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

Make raspberry coulis, call it juice and pour liberally on yoghurt and ice cream.

Freeze fruits and use as lollipops.

Have a small chocolate fondue with assorted fruits to dip.

Add fruit to jellies and sponges and crumbles.

Add raisins to cookies and rice crispy cakes.

Make banana bread and apple cake.

Do a fruit challenge, where they get little prizes for trying different fruits. Have 2 bags and lots of different fruit chopped up. In one bag have all the fruits names on bits of paper,
in the other bag have all the prizes (could be simple as staying up 15 mins extra).

Get your child to pick out a fruit, if they try it then they can pick out a prize.

My 3 year old is a fruit-eating bat, as I was at her age! We have a fruit bowl which she has access to at all times, but also have fruit for pudding most days.
She knows (because I tell her) fruit will make her grow up strong and healthy!
Ice cold slices of water-melon on hot days are a great alternative to ice-lollies.
With fruitily (sp?) challenged friends, I find the combination of greek yoghurt, berries and chopped bananas works a treat.
Challenge now is to get me to eat more fruit, I get bored of it (although some tips on this thread have given me ideas!).

• Set a good example.
• Offer fruit during weaning.
• Have a fruit bowl available, with lots of variety.
• Some days the pudding choice is fruit or fruit
• lots of variety, interesting or unusual fruits like Dragon fruit.
• Fruit salads with yoghurt or half fat creme fraiche.
• Fruit for school breaktimes and after school snacks.

Freeze juice and smoothies into ice-lollies. Take dried fruit out as snacks on days out. Serve banana sundaes - chopped banana, vanilla ice-cream and toffee sauce... yum!

This has probably been said already but raisins for snacks always go down well. As well as other dry fruits like apricots, mango, pear etc.

With toddlers, encourage their nursery/pre-school to do fruit tasting with new/unusual fruits. I would otherwise have no idea that dd2 loves grapefruit or dd1 breadfruit (is that actually a fruit?)

Can we do this this thread with meat please? No problems here with fruit, but dd2 just deosn't seem to like protein....

Tell them they can't eat when they are pre-18 months.

Mine wanted to eat anything I told them not to!! Maybe I just have disobdient children!!

Make sure it's available for them to explore and don;t make a fuss of mess... my DD can make strawberries explode!!

I still puree fruit for my children's breakfast and add it to porridge too.

Again haven't quite read all of these - but offer fruit still frozen, especially banana.

Frozen banana basically tastes like banana ice cream! Especially good if your DC doesnt like fruit becasue of the texture ( like me

Raspberries and blueberries also good this way, although more like sorbet...

I've also always found fruit cut up tastes better than whole, so would recommend that - aslo slicing apples for example makes them seem more like an event than just biting the whole fruit, IYSWIM

Can't do bananas as ds2 is allergic but frozen grapes/other fruits are liked, letting them choose and help prepare their own fruit always works well too, fruit with ice cream (not all the time), fruit on top of cereal is a hit too.

Oh and they can help themselves to any fruit they want too.

mine love fruit
it's always been offered, pudding is very often fruit and it's always freely available during the day
if they turn their noses up at it- don't stop offering! just keep giving them small amounts, or offering it as part of a pudding

For show and tell, we all sat round the table with loads of cut up fruit (kiwi, mango, red apple, grape etc) and wrote down the name, drew a picture, and put a tick or cross after testing. Both ds's took it in to school, and apparently ds3 went on for ages and was very interesting...

1. Fruit bowl ontable and they can help themselves whenever they want.

2, always have a fruit salad in fridge that we have a bowl of in morning with breakfast.

1. Con them, Dylan eats fruit as a treat with coco powder or hot choc sprinkled on!!!!

Fruit bowl always out so they can help themselves.

Chop difficult fruit so it does not seem hard work!

Freeze fromage frais tubes - they turn out like creamy ice lollies.

Cut it up and stir it into some nice strawberry youghurt!

There isn't a single suggestion on this thread that would get my dd (age 4) to eat fruit. She will eat lychees, green grapes and sometimes a banana (if it is exactly the right shade of yellow), and will drink an innocent smoothie as long as it comes from an individual carton, and not a big one poured into a glass. She will also eat some dried fruit (humzingers go down well).
Thankfully she is good with her veg, and has recently accepted tinned lychees as an adequate substitute for fresh ones.

Ds on the other hand (20 months) will eat just about every kind of fruit.

Go figure.

if you have a greengrocer / market stall you can visit regularly, do so, and buy your f+v from there instead of from the supermarket. These kind of shops are much more interesting and pleasant for children than a supermarket, and staff will often get to know your children, greet them happily and chat with them during your visit. Let your child choose a piece of fruit while they are there, make it into a special treat.

We also use fruit as a special food for Christmases, birthdays, etc - in Christmas stockings or for a special birthday breakfast

being rubbish at cooking and shopping etc is really helpful here - just get a few fruit boxes delivered so that is all that is really available

it's worked well for my three children

dip things like kiwi, berries and pineapple that can be quite sharp in melted chocolate and pop in the fridge. Then use it to dip into yogurt

Fill fruit bowl, walk away.

Within 5 minutes fruit bowl will be empty (cost me a bloody fortune)

oh yeah and also 'can you try to not eat ALL the fruit as would like it to last until next delivery/take some to work/ripen'

this is pretty basic but effective reverse whatever you call it

psychology?

keep trying and offering. tastes DO change! It has taken 8 years for my ds to like charries. Now he can't get enough of them.

The other ds will not eat banana or pears, but has discovered a love of gooseberries

I also found that making fruit purees and turning them into sorbet meant they were ore willing to try a fruit they turned their noses up at in its natural form.

DS1 is a fruitphobe but one of his favourite puddings is when I buy a carton of ready made custard, melt a chocolate bar and whisk it in, then give everyone a ramekin full of this, a fork and a plate full of fruit for dunking. I find that so long as he can choose which fruit to buy for this he'll eat it all.

sorry, that should have read ''cherries''