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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I don't think you have to make fruit and veg 'fun' at the actual dinner table, I think children will eat them if they are involved in the buying/growing process. We dont have a garden but herbs on the windowsill or we bike to our local farm shop and pick out stuff - it creates a connection and they become invested if they can see where it comes from and are much more likely to eat it. We also go the supermarket and let my son pick out an unusual thing to try, baby kiwis or dragon fruit (even if theyre awful, its good to try) We've also always talked about what different fruit/veg gives our bodies since an early age and this seems to work for my son, understanding the benefits.

I've got a mini chopper, I do carrot, purple cabbage, yellow pepper etc. Brightly coloured veg chopped up tiny goes down so well & can be put in sauces or on its own with flavours like paprika or cumin.
Mine are older though, youngest is 10.
Finding a salad dressing they like is worth the trial & error too. Balsamic vinegar & olive oil goes down well here!

Fruit is the only food they're allowed to help themselves to without asking first.
I find the things in Lidl go down a treat as well I can't remember what they're all called now but it's like mini veg but called things like unicorn horns

Not fun as such - but I use my blender to purée lots of veg like carrots, celery, spinach, mushrooms (whatever I have) etc and add the veg mush into lots of dishes like bolognaise, mince for cottage pie, chilli etc

Not only does it bulk out the meat it adds lots of flavour to the dish (without changing the taste of what I'm making) and makes sure that there's loads of veg in a dish where you wouldn't normally expect it.

Fruit and vegetables have been on the menu from the start, and five a day part of what we eat chat.

One thing that did help was the reinforcement from school as part of healthy eating, so occasionally the children would ask me if they've eaten enough.

I haven't made it fun, per se, but I have been flexible in that one of mine didn't like much fruit apart from apples and pears, but loved carrots, sweetcorn and tomatoes; they enjoyed the novelty of being able to have those options after meals in place of fruit.

I don't give my children a choice - eating fruit and veg is compulsory but I am happy to serve the fruits and veg they enjoy most. My children love sweet food so fruit always features in our puddings - lots of crumbles in the winter, fruit tarts in summer.

we make fruit kebabs
weve made frozen fruit lollies
we tried the frozen yogurt and fruit dots.
and generally talking about the health benefits

Making vegetables and fruit fun for children to eat there 5 a day can be challenging but making food with vegetables or fruits so that they don’t even notice is the trick I have been doing it for years by chopping it so small and adding lots of flavours so they don’t realise there eating it my youngest children don’t even realise that smoothies are made of fruit they don’t like it but yet they drink it in a smoothie because they don’t know what’s in them they just drink it because they like the taste when it’s all blended up

Fruit isn't a problem; they both like it but vegetables get various treatment from being hidden to silly faces

My children all help to grow fruit and veg in our garden and greenhouse - so planting them and then helping them to grow encourages my children to enjoy their fruit and vegetables. I also encourage them to help me prepare fruit and veg for dinner/snacks - they can choose what shapes or forms they wuld like to create eg baton, slices, crinkled etc

Im quite lucky that my son likes his fruit and veg, probably more than any other food type! So I don't have to do much in the way of making it fun.

It is not a problem in our house because they have always liked them and they prefer them to anything like sweets and crisps.

Dd 5 has always liked fruit although to jazz it up at times I do fruit kebab.

Veg she's ok with but I find mixing them into good makes it easier. A favourite is bologneise sauce where I add chopped carrots and sometimes broccoli. I then blend it, occasionally adding Greek yoghurt, to make it lovely smooth and creamy.

Chicken vegetable stir fry and eating it with chop sticks to make it more fun is also a good idea.

I always get them to choose & help prepare dishes, makes the eating of them more fun when they’ve helped to make it themselves

We grow some veg and I involve my youngest.

We make a tomato sauce for our own pizzas and she loves putting veg on them - courgettes, peppers, mushrooms work well.

We have always eaten lots of fruit and veg so it is just a normal part of life.

Cream cheese dip (mix with some powdered onion soup - sounds dreadful but I promise it works - very 70s retro) and make crudites of carrots, peppers, celery etc to dip

My children love a creamy root bake and veggie sausages (chopped potato, carrots and celeriac in julienne strips baked in soya cream with salt, pepper and a few chilli flakes)

We also make nut rissoles with left over veg eg. carrots, mashed potato, beans, sprouts, ground nuts and coated in dried polenta and then fried

to make fruit and vegetables fun to eat for my kids i make smiley faces on their plates x

My great niece actually loves fruit & veg so we have no problems whatsoever but when my nephew was little I used to make pictures on his plate with his food & make up stories which encouraged him to eat them

I make food and mealtimes fun and try to get my DC to try new tastes, I began by mashing carrots and potato together when weaning, then went on to offering vegetables at snack time. I chose yellow and red peppers, apple and grapes for starters. When they were four or five they began to refuse some veg (carrots) a friend let me borrow her trusty shape cutter, it make food and mealtimes fun. When I make a stew I will add the vegetable shapes (hearts, triangles and smiley faces) and they go down a treat,

I always eat loads so setting a good example helps - try to ensure its fun rather than a chore

My children enjoy fruit faces at breakfast time we make an owl too using strawberry for feathers!

We have always ate lots of fruit and veg its just part of our daily life

We would make sure there was a variety of vegetables on their plate that way they could pick what they wanted to eat.

We always have various fruit in, and let them choose something while we're shopping. We lead by example too, by snacking on fruit, and the kids love making smoothies, which we get tons of fruit into.

I dont need to make them fun. My husband have always put 2 pieces of fruit in our work lunchboxes and that's carried down to the kids without any problems. When they were younger we always gave them fruit as a pudding substitute e.g. baby food and an hour or so later i'd give them half a banana with me eating the other half, or diced apples on a plate when a little older.