This Mom Emailed Her Son’s Soccer Team With “Real Food” Snack Suggestions & Then Faced Some Serious Backlash

A mom on Instagram faced some backlash after openly sharing an email she wrote to her son’s soccer team, encouraging parents to bring “real food snacks” with the “least toxicity possible.”

She wrote in text overlay on a video, “Just warming up for the eye rolls and sitting alone on the sidelines after sending this email re: snacks to my son's soccer team.” She stretches as if preparing to run a race or head into a boxing ring. She’s actually not quite off considering the kind of response she got from her video.

Becky, a self-proclaimed “crunchy mom,” expanded on her reasoning for sending the strongly worded email and included a copy of the text.

“Any other crunchy moms who just can’t help themselves?! Lmk your strategy for navigating sports snacks and what you would do below👇🏻and gimme a follow if we’d be friends IRL,” she wrote.

“My strategy is this: Assert boundaries of what my kid is/is not allowed to eat. Establish myself as a resource for parents who might be looking for support in my area of expertise and make a call to action for us all to lovingly support our kids wellness. Be self-effacing and use humor, keep it judgement free.”

She continued, “Provide a list of the EXACT snacks I’d like to see..this takes the guesswork out and so far this actually WORKED! Note not an exhaustive list and some items are not perfect…normally I’d insist on pairing carbs with protein but I kept it simple!”

While the OP says she was working to keep her language judgment-free, the email could be interpreted as... full of judgment.

The email reads:

Hi all,

I’ll just pretend it’s not my husband suggesting we do away with snacks lol...snacks at the end of practice are definitely a thing and can be fun and nourishing. Noah is gluten free and I am very whole food focused (no food dyes, high fructose corn syrup, ingredients we can’t pronounce or determine where in nature they came from) as a dietitian with a focus in functional medicine and a family cookbook coming out next year :). Would love to see us focus on foods that support our kids’ growing bodies with the least toxicity possible, but I also know I’m a weird, crunchy mom and I’ll always have a backup snack for my own child just in case. Please do let us all know if your child has any allergies or restrictions. Real food snack ideas that you are welcome to borrow from!

• Oranges/clementines, apples, fruit of any kind
• That’s it bars
• RX mini bars
• Chomps Beef Sticks
• String Cheese
• Lesser Evil Popcorn
• lesserevilsnacks
• Honest Kids Juice Boxes
• Coconut water
• Simple Mills Crackers
• Bear Fruit Rolls
• Freeze dried/dried fruit
• Solely Fruit Gummies/Leather

Will sign up for one of the open slots!

The video did not go over super well, with several Instagram users telling off the crunchy mom.

“I don't understand why you make the point to avoid ingredients you can't pronounce. That seems like a personal problem with the English language, specifically scientific words. There's plenty of natural ingredients that are hard to say. Doesn't make it toxic just bc you can't figure out how to sound out a word. 😂” one user wrote.

Another echoed, “Ingredients you can't pronounce? Will bananas get banned because they have phenylalanine, pyrodoxine, pantothenic acid, etc??”

Another wrote, “My approach is you do you. If you want to restrict the foods you allow your child to eat, go for it! Expecting an entire team of parents to adopt your take on appropriate is a little far fetched and entitled. I choose healthy options for my youth athletes, but I also whole heartedly believe in moderation and understand that they have to learn how to navigate other foods themselves. So while I bring (healthy) snacks that I would normally buy for my kids on the days I sign up, I also let them eat what other kids bring too on their days. And as someone with a gluten allergy myself and one child with a huge list of food allergies, I never ever expect anyone to cater to those.”

One user said, “Maybe you should just sign up for all the slots and then you could just send the email to yourself.”

“This is so sad for your kids. It has been proven time and time again that children who grow up in such food-restricted households will binge on said foods when they get the chance and will develop an unhealthy relationship with food. Please consider reading these comments with more of an open mind and think about what is best for your kids,” another wrote.

One user suggested that the OP was coming from a place of privilege, and said, “The brands you picked are so expensive 😳”

In an interview with TODAY.com, she doubled down on her point of view despite the pushback.

“You look around, and people are bringing Gatorade and Doritos,” Yoo told TODAY.com. “We should be teaching kids to properly fuel their bodies with protein and natural carbohydrates, rather than programming them to think, ‘I worked hard, so I need to recover with a Slurpee.’”

She also combats against the theory that her snack suggestions are more expensive.

In a follow-up post, she wrote, “🚨Trigger warning…healthy snacks for after your child’s sports game or practice🚨Kidding, sort of. Since my post on soccer snacks has gotten so much attention, I thought I’d share what I actually brought when it was my turn for snack duty 🍊. SAVE this post and scroll down for more snack ideas!”

“Bag of organic mandarins $2.97. Chomplings mini turkey meat sticks $6.97. came out to $1.45 per child. The kids were perfectly happy, nobody had to worry about food dyes, high fructose corn syrup, seed oils or other inflammatory ingredients, allergies were taken into account. The carbs (orange) were paired with protein (meat stick) for blood sugar balance. Feeding our kids real food shouldn’t be controversial and it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.”