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 always encourage my children to help me prepare food so they can enjoy the process especially when it comes to preparing healthy meals from preparing pasta , pizzas , vegetables with a twist and making there own yoghurts with fresh fruit and natural yoghurt kids love eating there own food that they have helped prepare.

Calling raw carrot sticks chips!

I always found it good to get my son involved in choosing, buying, making food and giving him more choice to try things. But always keeping a tight rein on what options were available and keeping the choices healthy and avoiding junk food.

I always hide vegetables in their favourite food e.g. lots of carrots iand celery in bolognese

My children used to eat a healthy diet when they were small, but now that they are young adults, I wish their diet was still as healthy and less junk food.

Making funny faces and patterns seems to work a treat with my four! They always share a plate of fruit before bed

When they were small hiding fruit and veg in various meals was a must, but I also found that getting them familiar with tasting and helping to cook, bake with different foods helped them to like them as did seeing the adults in the house eating healthily

My daughter loves raw veg but hates it cooked. If she leaves the veg on her plate I just make sure she makes up for it by snacking on piles of chopped veg and hummus.

We encourage healthy eating in our house by talking a lot about why it is important to exercise and be healthy and we also use the superhero technique a lot 'spiderman eats loads of spinach' or 'Captain America loves his peas' which bizarrely seems to have a great effect!

Bringing them up to think that fruit is a normal snack as well as the sugary stuff. Also not putting too much pressure on just eating veg as they soon start to rebel and say they don't like it.

As a family we have made a concerted effort to get healthier and amongst other things my partner bought herself a FitBit to record her steps, activities etc. This fascinated our daughter who immediately wanted one for herself, so we have told her that she can have one, if she eats healthier food for a period of time, as regular exercise is only part of living a healthier lifestyle.

when making mashed potatoes, we put sweetcorn, carrots and peas in it as well so that the boy gets his five a day

I found letting children help create healthy meals works well, & also learning about what food does, like milk has calcium for strong teeth & bones.

I think encouraging them to get involved with the preparation and cooking helps them to enjoy it more and definitely having lots of fruit in the fruit bowl to choose from. Let them see you being healthy too but also having the odd treat too.

To be honest we don't really have any issues with healthy eating as theres no other choice in our house. Its either eat the food offered or don't. I think its important to tell them why eating badly can effect you and how good food looks after your body

I make it the norm so since they were little they have had vegetables. My yoiungest will eat the veg before anything else, she even steals carrots and peas from her sister. Cucumber and sweetcorn are their absolute favourites. I don't force them, but they will usually voluntarily eat vegetables, but if they don't I won't make a huge issue of it and I'll just ask them nicely.

I encourage my son to help with shopping first so he can choose the fruit and veg he wants to try, he can't have anything else until eaten meal (not all of it but at least tried it) and fruit, sometimes he is full anyway after this and he also likes to chop up food and help prepare meals sometimes.

let them make the tea with you, this always helped mine....also a few little white lies. My kids were convinced that runner beans helped you run fast , sprouts made you have muscles and carrots obviously make you see in the dark. I told them vegetables and fruit are where super powers came from hahah

DS1 has never been a fan of veggies but he will eat fruit (well blueberries, raspberries and bananas) by the bucket load. Recently he has been trying a few vegetables here and there. I am trying to teach him about food that is good for him vs food that should be eaten occasionally. However he is only 4 so its still a work in progress. DS2 is nearly two and has always been good with veg but wont eat fruit, but recently has started being fussy with veg. I am trying to just be consistent and ensure we all eat good wholesome meals but we do have treats too. Life is too short! I will persevere with offering fruit and veg and hope that one day they will embrace it.

We used to love cutting vegetables into fun shapes. It worked surprisingly well!

We used to sit together studying photos in a recipe book and make it together. It was a good way of starting his interest in food. Before cooking we'd study some of the ingredients online. Where in the world they are grown, why they are good for you etc. Once you've got their interest you'll find that they are more keen to eat it.

My DCs aren't really that fussy when it comes to vegetable but I do put them in many of the meals that I cook such as shepherds pie, lasagne, casserole and chilli. It all helps them to get essential vitamins and minerals.

I find if I get them involved with the cooking evern just a small job in the kitchen makes them think they have achieved something and they will try almost anything so it's a great idea to prepare healthy dishes to get them to try new flavours and tastes.

Definitely get them to help with the cooking - and make sur that the baking you do with them as a fun way to spend an afternoon, isn't just about making cupcakes. yes it's fun icing biscuits, but it's also fun making pizza, whizzing up houmous or baking bread.

The best way I found to encourage mine to eat fruit is by chopping up a whole range of fruits and serving it on a platter with some skewers for the children to make their own fruit kebabs, Works a treat everytime