[00:00:00] Feeding a Family Is More Complicated Than It Should Be

Avril Granato: My daughter put a tracker on his phone. She goes, “Mom, do you know Dad is like three blocks from the house?” And I’m calling him, texting him. He’s not answering. Well, he was sneaking to the store that’s three blocks away and getting ice cream, a whole tub of ice cream. And then he would eat the whole tub before I would get home, and he’d hide it.

Andrea Marie: We are Moms Unhinged, a nationally touring standup comedy show. Join us in our podcast as we explore everything from motherhood, midlife, crisis, marriage, divorce, online dating, menopause, and other things that irritate us. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Moms Unhinged, the podcast. I’m your host, Andrea Marie. I’m here with the amazing, the fabulous, the wonderful Avril Granado. Welcome.

Avril Granato: I was like, “Who’s she talking about?” Hi.

Andrea Marie: What? Who? Who? Who?

Avril Granato: Wow, who’s here?

Andrea Marie: I know. Who’s here?

Avril Granato: cooking? Who’s here? So star is behind me. I’m like, “Wow.” Oh, it’s great to be here, Andrea.

Andrea Marie: Yes, super fun, and we were just talking before we hopped on about, just the challenges of eating healthy, both in a, if you’re in a couple, if you’re by yourself, or if you’re trying to s like, feed your family. My gosh. It is ridiculously hard.

Avril Granato: It’s a lot. And then especially with all, you know, like recalls happening, you’re trying to keep up with everything. And I was saying to Andrea, you know, earlier too about how now my husband went through some health issues, and so he’s got… he has to really start eating healthy. He liked, you know, the bad stuff, you know, but you could have in moderation, but they said, “You gotta start having salads,” you know, not just at the Christmas buffet ranch dressing.

Andrea Marie: I know.

Avril Granato: But special occasions.

Andrea Marie: I liked how you were saying she was saying, “My husband just eats salad on special occasions.” I’m like, that’s-

Avril Granato: Four times a year. And even that it has to be covered. He doesn’t wanna see the green or the lettuce or, you know. And then now he’s like, “See, told you. The lettuce is gonna kill me.” I’m like, “Damn.”

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s so funny. And it’s different in different parts of the country too. Eating healthy is different in different areas. Like I remember I was, we were at a show in Tulsa, and I ordered a salad, and it was just like, about an inch deep of cheese on top.

Avril Granato: Yes. She, that’s sometimes when you go to Wisconsin like that, they’re really big on like, they call them the taco salads, and they’re like, in the taco bowl, but you have to… The salad’s at the bottom with the fri- the salad’s at the bottom and you already went through all the olives and the cheese and the stuff. You’re like, “I’m…” And then you see some people just eating that salad bowl.

Andrea Marie: The salad bowl, the fried.

Avril Granato: Take it with you.

Andrea Marie: I’m eating a salad.

Avril Granato: This is a salad bowl, right. Oh, that would… You know what? That’s what’s really hard when you’re, if you’re on the road and you’re trying to eat healthy.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: I remember, I can’t remember the little town it was, but we were in a little town one time on a comedy trip, and I wanted a banana ’cause to settle my stomach, you know? And I went in and I asked them, you know, we had to go into three stores. Nobody had bananas, and we went to one that had bananas. The one guy’s like, ” We don’t grow bananas in America.” And I said- And then, you know, I had to look it up and sh- you know what? He was right. We don’t grow bananas. We don’t grow bananas in America. And we should. If I ever run for anything, I’m gonna say, “We’re gonna grow bananas in America.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. work

Avril Granato: You’ll get a banana, and you’ll get a banana.” So silly. But I remember him saying that, and then I went down a whole rabbit hole that how dumb am I. I’m like, “what?”

Andrea Marie: I know. I know. I feel like… Don’t they have them in Hawaii or something? No? No, I don’t even know.

Avril Granato: I know. I had to look it up and I was like-

Avril Granato: Does it just mean it’s not, like, indigenous to America? Or I- we’d think we could figure out a way to grow it.

Andrea Marie: Right. I feel like there should be a banana farm somewhere in America. Let’s start a banana farm. I feel like that’s where I wanna live, is on a banana farm.

Avril Granato: There you go.

Andrea Marie: It feels appropriate. I don’t know. It feels.

Avril Granato: They have that team now, that Savannah Bananas.

Andrea Marie: Bananas. I could grow a banana farm down there and I could be their sponsor, and it could be a whole thing.

Avril Granato: It’s a whole thing. The color’s already picked out for you,

Andrea Marie: It’s a, right. It’s a whole business plan.

Avril Granato: It’s a bus-

Andrea Marie: all…

Avril Granato: Go with the yellow and you got your, there you go. You got merch, everything built in.

Andrea Marie: That’s so, that’s so funny. So now you have always eaten healthy, or have you always eaten healthy? ‘Cause I know, like, when we were… I forget what town we were in, we were looking for a vegan place. We found a great, that great little vegan place. I don’t remember the name.

Avril Granato: Oh.

Andrea Marie: What city that was.

Avril Granato: That was good. That was in Minnesota. I think that was in some place in Minneapolis.

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Avril Granato: I still think about that ’cause it was the first time I had a vegan BLT.

Andrea Marie: Oh, right. That was so good.

[00:05:19] Avril’s move from vegan to “sea-gan”

Avril Granato: And the bread. Oh so good. Yeah, I think my whole adult life, you know, I’ve eaten healthy. But I have been vegan now. Actually, I’m having fish now and then.

Andrea Marie: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Avril Granato: Now and then.

Andrea Marie: I am a pescatarian, so I’m right with y- I’m not vegan, though. I definitely, I eat the eggs and the cheese.

Avril Granato: Yeah, I don’t eat eggs and I don’t now. And I have cheated a few times with some cheese pizza. But I told my daughter, I’m like, “I think I’m gonna be sea-gan.” She’s like, “What?” “Sea-gan.” And she’s like, “No, mom, it’s pescatarian.” I’m like, “I like vegan better.” Vegan.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, ’cause then it’s sort of c- yeah, it’s sorta conveying the whole fact that you’re vegan.

Avril Granato: With a little fish thrown in here and there.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, right. That makes more sense to me. Um But June was three-year anniversary of being vegan. Oh, wow. Now how did you cook… so when you went vegan, it was just you and your husband at home at that time. How did you cook for both of you?

[00:06:20] Making three different meals at once

Avril Granato: Well, I tell you, and when I first went vegan, my son was here ’cause he’d come back and forth. He was at, when I first became vegan, he was still living at home, my adult son, and he has celiac disease, so he has to be very strict, like gluten-free. So that was a lot. I questioned my choices many times because now I’m doing like three, three different kinds of meals. You know, it’s like when your kids are little, one wants, you know, chicken nuggets, the other one wants pasta, and then your husband’s like, “I want this,” and it brought me right back to that. But so then after a while, I was just trying to please everybody, then I said, “You know, what we’re gonna do? The side dishes are always gonna just be vegan gluten-free, and then I’ll make like the thing…” ‘Cause he, my son liked meat too, so my husband and my son would have, you know, chicken or meat, you know, steak or something, and then everything else would be so I wouldn’t have to worry about, okay, wait, you eat this pasta, you eat that pasta. And now it’s actually a little my husband, he hates anything gluten-free. He thinks he does. He doesn’t want anything gluten-free. He thinks it’s like decaf coffee where it’s still the gluten, but they’re doing some kind of chemical thing to like remove the gluten from it.

Andrea Marie: Gosh.

Avril Granato: And I’m like, “No, no one’s trying to trick you. It’s like it’s not tricky. It’s…” He thinks it’s more, he thinks it’s healthier to eat just the regular full-on pasta.

Andrea Marie: Oh man.

Avril Granato: I try to do gluten-free just because I’m not, you know, celiac, but I feel, I notice like by the third day of eating gluten back to back, I’ll get like a rash. My inflammation’s through the roof. Because that was the reason I became vegan mainly was because for health reasons, because I was having back to back surgeries.

Andrea Marie: Uh huh.

Avril Granato: You know, pieces taking out, taken out. I said, you know, and it’s all was because of inflammation. So I said, “Let me try the…” And so being vegan for me really has brought down that inflammation.

Andrea Marie: That’s really great. Yeah yeah, I mean, it’s so hard, like, when it’s funny that you said bringing back to those days of, yeah, who wants what on…? And you feel like a short order cook.

Avril Granato: Short order cook, exactly.

Andrea Marie: I know. I’m like, you know, got the little spinny rack where I’m like, “Okay, what do you… You know, who wants what?” And they can’t eat this ’cause they don’t like the texture, or they don’t like, you know, whatever.

[00:08:43] Everything must be green

Avril Granato: My son went through a stage when he was probably three where everything had to be green.

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Avril Granato: He wanted to only eat green, and it was a Dr. Seuss book, I think. But he had Green Eggs and Ham.

Andrea Marie: Damn that Dr. Seuss.

Avril Granato: “Yeah, see why you shouldn’t read kids…” No. “These books are ruining the kids.”

Andrea Marie: Get the ideas in the head.

Avril Granato: Kidding. They want everything green, so then he wanted everything green, And I was getting, you know, trying to be creative, and then I said, “You know what? I’m just getting some green food coloring, and we’re putting that on everything.” And I don’t know if that’s why he has problems now. ‘Cause who know? That was the ’90s, you know? Who knew, what was in that food knows? Who knows? I know. Dip it in a little green paint.

Andrea Marie: Dye it up. I don’t know.

Avril Granato: Yeah, so he would even water, the water had to be green.

Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh, the water.

Avril Granato: Still water. Green water.

Andrea Marie: That is crazy. I know.

Avril Granato: Lake Michigan.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. Just a little St. Patrick’s Day water.

Avril Granato: Lucky. It’s lucky.

Andrea Marie: It is hard to know what’s… I mean, like I was, all the food coloring, all the things that are in foods. Sometimes I felt like I was just sitting in the grocery store just reading the, like you had to read all the labels all the time, and you’re like, “I don’t know.” And then you’re going between these two. Is maltodextrin better than sucralose? Or I don’t even know what the stuff is in the things. And then all of a sudden the high fructose corn syrup and like you’re, everything’s more expensive with less ingredients. You know?

Avril Granato: And now a lot, what’s happening, a lot of companies that you like had were trusted companies, like, “Oh, this was a good, this is a good company. Their food’s good, it’s good quality,” they sold their companies and you didn’t even know about it, and they’re bought by these other companies who are not. They’re changing the ingredients and changing it, but they don’t have to say, like say it.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: Big change, but it’s different. Like, you know, if they used organic before and now it’s a lower quality of the same ingredients, but lower quality, and they don’t have to reveal that. So it’s like, yeah, it’s too much to think about to even eat.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, exactly.

Avril Granato: Then you see the chicks, like who are weighing their food and they’re like so disciplined, and I’m just, not like disciplined about… I’m just trying to keep everyone alive for, you know, right now. That’s all I can do.

Andrea Marie: Right. I mean, that’s it, right? Is you’re like, “I don’t care what you eat at this point.” We would, I mean, and I remember when I was growing up, we ate the worst. Like it was just all bologna and Suzie Qs and, you know, disgusting.

[00:11:33] Growing up with the “wish sandwich”

Avril Granato: There was a time I was a little girl when my parents were out of, both were out of work at the same time and there was times when there was no food. So I always feel like they’re like, “This is…” And if there was, “This is what you’re gonna eat,” and we were happy. You know, we were happy about it. So there was never any of that like short order cook. Because it’s like, “Do you want this piece of bread or do you want the plate with nothing on it?” Like which one? I’ll take the bread, thank you. Thank you. They used to tease me in school. They called it, “Oh look, she’s got her, wish sandwich,” they used to call it. And I said, ” What? Wish sandwich?” And they go, “Look, ’cause you wish something was in there.”

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Avril Granato: ‘ Cause sometimes I’d come to school with just bread and mustard.

Andrea Marie: Oh, wow.

Avril Granato: But I was a good Chicago girl and I love mustard so for me my sister hated mustard, but I love mustard.

Andrea Marie: Wow. That’s huge. That’s huge. And it’s hard, yeah, the school lunches is, it, like everyone notices, like, what you got, you know?

Avril Granato: Yeah, they’re watching. Right. And I always had a home lunch. We didn’t even have the school lunches and so, yeah.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, I never.

Avril Granato: I was hoping for a rogue apple, somebody would, I don’t want the apple, can I have the apple?

Andrea Marie: I know, right? It’s people you’d trade or give up. You know, people would, yeah, not eat part of their lunches or whatever. Yeah, I always had … I never, I didn’t get to buy lunch at school very often. Mostly just ’cause, you know, we didn’t have a ton of money. My mom was a church secretary and my dad. You know, it was pretty much a treat if I got pizza day or whatever. and then I did buy, I did buy Suzy Q’s at lunch sometimes, so that was another … I was big on my baked goods.

Avril Granato: Yes, yeah, late, so then like years later then, you know, if when I was later in grade school and then now they’re working and I’m like, “Oh, I always wanted to eat school lunch,” ’cause I always remember watching the kids with the school lunch and being so envious. And so, “Oh, you wanna have school lunch? You have school lunch.” So I have the school lunch and I was like, “Oh, God, school lunch is terrible. Take… I’ll keep having my home lunch,” you know? But just if there’s something you don’t have and you’re, “Wow, look at, they have the tray.”

Andrea Marie: You romanticize it. Yeah, yeah. They’ve got the tray.

Avril Granato: And the little milk, and oh my gosh. But then I was like, “Ugh, I don’t like it.” But yeah, so then that was really.

Andrea Marie: Mustard sandwiches.

Avril Granato: ” Back, I’ll take the mustard. Put it on… You can put it on anything.” But yeah, so then my mom, she always was, always tried to like when we were in high school, like to be super healthy.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: And then I was a dancer, so I was just naturally kinda… I noticed already like the difference how I felt. You know, of course I would have junk food, you know, I was a teenager, but I noticed like in my skin and the way I felt and my energy, if I ate better, I felt better. So I just kinda always got that in my head as a, like as a teenager, I was lucky that that kinda hit me in that way.

[00:14:46] Raising kids on home-cooked meals

Andrea Marie: Yeah, that’s really good. And then did your kids eat healthy? Were they like good eater- well, beside, you know, eating the green things.

Avril Granato: yeah. Yeah, because I, you know, I cook, I cooked a lot. I still cook, but I cooked a lot when they growing up, and so I think that alone, like if you’re cooking home meals, you know, even if you’re having a little, you know, a dessert now and then or something, you know stuff like that, that they’re still gonna get healthier. So they grew up with having like home- good home-cooked meals, and even when my mother-in-law was around, she was amazing cook, so she’d come over and cook, you know, homemade, you know, dishes. She’d make tamales and enchiladas, and like all the, and all from scratch. Would take her all day to make that. And it was just so they know, they know good food, you know? And they like that. We never went to, maybe once in a great while would they go to like a fast food place. But not, it wasn’t something like, “Okay, after school let’s go hit the drive-thru.” We just, they didn’t grow up like that. And no, we never had any pop. You know, we never had any pop in the house.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. We didn’t, we didn’t either. We had, I mean, you know, we had juice boxes and stuff like that, which is also not super healthy. But I’m the same way. Like, we would, I would make the food, but it was always, I mean, like I appreciated that about us is, like, we always sat home and had a meal at dinner that I would cook. But it’s so like that in itself is planning the meals and, like.

Avril Granato: It’s a lot.

Andrea Marie: It is. It’s so much to try and, like, you know, have all the ingredients and have all the… so sometimes I would just be done, and I was like, “Well, tonight’s dinner is called find something and eat it.”

Avril Granato: Right. Yes, go get it.

Andrea Marie: Good.

Avril Granato: Go find it from the backyard.

Andrea Marie: You know, wherever it is.

Avril Granato: true. You know what? One of the things I tau- I told my kids when they were little, I told them. And my daughter brought this up to me the other day as she was a little short on money with the paycheck was gonna come in, and she was, because she’s a teacher, and so she was waiting. And she said she remembered something that I would always say. I’m like, “Sometimes there’s things that you wanna eat, and sometimes there’s things that you can, you have to eat.” And not every day is gonna be a day of something you wanna eat. Some days you have to eat, okay, we open up the fridge, what’s in here? We’re not gonna throw it out, we gotta cook it today. It wasn’t what you… it’s not pizza, it’s not chicken nuggets, but we’re gonna make a soup, you know? And she said she was like, “Oh, okay.” That brought her back, and she said, “You know what? I’m gonna have this instead of, I can’t go out for sushi.”

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: “I’m gonna to have my leftovers from the night before,” and that’s okay, you know.

Andrea Marie: Right. Yeah, that’s a really good thing to get in people’s brains ’cause yeah, it’s just can’t always be the best thing, and you’re wasting food and things like that. You know? So yeah. Yeah.

Avril Granato: That’s what we did at the end of the week, when I was little. We’d open the fridge and my dad was great at, he didn’t cook a lot, but he was really good at making soups. And so that’s, I always learned how to make soups from just whatever you have.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: And you do it by layers. You layer the flavor, and then he used to say too, if, you know, friends, you had friends playing outside or something, “Oh, can you know so-and-so stay for dinner?” And he’d always, “Oh, we could always add water to the soup.” You know, we could always add water to the pot. So that soup, soup’s a great, you know, thing.

[00:18:09] One bite of quinoa goes very wrong

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah, that can be, yeah, that can definitely expand as needed. But yeah, I would always try and get my kids to eat healthy, and I remember one time I cooked quinoa, ’cause I don’t know why. I was like, I don’t know why. I was like, “This is healthy. I don’t know. Let’s try it.” So I made this little, a side dish of quinoa, and my youngest was, I think he was, like, four or something at the time. And the deal was they always had to try it. You know, they had to try it and just to try and expand their palates, ’cause they were pretty, they were pretty much all about not trying new… They were pretty bland palates is what. So, I made him eat this one bite of quinoa, and then he threw up.

Avril Granato: Oh, oh my God. So traumatic.

Andrea Marie: And I had a joke about it one time. I forget how it went. It was like, it, was told his other brother, “See? That’s what it takes out it, to get out of eating healthy, it’s that kind of commitment. You don’t want the healthy…” Exactly. “You don’t want the healthy food I cook for you? Just die then,” you know?

Avril Granato: Oh my, oh my gosh. That is hysterical. He tried it though. He tried.

Andrea Marie: He did. It was definitely a texture thing. So I learned, yeah, I learned my lesson with quinoa, and we still kind of have a joke about the quinoa. And actually, kind of a funny thing is then a couple years ago my son, my youngest was in, we were, he was in Japan. He was in, did a year abroad kind of thing, year, gap year kind of thing. And I met him in Japan, and we were out eating, yeah, we were out eating sushi, and he like totally barfed up that.

Avril Granato: At the restaurant?

Andrea Marie: Still to the day, yeah, he put it in his napkin. He’s like, “Yeah, I don’t like sushi.”

Avril Granato: Oh no, poor

Andrea Marie: I know. So definitely still the texture.

Avril Granato: The texture. My son was with texture too. That’s interesting. My daughter wasn’t, but yeah, my, my son was with texture. He didn’t like that, do you remember the, like, super processed, though, that American cheese that was, like-

Andrea Marie: Oh.

Avril Granato: But it was so good. But it was that American cheese that was, like, in the wrapper.

Andrea Marie: In the wrappers.

Avril Granato: When you’d pull the wrapper, it would like, if it broke part of the cheese, he wouldn’t eat it. And then also sometimes he’s like, he would take it and he’d have it in his hand. He’d just like, “It’s melting in my hand. It’s melting.” I go, “Because you don’t eat it in your hand.” But yeah, he was always like the texture. But yeah, that’s traumatic with the full on just-

Andrea Marie: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that cheese, oh man, I ate a lot of that cheese growing up, that wrapper, in the wrapper

Avril Granato: The wrapper.

Andrea Marie: Unwrap, you know, unwrap like eight slices. It was so yeah, not good for you, I’m sure.

Avril Granato: No, but it melted good on a burger.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. That’s so true.

Avril Granato: Burger days, yeah.

[00:21:15] Dad’s secret ice cream operation

Andrea Marie: So how is your husband doing now with eating healthier? Is he on board with it?

Avril Granato: He’s on board with it. But he has been a little mischievous, I found out a couple times, and this was like, after he’d only been home from the hospital for like, two or three weeks. He was sneaking off, and we’re all kind of still worried about him, you know, and I’d be at work, and my daughter put a tracker on his phone. She goes, “Mom, do you know Dad is, like, three blocks from the house?” And I said, “No. What is he, three blocks from the house?” She’s like, “Yeah, he’s, like, three blocks from the house.” I’m like, “I don’t know what he could be doing.” And I’m calling him, texting him. He’s not answering. Well, he was sneaking to the store that’s three blocks away and getting ice cream, a whole tub of ice cream. And then he would eat the whole tub before I would get home, and he’d hide it. And then the dogs, he must have been having a whole little dog party with the dogs and him because then the dogs were getting sick ’cause he was giving them a little. ‘Cause we never have ice cream in the house. You know, I would get Italian ice for him. He likes Italian ice, but he wanted that full-on Breyers ice cream. And the dogs all now have, you know, diarrhea. I’m like, “Mm, you stop. Don’t do that.” But so he’s… And then he still does that a little bit with the cookies.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: Likes, he just likes these like, iced oatmeal generic brand cookies, like the worst.

Andrea Marie: Oh, God.

Avril Granato: The worst of the worst. Oh, they’re terrible.

Andrea Marie: So many better cookies out there.

Avril Granato: So I’m, and he’s like, “Well, it’s $1.25, so what am I…” “But is that worth your Is it worth your life? We’re gonna end up back in the hospital for $1.25? That’s even worse. If you spent, you know, $20 on the cookies, maybe I’d feel a little better about it, but my gosh, you’re really gonna throw your whole life away for $1.25? That’s all it takes?” Ugh.

Andrea Marie: That you have a tracker on your husband’s phone.

Avril Granato: Yeah, my daughter.

Andrea Marie: Figure out when he’s eating ice cream.

Avril Granato: Where did he go? I’m like, what’s three blocks away? Hmm.

Andrea Marie: It’s that little.

Avril Granato: Or the laundromat. I know he’s not doing a laundromat.

Andrea Marie: It’s that little, you’ve got the little pendant on him, you know? Gives you an alarm if he goes out the door.

Avril Granato: Right. That’s what he needs. I’m serious. This guy, oh, now he’s feel, you know, oh, he can walk around now. He’s gonna use it to his advantage and just eat ice cream. Yeah.

Andrea Marie: Gosh.

Avril Granato: But he’ll eat, you know, that’s what he was like now because he’s been wanting fish a lot lately, which he never really wanna have. And so that’s how I’ve been dabbling a little bit with the fish that same thing about being a short order cook. I’m like, now I’m making more work for myself by not… And I cook really good fish, Yeah. Yeah.

Andrea Marie: that “That fish kind of looks good.” I know. Fish can be so good for you, too. And I do find that I was, I started tracking things with just a little food tracker, ’cause, you know, I think that’s the other thing in menopause and at this stage of life, I was just finding that I could not get rid of this little thing that was annoying me around my waist. It wasn’t much.

Avril Granato: All brands.

Andrea Marie: I work out a lot, but it was still like a little bike tire. It wasn’t a full-on, you know, car tire, but it was a little bike tire around my.

Avril Granato: Car tire, yeah.

Andrea Marie: Around my waist. No. And, so I started tracking and it is, what I found was that I wasn’t getting enough protein. And so, you know, I think definitely by adding like, you know, having the fish in there and things.

Avril Granato: That’s what it was, what I was struggling with was the protein, and I’d take the protein shakes, and I got it to a part where my hair started falling out, and then I got it to the part where my hair stopped falling out, but I still … I could just tell, like, you know, I’d just be so tired, and fighting fatigue anyway. I’m going through menopause, and long COVID, and all of that, and then to, on top of it, to not have enough protein, it was just a little too brutal.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: And then I always think of, like, you know, Kurt Cobain’s song, It’s OK to Eat Fish ‘Cause They Don’t Have Any Feelings.

Andrea Marie: Oh, I don’t know if I know that’s what I tell myself. I’m like, “Do they, do they…”

Avril Granato: You know, it’s not as bad like, as a cow or something. I’m like, ” Yeah Kurt Cobain said it’s okay,” so.

Andrea Marie: Dr. Cobain.

Avril Granato: Dr. Cobain, you know. Don’t do heroin, but you can eat the fish, okay?

Andrea Marie: Exactly. He might not have, yeah, might have had a few other things that he could have done a little better, but that’s okay.

Avril Granato: But it’s okay. Who am I to judge? You know.

Andrea Marie: Exactly. Exactly. We all have our crosses to bear.

Avril Granato: That’s for sure.

Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh. Well, this has just been so much fun.

Avril Granato: Oh, it’s a blast always. Thank you.

Andrea Marie: Yeah. So just, you know, i- moms out there, if you are struggling with, keeping your family healthy, just, you know, know that we’re all rooting for you.

Avril Granato: When they’re little and there’s so much bombardment with, I mean, even when we were kids, there was a lot of, you know, how commercials target children. Well, now it’s, you know, a thousand times worse ’cause everywhere they look, every social media thing is all the flashy stuff to target children. To advertise for them of stuff that they want and they wanna eat it, and then they see their friends eating it and they wanna eat.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

[00:26:38] Avril’s solution for picky eaters

Avril Granato: But I would recommend, you know, if you have a picky eater, just to do, like, the wish sandwich for three days. Give them that wish sandwich, which is some white bread. and, uh, I don’t even know if they have Wonder Bread anymore, but the Wonder, like, we had the generic Wonder Bread.

Andrea Marie: yeah.

Avril Granato: Oh, yeah … it was generic Wonder Bread and some mustard.. To have that days. They’ll eat whatever you want, moms.

Andrea Marie: Exactly. That’s a little reset.

Avril Granato: Yeah, a reset. There you go.

Andrea Marie: That is a handy little baseline from which they can build. You know, they can be like, “It can always get worse, kids.”

Avril Granato: The witch sandwich? You gonna wish you ate this sandwich. Oh, man.

Andrea Marie: Oh, man. Well, this is so fun. Why don’t you tell listeners where they can find you? We’ll have the links in the show notes, but where can people follow you?

Avril Granato: They can follow me, on Instagram. It’s Avril Granato. I’m also on, Facebook, same thing, Avril Granato, G-R-A-N-A-T-O. I was keeping up with TikTok for a while. I haven’t been on… I think my last thing I posted was, like, Christmas, ’cause I just, I don’t know if I should sign that thing or not, and so I just, I’m not good with contracts. So I said, “You know what? I have enough going on already.” But yeah, so for sure, you know, Instagram, Facebook.

Andrea Marie: Yeah.

Avril Granato: Yeah, check me out. I’m getting better too at trying to post, you know, some more stuff and some more. content. Uh, Yeah, always a struggle. It takes me, you know, two days to, to edit a little clip. But I’m getting… it’s just practice, I guess. You know, we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves, you know, as women and as moms to try to keep up with everything that’s swirling around in the world. But to just, you know, give yourself grace the food, give yourself grace with trying to keep up with everything.

Andrea Marie: We’re all doing our best. We’re doing our best.

Avril Granato: We’re all doing our best, you know,

Andrea Marie: We are. We’re out here.

Avril Granato: Trying. We’re surviving, everyone alive.

Andrea Marie: We are. And you guys, if you haven’t seen all of our upcoming shows, we’ve got a great schedule coming up. Avril’s on a bunch of shows.

Avril Granato: So excited to be traveling.

Andrea Marie: I know. Come check us out, MomsUnhinged.com. You’ll see all of our shows there. We also are putting up our merch, on our website very soon. I’m working on that this weekend, so super fun.

Avril Granato: Gotta get that merch. It’s great. we’ll love my hat. I wore it all summer. in Wisconsin And stuff, and people would stop and ask me about it.

Andrea Marie: Yeah, I love tell Yeah, it’s so great. So thanks so much, and bye everyone.

Avril Granato: Bye. Stay safe.

Andrea Marie: Thanks for listening and make sure you subscribe, share, and follow us on the socials to get more comedy clips.