Organic September

September can be a great month to celebrate where all our healthy fruits and vegetables come from and the people who work hard to pick them for us. Or why not try out picking your own organic vegetables?

Why eating healthy is so important

A healthy diet is essential for good health and nutrition. It protects you against many chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Eating well supports your child's healthy growth and development into adulthood. By ensuring you and your family eat fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the day and whilst eating dinner, you’re helping yourself maintain a healthy lifestyle and consuming lots of vitamins too!

How to get involved during Organic September

Although there are plenty of food stores that will stock fresh fruits and vegetables, why not consider picking your own! During this time there will still be plenty of different places to go and pick your own! This could also make a fun day out as a family and a great learning experience for your kids and maybe even yourself. As this will help your children gain more of an understanding of where all the healthy produce that they eat comes from!

By picking your own healthy produce, it may help your kids feel more inclined to try different things, especially if they have been involved in picking it themselves too. They will feel proud that they have accomplished something new and would have helped them learn new things. However, do not worry if your children are still not so keen on eating different healthy foods. There are lots of different recipes that you may want to try that will let you incorporate different vegetables without them noticing (hopefully). Mixing different vegetables into your kid's favourite choices of dinners may also help hide the fact that you included some healthy foods in their meals, such as spaghetti bolognese with added blended fresh vegetables or having fun making different pictures on top of pizzas together with vegetables.

Now if you have children who also don’t enjoy eating fruit, these tips may come in handy. If you cut up some fruits that your kids have chosen you could separate them into different bowls and ask them to design some funny faces and animals, or pop them onto a skewer to make a 'fruit wand'! Or with Halloween coming up soon, why not take a look at our '7 Halloween Sweets and Treats' which has some fun ideas to make with fruit!

By making it a fun activity for them, it could encourage them to try eating more healthy fruits! You could also make smoothies, or even try out fruit lollies, by blending up some different fruits of your choice and then freezing them to enjoy later. As again, children may see it as more of a treat or a fun activity that you can do together as a family!