From Picky Eating to Gut Healing: Kate Pope on Nourishing Your Child the Ancestral Way

Have you ever been in that situation as a parent? Your child just won't stop crying. You're noticing a health ailment that's coming up and you just feel scared. Or maybe your baby's about to start eating food and there's 50 different ways you can start feeding them and you just don't know where to start. I'm Chef James Barry and I'm the host of Everyday Ancestral. And I think you're gonna really love our next guest, Kate Hope. She will answer all of your questions around what do I feed my baby? What should I be thinking We're talking about as I'm pregnant, picky eating, and in general, what it means to heal our gut and how we can start looking at food truly as medicine. So Kate Pope is a mom, a holistic chef, and a nutritional therapy practitioner, and a certified GAPS practitioner. Kate helps babies and mothers start solids the gut-healthy way. With her husband Alex, they've self-published 3 cookbooks: Cooking: An Act of Love, Every Meal Healing, and A Guide to a Regenerative Thanksgiving. Please enjoy Kate Pope.

Hi, everyone.

Kate, it is such a pleasure to be finally meeting and talking. Uh, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart as a father.

Hmm.

And, um, I am excited to kind of just dig into like the nutrition, the focus when we first have our children, what we should be thinking about, um, the food, how, what foods to first introduce to kids and in general, like As parents, because we want our kids to thrive, you know, we want them to be healthy, happy, but what does that actually look like? Because when you're a new parent, you're kind of just lost, right? So I'm super excited to dive into that with you. But first, let's address the elephant in the room. You are the Wild Nutritionist. What's wild about you? And, uh, you know, dive into like, what, what is a Wild Nutritionist?

Oh, I love that you asked that because there is a reason for my name, and it was super lucky. I was actually working a private chef job when I thought of it. I was chopping in the kitchen, and I was like, oh my God, Wild Nutritionist, like, I wonder if it's taken. And this was in like 2020, maybe like a little bit after that, and I looked, and it was available. And so I like got it right away. I was like, oh my gosh, okay, Wild Nutritionist. So what does it mean to me? Basically, to be a wild nutritionist means I'm connected with the cycle of life and death, and I really value regenerative agriculture. I value the life cycle, and I respect birth, and I respect death and everything that comes with that. So when it comes to our food, that means eating nose to tail. That means handling raw meat. That means learning how to use a knife. And potentially later in life, it will mean hunting and acquiring my own food. But as much as I can be connected to, like, source life, and also understanding that that comes to an end, that really connects me to my wildness ultimately.

I love it. So a lot of times what we become is a contrast to what we started out as. So did you, like, what, what kind of happened early on in your life to make nutrition a focus for you? Later in your life?

Great question. I've always been a rebel. I've always been going against the grain and figuring out what could work for me, even if it's not what's working for the masses. And I was a dancer, so my background is in dance. And I—

Specific type of dance?

Yeah, I studied like modern dance and choreography. I did a lot with dance and social justice, working in juvenile detention centers and that kind of thing. really cool community work in, um, like 2010, 2009. And, um, after my career in dance, I was, I basically had adrenal fatigue and I saw a Chinese medicine practitioner and she taught me about, you know, basically like the importance of red meat and butter. And, um, I became a locavore and I started sourcing from farmers. And then I just had this like fire lit in me about sourcing local food and how it made so much sense to me because I was like, well, if you just source the highest quality food, it tastes so much better and it's so much better for your body and it's so much better for the earth. So why is everyone not doing this? And that's when I founded Regenerative Cooking School and started to teach other people how to do that, how to source locally, how to use the harvest all year long and how to leverage it specifically to heal your body.

Now, so you, what was your diet prior to that diagnosis of the adrenal fatigue? Were you eating meat? Or just not local meat.

I had like a phase of vegetarianism in college because I thought that would— I was actually challenged by these like Irish guys when I was on a study abroad. Like, if you care about the earth, you would be a vegetarian. And I was like, okay. And I went for it and I was 6 months in and my mom was like, you don't look so good. I was like, I think I'm fine. And then I was like, eh, that didn't work for me. So I was like uninformed at the time and just kind of figuring it out. Right. Trying to be like an activist and, and helping tend to the earth as, as I can as a responsible human. Um, but I was eating like, I always was health-minded. So in my mind, healthy was like a lean protein. Always, I always had a protein. So I always had steak or chicken or something. And then I would eat like a lot of like raw broccoli in college or like tried to eat avocado, but it was actually too fatty for me. Couldn't digest it. And so I didn't figure out those things like much until much later. And now I eat like a very high-fat meat-based diet with local and seasonal vegetables.

But what made the difference for, from not being able to tolerate fat to then being able to tolerate fat? Because I have a feeling that's also led you to what you're doing now.

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, the healing process, it was just a continuous unfolding. So obviously I was very inspired by the immediate results that I got from just starting to eat local meat. Like once it was kind of like, once I started shopping local, I never went back to conventional meat. It was just like, oh, I'm always gonna have this relationship with my farmer, which I found very valuable. I'm always gonna prioritize this at any income level, and I'm gonna just like scrap my way to getting the quality meats. And those results were showing through my body. So what I know now about healing my gallbladder and essentially helping myself digest fats is that you need healthy fats to have your gallbladder work properly. And things like meat stock, eating more butter, increasing my fat slowly are actually the things that helped me to have a functioning, healthy gallbladder. digest those fats and thus use the fat-soluble vitamins to heal my brain. Right.

It's, yeah. And it is amazing to me because there's so many doctors that are removing people's gallbladders and then they don't actually tell them, oh, you can't digest fat now. And they don't give them any support around it cuz they don't, it's not even talked about.

Yeah. It's crazy. The amount of women that just get their gallbladder removed on a whim or like Basically, they're having a gallbladder attack, which I've had before. It's so painful. So you go to the emergency room, but usually by the time you get to the emergency room, your gallbladder's already past the stone, so there's no need to remove the gallbladder, but they do it anyway. And then luckily your liver can actually create a little pouch which can secrete bile, so your liver can grow a little pouch, which does a, a little bit of help. But yeah, you really need to then rely on ox bile supplements your whole life. Every time you eat dietary fat, it's a huge deal to take out your gallbladder.

In case there's people that are listening or watching that are just like, I have gallbladder issues. Like, what do you, what have you found is usually the cause for so many gallbladder issues?

Well, the cause is typically low and poor fat diets. So a diet like I was raised eating, like, you know, seed oils, canola oil, I didn't eat a ton of fat in my diet and essentially, and, and toxins, right? So toxins come in and all of that creates these like little balls that are stuck in our bile ducts and we're not eating any fat. So we're not using that literal muscle to produce the bile to push out those stones and they just get stuck there.

All right. That's great. Well, so then let's now dive into really what you kind of specialize in, right? Which is, which is supporting parents who have just had kids or are about to have kids and supporting their kids into their first foods and beyond? What kind of made you focus on that initially?

You know, the really beautiful part about babies is that they bring forth so much truth and light to your situation. So when my son was born, unfortunately, he was born in the hospital system and by cesarean. And he reflected symptoms right back to me. And I really was determined to have answers and just like, wow, if this could happen to me, such— I'm a relatively informed person when it comes to natural health. And the doctor sent me home with like laxatives and painkillers. And like, there's no discussion about what's happened to my son's microbiome, what's happened to my microbiome. You know, I just had like a huge surgical procedure. And I'm left with no information and I really wanna get this out there that there is actually very important steps to take for people. And so once I started talking about my son's journey, my own birth, um, that really just changed the trajectory of my business because people wanted to hear it so much. They just caught onto that. Um, because I believe that it's happening to so many women. So many women can relate to having the birth not You know, that they didn't want. And yeah, so I've spun it into a web of good, which is wonderful. And I've since had another baby born at home with no medical intervention. And both my children are really well adapted and thriving and happy, but I always want to give parents the tools to take back their power. And I believe that that starts in the kitchen.

I love it. Well, before we get right to those tools, I want to ask you, What is your philosophy around that idea? Because we also, our firstborn was also born in the hospital, not intended. It was really hard emotionally, particularly for me, because I wasn't drugged up at that point. So I cried a lot outside when my wife was getting prepared to go get the cesarean. I just cried because it was not the birth story that we wanted. And so I'm just kind of curious, what philosophy have you taken on Since you've experienced that, and then of course now you're working with so many families, have you heard, are you familiar with that thought of like, well, the baby comes into the world how they need to come in? And do you buy that or, or what's your philosophy on that?

I don't buy that in regards to a C-section, particularly in my case. I can only speak to mine, but you know, I'll also, if we look at the statistics of cesareans, they're much higher than they need to be. I believe that my situation was, A case of just fear, not being prepared, um, not, you know, myself not being prepared in terms of having the right team around me to say, you know, somebody to put, go forehead to forehead with me and say, Kate, this is just a part of the process. You've got this. We're hunkering in. Instead, my energy was met with, oh, I'm afraid of this too. We have to transfer. Once we got to the hospital, it was really a lot of dead ends, and I feel that Both my son and I were robbed from the experience of a lifetime, which is a vaginal birth. And I am a 100% healthy woman. I believe there are so small ranges of emergency cases that do require surgical birth, and I don't see that that was the case for my son and I. Of course, we can never know. But I think that I mourn his birth. I celebrate his life. And I am going to help him the best that I possibly can. But I think that ultimately we were both robbed of an experience that is once in a lifetime.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel that. And I hear you on that. Yeah. Well, so let's dive into the person that's listening or watching That has had the cesarean. Let's, let's give them a little uplift of like, okay, if you just had it or maybe recently, what are some things they should be thinking about? And I think this will also help the person that hasn't had the child yet, that maybe is pregnant right now and who may be in a scenario where they have to have a cesarean. So let's, let's, let's dive into what, what should we as parents be thinking about and really preparing for when the unexpected, a cesarean happens?

Absolutely. So, you know, the first thing that I like to do in this case is remove the moral from it. It's not a good or a bad that you have had a cesarean. You're not a good or a bad mom because you've had a cesarean. You just have had one. And we need to look at the physiologic truth of this, right? There is absolutely something that has changed in your body and there's something that has been different with your child's body because they don't go through the motions of birth as a as birth is meant to be, and they're not also contacting the microbes. So there's many, many ways that I have worked to heal the, you know, the pain that has come from having the cesarean birth, as well as the physical changes that have occurred in my body. All of those drugs were huge. I mean, I was just thinking about this the other day, like, I'm such a clean living person. I eat this beautiful—

Mm-hmm.

diet that I worked so hard on. I prepared my body for 2 years, both my husband and I, before we had our baby. And then we just got morphine, fentanyl, and antibiotics, a stomach acid reducing drug, so many things that are just way far out from the realm of my everyday life. And that's really intense that our system is there. But I don't want to shame mothers or really even shame myself because that was just, that was the path. Okay? So acceptance is key. And after that, we can really get to work with some very nourishing foods that help the body repair. So tissue-building foods are very, very important after any birth, and especially a cesarean, as tissue has been cut. But in vaginal births, there's tears that happen, there's expansion, and we want this like super supple tissue to go back. to its holding. And so we need a lot of collagen-rich foods. And that's actually very convenient because our baby also needs those collagen-rich foods. And so breastfeeding is something that came really easily for me, luckily, even after a cesarean. And I was eating so much nutrient-dense foods, which was passing to my baby and helping him heal. So that is like the foundation of post-birth foods. We really want to emphasize the collagenous Rich cuts of meat, meat close to the bone, lots of animal fats. That's going to warm and nourish your system and help tissues rebuild.

Excellent. And, and just so we, just so we cover it in case anyone doesn't know, when you mentioned the microbes, the, when the baby's being born, you're talking about the microbes that are in the vaginal tract, right? As the baby's coming out.

Absolutely. So the vaginal flora informs or seeds the baby's microbiome. So you're passing on your microbiome. All the good and all the bad to your baby. And your partner is also contributing their microbiome because mother and father, or whatever the arrangement is, they have sexual contact and that makes like a mix of a microbiome and that informs the baby's microbiome. So when the baby's born, they're covered in all of the birth and that is basically setting their gut up for life. And there's a lot of talk about the first 1,000 days, so that includes all the time in the womb and up until the child is about 2 years old. And that's the most formative for shaping the microbiome and ultimately shaping the palate. And in my understanding, shaping the immune system as well as the brain health.

I love it. So what should we, what kind of foods do you recommend people should be focusing on during that? You said 100, you said how many days?

1,000. First 1,000 days.

1,000 days. Yeah.

So that is in utero and when the baby's born up until they're about 2 years old. And like I started this podcast saying, I healed my gut when I was much later. So if your baby's 4, your child's 4 or 6 or 10, it's not like you're too late to the party. But we do have a particularly golden opportunity to influence our children in these first 1,000 days. So in the womb, you want to be— while the baby's in the womb, you want to be eating lots of nutrient-dense foods so that the baby has adequate nutrition to grow. And that looks like animal-based foods are really, really wonderful. You want to get in your ancestral foods like liver, bone marrow, all the animal fats. You want to make sure you're getting lots of sunshine, touching the earth, like, you know, good sleep, low toxic load, filter your water, that kind of thing. Really, really important. And then on top of that, I would say adding in beneficial strains of yeast and bacteria, ideally through fermented foods. So that can look like fermented dairy, things like yogurt, kefir, cultured butter, or it can be vegetables like beets, And cabbage, you know, into sauerkraut, fermented carrots, all of those are super lovely and you want to eat them daily and you want to like make your whole life around them. You know, you can actually put them in your sinuses. You can put kefir on your vaginal wall up until the birth. You know, it's really wonderful to use these fermented foods, not just to consume them, but all over the body.

And it's so lovely, as you mentioned, because you are helping to shape the palate. And when you introduce Like, one thing I'm always talking to people about is, you know, if you're following the standard American diet, you are skewed towards salty sweet. And that's a lot of times why kids are so picky. It's like they, they, they need exposure to these other flavors, the bitter, the sour, the umami. And that's what you're creating when you're eating these foods in utero. And then of course you want to continue once the baby's out. And so what should— let's talk about like baby's first foods.

Okay, totally. So when a baby starts solid, I like to talk about rather than calling it baby-led weaning, I call it microbiome-led weaning. And so we just want to be really particular about what goes into the baby's mouth and what's shaping and feeding the bugs that are inside of us because we have 10 times as many microbes, microbial cells as we have human cells. So obviously the state of that microbe, microbial world is very powerful for how we feel as humans. Same for our babies. So, the first food that I feed and teach all moms to feed their baby is meat stock. And meat stock is not bone broth. It's different. Meat stock is made always from a piece of meat with a joint in it. So, there's more meat on the bone than your typical idea of a bone broth, and you cook it for a much shorter period of time. So bone broths are 24 or 36 hours. Meat stock for chicken is 1 to 2 hours. You always use a collagenous cut. Some of my favorites are like feet, necks, heads, and you make a jelly stock. So in the fridge, it's solid and jiggly. And that's the first food because it is full of minerals. It's very collagen-rich and it primes digestion for the rest of food— rest of foods that you try. And it also is a great balancer for the microbiome because it takes care of the mucosal lining, which is the house where the majority of the gut microbes live.

Love it. Yes. And meat stock is so gentle. I think that's a lot of people don't realize that bone broth can be, particularly for a digestion system that's delicate or just forming, it can be too intense.

Exactly. Yeah.

So I love that.

Yeah. Meat stock is like the primer food. It's the base for everything. So after you have your meat stock as their first food, then you can go on and make, you know, purees out of the meat stock as the base. You can add in layers of animal fat. So if you start with meat stock from a chicken, you might add in a little bit of lard. You might add in a little bit of ghee. You might add in a little bit of coconut oil, mix it up, change up the fats, different, different fats for different days. And then you can go on to pureeing vegetables in there. You can add in drops of sauerkraut brine. So you really start with these powerful liquid foods that are very nutrient dense, but are still so easily assimilated by the body. And they also help to build. I make a huge point to teach parents, we want to build the baby's body. We build the body, we give the body building tools, and our cells can regenerate. I mean, babies, they're so generative. So they're just making, making, making all the time, AKA growing. And the more tools we give them for that, the more efficient that system is.

I love it. Now, what I had some friends who they were working with a pediatrician and I, and I think it was a functional, you know, someone that was more functional, but they were all about introducing allergen foods to the, the baby early with like little pricks or, you know, not, not actually having them eat the food, but they were exposing them thinking that, that, that I guess the philosophy is that The exposure is going to help them early on create the antibodies for it or whatnot. And so to not then be allergic to it later. What is your thought around that? And I'm talking about peanuts. Um, I'm talking about probably other nuts and seeds as well, and even like egg, egg white and yolk.

So I kind of go against the grain on this one. I am not a huge fan of nuts before Mm-hmm. Even though that's very much pushed. The reason being is because nuts are super hard to digest. They're not necessarily ancestral, and they're hard to like get into a form that's actually not rancid. The most important thing I emphasize to parents about allergens is understanding why an allergic reaction would happen in the first place. And that comes back to the gut health. So if the gut is functioning and we are able to digest our foods and there is no Leaky gut, which is either caused from toxins or undigested food or imbalanced microbes. If there's—

And leaky gut, let's just explain what that is for anyone that doesn't know. It's actually when the food particles are going into your bloodstream, correct?

Correct. In babies, so part of the reason why meat stock is such a good first food is because babies are born with an immature gut. Their gut's not fully formed when they come out of the womb, and breast milk helps to heal and seal And continue to form the gut. Okay? It closes all those holes. It further develops the digestive system. So, when we transition from breast milk to solids, we really want the foods to continue what breast milk is doing. We want those foods to mimic that, which is why I love meat stock because it's full of that collagen and gelatin, all those amino acids which can easily become the building blocks to heal and seal the gut. So, if the gut is healed and sealed, That means all food is being properly digested and staying in the digestive tract. Whereas an allergen comes from a food being improperly digested, going into the bloodstream, and the immune system rightly says, this is not belong— this does not belong here. This is a big deal. I need to flag this. I need to create a reaction in the system so that an alarm is sounded that this food is not the food for me. So, in terms of the small microdosing of the foods, I'm fine with that with the proper foundation laid. Okay. For example, egg is a very nutrient-dense food. Egg is a food that I would want my kid to eat every single day because the nutrient profile is so big and it's really, really good for kids for growth, for growth. A nut.

Eh.

I don't care so much about my kid eating a nut. I don't want them to have an anaphylactic reaction to it, but if their body is adequately digesting foods, that's not even in the realm of possibilities. So when it comes to trying egg for the first time, after a couple weeks of meat stock, we drop a little bit of yolk into the meat stock to make sure that it's just a small amount. It's— we want to test out that reaction. Is this baby going to be reactive to the yolk? If they do have a reaction to it, then we know, okay, we've tried very few foods. Clearly when we introduce the egg, that caused a reaction. Let's remove the egg from now, continue with building foods, continue to support the gut and the microbiome, and we'll reintroduce the egg, just the yolk, a couple weeks later. And we work like that in slow amounts.

There's a reason why the yolk is preferred as a first introduction to eggs over the whites. Do you, do you, can you share a little bit about that?

Absolutely. So the yolk is where all the nutrients are. First of all, it's the most nutrient-dense part. It has the vitamin A, it has vitamin D, it has choline, it has B vitamins. It's the best part of the egg. The white is like water and a little bit of protein, and it tends to be more reactive to people. It also tends to chelate Toxins more. So the yolk is just more nutrient dense, less reactive. The white doesn't have as much nutrition and people tend to react to it more. So we start with the yolk first. And many people have a lot of success just with the yolks and using this method that were previously, you know, reacting to eggs through breast milk or couldn't tolerate eggs before doing my program and healing the gut.

Nice. And now you have a specific position around eggs. Um, cuz I guess sometimes, you know, parents will face their child saying like, I don't wanna eat eggs anymore. And, and I, I've experienced that, I guess, as an adult where I, I go through phases of really wanting eggs and sometimes not. But you, you have a position specifically around kids that are refusing eggs. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. So this was really funny cuz my son was so into eggs and he loved eggs and it was like, it's a staple food for us. And then one day he was just like not into the eggs anymore. And I'm like, that's so weird. And this is like pretty much pre-verbal, you know, maybe he had a few sign language things. And I'm like, that's weird. Okay. So I kind of like was sitting with it for a while, increased the butter. I always think that like, make sure the eggs taste really good, like plenty of butter, plenty of salt. All right. We got the fat-soluble vitamins covered because there's nutrient synergy. So we need to be able to have fats in order to digest and use the really beautiful vitamin A that's in the egg. So butter is really important or any other animal fat if you're having trouble with dairy. But then I thought, okay, well, what if I, you know, put this with liver and I serve him with liver and suddenly he is like gobbling up his eggs again. And so for me, that pinged something in my mind like, okay, there must be some sort of nutrition in the liver that helps to digest the egg and therefore he's interested in eating the egg again. Whereas before he had maybe had a little too much of something in the egg and was not interested. And I've since tried this with tons of moms. And it works really, really well. And we also use pluck, you know, like pluck is like super easy to just sprinkle on the eggs. My daughter, she'll spit out eggs that are plain. She swallows eggs that have pluck on them.

Oh, I love it. Well, I love it. You're now speaking my love language here. Now, that is fascinating because really what you're talking about is the synergistic properties of food. And I don't really get to dive that deep with people very often about that. So I want, I I would love to expand on that, but before we do, because you've now brought up organ meats, I find it fascinating. I've talked to midwives, I've talked to doulas. They all say they can tell when the mother has eaten organ meats because the placenta is beautiful color-wise and size-wise. And I also hear the milk production is flowing. It's, it's, it's, it's like really good.

Yeah.

You hear of parents. What is it that expecting moms and of course parents that are just had a baby should know about organs and what they're, they're not getting from these other foods that they are getting from those?

Well, organ meats historically, if you look at the ancestral patterns They were always saved for women and children. So there was a knowing that the organs had specific nutrients that we need for the childbearing continuum. And I have found that to be so true in my own lived experience. I have eaten so many organs. I've eaten as much as I can get my hands on. Never had brain because we can't get it here.

I'm going to get that for you. I have brain. I'm excited.

I'm so excited.

I have brain. That's That's a product we're going to be coming out with, Cinnamon Brain, and you'll be my first taste tester.

Okay, perfect. Can't wait. And you know what's so funny, actually, I say I can't get brain, but I do get chicken heads and I make meat stock out of those. So there's brain in there. So that's good. But anyway, I love organ meats, liver postpartum, absolutely brought the life back into me. It was this food that I started my son on as a first food, my daughter as well. And it really is a part of our whole food ethos. Like we truly eat nose to tail. We truly cook liver in all the ways that you could think of. We, we just love it. And it wasn't something I always loved. It was something that I learned to love because I knew it was good for me. And, you know, it's the most nutrient-dense food on the planet, meaning per gram per gram, it has the most wide range of nutrition that we could eat and it's all found in nature. And so we can digest it too, which is really important.

Love it. So going back to synergistic properties of food, Baby's born. We're now entering first foods. Are there other synergistic things you found? Egg and liver were very synergistic. Are there other foods as baby is growing that you have found are really synergistic to support that microbiome health?

Totally. Always animal fats paired with vegetables. So if you're ever serving vegetables, they need to be served with animal fats because any of those plant vitamins that are inside broccoli, for example, are going to be unlocked with— served with bone marrow. Okay? And we need babies to digest these foods using the animal fat. So that's another synergistic one that's really important. And then like the other thing that comes to mind is just like flavor, right? So we want things to taste really good. You have to— if you're feeding your baby food, it should also taste really good to you too. You know, I don't think it needs to be like crazy over-seasoned, especially in the beginning. But it's like, you know, I give my babies warming spices. Uh, you know, I like to use things like cumin and ginger and garlic and, um, make my baby's food taste good. My children's food tastes good so that they just have a lot of, um, adventurous ways about them.

Love it. Yeah. It's so fascinating to me when I meet adults or even kids that just don't have any interest in flavor, or they've grown up with eating such bland food that now it's almost scary or too unknown for them. What, what is your thought then around, I mean, 'cause really ultimately when we start talking about flavor and as kids get older, we're really kind of delving into like picky eating and, and, and, and how to either support picky eating or not support it. Have you had much experience with not only picky eaters, but supporting parents with their picky eaters?

Absolutely. First of all, one of the biggest pitch— one of the biggest pitches that I make for starting solids this way is that you are literally shaping your child's microbiome and thus shaping their palate. So the microbiome of the mouth is going to be, if it's healthy and diverse, it's going to be really excited by different flavors. And in nature, Flavor equals nutrient density. So, liver has a very unique flavor, but it's also the most nutrient-dense. So, that like flavor-packed food is a signal to the body that, oh, this is really, really good for us, which makes sense because what's been hijacked in modern times is our taste buds. They have made these ultra-processed foods, which are chemically laden to make us have this dopamine hit to continue to go back for more and for more. And that's what's happening with the picky eater. They're not just picky, they're addicted to sugar, and that has to do with their microbiome. So my picky eater approach is all about the microbiome health. I talk about changing the family culture, which is both around, you know, what is your attitude around food? How is the family gathering around the table? How are the children involved in the food practices? And also, let's not be, um, Let's not lie to ourselves and say that certain foods are not, are as nutritious as others, right? Because a bean is not as nutritious as steak. And so we have to be real with that and understand how the body uses nutrients, how the body digests foods. And that's going to help you understand which battles you need to pick with your children and which ones you just need to leave behind and let, you know, the, the body lead the way.

Yeah, I love it. So you're clearly not a fan of Dino-shaped chicken nuggets.

No, I don't understand how anyone gets results with that. I think it's just appeasing the child rather than—

Yeah. What about, what do you, uh, I assume that you're also a fan of like, we, we, there is, there is no kid menu. It's people menu, right?

Totally. Yeah. My kids have never eaten off the kid menu. Um, it's like, you know, he eats oyster steak, clam. We actually on the menu, we're just looking for the most, the least toxic thing on the menu. Like that's That's typically what we're trying to figure out because it's hard to go to places that, you know, don't use seed oils or like don't use sugar. You know, we're trying to find the nutrient-dense food that doesn't have something that's going to make his body react.

Yeah. Which is, is hopefully going to start improving, but yes, it's challenging. You know, I, I'm always dumbfounded that, well, I guess I'm not dumbfounded. The reality is, is that kid menus are designed Uh, not for nutritional density. They're designed for price, right?

And entertainment. Yeah. Just like everyone just assumes that like you just, when you go out to dinner, you pretty much just want your kid to like not scream at the table. And that means like appeasing them. And I have a completely different perspective on, you know, just how children belong in society. I think that's disrespectful to give a child a plate of, you know, a French fry that's basically a mop for toxic oils and unrefined salt and a breaded chicken that's covered in glyphosate and, you know, I think that's horrible. So.

So how do you, how do you navigate a topic that I, that both disturbs me and I'm not, you know, I have some solutions, but I fear is kind of a part of our food system, the way it's structured right now, which is the idea of you have to be wealthy to be healthy.

Yeah.

Because some of these foods that we're talking about, they are more expensive. Some of these, the restaurants that serve these things are more expensive. Uh, some people don't have the time, or, or I should say they could have the time, but they don't make the time to, and, and potentially have the knowledge of making a lot of these foods from scratch. So a lot of people are kind of like, they're looking for that quick fix, but What are some kind of cost-effective tools that you've found that not only support people's time, but also their wallet?

Yeah, we live our priorities every single day. So if you want to prioritize home cooking, you're going to have to prioritize it and simply just start where you are. I rely so much on ground beef, ground pork, and organ meats that we get the heads for $2 a pound. We buy the skin. I look, I say, oh, you have boneless skinless chicken breasts. What do you do with the skin? Oh, we throw it away. Okay, I'd like to buy that from you. Thank you. I make delicious crispy skin chips for my kids and we dip them in avocado dip, something like that. Cheap cuts of meat are always going to be heavily relying on the ground. So using the organs, those are also going to be sold very affordably to you, using the bones, that kind of thing. And then not, if you are not in a place to buy all of your stuff locally, or you can't invest fully in regenerative agriculture, still buy meat, still buy from the grocery store. Like, I'm pro meat no matter where you can get it because, you know, I think that once you start to genuinely make all your home, all your home-cooked meals, you stop relying on processed foods. Even if you're buying meat, you know, just regular from the grocery store, you're going to start to see a change in your health. And eventually your body is going to say, I think I want to upgrade this. And you're going to find a way to make that grass-fed meat happen because it just, the body breeds health. We just want health. We go towards health, we get more health. And I find that with my people who are not able to start buying all regenerative, which hello, was me in the beginning too. Eventually their body just leads them to, you know, a certain way and they feel way better because of it.

Yes. Thank you so much for spreading that message. I'm always telling people, we cannot, we cannot only focus on, you know, is it regenerative? Is it 100% grass-fed? And let that dictate whether we eat something or not. Like, sometimes even the stress around that is, is, is freezing us from making the right choice. And the right choice is just get the animal product in.

Exactly.

Or the fish product or what, you know what I mean? Just get that nutrient-dense food into you. And let that affect your health and help support the next decision you make.

Exactly.

As opposed to like avoiding it because it's too expensive or, or, or doesn't fit what, you know, influencer A in social media has told you is this is the only option, you know?

Absolutely. And I also think that the other part that's really important to this is the community aspect of actually meeting your farmer. And so like going and building relationship is going to help you understand that process even more. And it's going to connect the dots for you for a bigger picture of of what's actually happening with our food system. And I think that honestly, it was my favorite part about changing my diet. And I started to teach it thinking like, oh, people maybe are not going to like this or whatever. And they come back to me and they're like, Kate, I love my beef farmer. I talk to them every week. And, you know, it's just, it's so fun that they have this whole new perspective on food. It's no longer a chore. It's a gift.

Yeah, it's so good. And like you said earlier, It, it exposes you to new cuts of the animal, right? Yeah. You get parts of the animal that you would never get at the butcher shop.

Yeah.

Um, particularly at a more conventional market. Um, so, okay. So there was this comment on one of the posts about picky eating that we, I saw, and I wanted to share what this person asked or what their experience is, what their, they were recommended by the pediatricians and the school counselors to do. And I would love to hear.

Yeah.

The feedback you would've given this person.

Okay.

So this person says both their kids are picky eaters.

Mm-hmm.

They asked multiple pediatricians and the school counselor, and they all said the same thing. They said, give them 30 minutes to finish their food. If they don't finish, take it away and repeat the same for the meals after. And the person states how he and his wife are just, they're throwing away all this food and they hate it.

Mm-hmm.

And there is a fight with the kids that it's a kind of a constant thing. So that was very interesting feedback that these pediatricians and school counselors are giving. And it's not at all how I would handle it. So how would you handle it?

Yeah. So these are school-aged children?

Yes.

My first inclination is to really get the kids involved in the cooking because they're at an age where they have some agency, they have skills, they have hands. And I have seen so many times where parents just Take a food that they're typically used to eating, let's say chicken nuggets, and it comes from a bag. You take some ground beef and ground pork, mix it together, get the kids' hands in there, add some Pluck seasoning, do a pork rind breading, fry it in lard, and let your kids taste those homemade chicken nuggets that you've then made together. You have a nutrient-dense meal on your hand. That's something that's familiar for them, and they made it themselves. So, it's a win all around. I see that kids are much more willing to try foods when they have experience making it and when also the parents are involved in showing that they really want to do this too.

That's a really, it's a great first, first and fourth step for parents to, you know, take their kids down that journey of participation in the kitchen and making the food, trying the different food at different stages as well. The raw stage, the cooked stage, you know, thinking like vegetables, like Taste a bell pepper before it's cooked. Now it's cooked. Now it's with fat, you know?

Right.

But, but for the parent that, you know, let's just say they're not, they don't have the time yet to do that. Right. So they've, they've made the meal. What do you have a certain philosophy in your, from your, that you apply in your own house? Like, hey, when meals are cooked, this is, this is how we treat it. And, and do you, like, for example, are you making, uh, uh, if your kid says, hey, I don't want this food, which obviously your kids aren't doing, Mm-hmm. But let's just say a parent says that my kid's not eating any of this food. I don't have the time to include them in the cooking cuz we have 30 minutes and this little kid will make it take an hour, right?

Yeah.

So what's a good kind of philosophy that they should have in the household around like making meals? Clearly we don't want them making multiple meals. So is there, is it kind of like you, you eat what you get or you just don't eat or what, what, how would you kind of— coach that parent?

Yeah. So, my approach is definitely leaning towards the parental authority. So, you have to own your authority as a parent. You have to be clear about what your food values are for your kids. And when a food is served, that is what is served. So, I don't make any other options. I don't recommend children or parents have other options. With the exception of a few foods. So, we all have desires and taste preferences, right? There are, at any time of the day, my son can have scrambled eggs with butter, and he can have meat stock, he can have beet kvass, or he can have kefir. So, if any 4 of those options appeal to him over what my husband and I have made for him, he may have that option. But generally speaking, families And food, they should be tied together. So I would really wanna understand like, okay, a parent gives me something that's that they say, no, we don't have time to cook with our kids. Okay. I take that really as an excuse. So we're gonna make the time to create these rituals around food that actually change the food culture of the family because I don't see picky eating as just one thing. Yes, the microbiome is a piece of it. Yes, there is food addiction and these crazy, like, hijacked taste buds, right? But it's more than that. It's a family affair. Food equals family, and we really need to bring families together on this. And if food is dividing your family, there is something else going on. And so I would really workshop that.

Love that answer.

Wow.

Yes. Yeah. Sometimes it's an indication of there's a crack in the foundation, right?

I mean, It is a together thing. So, like for us, yes, there's healing foods, there's preferences. Sometimes Augie wants scrambled eggs. Okay, we'll make you scrambled eggs. But typically after he eats scrambled eggs, he's like, I'll have the soup. I mean, we just rarely are getting food refusal from him. And I truly think that that has to do with how my husband and I revolve our lives around our foods and how important and special it becomes for our family. And also his microbiome, how I set it up. Regardless that he had a C-section, I was able to heal and bring balance to the system so that he's an incredibly adventurous eater. Whose favorite food is clams.

Well, you bring up a good point. So, so, okay. So you healed his gut. So how do you know that his— heal his gut? Like what is, what are the signs that a parent is looking for or is it just through testing?

No testing. I don't do any testing in my practice. I just use my eyes and there's a couple of things that I would go through. So sleep, mood, Skin, behavior. That's really what we're looking at for— wait, sorry, sleep, poop, mood and behavior, and skin. Okay? So those 4 things, I'm going to be constantly kind of running through a little checklist weekly, daily. How is he doing? And you can really tell some things get cleared up right away. For example, my son chronically spit up my breast milk. I changed my diet. 3 months in, and that reduced the spitting up like 80%. And then he took his first sip of chicken meat stock, which I made for him. He did one big belch and never spit up again. So it was like very obvious that like, okay, we check his stomach lining was damaged. There was something going on. Yeast overgrowth is most likely. He has cradle cap, so I saw that too. He can't apparently occasionally had rashes that would come up and stick around. And so I just, And constantly attending to those nutritionally and really opening up his detox pathways so that it can continue to come out of the body and trusting that this system will continue to heal him because it does and will. So how do I know he's there? Basically behavioral things, sleep patterns, instead of being constipated, he poops every day, that kind of situation. So we just go through the symptoms like that. start to remedy them one by one.

And he gets like, when you say sleep patterns, like 8 to 10 hours a night, you know, that he's, that he's like, he sleeps 12 hours a night. Well, okay. Yeah. I was going to say, cause for a little kid, that's, that's actually, you want it longer, but point being though, that you're seeing consistent sleep. You're, you're seeing that he's staying asleep the whole time. He's not waking up all the time.

Correct.

He's not needing food in the middle of the night.

Correct. And there's gonna be different like pain points for different people. So like some people, the skin is like the most, it's the biggest marker, for example. So if their skin is, has eczema, the gut's not done healing, right? For my son, it's more, it leans more towards behavior and stool. So I look at those things as a measure. He doesn't have much skin issues and he's a really good sleeper. So what I'm saying is that like Not everyone's going to have a problem with skin. Not everyone's going to have a problem with sleep, but we always look back to the gut digestion and the nutrient-dense foods as a part of the holistic healing.

So I love this conversation. A lot of parents though, I mean, I'm hoping I, you know, we're all, we only know what we know, right? So I'm so helping that parents that are not exposed to the, you know, functional nutrition that aren't looking at life like that are listening to this because a lot of times what's happening, and I'm thinking directly of one of my daughter's friends early on when we lived in Portland, Oregon, she was overweight, clearly had health stuff going on, and her parents were noticing ADHD kind of behavior in school. And instead of looking at the gut and, and what they're feeding her, the pediatrician said, well, let's get her on medication. And I fought them with it. I mean, I didn't fight fight, but I was like, I challenged them on it. I was like, please, you guys, like, do A before you do, you know, Z, you know, kind of thing. Like, so what, what are some of the, like, is there something you can just impart to the parent that is seeing these symptoms? Like, what are some of the things? That most parents are experiencing that they're thinking, oh, I should go to the doctor and this is not related to food. Like you're really here to say, no, no, this is related to the gut and it's related to what you're feeding them. So what are some of those things? Is it just everything? Or let's, let, maybe we can encapsulate the top things that most parents are experiencing with their kids that are probably food related and gut related.

Absolutely. So eczema is oftentimes Yes. Food-related, but more so it's gut-related. So people will be like, but is it really just the food, Kate? Is it really just the food? Not necessarily. It's what the food is feeding, which is the microbes. So the microbes can off-gas all sorts of toxins, and those toxins then have to be, you know, dealt with by the body, the liver. That just puts another layer of burden on, and all the other functions can't be optimized. So eczema is one that we always Want to look at gut health. And then there's co-infections on the skin with eczema that come because the pH of the skin is off because there's dysbiosis on the skin, which is why I talk about working from the inside out and the outside in. Constipation, that's a huge one. So many kids are dealing with constipation and they go to the doctor and they get MiraLAX, and MiraLAX is dangerous. It is not going to help solve your kid's constipation, and there are natural remedies that can help your baby's poop come out of their body.

Yeah.

And then there's long-term things that we put in place underneath that so that your children's constipation is not ongoing. Because this is, yes, absolutely tied to the gallbladder like we initially talked about in the first part of the podcast. If there's a congested gallbladder in the mom, there's likely going to be a congested gallbladder in the baby. It's related to our melatonin, our sunlight exposure. It's related to the microbes that are contained inside of our gut. And so, all of those things we want to look at. It's related to hydration. It's related to minerals. So, all of that we want to approach and we can use food fully to address that and not rely on a Band-Aid fix that's going to create more problems in other organ systems down the line. Another one I think is picky eating, right? I have that microbiome approach. I have that whole family approach. Everything I do is really involved in the mother and the baby. And, I always teach moms, This is the canary in the coal mine. Your baby is finally putting in front of you a symptom that you likely needed to solve years ago. And here it is. And you're ready to listen because it's your precious baby who's crying out for your help. And that happened to me. You know, that's so powerful and it can be life-changing for everyone, for the whole family. Those symptoms are teachers and they resolve so quickly and your babies can thrive and it can impact not only this generation, But future generations. So that is my message for parents. It's like we have the power in our hands and we are the ones who are designed and equipped to solve these problems. Wow.

Yes, indeed. Empowering parents. Now, before we get off, I do want to touch base on one topic that I, that I personally find very fascinating. I'm just very, I'm just curious what your perspective is on it. So there's this idea, you know, I say this quote a lot when I'm on podcasts, but it's like Dr. Bill Schindler, he talks about how we are the only species in the world that looks to someone else to tell us what to eat. And the, it's even more poignant when you think about how many species there are in the world. There's over 8 million. So clearly at one point in our evolution, we did know what to eat. We were not so influenced by this marketing and, and Frankenfood machine that is really only, you know, 150 years old or something like that. Right. So the question that I sometimes think about is like, well, when we are kids, before we're really influenced, now granted, we are sometimes influenced if we're eating like that standard American diet, or we're already being exposed to some of these ultra-processed foods, we have been influenced. But a lot of times that's when we're at our purest state, our uninfluenced state. And so there is this thought that if a kid is like, I don't want to eat this, or I, and they just constantly refuse it, that that actually may be like an indication of like, well, they actually know their body better than the parent. Like, what is your thought around that?

I think there's a lot of validity in that with the little caveat of the microbiome. So what's going on with their microbiome? What's going on with their overall health? And what choices do they have and what choices are they refusing? So for example, with the baby example, if a baby is started only on bananas and other pureed fruits like many babies are chose— are told to start on, and then you introduce meat stock and the baby doesn't like meat stock and refuses it 3, 4, or 5 times, I'm not really surprised by that because the baby has had Sweet breast milk or formula or bananas. So of course, when they first taste this savory food, that's meat stock, they might have a little bit of an adverse reaction to it. Zoom out to a child who's 4 years old, who has severe autism and puts that meat stock in their mouth. That is actually going to be causing a die-off reaction in their mouth, which could be physically very uncomfortable. And so there are these considerations to take into when it comes to The microbiome and how that influences our tastes and our preferences. And I do genuinely believe that the body knows what's best. So once we're able to get on track with healing foods and there aren't really symptoms presenting, absolutely, I can trust my son's body and what he desires. I don't really give him that choice because he's 2 and a half and I'm in charge. And so I'm cooking heart and I'm cooking steak and I'm cooking broccoli and like, you're eating that, right? But to an extent, like, you know, I, I value what he brings to the table in terms of what he wants to eat. Now, if he, if I let him, he would want to eat bananas all day long, but I'm not going to let him eat bananas all day long because that doesn't have the nutrition that makes him fun to be around or sleep good. It changes his poop, right? And so I really, um, let him have a banana later. Yes, you can have a banana later, right?

Hmm.

That's my, that's my feeling on that.

Yeah. Well, you, you do bring, make me bring up one last question cuz we're talking about empowerment. Um, we're talking about looking for our kids for signs of, of gut issues and, and thus inspiring the things that we need to do for gut healing. At a certain point though, um, cuz you have a 2-year-old, but do you have a, a, a child older than that?

I have a 2-and-a-half-year-old, almost 3, and a 1-year-old so far.

Okay. So you are, You are not necessarily there yet, which is what do we do when our kids go to school and we no longer have control over what they eat? Now, if you're homeschooling, great, but if you're not, that's the position we are all in. And it becomes the biggest disappointment that we have and hurdle that we have to kind of get over philosophically of like, oh, our place is not necessarily to control our children's decisions, but really give them a foundation. of what their body feels like when they get nourishing food. Would you agree?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So an example is like, I grew up eating like Sour Patch Kids, Skittles, totally addicted to candy, all that stuff. If I smell a Sour Patch Kid now, it smells toxic and chemically to me. It's disgusting, right? It doesn't make me feel like, ooh, I'm sneaking a treat and having like this Sour Patch Kid. Like, no, it doesn't feel like that at all. It feels like a toxic chemical, weird gummy thing that I'd rather not have. So the idea here is that I've set my son up for success. His body knows health. He knows what to go back to. Is he going to try the blue icing? Probably. Is that going to register as a treat? Likely not. So that's kind of my goal. And then we just educate our children. You know, we talk to them about the farmer's market. My husband's a butcher. So like, it's just a part of our ethos. Some people used to say to me, like, Oh, your kid's going to grow up and be vegan. And it's like, probably not. Like, you wouldn't look at a family of musicians and say, oh, your child's going to hate music when they grow up. Like, no, it's just like, that's our family's culture. And like, are our kids going to experiment, try things, be out in the world, be free, have their own money? Yes, they are. And I'm just going to have to accept and trust and be proud of what, you know, all the effort that I put in and check back with me in 10 years. I'll tell you how it's changed. I love it.

Well, and I mean, you should be proud. You're not only, uh, are you, um, modeling what's possible, but you're helping other people. And so thank you for all the work you're doing. It's been truly a pleasure talking with you.

So fun. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us and thank you all for joining us on Everyday Ancestral. Tell your friends, like, get the word out. This is important stuff. We gotta spread the word about how food affects our health. That's one of the most important messages I believe we can do, because too many of us are looking for— we're all experiencing health issues, but we're not realizing that we have the power to change them without going to other people, without going to doctors, without taking pharmaceuticals, that you can change them by just being more mindful of what you put in your body. So, thank you, Cate, for spreading that message, and thank you all for joining us on this journey. Stay curious. Thank you so much for joining us me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.