you clean up, which I love that. I could get behind that one. Amen.
00:44:11
Speaker
And my husband recently instituted the sink is the last dish policy. Just trying to get the idea that, you know, just because the dishes are done and the kitchen's not cleaned up or the sink's not cleaned out, you know, you gotta take it all the way. So the sink is the last dish. It's something we've been saying around here a lot.
00:44:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Or my kids think that as soon as the dishwasher's running, the dish job is done. I'm like, uh, yet there's still three pots, two pans, and like, you still have to do the hand dishes and you got to get it all cleaned up. And our saying is, your job's not done unless the sink's empty, basically. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay, so we are going to finish up with just a few recommendations for you. Audrey, you want to do yours first? Yeah, sure. I mentioned the Eat Right For Your Blood Type book.
00:44:58
Speaker
And I guess that's all I have right now. Okay, perfect. I'm actually not going to list the titles, but I have four or five favorite cookbooks and blogs that I go to over and over. Some of them are on the healthier side that have helped us make some good choices, like I said, eating more plant-based, which is what we really enjoy. And then also other ones are just very, very family-friendly, so I'll include those in the show notes as well.
00:45:23
Speaker
Thanks so much for joining us guys. I hope that some of our tips have helped lessen your dinnertime stress and make you not hate meals quite so much as before. All this talk about food is made behind gray. I think I might go make supper. Yeah. Time for a snack for me too.
00:45:41
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at OutnumberThePodcast at gmail.com and find us on Instagram at OutnumberThePodcast. See you next week.
00:46:08
Speaker
I don't know, but it's better than just talking like diarrhea, like verbal diarrhea is what I call it. Hey, but you know, I saw something really cool. Lily Shine Creates on Instagram. She just said this as a, a by side the other day. That's not my word. A, a by the way. And a side. There's my word.
00:46:38
Speaker
Good job. You found your word. Okay, so the other day she said, just as an... I'm trying to use my word now. Here's your big word. Good job.