Busy Mom Grocery Store Haul: Convenience Foods I Actually Buy for Healing Eczema

Welcome and Summer Convenience Foods 0:00

Hey team, welcome back to the X-Men Kids podcast. I'm your host, Andrea McHugh. And in this episode, I wanna make your life a little bit easier this summer.I know you have a lot of running around to do and I want to say something that I believe very, very deeply is that food is one of the most impactful healing tools that we have. It's something your child comes into contact with multiple times a day, every single day.And it means it's also one our biggest opportunities to actually change the trajectory of their skin, further their health in general.

And that is why food is always just our first step in our process. Not the only step, certainly, but the first one. Because the return on getting this right is really, really big. So today's episode is a little bit different. I am taking you guys grocery shopping with me. And I want to paint a picture of my summer real quick. dance in the afternoons a lot and you want to see the friends and You're still doing school because of course we didn't finish fifth and third and first grade this year and So I can't take a pause.

We still have I don't even know guys a few more units left, which each unit is like a month I it's crazy and then I'm running a business and Right now we're really lucky to have a latkes staying with us throughout the summer and That's amazing and you know it takes extra time and so when I tell you I don't have hours to spend in the kitchen I mean it and that's exactly why this episode exists. This is my real honest grocery haul, the convenience foods that live in my kitchen, why I trust them and how I use them to support my children's health without spending my whole life at the stove.

Because it's hot, so you don't want to turn on the stoves anyway. And you want capitalize on fun that is summer, right? And honestly, in any time of year, I never live at a stove, like I still have all those things going on all throughout the year. So it is never an option for me. I don' have a bach cooking day. But I just do want you to know in my conversations with you all, convenience is a real thing.

Why Convenience Matters in Eczema Healing 2:12

I want you to be able to capitalize on convenience, and I have a really good roundup of foods here that make sure that we're not swapping convenience for health, because we can't do that. We don't have that option anymore. So, let's get into it. Is your child struggling with itchy nights and endless flare-ups? I'm Andrea McHugh, mom of four and host of eczema kids. Here, you'll find natural solutions that actually work so you can heal your children's exima without steroids, without the overwhelm, and finally see calm, healthy skin again.

Let's Get Into It. Okay, friends, for real, convenience does not have to mean compromise. I want to start here because I think a lot of parents hear root cause healing and then they picture bone broth simmering for two days and three trips to the farmer's market. That is not my life. It wasn't my life when I was healing my own kids. And I sincerely believe convenience is certainly not the enemy, but there are some ingredient lists that are the enemies. So my rule of thumb when standing in a grocery aisle is really simple.

If I can't pronounce it, if it has more than a handful of ingredients, I definitely put it back. If it's not real food-based, I put it back. And if it is cooked with anything that I know goes rancid, past a certain temperature, or is bleached, deodorized, those types of seed oils, then I don't buy them. That's the filter. If is needs a preservative, like citric acid, We put it back. That's just not doing your child any favors, eczema or not. But if we're in this healing phase of we need to solve this exema problem now, we really can't afford to make those compromises.

Thankfully, you honestly don't have to. You can still have convenience and still omit all of this junk from their diets. So what I'm sharing today isn't a cheat list. It's just foods that I stand behind or that give me just a better swap when everybody else is eating the Doritos. You know, there's some better options and they also just happen to save me time. So I wanted to take you through, honestly, just different sections of the grocery store and what actually buy. I mean, one, we definitely always get pre-washed baby carrots, and I always buy cucumbers.

I mean, that's the carrots are zero prep. Always, always get cucumbers and bell peppers, just, you know, slice around the seeds for both of them. Those are always on hand. And I was have some avocados, three or four on the counter at different ripeness ideally, and then there's usually one ready if I need it.

Everyday Grocery Staples and Smart Swaps 4:54

You can also get those avocado mash cups. If it doesn't have citric acid in it and it does not have tomatoes in, then great. Those are widely abundant and very easy to find. We always have Coconut yogurt. I mean, now my kids eat regular dairy yogurt, but I don't, so we have coconut yogurt unsweetened. That's always available. And frozen fruit, just organic frozen fruits, whatever you like that doesn't have any other ingredients. We always have that. It just makes smoothies better. Right now, it is so hot.

My kids just eat frozen mango by the bag all the time. And in the pantry, we always have Mary's Gone crackers. The super seed variety are really, really good, and it's got clean ingredients. And you can always pair that with a hummus or guacamole or whatever you want. Sun butter, We love sun butter. Now my kids eat peanut butter and all the things, but for a long, long time they didn't. We always had sunbutter. It's so delicious. I really like the Once Again brand in a glass jar. That's my personal favorite.

sweetened or unsweetened, they're both fine. We're obviously keeping tabs on how many grams of added sugar our kids are having throughout the day, but either is totally fine, of course I have kids that prefer different ones. And now, you know, my kid's skin is amazing. Like they are doing really well and we've done this work and so we have certainly expanded past this list. Now they eat peanut butter and they lots of things. There aren't any more limitations, but before we were there, this is again what we have.

Store-bought hummus, we bought that all the time. Still buy store- bought humus. Making your own is amazing and fantastic, and I definitely want to get back into that rhythm. But you know, as long as it doesn't have an inflammatory seed oil in it, it should be all good. And we get rice cakes and rice crackers, just plain or just salt added. My kids love those for breakfast with sun butter on it. so fast, so easy, and they love those things. And roasted seaweed snacks, as long as they're cooked with avocado oil, those are a huge win.

Of course, not for all four. Nothing do all of my kids like, I don't think, at the same time, but a couple of them really do. I really think it's a great source of iodine and minerals, that's probably the one processed snack that i'm like sure eat this anytime you want even five minutes before dinner right and in the freezer we have a wild caught shrimp which you can just cook for zero minutes inside the insta pot so i kind of consider that a convenience food that's if you didn't prep anything, like you don't take anything out the night before, and you did not soak any beans or whatever it was, you just can throw those frozen straight into the instapot and it's done within 10 minutes because it takes some time, obviously, for the Instapots to heat, but then it is so fast.

So I also get these Force of Nature brand meatballs now. They are so good. they have some organ meats in them, they are in the freezer section, Those are a super win. That's a fast lunch or dinner. You can add in herbs, you can pair it with brown rice noodles, whatever you want to do. But those are lifesaver sometimes. And I just found these recently. There's these Jesse & Venns fries in the frozen section and made with just tallow and salt and that is it. I wish those were a thing seven years ago when I was really going through it, but I feel like if you are making a dinner with pre-made frozen patties like pre cut up organic broccoli and these fries It feels like you're cheating, right?

Frozen Foods, Snacks, and Pairing Tips 8:42

It just takes three minutes to get everything into the oven and you are done, or onto the grill and your done. It's the best. So, you know, just same thing. Same filter applies here as everywhere else. You can definitely get frozen vegetables. They're not my personal favorite just because I don't like the taste, but those are fine because they're picked at the peak of their freshness and then they are frozen, so a lot of the nutrients are still maintained. So, whatever gets it in, but just make sure everything is a short ingredient list or a one food ingredient and it's all real food.

So I also need to say, before you go out and you buy all the crackers, the rice crackers and the super seed and rice cakes and whatever it is, we need to be cognizant of how many of these things our kids have throughout the day. One, obviously they're not filling them up, but two, eczema specifically is a very dry condition. Yes, for the most part, unless it's a weepy sort of examon and a little more lung-based, with this, For the more part it is very, very very and like increases like. And we wouldn't want to then eat just dried rice crackers when we have a dry, mobile, heat-induced condition.

You know, it just feeds the fire. So we can have some, but this wouldn't want to be something that we have multiple times a day or even every day. I would save it for a time when we are really going to the beach or the pool or whatever it is all day And you're going with a group of people and you really want to fit in. Like 4th of July, right? That would have been a good time. Just keep that in mind. It's fast, but it's not like actual food. These aren't the foods that they should actually be filling their bodies with.

And further, when you do give them those foods, which is again fine, But we really want to think about balancing these quick carbs with a healthy fat, always, just to slow the digestion, to slowly the blood sugar spike. Because when we're continuously spiking their bloodsugar all throughout the day, then we are adding to the systemic inflammation that is already running rampant throughout their bodies, right? So we just want dial it down, and if you eat a rice cake, you put some butter on it. Or if you're eating those crackers, you pair it with hummus.

And if your eating even carrots and cucumbers and bell peppers, they're more delicious one with like guacamole or humus and they better serve you with those things. I also want to mention since we're in the middle of summer and the bounty is so great and it's all available to us right now, all the stone fruits, Just playing fruit is a great snack. That's fantastic. And ideally, for digestive purposes, fruit IS eaten by itself because it digests so quickly, and when you pair it with other things it usually means those other thing are left in the stomach.

and left there to ferment, and especially melons and things like that. Watermelon is a really good example of fruit that doesn't need any pairing at all. It's just water and it digests fast and works really beautifully and quickly as its own snack. And when you're pairing those quick carbs with healthy fats, you know, we just want to be cognizant that also healthy fat are essential for building skin cells and supporting the skin barrier and absorbing fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K. And those are nutrients that play a real role in skin and immune health.

So when you're pairing a carb with a fat, you are not just curbing a hunger between meals, your giving your child skin something that it actually needs to heal.

Reading Labels and Choosing Better Ingredients 12:24

So when you're in the grocery store and you are reading labels, you just want to make sure the primary fat source is real whole and won't be inflammatory. So everything that I buy that's pre-packaged now is made with avocado oil, coconut oil or ghee because they all have a high smoke point and They can tolerate the high heats that it takes to actually cook things. If it's made with olive oil and it is cooked, that's likely a problem because olive really shouldn't be heated above 225 degrees. And if it made it with any other kind of oil, we're not doing your child's skin any favors.

We're definitely making sure there's no artificial dyes ever, no matter what it is. And when we're also avoiding natural flavors without any specificity, just the word natural flavor, they don't have to report what that actually means, these food companies, and they can be highly problematic for eczema-prone children. Then, as I mentioned before, preservatives like citric acid, like maladextrin, those things we really, really do want to avoid. while we're healing our kids' skin from the inside out.

But there are so many things out there now. There's smoothie cubes. There's so many things out there now. I feel like ingredient lists are getting cleaner and cleaner. People are really starting to wake up and start to read these things and, and started to care. And so I'm just seeing a really big shift for the better, honestly, on a lot of these packaged foods. That's the hall. Nothing fancy, nothing that requires a special trip to three different stores, just real food and a few smart pairings.

you know, an eczema-aware filter that I really trust. And if you want more food pairing strategies built directly into a full healing plan for your child's skin, for you routine, or exactly what you have going on, that's exactly we do inside the exima elimination method. You can grab a spot, you can book a free alignment call via the link in the show notes, and we'll talk through your childhood specific situation, what we've tried, we can try, And we will leave it knowing our next steps.

Closing Thoughts and Call to Action 14:42

So until next time, keep going and just know that you can heal your child's eczema for good and you do it while still having fun, while enjoying your summer, maintaining your schedule and everything else you have going on. So I'm rooting for you and I will talk to you next week. Take care. Thank you for helping with my exema. Love you. Thank you for listening today, friend. I know healing your child's skin isn't easy, but you're doing it one smart step at a time. If this episode gave you a little hope or a better night's sleep, leave a quick review so more exhausted parents can find eczema kids and finally rest easy too.

Follow, share, and let's help more kids heal. Take care.