About Sarah Malik

Hi, I’m Sarah Malik. Mom of two kids — a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old — living in Colorado. I’m not a doctor, a nutritionist, or a health professional of any kind. I’m just someone who went down a very long research rabbit hole a few years ago and never fully came back up.

It started when my older kid was in second grade and started having these energy crashes in the afternoons. Focus issues at school. Mood swings that felt out of proportion. I mentioned it to his pediatrician, who said everything looked fine. But something felt off to me, so I started reading. And reading. And reading some more.

What I found — buried in nutrition studies, pediatric health guidelines, and way too many food label analyses at midnight — was that a lot of the “healthy” foods I’d been buying for my kids were loaded with added sugar. The yogurt pouches. The granola bars. The juice boxes I thought were fine because they said “100% juice.” I’d been feeding my kids well by any normal standard, and I was still getting it wrong in ways I didn’t even know to look for.

That sent me deeper. I started learning about how much sugar kids should actually have per day, which vitamins are worth buying and which are just expensive gummies, what the research actually says about screen time, and how to support kids’ immune systems without falling for every elderberry claim on Instagram.

What You’ll Find Here

I write about five main areas — all things I’ve gone deep on because they mattered in our family:

Sugar & Kids — This is where I started and it’s still my deepest area of research. How much is too much, where it hides in “healthy” foods, how to cut back without creating a war at the dinner table.

Family Nutrition — Vitamins, brain foods, omega-3s, breakfast ideas. What I found when I actually looked into what kids need and why.

Snacks & Meals — Real lunchbox ideas, organic snack picks that passed the label test, and meals that work for picky eaters. (I have a very picky 7-year-old. This section exists because of her.)

Development & Wellness — Screen time guidelines, sleep needs by age, magnesium for kids who can’t wind down. The stuff that affects how kids actually function day to day.

Natural Remedies — Probiotics, elderberry, vitamin D. I dig into what the research actually says before I buy anything — and I share what I find so you don’t have to start from scratch.

A Note on My Background

I grew up in a house where food was how we showed love — big meals, everything made from scratch, the kind of cooking that fills the whole house. When I started learning about nutrition and sugar, my instinct wasn’t to throw all of that out. It was to understand it better and figure out what “healthy” actually looks like in a real household where food is part of how you connect.

That perspective shapes how I write here. I’m not going to tell you to give up the foods your family loves. I’m going to help you understand what’s in them, what matters, and what you can actually do with that information in a real household with real kids who have opinions about dinner.

Who I Write For

Parents who want real information but don’t want to read medical journals. People who are skeptical of health trends but know something isn’t quite right with what their kids are eating. Families navigating different food cultures and trying to figure out what “healthy” actually looks like for them.

If you’ve ever stood in the cereal aisle reading labels and felt more confused after than before — this site is for you.