Share your tips for getting your children eating healthily with Little Yeos

[EllieMumsnet]

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Trying to get your children to eat healthily is a battle that many parents will inevitably face; from weaning onto solid foods, to dinner times through to pack lunches and beyond. There is a lot of information and recipes out there on what the best methods/techniques are to get your child to start eating healthily and how to incorporate nutritious food into their meals. With that being said Little Yeos would love to know any recommendations, recipes, techniques or experiences of getting your child to eat healthily.

Here’s what Little Yeos have to say: We’d love to hear your top tips for children’s healthy eating. Here are some examples to get you started:

Weaning:
What are your tips for weaning your child onto healthy food?
Do you find that your child prefers sweeter foods or more varied flavours?

Doing the weekly food shop:
Do you find it easy to find healthy snacks for your child?
Do you find nutrients labels on foods in supermarkets are clear?

Meal times:
Do you have any favourite healthy tips or recipes that work for your family?
What are your favourite healthy swaps?

Whatever your recommendations, thoughts or experiences when it comes to getting your child to eat healthily, share them on the thread below and you’ll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

I think it's about a good balance of food. My DD (6) go to snack is a bowl of frozen peas. She had these when teething and loved them. Even now she will go and help herself to some.
She knows fruit and veg are for snacking between meals if she's hungry.
Offering a wide variety of fruit and veg means she loves a whole raft of things.
She does eat sweets, but it's limited, however I feel banning them makes them want them more. This way she has a healthy balanced diet.

Cook from scratch, chicken nuggets and other frozen food is good now and then, but not for every meal.

When it comes to encouraging young children to eat fruit I always found that mine were more likely to eat it if it was prepared for them and if they were offered a variety.

ie. if I placed a plate of cut up apples and pears, peeled and sliced bananas, peeled and segmented satsumas etc they would eat the lot. OTOH if faced with a whole apple they would gnaw at it but get bored halfway through.

Weaning:
We did baby-led weaning before it was a thing! DD cut her teeth on a chicken drumstick bone! As far as tastes go, we tried to stay away from artificially sweetened products and her favourite weaning food seemed to be spinach!

Doing the weekly food shop:
There are so many healthier options and so much information now out there that we all KNOW what we should be doing. Unfortunately, even in places like Lidl and Aldi the fruits children prefer such as blueberries and strawberries cost far, far more that sugary snacks or crisps.

Meal times:
Veggie pasta sauce that starts with a tin of tomatoes, onion and garlic is a firm favourite. We just add whatever else we have in the fridge (That spinach again!) and a can of chick peas or similar, (Rinsed) to create variety.
Involving older children with healthy choices helps educate them for the times in the future when you won't have control over their diet.

it's important not to force them but give them lots of praise, even for small steps in the right direction! I try to sneak things in gradually and i always make stuff up! i tell them their favourite celebs eat, for example, broccoli as it makes them really strong. doesn't always work but persistence is the key!

Make your children part of the shopping and cooking process early on, it gets them interested in food, what it does for our bodies and where it comes from. Trips to farm shops and helping in the kitchen give them some control and input into what they are eating. Let them Grow some veggies or herbs. Put up a map in he kitchen so they can see food miles or learn about the country it came from. Much more likely to eat a broccoli cheese bake if they grew it, shopped for it or helped cook it.

Make it fun!

We make food fun, a little patch of the garden is used to grow spuds and fruit, when we lived in a flat, we grew herbs on the window sills. Sweets are rationed to special occasions, and we've told the family that we don't want them to turn up at the house with chocolate as it's the easy option. Get them helping in the kitchen and teach them about different herbs and spices, ours love helping make a veggie curry with any veg from the fridge or freezer, it's really hard to mess it up as we only use a few ingredients and spices to keep it easy. We make faces with the food on the plate, it's amazing the likeness you can get of Granny, with spaghetti hair, olive eyes, red pepper for the mouth, and a mushroom nose! Fantastic fun! For a fruity treat, we halve bananas, shove onto wooden skewers, dip in honey, and roll in mixed nuts or carob powder, and away you go with a lovely treat!

I’d like to comment on the Little Yeos. These small pots pictured which are good for weaning have no added sugar which is great. The next size up aimed at older children has added cane sugar I believe. What is the point of doing that? Either you are aiming for the healthiest yoghurt possible for children or you’re not. I feel it’s a bit sneaky to add the sugar into the next stage of yoghurt.

My tip is to not make a big deal over it if your child doesn't eat. Making a fuss can actually put children off food and make it a negative experience. Just keep on putting things on their plates, the same as what you have, and let them eat what they want. You can then praise them if they eat their veggies, or whatever it is, by saying things like 'oh what a good boy, you ate your broccoli today' But never punish them for not eating.

definitely one of the best ways is to start early and set an example. Make as many 'Yummy' sounds over eating carrot sticks or salad as you would if you were eating chocolate or chips.

It depends on their ages. Weaning them onto healthy food was a doddle. If you don’t offer unhealthy food they will naturally eat healthily and as that is the food they are used to will like it. The problem comes once they’re older and have been to parties and been given sweets and chocolate. Strict rules come into play then!

Let them choose their own veg- put out salad bowls with meals, let them choose pizza toppings etc. I have a permanent salad bowl and fruit bowl accessible and encourage extra salad and fruit with meals

I found the best trick when my DS says ‘yucky’ I say “ok, don’t eat it.” Then talk about something else and don’t give/ offer him anything else. Then generally he tries it and eats it. I always include something he likes on the plate.

let them cook with me.

Avoid foods containing sugar as long as you can; I remember when my son was a tot, I used to feed him stewed apple as a dessert (without sugar) and he loved it, one day my mum came to visit and thought it would be a good idea to add a teaspoon of sugar to the apple when it was cooked, my son wouldn't then eat it without sugar in again.

Would love to know as mine won't eating anything with any colour to it! Banana is practically the only fruit she will eat. She's pretty good with drinks though and prefrees only water rather than juices.

Make it fun / engage them

We love frozen lollies made from blended fruit and yoghurt.

try not to have unhealthy food in the house

my ds avoids anything healthy but make them look like a sweet he ate them so the tip is to disguise healthy foods as sweet treats

DD can be fussy if it's an unknown food or dish. We just have two rules - she has to try it. She doesn't have to like it, or even swallow it if she really hates it, but she must put all new foods in her mouth. And we do periodically get her to try it again. Sometimes food, like any new thing, takes a bit of "practice" before you get it.
Also - she doesn't get to leave her dinner to "make room for" pudding. Pudding is an occasional treat, for after a meal, not instead of it. We don't make her clear her plate, though. If she's full, she's full. Starving children in other countries won't benefit from her overeating.

Cooking from scratch is essential so you know what's going in food. Great to help get lots of veg in. Don't need to be too sneaky and make it hidden, but chunks in sauce goes down well.

He prefers sweet, lots of fruit but try to limit the sweet tastes where possible.

Add vegetables to sauces and start early wean with lots of veg, finger foods of carrots and celery are good too

No fizzy drinks and fruit instead of sugary snacks