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

Leading by example, definitely. Piling vegetables on my plate and looking like I am enjoying them is a sure-fire way to make my daughter desperate to grab and try them too.

make the food into a story using the veg and mixing it with the foods they do like

I make lots of homemade soups, loaded with varies veg and if it turns out to be an odd colour such as bright green, I just call it Shrek soup and they'll happily eat it.

I make puddings with fruits in. Cakes with vegetables such as beetroot, carrots, courgettes or parsnips in and then only tell them after they have eaten it. We play guess the veg!

Add loads of vegetable to the meal, such as in lasagnes, sauces, casseroles etc and I dice the veg very small, so it takes a lot of effort to dissect it from the meal, although sometimes my daughter will make that effort.

I serve different fruits at breakfast time, prepared and sliced ready to eat. Blueberries with breakfast pancakes or sprinkled on cereal or porridge.

Mainly though I show them through eating a wide range of fruit and veg myself and enjoying them.

I just let mine try things and we try and model trying new things too.

I think if kids are hungry they'll eat.

I also cut things a bit smaller as I remember as a child not liking the big bits of veg in sauces.

Give them fruit and vegetables.

I take DD to the green grocers with me and let her choose some interesting veg. She's more likely to eat the veg she's chosen (though this doesn't always work!)

We grow some of our own fruit and veg and involve her, which helps too.

I also blend vegetables in sauces to hide some.

I think I'm lucky that my DD eats most things so I don't have to worry too much!

We always turn food into smiley faces or objects like rockets and cars, so you can get a multitude of different veggies and fruits into their food and they don't tend to complain, ours love omelettes with faces made from peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and onion, and we had hours of fun cutting hedgehog shapes from melon! :)

Giving a large variety and not making a big deal about - the more they fell they have to the less they will. Eat with them and let them take from your plate - always tastes better from some-one else plate.
Fruit smoothies with a bit of yoghurt in go down a treat.
incorporate the veg into something helps too - like little pasties which are more veg than anything else.
Veg sauces.

COTTAGE PIE or corned beef pie and i chop veg small and hide in there.
Also make ice lollies from puree fruit

No special recipies. Feed kids the same dinner as the adults, no fuss, if they don't eat it, they don't get something else instead.

I have found that if they aren't keen on eating fruit and vegetables that it's good to try offering it to them in different ways. So for example my daughter will not eat bananas, but likes banana flavoured things so I assume it's the texture she doesn't like. So as an alternative I give her dried banana chips, which she loves! Same with pineapple.

Fruit smoothies and tubes like the ones from innocent are great for getting fruit into them too.

If they aren't keen on cooked veg, try raw and see what they think. Mine both prefer raw carrot with a dip over cooked carrots.

Pizza topping and pasta sauces are also a great way of hiding vegetables, by blending them into the sauce.

My best hidden veg are the ones I add to my spaghetti bolognaise. You can add grated carrots beans and even sweet corn, and it is all hidden so they cant complain!

Grate veg into favourites - eg courgette or carrot into mac and cheese. They rarely even notice!

I mixed mashed potato and cauliflower together and you cant beat bolognase sauce for hiding finely chopped veg!

I tend to add veg to my sauces, either as chunks or blended afterwards, also if there are any particular thinks my kids don't like I don't force them to have it, just encourage them to eat more of what they do. I also season and try not to overcook the veg to

I add sugar-free jelly to fruit, and make delicious soup with vegetables, they both slip down a treat and the kids barely know the fruit and veg are there!

A little bribery always works for me!!

Make things like cottage pie and spaghetti bolognese that you can hide vegetables in, cut up very small

Chips made from blanched and roasted celeriac chunks, and sweet potatoes.

Veg tempura - cauliflower -deep fried in light batter.

Onion bhajis.

Cauliflower and/or broccoli in cheese sauce.

Root vegetable mash - mashed potatoes, swedes sweet potatoes, carrots and/or celeriac. Season and add a dollop of butter.

Salad offered with lunch and dinner. Coleslaw. Beetroot - not pickled is lovely and sweet - delicious with savoury dishes.

Fruit lollies made from 50/50 pureed mango and orange juice.

Stir fries including water chestnuts and bamboo shoots.

Home-made banana 'bread' - 4 ounce sr flour, some dried fruit, walnuts, 2 eggs and four very ripe bananas mixed together and cookied in a 1lb loaf tin for approx. 50 minutes.

Fruit after breakfast and for morning snack.

Veg as standard with dinner.

Sooooop!

Olives and crudités.

Vegetable crisps.

I always make sure i have fruit & veg in the house and when they say they are hungry I offer them that if they say no i don't want that then i reply well you are not hungry then (they are normally after junk)lol. If they are genuinely hungry they will eat the fruit or the veg then they get a treat after their tea.

add the to pasta or pizza etc

getting mine to add their own fruit to things oftern works, obviously they need help if they want something cut but letting them make the choice works for us.

I just keep offering them and don't force the matter. My little one is very picky but if everyone else is having some he will sometimes have a little taste. He once ate a bowl of strawberries when he thought no one was watching!!

Always put the veg on their plate, even if they don't like it now the chances are their tastes will change and they will start to eat it

be creative, make smiley faces and animal shapes that appeal and they cant resist