Please tell us your ideas for getting children to eat more fruit - you could win £250 in supermarket vouchers

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

Do your children like fruit? Do they eat all sorts - or just the regulation daily banana?

ZESPRI Kiwifruit would love to hear your ideas for getting children to eat more fruit - whether your kids only just manage their five a day or are such fruit fiends, they could tell a kiwi from a kumquat at 40 paces.

Everyone who sends in an idea, tip or suggestion will be entered into a prize draw to win £250 in vouchers for a supermarket of their choice.*

Please note that your tips may be published on Mumsnet at a later date.

Thanks and good luck! MNHQ

*Participating supermarkets include Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys, Morrison, M&S and Waitrose

My 2 love banana loaf, ice lollies made with juiced fruit, and I also give them an option with snack - fruit or nothing!

If we have dessert then it will have fruit in it, custard and banana, ice cream and raspberries, or strawberries cream and meringues.
No one in my house is allowed to say they don't like something unless they have tried it a few times, in different ways. DS told me he didn't like prunes until I told him they were giant raisins and now he loves them!

I think the key is to get fruit into them regularly at a young age, then it becomes normal to them, and avoid sweets for as long as you can! No one is going to want banana if they can get a packet of maltesers instead!

Well while my little boy was young enough to believe anything i said i would get really excited about cutting him some fruit up by running into the kitchen with him following me and calling them 'Sweeties!!' when i brought the bowl of cut up fruit down so he could see, after he jumped up and down getting excited with me we would go sit on the sofa nicely together to eat our 'Sweeties!'.

He has no idea what sweeties are only that they are nice and something to get excited about and so it worked a treat...he now gets excited whenever i cut him some fruit up and i have no problem getting him to eat it!...in fact, he usually sees it on the site and asks for it himself or in the supermarket whilst sitting in the trolley!

I find they will eat more if it is in a fruit salad than an apple/orange. If I let them help chop the fruit and make kebabs they scoff anything that is there.

We make smoothies together and try to taste what fruit we have used, healthy and nutritious!

Last night we made strawberry smoothies and raspberry muffins, all home grown in the garden. The children love it - it is 'their' project, so they water, pick and look after the plants.

Ice lollys are good too - puree your fruit add juice/water and freeze in moulds.

The easier and more accessible the fruit is, the more the children will scoff it!

Grow your own fruit in the garden or in pots.

We have a raspberry patch in the garden and the DC are out there every day after school picking and eating them. We also have some strawberry plants, an apple tree and pear tree (not as prolific as the raspberries though)

They also like making fruit smoothies, Eton Mess-type puds, ice-cream etc with the fruit they've grown.

We make fruit smoothies - whack in handfuls of mixed chopped fruit and blitz with a hand blender.

Frozen raspberries with milk and little ice cream is delish!

You might need to strain out strawberry pips if your child doesn't like them.

And if they are still reluctant to drink it, blend in a tablespoon or two of Nutella .

I think variety is key - my son will eat anything that seems novel, so I get different fruits on a rotating 3 week loop! Then offering them in different ways e.g. a melon could be cubed, or eaten from the skin like a 'smile', chopped into breakfast cereal or set into jelly.

Start early by buying plastic fruit and vegetables as toys. Then teddy can have an apple at the same time!

Open your mind a bit - most people wouldn't imagine that it would happen, but DS will eat a pepper like an apple. In preference to an apple, in fact.

Also, fruit added to porridge or cereal is always a hit.

And simply cutting it up - what is refused when whole will sometimes be devoured if sliced/chopped and presented in a bowl with a fork, or covered with a dollop of natural yoghurt!

I have a reluctant banana eater, and I get worried about her having low potassium levels, so we make banana splits a few times a week; strawberry frozen yogurt down the centre of the split banana, decorated with a sauce made from blended kiwi and raspberries. Optional clotted cream or a few sprinkles to serve.

When my dds were younger the only food that could be eaten without asking was fruit. We always have a full fruit bowl and grapes and strawberries in the fridge. Actually, that's a lie. We only ever have strawberries on the day I've been shopping. They never last overnight (unless I hide a punnet for me!). I also used to ask them to help me make fruit salad. Now that they are teenagers I just ask them to prepare it, especially if we have pineapple as I hate peeling them.

Tinned and dried fruit always go down well too.

Mashed fruit/puree is a hit with young fusspot. Those new Innocent fruit puree tubes are wonderful for travelling.

Apple loaf, banana bread, and powerhouse cookies packed with dried fruit and seeds go down well - ds will eat anything enthusastically that is cake-shaped. Including fishcakes... odd child!

Ds will happily play with bits of fruit and arrange them and sometimes even put them in his mouth for a while, but not eat them. Unless I'm not there. So when he goes to creche for an hour he gets a couple tangerines!

All probably mentioned i think, no time to read all suggestions -

Grow your own, dd loves picking her own strawberries (or find a pick your own farm)

Make fresh fruit ice lollies - fill lolly maker with fresh fruit juice and add some small chopped bits
(Same for jellies - dd loves raspberry and blueberry jelly)

Try a new fruit every now and then - eating the same thing all the time gets boring!

Add to biscuits, muffins and flapjack - they dont even notice they are there!

Pick a colour and make a fun game of finding that colour food stuffs for the day including fruit and veg eg yellow day - scrambled egg for breakfast and bannana after, cheese sandwich or similar for dinner with a yellow coloured apple and then something with sweetcorn for tea - often yellow rice with fish followed by melon! DD also loves playing this game and is more inclined to eat it! Some times also enjoys picking same coloured clothes and hair bobbles!

Put out bowls of different kinds of chopped fruit, as well as bowls of yogurt, crushed meringues, chopped nuts for older children, custard etc and let them assemble their own knickerbocker glory. Make sure you use see-through glasses and lots of different colours of fruit so they can see the pattern they're making.

And send in different fruit in their lunchbox without comment - they're much more likely to try them at school surrounded by their friends than if you're overing anxiously to see if they take a bite.

Chocolate fondue with cut up fruit to dip in

it is easy if you eat it yourself as the DCs will do the same.

we try a new friut regularly.

chop into small pieces and it will soon be demolished.

Smoothies and lollies, especially freezing halves of banana with a lolly stick in, it tastes really ice-creamy.

Let them choose the fruit in the shop, talk about the fruit, let them help chop it up - my son loves to see me cut mangoes into cubes and turn it inside out.

My children are almost always given fruit for pudding, which they look forward to and demolish. Often it's stewed fruit with something. These are my puddings:

Rhubarb, with custard or ice-cream
Stewed apples and sultanas, with custard or ice-cream
Stewed apples and blackberries, etc.
Stewed plums, etc.
Stewed pears with chocolate sauce
Banana custard (chopped bananas in custard)
Strawberries and cream or ice-cream
Raspberries and etc.
Fruit salad
Fruit jellies

I'm planning to plant a gooseberry and blackcurrant bush in the garden later this year, so that I can continue with my stewed theme!

Stewing fruit is so quick and easy - takes 5 mins to prepare (max), 5 mins to cook. And one small pan of fruit (say four cooking apples) lasts more than one day.

That's my top tip!

My son eats every fruit under the sun from bluberries to watermelon.

I haven't done anything special to encourage this apart from introducing fruit as finger food very early on and always having a wide range in the house.

If you make a song and dance about eating fruit and veg then IME it meets with resistance but if you introduce it early so it becomes a habit then it's not an issue.

I have never had to worry about DS getting his "5 a day"!

I tend to sit down to eat the fruit myself, don't offer them any, treat it as though I am absolutely going to eat it ALL myself and lo....

two children scrabbling to stuff as much of said fruit down their throats as they can.

They both love fruit though. So it's not that difficult!

Also, I find giving them no choice works too ("fruit or nothing for pudding"), and also preparing a plate of cut up fruit and leaving it for them to graze on.

i do most of these!!

fruit is a standard snack/pudding in our house, also breakfast is a portion of fruit plus cereal. this is part of a deal i have cut with the dcs in that i don't put it in their lunchboxes as it ends up warm/battered and understandably unappetising.

they do have a carton of pure juice as part of their packed lunch and they haven't cottoned on yet that fruitflakes/humzingers/school bars are fruit based so i can normally sneak one of them in as well

at dds birthday party recently (with several fussy eaters!) i didn't make a big deal about including salad and fruit but left it out nicely presented in little bowls and it was all wolfed

The colour game. For example...

Monday - yellow - banana, melon, etc
Tuesday - purple - grapes, plum, etc
Wednesday - green - apple, pear, grapes, etc
Thursday - red - strawberries, raspberries, etc
Friday - orange - oranges, peaches, etc
Saturday and Sunday - rainbow - fruit salad.

Dunno if above has been mentioned. Just had a quick scan of the thread.

Try freeezing grapes and then getting your Dc's to eat them frozen. It's like sorbet ~ yummy!

Make up fruit smoothies or fruit crumbles/pies or mixing berries with soft icecream.

I don't have a problem getting my Dc's to eat fruit, although Ds 11.11 eats less of it these days.

My two adore fruit so I've not got much in the way of tips!

Fruit chopped up in yoghurt always goes down well in our house.

Fruit is also always given at snack times along with a biscuit or some breadsticks or something and is pretty much unlimited. If they are hungry between meals then they are allowed to eat fruit (within reason).

But as I say they adore it, I can't think of a single fruit they don't like