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\n <\/div>\nWe like to show examples of what I (Megan) pack for school lunch on our\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0pages. Recently I also showed our Instagram Stories viewers what my kids\u2019 lunchboxes look like when they get home.<\/p>\n The number 1 response? \u201cBut they didn\u2019t eat all of it. How can I get over my anxiety about that?\u201d<\/p>\n As a trained Intuitive Eating Counselor (and dietitian) who has worked with hundreds of clients on becoming a more intuitive eater, I want to give you a secondary perspective about plate waste that you might not have considered before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Children are born intuitive eaters. They are built to self-regulate based upon their own individual hunger and fullness cues. Most kids remain intuitive eaters until their hunger and fullness cues become interfered with, like when we make them finish their plate or they don\u2019t have access to enough food. (Read more research about eating competence via the Ellyn Satter Institute\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n You may remember dinnertime battles with your parents where you were forced to clean your plate. This was likely done out of love, responsibility, saving money and doing what your parents thought was best. However, it may have taught you to eat more food than your body needed and stop listening to that \u201coff switch\u201d inherent within you. It may have also made you never want to eat that food you were forced to eat again.\u00a0(I personally have this experience with raisins \u2013 my grandma forced me to eat them, and I will never eat them again!)<\/em><\/p>\n What happens when we don\u2019t know how to stop eating? We continue to eat more foods than our bodies need and stop trusting our internal cues. Our body size might change \u2013 which is OK \u2013 but furthermore, we might not feel our best. Feeling overfull frequently is uncomfortable.\u00a0Furthermore, this can complicate our relationship with food and our bodies. For many people, food becomes both our biggest obsession and our most hated enemy. Most of my chronic dieting clients can remember a time when they were either overfed or underfed\/restricted, and it eventually led to issues with appetite dysregulation, changes in metabolism, and issues with their emotional health. I wonder what would have happened if they were simply allowed to eat what they were hungry for at meals and snacks.<\/p>\n I recognize that food insecurity plays a huge role in this.\u00a0If you do not have access to enough food for your family, please reach out to your local\u00a0<\/em>WIC agency<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/em>SNAP<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n It is imperative that we let our children learn about food in a positive, safe way and trust that they know how to eat enough. Yes,\u00a0sometimes they don\u2019t eat at a meal and want a snack 10 minutes later<\/strong>. Perhaps they\u00a0only eat one type of food or are very selective.<\/strong>\u00a0Maybe it\u2019s\u00a0hard to know if your child is eating enough<\/strong>. These are all common issues when feeding young children, who can be very fickle about food.<\/p>\n By the way, all of these topics (and much, much more) are covered in our\u00a0<\/em>toddler & kid course<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2013 complete with realistic, professional strategies that help get your toddler\u2019s eating back on track.<\/em><\/p>\n How can we help our kids listen to their\u00a0body’s cues for food while dealing with normal toddler picky eating? Offer food in regular intervals using a predictable meal and snack routine. This generally looks like 3 meals and 2-3 snacks daily for toddlers and older kids, although there are oftentimes more snacks involved when kids are going through growth spurts or picky eating phases.\u00a0<\/p>\n What about grazing? To help our children (and ourselves) have regular appetites and enough hunger to enjoy balanced meals, it\u2019s important to have regular meals and snacks with breaks in between where we do other things like play, learn, sleep and work (adults). A child that grazes all day will not be hungry enough for a wide variety of food and mealtime behavior usually suffers as a result. Plus, food tastes so much better when we\u2019re hungry and the process is much more enjoyable!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It is hard to estimate how much food your body needs on a given day. Our appetites change due to physical needs, illness and recovery, exercise and activity levels, mental stress, medications, time of year, hormones, temperature (some of us eat less when it\u2019s hot) and changes in our metabolism. When we listen acutely to our body\u2019s signals of fullness, we oftentimes have to leave food on the plate.<\/p>\n Kids do too.<\/p>\n Children have wildly variable appetites, especially since their body is growing. Some days they want all the food in the world; other days they hardly eat. This is normal, especially in toddlers and preschoolers. Annoying? Yes, but normal nonetheless. Just like ourselves, we can\u2019t expect our kids to finish their plates. Many of us leave food behind too, especially when we\u2019re closely listening to our fullness cues. When we eat, cleaning the plate shouldn\u2019t be the goal \u2013 eating until we\u2019re satisfied and nourished is what really matters, independent of quantity of food.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When our kids don’t eat all the food in their lunch or on their plate, we worry about food waste. This is for a good reason. We hate throwing away food that could have been eaten and enjoyed by someone else.\u00a0So many people don\u2019t have access to enough food. Minimizing wasted food is definitely important when possible.<\/p>\n However, teaching your child to overeat or making yourself eat something your body doesn\u2019t need in order to \u201cavoid waste\u201d is even more wasteful than throwing away uneaten food. It can make\u00a0eating a long-term struggle, which requires a lot of excess mental energy to address.<\/p>\n Eating too much food for your body does not put food on the plate of someone who doesn\u2019t have enough food to eat.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n As one of our wonderful followers and longtime Feeding Littles clients Angie put it:\u00a0\u201cYes, food waste sucks, but a poor relationship with food sucks even more.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kids learn to eventually eat most of the foods served to them. Many kids take 20, 30, even 50 exposures of something before they willingly eat it, and sometimes they never warm up to a given food. That\u2019s normal, OK, and expected. Your response to those behaviors is what matters. When we get frustrated that our children aren\u2019t eating what we serve, we start to cater to their food preferences. The variety of food offered to them begins to dwindle, and suddenly they may only see 5-10 different foods in rotation. In response, they only learn how to eat from this short list of food.<\/p>\n Offering lots of variety is one critical way to help your child eventually eat all types of food. The more you do this, the more they will expect different foods on the plate too. Perhaps they won\u2019t eat it this time, but maybe next time it\u2019s not so foreign. If we stop giving them a chance to learn about new foods, we inherently limit their palate. This leads to less nutritional balance, more frustrating mealtimes, and a sense that your child is missing out on a wide variety of foods available on this earth.<\/p>\n How do we keep moving our kids in the right direction, toward eating lots of different foods (eventually)?\u00a0Don\u2019t stop offering variety.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Many of us overestimate how much food our kids need to feel full and meet their energy needs. In general, a young child’s serving size is about a quarter of that of an adult’s – and of course, they can always have more if needed! Offer very small portions to your child to minimize waste. As a bonus, very small amounts of food are actually less overwhelming to kids and might encourage them to try new things!<\/p>\n For some perspective, one portion of veggies for a one-year-old is just one tablespoon. ONE TABLESPOON. (Of course, they can have more than this, but isn\u2019t it nice to know that they\u2019re probably eating more than you think?)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n We can minimize plate waste at home by using family meal-style serving when possible and serving very small portions.<\/p>\n However, what happens when your child goes to daycare, preschool or elementary school? (By the way, we have an amazing\u00a0<\/em>school lunch resource<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for you if you need more lunch ideas!)<\/em><\/p>\n There are so many factors at play at lunchtime when kids eat with peers that affect how much (or how little) they eat:\u00a0<\/p>\n Maneuvering the lunchroom or preschool classroom is yet another transition that your child faces as they get older, and like everything else, they may experience bumps in the road. Sometimes my kids come home with a fully eaten lunch; other times they touch nothing. Usually, their intake lies somewhere in between. They may also only eat from a few sections of their lunchbox.<\/p>\n What most of us want to do in order to ensure that our kids will eat is serve them only preferred foods, but again\u2026this doesn\u2019t teach them to eat all foods in the long run and makes them pickier over time. If the end goal is an adventurous eater, this is actually counter-productive.<\/p>\n Furthermore, here\u2019s the kicker:\u00a0I can\u2019t just serve them what I \u201cknow\u201d they will eat because I can\u2019t guarantee they \u201cwill\u201d eat anything anyway!<\/strong>\u00a0My kids will pass on their favorite foods on any given day, probably based on one or two of the factors listed above. The only thing I can almost guarantee they will eat is chocolate chips, but there have been times when those come home untouched too.<\/p>\n If I only send tiny amounts of food and obviously can\u2019t give them more since they\u2019re at school, they may not have enough to eat should they choose to only enjoy the cheese and {quartered) grapes. One grape and one tiny bite of cheese are great at home when I can offer more, but it probably won\u2019t keep them satisfied if that\u2019s what they choose to eat at school.<\/p>\n Thus, food waste is inherent in sending school lunch (unfortunately.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is tricky. If the food is still safe to eat (non-perishable food or the ice pack and perishable food are still cold), you may want to re-offer the food after you pick up your child only if they\u2019re interested in eating it. We strongly advise against re-serving meals or snacks in a punitive way (\u201cNo snack at snack time because you didn\u2019t eat your lunch\u201d), as this leads to anxiety around food and is seen by your child as a punishment.<\/p>\n Of course, use your judgement \u2013 many times I won\u2019t have a snack handy but my daughter is famished and all we have available to eat is her unfinished lunch. I\u2019ll ask her if she wants to open it up and eat what\u2019s leftover as a snack, and oftentimes she will say yes. It\u2019s not done as a consequence of her not eating \u2013 it\u2019s simply because she wasn\u2019t hungry or was too distracted but wants to try again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I was asked many times if I personally eat the food left behind or if I save it for another meal. To both questions, the answer is almost always no (for a few reasons):<\/p>\n Yes, I know that many people on this planet are hungry, and I don\u2019t take access to food for granted. I know how blessed my family is to have full tummies each night. Eating my kids\u2019 potentially unsafe leftovers when I\u2019m not hungry is not the solution to our global food crisis.<\/p>\n Here are ways you can deal with the waste (besides trashing the food):<\/strong><\/p>\n So, in summary\u2026yes, food waste isn\u2019t great. However, in efforts to feed my children a variety of food and teach them to eventually become adventurous eaters, it\u2019s oftentimes part of the process. Try to reframe your thinking about food waste and see it as \u201cuneaten\u201d food, not \u201cwasted\u201d food. Like many of the other things you will buy for your child and then get rid of, it\u2019s an investment in your child\u2019s learning, health, and future. Try to minimize waste by offering small portions, composting, and repurposing food if you can, but remember that some food waste is unfortunately inevitable when feeding kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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