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

I am lucky in that I have one of those freak eaters who actively loves vegetables and fruit. DD is five and will chow down on broccoli, peas, sweetcorn, cucumber, tomato with chicken or pasta, then demolish an entire fruit bowl, so I don't need to work on her so much.
With fussier eaters it can be quite fun for them to add their own components from a bowl to a pizza, so just having small bowls of vegetables chopped up seem more appealing for some reason.
I am fine with salad/vegetables, but fruit is a little on the dull side, so I top up with freshly squeezed juice.
For some odd reason chilling fruit such as oranges always, always makes them taste better.

This was one of my new year's resolutions!

At the moment I literally keep a list on the coffee table of what fruit & veg I've eaten so far that day so that I can keep a check on how well I'm doing. Most days I'm managing it, but it's been surprisingly hard.

My one main tip is to get some of your portions in early. I have a glass of juice (1) and porrdidge with banana (2) and sultanas (3) for breakfast, so I know I only have to find two more during the rest of the day - then it doesn't seem so difficult

I like to juice, my favourite being apple (green), carrot and ginger yum! It's very refreshing. I tend to have quite a bit of veg with my evening meal. I like the prepared veg that you can microwave from supermarkets-carrots, beans etc. I sometimes have dried fruit as a snack and also snack on celery and beetroot! I eat more fruit I the summer when strawberries, peaches, cherries and melons are in season. I also like smoothies and juices and often have a glass for breakfast.

I get the kids to help me make a "silly fruit salad" we make faces with grapes as eyes a slice of banana as a mouth and so on, the kids love it and then scoff the fruit! Delish.

We have soup for lunch three times a week. The children take it in flasks to school twice plus a sat lunch too. I use what ever veg is going over in the local farm shop bargain bin! The love broccoli so we have that most nights too. Fruit I fin expensive, usually aldi is cheapest for kiwi, pineapples and melon. They like berries but usually only if on offer, I use frozen ones to make a coulis to go over porridge sometimes.
If innocent is on offer, usually at sainsburys, we have that as everyone loves it. The kiddy smoothies are popular here and work out much cheaper than buying the fruit and making them.

It is easier to get my DC to eat their 5-a-day than it is to make sure I eat mine! I think that is because I am better at telling others what to do than I am at changing my own behaviour. I weaned my DC on veg and fruit and it has always been a major factor in their diets so they just see it as normal. Particular tips are:

• only offer fruit, carrot sticks or rice cakes as between meal snacks. They usually choose the fruit or carrot stick.
• offer a cut up apple with their morning cereal.
• make favourites, such as bolognaise, with loads of veg: celery, carrots, courgettes, tomatoes, mushrooms. Do the same with soups.
• pudding is fresh fruit or on special occassions stewed fruit with ice cream.

There are some great tips on here! Ds is still quite little (not quite 2) so he will so far happily eat most of what I put in front of him although does have a preference for meat over veg.

He eats lots of fresh fruit like most little ones (although I hadn't thought of smoothies for DS but I think he would love them so will try him on an innocent one) and I think he gets enough veg - he will eat peas, sweetcorn, carrot and brocolli with a meal and he loves cherry tomatoes and cucumbers which are as easy to carry around in a a little snack pot as fruit is.

Like everyone, I always add lots of veggies to bolognese and other similar sauces. I also do a lovely lamb mince with chopped tomotoes and chopped apricots which DS loves to have with cous cous. My top tip is frozen chopped spinach - I add it to everything, but it's best with pasta and pesto - a really easy way to make a simple meal a bit more healthy.

I can't say that I focus massively on the concept of "5 a day" per se - for me or for the DC - I don't count, but I do want them (and me) to have plenty of fruit and veg in their diets. Fortunately they have proper, cooked lunches at school, so during term time I know they have had some veg (in DD's case, the minimum she can get away with, in DS's case usually lots, especially if he has (as he often does) opted for the vegetarian choice).

DD's reluctance to eat veg has made me focus a little more than I used to. I always have cooked with lots of veg, though - a pasta sauce will automatically start with onions and celery, then tomatoes, and quite possibly peas or courgettes as well. Other meals will always include at least one green vegetable because it just doesn't seem complete without it.

If we have fruit (generally clementines and grapes at this time of year), that will be the default "pudding" - or, if I have time, I may cook something like apple pie / plum crumble. In the summer they will both eat soft fruit from local farms as fast as I buy it.

I have never worried about DS at all, but since DD would happily live on nothing but cheese and meat, I do sometimes realise that she really hasn't had any/much fruit or veg in a day, in which case I will offer her a smoothie at breakfast for a few days, especially if they are on special offer.

I very rarely hit my 5 a day, unless I have veg soup for lunch. I try to enforce it for the kids though. They love their 'special juice' at breakfast time - this is usually a smoothie of some kind. They always get one or two portions of veg with meals (and they dont get pudding unless they eat it) and they both love fruit, particularly blueberries (dont know why - I cant stand them) and oranges (they call them oranges, but its usually satsumas or clementines or similar). Any 'sauce' I make has veg whizzed up in the processor and added to it.

We as a family rarely eat 5 a day. I find fruit and veg extremely expensive in general. Atm, the Dc's have school dinners and I hope that they are both getting a decent assortment of veg there, but you can never tell what they actually eat.
I love veg and fruit, but rarely eat the orange type fruits that I have to keep in my bowl for Dd. She is fussy about veg and wont eat tomatoes, mushrooms, onions or peppers, though she will try them intermittently for me. Strangely enough, she absolutely loves cabbage and 'baby cabbages' (sprouts!!), broccoli and cauliflower. I try to ensure that she has one of those of an evening, plus potatoes, though again, she's not keen on those.
Ds is not fussy and will eat anything vegetable so is not a problem...fruit though, appears to be a waste of time for him

Getting DS involved in cooking is useful. Eg making soup. If he has chosen and prepared veg himself he is more likely to eat it.

Also use a bit of negotiating: "Eat four carrot sticks and you can have a creme egg," etc.

Also, try new things and know what they like. Bananas and apples are all very well but there is so much variety of fruit and veg available. My ds is mad on pomegranate, could eat it every day. Also mini veg might look more appealing. Ds likes those corn cob segments you get on sticks; bit more expensive but more 'fun' and easier for small hands.

He also gets pure fruit smoothies for school snack time, that's one of the five a day sorted.

I vary wildly with whether I achieve 5-a-day.

If I make a tomato sauce (as the base for bolognese, or bacon and tomato pasta sauce, for example) I put in a couple of medium-large onions, a whole head of celery and three tins of tomatoes, which means the portions have a high proportion of fruit/veg in.

Frozen veg are a boon, as are fresh soups, and salads (edamame, pea and bean salad, for example).

Smoothies are a good way to use up slightly soft fruit, and to get lots of fruit into children, but making your own is incredibly messy.

Frozen chunks of fruit - banana or strawberry - blitzed with some cream or custard in a food processor, makes instant, soft-whip icecream.

It was easier when I was healthier and could do cooking from scratch - I used to aim for 7 a day.
However even now I generally manage five - raisins or other fruit on cereal/porridge for breakfast, an apple to munch, plus a banana/tangerines/another apple/juice, and then vegetables making up half my plate for dinner, even if atm they are mainly frozen veg and tomatoey sauces with fresh pasta or similar. About once a fortnight I do a roast with veg that are simply chucked around the meat, and I never peel spuds, so that helps.

Ds, however, is 3 and very fussy. He will drink juice and smoothie though, and luckily the Innocent fruit tube was invented just in time for him to avoid referral to a consultant about constipation (this is totally true, not just made up to impress this survey!) - it's costly but keeps him healthy and we have many boxes of fridge magnets! I puree pasta sauce for him with extra veg, make carrot and raisin muffins, and he will eat non-lumpy tomato and other veg soup, bananas, and potatoes of any sort with skin on, and recently roast parsnips and raisins. So he probably eats 2-3 a day, plus lots of seeds from wholegrain seedy bagels etc.

the dc (5 and 2) have porridge or cereals with raisins or chopped banana in it for breakfast, plus glass of fruit juice

then ds (5) takes 2 pieces of fruit with his lunch to school, and they also have a snack at school of chopped veg or fruit

dd (2) has carrot sticks with her lunch and usually an apple or similar after

then whatever they have for tea i usually serve peas, beans, sweetcorn or similar as a side then they have another piece of fruit or handful of raisins for pudding.

possibly they have too much fruit, and should be more veg!

I would love more info on what is actually included in the "5-a-day", eg does hummous count as it's made with chickpeas? Apparently now Heinz tomato soup counts - is this true? And also does it matter if it's 5 fruit or should it be a good mix of fruit and veg?
Anyway apart from that I am sure I don't do anything that hasn't already been mentioned. Banana smoothies, carrot sticks with hummous, lots of dried fruit, cored apples turned into rings, sweetcorn on pizza etc.

Can I ask the people with porridge-eating DC how you sold it to them, or have they just always had it as long as they can remember?

I am a big fan of porridge myself and it is a cornerstone of my current efforts to lose weight (because I then feel full all morning and don't snack) - but my DC both just went "yuk" when I tried to sell it to them .

Neither of them are morning people, and left to their own devices will be up for a good couple of hours before their thoughts turn to breakfast - clearly not an option on school mornings, but I can't help feeling that porridge (with or without added fruit) would get them off to a better start, especially in winter.

they have always had it since babies stealth and they love it

have to admit they always have the golden syrup flavoured one though, i would imagine that helps

I find it easy at the beginning of the month after payday: soups curries, veggie pasta bakes, roast dinners but increasingly difficult as the month goes on and it's survival on kitchen cupboard scraps.....maybe i should start menu planning..........

We never think about it. Fruit and veg are freely available to the kids and the only time they are ever refused is directly before a meal. We have very few biscuits or other snacks in the house so there isn't much choice. The kids have always loved fruit too which helps.

I do cook with 2 or three veg per meal too. I have honestly never counted to see if we get 5 a day. I would guess that most days we do but probably not always.

As for the porridge, DS1 only started to eat it last year (he is 11) and its because we added golden syrup. DS2 (2 yrs) has always loved it with fromage frais.

When I am at work, I usually eat 4 pieces of fruit a day, so with the veggies and fruit in the evening, 5 a day is manageable.
At weekends it is more difficult, as our routine varies. DS currently lives on cucmber, carrots and pears, so he keeps us all in the straight and narrow.

Today I had a dental appointment, so I am sipping innocent through a straw.

Fruit and fruit juice at breakfast.

Every type of vegetable imaginable in a stir fry or curry or roast loads of veg, and blend with tomatoes for a pasta sauce.

Does 5 pieces of chocolate orange count?

Fortunately DS is a pretty good eater... I have more problems getting DH to eat a variety of fruit and veg. I always have a full fruit bowl to snack on and grate lots of random veg into most meals from courgettes (DH hates them) in curries and pasta sauces to cauliflower in mash and casseroles. I hope DH doesn't read this and catch me out...

Startail - yes, but is not as good as Jaffa cakes.
HTH.