Share your tricks for encouraging kids to eat healthily with Soreen - chance to win a £300 voucher NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

Behind every child's balanced diet is a healthy portion of creativity, and Soreen want to find out about all the imaginative ways in which you jazz up healthy foods to make them more appealing for your DCs.

Here’s what Soreen has to say: “At Soreen we created our individually wrapped lunchbox loaves to feature our malt loaf character, in order to keep lunchtime and snack time healthy but exciting for young children. We’re always trying to come up with new ways to help children make heathier choices and would love to hear how you do this with your DCs.”

So how do you make healthier food choices more fun? Do you fashion food into faces? Draw smiles on bananas and egg shells? Or even blend fruit and vegetables to hide them completely?

Share your creative ways of making healthy eating more fun below and you will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

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I love being creative with fruit and veg to make animals my son absolutely loves it. I'm certain it makes him more interested. I must admit most of the time I do it for when we have guests or for special occasions.

Thanks for this reminder I'll have to get some ideas off Pinterest for some more! I've attached some ideas

My boys will eat healthy food in plain sight but they like to have a little story about the food, like "who's going to eat their carrots like a little bunny in the field?", or "the giant is eating all the trees (brocolli)!" And they like to know which bit of their body it's good for. They say "is this making my bones strong, mummy or my brain?" :-)

My two will eat healthily anyway, but I often make pictures with their meals just for fun - faces with veg etc. As a pp said, they live a story to go with their food, and they also like to know what a particular food us good for - strong bones, healthy skin, good for growing etc.

On a Sunday we sit and plan our meals for the week and write them on the blackboard in the kitchen. Everyone gets to choose two meals and it has to have veg with it.

Gives our DD a sense of ownership over meals but they remain for the whole family.

We cook together! Bread, pizza, soups etc.

We also meal plan. I write down 7 meals and DS gets choose which day we have each meal.

Making animals/faces out of food works.

I have to do a mixture of things to encourage my DC. DS1 likes to refuse anything that could possibly be healthy - I do have to hide veg in sauces to make sure he gets some. DS2, however, would rather have a salad than some sweets - he will try anything and always goes for healthy.
I don't make faces or anything but I always put veg on their plate and give lots of praise for trying. I do try to buy what's in season so we do try different things at different times of the year which I think helps to give variety.

Lots of rainbow colours on the plate makes it fun.

I get my DD involved in the cooking. She's just turned 2 so will do simple things like tearing up peppers, mixing, pouring ingredients, cutting shapes out of wholemeal bread, etc. She enjoys being involved in the meal making process.

We have encouraged our son to eat fruit and veg since weaning so he is used to it. Now at 3 he also believe fruit and veg will make him strong like power rangers. We tell him how big his muscles are getting.

I also try and make it interesting for him, not to the scale of making animals but things like new dips for veg sticks. At the moment one of his favourite lunches is carrot, cucumber and pitta sticks with a tuna cheese dip.

We also have a rule that he has to try everything on his plate, luckily he loves veg so never had a problem. Anything with meat on it on the other hand!

I think the biggest thing you can do is for the adults of the house to eat healthy food and model trying new foods - and everyone eats the same food. No such thing as childrens food here

Yes, I agree with CMOT. I don't want DS to see having a healthy balanced diet as a chore..."eat all your vegetables to get your pudding" etc. I don't, and never have really, hide fruit and veg or make pictures, just provided tasty meals and tried to cater to DS's tastes a bit, for example, he hates mushrooms so I won't give him mushrooms but he loves mango so a nice ripe mango is a big treat.
I also teach him about food - protein helps your muscles grow, fibre helps you poo and so on so he has an understanding of why a healthy diet is important.

We all eat together and I cook everyone the same meal which often one of the kids will turn their nose up at! I try to accommodate different tastes as they like the polar opposite food and veg but at the end of the day, they have to just eat what's on their plates! I think fussing about food isn't helpful - we just praise them always for trying something new or finishing everything on the plate!

My Son has a true phobia of fruit and vegetables and it makes life difficult where food and healthy eating is concerned. We ask him to try things and he tries very hard but it often ends in tears, or in the worst case him being sick. I try to get as much vegetables into him in the form of pureed homemade soup and he tolerates baked beans. Fruit is more difficult and dried fruit bars are all we manage. We eat as a family and he sees us eat them. We give praise and allow him to help cook, choose meals etc but it's psychology.

Always have a well-stocked fruit bowl for handy snacks. It makes them less likely to pick at other stuff.

I do tend to chop the veg small and conceal them in a dish to prevent fussiness.

On occasions I do make faces etc out of larger veg to encourage the kids to try them.

Make sure you set a good example by eating lots of veg yourself!

We are vegetarian so diet has lots of veg in anyway. DD we have never had to do anything for - if it was up to her she would survive on fruit and nothing else! DS (2) isn't so easy but we do find he prefers stolen food so often load our own plates and assume he will eat that, because for some reason even exactly the same food on his own plate isn't as appealing

I lie about the magical properties of different veg. Red peppers make you run faster, so if you don't eat them that's fine, now I'll be faster than you... parsnips give you rocket trumps, so don't eat them or you'll be trumping to the ceiling. Oh look, they've been eaten.

I used to chop mine up carrots, peppers etc. and put them in a little bowl for car journeys - they saw it as a treat :)

We tell her how healthy food will make her healthy, grow, strong, run fast etc. We tell her the nutrients in each of the foods she's eating and the good it does for her body. Also add veggies wherever we can - eg grated carrot can go in so many things such as pasta sauce.

I tell my DS6 that the healthy veggies will make him grow tall and strong. He is quite limited in what he will eat but often asks for more tomatoes or cucumber when he wants a snack. Some veg I hide in a meal by cutting up small as he will not eat cooked tomatoes or cooked onion - doesn't stop him eating my bolognaise sauce though....

I have 4 children and they're all great eaters luckily. I have always encouraged them to explore food and it's preparation and it's taste/texture/smell.
We especially like 'rainbow' food at the moment and my 4 year old helped to make a rainbow veggie pizza for Valentine's Day (pic included)
I portion up a whole load of fruit and veg in tubs in lunchbox baskets in the fridge so they can make their own school lunches everyday and they always take 2-3 pots of fruit and veg plus and sandwich, some cheese and a bottle of water.

Forgot the picture!

I do find they are more likely to eat healthy foods if they help create them. Whether it's peeling, or chopping, even washing fruit and veg. Make it even more fun by wearing an apron and a chefs hat if you've got one. It doesn't always work, but I do find they are more interested in trying new foods when they have helped make them.

We are lucky enough to have a vegetable patch in our garden, so we get the children involved in planting seeds, and then picking fruit and veg!

We've been putting our fruit onto a stick and turning it into a magic fruit wand this week too!