5 Sneaky Ways To Help Your Kids Get Their Vitamins And Minerals

Vitamins and minerals play a range of important roles within your child’s body to help support their healthy growth and development.

Containing nutrients such as vitamin A for healthy eye development, calcium for bone strength, and vitamin C for a immune system health (just to name a few), fruits and vegetables are dietary sources of an array of essential nutrients.

So, encouraging your little ones to eat their 2 and 5 a day is a good way to help ensure they reach their Recommended Daily Intake of vitamins and minerals.

We understand that fussy phases can make it difficult to convince your child to eat the rainbow. Read on to discover some handy tips and tricks for sneaking fruit and veggies into the foods they love.

Carrots, sweet potato, broccoli and spinach all contain vitamin A and C as well as iron. But, if your little one is a picky eater, getting them to tuck into a big bowl of steamed veggies may be challenging.

If your little one is going through a fussy phase, try pureeing, finely dicing or grating these nutritious vegetables and stirring them through your child’s favourite meals, such as a pasta sauce or yummy soup.

Top tip: Try pureeing your vegetables in bulk, then using ice cube trays to portion and freeze them so they’re ready to go next time you need them.

Keep your picky eater engaged at snack time by cutting their fruit snacks into interesting shapes.

Try using cookie cutters to quickly and easily transform sliced fruit into stars, love hearts or dinosaurs! You can also do this with vegetables such as sweet potato which is a source of vitamin A.

Not only will you give the kids an exciting lunchbox snack, you can also put the leftovers in a container for yourself – yum!

Goals are a great way to make mealtimes more manageable. Although it’s not a hidden veggie meal per say, using character bowls – bowls with a character design at the bottom – are a great way to keep fussy eaters interested in their dinner.

Adding extra fruits and vegetables to freshly squeezed juice is another way to support your child’s vitamin and mineral intake.

Just make sure that the juicer you’re using still gives them the fibre they need, as some only extract the juice without using the pulp. Fruit and veggie pulp is a source of fibre that you don’t want to waste it!

If you have juice leftover you can make icy poles. If you feel like getting super creative, layer different flavours by freezing them bit by bit to make a rainbow.

Have you found this article useful? If so, you may enjoy the following:

4 Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Overcome Fussy Eating

5 Dairy-Free Ways to Help Give Your Kids Calcium

Vitamin C: The 6 Best Benefits for Kids

Important Minerals For You Child (And How To Help Them Get Enough)