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

Broccoli has become Dinosaur Trees and you have to roar when you eat it. We have competitions to see how many peas or corn can fit on a spoon and then eaten without any falling off. And I hide pureed veg in sauces.

We don't have any problem getting the boys to eat fruit so no trickery has been required.

Veg starters before tea. Just something like raw carrot or cucumber but stops them hanging off me apparently dying from starvation whilst I'm trying to finish off cooking.

Homemade vegetable soup with a ton of veges cooked gently in stock then blended, with a bit of cream or crème fraiche stirred through. Chicken noodle stirfry with a stirfry bag of vegetables, I used to blitz the vegetable quite small before cooking when DC were little, but I don't any more. They will eat anything in the form of crudites dipped in houmous.

Fruit isn't a problem in our house but if it was I would blend it and stir it in to greek yoghurt.

We do the usual hidden veg sauces for pasta, curries etc. My DS2 refuses to be near a banana, yet weirdly loves banana pancakes (just egg and banana whizzed up and fried as small pancakes). I also find that veg go down better when we eat as a family and the kids serve themselves from serving bowls rather than me just serving up for them when they eat separately.

I keep offering different types of fruit and vegetables on their plates. No big deal if they don't like it but great if they do as I can add something else into their staple meal plans.

My tips are:

• fruit bowl accessible to all and well stocked
• I always offer fruit and veg along side/after meals
• veg or minestrone soup always popular with all
• I blitz spinach into lots of things (e.g. cheese sauce, tomato sauce)
• I blitz ratatouille and use as red sauce, pizza base sauce, base for chill
• little pots with chopped veg in packed lunches everyday
• add veggies (grated carrot, sliced toms, cucumber) to sandwiches
• grated courgette is easily disappeared into stuff (fritters, red sauce etc)
• vegetable stir fry is a popular meal
• tinned fruit in juice as an occasional treat
• peel and cook up aging apples into compote to serve with porridge etc.

Leading by example, they see me snack on raw carrots and we eat loads of veg as we are a vegetarian household. My lot are also keen on helping out in the kitchen and find they are far keener on something they've helped cook and like prepping veggies for the lunch box too.

Keep serving them up, don't make a big deal of what they do/ don't eat.

Letting DD do the prep and chopping of any fruit or veg we'll be having. I find this gets her much more interested and she usually laps them up as they become "hers" and she loves the praise i give her for her yummy cooking skills when we sit down to eat.

Also for salads, fun cookie cutters can help too, for example i have a little flower one for cucumber.

Now, if someone could give me some tips on how to get dd to eat meat instead of always wanting fruit and veg i'd be eternally grateful

My daughter absolutely loves fruit but if we try and introduce a new fruit she's incredibly suspicious until I eat it myself saying 'yummy yummy'. If I put a small amount on her tongue to prove it's not poisonous (!) she'll try it.

Vegetables she's Ok with but best if cooked in tomato juice, the kind you get in a tertrapak carton. Any veg cooked with this juice is gobbled up.

Cut up fruit and raw veg before dinner when they are starving

Cut up fruit with lemon juice on to zing it up. Eat this as "telly snack"

Grate all the veg you can; carrot, sweet potato, courgette, bns into sauce for pasta, curry or stew

Everyone have the same, a lot of the time if they see a parent eat it they will try it. For my son who is a food refuser I try to make it as exciting as possible, a smiley face or a pretty pattern but i never hide it ir lie to get him to try it as next time he won't believe me and won't even try. Don't make eating it a big thing though just keep it as normal as possible.

No snacks in the morning except fruit, no snacks at all in the afternoon. Means DS is much more likely to clear his plate and eat his veg. (Nb, I may not always stick to this). Put really tiny portions on the plate, don't overload it. He can always ask for more.

Never make a big deal of it, and start them young!
My 2yo dd will ask for carrots and pears as snacks now.. waits for the regression stage and I eat my words..

Loads and loads of hidden veg in any pasta sauce, soup or stew.

When I cook anything with spinach, we do the before and after test. We put a chair in front of the children before dinner with one of us secretly stepping onto the chair, making it impossible to lift. The children try but are not strong enough.

After they have eaten all their spinach, they are miraculously able to lift the chair and are well chuffed about how strong they are. It's great fun and I'm terrified of when it will stop working.

The 4 year old narrowed her eyes last time and asked why my foot was on the chair. She is definitely on to us

You can get an awful lot of veggies into "carrot" soup. As long as it has enough carrots in it to make it orange, they don't question it

Dip it in chocolate! Plates of fruit slices and a small bowl of melted chocolate.

Chopped carrot sticks/peppers/cucumbers with mackerel pate and/or hummus

When they were little I used to do mashed potato "mountain" with broccolli "trees". Have never ever made food into a face though!

Homemade milk shakes, using banana and frozen raspberries for example, get them involved in choosing the fruit and watching it whizz up in the blender

Make it such an everyday thing that it's nothing to think about. Veg comes with a meal, fruit is a snack.

Another one who blends into pasta sauce and soup etc. Also getting them into cook, pizzas are a favourite here too.

Keep offering, don't be put off if they don't like it first time, offer again in a few days, then again and again. DD now eats mushrooms after years of refusing them!!

My two have no problem eating fruit, but they aren't keen on vegetables. Especially anything green.

I do a good line of soups though, and blend all my veggies in to them!

Don't assume you know what your child will like before they try it. In my experience children much prefer raw vegetables to cooked vegetables or fruit. They often don't like the texture of cooked veg and fruit can be quite acid for children, especially if it's not really ripe.

When ds was really small I sometimes used to push small bits of vegetable inside pasta penne...

i always offer fruit and keep a well stocked fruit bowl

if I wanted them to eat more fruit and veg I would lift the rationing on the amount they can eat. we have tears over not being allowed more. when nursery mentioned that they offered fruit as a snack I laughed. they assumed that dd would not eat fruit... no, I told them they would need to lock up the fruit bowl. dd once uttered that she much prefered fruit to biscuits or something. this is clearly not a trait she inherited from me.

as it is dd has: raisins, apricots and sultanas on her weeta bix. (three portions)

one portion of fruit for snack at school (banana if |I am organised enough to buy them)

one to two portions of fruit in her lunch, two portions of veggies (usually a tomato and some cucumber) sometimes sweetcorn and peas in a divided pot)

snack, one portion of veggies, one of fruit

teas usually has three portions of veggies in and one portion of fruit.

ds has less at breakfast and more salady stuff for lunch. (peppers, cabbage, mushroom) he eats homemade humous (can't affford shop bought in the quantities he consumes) and chopped tomatoes on toast for snack. (well this month anyway)

he is rationed to two bananas a day. he would eat a boat load.

we grow veggies in my mums garden and on the window sil.

we usualy eat the newly recommended ten portions per day. on a bad day only seven.