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

We find it easy, because we have habits that can't be broken.

Breakfast always includes fruit juice and is always followed by a piece of fruit.
Lunch always comes with salad.
Dinner always has at least two veg with/in it.

Fruit bowl is usually well stocked, and we have billed some fruits as a massive treat ie blueberries and grapes are only for good children treats, pineapple is for lottery winners.

Tinned fruit is handy and cheap, and tinned pineapple (for those who have won the lottery) is great for sweet and sour and will provide a fruity one of the five-a-day in a savoury and filling meal. Bob's yer uncle.

We try to eat some fruit with each meal (usually as 'pudding') and often the children have fruit as part of a snack too. Lunch and dinner are never served without at least 2 vegetables or salad items.

I make up a multi-veg pasta sauce including roasted squash in a big batch in the slow cooker (thing I put in are carrots, celery, peppers, tins of tomatoes and tomato puree, sometimes a little wine, sometimes a block of frozen spinach, basil, seasoning & often other bits of random veg I have handy). Once it's cooked I blend it and then freeze it in batches. They'll eat it with pasta and cheese, or as pizza topping, or even with mince & onion for bolognase. If I'm making bolognase with just tinned tomatoes and tomato puree then I'll add chopped up carrots, celery, sometimes peppers or mushrooms or courgettes. It bulks it out and ups the veg content too. for really fussy people it can be carefully blended with a stick blender and the veg are then hidden.

I try to avoid juice, as the acid & natural sugar isn't so great for their teeth. It's also not necessary, as they can eat the fruit and drink water and that way get other benefits too, like fibre.

Batons of celery or carrot go down well if they are pestering for dinner and it's not cooked yet. For a snack they love dipping them in a little pot of hummous.

For school lunches I have some v small snap lid pots and send in a spoon plus one with natural yogurt and blueberries, raspberries, strawberries (frozen versions, or mixed berries work too -no need to defrost, they do it on their own by lunchtime), or raisins, or chopped up tinned peaches. The big pots of natural yogurt are much cheaper than individual flavoured ones, and if you use cheap fruit it's good value. Sometimes we use blackberries that we picked in the summer and froze.

I'm a compulsive fruit eater myself but actually that's not brilliant for my weight, or my teeth - 2kg of nectarines at a sitting is an awful lot of sugar and acid. I never have to worry about eating my five a day - restricting it to ten a day is more like it. However, I do have a make a conscious effort to have at least two vegetables with each main meal.

With my son, now aged 8, I certainly serve five a day, but whether he eats it or not is slightly more problematic. I count any amount as a success. He loves the usual suspects (peas, sweetcorn, carrot sticks, raspberries) but is very reluctant to extend his range. He finds most vegetables easier than fruit, and I think that's quite common as a lot of fruit is very acid for children. I do feel that giving him the regular visual habit of 'here comes a meal, it includes two veg' is almost as important as him actually eating them, and hence try not to rely on hidden vegetable recipes.

I do it how those canny Italians do it-

Whenever I make any type of pasta sauce, souip or stew I make a Soffrito base-

For pasta i finely chop up carrots, onions and celery and plenty of them. Then cook them down in a little olive oil until soft. These make a vegetable flavour base.

For winter soups ands stews I finely chop leeks, onions, carrots, celery (including the green leafy tops) and swede. Then these are sweated down in oil and used as a flavour base.

Even a small dish of, say, lasagne can have several carrots, sticks of celery and onion chopped up and cooked down into it and they are unidentifiable-although i do not subscribe to the 'hide veg' mentality as a whole.

The same principle applies to fruit sauces and puddings like crumbles. I cook down a medley of chopped fruits such as raspberries, blueberries, blackberries etc and add to say, plum for a plum crumble.

If children ask for a biscuit I will sandwich two small cookies together with a layer of mashed banana, slackened off with a little dash of orange or apple juice. It works as a 'fruit butter'.
Another 'fun' snack is a Brioche sandwich made by 'buttering' brioche slices/rolls with a mashed banana 'butter' then scattering little redcurrants, raspberries, slices of peach etc over the banana before sandwiching together. Philadelphia or masarpone spread. over it too, works

One of my DD's proclaims to not like veg but loves gravy so I make my own by roasting carrots, celery, onions and herbs under a whole chicken.

I take them out after 20 minutes and let the chicken finish cooking, I then drain the fat from the roasting tin and take the wing tips and other bits of the chicken off and put them back in the pan with the chicken juices and the cooked veg.

I fry it all off on the hob for a while and then add a spoonful of plain flour and then a litre of water and bring to the boil making sure nothing catches on the bottom of the tin.

I simmer for 20 minutes and then sieve it all to catch the gravy, I normally add another litre of water and do it again to make some to freeze as well.

play the 'what haven't we eaten' fruit game. that way kids get to pick a piece of fruit that they may not usually have - like sharon or dragon or physillis.

ever let your child at a coconut with a hammer - they love it.

pizza anyone - buy the base for gods sake - its not much - a bit of tomato puree and your off

bowls full of different veg and fruit and cheeses - it doesn't get better when it comes to cooking

yes i once ate a strawberry pizza but its worth it

My top tip appears to be to leave the veg drawer ajar. We have a collection of half chewed carrots and misshapen broccoli

My children do genuinely prefer vegetables raw, but not cut into cute shapes. DS1 used to love munching on a head of lettuce whilst being pushed about in the supermarket trolley.

Must be the thrill of the forbidden!

Sometimes its difficult to get to 5 a day but not today. For lunch I had home made soup which was left over vegetables that had been cooked with the joint blended with left over cauliflower. Cherry tomatoes on the side of the bowl with a slice of bread. A bramley apple stuffed with prunes with a teaspoon of honey microwaved for a total of three minutes. Tea is cooking now with mashed potatos, carrots and broccoli with raw carrot on the side for those who prefer.

I'm vegetarian so find it pretty easy tbh.

Salad in my sandwich at lunchtime
One or two (or more!) kinds of veg with dinner
Two or three fruits as snacks

Same goes for the kids most days - luckily despite having one uber-fussy DC, they're both ok about eating fruit and veg.

I average 5 a day. Sometimes it's 3 and sometimes it's 8. Even on a bad day, I will fit a banana in with my breakfast or mid morning. I love a bit of salad with my lunch, but if I'm not in the mood for that, maybe because it's just too cold, a warming bowl of soup with lots of veg in goes down well. I always add lots of veg to my evening meal - a bolognese sauce will have lots of peppers and mushrooms added to it and even if we're having a pizza or a ready meal, there will be extra veg or salad served on the side.

My youngest son has ASD and a real aversion to most fruit and veg. He won't even drink fruit juice. He loves fruit puree mixed with his porridge in the morning, though and loves cooked fruit in general - he's just polished off a big portion of apple pie with his dinner and he adores rhubarb crumble. I have lots of fruit bushes in my garden and yard, so spend lots of time in summer baking delicious puds like blueberry muffins or apple and blackcurrant sponge.

I find it hard to conciously fit five a day into the day. But probably manage it most days without trying.

An apple with breakfast (nothing wakes me up faster and keeps me fuller for longer), a banana mid morning during coffee break at work (goes oddly well with coffee, no need for a biscuit).
I will then have either grapes or a couple of plums with my lunch and will have sliced tomato or salad in my sandwich.

We usually have at least one veg and a side salad during dinner.

And some more fruit for pudding or later in the evening if peckish.

Some days I don't manage all the above. Some days I manage more. All in all it evens out quite well.

But I don't conciously count how many a day.

The children have a piece of fruit with their lunch, a carton of fruit juice or a carton of smoothie (if on offer!) in their lunchbox, veg with their dinner and then fruit for pudding after dinner. So most days they manage four a day.

To be honest giving / getting five a day isn't even on my radar. I had a few raisins today and hommus - does that count? And chips. DSs get fruit and veg at nursery but rarely seem to eat it. God, another thing to feel guilty about.

I find it a uesful benchmark. Sometimes work out what the DCs have had each day and try and see if I can make it up to 5 with dinner.

One is always fruit juice or smoothy. Usually one more at lunch, and then 2-3 at dinner. They eat any amount of salad veg usually so that's the easiest way of getting them to get to 5. Sometimes make pudding conditional on eating some fruit as well!

And chopping fruit up makes kids eat much more of it. So does blending up veg and stiring it into pasta.

I have a very fruit ad vegetable averse toddler. I found it very difficult for a while getting her to eat any, aswell as introducing a younger son to new things and getting some myself.

My two add-ons to normal meals which work very well for us are:

1. we have one big plate of different kinds of fruit cut up small for afternoon snack. We all sit down on the floor and share it. This means DS sees the choice, DD doesn't feel pressure to et exactly the same as me and DS, can choose what she likes and occasionally taste something different, and I get my share by hoovering up what they don't eat.
2. I realised she realy doesn't like cooked vegetables but will eat a lot of them raw. What I now do is give them to her raw while the meal for the rest of us (which might have the same vegetables cooked in it) while the meal is cooking. If I give them to her raw with the meal, she won't eat them as the other stuff looks yummier to her; if I give them to her before she will.

My main difficulty in getting 5 a day is definitely the expense! I get REALLY bored easily and I love exotic fruit. DD seems to be going the same way, her favourite fruit is physalis

It is pretty easy to get her eating 5 a day although if she had a choice it'd be all fruit with maybe a carrot stick or two.

Looking forward to reading through this thread for tips as I really need to eat more veg especially - I don't know why, I love most of it, I'm just lazy I guess

My motivation comes from the fact that most fruit and veg are "free" foods on the Weightwatchers plan. So if I feel hungry I now reach for the fruit!

My favourite salad at the moment is match sticked apple, mixed leaves, chives and walnuts with red wine vinegar and olive oil dressing.

Last Sunday dp liquidized carrot into the gravy which is a good tip for getting more veg into reluctant kids!

I follow my Mum's 'rule of three' for dinner... I make sure to have veges of three different colours in each meal. Breakfast is served with orange juice and stewed or tinned fruit, lunch with one veg & one fresh fruit.

I'm another one who puts the food on the table but doesn't fight about whether it's eaten or not.

Having said that, I talk to the kids about why eating fruit and vegetables is good for us, I try to role model healthy eating, and we also use Dora the Explorer, that well known advocate for exploring new tastes to persuade them to try a bite of anything they aren't too keen on.

I also tell them that it takes time to like some things so even if they didn't like their bite last time, it's worth trying again.

Pure juice or smoothie with breakfast. Home made fruit jam on toast/ scrambled eggs/ porridge and berries/ wheatabix sliced banana and orange juice.

Fruit snacks - berries and raisins

Lunch mixed salad - lots of chopped veg and cold pasta for lunch or cold veg pizza or veg curry.

Fruit platter after school - chopped fruit (apples/ pears/ kiwi/ grapes/ strawberries/ banana chunks), biscuits and fromage frais to dip it all in.

The kids then love making smoothy soup - hot or cold blitzed left over veg/ fruit Truley revolting in taste, looks and smell. Occasionally they hit on a good one but generally disgusting. The thing is if they have invented it they drink it and stand by their invention!

Veg pasta/ pizza/ curry/ casserole/ soup/ cottage pie with mixed in veg sauce.

I have a smoothie with breakfast most mornings, failing that I have apple juice. Whichever one I don't have in the morning, I have in the evening.
I have a piece of fruit mid morning, at lunch I have a soup that is 1 or 2 of my 5 a day, then I have some fruit in the mid afternoon.
We have the fruit bowl on the dining room table and they can help themselves whenever they want/when told.

I am not keen on fruit, although I love my veg and salad.

I drink fruit juice, and also enjoy tinned fruit with evaporated milk

Also make my own sauces, e.g bolognese as it's easy to cram a load of veg in - I think my record is 8 different veg in one sauce.

Well we top our fruit bowl up 3 times a week. It's our biggest expense. Kids have to ask for most food and snacks but fruit bowl is a free for all. That way they can't play the "I'm hungry" card. DS takes 2 bits for lunch to school, dd has the same. And they usually have 2-3 other bits during the day.

We eat strawberries, grapes, raisins, kiwis, apples ,pears, blueberries, oranges and bananas mostly. But it is expensive and we tend to buy reduced or on offer fruit.

Veg??? They like peas, baby sweet corn,regular sweetcorn and carrots. They love carrot sticks and hummus. We tend not to push veg so much as they both have ishoos with it. So we put it on plates and get them to try it if they want dessert. I don't "try" to get my kids to eat five a day...they just generally do, as it normal in our house to have lots of it about!

I tend to go in fits and starts and I'm better in the summer than the winter (loooooove salad!!).

I tend to make big hearty soups packed with veg, and sauces and couscous crammed with veg too. Because I'm still bf'ing, I try to eat 3 avocados a week (although I'm not a huge fan) and I eat whatever veg my DS leaves behind.

Ds (16 months) prefers his veg in sticks or lumps he can grip and gnaw at: I give him cucumber, baby corn, beans, sugar snap peas potato (in waffle or chip form mostly but especially in a fishcake) but his absolute fave is peas. He also eats courgette, peppers and onions from my couscous, chunks of apple and pear from the fridge (helps with his teething) and he'll take sips of smoothie when offered.

I also try not to make a big deal out of it when he doesn't eat - my mum made a huge fuss when I was little and I've never forgotten how it felt!

Like several others have said, it can be very easy to add up to 5 portions a day without really thinking about it. I do tend to eat more fruit on the days that I'm working as I pack my lunch whereas at home, I forget to eat completely so miss out on fruit.
My youngest kids eat any kind of fruit/veg but my eldest is at school and has decided that it's not as cool - although he eats it if put in front of him. I have to make sure fruit is easy to eat in his lunch box or he won't eat it - oranges peeled and in a little tub, anything else cut up. I do like a tip I was given a while ago to cut an apple round the core then hold together with an elastic band - easy to eat but won't go brown :)

I'm not very fond of fruit (except the expensive stuff!) so find it much easier to get five portions of vege than of fruit.

One thing I do is take some frozen raspberries to work for breakfast. I stick them in the microwave then eat them with yoghurt, or with muesli or with a Rachel's Rice pot. Another one (not v good for me but at least it gets fruit into me!) is to cook a couple of chopped apples in the microwave briefly and then eat them with a little pot of custard or rice.

Fortunately, my daughers are much better with fruit than I am!

Vege is easy. I make soups and stir fries using up loads of vege and all pasta sauces etc have vege in them and/or are served with a big salad or several vegetables. Almost everything I make seems to begin with me frying finely chopped onions, carrots and celery!

Oh and if I'm cooking a curry or a chilli or something, I often do little bowls of things to serve alongside and up the fruit/vege content:

eg with curry - a salad made of red onions, diced cucumber and tomato, mint and coriander / another made with fresh mango, red chilli, red onion, coriander etc

with chilli - guacamole / a mango salsa (mango, red chilli, red pepper, coriander, lime juice etc)