Friday Q&A on Children's Nutrition with Lucinda Miller

0:00Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments.

0:37You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Most women have been there.

1:19Something feels off. You don't feel like yourself, yet your doctor says everything looks fine. Spoiler, it's your hormones. Midi is a virtual care platform built for women by women and offers specialized hormone care from trained clinicians. Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. It's not you. It's your hormones. Visit joinmidi.com to book your first visit. That's joinmidi.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. Hello and welcome to Made by Mamas, the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman. And I'm Georgia Dayton.

1:55And this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits. With five kids between G and I, we have seen a lot. We really have. Each week we'll be joined by some famous faces and experts and we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way. In short, we're the parenting podcast for you. Before we get started, hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands. And they're on Tuesdays and Fridays. And it really helps if you leave a rating and a review. You can also find us on Instagram. We're on at Made by Mummies. But for now, George, should we get into it?

2:29Hello and welcome to Friday's episode of the podcast. I can't believe it, but today's guest just said to me before we hit record that we can't have seen each other for about six years. And I actually thought you'd already been on the podcast. So you feature heavily in our lives, regardless of whether you haven't. But this is your first time here today. So we're so excited to welcome you. Nutritionist, you may know her as nature.kids on Instagram. It is Lucinda. Welcome. How are you? Thank you so much for inviting me on Zoe in Georgia. It's just great to be here at last. Yeah, it's really exciting.

3:02Just give us a little insight into what it is that you do before. We've had so many questions been sent in, but yeah, just give us an intro into your background. Yeah, so I'm a mum of three and I realised quite quickly when I first was born, there was so little information on kids and feeding and nutrition. And I kind of got the bug about it. I just thought, I've got to learn more. I've got to learn more. And that was what I was doing anyway. I'm qualified as a naturopath, which means I do nutrition and kind of lifestyle support. And it made a massive difference to my kids in terms of their mood, their sleep, their poos, you know, all of those things that we have to worry about when they're little.

3:47um and so yeah i just as i said i got the bug and i've been doing it for nearly 30 years now um and i've written fairly qualified then yeah kind of know what you're doing um we've seen quite a lot of kids through our clinic i run a clinic called nature dot we're a big team dotted around the country um and um we mainly specialize in pediatric nutrition but we also see the mums and dads too because what we find is so often the parents go on that sort of hyper vigilance kind of burnout kind of mode and actually they need the help just as much as their kids okay um and then I've written three lovely cookbooks um and they're all there really to give you the tools to know how to do it because so often you can read the theory about nutrition and said that sounds great but how do I actually do it yeah yeah and I think actually as parents it's probably alongside sleep the one thing that definitely for Georgia and I was the most worrying going into parenting Georgia's a better better better cook than I am but I I didn't want the kids to grow up having any hang-ups around food I was very aware that you know you've got to get it right you see all these things on socials and you read stuff in the press about you know how important as we all know nutrition is and actually we're responsible for that so there is that ultimate like weight on your shoulders to make sure that your kids are eating the right foods um we thought we'd throw today's q a out obviously to uh to you to answer the questions we've had loads all around kind of you know fussy eating sleep struggles focus at school i mean there's been a real mixed bag so we'll try and get through as many as we can because there were hundreds yeah um let's kick this one off um how to support a child who plays a lot of sports at a young age yeah great question so um we do see a lot of sporty kids in our clinic we actually see quite a lot of elite sports kids so they are really some of them are like tennis academies or whatever football academies and they are doing like 30 40 50 hours of sport a week sometimes it's phenomenal they seem to be doing it non-stop because of course weekends as well you know tournaments etc and it is really hard to keep on top of their nutrition obviously volume is really vital so just getting enough nutrition in and so that means you know good three really good meals a day and probably two very substantial snacks um i do think it's important to think about protein um because that's something that often is not in the snacks you know the ones that you buy in the shops anyway um so to think about breakfast being things like eggs yogurt even some peanut butter or some seeds in the porridge or whatever it might be and then the other thing which we find is that when you are doing lots of sports you burn up a lot of something called magnesium and magnesium when you become a little bit deficient it can lead to tight muscles so that I can lead to injury, but also restless legs at night, for instance.

6:57Oh my God, this is Kit, my son. Yeah, actually. This is Kit, this is my son, who has his legs virtually, well, when he's been playing a lot of football or he's had a tournament or a match or whatever, he's complaining of cramps and he wakes up crying with them and it's a real nightmare. But that's because he's not a great eater. So those growing pains as well. So magnesium's fantastic. And obviously you can get magnesium through diet and that can be green veggies it can be nuts and seeds it can be dark chocolate dark chocolate's a really good snack too however what we find is generally it's quite hard to get enough of that in um so you need the equivalent of about two little uh your your if you look at your fingernails if you've got your two little fingernails that's about the amount of magnesium you need each day and imagine it's just a tiny little mineral within food so it's quite a lot so what we often suggest is something called epsom salt baths which are magnesium baths magnesium flakes you can use too but sometimes the kids say it's a little bit itchy on their skin so i often suggest the epsom salts which don't seem to have the itch and what happens is when they're in the bath their body their skin absorbs that magnesium and of course it goes straight into the legs or in the arms or whatever hurts so it's really soothing that's a really good idea isn't it and my daughter who's super sporty she's actually just um just done her finals at uni but she played high level sport the whole way through she used she's took a whole bag of epsom salts stole them from mom's cupboard exactly what about magnesium tablets can kids take those absolutely they can um i would say that I haven't found the winning supplement, as in taste versus...

8:44So I said, you've got to get quite a lot in. And so those chewables and gummies, there's a little bit in there. So they will help, but sometimes you need quite a few so you get through them quite quickly. So we do, at Nature Doc, we have an online shop stocking children-friendly magnesium, zinc, probiotics, et cetera. So you can come onto our site and we can guide you through that. Because sometimes when I take too much magnesium, I get an upset stomach. Is that a thing? Yes. So the sort of cheap, easy magnesium to get is called magnesium citrate. And that tends to be the one that's in the gummies, et cetera.

9:22And yes, it can sort of help muscles, et cetera. But equally, it does loosen up the bowel. So some people are very sensitive to that. So I usually recommend something called magnesium bisglycinate or glycinate, as it's known as, which doesn't seem to disrupt the bowel. but is really good at relaxing. And it's very good for kind of like the anxious child, the one that kind of their brain's going at 100 miles an hour. And can you put like supplements, say like in a smoothie or something? Because when you just said about taste, I bought this magnesium. I have done loads of research online, like to find a good one for kids.

9:57Found this one and it's a liquid. And he won't take it because it tastes disgusting. So I'm thinking, OK, well, can I put it like he will have, he makes himself a smoothie every morning and i'm trying to well basically we're trying to get my daughter to eat more protein so we put yogurt and stuff like that in it great she doesn't really eat a lot of meat and he needs more protein and so can i just put it in that or will it like not work do you know i mean you don't know of course it works because if you think about it magnesium is in food right so if you blend up your magnesium liquid or even the tablet and even the capsules you can literally bung them in and go, you know, press the button.

10:36It goes and blitz it, blitz it up. So, yeah, of course you can. And it just adds, it just boosts up that smoothie. Right. OK. So it's just do that. But what I would do is if they haven't liked the taste that much on its own, I would just add a tiddly bit the first time and sort of build in because otherwise they might say, oh, it tastes of that funny magnesium. Yeah. And then you've got and then you shoot yourself in the foot with the smoothies as well, potentially. Yeah. Listen, gosh, I really relate to this one, although hang on, hang on in there to this person because it does get better. My son refuses to try new things.

11:12Please help. He literally eats like five things. I really hear you. So some kids are just highly selective eaters. You know, they will only eat a few foods. They feel they're safe, etc. etc. Sometimes it's got to the extent where they're actually really fearful of trying new food. And this is categorised as something called ARFID, which is this avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, which is where it's incredibly hard to get them to eat new foods. Now, there's one angle to this is to say, what will they eat? And then can you supercharge it? Or can you find a very, very similar food that is almost the same but it's just got a little bit more nutrition in it so often they like say a potato waffle and you could almost start making say waffles at home to begin with with potato but then you might use flour then you might use eggs then you might add some carrot then you might you know you can add bits and pieces and um I've sometimes been known as the sort of waffle queen because a lot of my recipes are waffles just because we know that's a really good inroad to the crunchy beige kids equally a lot of parents will say crunchy beige kids i've got a crunchy yeah exactly equally a lot of the parents will say they will only eat five foods but actually if you gave them something sweet they'd be absolutely fine so again the in roads could be like um i've got some really delicious chocolate muffins that have got don't know the beetroots in there so i have brownies with courgette so again you can try and adapt it if they'll eat sweet foods but they're not necessarily the foods you want them to have every meal but actually at least you've got some good nutrition going in even if it looks like their normal brownie etc but the biggest tip i've got is that normally we find that these kids who were highly restrictive if you look back they were eating quite well at the outset so when you were first weaning them onto food they were actually eating you know their sweet potato puree or whatever and they were they were doing pretty well and at some point whether it's after lots of colds and coughs and antibiotics or upset tummies their food sort of got narrower and narrower were and that to me says it's something to do with the immune system rather than actually what's going on they haven't actually made that decision so when your immune system's low you often become low in a mineral called zinc yeah and zinc is vital for immunity but it's also vital for gastric juices helping a child to grow helping with a sense of smell and taste and because it's so vital neurologically it can also alter the perception of texture in the mouth luckily zinc as a supplement and icy supplements as scaffolding so they're not forever and ever they're just to enable that child to get into the space to be more open to eating more foods is luckily zinc drops are almost tasteless I'd say they're much easier to get in say than the magnesium as I said magnesium you can get in there are nice tastes but this is like easy peasy they're normally a little bit salty rather than anything else so they often go in really easily into apple juice or orange juice or even the pancake mix or the porridge or whatever their sort of safe food might be and you can build it up slowly and I get messages all the time on my Instagram it's phenomenal saying we've tried the zinc our child lives literally our child with arfid was eating four foods 10 days later three weeks later whatever it might be they're now eating like broccoli and spinach and it's just crazy so it's something that every parent can at least give a go yeah yeah why not it's no harm i guess is there no you can safely take zinc for three months as long as you follow what's on the label um is there a particular one that you recommend for kids well the one that we stock is by a company called metabolics and the reason we stock it is because they literally are these like clear drops that are almost tasteless as I said so they go in anything okay brilliant great to know we'll be right back after this short break therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that text.

15:56You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends.

16:32You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. 75 % of women who seek menopause care don't receive it. The lying awake at 3 a.m. wondering what's happening to your body ends now. Midi is virtual care built for women in perimenopause and menopause with clinicians who specialize in women's health.

17:16Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. Midlife needs MIDI. Visit JoinMIDI.com to book your first visit today. That's JoinMIDI.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ plus individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you.

17:54The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org slash LGBTQ. That's redcrossblood.org slash LGBTQ.

18:20Welcome back to this episode of Made by Mamas. Now, where were we? Thoughts on mushroom supplements for improving concentration and focus in kids. Oh, before you answer that, I went through a period of using, taking lion's mane. Oh, yeah. And I was all zingy and tingly. I was getting weird rushes through my arms. Do you remember? I don't know if you remember. So I don't mind the feeling. But then it was sort of, it was quite distracting for me. So I don't know if I was taking too many. And then I started freaking out. And I was like, oh my God, what's wrong with my arms? What's wrong with the tingly?

18:56So it did have quite a big, strong impact on me. Whereas my husband takes it and he doesn't even feel it. So is that, again, would your kids feel, yeah, let's get your thoughts on mushrooms just in general well first of all what's very important to realize that there is no research on lion's mane and adhd specifically i think a lot of people think i've got adhd i can't focus i'm going to take lion's mane yeah however there is really good research with lion's mane and cognitive decline which is what that's why i was taking it yeah so we think about it for the older generation who are worried about like me i'm 55 um the older generation who are thinking you know what my brain's a bit foggy keep on losing my keys you know can't remember what i've just said etc etc and it can be really really good however it is safe to give kids and we often find that one of the aspects to children finding it hard to focus and concentrate is that their brain's a bit foggy.

19:59But I think you have to go in cautiously and start with a very, very small amount. So we have this sort of way of saying it's low and slow. So you start with the smallest dose you can, which might be a pinch of powder or even quarter of a gummy or half a gummy. And then you build up slowly and just see how your child is rather than go in slam with, you know, with an adult dose. And then they're a little bit wired. What does lion's do as far as i'm aware it's it's known as neuroprotective which means that it helps the neurons in the brain to reconnect so it's very healing so it's very good after say a head injury so we do a lot of work with kids who've been concussed for instance they're having real problems having had a head injury and that is something that can be very very good at kind of thinking about that so there are aspects to it that i really really like but and as i said you can get gummies and it can be great and it can be make a massive difference i would say that the people that the kids that are most likely to find benefit are those that are going through exams or having to do essays so probably the older kids like secondary school kids yeah yeah are there other mushrooms though because this person doesn't specifically speak about lion's mane that was just my experience what are they what would be the other types of mushrooms that you would i feel always getting ads on instagram for mushrooms yeah i don't know why i just seem to be it is a massive market yeah so the shiitake which are ones you can buy in the supermarket um they are great they're fantastic for the immune system and even if your child doesn't particularly like mushrooms you could chop it up really finely and add it to the bolognese yeah that's what i do or risotto or something like that and that is so good for the immune system so shiitake has been used um the really good research in australia looking at in the oncology wards and finding it really making a massive difference to cancer patients so it's a really good supportive immune mushroom and i would say if your child is say over two or three you could give them a little bit of shiitake but obviously as food you could give it to them when they're really diddy and it's fine it's just as a supplement they tend to be a bit stronger right okay um and then you've got something called cordyceps oh yes i love it cordyceps is great it's really good for kind of stress so um i guess it would be for someone who is getting overwhelmed tired so this is where as i said we try with the parents so often we have to help them first so i always say put your oxygen mask on first so there are blends for the parents cordyceps of course if you've got a child that is maybe finding it really difficult to go to school you know they're saying i don't want to school if i go to school i'm anxious whatever it could be helpful but it probably wouldn't be my first port of call okay um what i love for kids there are two sort of these kind of supplements that you can get in all sorts of forms which i really really like there's something called theanine um and theanine is what you find in tea and it's the thing that you know when you've had a shock and someone says, sit down and have a cup of tea, love.

23:21And afterwards... That irritates me. Oh, I love that. No, that would be Georgia's idea of heaven. That's like someone giving me a cup of tea. It's like for, you know, celebration, commiseration. Shock. Shock. Not shock. A cup of tea will solve all problems. But if you're all shaky, if you have that tea, you're less shaky afterwards. You feel calmer. So that is the theanine. And so it's really good, as I said, for the anxious child, the child that can't get to sleep, that child that's brain is going as i said a million miles an hour um and then there's something called saffron um and saffron's what's in paella yeah yeah um and this is an amazing amazing spice that is again very good for that high fight or flight state but it's been researched with adhd specifically for young kids who can't get to sleep and young kids that can't focus so that would be more i go more towards those probably than the mushrooms to begin with just because they seem to have more evidence yeah and we've used them in the clinic and we found them really really helpful you've just touched on adhd adhd and someone here has put best breakfast foods for non-fussy son with adhd before school to concentrate eggs would be my very very you know if they'll eat eggs two or three you know it could be scrambled eggs it could be an omelette it could be dippy eggs um just eggs glow another really good food is blueberries they're actually known as brain berries because they the polyphenols which are the purple color helps the brain cells to connect yes it helps more flow to the brain we've had such a win in our house in the last four weeks i'm not sure i've shared it but we um kit's finally eating cheese omelets i'm so jealous cheese omelettes he had an egg allergy growing up so he didn't touch and he's grown out of it that's phenomenal and now I'm putting cheese and ham in them and he's having them with like wholemeal sourdough whatever it is wholemeal toast and I'm just noticing such a big change actually in his growth as well his muscles and just his ability to go on for longer oh it's just I can't I just I feel like crying it's such a big win for us that is huge I think egg allergy is one of the hardest things to navigate yeah I think dairy free.

25:45There are some really, they're not perfect, but there are alternatives out there. But actually, I've got a blog coming out. So every week we have a weekly email that goes out called Healthy Bites. And I try and bring together a new blog and a new recipe. And upcoming, we've got an amazing egg free cake. Wow. Which is a carrot cake. It's delicious. It's got everything in it except for egg. And then also I've got a blog on how to make anything egg free. So for the parents out there that are navigating this egg free thing, it's so tough. So anyway, I brought together all our clinical pearls and all our practical tips with the egg free thing.

26:31That sounds great. What are your thoughts on alternative milks to dairy? And which ones do you like and which ones don't you like? so this is going to sound a little bit harsh but the reality is all of the dairy-free milks are essentially white water they're not massively nutritious they taste nice they do the job so if you're dairy-free and you want to have a bowl of cereal or you want to have creamy hot chocolate or whatever brilliant you know but remember they usually don't have any protein in them they the fats they use are sunflower oil or rapeseed oil which isn't brilliant for you i'm not anti-seed oils entirely but you know what i mean they're not great and if they are fortified which some are they use the calcium that is like chalks it's actually really difficult to absorb and then the vitamin d that's really difficult to absorb and then the b12 that's difficult to absorb you know it goes on and on and on it's basically they're like the forms that are cheap and easy to put in them but they're not actually best for the human body to get and often the kids that need to be dairy-free do have some sort of gut issue and that's why they're dairy-free in the first place yeah so this is where it's very hard there are brands and formulas that are being developed or have been developed which are good they're not cheap but you can buy those and then sort of mix up and they've got lots you know a full range of vitamins and minerals and protein etc in there they're often pea based or almond based or something but the ones you buy in the shops aren't brilliant but as long as what i say is they're not bad foods of course they're going to do the job and if that makes that child feel really happy that they've had their bowl of cereal or whatever that's really important to me yeah but just to think how can i get some calcium in right you know or how can i get some protein in so often with hot chocolates i'm saying you know maybe if because often mums have got collagen powder at home or something you might want to put a scoop in add some protein brilliant done if you want some calcium could you stir in some almond butter because that will melt in nicely you know and that will give it that calcium it's about adding isn't it rather than taking things away sure absolutely absolutely so we know uh you know if you've got a free-from child you do need to let lean on that free-from aisle from time to time especially things like picnics in the summer you know it's really hard to you know be getting up at like four in the morning to prep everything you know immaculately and then they might not eat it because it looks a bit weird or strange so um you know i think we've all been there but i think the most important thing is to think how can i maybe what i'm in control of breakfast i'm in control of dinner I'm in control of what can I do to get their nutrition really think about those meals so knowing that lunch might be a bit rubbish so some schools you know they end up with the same baked potato and tuna every day or whatever which is yeah if they've got the short their own choice that's the thing isn't it like if my daughter had her own choice every day she'd have a white bread cheese sandwich and probably not actually eat it because she'd say she's gone but that would honestly be her and so I let her do it like once a week and then other days I like pick other bits for her.

29:53We'll be right back after this short break. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan.

30:32There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

31:1575 % of women who seek menopause care don't receive it. The lying awake at 3 a.m. wondering what's happening to your body ends now. Midi is virtual care built for women in perimenopause and menopause with clinicians who specialize in women's health. Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. Midlife needs Midi. Visit joinmidi.com to book your first visit today. That's joinmidi.com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage. Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ plus individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation.

31:58The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you. The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org. That's redcrossblood.org.

32:33Welcome back to this episode of Made by Mamas. Now, where were we? Someone said here, I personally would love some questions and some advice positioned to the mother's health and the vitamins that we should be taking when we're so exhausted. Yeah, really great question. As I said, we mentioned this earlier, putting that oxygen mask on first. Now, obviously, some people co-sleep, whether it's by choice or whether because their child really needs them next door to them. And that can be hard because, you know, you're not necessarily getting that deep sleep because sometimes you're on that hyper aware state.

33:07But essentially, I think you start with sleep if you can, because that sleep quality, even if you're only grabbing a few hours here and there, it's still trying to get the best quality you can. So I think that magnesium we were talking about earlier, the magnesium bisglistinate is really, really good. equally saffron or theanine would be really really helpful to take in the evening probably to have an epsom salt bath before bed as well just to wind down just give yourself that mummy time because during the day we just don't have a moment to ourselves so it's probably the only time of the day where we might so i think that's really really vital and then in the morning you know wake up hydrate yourself have a glass of water by your bed maybe have a pinch of salt if you feel a bit woozy in the morning um and you know maybe have some coconut water if you need electrolytes but you know basically perk yourself up in the morning a lot of parents feel quite depleted and actually b vitamins so it could be just a broad spectrum of b vitamins can give you that little bit of boost in the morning and then you know the cordyceps or or there's a lovely herb i just adore which has served me so well over the years it's called rhodiola right and rhodiola is kind of like the mummy herb and it's there for kind of give you physical and mental resilience during the day without making you overstimulated like coffee would okay that's brilliant brilliant advice how to get enough protein into children who don't overly like meat please i hear this all the time so as long as they haven't got allergies these are my tips so first of all i think most kids love cheese yeah yeah and it's okay to give them lots of cheese you know and it could be cream cheese it could be you know like in food as well um and um i think what i my big tip in the morning is if they like porridge yeah lots of kids do even in some of they like porridge is when you're cooking the oats you crack an egg into the oats oh really yeah and you stir it and I honestly they don't even know it's there just makes it so silky smooth and it's phenomenal it just gives them that boost of protein I saw someone put an egg yolk in a smoothie the other day and I was like oh I mean will they taste I mean will they taste that or I know yeah it's but I saw them do it and it was for their kids I haven't done it yet but what do we think about that what do we think about that I think it is safe as long as the eggs have that red lion stamp on them yeah that shows that they don't have salmonella basically yeah so that's what that red stamps there for whether it's organic or not it's still the red stamp that red line is is really the mark to know that it's safe so even pregnant women could have a raw egg if it had the red line on it which is good to know yeah yeah so yes you can and you know i mean if you think about it egg mousse is raw you know but we don't think about it well like mousse that's made from chocolate mousse yeah chocolate mousse yeah chocolate mousse mayonnaise yeah mayonnaise it's got raw egg in it you can tell i'm not the chef guys just thinking back into my mind but yeah okay maybe that's another so it's fine and it would emulsify so what it does is it would basically make everything sort of shiny and smooth and easier to drink down so actually it could be really helpful oh great love that loads of questions around um things that children can eat to reduce eczema or dry skin yeah am i right in thinking it all comes from the gut thank you for saying that so top of the class uh top of the class yes absolutely so actually um i wrote a blog a very long time ago um and on on this and it's probably been one of our most popular blogs the whole way through and essentially i see eczema as not just itchy on the outside it's also itchy on the inside and anyone who's had a temporary flare of eczema out of the blue will often feel that their tummy feels a little bit out of whack feels a bit inflamed and so there's been tons and tons of research on the gut microbiome which is this balance of bacteria in the tummy to find that those with eczema often have too much of the inflammatory bacteria the bad guys and not enough of the good beneficial bacteria and so what we usually start off with is because often they're quite sensitive kids so they often have food intolerances or allergies so I'd love to get yogurt and kefir and all those sorts of things in but often they are dairy-free because it exacerbates it so again we start with the supplements as i said just as scaffolding which are probiotics known as live bacteria or beneficial bacteria or friendly bacteria or you know symbiotics there's all sorts of names for them that these days and essentially there are certain strains and if anyone's listening to this and saying that's my child you can dm us on instagram and we can tell you exactly which one that's been really successful but we've literally seen we've been sent i don't know hundreds of photos over the years of the before and after eczema skin just by taking a probiotic yeah you also want to think about vitamin d levels often parents will say you know what it's when they get the colds and viruses during the winter it's worse yeah so that's sort of a vitamin d picture if it's very very dry skin and they're not eating much fish or good quality olive oil or avocados you know all those sort of lovely oily foods then you might want to think about a fish oil and it's the summer now so usually if the eczema is bad in the summer so often parents will say you know it's the combination of the sun and the sun cream and you know it just makes everything really bad then there is a supplement called quercetin which helps with things like hay fever and summer allergies etc etc and that does need to be sort of opened up and put into a little bit smoothie or something but it can be really good at sort of dialing it down so often i think some obviously some kids just have eczema the same throughout the year but often parents see a pattern depending on whether it's because of the heat or because of the immune system being low during the winter.

39:42I think you can always, you can tell, or certainly can with my kids, they get these black, really dark circles. And I know, because my son had eczema, obviously, with all his intolerances and stuff, I know his gut is off and that's generally after an illness. Absolutely. I can tell just by looking at him. Yeah, I always find that in the winter, they always have those dark eyes and you think, you just need something. The goodness. Some goodness. Of the vitamin D. So, yeah, in my healthy bites, I had a blog only a few weeks ago about all the reasons for dark circles. So parents can hone in and go, ooh, I think it's that.

40:20It's that. Someone here has put, Overweight son who loves good food and cooking, but is always hungry and eats big portions. What should I do? So very often over time, they just grow taller and broader and they just even out. So some parents do worry, but actually if they've got a really good feeding pattern, then that's great. Sometimes when you analyze the diet, they're having a lot more carbohydrate and less of the protein and healthy fats. And so their body is basically saying, I need something more. I'm always hungry. Yeah. And so what I would do is to start the meal off with the protein.

41:06So it could be, you know, the scrambled eggs at breakfast, for instance. And then if they're still hungry, you know, think about more of the carby sort of thing. But very often they're just not quite getting enough protein for them. As I said, the sort of rule of thumb is that children generally need, well, us as adults as well, one to one and a half grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. so if a child's 40 kilos yeah you want 40 to 60 grams of protein a day okay yeah sort of kind of bandwidth how much is give it to me in fists yeah so i'll tell it to you in food because i it's better so tell it to me in food not fists um because everyone's slightly different so a big chicken breast you know good size chicken breast is about 24 whoa um an egg is six so it varies quite a lot i always think eggs are two eggs and a chicken breast essentially yeah that would be that would you know because if you think about it a young child is not gonna have a whole chicken breast at a meal they might have a third or half so basically it's thinking probably one or two eggs at breakfast you know maybe half a breast chicken at lunch and then maybe a salmon steak or something in the evening.

42:28Yeah, Kit does like salmon actually. Yeah. And tuna. Yeah. But sometimes just to just give the sort of little bit of sort of, you know, a bit more detailed answer to that is sometimes what can happen is that the gut is not digesting and absorbing as efficiently as it should and therefore the food's sitting in the gut. Right. And so they feel hungry because those signals haven't been satiated because the food hasn't properly been speedily digested enough. We saw this kid years ago. I mean, he's just, he's so lovely. I still kind of see the family. And he was probably six or seven and he'd wake up in the morning literally going, sausages.

43:13And I mean, he'd eat something like, you know, six sausages for breakfast, two chicken breasts at lunch, three salmon steaks in the evening and was still hungry. And we found out that he just had this really inflamed gut and malabsorption so he just wasn't so that's why we can investigate with stool tests and things like that to understand talking of stool someone's come in and said if a child's stools are always loose what should i do so there are lots of reasons for it okay so it could be a lactose intolerance which is the sugary part of milk and to see if it happens with sort of ice cream or cream or milk then it's going to be that but if it's not happening with say hard cheese then that's a good sort of indicator occasionally it's something called a fructose intolerance so it could be fruit is triggering it right which is such pain because we all love fruit and it's good for us um and then um the other aspect could be that there is an imbalance in that gut microbiome so there's a bug in there and even though we kind of think oh yeah you get salmonella and you know obviously it takes a couple of weeks to sort out but basically you get back on track there are just some kids who still have that effect a long time afterwards it's almost like the gut immune system isn't quite working and therefore these things linger for longer so again with the stool test that we run we can look for parasites and all sorts of things that cryptosporidium salmonella campylobacter these things can stick in the system for a very long time and actually then we can help to reduce that load and to help heal the gut and then get it back on track do you remember when we came back from kenya and kit had um it transpired that he had um tape hookworm oh my goodness no and tapeworm and it was really six months of him i mean and every single morning he was lying on the ground in the kitchen like white as a sheet it zapped everything out of him and it took me months and months and months stool samples blood tests for somebody to identify and get to the bottom of it that was 18 months ago so he's really fine now but it just whacked him oh parasite it's really hard to pick up things like tapeworm in a stool test yes um and therefore you do need to end up with, I guess you ended up at the hospital of tropical diseases, did you?

45:40Yeah, so we did that. And then we went to see Rianne, who is essentially her, she's like our herbalist AD, and we just went down the Eastern Medicine Way. But they just wouldn't give us it. It was really weird because the stool samples were coming back negative. They generally do. So I would say, as far as I'm aware, something like 60 % of parasites are missed by stool tests. yeah so they're not accurate enough yet so i think sometimes you have to think let's think about what has happened they've been to africa yeah they come back ill it's not getting better could it be a bacteria could it be a parasite and often the great thing about herbs is that they usually zap both at once yeah um whereas antibiotics obviously for bacteria and then there are specific parasite meds but you have to have a positive result yeah to be able to give that so it is it's a really tricky one to navigate but I um I experienced this myself I went backpacking when I was 22 and picked up something called Jardia oh yes yes yeah it was and I I think that's what kick-started so many of my fatigue issues and why actually probably it was my blessing because it got me into what I do now um but yeah it was awful you know it was and I I reckon it was in my system for 10 years wow yeah because even you know I just couldn't get a definitive answer and this was you know it's just 30 years ago so it's a long time ago and things have improved a bit but not massively yeah we've probably only got time for like one yeah one more so we haven't really touched an iron which we've had quite a lot of questions on so someone here has put blood work shows my 22 two month old has low iron best supplement to increase we are working on diet well done for working on diet it's really hard to raise iron levels um and so do your best probably work on this with supplements for three or four months get them retested if it's gone right up fantastic that was just you know what they needed um but if the levels aren't going up you will want to look at malabsorption celiac disease things like that because there may be another sort of layer to it but yeah the food's great i mean you know at that sort of age you can probably still get liver in red meat greens you know things like black beans and so forth so there's a lot of iron rich foods we stock something called nature's aid iron drops which are fantastic and suitable for that age and it's a good level of of iron as well it's something like 10 milligrams so it's quite a lot for so i which is the sort of rda and a little bit more so that would probably be really helpful um but yeah iron levels it's great that the doctors have flagged this to be low if they have i would also talk to them to see if they can give a prescription because the dosage is higher than than anyone you can buy on the on the high street or to your nature doc okay amazing wow lucinda i feel like this is so much more yeah um and and i know what help that will be to so many people listening today so thank you because isn't it great just to have it in one place as well and people can book like a consultation with you or you know your team and try and get to the bottom if there's any really specific like things that need issues yeah yeah yeah great question so basically um i i guess we have the free information which is the blog you know recipe blog and sort of information blog we have my books and the three books and my latest one's called brain brilliance which is very specifically for neurodivergent kids but anyone really that has a brain um and then um we have courses so there's one for adhd and one for autism which are online and then the sort of more bespoke one-to-one work is with our clinical team where we'll run the stool tests iron tests mineral tests whatever that we need to do to get to the root cause of what is going on um but we're really there to be a helping hand to as many families as possible lucinda well you definitely have done that today thank you so much for coming in lucinda Miller, everyone.

49:58Thank you.

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