As the winner of Celebrity MasterChef in 2010 and author of various cookbooks, Lisa Faulkner knows a thing or two about healthy eating – and as a proud mum to ten-year-old daughter Billie, she also knows the challenges that mums face when trying to ensure their children eat a healthy, balanced diet.
"It can be really hard to explain to children about why they can’t have a certain unhealthy food or drink and when you’re trying to get them out of the door in the morning, a battlefield at the breakfast table can be difficult!" she told HELLO! Online exclusively. "I've found that getting Billie involved in what I’m doing really helps, so I always try to show her when I’m making a healthy breakfast."
Lisa Faulkner has teamed up with the Change4Life Be Food Smart app
As well as preparing meals with her daughter, Lisa has picked up a few other handy tricks to get kids eating healthier foods. "For breakfast you can swap sugary cereals for wholegrain toast or plain cereal with fruit and low-fat, lower-sugar yoghurt," she suggests. "If you’re finding it difficult to get you children to swap completely to a plain cereal why not try slowly introducing it by adding it to their usual cereal. Before they know it they’ll be happily having the plain cereal."
With her hectic work schedule, including her latest role as a brand ambassador for Change4Life Be Food Smart, Lisa also found an easy way to add fruit and vegetables into the meals she cooks for her family.
"Fruit and vegetables that are fresh, tinned, or frozen are good for you and it can be easy to put these in meals by adding small portions into the meal," the former Holby City actress explained. "I do things like add dried fruit to low-sugar, low-fat yoghurt for breakfast or add vegetables to a chicken noodle dinner."
© Photo: RexThe TV star shared her top tips to get the family eating healthily
The TV presenter, who is currently dating fellow chef John Torode, revealed that a common misconception about healthy eating is that it is expensive. "People often think that being healthy means spending a lot of money but that isn’t always the case," she said. "Fresh fruit and veg can be bought cheaply and there are usually lots of frozen fruit and veg options in supermarkets. You can also find lots of quick and easy recipes for the whole family for around £5 on the Change4Life website."
To give parents a helping hand, Lisa has teamed up with free app Change4Life Be Food Smart, which lets you scan the barcode of food and drink to reveal the exact contents of each product. "Being a mum myself, I understand just how difficult it can be to know whether the food and drinks you are giving your children are healthy," she explained.
"Change4Life has launched a fantastic new, free app called Be Food Smart which lets you scan the barcode of a food and drink and shows you how much sugar, saturated fat and salt is in your food in sugar cubes, salt sachets and fat blobs. It’s such a quick and easy way to see what’s in your food and my daughter and I had lots of fun checking all the products in my kitchen cupboards!"
Lisa Faulkner is encouraging parents to download the new Change4Life Be Food Smart app which is available for free on the Apple Store and Google Play.
