Five portions a day?

misskool

Dried fruit is great as snacks (but they do have a lot of sugar). Little pots of carrots, celery, mangetout with hummus or cheese dip?

Easily 5 a day here. handful of dried fruit in the morning (either in muesli or hm muffins), then lunch is usually some fruit, snacks is more fruit and there's 2-3 portions of veg in dinner and maybe another piece of fruit.

Some days there will be fruit juice too.

Anyways, as long as they have variety in their diet it will be fine.

clarabella23

Hmmm...I may try making up a fruity jelly with DD, see if she will eat maybe some tinned fruit in that, peaches maybe? Can jelly be frozen?

She's not a huge fan of tomato sauce based things, i.e. lasagne, spag bol, but will happily munch through casseroles and stews, so I tend to cook them a couple of days a week, but it is hard as I'm not at home as much as I would like to be. She eats at my nans a couple of days a week, and she tends to feed her sausage and beans, so do try to counter that by not feeding her processed foods at home, but it is hard at times when they are nagging for burgers or garlic bread!

Butterfly_Brain

Do you have a blender? try making smoothies

Counting_Pennies_2

I read somewhere baked beans count toward the 5 a day, so I try to give these regularly.

Also I find doing carrot sticks takes no time to cook 10 mins of so, so while cooking the rest of the meal, I bung them on the hob. My children tend to live on just carrots and beans as their veg. Veg he will have blueberries, pineapple, strawberries, raspberries, apples and occasionally bananas. I have found putting cut up fruit on cocktail sticks and popping them in his lunch box goes down well, mini fruit kebabs!

My son won't entertain any other veg, apart from occasionally peas and broccoli, my daughter on the other hand will eat tomatoes, cucumber, carrot sticks, olives, you name it she will try.

Both mine are equally as healthy as the other.

kafkathecat

Sweet potato definitely counts too.
K.

ubamother

clarabella23 wrote: »

it is hard at times when they are nagging for burgers or garlic bread!

a meal of a homemade or well chosen burger and a couple of pieces of garlic bread goes well with corn on the cob, coleslaw, baked beans - absolutely nothing wrong with that!

play2day

My Ds3 was a very difficult eater. Staples in his diet included root vegetable 'chips' - parsnips and the like cut into chip shapes, tossed in a poly bag with a teaspoon of oil and a squeeze of garlic puree and then dry roased in the oven, baked beans, a fruit smoothie and pudding involving fruit such as a banana split, baked apple, bended fruit and yoghurt or similar served with a low fat creme fresh. A definate 5 portions in one easy meal with no whining!

As snacks try frozen fruit pieces, dried fruit, pease in the pods and if you are feeling flush some of the squeezy fruit packages with fruit puree at the supermarket go down well. Use a cookie cutter to make colourful shapes and occasionally make kebabs on sticks and drizzle with chocolate.

Other quick easy and accepted portions included: soups, stews and casseroles, mashed root veg on top of shepherds pies etc, lots of veg inside the same and things like bolognaise (with the added bonus of making the meat stretch further), corn on the cob and mushy peas (which late progressed to processed and then frozen).

You could try adding berries to the kids cereal in a morning, or peas and sweetcorn to a quick ham and cheese ommelette and serve with a fruit juice for two easy portions before school?

Good luck!!

Mr_Lahey

I think people pay that much attention trying to reach the 5 a day target.

Try and concentrate more on a balanced and varied healthy diet. Once you have that sorted you will find that most days you will eat the 5 a day or near enough without even realising it.

kimmy1984

pizza base or pitta with homemade tomato sauce with veg blended in, peppers and mushrooms etc on top covered in cheese

babyshoes

If it is the texture she doesn't like, can you try presenting these things in a different way? I liked the idea of 'mini kebabs'. How about chopping things up for the lunch box? Easier to eat pieces of apple than a whole one, for example.

You can also add veg to home made burgers, I add an onion to most meals. It is amazing how it adds bulk without changing the flavour too much.