Getting your child to eat fruits willingly is a common difficulty faced by many parents. The nutritional and health benefits of eating fruits is widely known but convincing children to eat fruits can sometimes be a difficult and tiring task. This is because children often perceive sweetness and bitterness differently. Children may even taste things that we adults are unable to, and vice versa. Children also tend to be extremely averse to bitterness and sourness, which can sometimes be tasted in natural fruits that do not contain added sugars.
Despite the difficulty, it is crucial that parents do not give up on getting their children to consume fruits. Eating habits and tastes are formed from an early age, so it is essential to provide a variety of fruits in your children’s diet from young. To help you with this, we will explore 5 simple ways to get your child to fall in love with fruits.
How to Encourage Your Child to Eat Fruits!
1. Introduce a variety of fruits
Variety is the spice of life, and introducing your child to a large variety of different fruits can be helpful in getting your child interested in fruits. Variety includes more than just the type of fruits. Consider introducing your child to fruits in a various forms, texture and shapes. This can include frozen, freeze-dried, canned, fresh, dried fruit, and even 100 percent juice and nectar. Through this, your child might find their favourite fruits as well as their favourite way of eating them.
- Mix fruits with familiar old favourites
While variety is exciting and fun, we all have favourites when it comes to fruits, or even food. Try introducing new fruits to your child by accompanying it with food or fruits that your child is already familiar with and love. This may increase the chances of your child trying out the new fruit that you introduced.
- Shop for fruits with your child
Bring your child along when you go grocery shopping next time and let them pick their favourite fruits as well as new fruits they would like to try. Involving your child in the shopping process can not only make grocery shopping a fun family experience. By letting your child participate in shopping, it makes them more likely to try out the fruits purchased.
- Eat fruits together with your child
As a parent, you are your child’s role model. Eating fruits together with your child can encourage them to pick up the fruit and give them a try. Even if your child dislikes a certain fruit at first, watching you enjoy it may eventually pique their interest enough to give it a second chance.
- Try Gracious Goodness!
As mentioned earlier, you can try to serve fruits in various forms, textures and shapes to your child to get them interested in fruits. Gracious Goodness perfect for this! Our large range of freeze-dried fruits gives you a myriad of options when it comes to giving your child freeze-dried fruits. Young children love to munch on snacks and Gracious Goodness’ freeze-dried fruits provide the same nutritional value as fresh fruits while providing a delightful crunch with every bite.
The word ‘snacks’ may worry parents as they are usually littered with added sugars, saturated and trans fats, sodium and preservatives. Fret not, Gracious Goodness does not contain any added sugar or preservatives and is never fried. Put a pack of Gracious Goodness in your child’s bag and let them snack healthily! For younger toddlers who may encounter difficulty munching on our freeze-dried fruits, you may add a bit of water which will soften the fruits, making them easier to chew on.
Some of our best-sellers include:
Gracious Goodness Freeze Dried Strawberry
Gracious Goodness Freeze Dried Mango
Gracious Goodness Freeze Dried Pineapple
Introduce them to your child today!
