Getting children to eat enough fruit and veg is something many parents worry about. Thankfully, my girls are good at eating fruit and veg. It seems that I’m not alone in this given that 93% of 1 -3 years olds eating the right amount of fruit and veg each day, according to figures from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. However only 10% of 11-18 year olds manage to do the same, and with boys being better at doing so than girls, I know that healthy eating is something that I will need to continue to actively encourage as my girls get older.
While Jessica and Sophie are good at eating fruit and veg, they do tend to eat a fairly limited selection and so I was looking forward to getting some ideas about how to encourage them to eat a wider range at the #InnocentFiveaDay Fruit and Veg Fest at Innocent Fruit Towers, which I was invited to attend last week.
The event itself was very much about making fruit and veg fun for kids, with various activities arranged to help them explore different types and have a play. There were five activities to complete (with a sticker chart to fill in as we worked our way around the activities).
We started at the coconut shy. The girls didn’t quite grasp the concept of throwing the balls at the coconuts to knock them off, preferring to go for the easier option of pushing them off. Sophie seemed to think that the mini footballs were a much better target and kept trying to replace the coconuts on the stands with these.
Next up, was printing with various different types of vegetables – potato, corn, broccoli and carrots. The girls got very messy with this activity. I was quite glad I had packed a couple of coverall bibs in the changing bag!
Bounce says… a variation on Simon says, took place in front of a giant wooden banana, which was great fun for sitting on and sliding along. The girls enjoyed being runner beans (running on the spot), blowing raspberries and rolling on the floor pretending to be peas.
Making funny faces with pieces of raw fruit and veg was the girls’ favourite activity and one that we have repeated at home since as a wonderful way of encouraging the girls to eat more veg. Whilst Jessica loved creating faces on the plate, she spent most of the time on this activity happily sampling the raw veg on offer!
We finished off by making our own smoothie – mixing kiwi, melon, pineapple and banana together. Whilst Jessica was quite happy to choose the fruit and help make the smoothie, she didn’t want to drink any of it afterwards. Sophie quite happily drank her sister’s share instead though!
The girls both got to try out the new range of fruit and veg smoothies that Innocent have recently brought out. Jessica enjoyed them just as much as Sophie, which surprised me as she will usually only drink water or milk, whereas Sophie is more adventurous when it comes to new flavours drinks-wise. It was the first time I’ve ever known Jessica to drink a smoothie so that’s certainly a good recommendation for the new range!
The new fruit and veg smoothies come in two different flavours: pineapple, apple and carrots and strawberries, apples and beetroot. Each smoothie is made of 100% crushed fruit and veg and contains one portion of your children’s five a day as well as providing a useful source of vitamin C which helps with iron absorption. The small cartons are perfect for lunchboxes and available from all good supermarkets.
While smoothies are a great way of increasing fruit and veg consumption, they can only contribute a maximum of two portions of the five-a-day required (with fruit juices only providing one portion). It is important to also include fresh fruit and veg in a healthy diet and Innocent have shared a range of tips for helping to do so:
- Aiming to eat a rainbow of fruit and veg each day in order to eat a wide variety and get plenty of different vitamins.
- Snacking on raw vegetables, such as carrot or celery sticks and keeping a fruit bowl within easy reach for snacks.
- Adding fruit or veg into meals where possible – fresh or dried fruit on top of porridge or cereal; salad in sandwiches; grated carrot or courgette added to mashed potato or bolognaise sauce; adding vegetables to soups, stews and sauces; extra fruit and veg toppings for pizza.
- Swapping meat-based burgers for vegetable or bean burgers.
- Making fruit and veg fun at mealtimes – creating funny faces with raw veg or counting segments, berries or pips.
- Being inventive with fruit – making fruit kebabs with different coloured chopped fruit or making healthy mini ice-lollies with frozen fruit.
- Getting the children involved in choosing, preparing and cooking – letting them pick a new fruit or vegetable when shopping, going fruit picking or growing your own.
- Having meals together as a family and enjoying eating fruit and veg together.
- If on a budget, it is worth bearing in mind that in season fruit and veg is often cheaper and frozen veg is just as healthy.
As well as some samples to take home, we were also given a copy of the Innocent recipe book which contains lots of ideas of ways to add fruit and veg to your children’s diets. I particularly like the sound of the chocolate and beetroot brownies!
With the new school year starting, Innocent Drinks are offering one of my readers the chance to win Innocent smoothies for your child’s class, delivered directly to the classroom. If you would like the chance to win, you can enter via the Rafflecopter below. Entries are open to UK readers and the competition closes at midnight on 14th September. Good luck!
We were invited to attend the #InnocentFiveaDay fruit and veg fest event and gifted a goody bag. All opinions are my own.
I sneak it into pasta sauce all blended up x
Great idea! 🙂
be clever
Sometimes you need to be! 🙂
dont make a big deal and pressurise, make food fun.
Lack of pressure does help a lot sometimes 🙂
Sounds like such a nice event! The little monkeys and I would have loved it. Smoothies are such a great way of hiding fruit or veg the kids (and Hubby) are not keen on! xx
Thanks Mel – smoothies are great aren’t they? 🙂
I think it’s really important to make sure the little ones understand fruit and veg are good for them, keep them healthy, aid their digestion etc. If all else fails, hide them in smoothies, ice cream, pasta sauce 🙂 Great prize by the way sweetie. xx
I love the idea of hiding them in ice-cream! 🙂
Hide it in smoothies and tasty cheesy meals x
Cheese is definitely a good way of helping hide them! 🙂
I make smoothies and disguise in dinners as my son won’t eat otherwise
Smoothies are such a great way of encouraging kids to eat more fruit and veg, aren’t they? 🙂
My children like to make stir fries with me and are then more likely to eat the veg in it
Love the crunchiness of veg in stir fries, great tip 🙂
My son is the smallest in his class so I always tell him that veggies would help him grow taller. Even if he hates it he would at least try. #pocolo
That’s a good incentive, thank you for sharing 🙂
Now we are at nursery I am trying to add pieces of chopped fruit and vegetables to his lunch box, in the hope that if he sees the other kids trying them, he might try them too.
That’s a good idea – sometimes kids are more willing to eat things when they see other children doing the same.
Making Fruit smoothies is a really great (and sneaky) way to get nutrients into children. It’s also great fun to prepare! Love this post x #PoCoLo x
Fruit smoothies are great aren’t they? 🙂
I have always tried to make fruit and veg look fun! We were invited to this event and couldn’t make it – sorry we didn’t see you. Thank you for linking to #PoCoLo x
Making it look fun seems to be working well for us at the moment. Such a shame you couldn’t make it, would have been lovely to see you again 🙂
Sorbet and smoothies and hiding vegetables inside other things like mashing carrot and swede in to potato.
I like the idea of mashing carrot and swede into potato – great tip. Sorbet sounds good too 🙂
I like making fruit and veg into shapes and making smoothies.
Shapes is a good idea – anything that makes fruit and veg more fun 🙂
Blend vegetables into sauces to use with pasta
That’s a great tip – amazing how much you can hide in pasta sauce too! 🙂
Making scummy smoothies with them.
Can’t beat some yummy smoothies 🙂
It looks like it was a fab event! My lg was great at eating any fruit and veg when a baby and young toddler, infact that was mainly what she ate…she was fussy with every other food group except that lol. Sadly it didn’t last but she’s better now than she was. One of the best ways for me seems to be when I involve her in the making of the meal/putting in the veg and also letting her choose veg in the shop and reminding her of this when they appear on her dinner plate! xx
I think involving children in preparing the meal works well – it makes it more interesting for them and then they are more likely to want to try different things 🙂
Also…this is probably TMI but my lg has always had tummy problems, much better now touch wood, but she does sometimes suffer with constipation and when I tell her certain fruits or veg etc will help with that she will happily try them x
Make soups and smoothies. It’s a good way to get them to eat fruit and veg they wouldn’t normally eat. One of my son’s doesn’t like berries on their own but loves them in a smoothie. All of my children will eat just about any veg when it’s blended into soup!
Love soups and smoothies – definitely good for including fruit and veg that wouldn’t be appealing on its own.
make meals into faces always helped mine to eat their veg – carrot smiles and broccoli noses etc
make meals into faces always helped mine to eat their veg – carrot smiles and broccoli noses etc
Making it as fun as possible by being as creative as possible
Mum always brought us up to by making food into faces or silly pictures! Now I’m doing the same with my little girly!
Mix some veg into sweeter tasting smoothies so they get the goodness without realising!
Disguise them in stews etc
I really struggle with my daughter eating her fruit and veg. I try to be clever and incorporate them into sauces blended up, but the one thing I can always get her to do is drink juice.
Perhaps we are lucky but my children love vegetables and fruit so we just make it seem like they are a special treat and let them have an extra big portion!
I found that introducing my children to fruit very early on, allowing them to get messy and experiment with the different textures and colours really helped. Also ensuring that they were familiar with the fruit in it’s whole form rather than it always being chopped up or hidden inside the food.
Add veggies to sauces
We’ve been sneaking extra veggies in homemade smoothies recently!
Encourage them to grow their own fruit and veg. We have strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. tomatoes, runner beans and pumpkins on the go and my 6 year old is loving looking after them all 🙂 x