We are told by every expert under the sun that fruit and vegetables are good for us and we must eat 5 portions a day.

Yes, fruit and veg are delicious, tasty and good for you, but sometimes you need some new ways to get your youngsters to eat them.  

Rather than just munching on an apple or a pear – here are our favourite fruit snacks for kids – please add more!

Remember to remove stones, pips, and skin for very young children, older toddlers can usually handle skin on apples for example, but every child is unique.

100 % juice freeze pops.

You can buy molds that you can simply pour fruit juice into then pop them in the freezer. Or you can simply pour juice into small paper cups, cover the cups with plastic wrap, freeze the juice for an hour then add a wooden freeze pop stick (you can buy these) when the juice is slushy enough for the stick to stand up straight. Return to the freezer for another 4 hours or until frozen.

Once frozen, remove the plastic wrap and peel away the paper cup. As an alternative, you can use yoghurt instead of juice.

Remember juice made Not from Concentrate is better for you than those From Concentrate – but the latter is usually cheaper.

Fruit sandwiches.

This sounds odd, but is delicious. Try slices of apples, pears, grapes, bananas, you can add soft cheese to most fruits and it tastes great!

Fresh fruit dipped in yogurt, fromage frais, apple sauce.

You can use pretty much any fruit, try your tot’s favourites. Vary the flavour of yoghurt, or fromage frais.

Fruit Smoothies.

You need a blender or smoothie maker for this.

A smoothie is generally made up of soft fruits and a liquid base. You often need to ass a liquid base or the smoothie is too thick to drink and you’ll end up eating it instead!

Popular liquid bases are milk, yoghurt, apple juice or water.

Pour a little liquid base into your blender then add the fruit.

Use any soft fruit. (Bananas, peaches, strawberries, pears, mangoes, nectarines, raspberries, cranberries, to name but a few). A combination of fruits can be good, like banana and strawberry, or pear blackberry. Some fruits can make your smoothie lumpy, like apples. This is just because they are a harder fruit, if you like texture in your smoothie – these are fine!

Peel any citrus fruits, bananas, mangoes etc, and then add the fruit at a steady rate whilst blending and blend until the smoothie has a smooth consistency. Add more of your liquid base if the smoothie is too thick. If it is too thin, you can add ice, or more fruit.

Tinned fruit.

Tinned fruit, has the advantage that you can eat fruit out of season.

Some tins come in syrup and some in fruit juice. Note that fruit tinned in syrup holds its shape, color and flavour better, even after tinning, however tinning fruit in water or fruit juice helps reduce the sugar content of the tinned fruit. 

Dried fruits, and nuts

Be very cautious about giving seeds and nuts to young children because they could choke on them. Dried fruits are typically high in fibre and complex carbohydrates and contain many necessary minerals and vitamins. These days you can buy many dried fruits, such as:

• raisins
• prunes
• blueberries and other berries
• apples
• dates
• pears
• apricots
• figs
• prunes
• bananas
• peaches
• raisins

Frozen fruit chunks

Cut up grapes, strawberries, banana slices, blueberries or watermelon, put them in a freezer bag and pop them in the freezer.

Freezing chunks of fruit seems to change them into sweets in the eyes of children!

Alternatively, you can puree the fruit and pour it into a mold and freeze like with the juice freeze pops.

Remember to be aware of allergies and only give food to your child that is age and development appropriate.

A great recipe book for helping your child eat healthy nutritious meals: Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers & Children: 365 Quick, Easy and Healthy Dishes: From First Foods to Starting School

Just one comment on the book is:

I can’t praise this book highly enough! It’s very well laid out and even the pages are tough enough to be wiped down easily. I have tried loads of the recipes already with my own toddler and have recommended it to all the parents in the nursery where I work. I was amazed to find how easy it is to make root vegetables into a fun and nutritious meal. My son’s favourite is Toddler’s tortilla but I have yet to try any recipe that he won’t eat! A real find!

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