Sunna van Kampen on Making Healthy Choices

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0:43Georgia Dayton: While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag-and-drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash tickets.

1:21Georgia Dayton: That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash tickets.

1:32Georgia Dayton: Hello and welcome to Made by Mamas, the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman. And I'm Georgia Dayton. And 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.

2:05Georgia Dayton: You can also find us on Instagram. We're on at Made by Mummers. But for now, George, should we get into it? Hello and welcome to Tuesday's episode of the podcast. It's just me today. So has buggered off to Ibiza again. So, you know, we're used to this now, aren't we? Just me. And off she is, signing herself. off um no I mean it's been I've not been here as well before so um that's what we do we help each other out of course it's not the same without her but um we have got a really good guest on the podcast today um he's definitely someone who on social media has divided opinions I personally have always really enjoyed his posts and I found it really really helpful um and I know that there has yeah like I said like there's been some backlash which we did get him to clear up in the episode and just give a bit of explanation around it um if you have found yourself like you know looking into what your kids are eating more looking what look into what looking into what you're eating more getting a little bit more into the UPF world and what what they are and how they impact our bodies and our moods and everything then I'm sure you've probably heard of him so Today, I am joined by the incredible Suna from Tonic Health.

3:26Georgia Dayton: Today's guest has single-handedly changed the way Britain shops. He's the man who got us all reaching for Jason Sourdough, flipping every packet over in the supermarket and suddenly wondering what half the ingredients in our cupboards are. If you've ever found yourself standing in Tesco squinting at the ingredients list because of a video you've seen online, you probably have him to blame. He's the founder of Tonic Health. And today we're finding out a bit more about Sina. So welcome. Do you think you did get everyone eating Jason's sourdough? Because I ate it for a long time and then I couldn't buy it anymore.

4:00It was sold out for a long time. Yeah, I mean, we've spoken to Jason's and they've even said at times, them and Cross the Malika as well with their raps have said, can you just not post for a minute? because we just need to get back in stock and get availability sorted because it just went crazy. There was a period where it was really like a moment and everyone went, wow, we need sourdough. And then they were just buying it and they couldn't build the production capability quick enough in the factories.

4:30Georgia Dayton: Yeah, I think no one really ate sourdough unless you were like a foodie. Yeah. For years and years and years, it was just like a thing. A fancy weekend thing. I remember my friend used to always take the mickey out of me because she'd be like, oh, God, you just always buy the posh bread. From I don't know how long. And then now I've got, like, in-laws eating it. Like, what the hell is going on? I think they're the third biggest bread company in the UK now. Wow. Yeah, it's gone mainstream. Oh, my gosh. That is wild. But anyway, we're not here to talk about sourdough bread, so don't switch off, guys.

5:03Georgia Dayton: We want to know about you. So what was your childhood like? What was eating like growing up? Go back to childhood. Right, I love this. Well, so I guess was brought up in a little town in Devon called Totnes, which has quite a well-established kind of hippie community. And I guess my mum was one of those 80s hippies that kind of migrated there. And because of that, I think my childhood was actually always centered around, you know, organic, healthy food. They always shopped at the local health food store. you know and meals were homemade you know we'd sit down and we'd have proper dinner at the table um and you know that was just what we did um and it was real food and my mom was always away a bit ahead of the curve on like always eating organic and caring about where the food came from local farm stuff and so I guess that rubbed off on me a bit although I fully then rebelled as a teenager and whatever else and kind of ate mcdonald's and like everyone else but i think that foundation definitely um set me up to kind of have a better consciousness or an understanding of what food is basically in when you rebelled could you tell the difference in how you're feeling and stuff like that probably not in the beginning yeah so like you know as you become sort of 14, 15, we'd, you know, sneak out and get to the McDonald's if we could or whatever.

6:37And then probably until I would say maybe later, more like 2021, when I started to really, you know, play a lot of university sport and football and other things that I started to realize, oh, like there's an impact to having a good, healthy, carby meal before a game of football gives you extra energy and if I want to go to the gym I need to eat more protein and get fit so I started reading men's health and figuring out there was this study that showed this percentage increase in your performance if you did this and so that was kind of when it started to click because of sport where you know I'd rebelled for a few years I partied at uni like everyone else going out drinking three times a week or whatever and then it was that sport inflection moment that made me go oh wait actually food is really powerful let me see what happens when I start to change things and start to eat real food and then just felt better had more energy you know was recovering quicker from sport and I was like oh wow this is really good so that was the kind of first moment but it was very foundational it was you know protein fats and carbohydrates

7:45Georgia Dayton: yeah kind of it so it was to do with performance initially initially yeah interesting and so then tell us about your story so you're at uni and what were you studying what what you know what job were you going to go into so I studied management and strategy um I went to Aston business school thought everything in the world is a business so why not learn business didn't really know what I wanted to do um and then found my first job at Mattel the toy company doing Barbie and Hot Wheels and Fisher Price and then came out of that and managed to get a job in banking so went into Barclays Bank which I thought okay great you know the best paid grad job you can find let's go yeah move to the city and that's where actually the kind of next level of interest kind of unpicked itself because a couple of years in I found myself getting sick four or five times at winter catching every cold going didn't know what was going on and I was like wait why like you know I thought you just caught a cold so then started to kind of I've got a bit of a curious minds I started to read a little bit about it spoke to my doctor spoke to a nutritionist started to figure out that there's this whole world of micronutrition that I'd kind of largely ignored which is obviously the vitamins the minerals and the plants that really fuel your body on a cellular level and within sort of six months of having done the blood tests realized I had deficiencies and then started making my own like supplements at home because I went to the supermarket and just realized everything on that shelf, although it's a vitamin and supposed to be healthy for you, the first ingredient was sugar or it was so low dose, it wasn't going to fix my deficiencies according to the science I'd read.

9:28So started making my own cocktails at home, if you would. And then within six months, kind of done, colds gone, didn't seem to get colds in the winter anymore. And I was like, wow, okay, this is like even more powerful than I'd ever imagined from a kind of sports perspective um and so that was the kind of moment where i had the idea for tonic the vitamin business and that actually the entire vitamin industry is basing on that 100 % nrv which is actually defined as the minimum amount you need to prevent a deficiency it's got nothing to do with the optimal amount for optimal energy mood immunity and there's this big disconnect between what the industry does and what the science says you need and i was like this is crazy like we could all just like get rid of colds if we just had the right nutrient intake and so that's which led me down the path of going okay I think I want to start this vitamin company and change the industry but I don't know how so then I carried on my career and went to Virgin Atlantic and Holidays and then went to a baby food company with Piccolo baby food that got me really into the nutrition because I was working with a nutritionist on a daily basis and understanding how important like early life nutrition was um and then after setting up an agency to raise some cash so that I could start tonic I started tonic in uh February 2020 wow that's not even that long ago is it really this is my sixth years yeah but the content as well actually was never meant to be part of it I was terrible in front of camera I was scared to put my ideas out there I didn't know this wow so

11:05Georgia Dayton: you were just going to start basically a supplement brand and just be like in the background not yeah yeah yeah I was happy I just wanted to build this vitamin company that helped people feel the power of real nutrition and beat up the industry a little bit and stop them from kind of doing all these shady practices so I wanted to change that and I decided that you know I was going to build this company but because of COVID interestingly I had this challenge where I'd managed to get my products onto the shelves of like Holland and Barrett. And then nobody knew they were there because footfall was down 95%.

11:42So that initial like people are going to go to the store, discover my brand, read the packet, try it and then like it and buy it again. That didn't exist. And I was like, oh my God, how am I going to make this work? Like how am I going to make this business survive through COVID? And so that's when I had to lean into, okay, the digital world. How do I help educate people? I started writing blogs, newsletters, tried podcasting. And it was then short form video content that took off when I was just trying everything. But, you know, my first videos were terrible. And then you just get better and better and practice and practice.

12:16Yeah. Yeah.

12:17Georgia Dayton: And I think as well, you probably, I mean, you know, there's a few people out there doing, you know, talking about what we're, you know, buying in the supermarket and looking at the back of the packets. But for me, you were definitely the person who really made me think about it. and particularly when it came to feeding my kids where how old are your kids we don't you know so Bodhi my youngest is two yeah and Jax is four and a half four and a half so you started this before before they came along yeah that's interesting yeah and then you know my natural progression into kind of kids vitamins and more family parenting content has been because I'm going through it right so I didn't have kids and then I had a kid and I went to the vitamin aisle for my baby and was like okay so you can't eat broccoli yet like let me get him some vitamins because it's a good idea even the NHS recommend it looked at the vitamin aisle for babies and was like hold on why is there gums preservatives stabilizers and sugar in my baby vitamin when they can't even digest food properly like that didn't make any sense and so then did videos went super viral everyone went crazy like oh my god what's going on and then you know fast forward 18 months we developed the UK's first baby vitamin without any of those junk additives and just real vitamins and minerals and plants without you know the sugar and the preservatives so that's kind of how it's gone ever since really yeah and obviously you do lots about like making it easy to feed your kids without you know any nasties but what's the most shocking thing I guess you found when you know you've been doing your research around kids lunch boxes or kids food in general well the most shocking fact which is so shocking that most people still don't believe it when I say it to them is that 82 percent of a kid's lunch box in the UK is ultra processed so we hear the headline number that's like 57 percent of the UK's diet and calories now comes from ultra processed food but if you look at the lunchbox and there's been studies done on it it's 82 because if you think about sliced white bread ham in a sandwich little packet of cookies or crisps you know and then there might be a token little bit of apple but the apple's the only bit that's non-processed everything else is coming from a packet and being chucked in there and you know frankly it's shocking when you then look at the outcomes of that because again this is another one that most people don't believe but the study is there which show that kids in the UK are now seven centimeters shorter than European kids through a lack of nutrition in their diet and that's not something through genetics because they've tracked this since the early 2000s and we were all tracking equally and then by 2010 the US and the UK just started tail tailing off so as that kind of ultra processed food consumption tips over half of the diet basically we as a human population don't get enough nutrition in our body to fully maximize our growth potential which is insane wow i need to take that with my parents then don't i why am i so sure could be genetics partly don't blame me don't blame your parents just yet we'll be right back after this short break

15:35Georgia Dayton: back to school is busy enough the last thing you need is shopping that makes it harder Whether you're moving into a dorm, your first apartment, or just getting organized for the semester, Wayfair makes it easy to get everything you need in one place. Furniture, bedding, storage, decor, study essentials, all at prices you'll love with fast shipping before move-in day. Get everything you need for back-to-school season. Shop Wayfair.com today. Wayfair, every style, every home. I'm Jake Stouck, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working.

16:17Georgia Dayton: While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built. No drag-and-drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash tickets.

16:56Georgia Dayton: That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash tickets.

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18:06Georgia Dayton: Welcome back to this episode of Made by Mamas. Now, where were we? The thing is, I'm into nutrition and I've always been into cooking. I say always probably because my mum wasn't really into cooking and it made me into cooking. But I am into it. It's become part of my life. But I do really understand that for so many people, it's like another stress. you know like you think oh it's just I I just want to feed my kids I can't think about all of that of course what do you say and what advice do you give to people who just it just feels like another pressure yeah and you know I get it yeah everything's brutally hard I'm running a company I'm being an influencer I'm trying to do everything I've got two young kids and it is tough and there are those times where you're just like I can't be asked I'm giving him pasta he's going to eat it it's easy to cook like don't stress what I try and do is rather than say okay now you've got to go from doing what you do to all of a sudden being this like mega healthy Michelin star chef kids that transition is never going to happen and you don't need to the reality is all you need to think about is how do I quickly and easily get extra nutrition into my kids diet through what I'm doing already so like one of the recipes I always put out there is well if your kid's going to eat pizza rather than just buying a frozen pizza and sticking it in the oven which takes you know 10-12 minutes take 10-12 minutes but make your own which can be a cross from a leek wrap you know as the base you toast it up in the oven for a couple of minutes so it crisps up a little bit then you make a um i make a tomato sauce which is just tomato puree eggs cottage cheese mixed herbs all mixed together sounds crazy but still tastes like tomato sauce but you're getting loads of extra protein in and then put your cheese on topping and then whack it in the oven and it's non-ultra processed there's no junk oils in there it's all olive oil and you're getting a pizza that probably has 20 grams of protein rather than it's just a carbohydrate you know processed meal for your kid and so all of a sudden you're at least giving them the protein they need for that growth and development and it'll fill them up better yeah and i guess it doesn't have to be perfect it's just not perfect it's still not a perfect meal right you want some veggies in there and other things but at least it's better like take a step in the right direction if you can yeah like small small steps I guess yeah um so what's family like life like for you are you the one taking charge at home of the nutrition or you know uh I think no I don't I've got to give credit to my wife she's definitely taking charge of the family life at home and doing most of it um you know because I'm working usually every day from nine till six um and then it's like okay dinner time at six so she's usually making the meal and trying to do the best she can and get it done but you know we're not perfect right like screen times aren't great for kids but our routine is kind of like at five o 'clock they get a good hour or so of pepper pig just to like keep them busy and entertained while we then make the dinner and get the evening kind of sorted yeah um so they do have a little bit of a tv in their routine but it's the only way i know how to still cook food because otherwise they'd be running around causing chaos in the kitchen and i wouldn't be able to cook food so yeah for me cooking food is more important than the hour of tv so you have to make those kind of trade-offs and compromises um but yeah it's my wife who's you know looking after the kids getting them to school doing the pickup that kind of thing because i'm stuck working Yeah, of course.

21:42Georgia Dayton: Yeah, no, no. But I think that's just the reality, isn't it? If you want to get things done, like the kids need a screen or they're going to have to have something, there is a trade off. You can never have it completely perfect. No, not at all. No. No, and I mean, we watched TV as kids. I remember my parents just, you know, when we'd wake up at 6.30am or something on a weekend, they'd be like, go downstairs and put the TV on and the kid's TV was always on then. And you'd sit down there and watch TV for an hour or two while your parents had a nice line on the weekend. you know it's just practical things like I don't think we should put so much pressure on ourselves that we have to be these perfect parents because you know we do need those moments of downtime and respite for ourselves so that we can then be better parents when we are present yeah do you ever let your kids have a mcdonald's they haven't they haven't had a mcdonald's would you um yeah yeah I would like when they're a bit older and they know what it is I'm not going to deny it yeah from them but I'll make sure they know what it is yeah they shouldn't eat it but yeah I'm not going to deny it right like if if they go to a birthday party exactly whatever's there go for it it's a birthday party you know I'm not an absolutist in that sense because a I think there is an element of like you should allow your child to explore the world and see what's out there but then you just got to educate them and show what real good looks like you know one of the things i've noticed which is quite interesting because they never really had pouches yeah as a young age when occasionally we've been like stuck and go here go here have a pouch they don't like it right which is really surprising to me it wasn't by design but they don't like it because it's so sugary like it's just pureed fruit so it's so such an intense sweet flavor that they've never really had that they're just like what is this yeah doesn't taste right doesn't taste right and it just shows you how like malleable kids palates are and why it is important to show them what good looks like yeah so that they're yeah and also I guess they'll probably start as they get older to learn what feels good when they've eaten it because I think that's like when I think about food I it's there's so much information it's so overwhelming I've been through all of it like don't eat any carbs don't eat fats don't you know all of we've done all of it and now I'm like right I just need to ignore what I'm supposed to have just ignore it and just think like I'll eat when I'm hungry and like just see what makes me feel good but that's what I really try with my kids now I'm like if they're hungry an hour before dinner I'm like yeah cool like have something to eat because if you're hungry fine just do it because I want them to learn like what actually makes them feel good but I have got one child who would eat McDonald's three times a day if I let her and then I've got another child who like is literally like in the butchers like excuse me where does this meat come from and I'm like wow how's this like how has this happened but ultimately they just need to learn to know what makes them feel good and like I agree yeah you know all the nonsense fad diet culture that we've all been through and experienced I've I've tried carnivore, I've tried keto, I've done a lot.

24:55We've kind of almost lived all those experiences so that hopefully they don't have to. And we've worked out that actually just, you know, no one wants to count the calories. It's just so boring. Like we just want to be able to eat intuitively. But obviously the ultra processed food system has hijacked our kind of normal biological mechanisms that would tell us if we're full or overeating, right? So yes, I think the best way is listen to your body and see how food makes you feel and then do more of the stuff that makes you feel good. But obviously that's where the kind of industry has hijacked that a little bit.

25:30So if you're eating real food, that works. If you're eating McDonald's, it doesn't work because your body can't give you those signals.

25:35Georgia Dayton: So your body doesn't give you those signals if you're not eating. Unfortunately, because of the way they've processed it and fried it with high salt and it bypasses a lot of those satiety mechanisms that you would have. So like as an example, you know, you can eat probably 2000 calories of French fries without even batting an eyelid because it's just so crunchy and salty and tastes amazing. You'd struggle to eat 2000 calories of nuts. Yeah. Because you'd feel really full because there's lots of good fats and good protein in there that fill you up. Right. So I agree it's the best way to do things, but you just got to be careful because the ultra-prose of food has been engineered in a way that means you can eat a whole pack of cookies.

26:15Yeah. be totally fine but that's where it's kind of gone wrong basically do you think you know the way that

26:21Georgia Dayton: i think this we're split aren't we as a nation like there's half people are checking the back backs of packets and like really mindful and then you've got people who just just aren't haven't got time not interested i haven't got the like just just not the thing but do you think that it can be dangerous to go into it too much i mean yes obviously there's people that you know unfortunately do get eating disorders or get too kind of wedded to it that it becomes their whole life and they can't go out and enjoy a meal at dinner you know or have a takeaway once in a while like you don't want it to go there but a lot of the industry like nutritionists will always say there's no such thing as bad food everything in moderation but I believe that's kind of almost pandering too much to the fear of potential eating disorders where in fact the food system is so bad like we have to be able to have that conversation and say frankly it's shit don't eat it at the same time as you know not being absolutist and you know the 80 20 rule of like if you eat you know healthy meals all week you know yeah go out and enjoy yourself on the weekend it doesn't really matter it's what you're going to do most of the time and I think it applies to parenting too right we often get so hung up on that one meal time where the tantrum is they're like oh god they're just eating pasta again you know and you you feel bad and guilty as a parent but actually it's not about that one meal time it's not about two meal times it's about what you show them over 10 years that matters that's a good point you mentioned nutritionists and there has been some backlash like lots of nutritionists speaking out talk to us about it and like give your side because i think it's really important and i do think it's just because there's so much information people get so confused as well with what to believe this is it and I think social media initially loses a lot of context right I'm making a 40 second video on a topic that you could do a 40 minute lecture on right so really easy to misnuyance my intention I think personally it always comes down to intention my intention is to help show people make healthier food and make healthier choices really easily and so my intention I believe is good some people then go down the road you're causing you're fear-mongering you're causing eating disorder and I'm sorry if I've ever done that to anyone again not the intention but really like you say about the bread in the beginning if I've had an active role in getting people out of ultra processed bread into sourdough over the course of the last three four years that's a net positive thing for the health of the UK and on a huge scale that's where I'm making the most value and so yeah if there's a few people who get upset along the way or want to do takedown posts so be it because I think you know net net if you weigh it out I think I'm trying to do a good thing um and you know it's very easy to kind of pick people apart it's very difficult to try and create positive change right there's lots of accounts out there not going to mention any names but that all they do is do negative posts of taking down other people it's like that's really easy.

29:33I can do that as well. I can just sit there online and just go, I'll pick you up on that thing or that point because the nuance isn't there in social. Try actually helping people, try actually making a difference and making positive change. And the people that, you know, sit there and go, oh no, it's all fine. Everything in moderation, ultra processed foods aren't bad, right? There's people out there that will just argue that ultra processed foods aren't inherently bad. The definitions incorrect blah blah blah right yeah great so why is 63 percent of the uk overweight or obese how about answer that question and do something about that rather than arguing on a technical definition right because it's obvious something is wrong yeah don't care what the definition is something is majorly wrong i believe it's the food system and i want to do my part to

30:18Georgia Dayton: change it yeah and ultimately like you say if some if it's just made someone be slightly more mindful about their choices then you that's what you've set out to do like I literally know for my my parents okay so I grew up um like mom and dad both worked when I got a bit older but it was my dad to begin with my mom used to make some meals in the week like but not loads she would go to M &S and buy like whatever it was in M &S because at that time if you were buying an M &S it was like it was good for you even though it was processed it no one had the education it was like premium processed so then it was fine and you know that that was sort of that that was the journey and I think they continued with that until maybe three four years ago when we I started talking to them about your posts showing my mom and stuff now right they they don't shop in supermarkets they only go to the farm shop they only buy meat from the butchers they've got time so you know anyone listening to this I'm not I don't do that like at all but now they're both retired they've got time that is what they're doing and it's unbelievable like it's absolutely crazy like particularly my dad who you know has probably been really unhealthy stressful job all of that kind of thing even just changing his food he might have other bad habits but that has his weight has just and it's not he's not he still eats biscuits but all the other stuff has changed so he's just eating meat vegetables like potatoes amazing like basic but the small change is where they're buying it from that's it that's all we used to ever eat meat and two veg that was the uk right and you sat down and had proper meals i mean even if you think about like the cornish their lunch was a cornish pasty yeah right where you threw away the crust because that was the dirty bit you held with your mining hands back in the day but that is meat and two veg just in a little wrap of pastry right and it was real food and now we're ultra processed sandwiches and bread and you know not even taking five minutes to eat our lunch we're at our desk you know and it's gone too far and I mean I'm glad your parents have changed their ways because it's absolutely it's honestly they'd be the last people on earth that I thought would have been like that now um but yeah there's their retirement that's what they do they go they go to farm shops but it also supports local farmers right and the british economy like you know one of the arguments around why the economy is so bad in the uk is because i mean the supermarkets don't aren't really in this situation but like if you buy your coffee from starbucks every morning that money's going to america every morning yeah as opposed to staying in the local community if you buy from your local farm shop it's going to the local farmer a couple down the road and that money's staying in the community and so the more we can support local the better yeah i don't and i get it because it's more expensive and there's no getting away from that like it is it is more expensive i mean i do my very best but it you know not everybody has the means to do that no no of course we'll be right back after this short break

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35:19Georgia Dayton: Welcome back to this episode of Made by Mamas. Now, where were we? But anyone listening to this, what would be your sort of top five things you want someone to take away from this episode? So what are the changes that are easy to make? You know, what are your sort of tips that you would just impart on someone if you only had a few minutes with them? For kids specifically? Families, yeah. Families in general. I mean, I think one of the first things you need to know as a family, right, is that fussy eater is biological wiring. It's not your fault. Like it's every kid is like it. My kids are like it.

35:56Doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter. It's genuinely a kind of evolutionary biological response to back in the day when we were maybe cavemen, like eating anything random from the hedge might kill you. Right. So better to just pick the foods that are fairly beige, fairly safe and that, you know, aren't going to kill you. So that's kind of where that evolutionary wiring comes from. So it is just about a process of exposing them to as much good stuff as you can. And again, like what you expose them to 10 years, not the one meal, like don't feel guilty, don't worry. So I think first it's really important to just understand that, like where it comes from, because most of the time we blame ourselves.

36:36And we're like, oh, my God, my kid just eats pasta. This is horrendous. But actually, it's not. it's just a bit of evolutionary wiring that we'll do our best to coach and educate them on but that's all we can do then you know i think the next step is yeah where can you get more nutrition in so cereal has obviously got to go like that is not a nutritional breakfast a lot of people do it

36:58Georgia Dayton: because it's fast do you know what sarah and i have just invested in a cereal company called cheeky peeps and i'll send it to you because it has got in a bowl there's less sugar than in a grape and each bowl has 18 grams of protein interesting yeah i hope made out of um pea protein it's made out of pea protein yeah um which i know i think is an allergen for some people maybe but um i'll send it to you um it's just about to hopefully go into m &s oh i'll send it to you that is good yeah you can have a look and you can tell us look if you can't do oh sorry if you do do cereal and you're like i can't afford greek yogurt because it's expensive whatever I never fed my kid cereal because I was so scared.

37:43Yeah.

37:44Georgia Dayton: Because everything I just, everything I read was so bad. And then I'd hear people going, God, why are you cooking this at breakfast? It takes so long. I'm like, God, am I really the one like just killing myself here? I mean, Greek yogurt is not that hard, right? Like a bowl, a bit of granola, much better. Because it's all about, you want proteins and fats to sustain you through the day. You know, even if you don't necessarily worry about the health side of it, there have been studies that show the difference between a high glycemic index breakfast like a bowl of cereal versus a low glycemic index like a greek yogurt or eggs or avocado or whatever the concentration levels in schools change dramatically for your kids so that first meal of the day is the most important if you want to set them up for a good education and a good day so fundamentally fix that really important yeah um you know and then as i said earlier it's about how can you kind of sneak in extra nutrition so that might be hidden veg in your spag bowl grate it in works a tree or you know whatever you can do I mean psychology also works with kids so my Jack's my oldest he went through a phase where he just wouldn't eat chicken anymore and I was oh god he needs to like eat some protein and some real food and then instead of just giving him like a chicken thigh I chopped it up into little like chip shaped bits of chicken from the thigh and then put a little bit of ketchup on the side and called it chicken chips and then hey presto now he eats it and so you know little be creative you know during the world cup when we're watching lots of football the meatballs became little footballs and then he ate them whereas otherwise he was like blah I don't want meat you know so you've got to be creative in the psychology and just think differently about how you position it yeah um I would say that's really important so we've got breakfast and then you know the lunchbox is such a big moment I think obviously every parent worries about that lunchbox coming home uneaten we're like oh my god they're hungry they haven't eaten they will eat if they're hungry like I think you have to go through a few days where it's like painful and the thing keeps coming back uneaten because it's a familiarity thing so if they see it 10 times they're more likely then to go oh do you know what I am going to eat that I am hungry so as long as they're not completely repulsed by the thing you know just expose them to it and if they don't eat their lunchbox for a day or two like they'll be fine they'll come home and they'll just eat more for dinner like we shouldn't need to worry so much about that and then yeah i would say meal times you just gotta make it a family occasion make sure everyone's eating the same if you can so that this is just what's there but give them choice and variety so put a spread on the table if you can and like have a few different things they can pick from because then it's almost self-selection yeah rather than them being forced to eat the thing that one thing yeah that family style eating yeah that just seems to work better for kids because then they're like oh it's my choice you know like I started growing lettuces randomly over the summer because my mom thought that was a good birthday present for me which it was for our garden because it was just a bit boring and um you know jacks would never eat a lettuce he had no interest in it and then we started growing them in the garden he's like so what is that and i'm like it's lettuce and what do you do with it i you eat it and he was like can i try you know and then all of a sudden that little involvement he's like i want to try he still doesn't eat it because it's like bland watery leaf but you know the fact is that driving a bit of that interest is really important so like we went and picked blackberries the other day from the hedge and then made jam and an apple and blackberry crumble because seeing the process makes them start to understand it far more than just get out of a packet and then put i don't like it yeah that no it's so true like almost creating the interest yeah and what about school lunches is your is jack's old enough for that he starts school in september so interesting i haven't been through that pain yet okay um i've had several followers send me their school lunch menu and ingredients and I'm like oh that's slightly painful because we definitely should do something about it right like the school dinner ladies back in the 80s and 90s would just get the food locally and make it make real meals right which meant you were having meat and two veg predominantly yeah they might have thrown some chicken nuggets in there or some other bits that weren't that healthy or some chips now and again but the reality is the majority of it was cooked there and then in in the canteen the problem seems to be now is that everything's pre-made in a pack that's then just heated up in the school and so you look at the ingredients lists of these things and all of a sudden the sauces start to have gums in them and preservatives and you know other like flavor enhancing ingredients and you're like why why is that in there and it doesn't make sense and so it is a challenge because it's a very governmental cost decision primarily rather than a how can we set up the next generation to have the best learning the best development the best growth yeah and I think that needs to change as a paradigm shift to go school lunches is an investment in our kids health and their growth their education and development rather than a cost to the bottom line of what the government spend on schools yeah right and if we can shift that then maybe they'll go back to like cooking cooking schools and having real food yeah because I think so many people rely on that meal don't they yeah and um if it's not great then that's a big part of their day I guess well and also you know in underprivileged areas like that's maybe the only hot meal of the day they're getting and so you know it's better to have that meal than not of course yeah totally but i just yeah i think it's a system issue yeah we need to readdress the value we put on food and go no no it's not just a cost it's it's really important to our kids health and learning let's spend a little bit more because i can't imagine it would be that much more to source real food right but then you just got to get some dinner ladies that go back to cooking but they cook before so they can cook it cook again like we've all got very like efficiency lazy driven and it's all about speed and just heating it up in the meal like why not actually cook real food in school again i know jamie oliver's done lots of work to try and improve it but yeah i don't think it's really fully shifted yet no i mean i don't know i actually haven't really looked into it like i've got one daughter who will who does just have like school at the school lunches but then at my son's school they don't have them so that is also another um interesting thing because then you have to make sure you've got the lunchbox ready every morning which is also really hard yeah that's a lot yeah especially when he's the like one who i'm flipping making a steak at 7 a.m in the morning yeah that's a good it's great but it's quite unrealistic every day yeah it's a lot yeah yeah but like yeah even if you just make the ham sandwich but instead of the ham you you get some chicken or some beef because you can get ones without the nitrates and the preservatives now and then you just put it on white jason sourdough yeah and some butter and maybe some cheese that is way less ultra processed and way healthier than the ultra processed bread and the ultra processed ham yeah so there's small changes small changes simple steps like add some nuts and seeds in there try i mean i don't know how but jack's loves pickled gherkins and so they're in his lunch every day as an extra bit of veg alongside some apple and fruit yeah and just yeah try and add nutrition baby bell even bit of dark chocolate yeah you'd be surprised jack's is four and he only eats 90 percent dark well he only does god mine won't eat dark chocolate but it's all he knows yeah so i know i tricked him slightly but again it's that thing of if you put a square of dark chocolate in his lunchbox every day for two weeks instead of a kit kat right within two weeks that dark chocolate will be gone right i guarantee it it's perseverance well thank you so much but is there any anything you want to share anything you're working on that you want to i don't know if i can say it yet but um look i mean everything i try and do is always to kind of help families and parents and people just eat healthier um so I might be working on book two so last year we launched the good the bad and the healthy yeah which is my book which is everything I've ever done in the supermarket all condensed into a book which was a real labor of love it was 50 odd thousand words that I had to write and I wrote it from 5am to 7am every morning for like nine months because I've got kids and then I've got my running tonic health so I had no other time so it was real labor of love did that um that did really well so if you haven't bought it go buy that because it's got all my knowledge in it plus then book two is coming um in january 2027 so very exciting so i'm trying to basically condense all my knowledge into really simple guides to give it to people so if you get stuck or you have a question there and then you can just grab it and there it is um so yeah amazing thank you so much i hope you enjoyed that because i'm really fascinated by everything that goes into our food and while Zoe and I neither of us are extreme when it comes to looking at oils and ingredients and all that kind of thing in our food it's something that we're both just mindful of now we're definitely not perfect I you know as I said on the podcast Gigi would happily eat McDonald's three times a week and in fact a couple of weeks ago she had a day with my mum and they had McDonald's for lunch and dinner.

47:48Georgia Dayton: So, you know, no, we're not perfect. And I never would say that we are. And I know that Zoe is definitely in that camp as well. But I do think it's really interesting when he in particular is talking about how easy it is, you know, just to make swaps, talking about lunchboxes, it doesn't have to be really hard work to cut out ultra processed foods in our kids' lunchboxes. It can just be swapping out the bread, swapping out the ham for like beef and chicken or whatever. There's just so many ways to do it. And I think even if you take like one piece of advice from him, it's going to be really useful.

48:25Georgia Dayton: Anyway, I hope you really enjoyed the episode and you can obviously check out Tonic Health on Instagram. We will be back on Friday with another episode. But if you have got any feedback on this one or any guests you'd like to hear from, any topics you'd like us to cover, Drop us a DM on Instagram when at Made by Mamas and we'll see you there.

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