00:00:00.000Hi. I want to start today's episode off by saying that I love food. I just love it. Food
00:00:17.400brings me so much joy and so much pleasure, and I am just a person that really enjoys
00:00:23.040eating. I do. And this weekend, while I was eating delicious tinned fish that I brought
00:00:28.040back from Lisbon, I got to open a box of early galleys of my new novel, The Sicilian Inheritance.
00:00:33.700I got them. I cried, cried ugly, ugly ass tears when they came in. And so did my friend Casey,0.98
00:00:40.080who was with me when I opened the box. And then all of us, Casey and Stephen and my husband Nick,
00:00:47.980we opened the book and we read some of our favorite passages. And all of those passages
00:00:54.200were about food. It's a book filled with food. It's a book filled with food and wine and sex
00:01:00.340and adventure and a little bit of a murder mystery, but mostly food. Yeah. And so right
00:01:07.720now I'm just I'm telling you all this because I had so much joy seeing this book for the first
00:01:11.360time. It was incredibly overwhelming. And also, yeah, this is a shameless plug to pre-order The
00:01:17.720Sicilian Inheritance, my new novel, right now for a lot of reasons. One, it's so helpful to me.
00:01:25.480Pre-ordering is really helpful for all authors, but also because I just started to plan a live
00:01:32.440Under the Influence tour to coincide with the book coming out in April. So we will likely be
00:01:39.520doing a lot of events where we have a lot of book pre-orders. So get your book clubs very excited.
00:01:46.020I will bring the cannolis and the wine and maybe even some sexy Sicilian men. Who knows? Anything
00:01:53.660could happen. But back to how much I love food. That's, I'm going, I'm going back there. As an
00:02:00.620Italian American, this might be a genetic thing, but I truly believe that delicious food is
00:02:07.100something that connects us and brings us together. And it is something that should be celebrated and
00:02:12.140enjoyed. And yet, I see food very often demonized on social media. There are a lot of great food
00:02:21.160accounts, and we are going to be getting into those. I can't wait to talk about some of my
00:02:26.540favorite food accounts that I follow. There's one that just creates cheese plates all the time.
00:02:31.320That is the bee's knees. But a lot of accounts on Instagram talk about food as something that
00:02:39.580needs to be restricted or managed. One of the best writers that I know who talks about food
00:02:47.840and pleasure and diet culture and how we talk about bodies is Virginia Sol Smith. She's the
00:02:54.480author of the book Fat Talk and the sub stack Burnt Toast. She also has a podcast by the same
00:02:59.660name, Burnt Toast. And Virginia recently posted something that I've been thinking about a lot.
00:03:05.680She's been posting about kid food influencers and how they promote diet culture way too early for anyone to be thinking about diet culture.
00:03:16.400You know, you know these people that I'm talking about.
00:03:18.900They're the ones who make the rainbow bento boxes for kid lunches, the turkey kale swirls, easy toddler meals in five minutes.
00:03:27.940I follow dozens of these people, mostly because making lunch is one of the things that I actually
00:03:34.380hate doing more than I hate doing anything as a parent. And I don't feel bad about admitting that
00:03:41.040because if I could never make another kid lunch again, I'd be really freaking happy. I would love
00:03:45.760my kid to just eat the lunch in the cafeteria, but he won't eat the lunch in the cafeteria. So
00:03:49.740I'm constantly making the lunch and I'm following these kid influencers. Now, some of these accounts
00:03:54.860have given me awesome ideas to make the lunches easier. Jenny Mullen's Dictator Lunches is a1.00
00:04:02.280chef's kiss of greatness. And it's also hilarious because everything that Jenny does is just gold.0.51
00:04:08.100But a lot of the kid food influencer accounts can make you feel like shit. They make you feel0.99
00:04:14.460incredibly guilty if your kid's lunch is some fruit snacks, leftover dinosaur nuggets, and half
00:04:20.100a chocolate chip cookie because I ate the other half before I went to bed last night. And I hate
00:04:26.520shit on Instagram that makes me feel guilty. Virginia has also pointed out that a lot of1.00
00:04:33.120these accounts focus way too heavily on creating a dieting culture for kids way too early. Instead
00:04:40.500of doing what kid lunch needs to do, which is just give them good energy to learn. We should
00:04:45.660just be focusing on how does my kid get enough fuel to learn to read and learn to do some math.
00:04:51.760Right? Right? So anyway, I had to have Virginia on the podcast to chat about all of this. I also
00:04:59.160want her to come on all the time. She's wonderful and funny and very, very smart. She also has a
00:05:06.160cold in this interview. So I will tell you that her voice when we're talking sounds particularly
00:05:11.700sexy. Hi, happy, happy Tuesday in September. It feels like October though. It definitely feels
00:05:17.720like October, but it is, it is Tuesday. It is Tuesday. It is a new Tuesday. So I, I want to
00:05:24.320have you on to talk about a thousand different things, but today what I want to talk about is
00:05:30.340something that you wrote about in your incredible newsletter that I love so much about food
00:05:37.380influencers, kid food influencers, and the kinds of messaging that we're putting out there for
00:05:43.020parents around kids' food on social media. And I do think that there is some good information
00:05:51.480out there, but I also think that there's a lot of damaging information out there. And, you know,
00:05:58.420this is one of your many areas of expertise. So I just kind of want to pick your brain about what
00:06:04.940you're what you're seeing on the socials when it comes to kids and food yeah there is a lot of good
00:06:11.420information there is a lot of damaging information mostly i think there's a lot of confusing
00:06:16.600information which is of course ultimately damaging because it's this is not an area of parenting
00:06:22.600where anyone feels great being confused about and we're all already confused like feeding kids is
00:06:28.040fucking hard so so hard no matter you know whether you have one of those like happy sushi loving0.85
00:06:34.700toddlers or you have the kid who only eats three beige foods like it is so much work right it's so0.98
00:06:39.920it's so hard i mean feeding feeding charlie is a really tough he's a kid that only eats three
00:06:46.260beige foods yep yeah somehow he manages to grow yeah they do they do i've got some of those too
00:06:51.880and they definitely do grow and thrive um but the judgment and the stigma around it can feel
00:06:57.300you can just feel like you're constantly failing and i think what i am seeing on kid food instagram
00:07:03.800or kid food influencers in general is this rhetoric of we know how hard it is it's not
00:07:11.760your fault mama we got you we're going to make this easier combined with advice and images that
00:07:19.400actually make it much much much more complicated because they're showing us plates of you know the
00:07:26.560bento boxes with the rainbow produce like six types of produce in a lunch for a four-year-old
00:07:32.320and, you know, they're showing us things cut into cute shapes and arranged and plated in
00:07:37.860certain ways and a lot of stuff to buy along with it. Very specific cute plates and cute
00:07:42.780lunchboxes that you're supposed to have. And all of that. Look, if that is your bliss,
00:07:47.400there are some people who are like, I love cutting fruit into heart shapes. Great. I am
00:07:52.760not here to judge that or shit on that for you. I want that for you. But if you are someone who's0.95
00:07:58.280like it already feels really hard and I tried to make it into heart shapes and they still didn't
00:08:03.160eat it what am I doing wrong then the kid food influencers are not helping they're making it feel
00:08:10.400even harder I agree and I don't but I also don't think that that is necessarily the answer I've
00:08:18.260gotten some good ideas from the kid food influencers for my kid that eats so you know just
00:08:24.900to make life fun for her yeah sure my my three and a half year old almost four now will eat0.97
00:08:29.820anything and she loves a rainbow bento box like it just it that brings her joy when she opens her
00:08:37.160lunch but a rainbow is not going to make my six-year-old who eats no foods that are not beige0.99
00:08:43.680eat food he's not going to be he's not going to be tricked by a fucking rainbow he's going to be0.95
00:08:47.940stressed out by it he's going to be stressed out by it and so it makes me feel as bad as when i go0.97
00:08:54.160to a friend's house and they're like you know you just have to expose them to it why don't i just
00:09:00.920why don't i put some greens on on your kid's plate because maybe maybe you're not you're not
00:09:06.340exposing them enough as if i haven't put greens on his plate for four years and then they put the
00:09:13.020greens on his plate and he looks at them and scowls like she just put poop on his plate
00:09:20.500picks it off and gives her the like and then he's like you know borderline rude i feel like a bad
00:09:27.060mother everyone's vaguely embarrassed in that situation and i'm like you know i try i've tried
00:09:35.820i've tried all the things and some kids just don't want to eat certain foods right they just don't
00:09:44.320and i do feel like a failure but i don't need to be reminded that i'm a failure well i think the
00:09:49.560disconnect is coming from the fact that a lot of the advice around picky eating that we get on
00:09:55.100social media and that, you know, what your friend is doing, putting the greens on the plate and all
00:09:59.380of that, a lot of it is marketed with the promise of we will solve this problem. Picky eating is
00:10:07.560something we need to solve. It's something we need to fix. This is something we can course correct
00:10:12.480for. And embedded in that is this message of because if you don't dot dot dot dot dot. And
00:10:20.340the dot dot dot dot dot is if you don't fix your child's picky eating, they will never eat vegetables
00:10:25.720and they will, you know, die of scurvy at age 10. If you don't fix your child's picky eating,
00:10:31.120they will not grow up to like anything but refined sugar and processed carbohydrates.
00:10:37.640If you don't fix your child's picky eating, they will get fat. I mean, that's really at the core
00:10:41.920of it, right, is anti-fat bias, is this idea that you're doing it wrong and you're going to end up
00:10:46.820with a kid who's fat and unhealthy and it's all your fault. And so what I don't see enough of in
00:10:52.680the kid food influencing space is an unpacking of all of that and a reframing and saying,
00:11:00.020okay, if we could dispense with the idea that how your child eats is A, 100% your responsibility
00:11:07.900and your project to fix and be somehow going to lead to all of these things for their like
00:11:15.680you can have a really eclectic eater who still goes through a picky phase you can have a really
00:11:20.420eclectic eater who's still unhealthy or still in a bigger body like none of this is a guarantee
00:11:25.480or a protection against any of the things we're afraid of so we really need to work on releasing
00:11:30.560those fears and recognizing that like we are putting a lot of focus on trying to control this
00:11:36.800kid's plate because of all the things we can't control yeah yeah no i totally agree and i think
00:11:42.160that there is a lot of implicit anti-fat bias in a lot of the kid food influencer packaging and talk
00:11:51.800and to be to be honest a lot of the kid food influencers are in very small bodies absolutely
00:11:58.780As well. And so I think that is also a problem because they're modeling, hey, do you want to look like me? Do you want your kid to look like me? Here's what I do. And my family is healthy. My family is healthier than probably your family because of what we're doing.
00:12:20.560Right. Yeah. As you're saying that, I'm sort of, you know, mentally scrolling my Instagram feed in my head. And I cannot think of a single kid food influencer who's fat or even in, you know, a bigger body of any kind. Yeah. I don't think I don't think I mean, people are now going to message me and be like, how could you ignore these wonderful people? So please tell me. I would love it. I would love to follow them.
00:12:43.140totally totally tell us tell us i just i know i follow a lot i follow a lot of kid kid food
00:12:49.820influencers like i said i like a lot of them and i get a lot of really good ideas the other day i
00:12:55.720was following someone also just kind of like i need suggestions for other things to put in my
00:13:01.420lunches yes um and so canned salmon my kid loves salmon and i never thought of like oh can't like
00:13:09.980I could just buy a can of salmon for $1.50 and put that in the bento box.
00:21:58.300You know, like really embraces eating as one of life's pleasures, which I think also is a nice goal for our kids.
00:22:05.400It's not going to be available to every kid for a lot of reasons, but it's a nice like I would prefer us to be emphasizing the pleasure and the connection that comes from food than to be emphasizing some kind of hyper focus on nutrition.
00:22:46.680I just sat there eating all the things with a notebook.
00:22:50.280can be like oh well i gotta put these these pine nuts need to make it oh my gosh i can't wait i
00:22:55.880can't wait it's gonna be in the mail and in your box very very soon cannot wait so excited but yes
00:23:02.080i mean so actually that's what i would love to see more of you know i think a lot about what
00:23:06.720kind of influencers i would like to see more of and i would like to see more talk about how to
00:23:12.400inspire kids to enjoy just the pleasures of food right to like to to dive in and see food
00:23:21.960not as something there's so many roles in our kids lives yeah especially it's you know we just
00:23:28.400we just started first grade over here and it's very different from kindergarten yeah i've got
00:23:33.520a first grader this year too it is very different and we do not like it we do not because of because
00:23:39.140of the because of the rules and and you know he he he feels he feels like all of the restrictions
00:23:45.760that life puts on you i think maybe for the first time so what if we can just remind kids that food
00:23:51.860is supposed to be fun and delicious and delightful and enjoyable and not put all of the weird food0.97
00:23:58.400shit and rules that have been existing for so long on them because they don't they don't need more0.97
00:24:03.680and they don't deserve it. Absolutely. And I would also say, what if we talked about food as1.00
00:24:09.840a source of pleasure and connection while making the labor visible, like the amount of work that
00:24:15.320goes into preparing these meals? And that's another place that I see kid food influencing
00:24:20.740often leaving out. It's this idea that you're going to jump through these hoops to make these
00:24:26.360elaborate meals for your kids in order to solve their picky eating or to push them towards being
00:24:31.220this you know kind of eater that you want them to be and we don't talk about you know the0.97
00:24:36.540disproportionate amount that labor is falling on women or the fact that maybe that is just not0.96
00:24:41.520realistic or doable for you at 6 p.m on a Tuesday because you've got to pick one kid up from one1.00
00:24:47.100activity and finish your own work day and get someone else to a piano lesson and then also
00:24:50.880somehow dinner is going to happen I mean like if there was ever an argument for shortcut meals
00:24:57.820shortcut ingredients processed foods lean not lean cuisine because i mean that's a bridge too
00:25:02.820far that's if it's a bridge but still for sure like you know anything that's coming out of your
00:25:08.540freezer that makes dinner easier i am here for it absolutely and when we don't normalize that
00:25:15.200and embrace that and talk about how to make that work we're kind of quietly pushing that reality
00:25:22.140for many families into this place of shame where they don't see that represented online.
00:25:28.500And so people feel like they need to apologize for it. And this is another way that like kid
00:25:33.120food becomes a pipeline to diet culture because kids grow up understanding which meals their
00:25:38.980moms feel like they need to apologize for. And that's what teaches kids to apologize for how
00:25:43.820they eat and to apologize for eating. And then, you know, fast forward to everybody surrounding
00:25:48.400the cake at the office birthday party apologizing for eating it or the cheese plate at your dinner0.99
00:25:53.100party and everyone's like oh my god i can't believe i'm eating the cheese like no no goddamn0.57
00:25:58.660we made the cheese board someone eat the cheese and don't apologize or it goes i mean i'm gonna0.63
00:26:04.140i'm gonna take it to an even more extreme spot because i just i want to bring this up a kid
00:26:11.000diet influence kid kid nutrition influencers and it does start a pipeline very early that
00:26:19.620then leads into the whole diet influencing genre which we'll talk about more later and we just saw
00:26:26.780one vegan food influencer die of starvation i know horrific horrific because she was eating
00:26:35.900nothing i mean essentially eating nothing and and she was talking about you know these extreme
00:26:43.640dietary practices of only eating raw very raw food i was about to say very raw i'm like can
00:26:50.440you be more raw than the world um but yeah and she was a very famous vegan influencer and and
00:26:57.540she passed away because she was literally starving herself uh for for to perform in this account
00:27:05.820and and and and also had so and had so many followers that were following her recommendations
00:27:13.020and it's just it's i think that it takes us to it's the start of a very dangerous place
00:27:19.800there are again there are amazing kid food influencers out there i think i'm gonna talk to
00:27:25.540one this week or or next week the one who recommended the the tinned salmon i was like
00:27:30.920i'm very into this idea uh but there's also there's also a real danger in starting early
00:27:38.660thinking about how to push certain ways of eating and certain diets on children that i think there
00:27:45.000is a direct line to what we saw from this one vegan influencer uh jana samsonova who did die
00:27:53.960from starvation yeah yeah i mean i'll shamelessly shout out my favorite kid influence kid food
00:28:00.540influencer which is my best friend amy polandian who does yummy toddler food and i think has put
00:28:06.380more thought than anyone i know into how to get the diet culture out of her content how to
00:28:12.160more aggressively speak out on the issues of diet culture and kid food and who has just like the
00:28:20.600most amazing doable achievable recipes um lots of shortcuts lots of straightforward ideas and
00:28:28.180like occasionally does something with a cookie cutter and that is like you don't need to make
00:28:31.880it heart-shaped like it's just like very straightforward about it and i love it
00:28:34.940wait i think that's who i follow is that who you're following who you're talking to shut up
00:28:39.480it might be that would be really fun yeah um amy's amazing um no amy is not the one i'm talking to
00:28:45.960this week but amy is one of the ones that i've been following recently yeah who i only just
00:28:51.820discovered her she's brilliant and her cookbook is so good too another shameless book um for my
00:28:57.500wait no connect connect me with her because i do a whole episode on oh you know what i i'm i'm on
00:29:03.700her instagram right now we're doing this in real time she's got she said dino nuggets on that0.86
00:29:08.260fucking tray yeah absolutely yes yeah yes she's great she's super realistic and down to earth0.95
00:29:15.240And, you know, and I think has evolved, like, you know, probably if you scroll way, way, way back, you'd see some stuff that's more trying to be perfect and whatever. And she, as she had more kids, as her life got more complicated, was like, no, this is not, we don't need to be pushing, we don't need to be putting this pressure on ourselves. Like, let's not do that. And it's great.0.98
00:29:34.240sure we sure do not yeah and i think like what's useful for all of us to think about as we're
00:29:40.380consuming this content is to sort of look for that dissonance between what someone is saying
00:29:47.280and what their images are showing you and if you're listening to them and it sounds sort of
00:29:52.740liberating and encouraging but then you're looking at the picture thinking like well my kid wouldn't
00:29:57.600eat half of that or i don't have time to make that or now i'm feeling bad about myself like
00:30:02.020that is a like listen to that more than you listen to what they're saying because i am really
00:30:07.060concerned about the co-opting of rhetoric that i see and the way i see the diet culture being
00:30:14.560repackaged here and so that it's often you know much harder to spot and i'm i mean i'm happy to
00:30:20.040name a couple accounts if you want me to of the ones that i find well and that's what i want to
00:30:24.800talk to you about that you and this is what the argument that you made so well that you are seeing
00:30:29.920a repackaging of diet culture just for children. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, I see it often
00:30:36.000combined with anti-diet rhetoric and with division of responsibility rhetoric, which is what makes it0.86
00:30:41.760so fucking hard to figure out for parents. Like, why is this still making me feel bad when it
00:30:46.300sounded like it was going to be liberating? One account that I think is well-intentioned and often
00:30:52.340winds up in this place of promoting more diet culture than perhaps she intends to or, you know,
00:30:59.620it's just this mixed messaging would be kids eat in color that's a big one that people um love a
00:31:06.520lot of times people will say like i follow you and kids eating color and i'm like okay but are
00:31:10.440you reading both of our content because we're sometimes saying different things and i think
00:31:16.800you know she is a dietician she has a lot of nutrition knowledge and she seems very committed
00:31:23.620to the idea of in giving kids a lot of nutrition knowledge and she'll talk about how to do it in
00:31:29.400age-appropriate ways but often that means she's so kind of boiled down what claims she you know0.80
00:31:37.460what she thinks a three-year-old can understand about carrots ends up being this kind of loosey
00:31:42.220goosey not very evidence-based way of you know like they don't give you night vision you know
00:31:46.560they don't give you superpowers um and so talking to kids about food in this way is actually more
00:31:51.600confusing and misleading because you're giving them lots of information they're going to internalize
00:31:57.120as facts that aren't actually accurate. And if they don't want to eat the carrot or the
00:32:02.240purple cauliflower or whatever it is, you've just kind of made it more complicated for them to not
00:32:07.900want to eat it because you've been telling them how good it is and how good for them it is and
00:32:12.440that that makes them think that, you know, there are good eaters and bad eaters and now they're in
00:32:15.820the bad eater category. And that's a tricky place to go. And I've seen her, you know, I think she
00:32:22.600has given a lot of thought to some of the anti-diet concepts and anti-fat bias. But when
00:32:30.820I see her talking about it, there's always this kind of invisible footnote of, you know,
00:32:39.300not acknowledging her own thin privilege or acknowledging it in ways that sound real proud
00:32:45.240of it instead of saying this is a problem. Like, there's just a lot in there that as you start to
00:32:51.120parse it you realize wait a second this is this is giving me another set of rules to follow this
00:32:56.340is giving me another standard to shoot for it it isn't making my life easier it's actually
00:33:01.680complicating things for me um yeah yeah yes and it's all it is all hard yeah it is all hard
00:33:10.480and it's all complicated i was saying this to a listener uh the other day because i was on the
00:33:16.240podcast, Infamous, with Vanessa Gregoriotis, talking about celebrities and ozempic.
00:33:24.220And I've got all the thoughts about the ozempic. And some of them make sense to me,
00:33:30.460and some of them don't. And some of them are, you know, they contradict each other.
00:33:35.080And we were talking about certain celebrities. And I said, I'm like, yeah, you know, this person
00:33:38.960looks great now. But like, I didn't. But then I had to like back up. Doing live podcast interviews
00:33:45.640is so hard too so stressful so stressful uh because i also think they looked great
00:33:50.260before and i don't think i even meant great i just meant really different different yeah
00:33:57.980and thinner yeah and thinner and thinner um and so i just i had to unpack all of that
00:34:05.060afterwards because just talking about bodies is hard and it's complicated and we talked about
00:34:10.300this last time uh i think about it so much more now in all of my own writing after after we talked
00:34:17.440you'll see too with sicilian inheritance i took out just a couple body signifiers that were in
00:34:23.740there um about how my main character sarah's body looked and there were body signifiers that i had
00:34:30.400used for it for a long time that i just didn't want to use anymore um little tiny things i don't
00:34:36.300know if anyone's going to notice but like i know that it's in there uh i'm calling her body strong
00:34:41.720now um just a lot of different things so if i want anyone and if i want people to take anything away
00:34:48.580from this episode is that all of this is complicated and hard and diet stuff is hard and
00:34:55.140food stuff is hard and difficult to talk about but you do such a good job of just laying stuff out
00:35:00.860there. And I think making people think in a different way than we used to think about diet
00:35:06.180culture and talking about the word fat and talking about bodies. And so, like I said, I could talk to
00:35:13.320you forever about these kinds of things. Well, I so appreciate that. And I think we're all allowed
00:35:18.860to get it right. I mean, it's not really our fault we're getting it wrong. It's this whole system
00:35:23.100we're swimming in that taught us, you know, one way of thinking about bodies and food. And we're
00:35:28.980doing we're all doing a lot of unlearning in real time and so that's going to create these moments
00:35:34.640of dissonance i think my concern with the kid food influencers is that often i don't see that
00:35:40.380willingness to acknowledge i've got it wrong or to acknowledge i need to pivot here i need to say
00:35:45.880this differently i'm learning and changing instead i see folks branding themselves as experts which
00:35:52.920does not feel different enough from what diet culture has done to us for decades of telling us
00:35:59.340like other people are the expert on your body other people are the expert on your parenting
00:36:03.420or your kid and you're not that's you know that's what i really think we need to push back against
00:36:08.500um we're all gonna fuck it up for sure and need to be open to being called in on that and listening
00:36:14.700and learning that's that's just being human yeah no absolutely and I the last thing that I really
00:36:23.440want to talk about is the idea of what is an expert and who is an expert and I think that that
00:36:29.360is very wishy-washy on social media that someone can claim to be a kids nutrition expert and what
00:36:37.660does that mean what certification do they have what education do they have and that's we talk
00:36:44.120about that all the time with who was an expert online and that's why i think it can be really
00:36:49.580dangerous to take someone's word as gospel when we don't necessarily know did they do complete an
00:36:57.200online class that gave them a certification yep yep is it some online course they did
00:37:02.500i mean it's so tricky with food too because you know the sort of quote unquote gold standard
00:37:09.800experts would be registered dietitians. But the field of dietetics is so intertwined with diet
00:37:18.140culture and anti-fat bias. And it's a very thin white field. I mean, in terms of who becomes a
00:37:25.520dietitian, there's some really interesting work happening. Jessica Jones is someone I follow who
00:37:30.980talks a lot about the importance of diversifying dietetics. She's a Black woman trying to get more1.00
00:37:35.700people of color into the field because it is just not there. And so a lot of the diet information0.67
00:37:40.800we get from dieticians, you know, is very shaming of people's cultural foods, is very shaming and
00:37:46.440very filtered through this one upper middle class white perspective. So there's the like,
00:37:52.020are they a real expert, quote unquote? And then it's like, what kind of expert are they? Because
00:37:56.740if it's a traditionally trained registered dietician, that's going to come with a whole
00:38:02.300bunch of embedded bites that they may or may not have started to identify and unlearn. So yeah,
00:38:08.660it's really tricky. And then even, you know, there's also a lot of RDs or other folks labeling
00:38:14.620themselves as nutritionists online who don't have a clinical practice or haven't had one in a really
00:38:20.380long time and who aren't regularly feeding kids the same age as your kids. And so their advice
00:38:26.720is going to be a little out of touch, perhaps, with what you're actually dealing with. So
00:38:32.360there's just so much there. I mean, in terms of filtering, you know, and then there's also
00:38:38.320the valid criticism of someone not being a dietician. Amy, for example, is not a dietician.
00:38:42.620I am not a dietician. So you could say, like, well, how are you guys even qualified to talk
00:38:46.380about this at all? First of all, I don't tell anyone how to feed their kids. I want to be real
00:38:50.600clear on that. I don't give, you know, diabetics advice. I critique this as a cultural construct.
00:38:56.580But I think looking for folks who are asking more questions than they're answering,
00:39:03.820who are talking very realistically about the hurdles in front of parents, who are making the
00:39:09.960labor visible, who are making the problems visible, I think, for me, feels like a more
00:39:16.520reliable source of information than someone who has really pretty graphics and really clever reel
00:39:22.480yeah a hundred percent and i just i think i think a mom is an expert on almost everything in the
00:39:28.680world to be honest um like what makes you have like i'm like i'm like i'm an expert on nothing
00:39:33.940but also everything hey i'm at least surviving a lot of shit so i've got a lot to say totally
00:39:41.640right but yeah i think again like if we can take one message away from any of this it's0.51
00:39:47.960just parse what it means to be an expert and think about what content and this is my overarching
00:39:54.020thing for social media think about what content makes you feel good and not and not like a shitty
00:39:58.860mom and is additive and helpful to your crazy life and use that and do and do not do not follow
00:40:10.180the other people because it is your choice and you have and you have agency
00:40:13.340it's free to unfollow absolutely free to unfollow um we are doing something similar at the end of
00:40:21.480these episodes which is you inspired me with your butter what what what are you happy to be
00:40:29.640influenced by right now oh that is a good question okay i am really happy to be influenced by
00:40:37.760really great women writers on divorce because as you and I were talking about off mic I am going
00:40:43.680through a divorce right now it is mostly a very good thing for my life but obviously also a hard
00:40:49.940time in a lot of ways and there have been so many women who have been kind of like I mean we're in
00:40:58.220this summer of divorce now it's fall but you know we've been in this like sort of cultural moment of
00:41:02.480divorce getting a new framing, I think. And I'm just so grateful to folks who have been telling
00:41:09.560their stories in positive ways. So Joanna Goddard over on Cup of Joe, you know, was one of the first
00:41:17.140people to write about her divorce in a way that I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. I want that,
00:41:23.040what she's doing. Liz Lenz does just like amazing work talking about the institution of marriage1.00
00:41:30.660and how it holds women prisoners Maggie Smith's new memoir there's like a lot of great feminist
00:41:37.200divorce writing happening right now and I am here for it and being influenced by all of it1.00
00:41:41.500you're right in fact I when I was reading your your newsletter today where you you broke the
00:41:47.920news to your subscribers you came out came out as a woman going through a divorce I was thinking
00:41:55.300about how much great content there is because I've been following Joanna Goddard's divorce journey
00:42:00.200and uh i also have been following liz for a long time and and maggie's writing and i think i want
00:42:09.600to do a whole episode on divorce influencing yes yes please uh because i would oh my gosh i have
00:42:19.140so many episodes like i think we're gonna do more than one a week at this point because there's just
00:42:23.660so much to get into i've divorce influencing menopause influencing is another one that i0.92
00:42:29.240don't know why i tied divorce and menopause and it's just i think about women in the prime of
00:42:33.080their life in their late 30s 40s and how we're just like all going for it yeah because i think
00:42:39.160for the first time there's a real cultural moment where women are sharing the good stories of
00:42:46.020divorce instead of the doom doom and gloom and woe is me because divorce is freedom for a lot of us
00:42:57.060yeah truly yeah and i'm so i'm so excited for this next stage of your life oh thank you thank you
00:43:04.920and that's it that's all we've got today friends i love everything that virginia said and i have
00:43:18.180so much to chew on about kid food influencers and who and what we should be listening to
00:43:24.960while we're feeding our kids. Should we be listening to anyone? Or should we just keep
00:43:29.800winging it? I'm just going to keep winging it, friends. Buy Virginia's book, subscribe to her
00:43:35.940substack and her podcast, Burnt Toast, and I will talk to all of you very, very soon.