10 ways of getting your family to eat their fruit and veg

Trying to get our loved ones to eat a minimum of five portions of fruit and vegetables a day is often a battle. This is where we need to be creative and sneak these health giving foods into their diet, so they don’t even notice they’re there.

Breakfast Smoothie
Tell the kids it’s a milkshake and they’ll love it. Just put ice cubes, natural yoghourt and fresh fruit in the blender and you’re good to go. You can add protein powder or ground flaxseed for an extra boost. If the kids love ice cream, then use frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit and you’ll get a smoothie that’s the same consistency as ice cream.

Naturally Dried Fruit
Fruit that’s dried without additives and preservatives is an excellent snack food and can be added to salads. You can even dry it yourself on a very low temperature in the oven or in a dehydrator. Put dried fruit in your kids’ and partners’ lunch boxes and leave a couple of bowls of trail mix in the house for the family to snack on.

Add Fruit and Vegetables to Sandwiches
Use gluten free bread to make sandwiches, or experiment with flatbread crumble, a teff based staple from the Horn of Africa. Add thinly sliced apple, banana or strawberries to nut butter sandwiches (sorry, no peanut butter allowed).

Add sliced tomato, cucumber, pepper, lettuce, grated carrot or any other veg to turkey or cheese sandwiches. Try the family out on home-made subs, using veg that you’ve mixed into an oil-free mayonnaise.

Salad Bar at Dinner Time
Make dinner time interesting and introduce a salad bar. Get the kids involved – depending on their age- and cut some of the ingredients into fun shapes and sizes. Display fruits, salad ingredients and vegetables, together with cheese, turkey and some grass fed beef and the family will never want to go out to eat again. As every good restaurant knows, presentation is key.

Drinking Fruit and Vegetables
Keep a small variety of cold pressed juices in glass jars in the fridge and gently encourage your family to drink these when they’re feeling peckish. Remember that cold pressed juices start to oxidise shortly after making them, so make fresh ones every day.

Try introducing ‘Cocktail Hour’ and make your family’s favourite juice, add umbrellas and decorative fruit and sit around and chat. This could be a pre-dinner ritual.

Dessert

They won’t be able to resist this dessert.
1 small frozen yoghourt or a blend of frozen fruit (such as banana and mangoes)
Topped with ashed avocado or double cream
Covered with lots of fresh or frozen berries

Fruit and Veggie Snacks
Sliced apple topped with nut butter (not peanut butter) or cheese
Cubed cheese with grapes or pineapple
Raw veggie sticks served with a healthy dip
Celery sticks filled with avocado or cheese and topped with raisins

Try Something New
Try introducing your family to new and exotic fruits and vegetables. Before you know it, the whole neighbourhood will be trying them as word spreads. Today’s supermarkets stock an incredible variety of fruits and veg from all over the world so give them a try.

Bone Broth or Mainly Veggie Stew
Cook up a pot of bone broth or a stew which is mainly vegetables. Great for those cold winter evenings.

My Veggie Day
Let each family member have a turn at choosing which vegetables they’d like to eat that day. They forfeit a turn if they don’t try all the vegetables chosen by other family members.