People just really don't understand how the program works.

They don't understand the barriers.

They're just thinking about what do I eat at home and how can I

get that into my school menu?

Alex, hello and welcome to the show.

How are you doing today?

I'm doing great.

Thanks for having me.

I'm so excited to be here, especially 'cause school food service is.

Is so near and dear to my heart, so thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Oh, absolutely.

Thanks so much for being on the show.

It's such a a, a great pleasure to be able to speak with you.

And you know, you have such an area of expertise under your belt that I was so

interested in chatting with you about, because obviously the landscape of school

nutrition, it seems like it changes on a daily basis, but the number one thing

that I hear from people over and over again, customers of ours from across the

country, is this issue of getting kids.

Interested and excited about the menu items that are getting served.

And, you know, you have a, a background and really, you know, kind of, you

know, making food more, the presentation of food and things of that nature

to really get kids excited about it.

So I'm really excited to talk to you and get some tips and tricks on different ways

that nutrition professionals can really spice up their menu items and get a little

more excited, you know, get the kids excited about things that they're serving.

Yeah, let's talk about it.

Yeah, so tell me a little bit more about your background.

You know, what you know, I know you're a registered dietician, but tell me a

little bit about your story, kind of what inspired you to get into the industry

and Yeah, we can kinda start there.

Yeah, that's always a really great question and I think every dietician's

journey is a little bit different, but if it typically, there's something along

the lines of a love for food, so that's why I got into nutrition is I loved

food like all foods, and I was really interested in it on a personal level.

So that's where it started.

Went to school, you know, did my undergrad in dietetics and then did my internship

staff for my boards, became a dietician.

And then it kind of switched to, okay, it's not more, not as much

about, and learning about nutrition as how can I help my community?

And that's kind of what it evolved into.

And I actually started off in long-term care.

I lasted six months in that 'cause.

It wasn't my demographic that I was really passionate about, but I got a

job right away and I was like, great.

And then I went right into school food service and ended up in a public

school here in Minnesota and fell in love with school food service.

I remember actually in my internship doing our school food service rotation.

My face would hurt by the end of the day when I was serving kids and helping in

the elementaries and in all the schools.

Just, it just like made my day.

So I knew working with kids was something I wanted to do.

So I ended up in school food service.

I was in kind of a unique position.

I wasn't technic an assistant director.

Uh, I was, my title was a registered dietician and I. Function.

Kind of like an assistant director.

I did the menu planning, special diets training for staff nutrition

education, but I had a, a much larger emphasis on nutrition education.

'cause that's what our district was really, really trying to emphasize.

So I was kind of in a unique role in that aspect.

But.

I, in my position in school food service, that I actually started a family.

I have two little kids of my own, a five and 7-year-old.

And I, um, so while I don't work in school food service right now

anymore, I, while I was there, I kinda started this little side hustle.

You could call it a. Taking pictures of my kids' foods when I was introducing

solids to my daughter and putting them on Instagram back when it just

used to be graphics, and it kind of blossomed into this opportunity to

create content, to share educational and nutrition education with parents

online, especially with the picky eating and how to help them eat foods,

especially the foods we want them to eat.

And I was doing both.

I was working full-time in school food service and trying to do this

during nap times and after bedtime and it just wasn't sustainable.

And so eventually I was able to leave my school food service dietician position,

but because I was able to have a little bit more flexible job working for myself.

Um, sorry.

You're gonna have to cut this out 'cause my computers got unhooked.

Sorry about that.

There we go.

So after six years, I started my own business and now I

help parents more so at home.

But school food service is still very near and dear to my heart, and I'm

a huge advocate for free meals for all students and I, and just really

lifting up the school meal programs.

So yeah, that's kind of where I am now.

That's

amazing.

That's so cool.

I mean, so your kids, you said five and seven, right?

Five and seven, yes.

Mm-hmm.

So I have a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old, so just right behind you.

And kids that age, at least my kids mm-hmm.

Are some of the pickiest kids when it comes to food.

And I struggle.

My wife and I struggle with trying to find things that are.

Outside of their, like go-to three or four items and I feel like they

pretty much only want to eat like three or four different things.

Mm-hmm.

There's no variety in their palate at this point in time, even though

we try to introduce things to 'em.

Yep.

If we try to put, you know, maybe we'll make them some chicken and we will try

to introduce like some broccoli and vegetables and things of that nature.

It's like inevitably they still eat the chicken because that's what they wanted,

but they don't touch any of the other items that we put on the plate for 'em.

So.

I'm just curious, you know, obviously with your background in school nutrition and

with working with kids, you know, there's lots of items that a school nutrition

department, you know, procures and then tries to offer to the kids, right?

But if you had a magic wand and you could swap out any food item in a school

nutrition environment for a healthier alternative, no questions asked.

What item would you switch out and what would you switch it for?

That, that's a really great question, and as someone who built out the menus, boy

do I wish I could put whatever I wanted on there, but there's so many things

you have to take into consideration.

But if you're saying there's no questions asked.

For me personally in, in my experience, I was very much involved in working,

like in the operations, helping out.

I think most people.

And the administrative aspect of school food service can relate to,

that's, I would swap out the pre-made meats like the sloppy joe's and the

taco meats and spaghetti sauces, like with the textured vegetable.

So soy protein, which, nothing wrong with that, but I would switch those

out and if, if it were easy enough, I would do more fresh meats products.

'cause I remember.

Pouring those out into hotel pans and it just felt weird

to me to like pour out stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Like just a little bit more scratch made cooking in that aspect.

But I get like, it's so hard to, to do in some aspect.

So that to me, I would switch those out.

I just, it just was something I didn't love that they're doing.

So.

Yeah.

And, and I, I, I have a feeling that across the board there's gonna

be people listening to this and they're like, oh my goodness, time.

We just don't have the time to do that.

Oh, wow.

We don't have the staff to do that, you know, the scratch cooking as

much as I think everyone would probably love to be able to do that.

The reality, unfortunately, is just that the, the environment does

not, you know, lean itself or open itself up to those opportunities.

Absolutely.

As much as you know.

We've got such a finite window of time to serve such a large number of students.

You know, unfortunately those types of kind of pre-packaged type things

are the kind of go-tos, just 'cause we don't have time to wait and

cook, you know, 200 chicken breasts.

No.

Which I would love if that was the situation, I

would too.

But yeah, if I could change anything and there's no questions

asked and it was still easy for staff, I would totally change that.

So let's talk about, 'cause obviously, you know, you being, you know, having a,

a school nutrition, you know, background and having worked in cafeterias, you

understand the struggles that child nutrition professionals go through

and understanding those struggles.

What are some.

Tips and tricks, or I guess, what do you think is the biggest challenge

that school nutrition professionals are facing today with the regulation

changes, with the meal pattern changes and everything else that's, you know,

constantly shifting in the industry.

What do you think the biggest challenges are that child nutrition

professionals are having with promoting those healthier options?

I,

I have a laundry list, but of things and.

Oh, I, I love like the opportunity to educate, you know, just

people, friends, family, on all these things we have to consider.

Right.

But if I had to choose one, there's lots of talk about, about

funding right now and in policies.

Mm-hmm.

So that's a huge thing that's very current.

But I would say in like labor shortages and time, because

at the end of the day mm-hmm.

You need to get kids fed.

And a lot of times, like I had all these really great ideas of

nutrition education or tastings to help kids learn to try new food.

But if you're short staffed, guess what you're doing?

You are going on going to the schools and you're getting it on the line

and you are serving kids because that's the most important thing.

So sometimes, yep, because of time and labor shortages, we just,

those are the things that get cut because we need to feed kids.

So I think that is.

A huge issue that is, oh, I, I don't have the answer to solving that one, but that

was an issue that I always struggled with.

I would have these beautiful tastings planned out, and you get a call in the

morning from your director and you're like, Hey, I need you to go to this

school because we're short staffed.

You know, and it, you just do what?

Mm-hmm.

Because you need to feed the kids, so, and support your, the rest of the staff too.

'cause Yeah, it's a tricky situation for sure.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now, you know, obviously, you know, with your kind of, you know, as you

described this, you know, kind of side hustle that you've started, you

know, one of the focuses is really kind of making those healthy options

more appealing to kids, right?

And obviously there's no, there's no shortage of.

Access to fresh fruits and vegetables and things of that nature at the moment.

I think the big issue that people are running into, and at least one of the

complaints that I hear a lot of times is we serve these kids, all of these

great menu items as one of the healthiest meals that they're gonna get during

the day, but in so many situations that that tray gets picked up and gets

dumped right into the garbage can.

Oh, so what.

And it's so frustrating.

I know.

It's so frustrating to, you know, put, you know, great healthy options in

front of kids, but then have them just immediately throw them into the garbage.

Yep.

So in some of the different things that you've implemented in your kind of

personal, you know, business, what are some different tips or strategies that

you think would be able to fit inside of some of those labor shortages and time

restraints and the school nutrition?

Professionals are having to operate in at the moment.

What are some strategies or some different tips that you would suggest to really

kind of, I guess, spice up those menu options that are healthy options to

really kind of bring a new, you know, rejuvenated excitement to some of those

items and get kids to give 'em a shot?

Yeah, that's a great question and, and I. Although, like I mostly focus at

home now with, with how can parents do that, which is a completely different

situation than how can you do it and implement it in school food service.

But I think something that it really can work for both is trying

to help create some customization and autonomy for kids Choice.

Choice is so helpful, which we know like offer versus serve, right?

Kids get fruits and vegetable bars, which is great.

But including kids in that choice.

However you can get involved with, whether it's at an elementary school and having

them do a vote on what fruit or vegetable they wanna see on their menu next year,

or, you know, voting at a sampling.

If you have the time and capacity to implement tastings, let them

vote to see if they can get, want it on the menu or not.

Like that's a really great opportunity to see if it's gonna be successful or

not to get kids interested and involved.

Especially at the high school level, giving kids the power to feel like

they have some control when so many of their choices are made for them

throughout the day, we can try to implement that as much as possible.

I remember one thing we would, my director and I would try to encourage

our staff to do, to really own and try to take on from the kitchen managers

and the staff at each individual school.

Was, don't be afraid to take little tasting samples and set

those out right on the line.

If pe kids wanna take and try it, maybe they, you know, they declined whatever

fruit or vegetable it was that day, but maybe they get a chance to try it.

So you just, you just never know.

There are also other little things you can do that give us a, our kids

a nudge towards eating healthier.

So, I don't know if you ever heard of the, the term choice architecture.

Have you heard of that at all?

Uhuh.

Okay.

So choice architecture and the nudge theory is, can be really

valuable in school food service because you know, it's interesting.

When I first went into school food service, I didn't realize how much of

a business and marketing it involved.

You just think you're serving lots for kids.

Yeah.

But you are marketing your product, your menu to kids.

So.

We know kids should eat fruits and vegetables.

All of us should.

But how can we help them make those choices without them

really even thinking about it?

So that's about the choice architecture, right?

Architecture would be like where we're placing things in, how we're

building out our, our cafeteria.

So whether we have a grab and go box or grab and go cooler, we're pudding.

The salads, the grab and go salads and the healthier meals at the eye level.

This is implemented in grocery stores too, so where we place

things makes a big difference.

We're putting, maybe we're putting fruits and vegetables first too.

I know maybe they don't always eat them, but when we make them more

visible and the choice easier for them, we're nudging them towards.

Making healthier choices.

So those kinds of things can make a big difference too.

Where you put your chocolate milk, is your white milk more vis visibly available.

And our chocolate milk is just a little bit more difficult.

Like kids are still gonna go to that chocolate milk.

Sure.

But as human beings, the harder choice.

We don't always choose it as often.

So.

Sometimes we have to make it easier for them to make those healthier choices,

but also giving them the opportunity in little, you know, instances, whether

it's a little tasting here or a big event to, can make a difference as well.

And getting them involved.

Absolutely.

I, I mean you, I. Yeah.

I mean, you know, hearing you talk about that, I mean, I, I think about

just like my experience, like you mentioned a grocery store, right?

You know, whenever I go into the grocery store, and let's say that,

you know, my wife calls me and says, Hey, pick up a gallon of

milk for the kids on your way home.

You know, I'll go into the grocery store and, and every single store

that milk is in the back of the store.

Like you have to walk through every single aisle to get to that milk.

It's what you're talking about.

It's that, that architecture that has been put into place to make you walk

through the aisle so that inevitably you're gonna say, oh, that looks good.

Or, Hey, I'm gonna grab this also.

Yeah.

And then you end up with, you know, not just milk, but four or five things

that you weren't planning on going to the store for, and kind of having that

same mindset, that same philosophy when it comes to the presentation for the

options that you have for the kids as they're going through the cafeteria lines.

It works the same kind of way from a psychological standpoint.

Yes.

Uh,

you, you know.

I'm curious to know, kind of, you know, now that we're kind of talking

about, you know, marketing and we're talking about, you know, kind of,

you know, different strategies to get kids, you know, to, to to, to choose

some of those he healthier options.

What are your thoughts on different themed menu items and or different

kind of themed, you know, months maybe?

I mean, I know that we're, you know, just recently, you know,

the, for those that participate in the School Nutrition Association,

they do National Breakfast week.

Yeah.

National breakfast lunch or, or lunch week.

They have specific themes and different menu items and things of

that nature that are all kind of labeled and branded for those weeks.

How effective do you think those types of those things are and should we be doing

stuff like that on a more frequent basis?

Good question.

Yes, I love them.

Absolutely love them.

I think making food fun and exciting is, is really important, and especially

in a world where there's a lot of decisiveness around marketing to kids.

If we can market them to the healthier options, I think we need to leverage that.

I, I definitely think we need to do theme days, but you know, what comes with

that is time, the time and resources to implement those, which can be difficult.

Yeah.

Especially if you're talking about eight.

Huge districts.

The district I worked in, we had nine schools.

I could easily go to every one of my schools every day if I really

wanted to, to, you know, hand out marketing materials and whatnot.

But it does take extra time and effort now.

I, I would, I was kind of a nerd when it came to tracking participation

because I really wanted to utilize that knowledge and the data to help me make.

Better change, like changes to the menu moving forward?

If something wasn't working, why not?

Or was one school, one school was different?

What, what's going on here?

So, with all the data that I collected every day, at the end of the day, I would

plug in my numbers and I had graphs and, and I just, I thoroughly enjoyed that.

I definitely saw an increase in participation, especially when you

added something, a little novelty, whether it was the Chinese New Year and

they got a fortune cookie with it, or it's national cookie day and we could

actually do a cookie when we have so many limitations on all the fun things

we can do, you know, nutritionally?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you're a home opener for baseball.

You know, do a hot dog and, and you know, some watermelon and, and fun picnic days.

Absolutely.

I think kids get really into that, and you have to adjust

it based on the, the age group.

Of course, elementary kids are a little bit more easy to impress

than, than maybe high schoolers.

So, yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity there.

But again, I, it comes down to resources and staffing.

If you're a one man team.

With one director running your schools, it gets difficult to do that, so,

yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and also just coming up with the themes and kind of planning it out.

I mean, there's a lot of time involved with that.

Oh, and you know, one thing that our team, you know, over at School Food

Handler has done is, and this is still kind of in the experimental stages, but

you know, we put together, we, we have a newsletter that we send out every single

month, and inside of that newsletter we have a section that we call Bite sized.

Yeah.

And bite sized is exactly this.

It's basically.

Different themes for the upcoming month.

Different ways that you can relabel your menu items and kind of rename them.

Yeah.

Just to make them a little more fun and on brand for the theme mm-hmm.

That you're gonna be doing.

And so instead of just having those two weeks throughout the school year,

that you have access to materials that are, you know, provided to you

from the School Nutrition Association, what we've really tried to do.

Expand that.

So the districts have access to different themes and different creative

ways to go and approach the menu items they're gonna be serving to really

help increase that participation.

But I know, and you mentioned a second ago, kind of briefly, you know, that

you were kind of a, a, a geek when it comes to the, you know, the stats of, you

know, kind of monitoring how all these different things were, were, you know,

I guess being received by the students.

I'm curious to know.

You know what your thoughts are for a smaller district, you know, obviously

that doesn't have a lot of staff.

How do you measure success of.

A theme day, how do you determine whether or not it was the menu item that was

increasing participation or the theme that was partic or increasing participation?

And what are some different ways that you would maybe suggest to a small

district of nine, nine sites, you know, to actually monitor this, to

really give them that type of, you know, analytical information that they

need to determine if this is something they should do again in the future.

Yeah.

That's a great question and, and I know it can, it can be difficult

to try to collect that data.

Absolutely.

Everyone's busy in school districts, there's always tons

of communication going out.

So, you know, that can be, that can be challenging, but you know, I think

paying attention to your numbers and your participation is, is important.

Um, but I think if we can, you can somehow get feedback from students or teachers,

and that's where if you have built a good.

Um, relationship with your school district and your teachers and your principals,

and you're communicating those things that, that can be extremely helpful.

Visiting your sites, you know, making sure you're checking in with the kids.

Just like in a restaurant, you're doing table touches if

you have the time, of course.

And, and checking in with the kids to see what they like, hear for, hear from them.

You know, do they like this?

What's their favorite part about it?

And then taking that information and making sure you're tooting your own horn.

My director always told me this.

Mm-hmm.

And communicating that to your community and your, and within your district

so they can see what you're doing.

Because I feel like school food service, the, the food service.

Department sometimes gets forgotten about, you know?

Yeah.

Um, so I don't know if there's an easy answer for that other than making

sure you're fall, you're checking your data to see where your participation

levels are at, but making sure you're getting involved in getting into

your schools and asking questions, I think is extremely valuable.

And I think what you said about kind of tooting your own horn

is so important because, I mean, this is a very humble industry.

Yeah.

And I think that a lot of schools oftentimes get, you know, hung up

on that and they don't want to go and, you know, really kind of shout

from the mountaintops, all the great things that they're doing.

But, you know, we live in this digital age of technology.

You know, parents and students are all over social media.

I'm curious to know, you know, what, what your thoughts are on, you know,

different approaches for really kind of tooting your own horn and really

letting the community know about the great things that you're doing.

Is social media the answer?

Is it, you know, doing more things where you invite parents

to come into the cafeterias and see the stuff that you're doing?

What have you seen that was successful?

What do you think would be.

You know, a good approach for, you know, your, your average school district?

Yeah, I think the social media thing is, I mean, in the world we live in,

I think it is kind of a needed thing.

However, being in the social media world, it's a lot to handle and it,

it takes a lot of time and effort to follow up with comments and making

sure you're staying on top of things.

It can get a little dicey sometimes, but you can't focus on the negative.

You gotta focus on, on the positive and also on any criticism you get.

You just view it as, you know, this is an area for me to learn

and listen and figure out is it something we can, we can improve.

If you're doing the social media route, I think it's an excellent

way to reach the community because everyone's on social media.

Finding which social media outlet you wanna be on, you

know, is one thing to consider.

But that is really, I think, up the district.

'cause some districts may not want to tackle that and put that on their plate.

So you have to really work closely with your communications department.

I think, you know, we have our wellness committees.

You're getting involved with the wellness committee.

We're on our wellness committees, right as the food service department, and

there's usually parents involved in that.

Listening to them and and inviting them.

I think that's a great option.

My director would invite parents and teachers all the time to come into our

cafeteria because you know what I found working with parents and I worked in

a very affluent community, so there was a lot of parent involvement and.

And we, like, people just really don't understand how the program works.

They don't understand the barriers.

They're just thinking about what do I eat at home and how can I get that

into my school menu pro, you know, the school menu because they want

healthier options for their kids.

So like one example I had.

I had a group of parents that wanted to, one, minimize packaging and breakfast

options, which we know breakfast is very much a grab and go kind of thing.

Kids don't have a lot of time, so there's a lot of packaging involved.

I don't wanna have a lot of packaging, but that's sometimes how it ends up.

How it ends up.

And then also they, they wanted to reduce that in sugars, you know, and

they wanted to see, you know, their example was, oh, I'd love to see

oatmeal with honey and, you know.

All these toppings and I said, Hey, I love that idea, but here's, here's

kind of what we're working with.

I'd love to invite you in to see what a morning is like for our staff,

how, how we can implement that.

Getting them to realize themselves.

Sometimes some of the challenges can be really eye-opening because I've

had a, yeah, appearance be like.

I didn't realize that they have won all these nutrition regulations

they have to follow, that I don't have to follow at home and Right.

All these other, you know, the structural challenges, the budgetary challenges,

all of these things, the time, like, it's just, sometimes it's just not feasible.

So getting them to see from themselves can be really helpful.

Again, you need time for that, but Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

I, I mean, I. I love the social media kind of idea of things,

but again, it goes back to time.

Everything kind of circles back to having the time to be able to do those

types of, of items and you know, I know there's different companies out

there, organizations that can manage a social media kind of, you know, presence

for a school nutrition department.

Things of that nature, but you know, ultimately you've either gotta

have the budget or the time to be able to do those types of things.

Right.

Well now for your typical, go ahead.

I was just gonna say like, if you don't have the time to manage your own, like

some school food service programs have their own social media page, but if

you do not have the time to do that.

Check in with your communications department and ask, Hey, can I

start a Google Drive where I just upload stuff and I give you doc, I

give you content to push out on the school districts social media page.

I think a lot of food service programs are doing that.

We, we just had someone send me a screenshot the other

day of our local school.

District, they just implemented a, a fruit and vegetable bar for the first

time and there were pictures up there.

People are sending me screenshots.

Yeah, so social media is a very powerful tool and there are ways to do it

without doing it completely on your own.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I, I also think, and what I was gonna say is I think that a lot of the,

the challenges are also not just so much about getting on social media, right?

You've gotta be careful about what you're putting on social media.

Oh, yeah.

Because absolutely.

Just taking a picture and posting it.

You're, you have to think about the intent behind it.

And the intent is to drum up excitement.

Right?

And if the picture you take is not exciting and doesn't make

people want to eat that menu item, regardless of how great it is,

you're missing that opportunity.

And then you're missing really kind of the point of getting on social media.

So, you know, in, in your experience, you know, obviously, you know, you

kind of started this thing off with.

You know, getting on social media, you know, several years back and you've

got a lot of experience with kind of some of those different techniques that

are required to take good pictures.

What are some thoughts on really, I guess, the quality versus the quantity

of the items that we're posting?

I think you make a a really great point because as human beings, we are

just designed to look at the negative.

So if pe people see something like a garbage can in the background, or

heaven forbid, I, who knows what it be, people take that and then now

we're not even focusing on what the intent of the content was, right?

So we, we do have to think about it with a, a lens and thinking about that.

But I think it's, it can be really powerful too, and we ha we have

to think about, not everyone is an expert when it comes to photography

or food photography for that matter.

Mm-hmm.

But.

Know, think about, you know, what does this look like?

What is in my background?

That's what we kinda were trained on, you know, making sure there

weren't trash cans or, or slipper slip signs or, or anything like that.

So, you know, taking pictures of a tray sometimes what I would do is I would,

before lunch service, is I would plate.

A tray myself, and then I'd go out to the cafeteria where

there's some decent lighting, sometimes depends on the cafeteria.

And I try to take a picture, you know, so there wasn't as much chaos

or opportunity for mess and such.

Um, so I would kind of stage it a little bit just so, so they could see.

Another thing you have to be mindful of is, is taking pictures of kids too.

There's a lot of rules around that mm-hmm.

When it comes to school districts and so.

You.

Well, you have to do it.

You have to communicate what you're doing.

Otherwise, people are just gonna assume and generalize like they

always have about school food service.

So we have to show them that, yeah, we are changing things and there are a lot

of really amazing things that we do.

So, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, as we get kind of close to wrapping up our time here today, again, thank

you so much for being on the show.

I very much appreciate your time and expertise and for sharing so

many great tips and tricks for us.

You will.

I've got one more question for you though, and I'm curious, you know, if

you were giving a pep talk to a room full of picky eaters and you were

introducing a new menu item to them.

What is a couple of things that you would say to those picky eaters to really get

them excited about trying the new items that you're gonna be introducing to them?

Yeah, that, I love this because this is my jam.

I, first and foremost as adults.

We need to take a step back and not think about kids trying it first.

We need to figure out how can I get them excited by engaging with it?

Because when kids engage with the food, they're that much more

likely to actually try a food.

So instead of just asking kids to, oh, try this new menu item, if, let's

say it's an elementary group of kids.

I can just envision, you know, the lines, kids are lining up.

I would be walking up and down and saying, I, you know, today I want

you guys to be food scientists and I want you guys to take whatever menu

item is, let's say it's honey glazed carrots or something like that.

Add, I want you guys to be food scientists and I want you to dissect it.

I want you to smell it.

I want you guys to figure out what it looks like on the inside.

And so you wanna get them kind of.

In that imaginative, you know, role playing like that.

And it can be really powerful to help kids get excited about it through engagement

versus just asking them to try new foods.

And that's what I really implement at home.

If kids don't wanna try something, we shouldn't force them to try it.

But asking them to touch it.

Smell it, you know, even just licking it can be really

helpful Towards trusting, yeah.

Trying a new food.

So, yeah.

I love, I love the elementary group of kids 'cause they're so much more, they're

so much easier to kind of implement these strategies with the high schoolers.

Sometimes you're a little, they're a little too cool for you, but you

know, it, it can still be beneficial.

I love the, I, I love the food scientist thing 'cause I can just imagine my kids

just eating that up, you know, both figuratively and, but you know, you know,

I think that's a, a great approach to really get them to buy in and, you know,

experiment a little bit with the food.

Mm-hmm.

So, well, Alex, thanks again so much for your time today.

I really appreciate it.

How can people get a hold of you if they wanted to reach out and maybe.

You know, here's some more about what you're doing on the, kinda

in the private sector of things.

Yeah, I, you know, I hang out mostly on Instagram.

I'm at the family nutritionist and I'm, you know, really all, all about

sharing facts and not fear about food.

Huge advocate for school food service.

So you'll see me sometimes sharing information on that.

But really picky eater, stre picky eating strategies at home is

something that is, is really near and dear to my heart and what I work

on with helping parents at home.

So I'm always on Instagram.

It's where you can find me.

Awesome.

Well, we'll put all your contact information into the me kind of call

details and everything like that so people can get ahold of you very easily.

But thank you again for being on the show and we look forward to

hopefully having you on the show again here in the, in the upcoming days.

Yeah, thanks for having me.