Get answers to your questions about marriage, parenting and family life from experts and parents of 7 children!

Rachel Denning (00:10.574)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Rachel and I are on opposite sides of the world. The Atlantic should be specific. Yeah. There's an ocean between us. That was a funny joke. Isn't there a song about you could put an ocean between people? Yeah, it's our song. It's our song.

You could put an ocean between them. I'm not going to keep us apart. Man, I love and miss you. But our our two boys are two oldest boys. And I just went through an absolutely phenomenal and very, very challenging training with aerial recovery group. It's a it's a selection training for emergency disaster relief around the world.

And it was absolutely fantastic. Really, really hard and so good. And it was a great group of human beings who have huge desires to do great things to make the world a better place. It was, it was awesome. Worth every bit of it. So ladies and gentlemen, make space in your life to prepare yourself to be more useful. I think it's one of the most fulfilling and rewarding things any of us could do.

is to prepare ourselves to be useful and then to actually be useful. But what's interesting is people try to skip the preparation and they just try to be useful, but they don't have much to offer. And then other people prepare, but they never actually become very useful. So the formula is prepare to be useful endlessly. You're endlessly preparing and then actually be useful. And man, that brings so much fulfillment and meaning. Well, what are...

reminds me of is there's a line in James Allen as a man thinketh and it's always stood out to me where he talks about you know so many people are eager and I'm gonna paraphrase but so many people are eager to do great things and yet they fail to do small things in a great way and that's kind of what I think about while you're talking is that a lot of people they want to do something great they want to be able to I don't know who knows.

Rachel Denning (02:38.094)
save someone's life or contribute in a huge way or help in a disaster or whatever, but they don't prepare for that. They're not preparing for those opportunities. So if that great opportunity to do something great came along, they wouldn't be ready to do it because they haven't been preparing for it. And so that's exactly what I was thinking when you were saying that. We have to be preparing and it's gonna be different. Like you prepare to help people in.

different ways than I prepare to help people, right? And we compliment each other, I think. But if you're not preparing, you're not gonna be useful when the opportunity arises. Which message I happened to share with the group while we were doing a run at 2 a .m. When the time to perform has arrived, the time to prepare has passed. We were literally out running.

under the stars at two o 'clock in the morning running up and down the hill. Like, let's go people. No more excuses. You can have your excuses or you can have your results, but you can't have both. Another thing James Allen said, he made me think of is he said, he said men and women are, are willing to, are eager and willing to change their circumstances, but unwilling to change themselves. So they therefore remain bound. I think that's important too. Like we want, Oh, I want my kids to do this.

I want my spouse to do that. And I want my life to be like this. So we want all those different circumstances and the catalyst always requires that we change. That the individual changes first and it goes that way. It's the individual changes, then the circumstance change, but we want the circumstances to change and then we'll come along because it'll be so much nicer. And so it just doesn't work that way. And that's, that's, it fits perfectly what we want to talk about today.

which is making sure that the food that is going in your mouth, and most particularly in your family's mouth, in your children's bodies, is both delicious and nutritious. Well, and we also, we want to talk about picky and picky children, right? And how to hold up, hold up and picky parents.

Rachel Denning (05:04.558)
Let's not exclude the adults and their crazy little pickiness. Some adults are, they still have the pickiness they had as little kids. I get so fired up. I'm like, you are a grown man or a grown woman. And you're sitting here saying that you only eat cheese quesadillas? Are you kidding me? Yeah. So, and this is very relevant because as we have spent,

at least our entire married life, discussing and researching and learning about nutrition and diet and food because when we started our marriage with, we started our dating before we got married with my father getting diagnosed with cancer, which then took his life. And since then we've been, at least I know I've been obsessed with

studying health and nutrition. And if there's one thing to do to prepare to like we're talking about to prepare to do something in this world, anything, it's going to require great health and nutrition is the basis of health. And unfortunately, I think that society in general has lost that understanding over the past 50 to 100 years, we've really become disconnected with the importance of food.

as being the basis of health. And that's in part due to the industrial revolution and all of the processed food that's been introduced into society. And beforehand, you know, it was less of a concern. We had less disease because we had less processed food. And now we think that the answer to health for too many people, they think it's connected with pills or doctors or whatever, when it's like, no, it comes down to what you eat. You are what you eat.

What you put in your mouth is what is determining your health and wellbeing. And so to be prepared for a great life and to have a great family and to have a great community, you have to build that foundation with a healthy body, which is determined by what you put in your mouth. Yes, yes, yes. So food is both fuel and medicine.

Rachel Denning (07:29.87)
And it's cliche and overused as it is. What you said is spot on. You, you literally are what you eat. It is your body. It's your okay. And it's your brain. It's your brain. Your brain is consuming what you consume. Your body is becoming what you consume. And yeah, you're right. And I think clever, very clever marketing.

And who knows what other agendas people have thrown out there, especially, especially like, I can't hear you. Um, especially good. Sorry. We can't talk at the same time. I forget. We're so used to talking over each other that this is going to be hard. But like we in the United States, especially, and now it's been spreading out the influence.

But for whatever reason, yeah, we could touch on conspiracies and conspiring people because it is happening. I mean, it's a reality. We get kind of antsy about it, but it's a reality. There are people conspiring for whatever reason. I don't know. Maybe it's usually just money or whatever control or who knows what. But the American diet in general is wretched.

Absolutely wretched. It's horrible. And things have been so manipulated. And because of ignorance and naivete, people are just like, oh, there's a new food out and it's not even a food. It's not food. It shouldn't even be edible. And people would argue like, well, yeah, but it's approved by the FDA. And you're like, those idiots will approve anything. So.

Please, ladies and gentlemen, do not use that as your standard of what's edible. And some of the proof of that is that we know firsthand that there are many things in Europe that have been banned because they are proven to be cancer causing and yet they are approved by the FDA in the United States of America. So that's my validation right there that the FDA

Rachel Denning (09:53.55)
I'm not going to trust with the FDA, sorry. At all. Nothing. So our standard as a family and it really started, you know, I got, I got into a big, big health kick when I was 16. Um, I was out on my own and I was like, man, I'm going to, I'm going to be healthy and fit. And so I was motivated. I just wanted to be energetic and fit. And so I was motivated. Then, then when I met Rachel, we started dating her, her dad got sick. And so that increased our motivation. And we thought, man, we have to take this seriously.

We have to take it seriously. And it forced us to question things. And so we're going to start out right away by inviting you to question things. If I got it. Go ahead. I want to emphasize this point because for me, I do want to focus on this aspect of raising the next generation with the correct mindset around food. And I think that that's sorely missing in our society today.

where and I'm to the point where this makes me almost sick to my stomach. When I go to the grocery store and I see parents buying all of this junk for their food, their kids, like they've got a cart full of Oreos and like soda and I mean the typical stuff that people buy, you know, but it always makes me sick to my stomach because I'm like, you don't even know what you are doing to your kids. You are literally giving them the very thing that's a precursor to disease.

You're literally setting them up to have disease because, well, you know, there's a great book everyone should read called why we get sick. And it talks about the role of insulin and insulin resistance and how that's a precursor to every, almost every disease, not just diabetes, including cancer, including heart disease, including, you know, fill in the blank, high blood pressure, all these diseases you could think of that are preventable. And it's caused by what we eat.

What we eat has a direct connection to that. And so when I see parents giving their children food that is literally poisoning them long -term, it's a slow poisoning, but it is poisoning. I just feel sick and sad. I keep asking myself why they hate their kids so much. Right. But you are the one who is teaching your children how to eat for the rest of their life, most likely. You're setting that up.

Rachel Denning (12:19.278)
So that's a role I take very, very, very seriously. Almost to the point where my kids joke about it, but they know. But they also respect it, and I know that they respect it because they have said things to me. They totally respect my viewpoint. I've explained to them why I have this viewpoint, which is also related to my father's death and many other things. But...

They've also told me how much they love and appreciate our way of eating, they call it. Even our son, who's with you now, who moved out last March, so it's been eight or nine months, he's coming back to visit. And one of the things he said is, I can't wait to get back to our food. Because it takes effort, it takes work, and it's not as easily and readily available.

But there's a difference and they can tell that there's a difference. Well, and even when we host retreats, Oh yeah, that's been youth and adults are like, Oh, your guys's food is so good. And it's nutritious. It's good for you. So that's our rule. It has to be delicious and nutritious, or it has to be good and good for you. Yeah. We, we posted, you know, there was 17 people that stayed at our house here in Portugal.

for youth retreat and that was one of the things that stood out the most was how delicious our food was. And the interesting thing to me is that all I'm really doing is making real food with full ingredients. That's it. And people today I think are so used to eating processed foods that when they eat real food, they're like, wow, this tastes really good. I'm amazed at how good it actually tastes.

because they're used to eating whatever stuff out of a box or a package or, you know, pre cook, pre process, pre whatever, out of the lab. So let's, uh, I'm going to rant today. I'm going to, because I feel so strong about this. And when you put anything that's unhealthy in your body, in your mouth, you are literally disrespecting yourself. And when you give it to your kids,

Rachel Denning (14:43.118)
you are disrespecting them and teaching them to disrespect themselves. Cause when you put something in your body that's harmful for your body, think about it at the most fundamental level. If I love and respect myself and I love life, I'm not going to do anything to harm that. I'm not going to deliberately do and knowingly do anything to harm myself, to make myself sick, whether it's immediately or long -term.

I'm not going to do anything to cut years and quality out of my life. And I'm definitely not doing it to another human being, especially my own children. I love my kids. So I have a moral obligation and ethical responsibility to teach them to enjoy and consistently consume healthy, delicious food.

I think the biggest problem though is that most people don't understand that framework that you just laid out because they don't fully understand how unhealthy or how toxic most foods are. And I hate to say most foods, but I say most foods because I've spent, ever since my father got diagnosed with cancer and I've been studying nutrition and health and diet, I've had this.

almost sometimes it's been this dread or this depression about the fact that when you go into a grocery store, most of the food in there is not good for you. And that's kind of depressing sometimes. I can't hear you when you do sign language to me. I muted myself so you could wax on eloquently, but I was just throwing my arms up in the air.

emphasizing that most of what you find in a grocery store is not good for the human body. Let that sink in, you guys. Next time you walk into a huge grocery store, a Walmart, a Target, a Kroger's, a Publix, wherever it is you are, a Tesco, you walk in there, the vast majority of what's being masqueraded as food is actually not good for the human body.

Rachel Denning (17:07.31)
And I felt that, I know I have felt that way for, you know, 15, maybe 20 years at least, going into a grocery store and sometimes felt that way, like in a very depressing way, like I'm saying, going in there and thinking, what am I actually going to eat? Because most of what's in here is not healthy. Now this is even in a normal grocery store, but if you go to, then most of the convenience and being travelers, we've been to a lot of these stores where you go into these teeny little markets.

And it's down to the point where there's literally nothing in there that I will eat. This counts as, well, I mean, gas stations for us. We never buy anything from a gas station because there's literally nothing in there that's worth putting in my mouth. Never. We don't go to any fast food restaurants at all. And so it's always been very fascinating to me. I've been observing and watching this over my lifetime thinking, how is it that we ended up living in a world?

where most of the food around you that's for sale is not good for you. Like, how did that happen? It's, it's insane to me. And yet the more I study health and nutrition, the more I realized it is completely true. We live in a world where most of the food available to us is not healthy. And, and wait, hold on. So that, that sounds crazy. We're saying that and people like, you guys are out of your minds.

Okay. Just stop and look around because the evidence is everywhere. 70 % or more of Americans are overweight or obese and grossly unhealthy. 10 ,000 people die every single day in the U S from preventable diseases. So that's, that's your evidence. It's everywhere. Well, and I still think, well, well, no, they're not exercising enough. Nah, that's just a small piece of it. It's food.

Right. Because I still think there's a lot of people that don't realize that there's that connection there. That the difference is if you looked at people in the even the 60s or the 50s or the 40s or the 30s or all the way back into the 1800s, people didn't exercise more then. They just ate different food and the food has drastically changed. And now we have this obesity crisis and this preventable disease crisis and the

Rachel Denning (19:34.67)
determining factor, the factor that changed all of it was the increase in unhealthy processed food. Specifically, I would think one of the worst is seed oils, which is in it. That's one of the reasons why you go into a grocery store and most of what's in there is not good for you because seed oils are essentially in everything. They're in the chicken, they're in the sauces and the dressing. People are eating salads thinking they're healthy and they're drowning it in a dressing that's filled with seed oils. Like it's,

toxic. It literally is like this toxic blood you're putting on your salad thinking you're being healthy when you're not. So, and I know that we speak with a lot of certainty and maybe crazy. It sounds crazy, like you said, but after so many years of studying this, there's no doubt in my mind. This is like, no, this is how it is. I am in this from every angle possible. Yeah, this is how it is. This is what's

We've tried all the eating strategies and diets and all that stuff. In fact, where I'm staying right now in the U .S., this family here, they were vegetarians for six years, full on vegetarian for six years. And they're like, now they are in the carnivores. Oh, they are full on carnivore. And man, the health, the energy, the vitality, everything changed by just eating grass fed meat. And it's such a power, actually,

On my podcast, the Be The Man podcast, I interviewed him, Aaron Aisey. So you guys go listen to that one. We talk about a lot about nutrition and we walk through all this. So that's another one you can listen to. But let's start hitting some things. Now I know, okay, let me hit, before we hit into details, I want to address the people who are like, ah, now you're just making it harder for me. And how, what am I going to do?

And I know a lot of parents, especially moms right now are feeling, oh, great, one more thing. Now, oh, I'm doing that. Now I'm failing my kids. Oh, I'm a horrible person. And now it's, it's, it's too much work. I can't do it. So it's all right. And I know you want to eat healthy, but either in your head, either for convenience or ease or not knowing exactly what to do, you're just like, ah,

Rachel Denning (21:52.717)
just get it and put it in your face. No, right. So we're going to walk through this. So please, please, please don't, don't think that it's harder. I would, I would argue with evidence for having done it ourselves for 20 years and with lots of families we helped, it's actually easier to eat healthy, way easier and it tastes better and you feel better. So don't think that eating healthy is harder.

Well, and I get it because I have felt that before. Like I was talking about before this sense of depression going into a grocery store thinking nothing in here is good for me. And so I understand, you know, that feeling and that, that sense of, ah, now I'm poisoning my kids with food, right? So I totally understand it. And yet now it's definitely easier and it makes everything better. Like,

you don't have the health problems, you don't have the doctor visits, you don't have all these issues when the health and the diet of your children is good and nourishing to their bodies and actually building health rather than contributing to disease. Like that's a big factor. So all of the excuses you have about it being harder and being more expensive, that goes away. And that's been true in our family for sure. That goes away when you have to

You now cut out insurance, doctor's bills, medications. Like we have none of that, none of that at all in our family because our approach is to invest in quality food, which then contributes to health. We have health because of quality diet. And even the people out there who are like, well, we have a special case. We have this.

You know, we have this thing or this condition or whatever. I guarantee you like everything I have seen, there is food that can help contribute to making that condition better. I don't care what it is. Name any disease or issue or genetic thing, whatever, whatever it is, it's going to be improved by the right kind of healthy, full food diet. Including what we just would have been studying recently of fasting. When you eat.

Rachel Denning (24:13.709)
So what you eat and when you eat can heal. Every health issue. Yeah. Terrible diseases can just be cured. Right. Specifically like diabetes can be cured in a actually relatively very short time with fasting. Okay. So, so please realize that when, when you get this going, it'll take a little bit to figure it out.

Right. But once you figure it out, it's actually way easier and more enjoyable. You love it. And yes, even your picky children will love it. And you will love it. And yes, you can have the good desserts, fantastic desserts that are actually healthy for you. Is it packed with trash? Well, and you can work on the convenience too, when you need to get a quick snack or, Oh, I'm just really hungry. I got to grab something. There's ways around that too.

Well, a couple of things I want to touch on. One of them, I do want to touch on the picky kid thing because I think that this matters. And I think that this is an excuse that many parents use for why they don't have healthier diets because their children are so quote unquote, picky. And the interesting thing is that when they have those picky kids, they're also the ones that seem to have behavior issues or

health issues, and so it's directly connected. It's all connected. And so we have to realize that one, the poor quality food is contributing to their health issue and to their behavioral issues. It is contributing. And then there's this other little factor that's working itself in there, which has to do with this, let's just call it a drama triangle that has been.

that has grown or developed in your family, where essentially, you know, in a drama triangle, it usually includes three people. I think in this case, it includes the food, right? It's the parent, the child, and the food. And there's this drama triangle going on about, hey, I don't want to eat that, and I'll only eat this. And as long as the parent continues to buy into that drama triangle, you're continuing to support your child as the victim of someone who can only eat certain things.

Rachel Denning (26:39.661)
And I've seen this with so many parents. It's kind of funny. Maybe, you know, Jordan Peterson has this, um, test where you, you can take it and it puts you on a scale with different qualities. And for me, when I take this test, I'm very low in compassion, right? And so maybe this plays into my parenting. I'm sure it does, but I've always been the one that like, when I knew something was good for my child or I knew it was not good for my child, like that was it.

I was not going to be influenced by my child into whether or not that thing was going to be a part of their life. Right. And so food is one example. Like I've been very hardcore about food. And so if my kids are going to be picky about something, I'm like, what? So I don't care. Like this is what I'm off. This is what's good for you. This is what's available. I don't care if you only want to eat French fries or you're so picky, you'll only eat these four things.

Doesn't matter to me. I don't care if you never eat those things again. And so, you know, if my kids will only eat one thing or be picky about certain things, my approach is I stopped buying it. Oh, you only eat french fries and mac and cheese. I'm not buying that anymore. Guess what? After a few days, you're going to be hungry enough. You're going to start eating whatever it is I buy. And it's my kids will eat whatever I have available, whether that's cucumbers or, you know,

like whatever it is I have though I've seen my kids eat the craziest things you would think kids would never eat because they were hungry and that's what was available and because they like them well for a long time our kids you'd see our kids walking around with a huge cucumber and just munching on it well one of my funniest stories I love is and and this was because we were traveling and that's another thing traveling teaches you lessons and one of them is

when you're hungry, you have to eat what's available. And I remember our son who, you know, he was fairly picky and we were hungry and we ordered some food and that was all we had. And we ate everything on the plate. And the only thing left was the radishes. And he ate a spoonful of radishes because he was still hungry. And I thought kids will eat whatever they're served when they're hungry enough, you know? And I know that that's a lot harder to do when we are at home and when we have

Rachel Denning (29:03.917)
and abundance, this is the challenge with abundance. When we have an abundance of options available, well, if I can have Oreo cookies, why would I want to eat cucumbers? Why would I want to eat healthy food when I have the junk? And so that's one of the challenges that parents face is as long as you're buying the junk food and it's available in the cupboard or the pantry, yeah, you're right. You're going to have a lot harder time getting your kids to eat healthier foods because they know that the junk's available.

in the pantry. So, and that might seem extreme to a lot of people, but that's an approach we have. We don't buy the junk. We literally don't have the junk in the house. We don't buy it. Period. And that makes it so much easier. So, and that's true for anyone that actually that would be true for me. If I started eating junk again, then my body would start craving junk. They put in the processed foods, the junk foods, the fast foods, they

put substances in there that are addictive that the body craves. And so it wouldn't take long for me to start craving those things again and start choosing those junk things over the good healthy food. So the key is eliminating it completely from your house. Get it out period. And there'll be, there will be a little bit of a withdrawal, but get it out and then

then start replacing it with really delicious, nutritious stuff. So it's not like this great dearth of good things. You're like, we're never going to eat something delicious again. Live to chew on tofu. In fact, I would say never eat tofu, it's trash. But if you think healthy eating is tofu versus, you know, your big old greasy hot dog, like, no, there's another alternative. Get rid of the greasy, disgusting, worthless hot dog and eat them.

grass -fed steak. That'll blow your mind. Yeah, and that is probably part of the reason is because people have come to equate healthy food with things that now are being, science is showing, are actually not healthy, like I mentioned salads already. One of my favorite things to say is that homemade ice cream is actually healthier than seltz. And I truly, literally believe that. And I will let my kids eat homemade ice cream for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, because it is that much healthier than

Rachel Denning (31:29.261)
even a salad because for one, a salad has very little nutritional value. And two, if you put salad dressing on it, like I mentioned before, it's basically toxic because of the seed oils, meaning it's made from like sunflower oil or safflower or grape, you know, who knows any of those oils that people call them vegetable oils, but they're not made from vegetables. That is not good for you. And so if people are thinking, oh, I have to eat a salad or give up, you know, I have to give up my

whatever, chicken nuggets from McDonald's and eat salad. Well, no, you, I made, you're not here, so you didn't know, I made my own chicken nuggets in the air fryer the other day and they were very delicious and healthy. They're healthy and good for you, right? So you can make your own stuff that's way healthier and way better for you. I made a dip that we dipped it in. It's made out of yogurt and honey mustard, honey and mustard. So I made it all myself. I put it all together. It's not,

filled with something toxic from the store. I made it myself and it was absolutely delicious. So you can have delicious food. And you know, you've already mentioned the steaks. We, Gretz said steaks. Oh, there's one waiting for me. I'm going to eat right after this. You know, steaks we make. One of our favorite is Swedish meatballs we make all the time. Like there's so much delicious food that's available, but we've just become conditioned to think one,

We don't like the extra time it takes supposedly, right? And two, we're used to just convenience and quickness and something fast and easy that pop open a bag and eat some Doritos. But when you think about, when you contrast with the time and money you're going to be spending on doctor's bills, hospital bills, being sick, it's definitely easier and faster to just be healthy and to eat healthy food.

When you don't have to take your kids to the doctor all the time because of all their health issues, because you're giving them nourishing delicious food, that saves you a lot of time and money. Oh, so much. So much. So let me hit some fundamentals here, which makes Rachel's ice cream statement stand out. Because some of you are like, what? We make, yeah, the way Rachel and I make homemade ice cream and the way most people make homemade ice cream is very, very different.

Rachel Denning (33:54.765)
back. That's a that's a great place to start. So we put cream in there heavy cream, very little bit of honey in there. And we put some frozen fruits and some egg yolks. Okay, now look at that egg yolk, honey, a little bit of honey, we don't do it very sweet at all. So egg yolks, a little bit of honey, frozen fruit, and usually it's wild fruit. And then some heavy cream that

is awesome. You're getting fats and proteins with a little bit of honey, right? Pure honey. That's amazing. That's good for the body. The body needs healthy fats, ladies and gentlemen, and good proteins. So the protein for sure. Sorry. But the bulk of our diet, mine especially is free range, pasture age eggs.

grass -fed meat, I eat a steak every day, and fats and creams, so cheeses, milk, whole milk. I only do a little bit of milk. Yogurts, but there cannot be anything in the yogurt except yogurt. So none of the, you might see it, it'll even say natural, no sugars, whatever. I mean, the marketing has gotten so deceptive. Just look at the ingredients, it's just.

just yogurt. And, and then some some fruits, a little bit of fruit, right? And you prefer the wild fruit. And that's the bulk of everything I eat. And you do all kinds of combinations of that. And it gets magical. Oh, that's the thing. In some ways, it is very simple. There's a, you know,

few basic ingredients or a few basic foods that you're eating, but you can get so creative with the way that you eat those things. Like I just mentioned, you, I made my own little chicken nuggets and my own dressing from simple things. Like we have yogurt, we have honey, we have some mustard, we mix it together. Now I have a delicious sauce and you know, honey mustard sauce to dip my chicken nuggets in and it's still healthy. The thing I want to emphasize here is the fact that ingredients matter.

Rachel Denning (36:17.421)
And that was probably one of the very first lessons I learned when we started this food journey was that ingredients matter. And so I began by reading the ingredients on everything. And a good rule of thumb is one, if you can't understand the ingredient, don't buy it. Two, if there's more than say like five ingredients, don't buy it. And then three, if it has certain things in the ingredient, don't buy it. One of which is seed oils, which is basically everything except olive oil and coconut oil.

our seed oil, so don't buy it. If you follow the simple rules, that's a great place to start by just reading all the ingredients. Yep. So let's do that. I can, in my mind, let's do, we'll do this, kind of play it out. It's three grocery carts. The first grocery cart, it's the iconic most common grocery cart. It is filled with beer, soda, chips, cookies.

crackers, ice cream, fruit snack. Yeah, the fruit, all the synthetic, highly, highly packaged stuff. You go, you walk to, I don't know, I haven't even been down some of those aisles in 15 years. I don't even know what's on those aisles. It's all the processed stuff, the highly processed garbage crap. I'm constantly shocked. Every time I go to a store, I look at people's carts. I'm like, I can't believe, I can't believe people actually buy that garbage. It is so trash.

So that's obvious, right? So anything with seed oils, Rachel's covered that. Anything with a lot of sugar, sugar is an inflammatory. It causes a terrible reaction in the brain and in the body. So for the most part, if it has sugar in it, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna use some kind of replacement like pure maple syrup. Okay, there's another thing.

that fake maple syrup people eat and powdered sugar that is trash, liquid poison. So most of it in that cart number one is just poison, literally poisoning your body. And I don't know of anyone who would argue against that. That was just absolute poison. People who would argue against that. There's plenty of people, trust me. Okay. Well, I guess there are still people that argue against that. So cart number one, it's just a train wreck.

Rachel Denning (38:42.893)
So again, you're getting rid of the oils, the sugars, soda is liquid poison. Don't bring it into your house. If it's highly processed, all these chemicals, all these preservatives, all the stabilizers, all the food coloring, all that stuff. That's number one. So just don't touch any of that garbage ever. Even the highly processed white bread, just junk. Especially the Wonder Bread. Yeah.

Okay, so we're gonna we're gonna assume that I'm just gonna say lovingly and firmly, don't buy anything that would be in Cart One. If it's in your house, go throw it away right now. Like, just get rid of that never ever bring it back. Hard rule. Drop the hammer for your spouse for your kids. Like none of this stuff comes in our home period done. Now again, okay, I gotta pause there for a second. You can't be a dictator about this. Rachel's like,

Rachel's like, I am so, you know, Rachel is very firm. So am I. Like we are adamant that stuff's not allowed. But the way we approach it, we don't approach it like dictators. We don't approach it like communists and tyrants because interestingly, if you're a very controlling person, the one thing kids turn to for some sense of control is their food. They'll either eat too much or eat too little. And so the vast majority of eating disorders,

are because of a child trying to have some semblance of control under very controlling parents. Well, I was just going to add that this is this also ties into the picky child thing, you know, around food. Sometimes this is the reason because they feel like, oh, at least with this thing, I have a sense of control. I and in fact, I even have control over mom and dad because mom and dad.

will get very upset about whether or not I eat or what I eat. And so they recognize that they have this power that they don't have other places in their life. And so they not consciously, they're doing this subconsciously, that they use it to their advantage. And so the more power you give that child over this aspect of food, meaning, well,

Rachel Denning (41:05.357)
There's two different ways you can give them power. One is you actually give them power and say, it's up to you. It gets your body. You're going to choose. You have to play the role of providing the right kind of foods in their life because you can't trust a four year old or whatever, you know, to say, here's a cucumber and here's a cookie. Which one do you want? Right? You have to provide the healthy choices, but then you allow them to make those choices. And that's one reason we've never really had difficult food issues in our house is because.

I already laid down the ground rules of like, I'm only buying healthy foods. So in our house, I'm fine with whatever choice you make. You are welcome to pick anything from the pantry or fridge because all of it is good in my mind. And so have at it, right? So that removes any power struggles about what you're going to eat, you know, and how much of it you're going to eat and what it like, it was all in their hands because I allowed them to make those choices. That there, that.

Rach, you just made such a profound and important point. Cause it seemed like a contradiction. What I was saying before, like we will not allow that crap in our house. And then I'm saying, don't be a dictator or a tyrant. You're like, what? That is tyranny and dictatorship. It's not. We give our kids so much freedom and so much choice. They're autonomous. And we tell them like, no, your choice, you get freedom. But we, with food, especially like we only bring in things that are good.

And then we say to the kids like, yeah, eat when you're hungry, eat whatever you want. Have what you want. So they have all these choices. They don't feel like there's no battle. There's literally no battle. There's no power struggle with us. None. Zero. Cause you're like, yeah, have some stuff. And they're cool. They're respectful about it. Like, Hey, can we go make a fruit smoothie? Can we go make some ice cream? Can we, can we have some berries? Can we have a snack or whatever? Sure. Yep. Go for it.

And even now, because lately, because I've been, you know, I read the book, Why We Get Sick, and I just finished another one, Fast Like a Girl, and they both talk a lot about insulin resistance, so I've been having more of those conversations in my family, and even my little girls. Now, they've come to me asking, can I eat an apple right now? Because I've talked about how even, you know, as we...

Rachel Denning (43:25.133)
There's lots of levels here. You don't worry, have to worry about this level yet, but you know, even fruit can raise your insulin levels. And so I talked about the importance of eating fat and proteins with or before fruits in order to better balance that insulin. And so even my seven and nine year old are now coming to me and asking, can I have an apple where before they would just go get an apple anytime, which that is still way better, right? It's that is way better than them eating.

Oreos all the time or whatever. So I'm okay with that choice, but then there's the next level. They're like, okay, I actually get that it also matters. Like, and so they'll, they'll make sure to eat some cheese or some mozzarella or some salami before they eat fruit so that it's better balancing those, those insulin levels. Right? So there's all kinds of levels here, but they can get it and they get freedom of choice. So they feel empowered to make their own food choices, which is what you want.

You want to raise children who understand health and nutrition and who know how to make good decisions. Now, the other aspect of this I wanted to touch on really fast because we of course have control over our own home and we realize that when our kids are out, they're presented with different choices and we are fine with them making those choices. So our children absolutely will choose to, you know, they get offered candy, they'll take it sometimes or they'll eat.

things that we wouldn't allow in our house, but we allow them to make those choices because one, that's, I mean, it's not a dictatorship, we're not the dictators. And two, they have to practice on their own, making their own choices about what, how they eat when they're not under our roof. And the fascinating thing is, and like I mentioned before, especially with our older kids, they notice the difference because they'll go out and they'll, you know, eat whatever people are eating with.

whoever they're hanging out with and then they are able to notice that there is a difference. They feel better, they feel different, they notice a difference in the food quality and for me that's the point. I mean this is a long game for me. I'm in this for the long term with the long term outcome being as adults they know the difference between healthy food and unhealthy food and they feel the difference in their own body and so

Rachel Denning (45:48.909)
over time, a lifetime, they're going to make healthier and healthier choices because of the foundation that I've set up for them. Absolutely. So that's actually a really great lead into shopping cart number two. And this is where it gets tricky and really, really, really important. And I would say, my guess is most of you listening to this are shopping cart number two people. So you grab a shopping cart, it has oats, oatmeal, has rice.

has bread salad dressing. Yep. Salad salad dressing. It has pasta. Um, what seeds and dried fruit and beans. It's got the beans in there. It's got wheat and, and this card's like, yeah, we're healthy eaters. Right. And we used to be there. We used to be in that, that category and

we would take that cart up and see the other people with cart number three and go, Ooh, we're eating way better. I have to add. It's also probably going to have, because this is where we were, it's going to probably have almond milk, soy milk, uh, you know, coconut oil, maybe even there was a time when, you know, we considered the egg white only. Ooh, yeah. Egg whites.

Egg. I can't. Unbelievable. Egg. You said coconut oil. I think you meant something else. Well, only because I'm thinking of not eating butter because we went through the phase where we're like, no butter. Butter is not good for you. And so, you know, we ate a lot more coconut oil with coconut oil is great. But it was instead of the butter. Yeah. And we haven't addressed fake butter, margarine.

If you look at you cut out, that would definitely be in cart. Number one, three, three. Oh, I forget. Three's the best. Sorry. This is my little metaphor here. My little analogy. Three's the bad one. So Margerin, any Margerin, any Crisco, any fake butters and you'll look, you'll go over there and you'll see that they'll say butter and you pick it up, look at the ingredients. It's actually seed oils. Yeah. Horrible. Anything.

Rachel Denning (48:14.957)
plant based meats. Those are going to be cart number two is garbage. Anyways. Okay. So that's the stuff in there. And, and sadly, ladies and gentlemen, the rice and the bread, the oatmeal, the beans, all that stuff has very little bio available nutritional value and nutritional density. It's, it's, it's not,

terrible, but it's not really good for you either. Yeah, it's better than cart three. If you had to choose, you know, like instead of the Oreos and the Doritos and the soda. Yeah, that's better. But we want to go on to cart number one. Cart number one. As squash, zucchini, pumpkin. There was another.

like pepino cucumbers. It's going to have apples and bananas and mangoes and berries. It's going to have a lot of grass fed meat and free range eggs. It's going to have grass fed butter and cream. Lots and lots of grass fed butter. It's going to have whole milk and

percentage, it's going to definitely not have soy milk or almond milk. None of that garbage. And I mean, you're really getting down to nutrient dense, bioavailable, nutrient dense fats and proteins. Whole foods. Yep. So it'll have some honey in there. It'll have some pure maple syrup in there. And these are whole, there's not tons of ingredients.

you're going to go really, really light on spices. You'll have predominantly just have Himalayan salt. But also some rosemary and mint and some basil and you know, those types of spices as well to add in flavor and some diversity. Yeah. Awesome. Love this stuff. It's so good. And, and you know, you, I see parents like,

Rachel Denning (50:40.685)
literally go out of their way to make plain pasta or plain hot dogs for their kids. And then I'll say, Oh, that's all they'll eat. It's like you have a grown adult, they're playing victim to a little kid and going out of their way to provide them something that's not really good for them and not providing a better alternative. And again, this takes, this takes some tact and diplomacy.

and some skill and some persuasion and influence. But ultimately, you and I as parents are 100 % responsible for what goes in our kids' mouths. And we can't force them, but we have to lead them so that they like it and want it and choose it themselves. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned all those different things, tact and diplomacy and influence, but it also just requires strategy. And I would think, um,

maybe boundaries is one of the right words and just conviction. If you have conviction that feeding your children these other foods is way better for them and it's going to be better for their long -term health and wellbeing, including mentally, emotionally, you're going to be convinced that this is the right path. And it doesn't matter what sort of tantrum or, you know, behavior your child demonstrates, you can calmly say,

all right, this is what we're doing. And you're free to choose and eat whatever you want because here's all the amazing healthy options available. Now, the other part of this is, because you mentioned, you know, parents will go out of their way to make plain pasta or hot dogs. And I'm like, yeah, why are they not going out of their way to make healthy, delicious food? Because I guarantee you, because they've done it. When you make delicious food, your children,

will want to eat it. Now that doesn't mean they'll like everything you make. You know, I make a frittata every Monday. Not all of my kids like it. That's fine. But I still make it because it's good and a lot of them will eat it or they make their own thing. My son made his own thing today with bacon. He made bacon and eggs. I mean, it's basically a frittata, but it was scrambled instead of in a frittata, right? He wanted his own. Fine. But the point is I'm okay with that. Go ahead and make your own because...

Rachel Denning (53:04.269)
what you have to choose from is something I'm okay with eating. So you give your children this power of like, yeah, go ahead. If you don't want to eat what I make, make your own. And even if they're young, let them make their own food because that's going to contribute to them not being picky anymore. We had some friends over and one of the things that we love to make is thinly sliced zucchini. You put it on a cookie sheet, you cover it with cheese.

and you put it in the oven and broil it for 10 or 10 minutes or so. It's delicious. And one of the kids said, I don't like zucchini. I'm like, oh, okay, well, that's fine. That's too bad. I love it. He helped me make it. And guess what? He ate it and he loved it, right? And so you have to like, you're like, oh, okay, I don't care. Doesn't bother me. I love it. I'm gonna eat it. You wanna help me make it? Oh yeah. And he enjoyed the process.

and then decided on his own, he was gonna try it. And then he actually enjoyed it. So when you stop making food a battle by being strategic and by modeling the way of like, yeah, healthy food is great. It's delicious. I love it. And once they then realize that, oh, it's amazing, then the battle is gone. They make their own choices and it's a win -win for everybody.

And the proof is in the pudding, the healthy pudding that is just this weekend. So like I said, my 18 year old, 19 year old, Lou went and did just an unbelievably difficult challenge. Uh, the vast majority of people could not do, uh, we've had people bail out. It was so, so, so hard. It was so grueling. And a few people separately came up to me and were like, man, Greg, your sons are a specimen of physical toughness. I.

unbelievable, right? Just, just blown away by it. And how joyfully my boys endured it. Well, not even endured it. They were like, let's go, let's do some more. I mean, they were all in and we have in energy and endurance and toughness and grit and vitality, just alive. No caffeine, no other drugs.

Rachel Denning (55:25.229)
that a lot of the people were popping, they were popping pills, they were popping caffeine, they were doing all kinds of stuff just to stay afloat. Nothing. It is pure, pure, healthy food for years and good exercise and being alive. And people notice. In fact, they can't keep up. And I only say that, I say that not to boast, but to say, hey, results don't lie. Results don't lie.

So figure this stuff out, make it a priority and live by these standards. And it will make all the difference in your life, in your children's lives, which will then mean in your grandchildren's lives. This is legacy stuff right here. And it is so, so important. And we do have two other episodes where we go into even more depth about what to eat, how to eat it, how to prepare it and all of that. So it's also valuable and worthless.

Love it. You can. And so just last word of assurance here, you can get your kids to love it, to choose it, to love it. It doesn't have to be a battle. It can be a beautiful, wonderful thing where it fits into your family dynamics and your family culture of eating delicious, nutritious things that everybody loves. And everyone feels better. It just helps things go better. So it's everything in life is easier when we're all eating good, healthy food. Okay. Love you guys. Thanks for listening.

Reach upper.