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

Before breakfast each morning, I give them a little bowl of blueberries, strawbs, rasps and melon which they eat as they're getting dressed and faffing about.

They are much more amenable to eating fruit at this time than any other. Perhaps they're still dozy and more pliable!

Then at school pick up, I do the same. They have to eat their fruit pot in the car on the way home before they get a biscuit or something. They are happy to do this too.

Smoothies also are a good way of getting fruit into them.

i make ds2 fruit pizzas ,faces and animals and spell his name out in letters he loves all fruit and would eat it all day if he could hes my little fruit bat

Make fruit readily available so that children can go and take a piece of fruit when they want. In conjunction any none-fruit snacks should be regulated.

Play guess the fruit...prepare it and have flags with the names of the fruit on. It's a start to get them interested. Make some easy and some not so easy so they learn. They may not eat them first time but they'll get used to at least touching them as a lot of dcs have a bit of a phobia with fruit. As they get older you can guess what vitamins/minerals are in each one.

fruit salad - chop up 3 different pieces on fruit in a bowl to share between a couple of children, much more interesting that just say, a banana!

very tasty with yoghurt poured on top too

We always spend a good 10 minutes at the supermarket walking round the fruit and vegetable aisles with ds just looking and talking about different fruits.

Quite often if we are chatting about something unusual he will ask if we can try it and see how it tastes.

At the minute he is quite interested in different countries (it started with the football) so we wander round looking at where all the fruit came from.

We are also growing things of our own. I have it on good authority the strawberries were lovely but I didn't get one as ds snaffled the lot.

Chop up a bowl of apple, grapes, banana, strawberries and place near the hands of a posse watching Shrek on TV.

Amazing how quickly it disappears.

rainbow fruit salad - different coloured fruit arranged in the shape of a rainbow, strawberries for red, satsuma segments orange, pineapple yellow, kiwi green, and this is where it gets tricksy, blueberries blue, melon dyed with food colouring indigo, blackberries violet.

DD loves eating raspberries off the end of her fingers. They have the indentation which is a perfect size for the end of children's fingers. Also good for learning to count.

Blancmange rabbit, with kiwifruit grass, starfruit flowers, and chocolate raisin rabbit poos

Letting her pick cherries off the tree on a scarily high ladder ("on my own"), and then using the cherry stoner to shoot the stones at her little brother

I tell dd that her favourite character from her favourite TV show (currently Balamory) is eating the exact same fruit at home, she likes this character so much it helps get her to eat healthy.

Fruit company could do promotional work with Balamory, kids would love it.

take a trip to your local fruit and veg shop. get the kids to look for something you haven't tried before, things like sharon fruit or dragon fruit or my particular favouritve physillis or syphillis as we call it unkindly! This helps in a variety of ways.

your children get to know different types of fruit.

your children learn about differnt fruit and veg

you get to bond over the experience. Gather in the kitchen, each of you with a slice in hand and '1...2...3..' YUK! or OOOH!

Miss Hoolie, Spencer, Archie in his pink castle, and PC Plum will sell your kiwi

Give siblings a bowl of fruit to share. This means that each one will be desperate to eat the most

We have a row of raspberry canes (that require about 1 hour's effort a year). DS goes out and picks all the fruit of them every day. I think it's the fun searching for the ripe ones that he likes. Plus the fact that they are warm and smell sweet.

I'll have to plant another row soon because he's started bringing his friend in to search for raspberries too.

When he was very little, the first year, when it got to November and there weren't any more fruit, he would search the bushes and couldn't understand where they had gone.

Add fruit to yoghart. We regularly add strawberrys, raspberrys, blueberrys...you get the idea to vanilla yoghart- has to be the really top end thick creamy yoghart.

DS (3.5) is a real fruit fan, but the tip I would give for encouraging a love of fruit is to give it from an early age, and in lots of variety.

One snack he does like is an apple which has been cored and cut into rings, then reassembled and with cheese stuffed down the middle.

From an early age fruit (particularly apples and pears) are a great distraction and can take a while to eat so I've given an apple (whole) to eat while he sits and watches me have a scan, or on long train journeys while he is sitting on my knee.

Mine have always been big fruit eaters. My tips - many which have prob already been said

• only have fruit as the available snack, but make sure you always have lots of it in and it is fresh
• when shopping for fruit, take the kids with you and give them the opportunity to chose (to a degree). Mine love grapes and strawbwrries at the mo, as well as usual apples, pears and satsumas, but occasionally will ask for a pineapple or something, which I will oblige.
• I don't put the bowl where youngest dc can reach it (she's 2) as she will take one bite out of everything, but the older 2 can reach it.
• Set a good example yourself
• tell them all the benefits - good skin, big and strong etc. Also counting up whether they've reached their five a day helps too.
• I always have fruit when we go out to provide as a snack. I have to say, I never got into cutting fruit up - all my dc's were given apples straight as soon as they could hold them and that's how they eat them.
• Dried fruit is a great snack that's easy to transport. Although its more expensive, the dried fruit in snack sized bags may give children the idea that they are getting a nice treat. I tend to buy a big value range bag of sultanas that they can just tuck into.
• Don't forget about tomatoes - my kids will eat a small box of cherry tomatoes in no time at all

I guess it really is about starting young and just making eating fruit a normal thing to do without thinking

when i make shepherds pie, i grate a carrot, a courgette, finely diced onion and mushroom, and a few cubes of frozen spinach in it. they don't notice it at all.

also, if you boil broccoli or spinach, use the water to make your gravy with, lots of vitamins and flavours in it.

grow as much fruit and veg as you can and get them involved.

ahem, i seeeeeee. you said fruit.

right, make a smiley fruit face plate:

banana smile
grape eyes
strawberry nose
spiky orange segment hair

Encourage them in groeing/picking/choosing. eg.I have an allotment,the kids have eaten rhubarb,strawberries and raspberiies so far this year and are looking forward to the plums and apples from the trees.

Before having our own allotment we tried to visit pick your own places, it's true if they pick it they're likely to eat it.

Failing both of these, take DC to local market and give them a pound each to get fruit. My older DSS's love this, and choose both unuusual fruit like lychees and passion fruit (which are cheaper on the market) and the old favourites.

Oh, and make it a treat, yum we've got Melon today instead of it's just melon for pudding.

I used to use strawberry, banana, grapes, apple, pears and dip the fruit in melted chocolate using a bain marie, this was popped in the fridge and they had to sneak past without being seen if they wanted one They all used to dissapear rather fast. I found chcolate dipped fruit was the best way to introduce new fruit to thier diet.

• then make a smoothie using 10 ice cubes, milk and two fruit banan and strawberry or blue berry or a bag of frozen fruit. Served in the bath in ikea beakers with a coctail umbrealla and straws

Get your child involved.....If your child refuses fruit, then take them to the supermarket (or even better the greengrocer) and get them to pick, smell, prod the fruit that they would like....then you can make in a number of ways (but keep the child involved)

Fruit faces
Fruit kebabs
Smoothies (they especially love using the blender)
BBQ Bananas (simply wrap in tin foil and bake o
n the bbq)
Ice Lollies with fruit
Jelly with fruit

I find that keeping them involved gets them interested - particularily if they grow their own!

When my children were very young I would get them to help me arrange fruit on their plate in different shapes such as faces, cars, boats, anything was possible! We would turn it into a game and they would choose to eat different bits of the shape they designed first.

When my children were a bit older they would eat the fruit in alphabetical order or choose what colour fruit they would eat first. Or put vegetables with the fruit as well so they choose the odd ones out.

Started on fruit early enough most children will eat it and enjoy it but any problems can soon be be turned into a fun game. Also, I have never made an issue out of any eating problems and so far they have all just been phases that can be overcome.

My 4 kids love 'yoghurt honey fruit suprise' - any fruit chopped up buried underneath natural yoghurt with a drizzle of honey on top.Then they like guessing what might be underneath the yoghurt. As a treat sometimes we make chocolate sauce and theres a big plate of chopped fruit to dip in it.

Chopped up fruit is always much more readily eaten than whole

my biggest tip is to start them early, my ds2 was weened on fruit and have always given it as a treat instead of sweets, and for 'afters' he now prefers fruit over sweets and i need to buy shares in the greengrocers he eats so much of it!