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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Its easy really. Simply cook healthy food. If you only make and offer healthy food they will eat it. There are many recipes and foods that are very tasty but also healthy. In my childrens case it led to them naturally choosing good options at school lunch times.

I have done a blind taste test with my daughter and she has tried new things - she will say she doesn't like something - yet if she can't see it and tastes it - she will say she does - sometimes the taste is better than the look.

Make the meal as colourful as possible, kids always find it more appealing :)

We had real issues getting our LO to eat healthy things. Howevr, we decided to get more creative and make it more visually appealing. Instead of a bowl of fruit, we cut it up and made faces on his plate. This definitely helped and now he eats very well! :) x

I'm veggie and my DH eats meat, so the kids get to choose which version of dinner they get. They both contain lots of healthy ingredients though and the kids get to help with preparing the food - I think this makes them more eager to eat it, as they've helped.

As PP really:
Eat healthily ourselves
Have something new + something familiar on the plate e.g she loves sweet corn, so usually include that
Afters is yoghurt if at all

Treats aren't associated as being food, they aren't for if all main meal is eaten. They happen occasionally for extra good behaviour

Drinks are water or cow's milk. Sometimes watered down fresh juice at the weekend so we can have a gap before teeth brushing

Talk about being healthy & strong rather than 'good' & ask to have a feel of muscles after a reluctant mouthful has been eaten

Fruit, veg, cheese & rice cakes or crackers in the car

Reachable fruit bowl always has one item in each for DC to eat (any more & they become a toy, like all get peeled & only one eaten)

My DD can be fussy (despite exposing her to all different kinds of food when she was little) but I've discovered a lot of it is more about texture than taste. E.g. she won't eat vegetables if served on the same plate as certain dishes because 'the sauce gets on them and makes them go soggy'. So reluctantly I've taken to giving her the veg on a separate plate and she will then eat it (although I still sometimes have to nag!). She hates cooked carrots so at home, she has them raw (even with a hot meal) - they're healthier anyway and at least she eats them then. Oranges get scoffed down quickly if they are cut into 'boats'.

I chop up veg into batons and put in the fridge so realty handy when competing with biscuits for a quick snack.

My kids are very good with healthy food and my 6yr old DD will help peel carrots and put veg into pans to cook. I am in the process of getting her, her own safe knife to use to encourage her even more in the kitchen.

I find if he's helped prepare it he's much more likely to eat it! Plus we give a lot of praise and occasionally rewards for trying new foods, he finds it exciting when he occasionally finds a new one he likes.

We try to eat a variety of different and healthy foods, so they try different things. We way the same things with them to encourage them to eat them. I find with my children what works the best is getting them involved in making or preparing their food, they are more likely to eat or try it then, and they do enjoy helping in the kitchen. Some meals we will add vegetables to it so they don't know. Like when we do a bologniase, I will blend begs up and add it to the sauce. We will praise them for trying new food and we have recently purchased these new plates for the children which are amazing. Fred winner dinner trays, they are brill. It's like A board game and it's in 8 sections and at the end when they've eaten all the food they get a treat in the last section.

My daughter always arranges her food to make a picture before eating it.

i tell them they need to eat greens to be brainy

Having fun with food and letting them get involved! Making rainbows out of fruit and veg, letting them make their own pizzas and sprinkle the toppings, growing fruit and veg in the garden then encouraging them to try it.

First off I always promote 'safe choices' - I have found that giving a child a choice but obviously both a healthy choice encourages the child to take ownership of their decision and then they tend to eat it as they chose it! So I might say ok would you like Cauliflower Cheese or Carrot sticks and peas..... I also do try to make food fun and pimp up the vegetables. My children love Brussel Sprouts as I bake them in breadcrumbs

Make healthy veggie versions of favourite meals such as courgetti bolognese or sweet potato chips, and cauliflower rice.

We offer healthy snacks and treats such as carrot and pepper sticks when our daughter is hungry between meals. Biscuits are a very special treat and certainly not an everyday snack. Our daughter thinks raisens, bran flakes and breadsticks are a massive treat because we've taught her that, she doesn't even know sweet exist ... Yet!

Getting them involved with the growing side certainly helps - it's an excited dash each allotment visit to see if any radishes, beans, strawberries etc. are ready.

tell them they can't have it, then they're bound to eat it lol

I always do my popular pasta/ Bolognese sauce with red peppers, onions and sometimes even with CARROTS. But when it's all finely cut and mixed with the rest of the dinner like pasta or spaghetti, nobody knows any better and they haven't got any reason whatsoever to complain!

My kids like to get involved with preparing and if they choose what fruit and vegetables they want to try out next then they eat them more. My eldest is also easier to convince with explaining what they're good for and with my youngest it's whatever favourite superhero of the week survives on

I love getting my daughter involved with all the aspects of cooking and she loves to create, which is what makes it fun.
Good luck to everyone.

Instilling good habits from weaning. Eating together at the table and enjoy your food in front of them. Don't use food as treats or bribery, get them trying a range of things from the start. Don't make a big deal if thy refuse anything!

I find all the fashioning foods into pictures really twee and annoying so we never do that! But I do find that involving them in menu planning, shopping and choosing produce, and cooking really helps engage them and get them keen to try all sorts of foods.

my daughter is so so fussy she will only eat very few foods. My tips are:

Making her pancakes with coconut milk and oat flour and almond flour included in the ingredients (batch cook the recipe and freeze in portions)

Putting vegetable powder in her gravy

When her friends are round, get the healthy snack out (she eats it together as she doesn't want to feel left out!)

Buying low sugar/low salt tomato ketchup, beans, and soup

Giving her the instant noodles she likes but adding olive oil instead of the usual satchet of additives