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

give them smaller portions but with many different vegetables

I hide lots of vegetables in dishes such as chilli con carne and stews.

In summer I try to make food look colourful and fun to look at, adding lots of raw chopped and grated fruit and vegetables, as well as home made healthy smoothies.

One tip: If you have some ripe bananas left over, chop them up and pop them in the freezer... they taste very similar to ice-cream and are always a hit.

Some great ideas here. My suggestion is to keep trying things in different formats eg my DD hates carrots but she'll happily eat grated carrot in sauces or even with salad dressing, she loves cherry tomatoes but not tinned tomatoes, doesn't like sweetcorn but enjoys the occasional corn on the cob.

my children enjoy helping in the kitchen and are both healthy eaters, they both pack their own lunchboxes. They love making smoothies and get to make their own concoctions and decorate them with chopped dried fruit and choc sprinkles to make it fun.

I get them to help me cook x I also cut up veg in shapes they love

I blend fruit into yoghurts , veg into mash and banana into eggs (yes it does work!) My son eats it all :) I'm all for getting kids to choose to eat healthy but if they simply refuse the only way sometimes is to hide it 😏

Try and eat a healthy diet myself, so my children eat the same as me and follow suit.

My DD was very fussy, I used to have to hide certain foods, like carrots and parsnips by mashing it in with potato. DS will eat anything. Both love fruit which is a bonus for healthy eating. And we only allow sweets on Saturdays.

Eating the same food as them helps them encourage to eat healthy food .

Make them part of the cooking process. If they know how to make a pasta sauce they will be less likely to rely on sugar laden shop bought ones when they are older. We also make pizzas and give lots of healthy options for toppings and don't ban treats, but make sure they are a treat rather than a staple of mealtime

I try to eat as healthily as I can and I hope this passes across to them.

My daughter eats pretty healthy but to add more veg to her dinners, I blend up more veg in sauces for pasta like carrots and for Bolognese I cut up the veg really small she doesn't really notice and I always have a full fruitbowl that she can reach and now she'll take fruit over sugar filled snacks

Hide fruit and veg in smoothies.

I find that by adding different sauces you can get them to eat the veggies until they become accustomed to the taste.

I (attempt to) draw minions on bananas. I also try and make faces or tell them stories about their food.

I feel very strongly about healthy eating for my children. I encourage them to help me prepare healthy meals as they seem to really enjoy this. They also are more willing to try new foods when they are preparing them themselves. I also turn healthy foods into finger foods as they enjoy this as well - e.g. - carrot sticks. My kiddies prefer to have fruit than sweets so i must be doing something right :-)

Make pictures with food incorporating the vegetables into the picture such as this vegetarian spaghetti bolognese

Eating together as a family eating the same meal 😊

My two always eaten lots of fresh fruit, my tip would be to cut up into pieces to nibble, where the taste is always something you would eat too, we have red and yellow pepper 'smiles' (just slices) sweet grapes, apple slices, (laughs - they look like a toothy smile when cut) , satsuma smiles. Make it fun, make it interesting, make it crunchy, and if they don't want to try. just use a very small piece, and praise if they try, and take it away and try again another day if they don't try.

start them young and they wobnt know any better!

Don't ever feed them rubbish, then they'll never know any different.

We always cook and bake together which he really enjoys and is nearly always healthier than shop bought meals! I also tell him he'll be big and strong if he eats healthy :)

My son used tougher terribly with constipation, and we were told by the paediatrician to use prune juice...it's amazing how many things you could put it in! Spag Bol, chilli, curry, gravy....! Then there's the whole 'hidden vegetable' game, but most parents are wizards when it comes to blending carrots and swede for mash and sauces,so that's a no brainer. Also, have you tried the coloured food game? Perhaps choose a lot of red foods (or any particular colour) and talk about how they all taste different, although they're the same colour - eg: watermelon, ketchup, tomatoes and red cabbage. Also talk about how they're prepared, maybe make something with their favourite in....it all helps break down food barriers!

Well worth getting a good quality blender to sneak in some extra fruit and veg into fun smoothies

I'm actually quite lucky and my daughter likes to eat healthy food anyway so I've never had to get creative with it. I just tell her that the food is tasty and she tries it :)