What keeps families from eating together? How can we break down these barriers? I’m hoping these questions, and more, will be answered for me in just a few short weeks. I will be spending a day at the Nestle Culinary Center in Solon, OH with 14 other bloggers, the fine folks from Nestle, and special guest experts, to take part in Stouffer’s Let’s Fix Dinner discussion.
I would love to bring some of your questions for the expert panel along with me, but here’s the thing… I need your questions and comments before end of day tomorrow (Wednesday)!
I get to meet:
CASA – An expert from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. CASA has conducted more than a decade of research about family dinner and has consistently found that the more often kids eat dinner with their family, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs.
Antonia Lofaso – Past Top Chef contestant and Celebrity Chef. Antonia has a decorated background as a culinary expert but notes her greatest achievement to be her 8 year old daughter, Xea.
Lynn Fredericks – Author of “Cooking Time is Family Time.” Lynn is the mother of two and offers insight about tackling the difficulties of family dinnertime.
Carleton Kendrick – Author of “Take Out Your Nose Ring, Honey, We’re Going to Grandma’s.” Carleton is a family therapist and has worked as a consultant for more than 20 years. His book offers a positive, light-hearted perspective on raising teenagers.
Dr. Meghan Barlow, PhD – A pediatric psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital. Dr. Barlow’s main area of interest is working with pediatricians to address emotional, behavioral and developmental issues within their pediatric patients.
Ask away! Please email your questions to me at fromdatestodiapers@gmail.com, via Twitter, or leave them in the comments below. I will post all of the answers, and more, during and after the event.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Congrats on your trip! Sounds like a lot of fun – I love hearing about new product innovations and new lines of flavors or “convenient” cooking options (ie pre -prepared frozen, shelf stable, or fresh!) foods!
Christine – what an incredible opportunity! I’m jealous! I think it’s great that this diverse group is coming together to discuss this very important topic. My question for the group would be, how do we bring this message to the families who need it most? Lower-income families aren’t sharing meals together, they don’t always have access to grocery stores where healthy food is carried, they may not have access to the media that is carrying these messages along with the how’s and why’s, and they’re growing up in unhealthy conditions. If this group has solutions to make an impact with these families – count me in the effort!
You can see from my recent blog post on childhood obesity that I’m pretty passionate about this topic. Thanks for offering to take questions! Enjoy
Hi Christine – I’ll see you there!
Can’t wait – it’s been a year!
Hi, I would like to know how all of these companies have some form or another of healthy food options or heart healthy and they are still loaded with high fructose corn syrup, artificial dyes, or artificial sweeteners, MSG, and more. I picked up a loaf of heart healthy bread by Sara lee the soft wheat that looks white for my all too picky husband and thought, or didn’t think twice about it having high fructose corn syrup in it and guess what it does. I couldn’t find hot dog buns at the store that didn’t have HFCS in it. Yogurt has as much sugar as a can of soda, but I don’t want to feed my children artificial sweetened foods. So why can’t there be a back to basics, natural aproach that takes our health and our nation’s obesity rate into consideration. It would be nice if instead of pushing a really not any better for us substitute that they could just make things with in the normal range of sugar and sodium and minimally processed that in turn isn’t going to just add to the weight problems of our children and families.
Okay well that was a lot and I probably rambled a little too much. I’m sorry. I just get so frustrated shopping, and trying to make better choices for my children, and then realize I bought the wrong thing again.
Thanks for taking part in this.
Sounds like a fun trip! Looking forward hearing what all you will learn at the panel!
{ 2 trackbacks }