Good food is health food. It doesn't need giant price tags.
In the space between what we feed our children and what they will actually eat, Melbourne naturopath Catie Gett has found a quieter kind of wisdom. Rather than perfecting the lunchbox, she has turned her attention to breakfast and to the small, practical tools — a thermos, a bowl of oats — that make nourishment possible without demanding wealth. Her journey through the wellness industry and back toward simplicity reflects a broader reckoning: that health information, long dressed in the language of aspiration, has too often left ordinary families behind.
- Children are quietly rejecting the wholesome lunches packed for them, choosing instead to fit in with peers eating processed foods — leaving parents caught between nutrition and belonging.
- The wellness industry has drifted so far toward luxury and aspiration that many families feel excluded from the very idea of eating well.
- A single viral recipe — cheap, lentil-based, genuinely useful — flooded Gett's inbox with messages from people experiencing food insecurity, revealing how hungry people were for accessible guidance.
- Gett now argues that stabilizing a child's blood sugar through a protein-rich breakfast may do more for their school day than any carefully curated lunchbox ever could.
- Simple tools like thermoses and frozen fruit are reframing what 'healthy eating' looks like — affordable, practical, and no longer the exclusive property of those who can afford superfoods.
When Catie Gett's daughter started primary school, the nutritious lunches she packed came home untouched. Her daughter didn't want wholesome — she wanted normal, the same food the other kids had. So Gett stopped fighting the lunchbox battle and focused instead on what she could control: breakfast, dinner, and one small discovery that changed everything. A thermos. Cold grapes, carrot sticks, cucumber — sealed away and slightly novel — got eaten. The warm carrot stick never stood a chance.
If there is one meal worth prioritizing, Gett says it is breakfast. Protein and fibre in the morning stabilize blood sugar in ways that ripple through a child's entire day — their ability to concentrate, to handle conflict, to stay emotionally steady by mid-afternoon. Her own daughter starts with avocado toast and a smoothie, but Gett is just as enthusiastic about porridge. Oats carry between 18 and 21 grams of protein per 100 grams. Add nut butter, yoghurt, or frozen fruit — cheaper than fresh and equally nutritious — and you have, she says, the most perfect breakfast.
Gett grew up surrounded by good food naturally — her mother a caterer, her father a fine dining chef. She trained as a naturopath and worked in health food shops, but gradually found herself inside something she hadn't meant to build: the wellness industry's aspirational bubble, where health had become a luxury product. The realization sharpened when she drove delivery packages herself one day and ended up at mansions. She had started with genuine intention and arrived somewhere unrecognizable.
The turning point came through a simple lentil recipe posted on Instagram. Jennifer Garner shared it, and Gett woke to 10,000 new followers — but what moved her were the direct messages. People were writing to thank her. They were food insecure. They needed recipes that were cheap and real. Now Gett works as a translator, stripping nutrition of its price tags and mythology. Good food, she insists, does not require superfoods or giant budgets. It requires a thermos, a pot of oats, and the understanding that nourishment was never meant to be something only some families could afford.
Catie Gett learned something the hard way: a warm carrot stick is nobody's idea of lunch. When her daughter started primary school, the carefully prepared meals Gett had packed—nutritious, wholesome, the kind of food a naturopath would naturally reach for—came home uneaten. As her daughter got older, the rejection became clearer. She wanted what the other kids had. She wanted her lunch to look normal.
So Gett changed her approach. Instead of fighting the entire school day, she decided to concentrate on what she could actually control: the breakfast and dinner her children ate at home. And for the lunch box itself, she discovered something that worked. A thermos. "I started putting her grapes and carrot sticks and cucumber and things in a thermos and it gets eaten," she told RNZ. The cold, the containment, the slight novelty of it—something about the thermos made the vegetables disappear. It was, she says, a game-changer.
If a parent is going to focus on one meal, Gett's recommendation is breakfast. A protein-and-fibre-rich start to the day does more than fill a stomach. It stabilizes blood sugar in a way that ripples through everything else—how a child handles conflict in the schoolyard, how long they can concentrate in class, how resilient they feel by mid-afternoon. Her own daughter typically starts with avocado toast and a smoothie, but Gett is equally enthusiastic about porridge. Oats contain between 18 and 21 grams of protein per 100 grams. Add nut butter if you can afford it, or yoghurt, or frozen fruit—which is cheaper and just as nutritious as fresh. "That is the most perfect breakfast," she says.
Gett's path to this philosophy was not straightforward. She grew up in a household where good food was simply what you ate—her mother was a caterer, her father a fine dining chef. She trained as a clinical naturopath and worked in health food shops. But somewhere along the way, she found herself caught in something she hadn't intended to build. The wellness industry, she realized, had become something else entirely. It had become a marker of wealth. "Health was something that you purchased and was only available to people who could afford it," she says. She'd walked into what she calls the "Instagram bubble," a space where wellness was cool, aspirational, exclusive. It was a long way from where she'd started.
During the pandemic, Gett closed her business, the Staple Store. When she reopened it as an online operation, a courier failed to show up for a delivery one day, so she drove the packages herself. She ended up at mansions. "I got home, and I was like, I've come really far from home. I don't know how I got here," she recalls. She'd started with genuine intention and somehow ended up inside the very bubble she hadn't meant to join.
The turning point came when she posted a recipe—a red-lentil mix called Not So Dal—on Instagram. It was the Staple Store's most profitable item. The next morning, she woke to 10,000 new followers. Jennifer Garner, the American actress, had shared it. But what struck Gett more than the follower count were the direct messages. People were writing to say thank you. They were experiencing food insecurity. They needed recipes that were cheap and real and actually worked.
Now Gett's work has shifted. She still practices as a naturopath, but she's also become a kind of translator—taking the language of nutrition and stripping away the price tag, the mythology, the gatekeeping. She shares simple recipes on Instagram and in a new cookbook. "I want people to know that good food is health food," she says. "It doesn't need giant price tags. It doesn't need to be a superfood." A thermos of cold grapes. A bowl of oats with nut butter. Breakfast that actually sticks with you. These are the things that matter.
Citações Notáveis
I started putting her grapes and carrot sticks and cucumber and things in a thermos and it gets eaten.— Catie Gett, naturopath
Health was something that you purchased and was only available to people who could afford it.— Catie Gett, reflecting on the wellness industry
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does the thermos work when a regular lunch box doesn't?
It's partly temperature—nobody wants a warm carrot—but I think it's also about the signal it sends. A thermos feels intentional, a little bit special. Kids notice that. It's not just vegetables in a container; it's vegetables that someone took care to keep cold.
You mention the "Instagram bubble" pretty directly. Do you think wellness culture is still that exclusive, or has it shifted?
It's more visible now, which is something. But the core problem hasn't changed—good nutrition still costs more money than processed food in most places. What's shifted is that more people are talking about it. Gett's point is that you don't need to be inside that bubble to feed your kids well. You just need to know what actually works.
The breakfast focus seems almost radical—ignoring lunch entirely.
It's not ignoring it. It's being realistic about what you can control. You can't control what your child wants to eat at school, what their friends have, what feels normal to them. But you can control what happens before they leave the house. A good breakfast buys you something real—steadier moods, better focus. That's not wellness theater. That's physiology.
Jennifer Garner sharing a lentil recipe seems like a random moment, but it clearly mattered to Gett.
It mattered because of what came after. The messages from people in food insecurity. That's when she realized the recipe itself wasn't the point—it was that someone had finally made something good that didn't require money or status to access. That shifted everything for her.
Do you think parents feel guilty about not being able to pack perfect lunches?
Absolutely. And Gett's saying: stop. Focus on what you can actually do. Make breakfast count. Use a thermos if it helps. The guilt is the real poison, not the processed food.