No More Picky Eaters: Chef Asata Reid on Food, Family, and Finding Balance
A better way to feed kids..and love ourselves
Asata Reid is a chef, author and health-educator who founded Life Chef, a culinary education service which focuses on healthy cooking and nutrition for all of life’s stages. She is also the founder and President of the non-profit Feed the People Co.(501c3) formed to help improve food access, food affordability and food equity in the community.
Asata has been a professional chef and a health educator for nearly two decades. She supports Healthy Living programs, Worksite Wellness and Community Health at Kaiser Permanente where she also facilitates classes in smoking cessation, sleep improvement, stress management, mindfulness, diabetes prevention and other wellness topics that impact the community. As a chef, she developed the recipes for Small Bites Adventure Club, a turn-key resource for hands-on food education and a fun way for students to learn about nutrition. She is the former Nutrition Health Educator at the HEALing Community Center in Atlanta’s historic West End. And in 2021, she published the book How to Feed a Kid: A Parent’s Guide, which helps parents navigate the challenges around feeding their families well, including “picky” eaters.
I had the pleasure of receiving a masterclass from Chef Asata on how to understand picky eating, create positive food experiences, and incorporate evidence-based strategies that work in real life settings.
If you're a parent who wants to foster healthy, holistic approaches to food without the stress and mealtime battles, this episode might just help transform your family's relationship with dinner time.
Listen to the full episode here:
My Reflections
I'm genuinely excited about the concept of "Veggie Ready Kids" that Chef Asata champions. We invest so much energy ensuring our children are ready to read, do math, track to developmental milestones, play sports, etc. - yet we rarely consider whether they've reached a threshold of understanding how food works, where it comes from, and how different types of food nourish our bodies differently.
I appreciated Asata’s balance of being intentional about food choices while simultaneously encouraging parents to relax. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
I found myself convicted by her observations about how my own stress around food likely impacts my children. The more I want them to eat certain vegetables or "eat clean," the more tension they sense, potentially making them warier of trying unfamiliar options. In the weeks since recording this conversation, I've been consciously trying to let my guard down.
Some practical wisdom that's already changing my approach:
Chef Asata reminded me that my toddlers have stomachs smaller than my fist, yet we tend to serve what she called "linebacker portions." No wonder they seem overwhelmed!
Children naturally snack rather than eat one big meal. If I work hard preparing a meal they don't want at that moment and I get upset about it, that's a reflection on me, not them.
Consistency and modeling matter most. If you want to raise vegetable-eating kids, the most effective approach is showing them you enjoy vegetables yourself and providing regular, pressure-free exposure.
I hadn’t considered her point about children trying a food for the first time and needing space to process:
When children try something new like eggplant, they have no mental "file" for what it is or should be (it’s not a plant or an egg!). Then when we immediately ask "Do you like it?" after one bite, they haven't had time to process the experience. Giving them space helps them feel psychologically safe and come to their own conclusions - even if it takes 3-4 times of being exposed to a food, perhaps with different preparation methods.
Chef Asata is a dynamic talent who genuinely wants what's best for children and communities. Her most valuable reminder might be that many of the stress loops we find ourselves in around food are largely of our own making.
It’s hard out here raising little ones in the modern era, and I appreciate Asata’s advocating for a gentler, more effective approach to mealtimes. Here’s to all being veggie ready.
What about you? Have you struggled with picky eating in your family? Try one small change this week - perhaps serving a smaller portion or simply modeling enjoyment of a vegetable without asking your child to try it - and let me know how it goes!