The Experience Miracles Podcast

The 3 Key Nutrients Most Kids Are Missing & Why It Matters w/ Ali MiIler RD

Oct 14, 2025

Children’s Nutrition and Brain Development: Protein, Choline, and the Chewing-Nervous System Connection

Episode 147, Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: October 14, 2024 | Duration: ~68 min Guest: Ali Miller, RD, LD, CDE, Registered Dietitian & Author of Naturally Nourished Kids

Key Takeaways

  • Protein, iron, and choline are the three most critical nutrients for children’s brain and nervous system development. Ali Miller recommends 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight daily, a target most children fall dramatically short of, and research links adequate protein intake to improved prefrontal cortex function, executive functioning, focus, and impulse control.
  • Choline is the least-discussed but arguably most essential nutrient for neurological health in children, supporting acetylcholine production, the neurotransmitter that acts as a transducer for the nervous system. Children ages 5–8 need roughly 250 milligrams daily (about 1.5 egg yolks), with requirements increasing with age.
  • Chewing dense, whole foods is a direct nervous system regulation strategy. The act of chewing activates the jaw’s proprioceptors, triggers the vagus nerve, and signals the parasympathetic nervous system to enter rest-and-digest mode, making it a practical tool for children stuck in sympathetic dominance.
  • Research shows a soft diet produces hippocampal atrophy (shrinkage in a key brain region), while chewing dense foods improves oxygenation to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Jaw development and nervous system development are deeply connected, with early soft-food diets contributing to narrow palates, sleep apnea, and downstream mental health effects.
  • Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care can serve as a “cheat code” for picky eaters: Dr. Tony Ebel reports that after chiropractic adjustments addressing subluxation in the upper cervical and cranial spine, children often begin spontaneously seeking denser foods without being prompted, because the nervous system is now receiving and transmitting sensory input properly.

How Does Nutrition Connect to Children’s Nervous System Development?

Nutrition and neurological health in children are not separate systems, they are one integrated system. The foods children eat directly shape how their brains form, how their nervous systems regulate stress and behavior, and how effectively their bodies can heal. Yet most conventional nutrition advice focuses on managing symptoms rather than nourishing the root systems that govern development.

Ali Miller, RD and author of Naturally Nourished Kids, approaches food as medicine through a foundational lens: before worrying about specific nutrients, parents must first ask whether what they are offering is real food, food that grew, had a mother, can wilt and decay, and carries actual life force. This distinction, what she calls “God food” versus “man-made food”, provides a practical filter that sidesteps the overwhelm of ingredient lists and rebranded additives.

Within that whole-food framework, three nutrients stand out as non-negotiable for children’s brain and nervous system development: protein, iron, and choline. Each plays a distinct but overlapping role in building the neurological infrastructure that determines how a child thinks, focuses, regulates emotion, and responds to stress. When these nutrients are absent or insufficient, the downstream effects show up as the very symptoms many parents are desperately searching for answers on, impulsivity, brain fog, anxiety, picky eating, and poor sensory regulation.

From Fear-Based to Forward-Focused: Why the Approach Matters [00:00:00 – 00:13:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: All right, Experience Miracles tribe. This is one you’re going to want to listen all the way through. It’s round two with Ali Miller. I may have mistakenly said “Dr. Ali Miller” once we got the interview rolling, how is she not a doctor of five different degrees? This woman is brilliant.

What I love about the way she teaches with Naturally Nourished Kids, which is both the conversation we’re having today and the title of her new book, co-authored with Becky Yu, is that it’s both cutting-edge and genuinely doable. With four kids of my own, I’ve read a lot of nutrition books. I’ve never read one that gets to the depth we need to actually achieve healing and health, while also getting to the simplicity we need to actually do it in daily life.

We actually got to record this one on book launch day, which meant you get access right away.

One thing I want to start with, because it led right into the very first thing Allie shared: there’s a colleague of mine, a hard-charging New Jersey PX Doc named Anthony, who brought up to me that he’d had enough with the way we overwhelm parents. They literally don’t think they can breathe the air, drink the water, or eat the food. It’s just this long list of things they can’t do, and nobody is helping them with a solution that is simple and straightforward.

The more you talk about what you can’t have, the more you end up stuck with what you’re not supposed to have. That’s how the nervous system works.

Ali Miller: That’s exactly why Naturally Nourished Kids exists. We’re in a time of anxiety and fear with not enough solution. A lot of the conversation right now is “don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this.” My perspective has always been focused on empowerment and a positive approach, being the light, not shaming or judging.

Parents are really looking for confidence and solution versus confusion and fear. And this book is a call to action to return nourishment to the household.

“If you are moving towards the light, if you are moving towards health, guess what? You are moving away from toxins. You get the outcome you want, you get away from the negative by being so forward-focused towards the positive.”, Dr. Tony Ebel

Dr. Tony Ebel: Before we’re thinking about what to eat, it’s worth asking: Is your kitchen a space that is desirable for your household? The table is still the hearth of the home, where you’re praying, downloading your days, having hard conversations, building each other up. Seventy percent of the American diet is now ultra-processed, and I think that happened partly because we gave our sovereignty away from growers and ranchers to chemical manufacturers. We were sold convenience. You seek out convenience, you get it, but you lose something. Convenience wipes out connection.

The Three Essential Nutrients Every Child Needs [00:13:00 – 00:26:00]

Ali Miller: Before I give you the three nutrients, let me set the tone. The way I approach food as medicine is through a foundational question: Is this food? Is it from God, our Creator? Did it have a mother? Can it wilt and decay? Was it once viably alive?

The food industry is tricky, they will rename ingredients and rebrand food dyes. It’s far better than worrying about specific additives to focus first on: Is this real, whole food? Everything is a continuum, and I never want anyone to get caught up in perfection paralysis. Wherever you are, we keep moving the dial closer to that whole food, closer to knowing our sources, because that’s where nutrient density lives.

Now, three key nutrients.

Protein is the first. Protein is an absolute necessary insurance policy for all ages. It supports growth and development, metabolic health, and plays a huge role in prefrontal cortex function. There was a study where they fed children 20 grams of protein, what they called a “high-protein diet.” Most kids eating cereal and orange juice are getting two to three grams. That gap matters enormously.

Adequate protein is linked to less impulsivity, better concentration and focus, better adaptive social skills, and more advanced executive functioning, decision-making, orientation, and processing. Protein also provides the amino acids needed for neurotransmitter production, which means it directly affects mental health. And we need protein to make antibodies against antigens, pollen, food antigens, viral pathogens. It’s our immunological foundation.

My recommendation: aim for 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight per day. If you just try this for two to three days and track how you feel, the shift is unmistakable.

Iron is my second nutrient. Iron is particularly critical in early child development. Those iron-fortified cereals are synthetically enriched, high-glycemic, and not serving the savory palate development children need. Real iron, heme iron from red meat and wild-caught salmon, is entirely different. Iron supports blood oxygenation, mental health, immune function, and growth. When we’re trending toward anemia, the first signs are brain fog and concentration issues.

Choline is my third, and I think the most underappreciated. We’re now seeing more research on prenatal health showing choline’s importance is nearly equal to folate for neural tube development. Choline contributes to the production of acetylcholine, which acts like a transducer for the nervous system. With the rise of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and neurological conditions, getting adequate choline is essential.

Children ages 5 to 8 need about 250 milligrams daily, roughly 1.5 egg yolks. Older children need 2 to 3 full eggs’ worth. Egg yolks are the best accessible source. Liver is another excellent source. Even bacon is a meaningful source of choline.

Dr. Tony Ebel: If someone made me choose between folate and choline, I’d pick choline. The world is getting more aware of folate and methylated B vitamins. But choline is still lagging behind. From a neurological standpoint, it’s the strong scaffolding. You have to have it consistently, in good amounts, from quality sources. When you have it, your nervous system is more secure and efficient.

“Choline contributes to the production of acetylcholine, which is like a transducer for our nervous system. With the rise of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and neurological conditions, getting your child adequate choline is essential.”, Ali Miller, RD

Why Chewing Dense Foods Is a Nervous System Strategy [00:26:00 – 00:36:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: This is a topic I think our audience knows something about, but needs to know much more about. The shift toward pureed and soft foods for young children has genuinely messed with the development of jaw structure and the jaw-nervous system connection. The jaw and the nervous system are tightly woven together. So why is chewing whole, dense foods so important for nervous system development?

Ali Miller: Chewing matters for roughly five reasons.

First, when we chew, we tell the nervous system we are parasympathetic. We give that bilateral highway of the central nervous system feedback through the enteric nervous system that intake is happening. The chewing process starts the salivary process, which is also parasympathetic, that’s why we associate it with rest-and-digest mode. You’re never going to be running from a cheetah and chewing a steak at the same time. Activating the mandible tells the nervous system it’s time to rest and digest. For kids sitting in classrooms with EMF exposure, LED lights, and excessive WiFi, physiologically stressed even when not emotionally stressed, stopping to chew is a way to decompress and get into a safe regulatory mode.

When a child is stuck in sympathetic dominance and sensory overdrive, what do they do? They chew on their shirt, their pen. That’s not a behavior problem, it’s an innate feedback mechanism. Chewing triggers the vagus nerve and parasympathetic mode because the jaw is loaded with proprioceptors, right next to the neck, which has the highest proprioceptor density in the body.

Second, there’s a study comparing soft diet versus dense diet that found soft diet produced hippocampal atrophy, actual shrinkage in part of the brain. Dense-food chewing produces better oxygenation to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which means better brain function.

Third, chewing supports satiety through CCK (cholecystokinin), signaling both metabolic satiety and parasympathetic mode, another safety signal.

Fourth, dental and structural development. The work of Weston A. Price looked at how we’re developing narrow palates, occlusions, and needing wisdom teeth removed. Sleep apnea, which impacts depression, anxiety, mental health, and metabolic health, is often connected to narrow palate development. My daughter is one of the only kids her age who has not needed a palate expander, I attribute that largely to her baby-led weaning, savory, paleo-style diet.

Dr. Tony Ebel: I have to be honest, this is an area where even I got it wrong early on. I kept nutrition and the nervous system in separate mental boxes. We were great with the sources of our kids’ foods, clean, organic, the right macronutrients, but we went heavier on soft foods, smoothies, and purees. We didn’t push our kids to chew steak. And I can see the results of that now. When we looked back, it was simple: we made it too easy on the jaw.

Now here’s the piece I can add: the greatest cheat code for picky eaters and kids struggling to chew is chiropractic adjustments. If there is subluxation anywhere in the cranial to cervical spine, upper cervical to mid-cervical, even lower cervical because the jaw has to hand off to the esophagus and upper GI, that subluxation interferes with the sensory stimulation into the brain. The brain can’t properly activate the neuromuscular, neurosensory, and neurodigestive systems it needs for chewing and food acceptance.

I had five progress reports to review just yesterday. Three of those, kids who’d had between six and twelve adjustments, all reported the same thing: they’re finally chewing food and trying dense foods. We never told those kids to try dense foods. They led their parents there spontaneously, from the inside out, because their nervous systems could now process it.

“The greatest cheat code you can do right here is get your kiddos adjusted. Subluxation interferes with the sensory stimulation into the brain that’s needed for chewing and food acceptance, and when that’s cleared, children often begin seeking dense foods spontaneously.”, Dr. Tony Ebel

Handling Picky Eaters: Consistency, Partnership, and the Taste Adventure Table [00:36:00 – 00:50:00]

Ali Miller: The foundation for picky eaters is consistency and clear expectations. What I see happen is that parents bend because they’re tired, exhausted, and anxious about food. They say, “Well, fed is better than not at all,” and make another grilled cheese. The problem is that when we allow children to drive with stubborn food jags, not honoring preference, but actual asserting with demands for one food only, we’re disempowering them and interfering with their healing.

We are all wired to survive. When we have an extremely picky eater, we need to work with what’s presented and re-offer it, re-offer it, re-offer it. Didn’t finish dinner? That’s breakfast. It’s tough love, but it works.

The softer counterpart to that firmness is: all children, all people, want to be heard and understood. When we take the time to connect and let a child be heard, they’re more willing to accept. It’s a synergistic partnership.

I give you the language in the book through what I call guided partnership conversations. Kids are stinking smart. If your teenager is dealing with acne, the “why” that works is: “When you eat these foods, your microbiome changes and you’ll see fewer breakouts.” You have to connect with their specific hook. Then once they know the why, you figure out how to partner with them on the what.

We have a Taste Adventure Table in the book, appropriate for ages 2 through teens. When a child rejects a food, instead of “yuck” or “I don’t like it,” you ask about the appearance, the texture, the taste. “Mom did get distracted and overcooked the broccoli, that wasn’t as good. You liked the crispy cauliflower but not the blanched version. If we tried it in that same preparation, would you be willing?” That’s a partnership. And on Wednesday when they face that challenge, they show up differently because you devoted something to them.

Dr. Tony Ebel: This is essentially the PX communication model. In our certification program for doctors, I fought tooth and nail with the certifying school to include an entire module on communication, listen first, then personalize. The only way to get a child to find the answers to the “why” is to ask the questions that reveal them, and then take the time to listen.

I have personal experience with this. One of my daughters had food sensitivities tied to how her nervous system processed stress, when her nervous system gets overloaded, her digestion is affected. I could map her clinical picture. And yet that was the kid who arguably needed the nutrition most. We held the line lovingly and consistently. She’s now healed out of those sensitivities, not grown out of them. She eats leftovers for breakfast every day by choice, because that became the norm. Now she celebrates finding steak in the fridge.

Teaching Food Discernment: God-Led Food vs. Man-Made Food [00:48:00 – 00:57:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: I want to get to a concept that’s core to both this book and how I think about health. I grew up on a farm. Literally during my junior high and high school years, I watched, without understanding what I was watching, the food shift from God-made to man-made. The crops changed. And when we fed the changed food to the cattle, the cattle changed. They got sick. We were calling the vet constantly, pumping antibiotics. That was ConAgra and Cargill and Monsanto taking over from the way God designed things. So, God-led food. Take us there.

Ali Miller: Most foods can be unpacked this way, and the continuum applies. The closer and more intimate our relationship to the source, the better.

Take bread as an example. Store-bought bread is grown from hybridized, short dwarf wheat that is more inflammatory and more obesogenic. Grains are often sprayed post-harvest with glyphosate as a desiccant agent, so they’re getting herbicide while growing, and again after harvest. That’s why kids’ cereals are often high in these agrochemicals.

Stone-ground whole grain flour maintains the germ intact, preserving nutrient density, antioxidants, and vitamin E. Industrial flour is bleached, stripped, then synthetically enriched, with synthetic folate, which is terrible for the MTHFR population. Then in the bread process, they add dough conditioning agents and preservatives, because God food will wilt and decay. It has a timeline of vitality.

Sourdough uses live active cultures for rising. The word “probiotic” literally means “for life.” We’re provoking a second life force into that food, moving it back toward God food. And the process requires intention, about 72 hours if your starter was dormant, feeding it, letting it rise, conditioning it. That intentionality is itself nourishing.

When you buy from local growers and ranchers, you get more nutrient density, less toxicity, more phytocompounds, and more diversity. Community-supported agriculture boxes challenge you with kohlrabi and abstract produce, that variety is part of the God-food spectrum.

Dr. Tony Ebel: What I love about that breakdown is that the first side, industrial bread, sounds awful. But then you learn about sourdough and it sounds incredible. You start to crave it. Your parasympathetic system turns on. We are literally designed to go toward those foods.

The Root-to-Fruit Cooking Method and Making It Fun for Teens [00:57:00 – 01:06:00]

Ali Miller: Here’s a simple framework for when you don’t know what to do with unfamiliar produce: root to fruit. Think about how the plant grows.

Roots hit the pan first, longest cook time, onions, garlic, carrots, sweet potatoes, beets. Then stems, asparagus, chard stems, celery. Then fruits, which botanically means anything with seed, bell peppers, broccoli florets, cauliflower. Then greens get braised in last with broth.

When you get something unfamiliar in a CSA box, just ask: is this a root, stem, fruit, or leaf? That tells you the cook time.

Dr. Tony Ebel: That’s sequencing. Everything comes back to sequencing. I love that framework, instead of searching for a recipe, you just look at the produce anatomically and you know how to handle it.

For teenagers specifically: the key is finding their hook before anything else. Is it athletics? Mental health? Skin health? Energy? Cognition and grades? Once you find the hook, you use that to empower goals, explain the why, and get them involved in the kitchen.

Ali Miller: Healthy is hip because feeling mediocre is really lame, that’s my argument for teenagers. Getting them into the kitchen with real responsibilities creates ownership. We have activities by age in the book, from age 2 through 18: peeling carrots, cracking and whisking eggs, working the stovetop. My daughter Stella is nine and she works our gas burners now. That’s a privilege she’s worked up to, and she sees it as cool.

I’m seeing a genuine renaissance of teens making impressive meals, beef Wellington, Korean bibimbap, sardine Thai cakes. The recipes in this book will absolutely stretch a teenager’s palate, and that’s the point. Connecting them to the why, empowering them with knowledge of their own body, and giving them real kitchen responsibility is what creates lasting change.

Dr. Tony Ebel: My three teenagers each have entirely different hooks. One of my daughters, her hook isn’t science, it’s consistency in energy and mood. Once I stopped pushing the science angle and listened to what she actually wanted, everything changed. She cooks. She’s in the dinner rotation twice a week. She takes on bigger challenges. Everything you described is coming true.

My son is a cross-country runner. Sports performance is his hook. My two younger daughters, skincare and hair. I was skeptical at first, but the pathway to nutrition doesn’t matter, only that it gets there.

“The modeling doesn’t just stop at you eating your vegetables. It’s the joy we see in the kitchen. Modeling that this is the hearth of the home, where we want to spend our time and energy, is what transfers.”, Ali Miller, RD

Naturally Nourished Kids: Book Details and Free Bonus Guide [01:06:00 – 01:08:00]

Ali Miller: Naturally Nourished Kids is available now. We’ve kept it affordably priced at $24.99. I’ll also include a link for listeners to a free bonus guide, content that didn’t fit in the book, including a Food as Medicine Immune Guide, a week-long meal plan with a grocery list, a balanced smoothie guide, and label-reading guidance specifically for teens (especially useful for those heading to college).

You can download the free guide from the QR code in the book or independently.

Dr. Tony Ebel: When I got this book, I turned it over expecting a price in the $75-to-$100 range, because that’s the quality level. This is the most well-done book I’ve encountered in the nutrition space for children. We will put every connection to this book in the show notes. We’re going to email it, share it on Instagram and Facebook. We want to get Naturally Nourished Kids into the kitchens of every Experience Miracles family.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the three most important nutrients for children’s brain development?

According to registered dietitian Ali Miller, the three most critical nutrients for children’s brain and nervous system development are protein, iron, and choline. Protein supports prefrontal cortex function, executive functioning, and neurotransmitter production. Iron supports blood oxygenation, mental health, and immune function. Choline, the most underappreciated of the three, contributes to acetylcholine production, which functions as a transducer for the nervous system and is especially important given the rise of ADHD and autism spectrum conditions.

How much protein does my child actually need?

Ali Miller recommends 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight per day. Most children eating a standard American diet, cereal, orange juice, processed snacks, are getting only 2 to 3 grams of protein at breakfast, when they may need 15 to 20 grams or more. A research study cited in the episode found that even 20 grams of protein at a meal was classified as a “high-protein diet” for children, which highlights how far below target most kids are. The shift in focus, energy, and mood regulation is typically noticeable within just a few days.

Why is chewing crunchy, dense foods important for my child’s nervous system?

Chewing dense whole foods directly activates the parasympathetic nervous system. The jaw is loaded with proprioceptors adjacent to the high-density proprioceptor region of the neck, and chewing stimulates the vagus nerve, signaling the body to shift from stress (sympathetic) to rest-and-digest (parasympathetic) mode. Research has shown that a soft-food diet is associated with hippocampal atrophy, while chewing dense foods improves oxygenation to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Children who chew on shirts or pencils are showing an innate attempt to self-regulate their nervous system.

Can chiropractic adjustments help with picky eating?

Yes, according to Dr. Tony Ebel. Subluxation in the upper cervical and cranial spine interferes with the sensory signals the brain needs to properly activate the neuromuscular, neurosensory, and neurodigestive systems involved in chewing and food acceptance. In his clinical experience, children who receive adjustments that address subluxation in those regions often begin spontaneously seeking denser foods and demonstrating food acceptance, without any dietary coaching. He reported three such cases in a single day of progress reviews.

What is the difference between “God food” and “man-made food”?

Ali Miller uses “God food” to describe whole, real foods that grew, had a mother, carry life force, and can wilt and decay. “Man-made food” refers to ultra-processed products that have been stripped of nutrients, chemically amended, and preserved. She uses bread as a concrete example: industrialized bread is made from hybridized wheat sprayed with glyphosate, bleached flour stripped of nutrients, and synthetically enriched, often with synthetic folate harmful to those with MTHFR variants. Sourdough bread, by contrast, uses live active cultures, maintains nutrient density, and is self-limiting in how much you can eat. The distinction is a practical filter for food decisions, not an absolutist standard.

How do I handle a picky eater without it becoming a battle?

Ali Miller recommends combining consistency with partnership. Consistency means maintaining expectations, uneaten dinner becomes breakfast, not a separate meal. Partnership means asking your child to describe what was unappealing about a food (texture, appearance, taste), and then committing to try a different preparation. This approach, which she calls a Taste Adventure Table conversation, gives children a voice and creates buy-in. She also recommends finding each child’s specific “hook”, whether it’s athletic performance, skin health, energy, or mood, and using that hook to explain the nutritional why in terms they care about.

How do I find a PX Docs practitioner near me?

You can search the PX Docs directory to find a Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care provider near you. Find a PX Docs Office Near You.

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