This dietitian just wants you to know that not every meal you feed your kids will be perfect, and that’s completely OK
We’ve all been there. It’s dinner time. You have hungry kids, but you didn’t make it to the grocery store today, and the fridge is empty. Or you do have healthy groceries, but you had a really busy day, everyone’s already hangry, and there’s no time to cook a nutritious meal. So what do you do? You hit the fast food drive-through. Or you toss some chicken nuggets in the microwave. Or you plop the kids down at the dinner table with a plate full of popcorn (as long as they’re old enough for it not to be a choking hazard) and cookies, like this dietitian mom did. And she wants you to know that’s totally fine.
Kacie Barnes is a registered dietitian who posts on Instagram as @mamaknowsnutrition. She’s a master of toddler and kids’ nutrition, especially when it comes to picky eaters. And you may be surprised to hear that her kids don’t eat perfectly planned meals every day. In a recent video, she shared that their dinner was nothing but cookies and popcorn and that was that because it was the best they could do.
“I’m a dietitian, but I’m also a human,” she said. “My kids basically ate cookies and popcorn for dinner tonight. I haven’t gone grocery shopping yet. We have like, no food in the house except for snacks. I was like, this just is what it is.”
If that isn’t relatable, I don’t know what is. And as someone who sees a dietitian regularly, I’d just like to say that popcorn is a high-fiber snack that she would absolutely approve of. Sure, she would gently ask me to try to add some protein to that meal, but with the caveat that not every dinner is perfect. Because this is real life and we aren’t perfect all the time, especially when kids are involved!
In the caption, Dr. Barnes wrote, “You’re not a bad mom when your kids eat like this and this kind of thing happens to ALL of us. Is it ideal? Of course not. But none of us are capable of meeting the gold standard every single day. I’m never going to hold any one of you or myself to an impossible standard! Nutrition is important but it’s not the ONLY important thing.”
Amen to that. So eat those snacks as meals—just only once in a while. And try to add some protein—if you can ❤️
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