Healthy Eating Tips for Families: Adding More Fruits and Vegetables

Between work schedules, summer camps, sports practices, and everyday routines,
healthy eating can be hard. Adding more fruits and vegetables to your family meals is a
simple way to help kids and adults stay healthy.

Fruits and vegetables give our bodies important nutrients like fiber, vitamins, and
minerals. These nutrients help support energy, digestion, and a strong immune system.
The good news is that these foods are simple, powerful, and don’t have to be
complicated.

As part of Pennington Biomedical Research Center’s Small Shifts Campaign, we’re
sharing easy, family-friendly ways to make healthy eating easier and more enjoyable.

How to Help Kids Try New Fruits and Vegetables

One of the easiest ways to help kids eat healthy foods is to make trying new foods fun.

Start with one simple goal: introduce one new fruit or vegetable each week. Let your
children help pick it out at the grocery store, wash it, prepare it, or decide how they want
to try it. When kids feel involved, they’re often more willing to try new foods.

Keep mealtimes positive and don’t worry, sometimes children need to try new foods a
few times before they begin to like it. For family-friendly tips on healthy eating check out
Healthy Tips for Picky Eaters.

Easy Ways to Eat Fruit Every Day

• Keep a bowl of fresh fruit on the kitchen counter for quick, healthy snacks
• Choose ready-to-eat options like baby carrots, celery sticks, or pre-cut fruit  
• At breakfast add fruit to cereal, yogurt, or oatmeal with bananas, berries, or
  peaches 
• Pack fruit for school lunch and snacks like grapes, oranges, apples or
  unsweetened applesauce cups
• Add fruit or even vegetables to a smoothie for a healthy snack

These small changes can help fruits become a natural part of your family’s meals and snacks.

Simple Ways to Get Kids to Eat More Vegetables

Getting children to eat their vegetables can be challenging, but introducing vegetables in familiar ways can help make mealtimes easier.   

Family-Friendly Vegetable Ideas: 

• Plan meals around a vegetable-based dishes like soups, stir-fries, or sheet pan dinners  
• Mix vegetables into family favorite meals such as pasta, casseroles, tacos, or lasagna  
• Make grilled vegetable kabobs with peppers, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes  
• Serve a side salad with dinner or enjoy as a main-dish salad at lunch
• Shred vegetables into baked dishes like carrots or zucchini into muffins 

These easy adjustments can help your family eat more vegetables and still enjoy the meals they love.

Make Healthy Eating Fun with a Grocery Store Challenge

Turn grocery shopping into a fun learning activity for your kids with The Great Grocery
Hunt.

Challenge your children to:

• Find fruits and vegetables in every color of the rainbow
• Learn how different colors help different parts of the body
• Check off healthy foods as you shop- including fresh, frozen, canned, or dried options

Making healthy eating fun helps children build curiosity and positive habits around food.

Small Shifts Can Lead to Big Changes

Adding more fruits and vegetables to your family’s routine doesn’t have to be hard. Simple choices like swapping fruit for a snack, adding vegetables to dinner, or trying a new food as a family can make a big difference over time.

Small changes can help build lifetime healthy habits for the whole family.

About Small Shifts

Pennington Biomedical Small Shifts Campaign and Greaux Healthy work together to help families live healthier and at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, we believe that big changes start with small steps.  Whether it's drinking more water, taking a walk, or eating more fruits and vegetables, we believe every small step you take can lead to big results. So let's get started and make some small shifts together!