#209 – Nurturing Healthy Habits in Children: Empowering Families for Well-being with Alicia Mazari

You've heard about nutrition programs for adults. But guess what? I children need them just as much, if not more. Join us on this latest episode of the money boss podcast as we sit down with Alicia Mazari, a seasoned University instructor and holistic nutrition coach with over 25 years of experience through her 12 year plus career as a nutrition coach. Alicia has witnessed incredible transformations within families, helping them adopt healthier habits and cultivate a more peaceful and nourishing home environment. Alicia shares her expertise and passions for empowering families to embrace a holistic approach to nutrition and overall well being.

We discovered the profound impact of healthy habits on both physical and emotional well being of the children in who doesn't want to have healthy kids. We chat about the role of sugar, it plays on our kids diet, how much they actually getting of it every day. What health implications are there for us financially, and how you can start making small daily changes and what impact those can have on the world around us. Alicia reveals the secrets behind reducing tantrums, food fights and other common struggles many families face when it comes to nutrition. So join us on this episode of the money boss podcast for enlightening conversation with Alicia Mazari. And let's embark on the journey towards a healthier and happier future together. Hey, money bosses. Welcome back to another episode of exciting money boss podcast. And Alicia, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us today. It is a pleasure to have you. Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here to know what is happening in your community. I'm excited to connect. Okay, so today we're talking about healthy habits. Happy homes, healthy family. So how do we like connect all of these dots together and at the core of all of this is our own health right now your health urine health expert, I'm a wealth expert. So we're gonna bring two of these together because a common phrase that I hear a lot and I want our listeners to really have the sink in health is wealth. And I know that people hear this too. But we I feel like we take it for granted more than we should. So let's kind of have that as a core of our conversation. And with your background, both as a university University instructor and holistic nutrition coach is very unique to me. So how do you combine your skills of teaching and expertise being in nutritionists? And how do you bring all of that to help families strive in the health part of their life?

Yeah, well, yes, I have been a university instructor for 25 plus years in Canada, but I'm a biologist for training. So when I decided to switch careers a little bit, and I became a holistic nutritionist, he was like, Oh, my gosh, this amazing world of bringing my biology background into, you know, into health into, and my passion is definitely supporting kids. I'm originally from Mexico. And I don't know if you know this, but Mexico is number one in children obesity in the world. And that absolutely breaks my heart. Because when you think about it is like, why is it that the kids are the ones that are, you know, are gaining so much weight. And again, as you mentioned, you know, health is wealth. Because if you put everything in a balance, what what wins truly wide winds, being healthy for me is like the best thing that can happen to be, you know, I am 62 years old, but I have a mind and a body for 30 year old, the way I treat my bodies like this is my temple. I was born with it, I'm gonna die with it. But in the meantime, I'm gonna take care of it. It's like taking care of your car. What do you do with our cars, we're like, we make sure they have you know, they have gas, that they have oil, that they have air in the tires, that they are perfect, that they're clean that they're working perfectly because if the car doesn't work, it doesn't take me from A to B, I'm going to have a fit. Well think about your body that way. How do you actually take care of this vehicle that's taking you through life? And why is it that our kids need to learn these tools to be able to be as healthy as possible, and the arrow the younger they are, the easier it is now, when actually change making changes to my own lifestyle? I have to tell you, I had my kids, I have three kids now they're in their mid 20s. They were teenagers, and people go like, go do it, that's gonna be messy. Well, sure enough, I have to tell you what they learned here with their habits. And when they left home, what are they taking with them? Sure enough, they're taking all their stuff. But one thing they took with them were the healthy habits. So if I go to their houses or their places, I open the fridge. And it's like, they're like, mirrors of mine, which is phenomenal, right?

And when you have healthy kids, that's what are you going to leave to the next generation? So anyway, my goal is to show families actually dismiss that they say, being healthy, is expensive. Is it is super expensive, or is it not being healthy, more expensive? So let's think about this. This, you know, because you're like, all about wealth, and about how expensive is it to eat healthy?

Yes, I love that a lot. Because Interesting enough, I am my son is four and a half years old, as we're recording this conversation, so I'm definitely starting to hit that phase where he's becoming more independent. And so the choices, even though I still write your mom of teenagers are now they're growing, you've been there, you know, like that certain point, right? Their decisions aren't going to be, you know, their decisions. And so I'm kind of like feeling I'm tapping that area. And so like, how, right, like, how do I make sure that the foundation is there, although I feel right, and a lot of us would agree with this, too. Like, I feel like I make good choices. However, with my you know, with my food and nutrition, however, there's always room for improvement. Yes. So, so how, like, let's talk a little bit about some of the steps like that you would teach your clients, right, that are that have families and like what is yeah, like, where do we begin?

Where do we begin? Yes. Where do we begin? What happens? This is the typical question. My kid doesn't want it vegetables. I mean, yeah, I can see moms raising their hands. Like, what do I do, Alicia? What do I do? So anyway, I have a story to tell you. I was chatting with a mom with that same question. Like my son has not eaten vegetables, like for the longest time. And I'm like, Okay, I said, Is your son hungry right now said, yeah, he's waiting. I said, Just give him something, give him something. And all the sudden, we get chatting a little bit a little boy sounds in the bags, like Mom, can I finish it? And she goes, like, I just gave him carrots and cucumber. And he wants to finish that. And that said, Yes. Rule number one, when your kids are hungry, give them vegetables. And look at this. I'm not saying fruit. I'm saying vegetables. Vegetables are actually delicious. But you need to get the kids to eat them. So that's what was a big problem. I'm on most moms is like, my kid doesn't eat vegetables. Because it's the color it's a texture, or it's how I eat that how I cook them, etc, etc. How do you cook them? This is another story. The broccoli story. Think about this. Oh my gosh, my kid will not eat broccoli. It's most like sulfur. Like I know that. Because it's very good for you. So just just take a raw broccoli, your kid is not gonna eat it, steam it. But make sure like you steam it I usually I usually basically turn on mine, get the get get the steam to go through the broccoli. As soon as it starts boiling, I turned it off. Make sure it stays still crunchy, but it has this bright green. Because if you wait a bit longer, and it turns like greenish brownish, they're not gonna like it. Plus, it's soggy. Wait until the software evaporates so it doesn't smell and then make stories. Or you know, there was this little girl or this little boy for your son. He was so hungry. He was actually walking through a forest. And then he realized there were baby trees. And then he started getting so hungry that he started trying them. And then he realized them that they weren't as bad as he thought. And you know what, if you don't like them, put some lime or something on top of your broccoli changed taste. Your kids will start eating broccoli, like without a problem. Okay, always bring a story to the table. You know, try vegetables. You know, I had a family with a five year old and a five year old boy and a 10 year old girl. And you know, the mom decided that it was time for them to be involved in the kitchen. And I have to tell you, the earlier you involve your kids in the kitchen. It's very important, especially when we're dealing with vegetables. So the two year old will open the fridge. Find the carrots at her eye right here. Mom left them right here, right their eyesight so it was the first thing she could grab. Gave the carrot to her five year old washed it peel bit and they had carrots, they had carrots. Everyday we were monkeying my homework. Because we were working this when the kids already had all the vegetables.

Before dinner, when you're you know when you are in a rush you come back from school or drop them off and you know you're working. You're getting hungry and your kids are hungry. You know what you do? is like, get the vegetables ready first. I remember me having I have this funny thing about having seven vegetables on the table. I'll tell you in a minute the story of the seven vegetables. But anyway, me why'd you cook the rest? We always tend to Oh no, the meat takes longer. I'm gonna do the chicken or whatever, right? No, no, no, no, no.

Get first the vegetables. Leave them on the table. Your kids are hungry. You tell them oh, you know what? Maybe you can start snacking if you want good. What's on the table?

I got to the point where they came over and I got to make it I love the extra vegetables. Because they weren't gone. They were all gone. And so And why did I start putting seven vegetables on the table. I never make a salad when my kids were here. I still do that when they come over. Because one of them didn't like broccoli. The other one didn't like purpose. The other one didn't like cucumber. So guess what? You put seven vegetables on little dishes. rainbow color rainbow color, always rainbow color. You put whatever vegetables you want on your plate and you make your salad. That way, you know, I didn't have to ask. Oh, I forgot you did like this, or I forgot to do like that. I forgot to do like that. Give them choices. Mm hmm. One very important thing your kids are your mirror. What's on your plate? Mom? Do you have a rainbow on your plate? That is a trick because and then show your kids oh look, I have today I have all the colors of the rainbow on my plate.

And they go like, Oh, I want a rainbow as well. You know, or I had had a family who had actually decided to make mandalas with the vegetables just before they ate them. And so they were making mandalas organizing the festival before dinner. And then they ate the whole thing. Right? So you know there's so many tricks you can actually do for kids to eat vegetables and quiet vegetables and not fruit. Yes, my question exactly. Like we always tend to go to the fruit right? Because fruit is sweet. They will eat it. Okay.

Something very important is like lots of things that we got vegetables I actually fruits okay. They're actually sweet. If you actually take a pepper pepper has seeds inside that is actually a fruit. Tomato has seeds inside that's a fruit, a cucumber 10 seeds inside. That's a fruit I'm talking from my botanical my company does so but we tend to buy fruit that is very sweet.

Why because we are addicted to sugar. And so if my keeps us in vegetables will at least heat fruits. Now there's something very important about fruit and fruit digests very quickly when you eat the fruit digest in about 20 minutes. Now when you mix fruit with protein which takes two hours to be digested, guess what happens? The fruit waits for the protein to be digested for two hours instead of 20 minutes and by the time it gets to the to your body it's already fermented. So to avoid having fermented fruit have fruit on its own and pick up fruit that has less sugar now if your kid is addicted to sugar, it's like as simple as take a look at the huge amounts of apples are out there. There's tart apples are sweeter apples there's like apples in between. start reducing the amount of sugar by buying for example, not red

Delicious, but a little bit more tart baby like, like, um, think about the green ones, or the marketers that are not as sweet and start decreasing the amount of sugar they consume. Blueberries, for example are okay, because blueberries have a low glycemic index. But everybody makes us banana with everything because banana has a very high content of sugar. So it's a good way of decreasing the amount of sugar. Now you hear me talk about fruits and vegetables, because they are what we call real food. Yes. And when we compare real food to the food that now we're buying in the supermarkets, which all comes in this beautiful plastic packages, with, you know, with all the colors of a rainbow in the package, and of course, you know, we always go for color. So it's not the same two by the other day, I was actually walking and I found on the ground I found a baby would put blast your apple in a plastic container. And I picked it up and I washed it on all and I looked at the high amount of sugar that thing had no wonder why our kids are hyperactive.

How much sugar you give your kids especially at breakfast. I have a daughter was a teacher and before the pandemic started, I would go to her classroom. And you know, I knew two boys that were coming back came to school like jumping. School started Oh, hockey, and I'm telling my daughter in 30 minutes these two are gonna fight. My daughters are Kameelah how you don't like because they had a lot of sugar for breakfast. How do you know? Because they are hyperactive when they come into school. So this is what happens on your feed your kid sit the typical breakfast cereal with milk. Take a look at the amount of sugar they're already having right there. Okay, and no protein, just basically or the little protein, there's no milk. So they're shooting they're their blood sugar goes like that. goes higher like that.

So they're super happy up here. But as as it goes up, it goes down. It goes down so quickly, that down here that is where there are tantrums. And then there's low blood sugar. And what did they what did they go after that? Oh, give me more sugar. Yeah, watch out adults, we do exactly the same. Actually, tantrums are not just for kids. Have you seen you might have bottles having tantrums as well. Oh, that's like the 10 o'clock. 10 Zero 10 o'clock crash. You have you know you before you go to work, you have cereal with milk. And then you at 10 o'clock your head? Oh, I need a doughnut to give me more sugar or give me a coffee with milk and sugar. And then you know, and then another half an hour later, it should just go like that same thing. Sugars up and down, up and down, up and down. Okay, what happens when you eat vegetables, some fruit, it goes like this all day long. So it's a lot less spikes, right and there's less spikes. There are less a lot less tantrums and again, Daddy's daddy's are amazing with tantrums. I have to tell you the story because I love the story. Okay, I'm working with the family in Mexico. They are taking I have kids program. And anyway, so they're taking my kids program, a four year old. He doesn't know where we are right? But he's taking my problem. He's understanding I'm not sure where he's in taking who's reducing the sugar. That isn't is that the door, you know, having cereal with milk. And of course a four year old tells you Daddy, daddy, wait. And then he's like, good to go. And he goes for sugar are you having before that that freezes with the spoon right here. It's like, my 14 year old is teaching me that I have too much sugar before I go to work. You don't get to see the four year old versus his wife. I'm like, don't worry. I'll tell you. The wife is like don't worry, I'll tell you later.

And anyway, so that date that that started changing his breakfast. It's amazing. Now, what is the best thing for breakfast for a kid? That's usually cause hyperactivity for a dad that will run from donot at 10 o'clock. 1030 crash protein because protein stays with you a lot longer than and it takes two hours to be digested. takes a lot longer to eat protein in the morning. You know that than having cereal with milk? So, and everybody's like what when you don't like eggs or you know why eggs, white eggs all the time. I have to tell you I had a daughter. I have a daughter who She LOVES HER protein in the morning. You know, what is her breakfast breakfast? leftover chicken? She just, I love that. Breakfast is like, why don't you have a piece of chicken from the night before with some veggies?

And why do I talk so much about vegetables because we need to eat a lot of them. But if you start your day with protein, and again doesn't need, they don't need to be eggs can be a piece of chicken from the night before. I mean, in Mexico, and Mexico, we used to have like beans for breakfast, instead of having eggs, you know, have beans have something else have I don't know, have hummus, have some type of protein in the morning will make your day very, very different. So it's important to understand this part that when the whole family starts eating protein in the morning, your day will be different.

Yes. Are we actually interesting enough very much have been experimenting with this theory that you're talking about. So of course, you know, the kids are still wanting the cereal, but I'm seeing a lot more and my son does you're gonna be you're gonna be proud. I don't know, does I don't know if it's me or not. But we have a restaurant here locally in town, like a family restaurant, they cook pizza pasta. And so the kids menu is actually really good because they do have lots of vegetables. And so broccoli is one of the things it's just a real simple steamed broccoli, but he would get pizza and the broccoli and I'm like, Okay, you can eat pizza. You Ready to Rock Lee? So somehow we've crossed that bridge into loving broccoli because yes, you're right. The smell is not everyone's favorite, but the protein part to like, Liam would say I want cereal for breakfast. Um, okay, great. And he caught he actually questioned me on this the other day, he's like, why don't you give me a small ball. So I started to give him a smaller size ball is like, why is my ball so small, because I give him eggs, right. And that's where we having, you know, us put the protein part and then a little ball of cereal. So we don't have to have a fight first thing in the morning that like he doesn't get his cereal, or granola. So like finding the compromise in that. But you're right, like you do feel a lot fuller, a lot longer when you have.

And if you have protein at each meal, it's the best thing you can do. You need to have protein at lunch, you need to have protein at dinner. As you will have I have to tell you moms, you will have a lot less calls from the school if you start doing that. And, and a lot less medications as well, though, you know, I don't want to go there. But anyway, anyway, so it's important, it's very important to understand the serials, I invite you to actually play to detective game which you're gonna find are gonna tell you them in a word unifying it, okay. Why? Because sometimes you have no idea how much sugar cereal or anything that actually that comes in a package contains.

And just to give you an idea, okay. This family from Chile, the they had this, you gotta have one and I think was the girl who was one and a half year old. So anyway, she was like, I give her her milk, the one that doctor sent, you know, in the morning and then But then she just was she doesn't want to eat after that. So I said, Okay, let's read the label. This is a very common milk that is very common. I don't know, in the EU, I believe in the US. It's there. It's called needle. But it's very common in like with Latin American people are all the way all the way to South America. It's just like, everybody has needle and pediatricians recommend needle. So needle is just a powder milk. So we looked at the label. And sure enough, the girl was having a small bottle, I don't know. And then the small bowl contained four teaspoons of sugar. Wow. She was not hungry at breakfast. So and again, she loved her milk of course, because sweet. It's very sweet. It's sweeter than it should be. So what how did you get rid of that addiction to this milk that the pediatrician gave you? Very simple. Start diluting it more and more and more. We got to the point where she was having a half teaspoon and of course he woke up in the morning I finally said, Mom, I have an egg for breakfast. You know like little things like that. Here's another true story and I love stories so that you can actually connect and here I'm talking about baby food baby food. Okay, I had my one of my friends called me and said oh my my my. My sister came over to visit me with her one a half year old and they run out of formula and we went up The formula but my knees will not take it. I said you still have both formulas. Yes. Check the label. I always go check the label, it's so important to play detective and learn to read labels. So we read the label. And guess what? Sure enough, the one from Mexico had four teaspoons more per serving than the one here. Not saying that this one was great, either. Okay. So I said the only way that girl is gonna drink the formula is you add three or four teaspoons of sugar, they go out, I'm like, good. Taste it. It's the only way she is addicted to that sugar. How do I get rid of that addiction, start diluting it because the addiction to sugar is real. And it's impossible to take get rid of it overnight. You're doing the right thing about the cereal is like my comfort food. But I'm having instead of having a big bowl of a smaller bowl, kind of smaller bro, a smaller bowl until actually it disappears. Because there's something else about Cereal. Cereal is has most of the nutrients that it has starch. And starch breaks down to sugar.

So you have to think about starch as sugar. So it's not just reading how much sugar it's on the label, but how much starches there are on the label. And if you start just to give you an idea is if you start counting how many teaspoons you're putting for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for snacks for stuff like that, you know, like there's like a kids who are having a bowl of sugar every single day. A bowl of sugar. Yeah. And again, it is so addictive that you cannot get rid of it. Like that. And I hear people that tell me it's impossible to not eat sugar. I love my desserts. I have a sweet tooth. How many times have you heard that

All the time.

I like don't ask me to get rid of my dessert like I will have to have dessert right after dinner. I didn't finish eating. Sure enough, I grew up like that there was always this sort of my back table on my parents place. But again, the only way of breaking it down is diluting diluting the unit. And this something also very interesting. Cannot pop kind of coke has the same amount of sugar as a fruit juice. So how do you know if you give your kids cereal and milk for breakfast? In little reducing the TETRA pack? You're adding more sugar? How do I tell you that diluted, diluted diluted until people need to be able to drink as wet? Water? Water? Water? Just people ask me Oh, but I press my baby. I'm like And once your baby starts with solids, start with vegetables and add water, water water once you when your baby your baby doesn't need that milk. That that formula? Because something else I'm finding out is that many babies get constipated when you start them on formula. And why is that? Because many because, you know many of the foods that we find in the you know in the market doesn't have enough nutrients. So it's enriched. You've seen enriched flour and enriched enriched everything. What did they enrich the baby formula with? They enriched it with iron, you might as well take a bite of your cast iron pan and do the same thing. Iron concentrates. So as soon as you switch your baby from your breast milk to formula, guess what? Your baby gets constipated. If your baby's having solids like healthy solids, then you can go directly to work. It's an again drink the water don't count don't have to tell me drinking water is a lot cheaper than drinking anything.

Any of this stuff? Yes. So let's make the connection. I love this. I mean, I love this topic, because there's so many things. There's so many ways and also I think a lot of people are maybe thinking that okay, there's there's no way that we can have this healthy lifestyle right? Or the not just the financial part of this, right? Because it may seem like it is costly, but also the convenience factor, right? Because we live in a world where things are like we're so busy, like what's the most effective way for me to do this? So, like, let's talk about how this healthy lifestyle that you're talking about right can be actually manifested like it's real. It's nothing that we can achieve.

We are so used to convenience we're so used to frozen stuff in the microwave and then sooner, you know, that type of thing, actually, I had a family in Costa Rica who was I was working with and and they and the mom was like, we need to go get another deep freezer. I'm like, Why do you need another deep freezer? Oh, because I go to Costco once a month or once I want to go every once every six months and everything is frozen. I'm like, Why is everything frozen? So we started looking at how much of like the real food they would consume. And real food truly is fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, fresh, fresh, the fresher the meat, the better, you really need to be a detective finding out where everything is coming from. And anyways, so they ended up switching from not buying frozen stuff to buying real fresh stuff. You know? Like, there's right now summer farm markets are the like, I love going for our markets, because you need to find other things that you can find usually during the year, you know, me coming from Mexico, I was always used to having vegetables all year long. And of course, you know, otherwise, you're like, Oh, I'm going to eat for the system. I'm going to eat just starchy vegetables. Well, now, you can have some starchy vegetables, but we need to eat a lot more green vegetables. And so anyways, so when you think about it, it's like my question to you is, how much is a package? You know, because that little thing that I found about Apple I actually calculated? It's like a whole apple in there. But you pay three bucks or almost three bucks for that little baby. She paid for an apple, huh? Yeah, good analogy. You know, just 70 Maybe 70 cents a pound? I don't know, I don't know how much Apple's cost actually. Depends. It all depends on the time of the year, but you know, say an apple cost you 40 cents one apple as compared to a $3 package.

There, you're saving money. Think about a bag of potato chips. How much you pay for a bag of potato chips? Maybe $1.50? You know, a little one? Yeah, sure enough. So guess what? How much of the potato is actually in the bag? Not even because slice so silly. And it's fried? Not even a quart of potatoes. So it's something 10 cents, you're paying $1.50. So see the analogy here? Like if you how much should you pay for cereal? For goodness sakes, there was somebody was telling me it's like, four back for granola bars. I paid four bucks or something for some granola bars. And I'm like, Do you know what granola bars are made of? Oatmeal? How much is soaked meal? How what about making oatmeal? And then that way, you're just saving and you know exactly what you're eating. Instead of making the I understand that it's time. It's a bit more time. Yeah, that's the objective. I like you're describing all these things. And I agree. But I think a lot. A lot of people feel like, well, that's all great, but I don't have time. I don't have time. I don't have time. Well, I have to tell you something. And especially if you have teenagers and you're listening, I have to tell you, the best time to connect with your teenagers is when you don't look at them on the eye, which are in the car, if you're driving, or go for a walk or be kitchen, involve them in the kitchen. Mom, you don't need to do everything yourself. It can actually be make the time the cooking time, make it a family thing. You can get the kids involved as early as I mentioned as a two year old which will grab on a carrot or can put the napkins on the table even if she takes 10 minutes to do that. Involve your kids as early as possible into making real food. How long does it take to actually peel a carrot?

No problem. That's one minute. Maybe if that maybe one restaurant? I mean not everything we I mean, truly, how long does it take you to steamed broccoli? Less than a minute? That's it? How long does it take to if you buy broccoli and you put it in the microwave might take you three minutes. You also save time but if you actually get the kids involved as early as possible into the making of the of the of the food number one, make it fun. Number two, they will learn how to make it at an earlier age to battle it. And number three, it's time for connection. Connect with your kids when you're in the kitchen. Have you ever thought about that?

I love that. I'm getting into that phase two we're making making stuff together.

Your son is four and a half he said the very very perfect age at which you know what can you help me? Yeah, sure enough. Well, of course you're not going to give them keep the lights. But you know what you can he can actually start you know like learning about Vegetables, learning about how to cook the vegetables if they need to be cooked, or have the raw, how to how to taste the different colors of the rainbow, how to taste the different textures. I understand like, my daughter will never eat watermelon. She tried it several times, like Mom, I really truly can't stand the texture, I get it. That's okay, she doesn't need to eat watermelon. Right. But that texture, I was actually talking with somebody who is a specialist in picky eaters. And she was actually making this analogy about saying it's more it's more difficult to learn how to eat than to learn how to swim. And like learning how to swim is hard things know, because see, when you're eating, you have all five senses that are involved. And being able to swallow is a learning. They have to learn at a very young age. Right? And so it's true. And it's like, the color is the texture is it the smell is you know, what did they what, what did? What does that feel inside my mouth? And the more you expose the kids to all these things, the happier they'll be.

This is this is actually interesting, because like do you recommend, like because you want your kids to try a different right foods and develop the taste for it. So do you force that, like, you know, if it's that broccoli that we're talking about? Like, Well, you gotta try it, that's the good thing for you? Or do you offer the option, you just let it go?

You model you model. And you confer several times that you model yourself. You model it, it's like, you know, like, even if you are truly enjoying a bit of a bit of broccoli in front of your kid, and you actually put in your mouth, even close your eyes, and you just, oh, this tastes so good. I know it's good for me. You know? Try it. Did you actually know broccoli or flowers? And the girls go like, Ella, yes, broccoli or flowers? Have you ever seen a broccoli going a little bit older, it turns yellow because the flowers start opening. So again, it's a matter of tasting and trying and eating as eating, eating closer to the earth. Because stop paying for packages. Stop paying. I mean, you cannot imagine how much you pay for a package. If you actually were able to take out that zero out of that package. You know, that's why people buy bulk because they don't pay for packages. It's cheaper, right? Well, same idea. Take everything out of your package, and you will be saving loads of money by eating real food. It is truly a savings thing. And I have a family in in Venezuela right now. And it was so funny. The girl goes like, Mom, I really want to collect data, which is like a chocolate drink. And I'm like, Okay, let's go look at it. She just basically said, she looked at her like, Mom, this is just sugar. I didn't even know like she put it back. And I said how much was it? For right?

The 10 year old decided that's it. We're not having to pull that that is like okay, Mom, what can we have instead? You know, sure enough, go buy cocoa. You know, if you need a lot less cocoa, you know, maybe add a little bit of honey Have you like and make your own chocolate without buying the chocolate milk or the you know, just truly, truly open your eyes into what the IT industry has to come sugar sheet it they have put in it. And the reason why they have added so much sugar is because you know like maybe about 1015 years ago, remember that? You know hard problems came up and they were like oh, it's the fats get rid of the fat. So now you find things without fat with little fat with nothing, no fat, whatever, right? They remove the fat but with the fat they removed the flavor. So things without flavor. Why did they taste like like cardboard, so that's when they added sugar. But they added the sugar in so much in so many different ways that this web, we're all addicted to it. That is why truly Mexico is number one in children obesity, because Mexicans also it's also cultural. I noticed in the US people drink a lot of soft drinks. Soft drinks are loaded with sugar and not only not only with sugar, they're loaded with phosphoric acid and phosphoric acid takes the place of calcium so you might end up having bone problems or a lot of teeth problems you know that type of thing. But again, how do I get rid of my off off of coke if I'm addicted to coke? How do I get rid of soft drinks? It can dilute them they it is horrible you're eventually won't want them.

So like the financial part like I get, like the idea of like, look at what you can buy at the market, like all the whole foods that are not packaged now. But if we think a little further, the idea of being healthy, right can be seen in other ways, right? Because if you're, if, you know, in control of what you eating and the amount of sugar and all that goes into your body, you're going to start seeing or hopefully the idea that you won't get certain diseases, right, which, right, higher medical bills and insurance and longevity peace, right if like if we really truly think about the financial the wealth, impact of this, like that's at least connection I'm making in my head when you making these, like somewhat small changes, dilute your juice, right?

Today? Yeah, yeah, you know, everything is about prevention. And, you know, this is what happens when you start eating real food. Number one, tantrums start disappearing. But that's not only that, the only thing that happens, of course, they call me the queen of poo breeding. And so you stop pooping wait better, you start drinking water just dripping better, you start detoxifying better, guess what, you're gonna start sleeping better, your kids are going to start resting a lot more, same as you. So that's an that's a side effect of it, then you're going to have energy to move your body to exercise or just even to go for walks or whatever with your kids, go to the park, play with the kids, whatever play ball, I don't care. It's just like, everything comes hand in hand. Because when you change eating habits, you're changing mood, you're changing your sleep, you're changing your hydration, you're changing, you know, it just everything changes. That's why we call are called holistic. Because even we don't just work with food, we work with the whole body. And the best way that we can teach our kids is playing. Yes or yes. Everybody learns to play right? Yes, totally. So that's when I had the idea of creating a program called Happy, Healthy Kids adventure, which basically takes you by the hand, or actually, it's the kids watching a video, which is like less than five minutes, four minutes a day, but they have to go do an activity with that video. So we I give them the idea. And then they go and find out we started with the detective game find out from a trigger you have intact today. Oh, why is it that you're so you know, so hyperactive? How to scouting of your body in a fun way, what, what different things you can do to go to sleep to stay hydrated during the day, you know, wild vegetables, we're all different. There's some people that need more protein than others.

You know, it's it's a whole process. But if you teach the kids at a young age, and as I mentioned, for example, this family was one of my first families. He was five and the other one was to things are amazing. And they actually their parents changed because of them to like, Wow, I can't believe that. So it's one little step at a time. Don't attempt to make changes overnight because they don't work. Yes, no, I agree. It's very interesting that you're have this focus on the kids. I mean, obviously nutrition is not a new thing on the block. You know, a lot of people are interested in it, but it's I love the idea that it has you know, it has to start with the kids and it's just more sensitive for me these days because I'm thinking like okay, what chances do we have at home to make sure that my son gets you know Whole Foods in him because there's gonna be lunch in school right and I can't get it's healthy to an extent and there's gonna be snacks and so that's fine too. But it's like I have the morning and they have the night like breakfast dinner Yeah, that's that's another whole thing in Canada In Canada the kids bring their lunches so for example, I did a challenge with my in my daughter's classroom is like Okay, today is Red Day. What vegetables are you going to bring? That is red and everyone was like tomatoes tomatoes. Okay, what are we gonna do about the purple? And they go like Oh my gosh, what is purple? Like green? No problem yellow oh yo can be a challenge. No orange can be a challenge. You know, that type of thing. And we and by the end of the of the week, they had to bring a rainbow lunch with every single color of the rainbow. So you know little things like that, that you can actually do. I know it's a big thing in the US when they get lunches served in schools. Eventually schools need to start thinking about hey, just passed up pizza, and I don't know, whatever rice or potatoes, fried potatoes or whatever. They need to start thinking that kids kids will do a lot better in any every way. Not only academic. They can concentrate better and They will have a stronger immune system. inflammation goes down like inflammation, when I call it talk about inflammation. There's a lot of kids with inflammation basically all over their bodies starting with their guts. I don't want to go into kids with diabetes, but there's lots of kids with diabetes, we're getting rising, rising. kids with cancer, we are seeing boys with breast cancer, when they're teenagers. It's scary what's out there in what's out there and what food is available to these families. And so it's, it's a matter of learning how to or even, you know, what, send your kid even if they their school, their school of school, send your kid with real food, or, you know, like, start changing the lunches in the, in the in the schools. At some point, something has to be done. Because for me, is like you are basically not taking care of kids. And that's actually not a good thing. Because they're the future their future of the planet. So that's the place to start.

Yeah, no, I agree. So talk a little bit more about your Happy, Healthy Kids Adventure Program, because you mentioned there's a detective? Yeah, so I love that a lot.

So that you're gonna find a website super easy to find happyhealthykidsadventure.com. And you're gonna find a lot of free resources. Within the free resources, you're gonna find several things. One of them is the detective game, please download the detective game and play it at home you will learn you will be amazed. Actually, you will be amazed. Actually, I had a family last week actually, there was something that Solana Mexican talking about, about oh, what is this sugar and added sugar? Do I add it up? Or is it the same? And they were actually like, No, you need to add them up. And she goes like what? My granola, the 100 grams of grandma has 50 grams of sugar. I'm like, yeah, that is sugar. So anyways, so start, start there, start playing the detective game. Find out you don't need to go anywhere, actually, you will find it in your either in your fridge or in your in your in your pantry, you find it at home, start playing the detective game. Once you start playing the detective game, then start making changes on the list of your grocery shopping.

It's five videos a week. So it's not like long, there's so more of if there's resources for parents or resources for kids, lots of games to play with. And I have to tell you, in eight weeks, you will not believe the change that you will experience in yourself. And in your kids.

This is amazing. So yes, we're going to include the link in the show notes. For sure. Thank you so much, Alicia, this has been a very insightful conversation. And how so I'll link the Happy Healthy Kids adventure.com in the show notes but how where else can our listeners connect with you?

Yeah, you can get you get you have their my emails, stuff like that. I'm also I'm also on social media on kidstart imbalance. So kids starting balance and then kids balance wellness. It's your every every length to find me it's I'm happy healthy kids. adventure.com Find me on social media. I'm actually I'm bilingual. And so the programs are both in English and Spanish. So if you're bilingual family listening to this to this amazing podcast, you actually have access to both the English and Spanish version of it. Because I know that a lot of grandmas that moved to the US probably don't speak the language but you can actually do the same program with your grandchildren if you want to. This

is yeah, this is even more amazing because I've never had a resource for for Spanish speaking friends and so inclined. And so that yes that's that's amazing we'll definitely make sure to highlight that before we close any last minute thoughts

Well all I have to tell you is your health is worth it.

Thank you so much!