Writing Your Family Food Story with Dr. Julia Nordgren
Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I was provided with sample copies of the book reviewed in this post by the author’s book publisher. This post does contain affiliate links.
Writing Your Family Food Story with Dr. Julia Nordgren
What Does Your Doctor Know About Food?
One thing I hear from the nurse practitioner & medical students I teach is how grateful they are to learn about nutrition.
As an Associate Clinical Professor of Nutrition at the University of California, San Francisco my colleagues and I help educate our students about nutrition so they can help their patients & their families eat better.
It may be surprising to you, but nutrition is a very small part of the primary care practitioner training curriculum in the US.
…and, it does seem odd that ⅔ of the US population is overweight or obese, but 90% of physicians in this country have never taken a dedicated nutrition course!
That’s what makes pediatrician Dr. Julia Nordgren so unique: not only is she a physician, but she is also a Culinary Institute of America (CIA) trained chef.
I sat down with Dr. Julia (or @drjuliacooks as she is known on social media) to talk about the importance of knowing how to cook if you’re going to fuel a healthy family.
Writing Your Family’s Food Story
I first met Dr. Julia when I attended the CIA’s Healthy Kitchens Healthy Lives conference a few years back. She presents at this fabulous food conference each year, helping physicians learn about food & nutrition in a manner they can easily translate to their patient populations.
As a pediatrician in Northern California, Dr. Julia works in a clinic-based setting with children and adolescents who have obesity, pre-diabetes & cholesterol. Too often she sees families AFTER years of unhealthy habits have set in…but she always focuses on the changes they can STILL make in order to redirect their diets and health.
Because my own audience consists primarily of mothers of babies and young children just beginning to develop their own relationship with food, I asked Dr. Julia how her experiences as a chef and pediatrician can help these moms.
She introduced me to the idea of “writing your family’s food story”....and reminds us that as the adults, WE control the food situation in our family.
Babies are kind of like blank palettes she explained, “You have this blank page and YOU get to write your family’s food story.” Some families may share with her, “You know….my story was I was overweight and had high cholesterol as a little kid. Then when I was 8 I started learning how to cook and eat more wholesome foods and I was able to turn my health around.”
Another mom might say to Dr. Julia, “My story was that I had no idea how to cook and everyone in my family as diabetes, and then I had this helpless 6 month old who had to learn how to eat. I realized I could rewrite the rest of the story by learning some basic cooking techniques and how to prepare real food for my whole family!”
Growth Charts as Paths You Can Change
A lot of parents worry that their babies or children aren’t “eating enough” or “aren’t eating the right foods”. As a pediatrician, Dr. Julia reminds us that we need to look for patterns. A day or two of not great intake is unlikely to result in irreversible malnutrition.
She cites growth charts as a great way to monitor and look for trends in your child’s health.
Maybe an overweight child is trending up on the weight for age growth chart at a recent checkup. Some conversations with the family about what the child is eating and how frequently the child is snacking and how much food is being consumed throughout the day can help reveal patterns in unhealthy eating that can be easily reversed with some simple food-directed tweaks.
You Have to Feed These People for 18 Years!
You don’t have to be a great cook to adequately prepare wholesome foods for your family!
Dr. Julia shared with me that her own mom didn’t really cook until Dr. Julia took some time off from practicing medicine, went to culinary school and then started cooking with her mom, who took up the practice later in life.
Some parents have a lot of anxiety about needing to know how to prepare food once their baby turns 6 months and starts solids. But if you think about it, you have to feed these children for at least 17.5 more years before they leave the house - so having a few basic cooking skills under your belt is probably going to make your life easier!
Dr. Julia shares some of her really valuable family cooking suggestions and fabulously easy, delicious recipes inside of her book “The New Family Table: Cooking More, Eating Together and Staying (Relatively) Sane”.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a great cook, once you realize that wholesome food doesn’t magically appear on your family’s table...you can get on board with Dr. Julia’s cooking & family feeding philosophy:
Everyday cooking for families doesn’t have to be fancy to be wholesome
Kids CAN cook & help you in the kitchen, and
You CAN make well-balanced meals with simple ingredients that can nourish your whole family!
Brazilian Chicken Soup Recipe
Cooking meat that the whole family can eat is challenging for some new parents...or parents who are new to cooking. Dr. Julia shared this Brazilian Chicken Soup Recipe from her cookbook The New Family Table and it’s one you can dress up or dress down, depending on your preference for spice.
Recipe shared with permission by Julia Nordgren, MD
Ingredients
1 whole organic chicken, about 4 pounds, cut into pieces
For the Stock
1 onion, cut into quarters (not peeled)
2 carrots, coarsely chopped
3 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
1 bunch parsley stems (leaves chopped and reserved for garnish)
3 cloves garlic, peeled & sliced
5-6 sprigs thyme
1 tablespoon whole peppercorns
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more, to taste
For the Soup
2 cups cooked brown rice
3 scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
2 carrots, grated
½ yellow onion, grated or finely diced
3 plum tomatoes, seeds removed, diced
Lemond wedges, for serving
Hot sauce or Sriracha, for serving (optional)
Directions
Rinse chicken pieces, placed in a large stockpot, and cover with cold water by about an inch. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. You should see bubbles popping around the edge of the pot, but it should not be vigorously boiling.
As the stock simmers, foam will rise to the top. Using a spoon or a small strainer, sim the foam off the stock occasionally as it simmers.
After about 3- minutes of simmering, add onion, carrots, celery, garlic, parsley stems, thyme, peppercorns, and salt.
Allow to simmer for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Remove chicken and let it cool on a cutting board. When cool, pull the meat of the bones with your fingers and set aside. Discard the skin.
Taste the broth. If it tastes weak, add chicken bones back in and simmer for another hour. Season with salt and pepper as needed.
If it is flavorful enough for you, go ahead and strain it using a cheesecloth-lined mesh strainer. Discard the vegetables.
Put the strained broth back into the pot. Add rice and 2 cups of the shredded chicken. Stir. Add scallions, carrots, onion, and tomatoes. Heat through, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.
Garnish with parsley leaves and serve with lemon wedges and hot sauce, if desired.
Interview with Dr. Julia Nordgren
Dr. Julia (@drjuliacooks) recently came on Instagram Live with me on my page @babyledweanteam to talk about this concept of Writing Your Family’s Food Story.
We had the opportunity to talk about overcoming anxiety about cooking when you’re just starting out feeding your family.
Some other highlights from our video interview include:
How to use time at the grocery store to introduce your baby to new foods
Her 2 favorite kitchen items every family cook should have
Why we shouldn’t hide vegetables in familiar foods for kids
Alternative ideas for kids in the kitchen beyond just frosting cupcakes
You can catch the full interview video here on my IGTV.
To learn more about cooking for better health, follow Dr. Julia on Instagram @drjuliacooks or check out her website www.drjuliacooks.com.
You can check out her cookbook THE NEW FAMILY TABLE on Amazon.
