It’s vital that kids eat plenty of fresh fruit every day, but what do you do if they’re bored with everyday apples? Try these five easy ways to get children to eat more fruit.

• Add fresh fruit to breakfast cereals. Don’t ask, just slice on half a banana, or scatter over a few berries or half a chopped apple.
• Buy good quality fruit juices, that is fresh-pressed and not made from concentrate. Pour a glass for everyone in your family, every morning. Again, don’t make a grand announcement, just do it. If it tastes great, they’ll love it.
• Fresh fruit smoothies are delicious for breakfast, and very satisfying, and all you need to make them is a blender. Whizz together low fat yogurt, juice, soft fruits like strawberries or bananas, for an instant and highly nutritious start to the day.
• Make fruit desserts more interesting. A whole apple for dessert isn’t very enticing, but slice it up and fan it out, maybe do the same with an orange and a pear, spend two minutes arranging them on a plate and bingo, the whole disappears and that’s two portions of fruit delivered without even trying.
• Fill some small containers with chopped dried fruit, mixed with nuts and seeds. You can use tiny plastic boxes or little zippered plastic bags and the like. Add to lunch boxes, or take along whenever there’s a risk of an unhealthy snack attack.

That’s all there is to it. Once you get started, you’ll find it’s easy to serve more fresh fruit to your children, every day, so that they get their five portions – and more – without even noticing.

Elizabeth Martyn is webmaster at http://healthy-eating-made-easy.com, where she provides information, tips and recipes on using seasonal, fresh ingredients to feed the family healthily and without hassle. There are also over 120 easy healthy recipes for family meals on the site. For more help with feeding the family, check out healthy eating for kids.

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