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

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

Blend up loads of vegetables as a base for pasta sauce!

Chop thr veg the kids don't like very small and chuck it in the bolognaise!

I take my DDs to a local PYO farm that has a strong kid-friendly ethos. My girls can follow the route from farm to plate, and love to help me cook the fresh produce. We talk about what good things the fresh vegetables will do to help our bodies (e.g. carrots to help us see in the dark, broccolli to give us Vit C to fight colds and iron to make our blood healthy). It is important for kids to understand why fresh fruit and vegetables are so good for us!!!

I love some of the creative food scenes on this thread. I've tried making pictures with food, but it never looks very good.

DS (aged 3) is quite fussy, although I am slowly seeing improvements. He eats fairly healthily because I try not to have too many processed/refined foods in the house. He does it far too many white carbs though.

To encourage a health relationship with food, I explain to DS (aged 3) that he needs certain foods for certain things - e.g. vegetables help him not to be ill, chicken and eggs make him strong enough to lift the table. He will then eat a load of egg and then try and lift the table. He is also quite intrigued with what dinosaurs eat, so if I say dinosaurs eat it, he is more likely to eat.

Other posters have mentioned getting children involved in cooking. DS always helps me cook, but often rejects the final dish, so I haven't seen the benefits of this strategy yet - perhaps it will come when he is older.

I never force him to eat it, but always ask him to taste a little bit, just to make sure he doesn't like it. Last night I asked him to try a little bit of my thai curry soup, he only had one mouthful but then admitted to me at bedtime he liked it - so hopefully he will eat more next time.

Haven't read TFT, has anyone mentioned edible glitter? DS 4 is good with most vegetables except green ones. So I dust some edible glitter on the broccoli and peas. I tell him those ones have the magic that makes his dreams sparkle!

Get them involved and make it fun!

Instead of ordering pizza make a homemade thin crust pizza with a rainbow of veggies on top, or let them write their names on it in pepper and sweetcorn

Make amazing big colourful platters of colourful raw veggies with homemade hoummous dips. Show them how rubbish and boring beige crisps and chips are.

My daughter is a really super fussy eater and getting her to eat is always a battle. I've discovered that although if I put vegetables on her plate she will usually refuse them, if she walks through the kitchen as I'm preparing them she usually asks for some. She'll pinch a whole raw carrot or something and munch it, I now find excuses to call her through the kitchen whilst I'm peeling 😉

A Honeydew melon is always transformed into a hedgehog..almost too cute to eat!-this one I've done since mine were tiny and they're still loving it! On whole mine have always loved their fruit and veg. (The Soreen lunch loaves are a great idea by the way and go down a treat!!

I involved my children as much as possible in food preparation as they were much more likely to eat things they have helped to cook.
I allowed my DS's to use vegetable knives (under close supervision) from a young age and they have never been irresponsible with them, chopping mushrooms was an early favourite as they are so easy to cut.

I'm not creative, but DD isn't allowed a cookie for dessert if she doesn't eat something from every type of food on her plate. I do blitz veg and hide it in the gravy and sauces though.

My dd loves it when I make a salad face - with cucumber eyes, tomato nose, pepper mouth, mushroom ears and grated carrot hair - eats it all up

I've tried everything with dad. She is a nightmare and so fussy.

I try to hide vegetables in things (like pizza sauce having lots of veggies blitzed up in it) and do healthier versions of things she likes and not tell her they are different (like sweet potato brownies). I also give her vegetables on her plate I know she probably won't eat and doesn't like on the basis there's always hope and always encourage her to taste them to see.

I often have fruit for a starter for dinner as she's at her most hungry so less likely to turn down food and this is the best way to get her to eat a decent amount of fruit.

Leave little plates of colourful chopped up peppers, carrot sticks, cucumber etc around. Mine could never resist trying them out.

Smoothies are great to and they are good things to put in the lunch box. Soreen individual loaves sound good must try them, mine already like the soreen malt loave.

I like to cut up fruit into tiny bites - this seems to go down well!

Reverse psychology works a bit for my fussiest, and adults always eating the same foods helps a lot. I always try to have a variety of colours on the plate.

The thing that really helped us was reducing anti-nutrients (specifically one called oxalate which is found in all plant foods) and environmental toxins (eg our tapwater was being contaminated with rust and chemicals from a damaged towel rail, which had corroded a valve and was leaking into the drinking water). That massively improved my son's eating, who at the time ate only 9 foods, which included no proteins, no veg and virtually no fruit.

Simply leading by example and not faffing about by making healthy options out to be something that needs to be disguised or presented in extraordinary ways. I wanted to make sure my children would eat most things without fuss, so they didn't embarrass me or themselves when eating away from home. I'm not very creative or patient, so I had to take a dull approach to healthy eating .

In the summer we go to pick your own and get new things to try ! And buy a new fruit or veg to try each month to try! And try it varied ways . I also found growing our own with the children that it help them to explore and open to try thing more too

With a 2 year old I'm sure I will need lots of tricks in the future. Currently a food tray with sections works well or anything on my plate. She asks to try things but if I were to say "try this" she would say no 80% of the time. I'm lucky she does enjoy food at the moment but I have no doubt I will be needing hidden veg recipes at some point.

We cook together and she loves peeling her hard boiled eggs!

My autistic son has refused green foods and most vegetables since weaning. We eat these things in front of him as role models and always ask if he'd like to try. One day I was drinking my kale spinach pineapple orange mango and kiwi smoothie and he took my glass and tasted. A few sips more and he was hooked and finished it for me. Newer force and never give up.

My dd is only 2 and recently has become a lot more adventurous with foods she will try which is nice.

I love how easy it is to get lots of veg into pasta sauces and make my own pizzas (or a slice of bread when in a rush!) and layer an assortment of cooked chopped veg under the cheese. She eats it as she sees cheese and by the time she notices the vegetables has realised that she likes them too.

I also make the most of her love of fruit and serve this often. If I do a little pot of grapes or blueberries etc for a packed lunch I chop up sugar snap peas or carrot to mix in with it too.

We're pretty lucky in that both DC tend to eat most fruit & veg we put in front of them - particular favourites are broccoli, carrots, peas, grapes, apples, and satsumas.
They do have to be served in specific ways though (!) - ie. the apple chopped into slices, the peas lined up, and the broccoli to be made into 'trees'! Whatever works though!!

I always take fruit in the car with me when I pick up the DCs from anywhere. They are usually hungry after being out and eat it without complaining.

We have what's generally known as "party tea".

This consists of a sandwich together with various fruit / veg chopped up such as sticks of raw pepper, strawberries, blueberries, banana,etc. Because it sounds fun, they eat it!

Fun swapouts e.g. sweet potato wedges instead of chips,
and a little concealment e..g extra veg in pasta sauce.

I hide vegetables in their food which is very satisfying!