NOW CLOSED: Share your tips for getting children to eat their 5-a-day with Mumsnet and Innocent - you could win smoothies for you and your child's entire class

[AnnMumsnet]

As many of you know we have been working with Innocent, the smoothie makers, for a while now and they have now asked us to find out from you how you get on with encouraging your children to have their 5-a-day fruit and veg?

Please share your tips, stories and hints here - everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky winner will win smoothies for you and your children's entire class*. Even if your child willingly eats their 5 (or more!) a day please do share their favourite fruit or veg, how you prepare it or what got them started on eating particular fruit and veg.

Innocent say "We've been making our kids' smoothies for over five years now and in that time, lots of parents have written in to us with their hints and tips on getting healthy stuff into small people. So we've made a handy little guide of our favourite top 10 tips on how to help your kids get their 5-a-day (without having to hide a pineapple ring under their lasagne). Stuff like pea eating competitions, home-made ice lollies, shopping safaris, that sort of thing. But better still, we'd love to know all your hints and tips on how you get your kids to eat fruit and veg".

You can download their guide here

A selection of your tips will be used on the Innocent pages on Mumsnet

Best of luck

MNHQ

• If you win you'll get 5 multiserve cartons for your family and 30-35 individual smoothie kids wedges to cover the class - to be sent in September

Chop up cucumber, carrots and celery. Put on table at meal times and allow to serve themselves.

Little bowls of sweetcorn and chopped banana that they can help themselves to when having rice. Strange but worked!

Try corn on the cob - they pick it out in the shops and ask for it now. My 4 y.o. especially likes it with the holders you can get for the ends.

Make your pizza, or cheat and top a cheese and tomato one - that got them eating mushrooms and peppers.

An apple corer and cutter as a present for my 4 y.o. meant apple is now a treat.

Fruit salad - watching us eat fruit salad for breakfast they stole my portion, then wanted their own helpings.

Also, fruit is a pudding for at least one meal, and to get anything else (e.g. chocolate easter eggs which are still on the go in July they had so many) you have to eat your fruit.

Grow what ever you can, my 2 ds will eat anything that they've grown themselves.

DS1 is easy peasy. He loves fruit and veg and we sometimes have to limit it a bit because he gets the runs from too much.

DS2 is the challenge. He has ASD and has real problems with the texture of fruit and veg. We do employ a few tactics, though to make sure he at least makes it to 5 a week!

The first one is mixing fruit purees with the ready brek he always has for breakfast in the mornings. Adds sweetness, so it goes straight down. I usually get the baby food pots, but he also likes a fruit tube mixed in - have been adding one of them and about half a home grown strawberry, very finely chopped, lately.

And (this is the biggy) - he loves cooked fruit puddings. He practically inhales rhubarb crumble, even with lots of ginger in it. And he's really been enjoying the puddings I've been making with our home grown blackcurrants (made blackcurrant and apple with an almond sponge topping with DS1 when the kids were off school, last Thursday. He couldn't get enough of it, even though the blackcurrants were really strong!

Let them help with the preparation...DD1 only likes mushrooms that she's chopped herself .

Let them eat in an unexpected way...DS will eat a whole cucumber just biting chunks of like a banana and likes mashed beetroot and carrot (monster mash anyone?!)

Take them to the market and give them £1 to buy as much fruit as they can or challenge them to find a fruit they've never tried before.

Make sure fruit and veg is part of every meal - fruit on breakfast, salad or soup for lunch, different veg with dinner.

Dd is 3.5 and still in a fussy stage. Fruit isn't a problem as she loves it but veggies are a different story.

She loves cucumber and sugar snaps so working with that I prepare her a small bowl of crudettes to munch on while I prepare the main course.

Cucumber, sugar snaps supplemented with cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, celery, radish etc all go in the mix and sometimes steamed broccoli too. We talk about what she has eaten and what is left over - then I can encourage her to eat the veggies she's not so keen on by eating them with her.

It's been really successful and means I can relax about getting her to eat veggies with dinner - as she's already had them!!!!!

Just to add i do still include veggies with her meal but no longer stress if she doesn't eat them.

we freeze raspberries and other small fruits to suck on and crunch. DS loves them like this but wouldn't eat them fresh!

Batons of veg/salad to dip into humous/mayo/ketchup/whatever it takes (within reason)

Eating fruit in front of them when its' not a meal time - as soon as you're having something they're not, they want it.

Lying through your teeth: "Carrots help you see in the dark". For a while, DS demanded carrots on the evenings the space station would be visible.

To some extent, pander to their wishes. My DC will eat apples only if they are cut up into 1/8s. I hate the faff but it means they eat an apple. My DS likes some things raw but not cooked, and vice versa.

Get them to chose the veg for a meal.

Mini versions of things seem to go down better than full size - baby tomatoes are especially popular because they have the bonus of sometimes squirting pips all over some one else. Baby sweetcorn is the exception that proves this rule. It will not pass their lips no matter what flavour stir fry sauce is disguising coating it.

Milkshakes are good in hot weather: some soft fruit (banana, berries, mango all good), some milk, some vanilla ice cream if you are feeling generous, blend all together with few ice cubes, drink with straws.

I put natural yougurt in a small storage container and add some frozen fruit, they like this in their luncnboxes.

Add fruit to cereal and porridge.

Sugar snap peas and peas in the pod go down very well.

I find if you put fruit or veg in little pots or buy the small bags then they tend to eat it better than if I give them a whole piece of fruit.

Not sure why .

I always made up different names for veg to make it a little more exciting.
Sweetcorn = golden treasure
Cauliflower = sheep
Broccoli = trees
peas = little cannon balls
mash = clouds
and so on. My kids loved being asked to eat that stuff rather than veg and would have a competition to see who could eat the most golden treasure etc.

Vegetable soups and pasta sauce are great for 'hiding' lots of different types of veg that they wouldn't normally eat.

My top tip for getting children to eat their 5 a day is to eat them yourself. If children see eating fruit and vegetables as a normal, everyday occurance from babyhood they will (usually) go along with it. I have always had a fruit bowl stocked, served salads with meals and modelled eating healthily and my children just see it as what we do. How can we expect children to eat fruit and veg if we don't?

• growing and picking fruit and veg yourself. we eat loads of self-picked blackberries!
• baby versions of things - tomatoes/ mini corn/ small apples/ small bananas
• take fruit to school for break in FunnyFace containers
• Always find a way to include veg in a meal e.g. sweetcorn on pizzas, pureed or finely chopped veg in spag bol
• Have frozen veg on standby to add to things e.g. spaghetti carbonara or kedgeree with peas...
• SOUP! Almost anything will go down if it's made non-lumpy and served with nice bread!

I have a food dehydrator and fruit and even some veg (parsnips) sweet potatoes etc go in to make fruit and veg 'crisps' which are v popular with our lot. It's a great way to get them to scoff more good stuff and think they are getting a treat.

DS loves fruit and veg - always has. From weaning, he was able to pinch it off our plates as recognisable food, and he sees us enjoying it all.

A friends dd 'didn't like fruit' - but it was amazing how she troughed down fruit salad when we had a big bowl of fruit salad in the middle of the table, a fork each and shared

Ds is v fond of a smoothie, and especially favours a dark green one with spinach and broccoli in it which he calls green gloop

Fondue! Cheese - with lots of veg for dipping

Or

Chocolate, with strawberries and apple slices.

As with the other messages, we grow a lot of fruit and veg. I encourage the children to choose which veg to have in a meal. "what's for veg?" is a popular cry. I have been known to make soup starting with the veg they won't like, blending that, then leaving the veg they will like in reasonable chunks so they think that's all there is.
Rationing veg makes kids think it's something special. I have had a class full of kids fighting over who gets to eat the next quarter of a broad bean (raw!) as I marketed it well "oh, it's really special, I only have 10 beans, there won't be enough for one each, some of you might miss out"
Make a story (jack and the beanstalk, 3 bears etc.) with integrated snack, e.g. Beans or porridge.
Grate courgette into carrot cake and call it spooky cake or monster cake.

sausage soup is our best one, so called because it has tiny pieces of hot dog in. You can hide a lot of veg behind these!

The actual soup is mostly potato, with onion ("Don't put onions in Mummy - I don't like onions!") leek ("no leeks they are like onions") carrot, broccoli and any other veggies lying about that look like they need eating up. We simmer the lot in chicken stock (made from a Sunday lunch carcass, more carrots and more onions), puree it and then add the sausage bits. Cut small enough, their salt content isn't significant.

DS adores it.

We have problems with stopping him eating every fruit that appears though sadly we have to. Due to malformed enamel on his teeth, we have to prevent him eating acidic stuff like citrus fruit (hence needing alternative vit C sources like broccoli). Raspberries (also acidic) are his favourite, pips and all, but we have a fairly dictatorial system of fruit, drink of water or milk and 20 mins later the toothbrush no matter what. He will happily eat half a pound of unsweetened rasps at a sitting!

And yes, he does like milkshakes. Best way out as the milk offsets the fruit acids (the trick with yoghurt) and by careful choice of fruit, doesn't need added sugar either. What you're not used to you don't miss. Mango and banana are great here. Ditto gluts of strawberries!

Always have a fruit bowl available with plenty of fresh fruit.

Serve the veggies for tea as a starter. My ds's always eat more of their veg when I do this because they are hungry and (when they eat in the kitchen) I can hide/reveal what the main course is depending on whether they need encouraging to eat up their veg.

Oh and have a ds1 (9) who can tell his younger brothers that if you eat something you don't really like (broccoli) enough times, you will eventually get to a stage where you think it's not bad. Not good, but he will now eat it without moaning!

This may sound ruthless but it works. Cut 3 fruit/vegetables/combination of both and put them in a plate. Give as a snack as soon as they get back starving from school (and long before they hit the biscuit tin).

Add plenty of lettuce to the sandwiches and fruit juice on the side (my son is far too much in a hurry to eat fruit/vegetables at lunch time).

Serve a veggie or 2 or pasta with vegetable sauce at dinner.

That makes about 5-7 vegs a day.

My fil has a very long shoe horn I think from IKEA and rolls blueberries down it into my dcs mouths as a game. Dd loves this one and has now been converted to them despite being a fussy little madam very choosy. I am choosing to overlook the fact this means their fruit have been in indirect contact with fil's feet - it could be worse.

We always have fruit/veg on offer with every meal and snack. DH doesn't eat much veg so I have made it a competition for the kids to eat more than him - really encourages them! (DH still moans about it though!)

As others have said, I hide grated veg in most meals so even if they don't eat the obvious stuff, they'll get some anyway!

I do a nice sorbet with frozen fruit and fat-free greek yoghurt (just blend together!) - is delicious, easy and gets a portion of fruit in them :)

Also lots of pure fruit juice/smoothie ice lollies for the summer.

Fresh peas are going down well at the moment as DS1 is impressed that they come in their own sleeping bag! :)

I liquidise the peppers and mushrooms when I am making spaghetti bolognaise. I also use passata rather than tinned tomatoes, as they don't like the tomato lumps.

I think a structured meal plan helps keep track of what my DC eats and I offer veg or fruit with each meal or snack. My DC prefers raw veg to fruit so I cut up batons of munchies. He likes carrots, celery, cucumber, and red pepper. I make up enough for a few days and add in one new thing - tomatoes, yellow pepper etc. I add extra veggies to meals as a bonus and make them up in bulk to have in the freezer. A typical day is:

8:00 weetabix and smoothie
10:30 munchies and orange juice
12:30 spag bol - homemade with added celery, onions, carrots, passata
15:30 chopped apple, banana and raisins and apple juice
17:00 sandwiches/cooked chicken/cubed cheese and munchies
19:00 milk and biscuits

I need to keep adding new food and so will look at what others do here. I especially like the blind taste test game.

DD won't eat meat, but luckily does like veggies.
Growing our own, even just in pots, has meant she has tried things previously refused. We have an allotment and she just browses for things that are ready to eat and chomps away.
Cooking/chopping etc and helping prepare food also encourages it to be eaten.
Having fruit and veg as part and parcel of every day life - offering it at snack time instead of or as well as a biscuit, so that fruit and sweets/biscuits aren't perceived as being good/bad.
Funny names helps too - we make a bean stew called 'dragon bean pie' that she loves and speculates about what 'dragon beans' are and where they are from.
I also offer some fruit or raw veg with most meals, such as dried fruit at breakfast, some fruit or chopped carrot/cucumber with lunch, then maybe a small amount of fruit or veg to eat while dinner is cooking. She will try new foods, but generally sticks to old favourites.