Florida grapefruit want your healthy eating tips and grapefruit recipes. There's £300 up for grabs (plus £100 for your child's school/nursery)

[Carriemumsnet]

Florida grapefruit want to know your top tips on getting your children to eat their five a day and indeed managing to eat five a day yourself. This could be in the form of a great recipe a top tip, even a song or nursery rhyme your child has learnt at school or nursery - anything that helps encourage folks to eat more fruit and veg. (If you're adding a recipe add it to MN recipes and just post the link here - as we have above).

Florida grapefruit will be choosing their favourite contributions and one lucky winner will win £300 along with £100 for their child's school.

Quick plug for the humble grapefruit - half a grapefruit provides 100% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C, and a whole grapefruit represents not one but two of your five-a-day fruit and veg intake.

Plug over - thanks and good luck

MNHQ

[pickle12]

Personally I just make the fruit look as apetising as possible. I mix it up as a fruit salad in a box in the fridge & we dig in whenever the mood takes us. To encourage my little one I make a fuss about how lovely it is when I'm eating it. He always wants what I'm eating so he thinks it's a real treat when I give him a bowl full for himself

[missorinoco]

Unexciting, but stop offering non fruit alternatives. One snack is always fruit, and fruit is offerred at pudding.

For myself and my husband, take fruit into work instead of buying biscuits etc to have at a break (I wish) or with lunch.

Means we get through loads of fruit.

[Chmaine]

To get the kids to eat five a day, chop/slice up a variety of fruits and make colourful fruit kebabs or fruit salads, & in getting them to eat the veg you can create veggie pizzas, where the kids can decorate the pizza base with vegetables and make patterns and face shapes on the pizza.

With me eating my five a day, I'd eat a piece of fruit after each of my 3 meals a day then eat more veg along with my dinner

[primrosey]

I buy pizza bases and encourage my children to help me make a tomatoe, onion and garlic sauce to spread on the base. Then they pick allsorts of toppings i.e pepper, sweetcorn, pineapple, mushrooms and of course cheese. Then we serve it with a salad of tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce and thats the 5 a day job done!!!

[PhilandC2]

I've always just given food to my child without asking him whether he likes it. He was only a baby, what would the babies know? Now he is 14- and I never have problems with him eating the right food: lots of fruit, lots of vegetables and all sorts of fish. He's just got used to it and likes it all very much now!

[pigtails21]

To be honest my top tip is to make sure you give plenty of fruit and veg when weaning. We did and we have no problems with our DD eating..

Fruit juice is great as that ensures your child is getting at least one portion. If you are concerned, I suggest hiding vegetables in food - we bulk things like cottage pie out with loads of vegetables. Vegetable lasagne is a great dish as well.

Offer fruit and fun sticks at snack time -e.g. carrot soliders and cucumber and pepper chopped up. If children see you snacking on these as well, they are bound to want to do what mummy does.

[twirlywhirly]

I am lucky because my children all naturaly liked grapefruit if chopped in small pieces coated in a honey glaze and then put on a skewer along with other fruit & barbeued....yummy good for them and they love them! If young children have these just pull of from skewer & pop into a coconut shell or ornage pot...makes it more fun for the kiddies x

[sc1985]

Well, the only way we really get our daughter to eat lots of fruit and veg is to get her involved and to present it nicely to her.

My neighbours have an alotment so she loves the fresh veg they bring, because she thinks it's been grown for her! She loves to help prepare it and present it nicely on a plate or in bowls. Sometimes we make a little picture out of the fruits and if it's something that is going with a main meal then we put it in a 'special' pot at the side of her plate. Presentation certainly plays a massive part in her attitude towards fruit/veg.

We made a little rhyme for when we are preparing fruit/veg in the kitchen together. She thinks it's funny but most of all it gets her thinking about it.

Fruit is good for your belly
Some veg is sometimes smelly
But it?s tastes so good
And it grows in mud
And we pick it while wearing our wellies

I get my 5 a day because I'm always very focused on getting the children to eat more fruit and veg, before I had them I didn't really bother but because we have loads of it in all the time, we all make a massive effort to eat more to encourage the children. We have a 6month old who has started weaning and I make all my own food for him which is always packed full of fresh vegetables too.

[TheBuggerofSuburbia]

I make fruit sticks for DS - pieces of fruit on lolly sticks - if it's grapes and bananas, they're nice frozen. For parties or a treat, they can be dipped in melted chocolate - and then rice crispies too if you like.

My grapefruit recipe is here, but it's adults only - Grapefruit and Vodka Sorbet

It is very pretty if you use pink grapefruit.

[nannynick]

I was wondering when someone would mention Grapefruit and Vodka - it's lovely as a drink as well as a sorbet.

Here is a photo of an after-school snack which was devoured by a 5yr old and 2yr old. Didn't have any grapefruit... so this used Orange, Apple, Banana and Cucumber - as those where what we had available.

I find when presenting fruit and veg that getting a good colour combination helps. A nice mix of Green, Orange, Red.