NOW CLOSED Share your thoughts on eating your 5-a-day with innocent and win a £150 Amazon voucher

[TheOtherHelenMumsnet]

We've been asked by innocent, the smoothie makers, to find out how you hit the five portions of fruit and veg a day goal. Do you religiously munch on carrot sticks and apples or do you rustle up more imaginative healthy dishes? Or does the whole thing pass you by and you want to find out how to fit the recommended five portions of fruit and veg into your diet?

innocent want to hear your hints and tips on how to pack the fruit and veg in, whether it's recipe ideas or quick and easy snacks. They'd also love to hear how you go about getting your DCs to eat their 5-a-day - have you emerged victorious from any difficult battles with veg? Do you have any top tips for sneaking fruit and veg into what they eat? What hints/advice can you give other MNers facing the same problems?

Everyone who adds their comments to this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win £150 Amazon vouchers. Your hints and tips may feature on innocent's mini-site on Mumsnet here.

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ

For me I rarely get the recommended 5 a day. I just do not like salad at all, and am very fussy with fruit so I quickly get bored of eating the same things. I'm fine with veg, but dislike it raw so as I only have 1 hot meal a day, getting enough is a bit of a battle. I do start the day with a glass of orage juice so I can tick one box early in the day!

Ds's aren't as tricky - they tend to have juice and some dried or fruit with their breakfasts, fruit and cucumber for example with their packed lunches and then veg with their evening meal, plus hidden veg - for example grated carrot and courgette in bolognese.

DH will eat fruit all day every day, so as long as I keep the stocks up, he's happy!

I take fruit to work (normally 3 portions) and will get through that during the day. If I didn't have something snacky I would buy crisps. So I also try to ensure that I don't have lots of change in my purse so I can't hit the vending machines.

I also like veggie soups so if I also manage to take that for lunch I'm nearly there.

But 3 through the day plus a veg port and fruit juice if necessary is my standard.

DS has fruit and dried fruit in his lunchbox everyday pllus juice or smoothie in the morning. And if they are out with nursery he has a juice box or smoothie in his lunch box as well.

I can only get him to eat veg in either soup or blitzed sauces for pasta. But that gets it into him so I can't really complain.

Also make sure that the fruit bowl in the sitting room is fully stocked. If I can see it I will eat it - that goes for DH too.

I try to get 5 a day, always manage 3+, sometimes manage several more. I'm a bit uncertain about what a 'portion' is a lot of the time, and tend to count each different fruit/veg as 1 portion, rather than taking into account how much of something I've had IYSWIM.

Always have grapes, apple or berries on my cereal every morning - see this as an easy win, in that is vastly improves the taste of what I'm eating anyway.

In the summer I eat a lot of salad, but at the moment I find most salad stuff doesn't taste of much so don't bother. Instead I have beetroot salads or just stacks of broccoli as a meal accompaniment. Try to restrict my carbs as I am T1 diabetic (although I am not doing what I would consider 'low carb') so I avoid too many sweet potatoes/swede/squash etc, and if I'm having beetroot then that will form the main part of my meal.

I bulk out a lot of our meals with the same 3 veg - just about everything I cook that is in a 'sauce' also includes vast amounts of onion, carrot and mushroom, and occasionally peppers if it suits the meal.

The DC are good with fruit - especially if it is chopped up (i.e. "chop-chop-apple" or "chop-chop-pear") and will eat berrys/grapes without fuss. They also love smoothies. Not my own home-made ones, unfortunately, but will wolf down innocent cartons (won't have it in a cup from the big cartons!) or other brand cartons, and they also love Ella's organic fruit pouches (I like these because they're having bizarre mixes of brocolli/sweet potato/apple puree and seeing it as a treat!) Maybe inncoent could consider bringing out something along the same lines. Little children definitely seem to like little packages that are 'just for them'!

I hide a lot of veg in a lot of their food, as I use it to bulk up as I said earlier, although my DS can spot a mushroom at 10 paces so I've started removing the brown flappy bits and just adding finely chopped white mushroom as he can't spot these! They're not as good on veg as they are with fruit - still trying to figure out a way to get them to eat more veg without it being hidden.

I also don't find it tricky to eat 5 a day (I aim for 9 a day but don't always manage that), or to get my dc to eat 5 a day.

For the dc:
Breakfast includes fruit juice.
Packed lunch usually includes fresh fruit, fresh veg (cucumber, pepper, celery, tomato, mushroom etc), and dried fruit (little pot of dried mango/banana/raisins/pineapple).
After school. Option of fruit and toast/sandwiches as snacks. Unlimited access to fruit bowl.
Dinner: 2 portions of veg each as part of meal. No puddings if veg not eaten.

when they were smaller they were a bit more resistant to eating veg (all over 5 now and used to it). One of the easiest things was to offer veg (carrot sticks in hummous etc) as a starter while waiting for a meal, they will often eat veg when hungry if there isn't much more on offer.
Similarly we take fruit out when we go out to all sorts of places and if they're hungry the fruit bag is there ready.

so it's a mixture of making fruit and veg very available, and also I do apply some pressure on them so they don't get sweet treats if I don't think they're eating the fruit and veg.

Never did the sneaking veg or fruit tactic. I prefer a more direct approach. Not that keen on smooothies either, it seems to encourage a habit of having sweet drinks rather than focusing on good eating habits.

Satsumas are fun to take on trains, bonus points if you squirt someone in the eye!

(does that count as a tip?)

I like Innocent smoothies (and the veg pots) and I like to enter competitions but I really don't think there are any original "how to eat more fruit and veg" tips left in the world.

My method is have a smoothie made up of 5-6 items of fresh fruit + orange juice for breakfast (keeps hunger at bay until lunchtime), then mostly vegetables at the other two meals with fruit for snacks if required. I try not to eat too much obvious starch as it disagrees with me so the fruit and veg are the mainstay of my diet.

My top tips for getting reluctant children to eat vegetables are:

• Serve French style "crudites" as a starter, when they're still hungry. Grated carrots, beetroot salad, tomato and basil salad etc...
• Soup. Hides a multitude of sins vegetables. *Dips. Nothing like a spot of hummous for making raw carrots and pepper seem appealing.

Dd has always eaten her veg, maybe ice been lucky but I have always tried to give a variety and if she does say one day she doesn't like peas or cabbage I don't stress cause I know she will eat it another day. I don't want to eat some things some days why should children be any different. Bi am fully prepared for her to not like a particular veg and will not make her eat it, just as I don't like Brussels

Also, mash various root vegetables in with the potato on shepherd's pie topping. They moan about me mucking about with the recipe but they can't exactly sift it out again.

rubyrubyruby Yes, I also put a token bit of veg on the side of their plates, and I know one day it'll get eaten! It's just been a looog wait, made frustrating by conversations like this one:
DS "Ooh I like broccoli"
ME "Well, there's some on your plate, you can eat that up"
DS "Oh no, I only eat broccoli at nursery"
ME "Well, you're not in nursery anymore, you're at school,"
DS "I don't want to eat it"
ME "OK then."

Banana at breakfast, veg soup for lunch, at least 2 veg at dinner followed by fruit. Hold on, thats only just 5! I thought I ate loads of fruit & veg! Must go back and reread tips above..

I make dips for them to dip their raw vegetables into.

I get lots of fruit and veg by:

Starting the day with a smoothie of banana, spinach, apple, juice and whatever fruit I have around. Sounds grim but quite tasty. I generally have homemade soup for lunch so I can pack lots into that - today is squash, parsnip and carrot. We get a veg box which forces us to eat lots of vegetables so that's good. I found an electric steamer made it loads easier to cook lots of veg so we have more because of it.

I get stuff into the kids by cooking stuff like courgette fritters (so really just like pancakes but with courgettes in), also we eat quite a few homemade pizzas (top with lots of vegetables and I make my own pizza topping of boiled down tomatoes with as much other veg as I can get into the pan). Those little pouches are quite good as well. They also like smoothies so that's handy. DD will eat loads of fruit at bedtime for some reason so she gets a lot of her portions in then.

Being a vegetarian and loving fruit and vegetables helps me. I snack on it and probably have at least 2 or 3 protions with my dinner.
My DS is trickier but he does love fruit and will eat his veg with dinner. I make sure we buy it as a treat for him when we go shopping, so he can choose which he wants eg, strawberrys, blueberrys.

I don't try to hide veg in his dinner, otherwise he would think it was bad and automatically not want it. He has his favourites and gets to pick which he wants with dinner. He does cover everything with ketchup too (does that count towards a portion??? )

I'm finding it easier to get my 5 a day with a concerted effort at eating healthy and making healthy meal plans.

I dislike fruit as a snack, I don't find it filling enough so most of my portions are salad and veg. I have huge piles of veg with my dinner to bulk it out and usually manage a good lot of salad at lunchtime with tuna or chicken and I will have a banana or strawberries or an apple after each meal sometimes with yogurt to make it more like a dessert.

I always add veg when I'm making mash, usually one of the following carrot, celeriac, parsnip or swede.

Whilst cooking I always give the children a bowl of peas, broad beans or sweetcorn to eat whilst they wait

Whenever I make bechamel I steam either cauliflower or broccolli and puree it together, my children love it in lasagne or I add cheese and have it as a pasta sauce.

Fruit for snacks, smoothie's when the fruit is getting a bit soft.

For DC, veg are served separately e.g.
ramekin of peas
corn on the cob

It creates a lot of washing up but prevents everything being pushed on the floor in a tantrum.
Likewise, fruit is unpolluted with yoghurt or anything else, so blueberries, grapes are in the unused ramekins.

My life is strangely compartemental.

Chocolate is the fruit of the Theobroma tree, so I easily manage 5-a-day.

I tend to think of veg in terms of colours. A variety of colours ensures a variety of nutrients, as well as looking more appealing.

That said, sometimes i deliberately make monochrome meals, because that can also intrigue and look appealing. A favourite in our house is Green Pancakes, which is a basic egg-and-matzo-meal pancake mix, enhanced with any pre-cooked green veg chopped small, typically broccoli, spinach and leek, and fried in small patties. Similarly Green Soup, which is bog-standard veg soup with every green veg I can find chucked in, some lentils, too, and the whole lot blended smooth and thickened with a bit of cornflour.

I confess we don't have any problems getting 5 a day either. DS(5) would eat fruit and veg all day given a chance. When organised, I keep a box of assorted fruit salad in the fridge so its easy to snack on. When disorganised, I just buy it from the supermarket
Dishes like spag bog have loads of added veg - carrots, broccoli, courgette, and I never hide veg. But ds does like to make 'whizzy sauce' where he blends up any veg he can find and has that on pasta or as pizza topping.
Veg sushi is fun too - carrot, pepper, beetroot are all dead tasty

Always have a fruit bowl out for DCs. They are allowed free reign to raid it. Also carrots as snacks.

Don't force them, always offer it and encourage trying new flavours.

I try to eat at least 5 portions a day but I struggle to get DD2 to eat that many.

I add frozen mixed veg to loads of dishes to up the veg count, almost every mince dish gets it added as well as a lot of rice dishes.

I always add spinach and sweet potato to a curry, and use mashed swede or sweet potato mixed with potato for extra veg.

I have carrot sticks in the fridge all the time and I make a box of salad every other day so I can just add a handful of it to my plate when I make my lunch or dinner.
Bananas, blueberries and other berries added to breakfast cereal are also a quick way of eating more fruit.
Dd2 will only eat carrots, sweetcorn, broccoli, banana, raisins and fruit flakes.
I have to give her a smoothie everyday with her breakfast, then fruit flakes for snack at break, a banana with lunch and we eat a lot of carrots, sweetcorn and broccoli with our dinner.

I put 3 small portions of veg on the plate at dinner time. Two I know they will eat and sometimes one new one. Ds1 recently tried kale and decided it's not quite as yucky as he'd thought.

We have soup here also.
I can put anything in it and as long as I blend it a bit I can disguise veg like courgette or aubergine that ds1 would otherwise say 'yuk' to.

Snacks are usually fruit, cucumber, carrots or raw cauliflower. I don't like carrots or cauli cooked. My children have just copied me I suppose.

Also do smoothies. In the summer I do lots of pureed fruit lollies.