7 Ways to Make Fruit Appealing to Children
Making fruit appealing to children isn’t always easy. Yet no matter how difficult it might be, with a little creativity and patience, there are several ways to make our children interested in eating new foods. The most important thing is sparking their interest the right way.
Fruits are naturally very low in calories, high in fiber, and full of vitamins and minerals, which are essential for healthy development.
That’s why including fruit in your children’s diet is so important for their physical growth. Consuming fruit also helps them maintain their focus, as well as mental and emotional stability.
As children grow up, they’ll start realizing that some foods might taste really good even if they don’t look very appetizing. It’s a good idea to go to the supermarket with your children and let them choose the fruit they want. In case they don’t show a lot of interest in fruits, just be patient!
We recommend presenting fruits in fun ways so they feel excited to eat them. It’s also important to be careful with the amounts you give them – remember, everything in moderation.
6 ways to make fruit appealing to children
Below, you’ll find 6 ways to make fruit appealing to children:
1. Fruit sorbets
Our first option is to make sorbets. They’re easy to prepare since they’re mostly composed of fruit purees and fresh fruit juice.
Crush the whole fruit and put it in the blender with just a pinch of brown sugar. Then pour the mixture in different glasses and put them in the freezer so they cool down and take on the appropriate texture.
The result will be a sorbet with a pudding-like texture that your children will surely enjoy. This allows your children to consume fruit in a balanced way.
2. Fruit smoothies
These beverages are very healthy and easy to make, and they’re perfect to diversify your children’s diet. From an early age, you can start preparing fresh orange juice or, if you want to try something different, you can start mixing different fruits to make a fun combination.
You can also prepare smoothies using natural yogurt or milk. That way, they’ll be more filling and will complement your children’s breakfasts and snacks. This is one of the simplest ways to make fruit appealing to kids.
3. Slices of fruit
Cut small pieces of different fruits so that your children will be able to grab them with their own hands and eat them by themselves. This technique is perfect for creative moms who want to make different designs with them like a house, flowers or animals.
Keep in mind that children eat with their eyes most of the time. Be careful with how you present fruits to them – if you do it in a fun way, your children may even start to love fruits and want to eat them every day!
4. Fruit skewers
If you want them to eat at their own pace, a good option is to make fruit skewers. They’re not as difficult as they might seem! All you need is a wooden skewer and lots of pieces of different fruits.
You can include as many colors as you want: berries, kiwi, orange, pineapple, grapes… This will make them feel like they’re eating a rainbow!
You can also make fruit lollipops by cutting small pieces of watermelon and sticking a wooden toothpick in them. If you want to make this recipe even more fun, don’t hesitate to serve a small portion of chocolate (or any other flavor) syrup for them to dip their fruits in.
5. Fruit purées
This is a classic, easy-to-make recipe. What you have to do is mash some fruits (with your hands or with a fork) like peaches, pears, bananas, melon, strawberries and any other fruit you want.
To prevent the purée from going bad and changing color, you can add some lemon juice drops. We don’t recommend preparing the purée too much in advance because it might lose its qualities by the time your kid eats it.
6. Fruit cakes
If there’s a birthday coming up, don’t hesitate to add fruits to the cake! This will definitely make your children excited to eat fruit.
A good example of a delicious fruit cake is an apple pie. You can mix the fruit with the typical ingredients of the cake or just use the fruit as decoration.
7. Fruit candy
Lastly, we recommend making fruit candies yourself. You can use your homemade fruit confectionery such as chocolate, apples, and chocolate cherries.
A pinch of imagination, a little bit of preparation, and a good dollop of fun are all important ingredients to make these recipes. They’ll definitely help your kids substitute regular, sugary candies for fresh and natural fruit desserts.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
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