What are your top recipes and tips for getting your DCs to eat more fruit and vegetables? Tell Tesco and you could win a £200 voucher NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

Tesco have asked us to find out what Mumsnetters' top tips and recipes are for getting their DCs to eat more fruit and veg.

Here’s what Tesco say, “Studies show that 90% of 7 – 14 year olds do not eat their five-a-day. Our Farm to Fork Trails allow children to touch, smell and taste a wide range of fruit and vegetables - some make fruit kebabs. Parents and Teachers tell us that children are more willing to try new varieties after the visit. We’d love to hear what you’re doing at home to encourage your DCs to eat more fruit and veg.”

So, what are your top tips for getting your DCs to eat fruit and vegetables? Perhaps you hide mushrooms in pasta sauce? Or maybe you have another method for sneaking peas and carrots into meals? Do you have any fail-safe recipes that your DCs love?

Whatever your top recipes and tips are, Tesco would love to hear them!

Everyone who adds their comments to the thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £200 Tesco voucher.

Please note that any comments posted on this thread may be used by Tesco in further marketing material (anonymously, of course).

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

Homemade fruit ice lollies. I totally blend veg for lasagne, bolgnaise, chilli etc. Cut it up small for shepherd's pie.

Homemade pizzas with lots of toppings laid out to make nice patterns on their own pizza. Thinly sliced vegetables are a start just to get children to taste them.

I haven't found a way to get ds1 (14) to even try banana. I'm not sure why? I've tried everything but it must be the smell?

My dss eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. Red peppers are a favourite possible as they're quite sweet?

You can make a sweet pizza too and use sliced fruit to decorate.

Hunger!

Just served DD rice and chicken and beans later than usual. Faced with the unpalatable rice and chicken, the beans have disappeared!

That and veg blended into pasta sauce.

But the best tip is to show them that you enjoy a wide variety of vegetables and fruit, in my opinion.

I agree with hunger and leading by example. Fruit and veg are offered daily so they know they will always be a part of their diet. They are pretty good to be fair - both love fruit, peas and broccoli

Just keep trying, I guess. We never make the kids eat anything they don't like, but we do insist they at least taste it before deciding they don't like it. DC will happily eat savoy cabbage when it's par-boiled and then stir-fried with bacon. They will eat red cabbage when it's braised with some raisins. If they don't eat it cooked one way, try cooking it a different way.

I have no problem getting them to eat fruit but their absolute favourite way is fruit salad with meringue crumbled over it.

Veg is a challenge, I have 3 DC and there is no one veg acceptable to all 3 of them. On the plus side it means I tend to make 2 or 3 veg with a meal so they are at least exposed to a wide variety.

Most success has come from the rule seconds of anything (sausage, pudding etc) is dependent on eating everything dished up first time - I do only give small servings.

Two ways - in plain sight and secret.
When I call them in for dinner and they're hungry, there's a plate of sliced up carrots, cucumber, apple etc on the table which they can pick at while I dish the real food up.
And whenever I make bolognese sauce, I whizz a load of veg into teeny pieces in the food processor and chuck that into the sauce. It all blends in if you cook it for long enough.
They also like rice cooked with peas, sweetcorn and diced carrot (which we call rainbow rice) and the littlest will eat anything as long as he can dip it in ketchup!

Lead by example. You control what goes on their plate, they chose what to eat. Everyone eats the same meal, no coking if different veg and meals for different children. Serve a nice variety of cut up fruit as a snack.

Veg batons + dips work really well as an after school snack (when they're usually famished).

Piece of fruit after every meal is a good habit to get into & you can vary seasonally I.e. Strawberries/peaches in summer, pears/plums in autumn etc.

Roast every Sunday when you can really pile on the veg.

My DD loves homemade fruit smoothies - useful to always have some frozen berries in the freezer for these.

I serve them a big bowl of prepared fruit when they're hungry- for instance just after school. If I asked 'Would you like some fruit?' they would probably say no or start whinging for a treat, but if I just placea bowl in front of them it will be empty in no time!

The other thing they love is homemade smoothie- a couple of oldish bananas, some berries and whatever else is lying around whizzed up. They enjoy helping me to make it and gobble it up, either on its own or with some natural yoghurt.

Be vegetarian! Most of our meals are based around vegetables so DS doesn't have much choice about eating them.

Make it interesting. DS will huff if pointed at the fruit bowl for pudding but if I do a mini fruit salad, he'll happily eat it. It doesn't have to be complicated, just some apple slices and grapes seems to be much more appealing than a plain apple.

Soup can be a great way of getting a lot of veg into children. DS loves lentil soup which I make with carrots, onions, celery and whatever root veg I have around, like parsnips. It has a mild, sweet flavour and is lovely with a bit of cheese on toast.

I agree with previous posters that leading by example is the most important thing.

While we wait for dinner the kids can have veg to nibble on. Tonight they had celery and cucumber before the main meal.

For veg my kids tend not to like I blitz it and out it in a pasta sauce - so things like courgette will go in.

They'll eat soup. They won't eat red pepper, but they'll eat red pepper soup happily. Odd.

I have no problem getting fruit into them - they eat a huge amount.

Fruit is easy. We always have a variety of different fruits to chose from & lead by example. Both DDs love fruit.

With vegetables it's a bit trickier, so sometimes it just comes down to hiding them - grated veg in a lasagne or blended into tomato sauce with pasta/on pizza. Or including them in an old favourite - DD1 will now eat onions, mushrooms, peppers & sweetcorn in macaroni cheese.
Presentation is important too sometimes - DD1 will eat carrot sticks, but not rounds (strange child, don't know where she gets it from )

When my DC were small I wanted to ensure they would enjoy vegetables. When putting out their meals I would pile on vegetables, then mutter to myself "No, you can't have that much." - and take some off leaving what I wanted them to have in the first place. They used to beg for more vegetables and I've never had any issues of getting them to eat veg since. They do have dislikes when it comes to fruit though - DD doesn't like bananas because it tastes of medicine she had when very ill, and she also doesn't like the texture. DS doesn't like mango again because of the texture. They both enjoy fruit puddings I make though (e.g. blackberries and apple underneath a spicy sponge mixture) - and for a treat we dip strawberries in dark chocolate.

We're not great here but a perennial favourite is always pea-mash. Not complicated but mashed potato with the peas mixed in. Peas on their own are fiddly to eat and go everywhere - pea mash gets wolfed down.

Keep on offering it. Every child goes through the stage of saying they don't like this, that or the other. Keep on offering, and maybe they'll try again in the future.

We chop up a variety of fruits to have after dinner. DS really likes doing this.

As for getting him to eat more veg.....still working on it!!

I don't like hiding food as I think children should learn that it's not evil! I would make a big pan of homemade minestrone with onions, leeks, carrots, parsnips, celery and potato. Whatever was left would be liquidised and poured over pasta for the next day. All my 3 DCs are now over 6ft!

We've always had fruit and vegetables around in every day life, the kids have seen me nibble on a carrot or a wedge of Apple when preparing dinner or cleaning or just hanging out in the house/park/garden.

I keep chopped up fruit and veg to hand that they know they can graze on and they do.

I do add veggies into everything though, soups, curries, stews, pasta, sandwiches etc.

Our favourite thing to do is to make pizzas, I make a batch of dough and freeze 6-8 bases, I also make a large pan of pizza sauce with lots of blended veg and freeze that in pizza sized portions, then I just pull out a base and some sauce and chop up a load of veg and the kids make pictures on their pizzas before cooking them for dinner. It goes down well with visiting children too.

Mine love MY juices and smoothies which I make using copious amounts of spinach/kale/celery/lemon etc and blended with avocado. They really love these as I'm making them for me and not them! Typical

Luckily DS1 is like a fruit bat so that's never been a problem.

With veg, I try serving up new types/ones he's previously rejected alongside those he will always eat (frozen peas and sweetcorn always fail-safe). He gets a sticker for trying any new food/one he hasn't liked previously and this has been remarkably successful.

I never force him to eat anything, or everything, but do encourage him to keep trying things. He eats pretty well and hopefully DS2 will too (weaning).

Mine eat will eat pretty much any veg in chilli and I use the grating attachment on my Kenwood to grate carrot and courgette to bulk up pasta sauces and curry.

I swore I'd never do this, but hey ho, you've got to pick your battles.

I dont think its necessarily 'hiding' it, ds is 18mo and is not great at chewing so I do blend a veg mix and add it to sauces as a thickener, way to add flavour and also a good way of adding additional minerals. I use it as soup too

When he was little I gave D's lots of fruit and veg to try. Some he liked some he didn't. Sometimes he liked it next time.

Now he's a teenager I usually cook several vegetables per meal and serve him more of the ones he likes, less of the ones he doesn't. Same as I do on my plate. If there were any veg we really hated then I'd never cook those.
Actually I am only posting this drivel to get in the prize draw cos it's about time I won something.

Several ways:
-Make sure you always have fruit & veg in the house- they can't have it if it's not there!

• give them fruit or veg (like raw carrot) as a snack for school break every day.
• blend fruit into milkshakes or make smoothies.
• make veg only dishes like vegetable lasagne, curry, stews etc. No filling up on other foods first!
• make sure they see you eating it. Kids, especially young ones, learn by imitation.
• let them get 'hands on' with preparing veg. They are more likely to eat something they have helped to make.

My DS is pretty good with most fruit and veg. Again agree with lead by example. We eat together when we can and he has what we have.

I do sometime mash cauliflower in with mash potato and grated carrot and celery in mince for a bit of extra goodness.