20 // The 5-year Anniversary of Veggies & Virtue!
The 5-year Anniversary of Veggies & Virtue!
The top 5 things I have learned as the pediatric dietitian, mom, and boss babe behind this little side biz
Woohoo! In honor of Veggies & Virtue LLC turning FIVE, I am sharing the top five things I have learned as a dietitian, mom, and the faith-led entrepreneur behind this business.
It has been FAR from what I thought would be my family's story and professional journey with feeding kids as a pediatric dietitian. And yet, I am so thankful to take a hot second to reflect and share with you all an open and honest glimpse at it all.
Thank you for being a loyal supporter of this business and community! I truly could not do the last five years without moms like you.
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to the veggies and virtue podcast. Today is a special episode. It is the birthday episode, the anniversary episode, all the good things being celebrated episode five years ago from this one. I started veggies and virtue, LLC, as my 30th birthday to myself, that shows a little bit of lucky guy damn.
[00:00:20] But I think for me, it was just a huge gift to give myself the permission to pursue something that I knew I was deeply passionate about and that I really wanted to pursue alongside being a stay at home mom. And while my life with my kids has evolved and we've added kids to the bunch since my 30th and my business has grown since then, I thought it would be fun to do a recap episode.
[00:00:42] And to share with you all five things I've learned over the last five years as a dietician mom and the owner of veggies and virtue.
[00:00:52] Hey mama, I'm Ashley, and welcome to the veggies and virtue podcast. In this podcast, you will find simple menu ideas, kitchen, organizational systems, spelled out for mom life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence-based and great. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen as a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself, and want you to break free from the mealtime battles and to feel equipped while feeding your kids all day long, pull up a stool at my kitchen counter.
[00:01:21] And let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the mealtime messes moments in ministry of motherhood.
[00:01:31] Real quick before we jump in, I wanted to remind you all that. If you have been waiting for a sale or a discount on my combination cards now is your time. I run very few sales each year, and my biggest one of the year is always my birthday sale. So right now, if you want to score either the PDF or the physical deck of combination cards, you can use code happy birthday.
[00:01:54] Through April 30th to get 35% off. So be sure to go over to veggies and merchant.com backslash shop and pick whichever deck or all three decks during the month of April for my birthday and anniversary sale. Otherwise, let's go ahead and jump into today's session. I have known since I was a teenager, that pediatric nutrition was the desire of my heart professionally and something that I just really wanted to pursue.
[00:02:20] And it's been the path that I've been on since I was a teenager. It's what dictated my choices in college. And thankfully provided me a lot of scholarship opportunity and ultimately landed me in Houston, where I live now with my husband and kids to become a dietician and to pursue my graduate education.
[00:02:40] And now also have started and run veggies and virtue from home for the last five years. And so it's something that I do not take lightly to have as a gift and an opportunity to be able to do. I'm very thankful. I knew early on what I felt called to do and that I was just so passionate about, you know, something my husband tells me all the time is it's rare to see someone who loves something so much that they choose to do it in their free time, because I truly would.
[00:03:11] Most of my friends know Wiley, I'm a little introverted and a little bit of a homebody. I truly would love to work. If I had an hour to myself other than maybe what going for a walk with a friend. If I'm not with my family, my kids, or my husband. My choice would be to just spend some time pursuing this professional outlet and just getting to connect with moms like.
[00:03:32] And find a way to serve you and to just come alongside you in this feeding journey. And so I feel very fortunate that it's something I knew early on in life that I wanted to do, but equally I don't take lightly that it's a tremendous privilege to be able to do it while being a mom. I started veggies and virtue when I was 30.
[00:03:53] So at that point, Claire. My oldest would have been three. Brooke had just turned one and shortly thereafter we had Owen and I never before that, I should say I was just kind of doing. Just kind of social media shares and just kind of like fun little things that were happening with me, feeding the kids.
[00:04:15] I already knew that Claire was a more apprehensive eater. She showed a lot of pickiness early on. I could tell just from a lot more of the woes that we had with Brooke as an infant, and then with her early feeding exposures that neither one of them were going to just give me a walk in the park experience with.
[00:04:33] Adventurous eater out of the womb. And then as I got pregnant and had Owen over the last few years and everything, thankfully my business has grown a lot and I've had a lot more opportunities to reach more moms like you and to just connect and hopefully build more and more products and services that serve you.
[00:04:50] And a lot of where these ideas come from is my own kitchen and the mealtimes with my own kids. And I think it's so interesting because I think as a new mom and as a younger dietician, I just assumed that my purpose and calling was going to align with having these poster children for pediatric nutrition.
[00:05:11] I thought because I shipped salmon from Seattle where I'm from down to Texas and I made my own baby food and I was doing all the quote unquote right. Things from the start that this would be a simple. Process for me because I knew what to do. And I was doing those things with my kids, but something that's been so special is to see the Lord's hand in my own motherhood journey and my own development as a person and as a woman and as a wife and a mom, but also in this capacity as a dietician.
[00:05:39] And I've just learned so much through the feeding challenges that I've had with my own kids. And through that, I feel like it's really given me this opportunity to. Pursue veggies and virtue, and to pour into other families with a really empathetic tone, because I do know and feel, and live and breathe this every day.
[00:05:58] And this has never been something that's been easy for me. And I have six years of education and plenty of letters of behind my name that should make this easier. And yet I hope that my experience in XPO. Helps me to help you, but ultimately I also want you to know that I get it and I've been here and I've been doing it.
[00:06:16] And so that's really kind of the first little snippet of kind of what I've learned and where I've grown with veggies and virtue. But today I had a lot of you asking me, you know, what have I learned in the first five years of running veggies and virtue and has my feeding philosophy changed at all? What has shifted?
[00:06:32] And so today's episode, I really just wanted to spend some time outlining what I would say. The top five things I've learned over the last five years has been as a dietician mom, running veggies and virtue initially at nap time at nighttime. And now I have a little bit more time as I have a few days a week that all three kids are in school on the same days.
[00:06:50] And just really wanted to share that process with you and hoping that me taking the time to reflect on it. It is a blessing. For sure. But I also hope that the recap today will be blessed. It will be a blessing to you as you kind of think about your family's evolution with feeding. One of the first real frameworks that I came up with and shared as a part of veggies and virtue was my love.
[00:07:11] It, like it learning it framework. It's probably one of the things I'm best known for now. It is my trademark and it's something that honestly, I think the allergist gave me early on in feeding. When even before Brooke was born and I just, this feeding her, honestly. A lot of learning it foods because those were the foods I wanted her to learn to.
[00:07:30] Like, but the reality was she liked a lot of the foods that I didn't really have a preference in offering her. And so, you know, a lot of you who followed this journey, you know, my love, like at learning it framework, I know we're kind of still early on in the podcast, so there'll be plenty more episodes about that framework and all the nuances of it to come.
[00:07:47] But I think my biggest aha with this over the last five years has been how to really embrace it and adapt. And explore the love, it like learning it framework as a family. But also as a framework with other families, because I think when it first came to me, it really was just to help me fall in line with what I knew.
[00:08:08] I wanted our families feeding approach to B being the division of responsibility. I knew that I wanted to take ownership of what, when and where food was offered and to bless my children's role in the feeding relationship of if, whether and how much they ate. And yet I was having that challenge of, I was choosing what to offer my kids.
[00:08:25] It was getting refused and I just felt really stumped on how do I nourish my children when they're not eating the foods that I'm offering. And yet I know that I don't want to just give them goldfish, crackers, every snack and every meal of every day. And yet that was absolutely the path that we could have gone down.
[00:08:41] And so I think one of the biggest ahas for me with this and the first one that I wanted to share with you is how the level learning framework really does guide. A lot of our expectations in the feeding relationship, because I think at the beginning, I didn't really think about how portions come into play with the love of learning at framework.
[00:09:03] And I didn't really think about how it goes so hand in hand with my job of deciding what went in, where, and also honoring my child's job of if, whether and how much she ate in terms of this, the love it suits. Are going to be larger portions. Typically this can often make parents uncomfortable. It can often make us feel like we need to counteract the division of responsibility and this responsive feeding approach by limiting or restricting or bribing and falling into all those traps that we very easily can fall into.
[00:09:32] But with the love that like it learning from. We can also adapt our thinking to just expect this is a food, my child blends, and I need to expect that they will probably eat a portion of this that is larger than I'm comfortable with, but I can also trust them in the process of being intuitive eaters from birth and learning how to self-regulate through the lifespan as they grow up.
[00:09:56] And as they're expanded or as they're exposed to different foods. Equally. So to also go in with the expectation that I'll like it, food may or may not be eaten. This is not my job to convince them. You liked this yesterday. Or you ate this last five times. There's nothing different about it this time.
[00:10:11] This is not what I need to do. My job again is what, when and where I can offer these like it foods. But I also need to go in expecting that they may or may not be eaten. And then piggybacking off of this is with the learning at foods. I think at the beginning, it was really three equal slices of pie. You know, if you're thinking of a circle or a round plate, then you divide it into three.
[00:10:33] I think when I first came up with the love, it, like it learning it framework as a model for what to offer my kids. I was thinking I want something that they love, something that they like and something that they're still learning. And it seemed like they were all very equal and kind of all on the same playing field.
[00:10:48] But we know that that's not true. The foods that our kids love versus their learning. And so where this comes back to the portion is I've learned so much on how to. Capitalize on those learning at foods, by limiting the portion to a really small portion resetting expectations that this most likely will not be eaten.
[00:11:08] But with that, there's so much opportunity to engage in, you know, where, where the opportunities lie with this. What seems tiny and often insignificant portion is really one of our greatest opportunities. And so I love doing. I'm so thankful that I feel like the Lord inspired me with this framework and inspired me with the language to help, you know, recreate the verbiage families have around, you know, what they're offering and preferred and non-preferred, or some people call them safe.
[00:11:35] And, you know, I don't like the term, but like unsafe foods and things, but I think for families to think about these are the foods that my child loves. These are the foods that they sometimes like, and these are the foods that my child is still learning to. Like. Or has not learned to like yet. And I love that.
[00:11:51] I'm so proud of it. I'm very thankful for it. It was one of the foundations to veggies and virtue, and yet to see how it's grown and expanded and just continues to give me so much creative energy and inspiration to how to show up and help come alongside families has been really, really fun. One of the second things that has really been a big learning lesson for me is.
[00:12:15] The aspect of pleasure. I think when I became a dietician mom, I didn't realize what just a rule follower I was, I think too, coming off. Over six years of being really sick and not knowing why. And I was in school for nutrition at the time. And I got so granular into the science of nutrition and what was nutritious and reading labels and the food culture was a lot different, honestly, when I was in undergrad.
[00:12:42] And even the things that we were taught are very different than what nutrition students are being taught today. And that's a good thing, but I think at the time being both a nutrition student and also being really sick and not knowing why. I started to develop a little bit of an unhealthy relationship with food.
[00:12:58] I didn't see it that way at the time. I just saw it kind of as my personality and my situation, because at the time I was very sick and yet now I think having identified that it's gluten, you know, I've been gluten free for 12, 13 years now. And so there's been a lot of freedom and just having my health back and I'm so thankful for that.
[00:13:18] But I think also when I look back at the last five years, I. Had really lost the perspective of pleasure with food. I think I had become very disconnected and it had become such a science and such a scrutinized thing of can I eat this? Is this making me sick? What is going on? That when I became a mom and as a dietician who knew everything by the book, but hadn't really put it into practice yet.
[00:13:46] I was very aware of the science of nutrition, but something that I think has grown over the last five years. Is the art of feeding. And I know for me, my heart is in the art of feeding. I mean, of course I value the evidence-based nature of nutrition, functionally, all the things that these nutrients do for our bodies.
[00:14:06] But what I really love equipping parents in is that art of feeding. And I think that's really bringing. It brings me back to the second thing that I've really learned, and that's just refined pleasure in food. I think with my history, my own health history, also just with my educational history, being in nutrition and also I think just some life experiences of, you know, going through postpartum anxiety and depression and how.
[00:14:31] The loss of my dad when I was going through my second postpartum with Brooke and, you know, I lost my appetite for years after that. And it was just kind of like, you know, it just felt like this weird thing of like, I don't have an appetite and yet I teach people how to eat. Like it just, I didn't find pleasure in food anymore.
[00:14:49] And I think of the last five years since I've started veggies and virtue to just really tap into that and to steer towards pleasure. And to identify anywhere in my own relationship with food that I may be historically had thought of kind of this rhetoric that we get into with quote unquote guilty pleasure, and to just prioritize pleasure again, over, you know, the scientific nitpicky aspect of nutrition that can really get projected on my kids.
[00:15:19] And I think just the food freedom that, that has allowed me to create for our families. Because I treasure the pleasure of food and the enjoyment that we get from feeding. And that really moves me into the third thing that I think that I've learned from this business and, you know, running veggies.
[00:15:37] Number two over the last five years is finding food freedom. I think I have grown so much in my own relationship with food, and I think as my own. Ability to just model an intuitive eating mindset. I think personally it's grown dramatically over the last five years. And I think from a personal level, that's really exciting to see, I think from the aspect of being a parent, it's really exciting to see, because I think of how, you know, five years ago, like I said, I prioritize you know, kind of what was right over the pleasure that I got from eating such.
[00:16:17] And I was very rule-based and very rigid. And yet now I think as my family has grown, as my kids become older, I see that feeding really is so much more flexible and free when we go with this intuitive eating mindset. And so I think. Not realize I didn't have it as much as I maybe wanted or thought I had it five years ago, but to now see how much less anxious I am in my approach.
[00:16:44] You know, my goals have not changed. I still want the same thing for my kids and my family, but now I would almost even go so far to say I'm so much more aware of what I want and I want so much more for them and that's not in the rules. And the rigidity of is this a perfect meal and did they eat perfectly and do they prefer all the quote unquote perfect healthiest, most nourishing foods, but instead it's just.
[00:17:04] Feeding philosophy that embraces freedom and enjoyment in a variety of foods. And it really, you know, flexes towards that instead of towards the rules and the rigidity that sometimes I think we can fall into particularly if we have, you know, a feeding history that was more like rule-based or really rigid and thinking of kind of what qualified as healthy or not.
[00:17:27] From that? I think the fourth thing that I've learned is how much my role as a dietician has evolved, I think, at, as a new mom and as a new dietician and then moving forward into starting veggies and virtue, I think now I can reflect back and see that my hope and my dream really was that I was going to have these poster children for pediatric nutrition.
[00:17:50] I was born and raised in an adventurous eater. I think. Assumption going into parenting was that my kids were just going to be so adventurous and eat all the things from the get-go. And that just hasn't been the reality. And I think where this really comes full circle over the last five years is as I think about maybe what my job really is in influencing and impacting other families is not to put perfect pictures out there of perfect eaters and to have the pride that goes along with putting my family on this pedestal, that look how great we eat, because I know what to do.
[00:18:24] And I do it. And of. And I didn't realize at the beginning how one just prideful that was and how self-centered that was, you know, it was so much more about me than I even honestly want to admit. And yet I think at the same time it's shaped, it's shaped my perspective on how I can impact other families, feeding relationships so much because I'm constantly hearing people tell my kids.
[00:18:50] I can't believe your mom will let you eat that. Don't tell your mom that I let you go. Are you going to let your daughter eat that? Wow, your son is really excited about this. And people constantly calling out the things that my kids do. And I've worked with hundreds of families. Now, I know that these are not feeding habits that are any different than what I see in the mainstream family of kids that prefer kind of more processed, packaged, you know, less nutrient dense foods.
[00:19:17] And I think at first I had honestly, a lot of shame about that. I felt. My kids shouldn't prefer those foods and that I should have kids who were asking for Kailyn keenwah instead of, I don't know all the other options that are out there that, you know, they see at their friend's houses and maybe haven't historically always seen at ours.
[00:19:37] And I think I really wrestled with that because I was hugely triggered when people would say these things as if it was a reflection on me as a mom and ultimately as a dietician that maybe I wasn't doing a good enough job or maybe yeah. You know, showing people that I was legitimate in my approaches and in the evidence that I was sharing, because people weren't seeing my kids as kind of the proof that this works and that this is effective and that this is you know, the best approach for families to be taking.
[00:20:04] But it gives me a lot of excitement and hope and just perspective of over the next five years, what my role really is, you know, people don't need to see perfect families. People don't need to see picture perfect. And assume that feeding our kids and our families is always easy. And I think at the beginning, rightfully I just, I wanted that and I didn't realize how much perfectionism I had to overcome, but now I see so much opportunity about getting to combat diet culture, and getting to show other families through my own.
[00:20:35] How we model intuitive eating and how I do allow my kids to eat a variety of foods. And that kind of includes some of these foods that a lot of families assume are forbidden to my own family and how I can impact the next generation through the way that I'm raising my kids to become more intuitive eaters.
[00:20:53] And that really leads us into the fifth and final thing that I wanted to share as just kind of a reflection on my last five years in running veggies in virtue. And that's that this is a licensed. I committed to this since I was a teenager and it sends something that I've been very fortunate to have be just a part of my upbringing and who I am.
[00:21:12] This just comes very naturally for me. And yet it also helps encourage me that each thing I'm doing every family meal you know, protecting the space of, and meal planning for a meal prepping for and prioritizing that time at the table to be positive and playful and pressure for. Is planting a seed and the, you know, the feeding journey is very personal to me.
[00:21:34] I'm obviously doing it every day with my own family, but it's also so professional that I think it can feel very easy that I need to meet these metrics and that I almost need to put this pressure on myself to meet these metrics quicker, faster, and easier than anyone. Because I am the one sharing them.
[00:21:50] And so I think previously I might've felt like I needed to prove to everyone. And you know, this kind of goes back to the fourth point. I was saying of kind of what I assumed I needed to give people as these like idealistic options and ideas of how to feed their kids and what to feed their family. But instead to just encourage families and to come alongside them and to empower them and equip them in what this process is for our families.
[00:22:15] And that this is a long-term process that really does extend over the lifespan. And again, that gets me excited about what the next five years looks like, that this isn't about, you know, bearing the most fruit, the fastest. This is about planning really good seed and really good soil, which has always what my husband has encouraged me to do with veggies and virtue is not to rush the.
[00:22:37] Of this business, as you know, it's kind of been a side hustle for so many years, but instead to just keep investing in planting good seed in good soil. And so it really does feel like it comes full circle for me to reflect on with my own kids, you know, thinking of where this feeding journey began with us when I first started using Virtu versus where it is now with each of my kids and the ages and stages that they're at and the routes that I'm getting to help them plant and set so that as they grow up.
[00:23:05] And they have just known this feeding style that our family adopts from infancy on and how much opportunity that gives us moving forward. So I know this is a little bit longer episode and a little bit more kind of sappy and sentimental than some of the tactical and practical episodes I've shared previously.
[00:23:25] And then I'll continue to share with you, but I just want to say, thank you. Thank you for being a part of this journey. Thank you for your ongoing support. And encouragement. Thank you for being such loyal parts of this community who share this podcast in my site and my social media with fellow moms, so that we can all continue to do this journey alongside one another, that we can pull up a stool at each other's kitchen counters and enjoy a cup of lukewarm coffee together and learn how to equip our kids to be confident and capable.
[00:23:59] And. Competent in their eatings tab. Right now in the present day and in the early years, but also in all the years ahead. So thank you for so much for letting me be a part of that journey in your family. And thank you so much for being a part of that journey in my family.
[00:24:17] It has been a joy having you on podcast today, and if you've enjoyed it as well, I have a quick favor to ask. Do you mind hopping over to apple podcasts and leaving me a written review? This will only take you a hundred. But it truly blesses me every time I get to read one of you right over there. And it allows me to bless others through this podcast and the episodes to come.
[00:24:37] The other thing that you can do is to take a screenshot of this episode and tag me over on Instagram app that use in virtue. I would love to see what action steps that you're taking from this episode, and also to support your family in the journey moving forward until next time. Thanks for coming over to chat at my kitchen.
[00:24:53] Remember that you will always have a seat and a snack waiting for you here.
