So those of you that actually manage to get 5 a day into your dc please could you share your secrets

[MilaMae]

Please!!!!!

Did A Karmel with my 3 (4 year old twins and a 3 year old), always given massive amounts of fruit and veg, healthy diet not much meat etc. DP and I are adventurous eaters, love food etc.

2 of the dc eat like us, most things, one of the twins is really fussy. We always eat together and I never serve any alternatives if it isn't eaten we don't make a fuss but they go hungry. Fussy twin goes to bed hungry I'm sure most nights

Anyway although the fussy twin eats realatively healthy food he won't try anything new,loves junk(no idea why as he doesn't get it that often) and refuses anything green. Consequently we're now down to peas and sweetcorn on the veg front (peas are rapidly travelling onto the yuk list too).

Some days he loves any fruit, other days something is temporarily dis-liked. The other 2 now and again go through phases when a fruit or veg is temporarily dis-liked. So when I serve meals you can guarantee one of them leaves one of the veg/fruit.

The upshot is although I always serve 5 a day most days I'm starting to realise they never actually eat 5, especially fussy twin (we never call him fussy btw I'm just using it for speed on here).

So those of you with 5 a day eating kids how on earth do you manage it?????

Innocent Smoothies are one. Half an apple is two. Tomatoes are three. And, um, apple juice is four. Does tomato ketchup count?

However, I believe we need not worry. Apparently, children only need three-a-day (or else they get stuffed up with fibre, fruit juice etc, and don't get enough fats/calcium and so on). Plus their portions should be considerably smaller than those of an adult. So you'll probably find "fussy" twin is actually getting a reasonable diet, even if it doesn't feel like it!!

That's what I tell myself with my dcs, anyway (one day DS wolfs peas; the next day, he won't touch them...)

have you tried hiding veg in spag bog, shephgerds pie, pasta sauce etc?

do kids need the same 5 portions as adults...? or is it smaller portions....

will they eat melon, strawberries, grapes? mine love these. but not so good on the veg

They love Innocent Smoothies, grandma gives them to them, I haven't as it's sooo expensive but think I might starting getting the big size instead of the little ones- cheaper I suspect. I wonder if the supermarket own label is as good.

Great news abot half an apple,didn't realise that about portions or the fibre-cool will feel a little less inadaquate!!!!!!

Thanks

have had great success with fruit kebabs, they look lovely with strawberry/pineapple/grape in stripes. Obv you would have to consider the stab factor with DTs.

Mine eat very little veg, but raw carrot sticks, and cucumber slices generally go down well.

I feel your pain, my advice is to try not to stress over food (hard I know)

Not to be picky, but smoothies or juice can only count as one portion per day no matter how much they drink.

We only just manage 5 most days. I insist on fruit with breakfast and that helps. One snack per day must be fruit. Raw veg with sandwiches at lunch and always some sort of veg with dinner. Remember that a portion for a child is small. So if they eat a whole banana or apple, that is actually two portions.

They love soft fruit, haven't bought it recently as like to buy in season but think I may just give myself a break and get a load in.

mine easily get their 5 fruit and veg... normally nearer 7 or 8

we do
cereal for breakfast and milk to drink and if they eat it all (99% of the time they do) they are allowed fruit juice if they remember to ask for it. (rest of the dat its water

at lunch.... salady bits with cold lunch, veg with a hot lunch; so theres another 2+ portions
always a piece of fruit before pudding (which at lunch is almost always just a yogurt)

so by lunch time they have had 4 portions typically

at least 2 lots of veg with dinner.
again a piece of fruit before pudding... maybe a bit mroe exciting such as custard, jelly, home made cakes etc

so on an average day with me they have 8 portions.

normally when i leave they have another peice of fruit with their bed time milk = 9

so per day:
1 juice
4 veg
3 pieces of fruit easy

Ohh gets better a whole banana is 2-fantastic!!!! Fussy twin adores bananas. Am I right in thinking baked beans and humus count. The other 2 will eat carrot sticks with hummus but he won't, haven't pushed it as always presumed the hummus was a portion.

Do you always serve things even though it's a guaranteed thing that it won't get eaten??? Ie should I be putting the carrot on his plate even though it'll just get binned???

liquidise!!!! I have 3 ds and middle one is of the fussy type. However his favourite meal is pasta with mummies special sauce, which is basically ratatoulle with mushshrooms liquidised so that none of the constiuent parts are visible. I once gave it to him unliquidised and he refused to eat it. I also have 2 big bowls of fruit available at all times and its the only thing they can help themselves to without asking. This means there are lots of apple cores and banana skins in the living room, but means they probably get their 5 a day most days

Puree'd fruit in porridge or cereal for breakfast?
Would they be more likely to eat if veggies part of a stew / sauce?

Even if you have to bin the food, still offer it.

Sometimes carrot sticks, cucumber sticks and mini bread sticks plus a dip selection works.

Good luck

have you got an Aldi near you the fruit and veg is so lovely and cheap
rasberries- 79p
strawberries-79p
grapes- 54p

*dried fruit - apricots, prunes, raisins... for snacks or with cereal
*tomato passata instead of ketchup
*offer carrot sticks/cucumber sticks/apple while watching telly.
*present same food for all but no pressure to actually eat it. just presented as normal food.

def keep offering/presenting food even if they don;t want it. they might try it eventually (dd said she 'don't like it' for prunes, but i kept vaguely interestedly saying 'oh yeah, do you want a prune' and she tried again and said 'do like it'. they are v fickle at this age - and also need some element of control i think)

DD rarely eats vegetables. I ignore but continue to offer. In the meantime, though I do try to sneak in the odd vegetable her way while still exposing her to what they look like in their original form! One of my favourite tricks is cheesy vegetable muffins with butter. We had leftover roasted veg from dinner today, so will be kneading that into dough made in the bread machine tomorrow to make vegetable bread rolls.
Another trick is those frozen spinach blocks - chuck those in some pasta sauce, or into an omelette.

1 potion is what the person eating can fit into their hand (obviously less with dried fruit,as it has shrunk and down right messy with juice) so an adults potion is 80g but much less for a small child.

banana milk shake made with real bananas (plus small spoon of vanilla sugar if they are not very ripe)

pop corn with/out sprinkle of sugar

porridge wih sultanas

"picnics" on the rug with everything left in the fridge chopped up.

chicken and vegetable soup

sun dried mango from oxfam (this is my favourite so sometimes they don't get much)

fruit kebabs

mine prefer apples cut into slices and a couple of chunks of cheese with it.

frozen peas fresh from the freezer are very popular here.

anything they have helped with is also good.

We have got an Aldi but never been in, a Lidl fan but they don't have a lot of fruit and veg in ours. So is Aldi as good as Lidl,same sort of set up???

I've just been reading a book called Mange Tout by Lucy Thomas - which is all about this. I've only been enacting the principles the last few days but already I've had success with getting DS to eat red pepper and putting a piece of cucumber in his mouth (although he subsequently spat that out, but at least it passed his lips!). DS is 22 months and I wouldn't say he's fussy yet, but I can see it coming and so I wanted to try and prevent it happening through anything I'm doing. So basically this book explains how you really talk up veg etc. Get them to play with it but no pressure on eating it, and in time they do. Most of DS' five-a-day come from fruit as that's so easy with him so I consider any veg a bonus. Once a week or so I will do him a tomato sauce for pasta with hidden veg like courgettes in it as he'll eat that but generally I don't like having to sneak the veg in. But seriously, I reckon this book could be a good read for parents of fussy eaters as it talks a lot of sense.

I also hide the veg, although they are aware it is there. ie onion, peppers and courgette in bolegnease.

TOday we had onion, suger snap peas and leeks in our mince and then served carrots brockli and cauli with the meal.

Fruit salad preprepared in the fridge and added banana ie pear and grape and bananna

I am really lucky in that both of mine eat veg, so it is not just fruit infact I often hold them back. They have cereal and fruit smoothie for breakfast, then maybe a peice of fruit/cheese or buscuit. Then lunch (cooked ie bolegnease) with water, then snack afterschool with milk, then tea ie omlette with cheese and tomatoe and sliced toms on the side, yoyhurt. Milk before bed, with a treat if they have been good

Thanks for all the brilliant ideas, some really great ones-knew you'd all inspire me. Many thanks

DS has a piece of fruit with each meals, breakfast, lunch and tea time. Alos loves those date and apple organix fruit bar things if I get desperate as they count as 1. Veg at tea time usually 2 on the plate or hidden in pasta sauce. Loves dried fruit of any kind small box of rasins are a good stand by. Poor lad must be bursting if a banana is 2 portions for him??????????

There was in the news last week about how some parents got v worried about 5 a day & actually some children weren't having enough fat & carbs (the healthy kind not Macdonalds) in the push to get the 5 a day in.

It's a guide anyway, some days our dcs do get their 5 and some days they don't, but as long as over the week they've eaten a range of foodtypes I'm not that worried .

Can get tonnes of veg (mushroom/pepper/ kidneybeans) into any mince dish (can be pureed up if necessary to disguise it).

Cooked & pureed butternut squash a good pasta sauce base especially if add grated cheese. Freezes well too.

Growing/picking own veg. Every green bean in our house are 'grandad's beans'

I have't tried this but gf makes vegetable crisps in her oven.

Sometimes the packaging helps, DS eats anything that comes in a wrap or tortilla shell.

DD loves dinner of worms & trees (aka chicken egg noodle stir fry with broccoli)

For their morning snack fruit is the only option they have at nursery and also at home too.

Mine eat 5 a day at least. Do you have a fruit bowl they can help themselves from? DS2 is a bit of a grazer and he knows he can have fruit ay time he wants. So if he asks for a biscuit an hour before dinner he knows the answer is likely to be no, so he'll help himself to a pear or some grapes instead.

Fruit juice helps a lot - they love it - a glass of orange juice in the morning and a mini bottle of apple juice in the day - that's two portions

Anything green is not eaten by my DCs with the exception of peas, so I have to try to be inventive - little individual pots of salad with lots of things like chopped red peppers which they will eat

good luck