It's one of the most common and most frustrating challenges parents face - how do we get our children to eat their greens and other healthy foods?

Trying to encourage the kids into healthy eating habits can be incredibly time consuming and frustrating and, understandably, there are often times when mums and dads will feel like throwing their hands in the air and giving up.

However, Dublin mum Noele McEvoy is here to help.

The Dundrum-based founder of healthy treats company Supernature faced the same challenges with her adult daughters Laura and Amy when they were children.

However, the food savvy Montessori teacher managed to eliminate most processed and refined foods from youngest girl Laura's diet, curing her severe eczema in just two years and transforming how the whole family ate in the process.

She told RSVPlive: "To me independence and independent eating, particularly for children aged under six is very important. They're very dependent on us for the foods they are given.

"But if we were to just sit back and let them choose, they probably would choose fresh fruits and vegetables and probably wouldn’t be inclined to go for sweets at all because their own innate survival instinct and taste would be for real food and not processed."

"Having said that, life is busy and we all reach for the quick fixes now and then. It's about being able to accommodate that and throw in some fresh food as well."

Here are her simple hacks for getting kids to eat healthy without the hassle.

Simple healthy swaps and additions

Start with simple swaps that will make foods they already love more nutritious, Noele says.

She explained: "If you’re making a pasta you can choose a white pasta or a wholegrain pasta. They are both as easy to cook. The wholegrain will take a few minutes extra but there’s a big difference in the nutritional content.

"So if you don’t offer the white pasta first they’ll very quickly get used to wholegrain."

"If you’re grabbing a jar of pasta sauce because you don’t have time to make your own or the idea is overwhelming, its very easy to pop it into a blender or use a blending stick and throw in a couple of fresh tomatoes and a handful of spinach.

"It won’t change the taste in fact, it will probably make it even nicer. You can throw in some fresh herbs as well if you have them.

She added: "It's still very quick and very easy but you know they are getting some fresh vegetables too so that’s a good way of upping the nutrition very quickly and easily."

Healthy alternatives to sweet treats they'll love

"I used to make smoothies with my girls all the time and going to a smoothie bar was an outing they loved. We'd go for a smoothie instead of a milkshake or ice-cream," Noele recalled.

"The great thing with smoothies is that you can throw anything in them. I remember the first time I put in spinach in the whole thing went green. They were a bit dubious so I told them I added a little bit of green food colouring because it was St Patrick’s Day."

"To this day my kids add spinach and kale to everything they cook they love it.

"We are big fans of banana ice cream, which is simply frozen banana blended. We add our [Supernature] peanut butter cups to make it feel like it’s Ben and Jerry’s. But you can add anything you like.

She added: "Frozen grapes can have the same sensation and taste like jellies. They're available at some retail outlets. Just be careful with young children vertically cut the grapes in half."

You can even make special events and party food a lot healthier without ruining the kid's fun.

She said: "Why not have a pizza birthday party where you can make or buy the bases(there are some really good quality bases around now that are made from just a few wholefood ingredients)?

Make healthy food fun

"Children often go through faddy phases," Noele explained.

"My youngest daughter Laura was not keen to try new things, for example she would never try a tomato. It could be quite frustrating so I tried to make food as fun as possible by coming up with games.

"One day I came up with this idea that we’d play a game with some of her friends called the 'blindfold taste test'. So we got the blindfold and I cut up all these different foods and they had to try each food and guess what it was and whoever got the most right was the winner.

Games like this can really work from the five year old age mark when they are starting to get more fussy about things. It became a fun game."

She added: "Children often surprise themselves. They think they don’t like something but then they try it and think that wasn’t so bad. That makes them more open to the next time.

"We wouldn’t’ have forced the kids to eat anything, but we’d always encourage them to take at least one bite."

Encourage their independence

Noele explained: "From the age of nine months you can start experimenting with things they can pick up themselves like sweetcorn, grapes, (always remembering to slice them vertically and not horizontally), pears, bananas and avocado squares.

"They're going to be so excited about feeding themselves they can choose what they want when they want it .

"Giving them a little array on the table to choose from is a nice, independent activity for them and equally you’re getting a lot of nutrition in there."

Download the RSVPLive App today




Download it now and get involved.


"Very quickly with a young child you can give them a very blunt knife or a child’s knife and they will cut heir own banana and their own strawberry. It's a totally safe activity and the’ll be so excited at preparing their own food.

She added: "Allow for the fact that it’s a new task and allow yourself some extra time the first few times you do it, but after that they’re actually a great help! You're handing them a bowl of bananas and strawberries and they’re making a fruit salad."

Supernature treats are sold on and in convenience, health food stores and Dunnes Stores outlets nationwide.