As I mentioned yesterday, my kids suffer from dry skin. We have hard water and a very dry climate, which adds to the problem.  We’ve tried many lotions, potions, and prescriptions over the last few years.  Some have given temporary relief, however, I fail to be consistent in applying anything to their skin and thus the problem always returns.  Currently ketchup boy has a bad case of eczema.

When the people fromSkinFreeoffered to send us some skincare products for sensitive skin, allergies, etc., I jumped at the chance.   We recieved soap and their After Shower Moisture Spritz.  Here is what I like:

• SkinFree has simple, recognizeable ingredients.  The moisture spritz contains:Olive seed oil, sweet almond oil, and Vitamin E.  The soap has coconut oil, palm oil, olive seed oil, shea butter fruit, cocoa seed butter, and vitamin E
• It did not sting or burn!! Almost every single lotion I have EVER used on my kids “BURNS” when I apply.  They are either very sensitive, or very dramatic.
• SkinFree is cruelty free and vegan.  Which actually did not matter to me until about 3 weeks ago when I started listening to the Compassionate cooks podcast, and now I think this is extremely important.
• They are available at CVS and Walgreens, not just online.
• They have a toxicity rating of 0! Did  you hear that ZERO.
• No colors, fragrances, petroleum products, or harmful chemicals.

I have been recieving tons of opportunities for product reviews and giveaways lately that I have turned down because their ingredients were not natural.  But SkinFree is a product that I hope does well in the stores because they are natural and my kids liked it. 

GIVEAWAY!! Hip hip hooray. SkinFree wants to giveaway 3 Eczema Relief Kits (valued at $25 each).  I know there are tons of you out there who’s kids suffer from Eczema and dry skin.  So comment below. (until Monday morning) You will not be disappointed.

Side note: If you have never commented before, your comment won’t be approved until tonight. I’ll be gone all day for the next two days.. but I promise I will get to it.  Thanks!

Springtime in our house means runny noses!   My poor kids are sneezing, coughing, and blowing their noses all night.  We haven’t really found a remedy that has worked. The poor kids just wait it out, runny nose, itchy, watery eyes and all.  However, a product we are about to try is Sinupret.  Here is what the company says about it.

“Sinupret for Kids, developed by Bionorica, is a safe, natural remedy that supports healthy sinus, respiratory and immune function. To our knowledge, no other clinically tested remedies are available today in the United States that support all three functions for children.

Sinupret for Kids is one of the world’s leading herbal remedies for upper respiratory health for children age 2 and up.  Sinupret has been Germany’s #1 most widely recommended and scientifically tested nasal and sinus supports formula for children and adults for more than 30 years.”

Want to try some too??  Sinupret is offering FIFTEEN , you heard me 15of my readers a Giveaway pack!  Each pack includes:

This is a fabulous giveaway, with an AWESOME book, and a great way for you to try a healthy, safe, treatment.  So leave a comment to be entered. I would love to hear how many of you have kids that suffer from Sinus or respiratory problems.  This contest will end Tuesday so they can get your kits out right away!

For more information, check out Sinupret for Kids Fact Sheet, or Press Release.

MONDAY: Fruits and Vegetables

Have I told you lately that I love you?

Have I told you, there’s no one else above you?

You fill my meals with sweetness

You make my snacks into treat-ness

Ease my hunger that’s what you do!

There are very few things in this world I am brand loyal to.  However, I make complete exception to DOLE!!! Dole has better canned fruit and better frozen fruit than any I have tried.  Dole frozen strawberries never clump together in a big unbreakable ice cube like other brands.  Dole canned pineapple is so much sweeter than the store brand, and I haven’t found anyone else that makes YUMMY YUMMY frozen cherries other than Dole.  In fact, my last grocery trip proves my love for Dole:

Frozen fruit and canned fruit are a great way to get your fruits in.  In fact, picked when ripe and flash frozen actually preserves the nutrients from the fruit.  Make sure you are not buying frozen fruit with added sugar.  Same goes for canned fruit. Check your labels and purchase canned fruit canned in its own juice.

Dole sent us some of their Fruit Parfait.  Its chopped up fruit in a delicious sea of yogurty parfait.  This was particularly exciting for my kids, because I never send a treat in their lunch to school. But when we got the parfaits, considering there is sugar in it, I put it in their lunch for dessert.  They loved it! We all loved it.  While there is 22grams of sugar in this dessert, I checked the Little Debbie treats at the store and some of those had 30 grams of sugar  (without any fruit of course).

More reasons to love Dole: 

1. Their site dedicated to SUPER FOODS. Find out what foods boost immunity, support bones, good for your skin, etc.
2. Their Super Kids Cookbook!!  All kid friendly recipes using my favorite foods, FRUIT!
3. They are sponsoring a giveaway.  Enter a comment on your favorite canned fruit, and I’m giving away one DOLE fleece jacket (size L), 5 coupons for FREE Dole fruit cups or fruit parfait, and $1.00 off Dole Frozen fruit.

Hurry, hurry, contest will end Wed. Night.

One thing I can’t understand is when a child needs to gain weight, they will get advice about adding more junk food to the child’s diet!  Can anything be more wrong. I completely disagree with adding junk food as a means to have a child gain weight.  There are other options.

We recieved BOOST Kid Essentials Nutritionally Complete drink to try. 

Whether a child is having trouble gaining weight, is reluctant to try new nourishing foods or needs to stregthen their immune system, BOOST Kid Essentails Drink can fill in nutritional gaps.

Here’s what it has:

• 25 essential vitamins and minerals
• 7 grams protein
• Vitamin C, E and selenium
• A unique probiotic straw that delivers probiotics.

Here is what it doesn’t have:

• No High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Lactose free
• gluten free

Do you want some for your kids? Nestle Nutrition is offering two readers each a six pack.  The flavors are strawberry, vanilla or chocolate.  Leave a comment for your chance to win.  I will keep this open till Sunday night.

Monday:  BBQ Chicken Pizza on Whole wheat crust. (I have about 4 bottles of BBQ sauce with about 1/2 cup left in each one on my fridge door. This will be a good way to polish at least 3 of them off.)

Tuesday: Rice and Beans

Wednesday: White chicken chili

Thursday: Tortilla Soup (Thanks Mary Kathryn)

Friday: Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Burritos

Saturday was a success for me.  I was helping (testing cholesterol) at a health fair for the Utah State Board of Education.  I knew before going there would be tables of delicious food like fruit, muffins, pastries, and cookies. I’ve done these before.  So I decided before I got there, I would not eat any of their cookies or pastries, just fruit.  That is exactly what happened!

PRODUCT REVIEW:  Lightful Fit

While not sold in my area yet, these smoothie drinks are better than most.  They taste good, there is no HFCS, no artificial colors, they are only 90 calories, and have 5 grams of fiber. 

My kids like drinking yogurt smoothies.  I didn’t even ask them to try these.  They drank them as soon as we got them.  The note said to refrigerate first, but it was about 10 degrees the day they came and they sat on my porch for a few hours, so I think they were sufficiently chilled.   They loved the flavors strawberry, chocolate, mango, and peach.

You can use their website to order these, or to find out if they are sold in your local stores.

My kids and I were very excited about getting products from the company GoPicnic.  We received 3 kids meals from their “Mighty Munch Kids Meal” collection.  Each box contains an entire Healthy lunch along with a prize.  I thought about keeping the lunch boxes in the car for those days we were just too busy to be home for lunch.  But then I remembered a day when I had to send my kids to my sisters for the whole day to be babysat. I always send food with my kids when someone babysits them, because my kids like to eat!  Although, everyday they saw the boxes in the pantry they asked if they could have them, they were thrilled when I let them each bring one to my sisters.  And they loved everything inside!

The more I think about this idea, the more I like it.  Here are some great features:

• First of all, it costs the same as if you were to purchase a kids meal from a fast food restaurant, but its healthier. They are quite reasonable if you are used to forking out money for fast food.  The price range seems to be $4-$6 per meal.
• I love that they are shelf stable.  You can add these meals to an emergency kit, keep them in your car for those busy days, keep them on a shelf for those “rainy” days, or just keep them in your food storage for when money is tight and you can’t get to the store.
• They are all-natural with organic ingredients.
• No trans-fats, high fructose corn syrup or MSG.
• They have vegetarian, kosher, or gluten-free options.
• 100% peanut free and contains no tree nut ingredients if that’s important to you.

Ready to get some?!?!  Here’s what we’ll do. First of all, they are offering a coupon code to all Super Healthy Kids readers.  For 25% off your first order enter GPTHANKS. Secondly, they are offering a Sample Pack  (which has 6 kids meals in it, a $27.99 value) to one lucky reader. Leave a comment to win. I promise you will not be disappointed!  But, don’t wait to be a winner, buy some today with the coupon code and keep them in your pantry for when you need them the most.  Contest deadline, Sunday night.

Dried fruit is such a great, portable food to have around.  We have dried fruit for snacking, for road trips, lunches, hiking, etc.  I’ve tried to make my own cause it will get so pricey.  But, I have never been able to make dried apricots as tasty and as tender and chewy as the store. Mine always turn out so tough you need shark teeth to get through it. And somehow it loses it’s flavor.  At my regular grocery store dried apricots are 9.29 per lb. That is why they normally sell them only a few ounces at a time.

So, last week, Oh! Nuts asked if they could send me some nuts and dried fruit to try and review!  I first was concerned about the price.  I can’t in good conscious recommend expensive food.  And Oh! Nuts is well priced! For their apricots; 4.99 per pound (but less if you buy 5 lbs or more).  They were HALF as much as my regular store.  The almonds, 5.99 (which is less than Macey’s, and only slightly more than my health food store or Costco). So if you don’t have a health food store, this is a good way to go. ) They sent us 1 lb each of dried apricots, dried mangoes (we LOVE DRIED MANGOES!!!), cashews, and almonds.  My husband took the almonds to snack on at work.  The flip flopper almost finished off the dried mangoes single handedly, I’m working on the cashews (as a snack, and made cashew chicken last night), and I’m giving away the apricots (which is a huge sacrafice for us)!  Everything we have tried has been absolutely, quality, delicious.  Plus they have hard to find dried fruit like dried kiwi, dried blueberries, cherries, dried cantaloupe, dried nectarines, pears, etc. 

Leave a comment today, and tonight I’ll pick a winner.  Thanks Oh! Nuts. Check out their website for store locations (only in NY) and for prices.

In a world where grocery prices are rising, it’s vital to make what you have last longer, right?!?!  How much food do you throw away anyway. Every shopping day, I go through my fridge, and toss all the wilted lettuce or the moldy zucchini.  However, when I use my Food Saver,  my food lasts twice, even three times longer.  I vacuum sealed my strawberries for two reasons.  1; so the kids wouldn’t eat them before I needed them for a party salad, and 2; the strawberries stayed fresh when I went to use them.  I think they look delcious and super fresh!  I used the Food Saver Containers.

Then I use the bags to save the meat I buy in bulk, and the fish my kids brought back when they went fishing with the grandparents last week.  My next plan is to buy the canisters so I can preserve my wheat after I grind it up.  The containers are my favorite because you can re-use them over and over.  I think it’s a great idea to have a Food Saver these days.  Truly you will waste less, buy less, and save money!

 Cereal boy can make omelets all by himself now.  He is most likely annoyed by me however, because I insist on hovering, correcting, and barking orders all along the way. I just need to let go a little, let him make mistakes, possibly even get burned a time or two to make his childhood a little more interesting.  Every waking minute this poor kid has is completely choreographed by his overbearing mother.

But we love omelets cause….we love Cheese!!!  Who doesn’t.  I already posted last week one alternative cheese we tried and loved.  This week we ate some Rice Cheese from galaxy foods!  You heard me, cheese that was actually made from rice.  With 0 grams of transfats, and 1 gram of saturated fat per 1/3 cup, it melted so well!  It was hard to believe.  My kids didn’t notice a difference between this cheese, and their regular Colby-Jack.  It was already shredded for us, we sprinkled it on the eggs, and ate it up.  It’s definitely worth giving a try to.  And if it can help us cut back on our saturated fat, it’s worth it.

Dr. Fuhrman, author of Disease Proof your Child (one of my favorite books) had this to say about cheese.  “Besides sugar, butter and cheese contribute the most calories to children’s diets in America.  The food with the highest saturated fat content in the American diet is butter and cheese”.  Instead of all of their calories coming from these sources, the ideal diet is one that includes food with a high nutrient-per-calorie ratio.  According to Dr. Fuhrman, the foods with the most nutrients per calorie are vegetables and beans!!

We spent the day at the zoo today. Our family pass expires in one week and we don’t plan to renew it.  We do love the zoo, but it’s kind of a far drive with gas where it is. 

As I mentioned before, we always pack food whenever we go anywhere!  One of our favorite and most filling snacks is trail mix.  You really can’t beat the nutritional powerhouse that nuts are.  Our problem has always been limiting nuts to one serving.  That’s why I love when it’s individually packaged small enough you can limit it.  Snacktrition has packaged nuts and dried fruit PLUS baked it with calcium and fiber! Very cool.   My kids completely love these little bags. Each bag has 2.5 servings, so that is perfect for my kids to share.  They particularly like the bags of cashews, and the fruit and nut mix. The fruit and nut mix they’ve added dried orange cranberries, dried blueberries, and those mini vanilla chips.  It’s really delicious. Thanks Snacktrition

Also, if you visit their website, they are currently giving away a Total Gym, and 50 gift cards to Foot Locker.  I just entered.