Busy Mom Podcast Episode 03 Transcript

How to Eat Enough Fruits and Vegetables- Blog Post

Audio File

Welcome to episode 3 of the Busy Mom’s Survival Guide.

Welcome to the Busy Mom’s Survival Guide with PJ Jonas where we discuss making the most of your families’ health, time and money.  I’m your host, PJ Jonas, and I’m here to help you make the most of each day despite the craziness.

Hello everyone.  Today we’re going to be talking about fruits and vegetables and not just why they are important, but how we can make sure that we are getting enough.

I’ve worked very hard over the years to make sure that all my children enjoy eating their vegetables.  Mostly, of course, because Jim hates eating them and I didn’t want their spouses to deal with that someday.   I have to say, of all my children, Hewitt loves his vegetables the most, so he’s going to be joining me later to tell you all about them.

If this is your first time listening, my name is PJ Jonas and I am definitely a busy mom.  I am a wife and a home schooling mom of eight children, plus I have a full time job running Goat Milk Stuff, a successful family business where we make goat milk soap with the milk from our own dairy goats. I began this podcast because I really want to help moms focus on taking care of themselves properly so they can meet the needs of their families.

Before I start talking about fruits and vegetables, I have to tell you what happened last week after my podcast episode on sleep.  I recorded the sleep podcast on Tuesday and Jim listened to it on Wednesday.  Saturday was my birthday, and yes I did turn 40 this year (2012) in case you were wondering and didn’t want to ask.   I am a St. Patrick’s Day baby which is why my name is PJ, which stands for Patti Jo.  Here is a minor piece of trivia for you: I was actually supposed to be born on the 16th and be named Dawn, but when I was born on St. Patrick’s Day my parents decided to change it and I became PJ.

Anyway, every time people asked what I was doing for my 40th birthday, I’ve been telling them that I am going to go to Italy.  I just don’t know when because right now things are kind of crazy and hectic and there is really no chance for me to get away for a trip like that but once everything settles down, if they ever settle down, once they settle down enough, I have told my family that I am going to Italy and if any of them wants to join me they are welcome to come but they better start saving up their own money because I’ve only saved up enough for me. But that is totally an aside since Italy is not happening anytime soon.

Guess what Jim decided to get me for my birthday?  He got me a mattress, isn’t that awesome?  I am so proud of him because our mattress is 8 years old and it keeps poking us with springs and stuff and it’s really annoying and definitely not helpful with our sleep.  So he listened to my podcast and he decided to do that.  This one is wonderful and is making us sleep a whole lot better and the best part is I didn’t have to shop for it and I didn’t have to pick it out.  It just showed up at my doorstep, so that was really awesome.  Thank you honey, I love it.

Another thing about last week’s sleep podcast that I forgot to mention was that if you’ve been chronically sleep deprived and then you start to sleep more healthy hours like I was suggesting, don’t be surprised if at first you feel pretty badly.  That can be very normal.  It’s just your body’s way of adjusting, letting its guard down and focusing on the job of getting back to normal and helping heal you. I can tell you from experience that for the past two days I have felt like I have the flu, all I want to do is lie on the couch with my blanket and my pillow and read a book and I have not felt well but it’s because I am trying to get more sleep and my body is kind of saying “whoa ok, we can do this” and I just want to tell you if that happens to you, don’t worry just keep going to bed early and you will work through it,

The topic for today is eating fruits and vegetables.  One of the things I am always telling women is that in order to be the best wife and mother you can be, you need to take care of yourself and that means getting enough sleep.  It means exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, and eating right.  Unfortunately most of us fall short on many of those things.  Not because we don’t think they are important, but because we have so much going on and we’re just too busy to do them.

Here’s an example from today. I get up in the morning and exercise.  It’s a very important thing that I need to do, but today is Tuesday and Brett volunteers for story hour at the library every Tuesday morning.  Today a couple of things happened and I didn’t get on the treadmill before I had to take her.  So I didn’t walk in the morning.  Now fortunately for me, I have some flexibility in my schedule and when I got back from story hour I was able to grab Jim and the two of us went for a walk together.  But despite my intention of getting up in the morning and getting on the treadmill, it just didn’t happen.  It really would have been easy for me to skip exercise altogether if I didn’t know how important it was.  Because when I have a really busy day like I had today, I have found that if I don’t spend the time to take care of myself and get some exercise then I’m going to be completely dragging by the end of it.  So I need to make that a priority for myself.

Other than exercise, eating enough fruits and vegetables is one thing that just never gets done for a lot of people.  There are a lot of scientific studies out there that will show you why fruits and vegetables are so important for your health.  All you have to do is read a magazine or watch the television, they are always talking about how good they are, what you’re supposed to do, and  so I am not going to get into all of that.  I am going to assume that you agree with me on the fact that fruits and vegetables are important and that you need eat enough of them, and that beside all the scientific reasons, it’s just important to eat them because it’s going to make you feel better, have more energy, and be able to handle the stresses of life better.

That leads to the question how many fruits and vegetables are enough.  Most people think you should get 3-5 servings of your fruits and vegetables.  The reality is you should really be getting more like 5-9 servings and it should be more vegetables than fruits.  We can talk about that for a moment because fruits are excellent for you, they are really healthy, they are really good, so why do I say you should get more vegetables than fruits?  The simple answer is because of the fructose. Fruits are very high in fructose and too much fructose can really cause trouble for your body.  This is because fructose is processed in your liver and if you consume too much fructose, your liver can’t process it fast enough for your body to use it as sugar.  So it turns it into fats which then go into your bloodstream as triglycerides.  Most of you, if you ever had your blood drawn, know that triglycerides are  not necessarily a good thing.  So if you consume too much fructose, your liver converts that excess fructose into triglycerides and those can cause high blood pressure, kidney disease, obesity, and generally they just make you feel lousy if you have too much of them.  So enjoy your fruit but don’t have more than a couple servings daily.

Another thing is that you should also try to eat as many of your fruits and vegetables as you can raw.  There is a lot of controversy about eating fruits and vegetables raw with the raw food movement, but it really is important.  The simple explanation is that there are enzymes present in raw fruits and vegetables that are killed if you cook them.  The enzymes are important because you need them to digest the food that you eat, you need the protease for digesting protein, the lipase for digesting fats, and amylase for digesting carbohydrates.  If you don’t eat enough of these enzymes in your fruits and vegetables then your pancreas has to actually produce enough enzymes to make up for that deficit.  So if you don’t eat much raw food then your pancreas has to produce a lot more enzymes than it would if you were eating the fruits and vegetables raw.

Especially if you never eat enough fruits and veggies, that can put a lot of strain on your pancreas.  And if your pancreas is constantly over-stimulated to produce the enzymes that your body isn’t eating, then over time it’s not going to function very well and this can lead to a lot of sickness and general not well-being for your health.  So on a side note, this is one of the main reasons I got goats in the first place – because I wanted our family to have access to raw milk so we could get a lot of healthy enzymes easily that we know are clean.

Another thing that I wanted to talk about with this whole fruits and vegetables is the concept of juicing them which can get kind of heated if you talk to people.  There are a lot of people really in favor of juicing and a lot of people against it.  I would juice occasionally, I’ve been known to do that but I don’t do it often because, basically, I don’t believe that fruits and vegetables were meant to be consumed that way.  I believe that God made the fruit and veggies whole for a reason and that’s how we should eat them.  There is a lot of fiber in the fruits and vegetables which is beneficial, plus the fact is that the fructose from whole fruit is absorbed more slowly than fructose from fruit juices.  I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to juice, but I think a lot of people rely too heavily on that and they can kind of do their bodies more harm than good.  So be careful if you decide to get into juicing a lot of fruits and veggies.

So let’s talk about what fruits and vegetables to consume.  It’s important not just to get your 5-9 fruits and vegetables, but to get them in a range of colors.  Most of us tend to eat the same couple of fruits and vegetables, but it’s important to get a variety,  because the different colors have different benefits for your body.  We can talk about the different colors:  first the red fruits and vegetables, they are colored by a photo nutrient  called lycopene.  Lycopene has been on the news a lot lately, but it can help with regulating your blood pressure, reducing the growth of tumors, lowering bad cholesterol, and help reducing the risk of several types of cancer.  I know that I told you to try and eat a lot of fruits and vegetables raw but, a side note, with lycopene your body actually absorbs it better if you cook your tomatoes.   There are a whole bunch of red fruits and vegetables, things like red apples, cherries, cranberries, pink grape fruit, red grapes, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes and watermelons, beets, red cabbage, red peppers, and red potatoes.

I’m going to lump orange and yellow together because those often contain beta-carotene.  That’s where they get their colors from, and that’s really good for helping support eye health and reducing cancer risk.  You’ll find that a lot of fruits and vegetables reduce your risk of cancer, improve your immune system, and support your heart health.  There is a whole lot of these two colors you’ve got yellow apples, apricots, grapefruit, lemons, mangos, nectarines, oranges, papayas, peaches, pears, pineapples, tangerines, yellow tomatoes and yellow watermelon, butternut squash, carrots, yellow and orange peppers, pumpkin, summer or winter squash, sweet corn, and sweet potatoes.

Next we have green.  Green is often colored by chlorophyll.  You can differentiate between light green and dark green or you can just kind of lump them all together and these often contain folic acid.  Folic Acid is very important for pregnant women for helping their babies to develop properly.  So a lot of that is in multi-vitamins, but it’s also much better  whenever possible to get it from the actual food.  The green color actually has more vegetables than fruits.  So green apples, avocados, green grapes, honeydew, limes, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts (which I hate but I know some people love but not me) green cabbage, cucumbers, lettuce, green onions, peas, green peppers, spinach and kale,  So there is  a lot of choice there.

One of my favorite groups is the blue and purple and these contain anthocyanins which are very powerful antioxidants that protect your cells from free radical damage.  They can do things like reducing your cancer risk, reducing your risk of stroke and heart disease, but also I like these because they help slow the aging process and they taste really good.  Blackberries are one of our favorites, its blackberries and blueberries, plums, prunes, purple grapes, and raisins.

We also have white fruits and veggies and these contains a chemical called anthoxanthins.  Which you usually hear about that in things like garlic and onions, but it’s really good for reducing cholesterol and blood pressure.  These are also a good source of potassium which bananas are known for providing.  White includes bananas, cauliflower, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, onions, potatoes and turnips.  I’ve had all of those.  Actually my sister in-law made a jicama salad, but it was the first time I had it and it was fairly flavorless but it kind of picked up the flavors of salad she had in it and it was very good so feel free to try that.

Personally what I need to do to make sure I’m getting enough fruits and vegetables is I have to track it.  What I do is I have a central notebook that I use as my survival guide, it’s got a whole bunch of stuff in it, we’ll go into that more in another podcast, but in it I have a list of colors and throughout the day I check off what colors I have eaten and this really helps me to plan dinner because I know what colors I need to add to dinner or I often can make it a fruit dessert with the missing colors.  So tracking it throughout the day makes it really easy to see where your favorite ones are and what colors you’re often eating and what colors you really need some work on.

I do want to admit that it’s not always easy getting 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables.  So for me I have kind of a safety net, I want to make sure you know about. I believe that nothing replaces the actual fruits and vegetables, but I do use a product, it’s called Amazing Grass, it was recommended by a friend of mine.  And it’s the best whole food supplement that we found because one serving helps you get to 5-9 fruits and vegetables.  I want to make clear I don’t think that taking amazing grass is optimal and I don’t want anyone to think they can just eat this and that’s sufficient, but as an addition to a healthy diet it’s great.  I just get mine from amazon.com.  If you sign up for regular shipping then the shipping is free and when you sign up it tells you that it’s going to come every month, but you can actually go back into your account and change the frequency.  So if you need it more frequently or less frequently you can do that, kind of adjust it so you’ll always have it there and it comes in different flavors.  I like the berry one the best and Jim actually prefers the chocolate, that’s kind of strange because I am the chocolate lover, but I like my chocolate to be real chocolate and not Amazing Grass flavor chocolate.  You can decide which one you like best but if you get it and try it.  You should definitely keep it in the fridge and not your pantry, and again don’t rely on this alone to get your servings of fruits and vegetables but it’s a very helpful tool for the busy mom.

So now that we have discussed all the different colored vegetables, let’s talk for a minute about getting children to eat their fruits and vegetables. Fruits aren’t usually a problem, but vegetables are definitely known to be a problem with some children.  So I do have some tips. First off, if you’re listening to this early, you need to start your kids eating vegetables when they are young, if you start them when they are young it is so much easier getting them to eat vegetables because it is just what they do, that’s what they’ve always had.

Second, don’t give them a choice, make them eat their fruits and vegetables.  I know that’s easier said than done.  You can get into a real power struggle and that’s something you have to try and avoid, but it’s important.  If your child is older, you can do some studying with them on why it’s so important and let them take some ownership of it but it shouldn’t be optional, it should be something that they have to do.

Third thing is you can also hide the vegetables in their food. I did this for a lot of years, I would hide them in their brownies and spaghetti sauce and baked potaotes, and one of my favorite recipes is homemade pot pie, you can just add a ton of vegetables in that.  We make carrot apple salad, that’s really good.  I also do a lot of smoothies, because it is amazing what you can hide in a smoothie, with a great tasting smoothie you can actually add an entire cup of packed spinach in there and the kids won’t know they are in there.  Especially if you do some things that it’s not surprising them, that it looks a little bit on the green side but don’t try that with kale because it  is much more bitter and you cannot hide it like you can hide spinach, but you can really hide spinach very easily.

Another thing to do is to eat your own vegetables.  You and your husband, you need to model for your kids that eating vegetables is what everybody does and it’s something that you can join, you can make them taste good.  Another thing you can do is to grow your own vegetables, because vegetables are never going to taste as good as when you pick them and eat them right out of your garden.  The minute you pick them, the sugar starts breaking down and starts turning into starch, so if you eat them right out of the garden, they are so much sweeter and a lot of kids are actually more likely to try them if they helped grow them.  So growing them in your garden is a great way.

I am a big believer in doing what it takes to get your children to eat their vegetables.  If you have to, add dips or treats or whatever it takes, if you have to get a really bad salad dressing that tastes really good to get them to eat their salad, do that, do a cheese sauce,  bake the vegetables with a smiley face, whatever it takes to get them to eat those vegetables.  So I hope that helps a little bit.

I am kind of spoiled, because I did start my children young, and I really like vegetables, so it’s something that they’ve just kind of naturally fallen into.

If you want to know about my daily eating, it is really easy, I actually do the same thing for breakfast and lunch almost every day, I actually read a study that said that people who eat the same thing for every meal eat less and maintain an ideal body weight.  That’s not the reason that I do it but, I felt that was interesting.  The reason I do it is because it’s simple and I don’t have to waste my time thinking about what I’m going to have for breakfast or what I’m going to have for lunch.  I know exactly what it is and most of my children can make it for me because they know how to do it.  I’ve shown them how to do it and they know exactly what to put in there.

So for me, my breakfast is a smoothie, my smoothie would change depending on the season and my mood, right now I’m really into simple and it’s just a cup of yogurt, 3 ice cubes and a scoop of amazing grass.  That’s it right now, other times its much more complex with goat milk or banana, a cup of spinach, amazing grass, frozen strawberries, spinach, and other things like that.   I had that for quite a while in the winter, but I vary it depending on my mood and what’s available and that kind of thing.  But it’s pretty much a smoothie for breakfast every morning.

With my smoothie I have an apple with peanut butter on it and sometimes I have a banana with peanut butter but usually it’s an apple because they don’t turn brown like bananas, so it’s easier for me to store them and the kids will eat a slice of that if I don’t finish the whole thing, but that’s my breakfast.

Lunch is a huge salad that Brett almost always makes for me.  It’s  green leaf lettuce and spinach, and then she adds a quarter cup of nuts and seeds.  That’s something we pre-mix and have it already ahead of time and it’s a mix of  walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds and flax seeds.  Then she puts on a bunch of blue cheese for me because I really like blue cheese and it makes my salad taste better.  Often times I also chop up an avocado and add that as well and then if there is any other raw veggies that need to be eaten up I’ll add those in.  Jim has his salad with spicy  Ranch salad dressing that he likes.

Brett and the kids usually prefer regular ranch, I actually make my own salad dressing and  I add olive oil, red wine vinegar, raspberry flavored balsamic vinear, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  I mix that up and keep it in the fridge for me and you do have to take that out early because the olive oil will kind of congeal and so it needs to warm up to room temperature, but I just use a lot of that and that’s really good.

So that’s my breakfast and lunch.  Jim and the children, they’ll eat their salad and then they’ll eat leftovers but  usually the salad is enough for me because I’m the only who really adds the avocado to it and that’s very filling.  If am not full, if I don’t have an avocado, if am still a little bit hungry then usually I’ll just make a sweet potato.  I just cut it up and steam it and add a whole lot of butter because I love butter.  Make sure it’s real butter not margarine, which is terrible, but real butter.  That’s how I like it.

I’ll talk more about dinner in detail another time but usually it’s just something balanced with protein, carbs and then usually two large servings of vegetables.

Overall I don’t usually make it but my daily goal is a pound of raw fruits and veggies and a pound of cooked fruits and veggies and if you actually weigh that out that is a ton of fruits and veggies which is why I don’t usually make it and that’s one of the reasons I take the amazing grass because I like that safety net.

Most of you haven’t met me but I am a tiny person,  I am barely 5 feet tall and am under 100 pounds, so to eat 5-9 servings of vegetables is a lot of food and I do want to say that I don’t usually pay too much attention to what an actual serving size is, I generally figure about the size of a small apple serving size and just kind of estimate it but the exception of leafy greens like spinach I do pack those down and cup them and see how much I’m getting because it’s really hard to estimate what a full serving of spinach is but that’s me.

The family eats really similarly but not exactly like I do.  Jim  usually needs a bigger breakfast so he usually has granola with yogurt and fruit plus the smoothie that I make him, the children will at times have a healthier type cereal with raw goat milk and fruit or they’ll do oatmeal if  we don’t have any goat milk.  Then there are special occasions where Fletcher makes pancakes and waffles.  He’s our pancake maker in the family, but the children are actually always trying to sneak my smoothies, I don’t know why but they are always trying to do that, so sometimes I’ll make them one but they tend to drink it a lot better if they are sneaking some of mine.

For the children, everybody has salad for lunch, that’s the first course, everybody has to have their salad and then they eat leftovers.  So if they are still hungry after their salad, then the leftovers come out and they use those up and if there is no leftovers then it’s generally a fight for who gets the peanut butter and jelly first or sometimes tuna fish.  They’ve been kind of wanting tuna fish lately and then we all share.  We all sit down and have pretty much the same thing, so they get those fruits and veggies at every meal too.   I will be honest, I don’t keep track of the colors of what anybody else eats but me, you know with 10 people that would drive me crazy trying to figure out what they are all getting.  So I just track it for me and figure that I’m getting a balanced diet buying all the colors that they’ll get it as well.

So that’s pretty much what we eat.  It’s really generally very easy and healthy and not a whole lot goes into it.

I will talk more on meal planning for dinners later on and how I do that,  but I just hope that that provides you with some great information and incentives for how to track your vegetable intake.

I did receive some questions on facebook that I wanted to answer:

Kathleen asked what you use for pests that is of natural substance rather than pesticides and chemicals.  I didn’t really talk much about gardening but I am a huge believer in home gardening.  I think it is so important and has so many benefits for your health and your stress management.  If you’ve never gardened before, start small but just start, just grow something.  As for pests in the garden, honestly I’ve never used anything other than manure.  Of course I mean manure on the dirt and not on the plants because I’ve always found that healthy plants really don’t need pesticide, so I’ve never used that.  I’ve heard that you can spread soapy water with cayenne pepper on plants but I’ve never done it, we’ve never really had problems, we’ve had Japanese beetles that we kill one at a time, we actually go out and have a contest and everybody gets a penny for the Japanese beetles that they kill.  So the kids love to do that in the spring and summer.

Kimberly also asked a similar question, she asked how do you keep Japanese beetles from attacking your veggies garden?  So again the best defense is a good offense, make sure you’re rotating your plants, don’t keep your vegetables like tomatoes and peppers in the same spots.   It also helps to add a lot of herbs like  basil, parsley, and marigolds are supposed to be very good as well.   I’ve already mentioned that I send the children out and pay them to go kill Japanese beetles.

The other question that Kimberly had was how do you pick the perfect watermelon.  We actually grow great watermelons here.  They really like our clay soil.  What we have found is if you look at the water melon where it attaches to the stem, opposite to where it attaches there is a little tendril that grows and when that tendril dries up and gets brown and dies, that’s when you pick your watermelons and they are wonderful.  So we had an old farmer give us that tip and its really true, it works.

Another question, Cathleen wants to know how do you keep rabbits from eating everything in your garden and flowers.  We’ve never found fencing to work for rabbits, if they’re really a problem in your area then you’ll just need to have a Hav-A-Hart trap and capture them and relocate them.  If not then just plant some extra for them to eat because there’s nothing that we’ve found that’s effective.  We’ve had to relocate many animals over our gardening years.

Paulette wants to know if there are any specific fruits or veggies that are helpful to reduce in inflammation or fibromyalsia?  Greens are generally wonderful for inflammation because they make your body more alkaline and inflammatory diseases are usually, they usually happen when your body is acidic, so things like spinach, things like that are really good, onion and garlic and ginger are also very good for inflammation and I don’t know very much about  inflammatory diseases.  I asked a friend of mine and she said that the general recommendation for that is no dairy, no nuts and no grains particularly oats, so that’s kind of restrictive but that might help.

Debby wanted to know what are some of the kids favorites.  She said they seemed to be very good eaters and not picky like I was as a child.  Like I said the trick is starting them young and making vegetables a big part of the meal not just the stuff they have to finish.  Because we really love everything, one of the newest ones that I have been making for the kids lately are artichoke and half of the kids love them and half of the kids aren’t so sure so far but Hewitt  is actually my biggest vegetable eater and we’ll talk to him in a little bit about what his favorites are.

And then Charolotte wants to know, do you purchase organic non genetically modified fruits and vegetables.  I have to be honest and tell you that I don’t usually buy organic vegetables when I go to the grocery store because honestly I don’t trust them.  Just because it says its organic doesn’t mean they are grown the way that I would like, they are allowed to use a lot of things I would never use and still call it organic and I don’t feel like spending my money on stuff that I don’t trust.  Overall if money is not an issue then definitely purchase organic over regular, it’s definitely going to be better than the regular produce but for us, we mostly grow our own here or we get our produce from local farmers that we trust, we put a lot for the winter by freezing and caning and dehydrating and that’s the best way for me is to get it from people I trust if I can’t grow it on my own.  As for GMO stuff which stands for genetically modified, I hate GMO stuff, I think it’s terrible, I don’t feed my goats soy or corn because so much of it is GMO, but honestly if you’re buying any processed food, the odds are you’re getting GMO stuff because there’s corn syrup in just about everything.  So if that something you really want to avoid then you need to cook most of your meals from scratch.

The last question comes from Deb I love my dehydrator, do you use a dehydrator for the produce of your garden to enjoy it in the off season?  Absolutely, I love my dehydrator too, I have a big huge Excalibur dehydrator and that thing is a beast, it can fit so much food in there and we’ve dehydrated all sorts of garden stuff over the years and they really enjoy it, they love dehydrated apple rings but I do have to tell you that most of the dehydrated stuff that we use, I cook in soups, stews and baked goods because I found that’s the best way to eat it and consume it with the exception like I said of the apple rings are really good and then we actually also really love making fruit roll ups with the dehydrator.

So thank you everybody for those questions, I hope that really helped, I’m going to bring Hewitt in now to talk about what he thinks of vegetables.

So I’ve got Hewitt here with me now, can you say to everybody Hewitt?

Hewitt: Hi.

PJ: Are you excited to be on the podcast?

Hewitt: Nope.

PJ: How come you’re not excited?

Hewitt: Because this is my first time of ever being on a podcast.

PJ: Is it pretty cool?

Hewitt: Yeah.

PJ: Do you like the microphone?

Hewitt: Yep

PJ: And the headphones?

Hewitt: yep

PJ: Alright, I have one question for you.

Hewitt: OK

PJ: Do you like vegetables?

Hewitt: Yes

PJ: How much?

Hewitt: Awesome

PJ: They are awesome?

Hewitt: Yeah

PJ: What’s your favorite vegetable?

Hewitt: Broccoli

PJ: Broccoli is your favorite vegetable?

Hewitt: Yep

PJ: How much broccoli could you eat in a day?

Hewitt: About a dozen pieces

PJ: A dozen pieces?

Hewitt: Yeah

PJ: What if I had a chocolate cake and broccoli, which would you prefer?

Hewitt: Broccoli

PJ: Broccoli over chocolate cake?

Hewitt: Yes

PJ: What about ice cream or broccoli?

Hewitt: Broccoli

PJ: What about brownies or broccoli?

Hewitt: Broccoli

PJ: Really?

Hewitt: Yes

PJ: Is that really true or are you just saying that?

Hewitt: Really true

PJ: What other vegetables do you like?

Hewitt: Not pretty much anymore

PJ: Not anymore, that’s not true; you eat a lot of other vegetables

Hewitt: Well, I would eat them but I don’t really like them

PJ: Not as much as broccoli?

Hewitt: Yes, not as much as broccoli

PJ: Do you want to tell everybody about when we went up to IHOP what you asked the waitress for?

Hewitt: yes

PJ: Go ahead.

Hewitt: smiley face

PJ: You asked for your smiley face pancake and then you finished the smiley face pancake and then what did you ask her for?

Hewitt: Smiley face

PJ: Another smiley face?

Hewitt: oh no, broccoli

PJ: Yea, broccoli, you ate a smiley face pancake at IHOP and then you asked the waitress for broccoli?

Hewitt: yes

PJ: What did she say?

Hewitt: I don’t remember

PJ: She was pretty surprised, wasn’t she?

Hewitt: yes

PJ: Did she bring you your broccoli?

Hewitt: I think no

PJ: No,  because mom said we had broccoli at home right?

Hewitt: yes

PJ: Nobody wanted to wait for you to eat broccoli?

Hewitt: yeah

PJ: So if you couldn’t have broccoli, what vegetable would you like?

Hewitt: cake

PJ: So broccoli ahead of everything and after broccoli cake??

Hewitt: yeah

PJ: OK, at least we know you’re a normal kid

Hewitt: And after cake I would have ice cream and brownies

PJ: OK, so broccoli, cake, ice cream, brownies?

Hewitt: yep

PJ: ok. I told everybody you really loved your vegetables, can you say goodbye?

Hewitt: bye

PJ: And now indigo wanted to tell you about her favorite food so we are going to have her join us. So Indigo has swapped seats with Hewitt and she is here and am not really sure why she’s here except that she asked me too and she looked at me with those big brown eyes and I just kind of had to say yes, so Indigo

Indigo: hi

PJ: and say hi to everybody else

Indigo: hi

PJ: what did you want to join us and tell everybody on the podcast today?

Indigo: about my favorite fruits

PJ: your favorite fruits?

Indigo: yep

PJ: what are your favorite fruits?

Indigo: strawberries

PJ: strawberries, those are pretty good, do you have any others?

Indigo: water melon

PJ: water melon, super yummy, what else?

Indigo: *36:35*, most of the fruits I really like and I like, I can’t remember what it’s called

PJ: what color is it?

Indigo: yellow, a yellow fruit

PJ: I can’t think of a lot of yellow fruits other then bananas, kiwi?

Indigo: yes I love kiwi and pineapple

PJ: pineapple is a good one; tell everybody what you think of avocados

Indigo: I love avocados

PJ: remember what you used to call the when you were littler

Indigo: applecados

PJ: Applecados and you loved them a lot?

Indigo: yep

PJ: it was you and mommy who used to eat them together, didn’t we?

Indigo: yep

PJ: and now we’ve got Jade eating them with us?

Indigo: and then Brett, well Brett was first and then me and then Jade

PJ: so we’re the applecado *37:30*

Indigo: Yep

PJ: Alright, can you say goodbye to everybody?

Indigo: goodbye

PJ:  I’ve actually grabbed Hewitt back because he has to help me pick the goatmilkstuff winner  for the week and we had 13 comments on our Sleep podcast, so Hewitt you have to pick a number between 1 and 13.

Hewitt: 10

PJ: And the winning number is 10 which makes our winner Jenifer 12382.  So Jenifer, I don’t know your last name but you are the winner.  Just send me an email or leave a comment and we’ll be happy to get your gift certificate out to you.  Thanks for picking the number Hewitt.

Hewitt: You’re welcome.

PJ: I enjoyed having you here.

Hewitt: I did too.

PJ: Say goodbye.

Hewitt: Bye.

PJ:  Well it was fun having Hewitt and Indigo, both of them here with us, Jade also wanted to be here so am going to have to figure out a good one for her next week, so she can join us but we’re just about to finish this podcast episode.  I want to leave you with this week survival guide rule and that is to eat more vegetables.  It’s just so important, if you can take the time to add more vegetables to your diet, you’re going to find that you’re feeling better, you have more energy and there is less room in your stomach for food that isn’t good for you.  It’s a fact of life in America that many people are eating too many calories and are literally starving for nutrients.  It will make a difference but, to make the change you need to start tracking it using the white board or putting a piece of paper on the fridge with a magnet or start your own Control Journal binder that will serve as your survival guide.  Write down the colors.  I am actually going to add a link to the colors of fruits and vegetables choices in this blog post for this podcast, so you can look at that if you need help choosing different colors and different vegetables and stuff but track it each and every day and see if you can eat one from each color every day and if not every day at least over the course of the week because you really will see a difference.

BMSG003rule

I just want to say thank you so much for listening to this episode of the busy mom survival guide, I hope you’ve enjoyed listening and learned something about fruits and vegetables that helps you make a change towards a healthier eating habits, join me on the next episode where I’ll be talking about water and how to know you’re not being harmed by the water you’re drinking, if you enjoyed this episode please leave me a comment on the blog at www.pjjonas.com or rate this episode on ITunes, you can also call my feedback line at 240-230, so until next time I’m PJ Jonas and am praying that you take care of yourself despite your busy life.

 

 

 

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