What a day of eating looks like with allergies + Tips & Tricks for Shopping and Cooking
The first question I often get asked when explaining to people my sons allergies, and my daughters food sensitivities is - “what do you even eat??”… and fair enough! It may seem that way off the bat because of the way we are so accustomed to eating in our country, but with a little plan and prep time it is so natural now and I feel much more nourished eating this way than I did before eating whatever I felt like.
My son is dairy, gluten, soy, egg, nut, oat and fish free. A few of those are allergies, and most of them are sensitivities so the goal is to have them out temporarily and to re-introduce them and monitor how he does. For context, my son is five and is happy and healthy and eats SO much food so we have found tricks to keep him satiated and nourished.
Now before sharing what we eat, I know that there are benefits and drawbacks of every food and our goal is not perfection. Jesus has taught me many things along the way but one of the most important lessons I am always learning is that He comes first, then my spouse and then my children. All of that to say, some foods may not be the healthiest, but they are foods that he can tolerate and so we allow them from time to time. Some things I share may not seem the healthiest to you, and its true- not everything I serve is the absolute cleanest and healthiest and that is okay with us. We try and live moderation every way, to keep our peace, and are very confident in the way in which we are feeding our children.
Tip #1: Instead of making two different meals, I have learned to cook allergen free for all my meals and let me tell you— we are all the healthier for it. It is more prep time, and more time in the kitchen but I have truly come to love it and feel as though it is an act of love to my family. I have SO many allergen friendly recipes that are doable for the weeknights that I will continue to share on this blog. I usually try and meal plan on Monday and get my list all ready to go. I do my grocery store run and pickup on Tuesday. I go into Aldi since my produce comes from there, and I do a pickup from Target for the allergy friendly things Aldi doesn’t have since it is right across the street.
The HARDEST part of switching to a new diet is the first few weeks of transition. During that time you’re finding your new staples, swapping meals in ingredients and finding your new normal. After this time it really becomes like second nature and there are so many delicious swaps out there.
My tip for making all my meals is starting with a base that is dairy free such as the base of a soup, a Chuck roast, any slow cooker meats, pastas ect., then add a grain and veggie either in it or on the side, and then leave the dairy for the topping. Every meal has a main protein, vegetable and then an easy carb such as rice or brown rice & quinoa pasta. I love real food whole life blog for easy slow cooker recipes. (*did you know you can use your Instant Pot as a slow cooker? Amazing right?).
Tip #2: At first it may seem like you are spending more money on “nicer” foods, but really I found that I cant/don’t buy all of the packaged and expensive processed and ready to eat foods in the middle isles of the grocery store, leaving me more money to spend on protein and veggies and fun fruits and ingredients to make filling snacks.
Thrive Market has every kind of snack and flour you could imagine. It makes it easy to shop online and its one less store I need to go to. (Use this link for 40% off your first order). Amazon also sells things like gluten free flour, coconut oil, dairy free chocolate chips that I will also order to reduce the amount of stores I go to. Most of our meat comes from a cow that we buy, Costco, and Aldi. Its all about finding your rhythm and what works for you as well as always making sure you have some adaptable staples in your home that can work with different kinds of meals.
Tip #3: Have a easy spot in the house to write down your meals for the week and/or a place to write the things that you run out of as it happens. That way, when you do your meal prep on whatever day you pick, you can make sure that the stores you are going to have that product and if they don’t, then you start prepping your online order.
Here is a sample day of eating for my kids—
Pre-breakfast: Biofulvic and humic minerals (I write more about the benefits of these here)
Breakfast: 3 breakfast sausages (these are so good-we buy them at Costco), wild frozen blueberries (also so good and found at Costco) & a protein pancake (recipe here).
Snack: any fruit we have on hand such as apples, blueberries, peaches, oranges ect. or gluten free pretzels (Target has a really yummy brand, not super clean but he tolerates them great), Archer or Chomps beef sticks (found at Costco & Thrive market), Kids Lara Bars (found at Target). These are just a few but there are many more and this doesn’t even include any home-made goodies we have on hand.
Lunch: Grass fed beef Hot dog (Aldi has the best organic all beef hot dogs) with applesauce and allergen free cookie bites (found at aldi - pretty clean and they have three different flavors you can choose from)
snack: a variation of what I listed above.
Dinner: This varies but some of his favorites are chuck roast with carrots, whole chicken noodle soup (recipe here), or ground beef ramen bowls (recipe here). He also loves a plain old grass fed burger and those are sold frozen in a pack at Costco so we always have a pack of those on hand)
Snack: apples or bananas, rice cake with sunbutter or another protein pancake before bed. If we have hemp milk on hand he also loves that before bed. (recipe here).
This is just an example of what a day looks like and it varies often but my hope is to show you that once you get into a rythm and find your stores it is so do-able! With a little planning and slowly building your stock of go-to foods, if you are in need of removing some foods for a bit or have allergies there is so much out there, and often times it makes us even healthier.