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Hosted by Paul Evans, Registered Nutritionist (@paulthenutritionist)
Tired of the endless food fads, influencer nonsense, and TikTok nutrition “hacks”? This podcast cuts through it all.
No Forking Nonsense delivers straight-talking, science-backed nutrition advice that actually makes sense — in under 20 minutes. No fluff. No fads. Just real answers from a qualified expert who knows what works in the real world.
Each episode tackles one myth, one headline, or one common mistake — and gives you clear, practical takeaways you can apply straight away.
Whether you're trying to eat better, feel more human, or just stop falling for the same old food BS — this is the show for you.
Follow now and stop forking about.
Welcome to No Forking Nonsense, the podcast that slices through the nonsense and serves you straight talking nutrition advice that actually works. I'm Paul, a registered nutritionist and your host. And every episode, I'll be debunking diet myths, breaking down confusing food advice and giving you practical science backed tips to help you eat better, feel better and get your hedge back. There'll be no fads. Before we get started on this episode, I just wanted to say if you want five days of completely free coaching from me, a registered leading nutritionist, for free straight in your inbox, go to tinyurl.com/kickstarter26 and you will get five days of completely free coaching straight in your inbox just by clicking that link.
@paulthenutritionist:So if you have enjoyed anything that I have ever said, go to tinyurl.com/kickstarter26. Let's get into the absolute. Hello and welcome back to another episode of No Forking Nonsense, I am Paul Evans, a registered nutritionist and this is The UK's second most listened to nutrition podcast where we cut through the absolute nonsense. Today we're talking about something that affects pretty much everyone, how to feed your family well. When you're really busy, you don't want be spending hours in the kitchen without your kids refusing to eat, without spending a fortune at Tesco.
@paulthenutritionist:Because most of the nutrition advice out there is written for single people with loads of time and money and I am absolutely bullish that whenever anyone works with me we make it a family affair. I do not put people on meal plans where I say at 03:00 on a Wednesday you need to eat this because that my friends is not a way to live your life and it is not sustainable. Often as well there's many things which doesn't really consider parents who are trying to get dinner on the table by I don't know 06:30 whilst a toddler is screaming and 10 year old's complaining that they don't like that stringy stuff, so today I'm going to give you practical, realistic advice on how to feed your family properly without it becoming what feels like another full time job. Some context, I worked in paediatric nutrition, child of obesity, so it's something that I am very, very qualified to talk about. Right, so let's start with why it can feel difficult because if you're struggling with this it's not because you're doing anything wrong, it's because really the whole process of trying to eat well for your family is made quite hard.
@paulthenutritionist:Firstly you're often catering for multiple people with different tastes, different schedules, different levels of fussiness. Your partner wants one thing, your kids want something else and you're trying to eat healthy and somehow you're supposed to make one meal that keeps everyone happy. Secondly, we don't have later time right, you're working, you're doing school runs, you're managing after school clubs, by the time you get home at 06:00 you've got thirty minutes to get food on the table before everyone loses their mind. And thirdly, healthy food is marketed as being expensive. Organic this, free range that, super foods this and I'm going talk about that in another episode and it all adds up and if you're on a budget then it can feel quite hard.
@paulthenutritionist:Fourthly, there's the guilt, Because every parent I work with feels guilty about what they're feeding their kids, guilty that it's not organic or guilty that there are chicken nuggets involved, guilty that they're not cooking from scratch every night like the mums online who have big famous Instagrams. Let's just deal with that right now by the way. I also write in an article for a parent and teachers magazine, NI for kids, Northern Ireland for kids and Scotland for kids and we've had a Ask Nutritionist column for a while now and there's so many things that come up and guilt is something that has been explored a couple of times. So You are doing fine, your kids are not going to be nutritionally damaged because she gave them fish fingers today. The goal here and it always is whether you ve got kids or not, whether you feeding the family or not, but the goal is never perfection.
@paulthenutritionist:The goal is to feed your family regularly with ideally a decent balance of some protein, some carbohydrates, some veg without you feeling like shit. I want to talk about, it's probably the most controversial thing I'm going to say today and it is let's stop cooking multiple meals for everyone. I know your kids only eat pasta and your partner doesn't like vegetables and your toddler only eats beige food so you end up cooking three different things every night and it's making you absolutely knackered but here's what to do instead, cook one meal and everyone eats it and if they don't want it, they don't have to eat it. But you put your foot down and there is no alternative. When I worked in children's nutrition and actually the NHS who were notoriously what's the word I can use here?
@paulthenutritionist:As we all know, being in The United Kingdom, the NHS, they are very concerned about making mistakes, quite rightly by the way. But the NHS guidance, if you've got a fussy eater we don't say fussy eater, we say picky eater If you've got a picky eater, the NHS guidance is leave them. Give them what they're meant to have and leave them, they're not going to starve and at some point children will learn. If you do have a picky eater, so I actually wrote a nutrition course, the only nutrition course in The United Kingdom that is certified by the Association for Nutrition for teachers in school that gives them a nutrition qualification that covers all of this stuff, which thought I'd just throw that one out there, really proud of that by the way. But there is no alternative.
@paulthenutritionist:So we just have one meal and before you panic and tell me that your child will starve, let s crack into the research. There was a really good study in 2015 by the journal that had a great name called Appetite. Researchers looked at what happens when their parents offer multiple different meal options versus one meal. The children who were given choices became pickier over time and the children who were given one meal and no alternatives became less picky. Because when you give a child a choice, they learn that if they refuse the main meal, something better will appear.
@paulthenutritionist:Chicken nuggets, toast, cereal, whatever, so they hold out. It s like with dogs, it s a similar thing. But when there s no alternative, they learn that this is dinner and eventually they eat it. Now this doesn t mean you cook something your kids have never seen before and expect them to eat it. You're not serving them oysters and expect I don't know why I said oysters, I hate oysters.
@paulthenutritionist:But you're not serving them oysters and expecting them to eat it. But it does mean you cook one balanced meal and everyone eats the same thing. Here's how to make it work, you include at least one thing on the plate that your child already likes, so if you're doing chicken rice in a nice broccoli dish, that is right, to I use the word nice there because I thought chicken rice and broccoli is a bad example, but let's just stay with me. So let's say you've created this amazing chicken rice and broccoli dish and your kids hate broccoli, fine, they eat the chicken, eat the rice, but the broccoli is still on the plate every single time, because kids need to see food 10 to 15 times before they try it and they need to try it multiple times before they even like it and that isn't me just saying that, that is research from the University College London who published a study where they kind of landed on those numbers in 2016. So if you give up after your kid refuses broccoli twice, you've given up way too early.
@paulthenutritionist:Keep putting it on the plate, don't force them to eat it, don't make a big thing about it if they do, don't bribe them, just put it there and eventually the curiosity will win. And in the meantime, you're only cooking one meal, you saved yourself probably an hour of faffing and you're teaching your kids that dinner is a non negotiable. Another thing, let's talk about meal prep because most meal prep advice is pretty shit for families. You know the stuff, spend your entire Sunday cooking 14 different meals in individual tupperware containers, label them, stack them in the fridge and that's all well and good, but if you've got kids, that can be more challenging. So here's what actually works when it comes to batch cooking, well meal prepping.
@paulthenutritionist:If you make big portions of a few key meals on a Sunday, you can freeze half of them and you've sorted most of your dinners for the week. So pick three meals, no more than that, not 14 different meals, three of them. Meal one's something with, I don't know, mince, like bolognese, chilli, cottage pie, whatever, make a massive batch, portion it out, freeze half it, now you've got yourself dinners for the week and the week after maybe. Another meal could be a chicken mate, so chicken thighs, potatoes, veg, some nice sauce on top of it, all in one tray, chicken in the oven, done. Mate loads, freeze it.
@paulthenutritionist:Then maybe you make a curry or a stew, chicken curry, beef stew, whatever, so that you batch cook that, freeze half of it, job done. That's three meals there that I've just created off the top of my head. You've now technically got six dinners sorted because you've made double and frozen half, add in one night of, I don know, roast chicken from the supermarket and your week is pretty much done. The beauty of this is that the meals you ve batch cooked are all one pot or one tray meals with minimal washing up, minimal faff, you're not standing over the cooker for three hours making 17 different respers, you're making simple normal food in big quantities and your future self will always thank you for it. When it's 06:00 on a Wednesday and you you come home and everyone's hungry, you just have to go in the freezer, reheat it, job done.
@paulthenutritionist:Now we're going to talk about getting kids to eat veg. So it's every parent's nightmare so you know, first, let s stop hiding veg. I know there s a whole industry around sneaking veg into food, s that, is it Ella s kitchen? They like to sneak stuff in, which is good by the way, but you can grate courgette into bolognese and blend spinach into smoothies and if that is the only way that you can get your kids to eat veg, then fine, but it isn't teaching them to eat veg, it's teaching them to eat foods that happen to contain hidden veg. So an American study in 2012 in the Penn State University found that kids who were regularly exposed to visible veg on the plate were more likely to eat them long term than kids who only ate hidden veg.
@paulthenutritionist:Because of course they are not exposed to it and they don't know that they like them. So put it on the plate every single meal, even if I don t eat it. Second, let them see you eating it. Kids are mimics, they copy what they see and if you re sitting there eating broccoli and acting like it s normal, eventually they'll think, well they'll know that it's normal too. There's another study that I came across, I'm just trying to remember where it was, it might have been appetite again, where basically they showed that kids were significantly more likely to try new foods if they saw an adult eating it and enjoying it.
@paulthenutritionist:The most important thing is not make a big thing about it, so if little Johnny has a bit of broccoli, we don't go well done Johnny, you're such a good boy, here have a packet of chocolate, doesn't work like that. Eat your veg in front of your kids, don't make a sommandant to burn it. The other thing you can do is involve them in cooking and with food, like creating food, this is an absolute game changer, kids are way more likely to eat something if they helped make it. How many times have we all done this? So you involve your kid in cooking something and suddenly they're like, I made this bloody good!
@paulthenutritionist:If you get kids involved as much as go, I know, listen, know it's not practical, practical, not practical, every day, but if you have the time, get the kids involved, even if you say, right, I want you to chop this one piece of broccoli, cool, then they feel like they're part of it. Don't bribe children, know it's tempting. If you eat your broccoli, you can have a dessert but here's what that teaches them, it teaches them that vegetables are a punishment and dessert is good. And again, you've just basically made veg even less appealing. Instead, just serve the veg, don't make a big deal about it.
@paulthenutritionist:If they eat it, great, if they don't, fine. It'll be on the plate tomorrow and the day after and the day after and eventually they'll pop it in the gut. Fifth, make it tasty. Steamed plain broccoli is not nice. Roasted broccoli with a bit of olive oil, maybe a bit of salt, maybe some seasoning, is nice.
@paulthenutritionist:And kids have taste buds too, so don't serve them bland boiled veg and expect them to love it if you don't love it. So let's talk about money, because one of the biggest myths in the nutrition world is health yeast and it's expensive, it fucking isn't. It's only expensive if you're buying organic quinoa and grass fed gold leaf chicken. Do chicken eat grass? Anyway, here s how to feed your family without spending fortune.
@paulthenutritionist:First, buy frozen. Frozen veg is just as nutritious as fresh, even not more nutritious, because it s frozen at peak ripeness. And the frozen why are we on about broccoli? I keep thinking, I was about to say a bag of frozen broccoli is about 80 bhz and it s fresh as you like. Any frozen veg, frozen peas, kids love peas.
@paulthenutritionist:A really good snack by the way for kids is frozen peas, like for them to just snuck them. But same nutrients, less money, frozen veg versus fresh veg and there s less waste as well. Frozen chicken is cheaper than fresh, frozen fish is cheaper than fresh. Stock your freezer, it lasts longer, it's cheaper. Second, buy your own brand.
@paulthenutritionist:Tesco own brand pasta is exactly the same as the Italian stuff. Aldi rice is the same as the premium brands. You're not feeding kids inferior food if you are buying the value versions. Use cheaper cuts of meat, so chicken thighs are half the price of chicken breasts and they actually taste a little bit better. Pork shoulder is cheap and you can make pulled pork from it that feeds the family for days.
@paulthenutritionist:Beef mince is cheaper than steak and you can make, as I said, about 10 different meals from it. Bulk out your meals with cheaper carbs and veg, so a chilli with just mince is expensive because of the volume. A chilli with mince, kidney beans, sweet corn, kids love sweet corn, throw in some sweet corn in there. Peppers is cheaper, more filling. And pasta with chicken is boring, pasta with chicken, tomatoes, spinach is way better and cheaper.
@paulthenutritionist:Fifth, plan your meals around what's on offer. If chicken is on offer, buy loads of it and freeze it. If tins of tomatoes are on offer, and by the way you should never buy normal tomatoes, get the passata which has herbs and spices on because it's an absolute no brainer. It's cheaper than dolmeo sauce, has less shit in it, tastes amazing. But if things are on offer, you're not being restrictive, you're just kind of being smart about it.
@paulthenutritionist:Stop buying pre prepared stuff, so pre chopped fresh veg costs double, however frozen chopped onions, frozen chopped peppers, garlic puree doesn't. Pre marinated meat costs double, microwavable rice, it's cheap but if you're on a real strict budget get some normal rice. Often we pay for convenience and sometimes convenience is worth it, but other times it's not, like I've said before, I don't chop onions, I just haven't got the patience for it. So I will buy frozen chopped onion because it's a quid. Chop your own veg if you can though, because it takes five minutes and what you can do is chop your veg and chop your fruit and then throw it in the freezer.
@paulthenutritionist:So I make smoothies a lot and what I would do when bananas are coming to I basically have two days where I enjoy bananas and if they're beyond that ripeness then I can't eat them. So I chop them up and I put them in the freezer and then I chop them, lovely banana y ice cubes. The final thing is use AI, like if you have loads of stuff in your fridge and freezer and you don't know what to make or you don't know how to jazz up a meal, then use AI, go on to any AI software, most search engines have AI now and just type in I have these foods, make a tasty nutritious meal for my family, save you a lot of time and say make it really simple. And it will be simple, say I've only got ten minutes to make this food, what shall I do? You can take photos of it these days and say create a meal, it can be really helpful.
@paulthenutritionist:So some simple meal ideas that will work for you, let's be practical. Here's some meals that you can cook for your family that they will eat and don't cost a fortune and don't take hours to do. Number one, spaghetti bolognese, mince, passata with herbs and spices in, frozen garlic, garlic paste or fresh onion, frozen onion, garlic paste or fresh onion, fresh garlic, pasta. Cook the mince, well first of all cook the onions, splash some garlic in, get some stock, let it all cook off, add the mince, add the tomatoes, simmer for twenty minutes, done. Serve with pasta and some grated cheese, low fat.
@paulthenutritionist:If your cheese won't eat the sauce with veg in it, blend it, sneak the veg in if you have to, it's about a quid per portion. Meal two: chicken and rice bake, get some chicken thighs, some rice, some veg, some stock, throw it all in the tray with some herbs and spices, chuck it in the oven or the air fryer, pull it out, dinner's done, no stirring, no watching, about, I don't know, 1.5 a portion, ten minutes to prep. Chilli con carne, so exactly the same base as a That's it for this episode of No Forking Nonsense Nonsense Where the FUCK GET BEAT THEN FUCK GET STARTED If you found this helpful, share it with someone who could do some clarity from and make sure you hit follow so you don't miss what's coming there. And if you are straight talking, no nonsense nutritioner guy, come and find me on the free gram PaulNENUTRIIOUS Until next time, eat fingers, feel hemi ngpy and stop falling for the forking nonsense at the moment. See you next time in the oven or an air fryer, boil some peas, cook some oven chips or cut potatoes and throw them in the air fryer, done in twenty minutes and the kids are actually here.
@paulthenutritionist:And fish fingers are literally just fish with a bit of bread crumbs on, so still fish, About 1.2 pounds per portion. Jacky potato with beans and cheese, nothing wrong with that. Potatoes in the oven or the microwave or the air fryer. Tin of beans, some lower fat cheese or mozzarella, job done. A bit of salad if you're feeling a bit fancy, but eight depends a portion.
@paulthenutritionist:Sausage and vegbake, get some lean sausages or some chicken sausages, get some potatoes, season them, throw them in the air fryer. Peppers, onion, all in one tray, throw in the oven, throw in the air fryer with a bit of seasoning and a drizzle of oil, job done. These are all really simple but they work, your family will eat them, they're cheap and they don't require you to spend your whole evening cooking. So what to do when your partner eats differently? So a quick one here because this comes up all the time.
@paulthenutritionist:First, don't make separate meals, cook one meal. If your partner wants to add extra stuff to theirs, fine. Second, make the base healthy and let them add the junk. So if you're doing chicken, rice and veg, cook that and if they want to add extras then let them add extras. Third, don't police their eating.
@paulthenutritionist:You can't force someone to eat healthily and they have to of want to do it, lead by example. Cook good food, eat yourself, eventually it might come around to it. Or they might not, but you're not a parent. Fourth, tell them to fucking cook their own food. If they're not going to eat what you do, just say to them, Listen, I'm cooking this, if you don't want it, fuck off.
@paulthenutritionist:Try doing that. Okay, quick wins that you can implement this week, let's wrap this up with some really quick wins. Number one, batch cook one meal on a Sunday, just want bolognese, chilli, curry, whatever, made double, freeze half, you sorted two dinners without thinking. Two) Add vegetable to every dinner this week. Just one) Don't overwhelm yourself, peas, broccoli, carrots, whatever.
@paulthenutritionist:Put it on a plate even if your kids don't like it. Three) Plan three dinners for the week. Just three, write them down, buy the ingredients. You've now got three days where you're standing in the kitchen at 6PM not wondering what to cook. Four.
@paulthenutritionist:Swap one expensive ingredient for a cheaper one. If you're struggling for budget, then play around with getting some chicken thighs instead of breasts, frozen veg instead of fresh, own bran pasta instead of branded, small changes, loads of savings over time. Five. Get your kids involved just once. Let them wash the veg, cut the broccoli, stir the pot, grate the cheese, they're more likely to eat it if they felt like they helped contribute.
@paulthenutritionist:And that is it, five really simple changes, you don't have to see them all, pick one, do it this week and build from there. So that is it, how to feed your family without losing your sanity or loads of money. Stop cooking multiple meals, batch cook the simple stuff, get your kids involved, buy frozen or own brand stuff, give yourself a break. You're not failing if you serve your kids for Schringers this week. The goal remember is always to make it as simple as possible, we don't need to be perfect, the goal is feeding your family regularly with a decent balance of nutrients without feeling like you're having to be caught on the run to.
@paulthenutritionist:So I hope you found that useful. As always, if you want free coaching, go to tinyurl.com/kickstarter26. Hopefully you found this useful, if you've got any questions regarding your family then please do message me on Instagram paulnutritionist, I am here, I'm very well versed at working with families so send me a message, it'll be an absolute pleasure to help. That's it for this episode of No Forking Nonsense, where the fluff gets binned and the facts get served. If you found this helpful, share it with someone who could do some clarity from an expert.
@paulthenutritionist:That's me by the way. And make sure you hit follow so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want more straight talking, nonsense nutrition advice, come and find me on Instagram paulnenutritionist. Until next time, eat smart, feel human again, and stop falling for the Forking Nonsense. See you next time.