How do you make fruit and veg fun to help your children reach their five a day? Share your ideas with Change4Life for a chance to win a £300 voucher NOW CLOSED

[EllieMumsnet]

We all know that fruit or veg is the healthiest option, but it can sometimes be tricky to get your children eating their 5 a day. With that in mind, Change4Life would like to hear about the ways you make fruit and veg fun so your children happily tuck in to the fruit and veg on offer.

Whether you arrange fruit and veg into faces, create fruit kebabs or have other creative ways to make fruit and veg fun - share your tips and ideas below.

Feel free to share images of your creations if you have any!

All who leave a comment below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

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Cut them into bite size

Ours all love to puick their own strawberries from our huge patch, we then wash and prepare them and hand them around whilst sat on the patio. The kids love picking their own and eating them. It's the same in autumn with blackberries :)

My son is a nightmare even at 10 years old when it comes to fruit and veg intake and is still a very fussy eater. I try to encourage him to eat as much of the fruit that he likes as at least that is something, and veggies I tend to blend into tomato sauces for pasta bakes and spag bol.

Our son was quite good at eating vegetables (but even now he wont eat sprouts)!

When I had difficulty in getting him to eat I used to put up a tent in the living room and would take our bowls from the kitchen out for a picnic in the living room and I would say to him, lets zip up the door and pretend we are having a picnic somewhere else.... where would you like our tent to be? we travelled to castles, dragon caves, hot air balloons, beaches, disneyland and loads of other places while we ate our veggies!

Mine are older so we have fun smoothie shakes, fruit salads and love adding fruit to breakfast. But the kids have always enjoyed eating fruit.

I cook for my nieces and nephew and though they are excellent eaters there are some tricks I use to sneak in those extra veggies. I puree veg which they struggle to eat whole in pasta sauces. I also roast up veggies as it often brings out different flavours in them. I also put veggies on pizza bases by again mashing them up so they don't know they are there on their plates! Fruit has never been an issue as most fruits are naturally so sweet.

Oh without doubt let them cook with you, they love helping and half the time don't even realise its veg they are eating.
Fruit kebabs are fab for little ones too.

Get kids to make their own smoothies or smoothie ice lollies

I let my 5yo help with the cooking, e.g. chop vegetables, count potatoes into the pan while the younger one watches and that seems to really help them both eat their vegetables. DC1 is always very proud to tell his dad that he helped make the dinner.

Other than that, if one child is eating the fruit/veg, that makes the other one want it too, so sibling rivalry can work in our favour!

We have fruit or veg with every meal.
The kids love fresh smoothies & enjoy coming up with new mixes they want to try.

We don't really have a problem in this department but we do try to get them to have a healthy snack (banana etc....) before they then have a treat to balance things out.

Make sure they see you eating lots of fruit, use fruit to make smoothies and make sure you have fruit in bowls round the house so its easy to get to and eat.

I find that growing our own where we can, and having the whole family help, means everyone seems to love fruit and veg.

Fortunately, my 3 year old has always liked fruit and he sees me and his dad eating lots of veg with meals so I think it's normal for him.

Sometimes he comes to the supermarket with us and he can pick out the fruit himself (under supervision- we don't want any scabby bruised fruit bandied about! lol) and I think that gets him more involved and interested.

Fruit, veg and salad stuff is always in our home and he's pretty free to snack on healthy stuff We don't really have biscuits etc in the house often (coz mummy can't be trusted) so it's never an issue that he's demanding sweets...

we have a sticker chart with yellow, red, green and orange and when I make a meal they get a sticker for each colour they have eaten, we have snacks of red and yellow peppers, carrots which I offer with my hummus dip. It has turned my fussy eaters into adventurous tasters with stickers on their jumpers which they wear with pride.

Apart from getting them to help grow our own and prepare them for meal times to get them interested and eat it we also try and get as many different colours of fruit and veg for meal times.

My son is not keen on eating cooked vegetables so we provide plenty of raw carrots, peppers and even broccoli.

The other approach we take is to 'hide it' in a dish where they can't be seen. We bulk up chilli con carne with grated carrot and courgette and make plenty of soups to keep him topped up with his 5 a day!

For my eldest eating fruit and veg is not a problem, but my youngest is a different matter.
We've tried lots and lots of different things, but bribery (if you eat everything on your plate, you can have desert) seems to be the only thing that works at the moment. And that only sometimes.

start them off early letting them taste as many different fruit and veg as possible and ive found with all 3 of mine that has worked.

I am lucky that my kids aren't too bad with eating fruit but veggies can be a problem. I try and explain how important they are to eat and have tried things like making faces and kebabs out of them but they still complain so now I hide them in most of their food without them knowing by doing things such as grating carrots into pasta sauce and hiding veggies under food.

i make smoothies and juices and get the kids to help make them and they come up with their own concoctions which is fun! A fruit platter is also good as they can pick what they like and try something new

at the moment I am trying to introduce smoothies into my household so that I can pack as much fruit as possible into them

Plenty of variety, cooked to perfection and never soggy, and included (hidden) in wraps and sauces and just always there, on every plate of food

I'm not painting everyone with the same brush but I think in many cases, parents are to blame for children not enjoying fruit and veg. The children aren't given it from the get go, and if they are given it and don't like it, the parents don't bother giving it to them.
We make it fun by letting the kids prepare it, into silly faces, making pizza from just veg, it's just part of our usual diet and the kids think nothing of it now.

Fruit is always offered to children at the end of their meal. It's the pudding - apart from when it's a special occasion. Fruit is on the table all-day and kids can always see it and it's always their favourites.
Try making some fruit 'special' like raspberries or strawberries that only get bought every couple of weeks. Make the kids LOVE it even more.