About Us
From A Parent For Parents
Hi, I am Malvina De Salvo and I created Plateful. I was inspired by my own journey as a mother to two premature children. When my oldest, Isabella started eating solids it was a struggle. I simply couldn't get her to eat more than a bite or two of most foods. It was so bad I was required to take her to the pediatrician's office every month just to get her weight checked. The doctor recommended a calorie dense diet. "Put butter or oil in her milk, give her cased meats, fried foods, chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, anything calorie rich to get her weight up." As a first time mother who was taught to clean her plate I really wanted to instill healthy values and never gave her heavily processed foods prior to this. Feeling helpless, shamed and like a total failure I followed the pediatricians recommendation.
As you can expect her weight rose and the doctor recommended going back to a balanced diet. As you can imagine after eating fries, nuggets and mac n cheese I couldn't get her to eat a grilled piece of lean protein or roasted veggies to save my life. I'd sing, dance, play music videos, nothing worked. I questioned my cooking abilities and now was riddled with anxiety at each meal-time.
Trial and error I began educating her. I started by explaining food groups, protein: chicken, beef, pork, beans these are all proteins. Proteins build muscles and help you grow so you can climb the ladder at the park and go across the monkey bars or grow to reach the peddles on your tricycle. I explained how her vegetables came from exotic locations around the globe. I showed her maps, pictures of crops and the people and cultures of these locations. How it traveled by sea and train to meet her at her plate and more importantly what it did for her body to fuel her activity.
This is when she began eating. She was very interested in learning and could recite food groups, health benefits and could even tell you what an antioxidant is. I repeated this process with my son Nathan. With my nieces. As my children got older and started having playdates I realized my problem wasn't unique and many young parents faced various struggles with feeding. Plateful was designed to help not just avoid selective eating, but to develop a healthy sustainable relationship with food to prevent lifestyle diseases such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes. Plateful seeks to foster healthy eating habits to serve children a lifetime.