The poll of 1,000 mothers found 80% admitted they'd covertly made family meals healthier without their partners or children knowing.
Supermarket Morrisons commissioned the survey with Netmums to better understand how mothers think about healthier food.
Half of those questioned admitted they'd hidden vegetables in meals while a quarter had pretended a healthy meal was something different to avoid putting off family members.
It appears they have good reason to take the lead in being the guardians of healthier family cooking – 82% said they weren't confident their partner got five portions of fruit and veg each day, with 85% saying their other half secretly snacked on unhealthy foods when outside the house.
Almost half (48%) felt the average child's diet is unhealthier today than when they were young, with 17% saying their children refused to eat anything they cooked them which was healthy.
More than half expected their children to eat unhealthy snacks behind their backs, with many resorting to bargaining, only giving desserts if their children 'proved they've eaten all of the healthy first course'.
A third of mums had taken a hardline approach by banning any treats from the house while 17% had taken the subtle approach, telling the family the healthy option was 'the only thing left in the shop'.
When mums took a break from taking charge of home-cooking, their partners had made some interesting and bizarre meal choices. Some of the mealtime mistakes that dads had made, according to the survey, included cucumber and jam sandwiches for packed lunches, grating cheese sprinkled over cereal for children's breakfast, emptying last night's Chinese takeaway into a child's lunchbox, giving children chicken nuggets with chocolate dips and using gravy as a pasta sauce.
But more than half of the mothers questioned felt that – despite the good intentions of their partners – introducing simple switches to mealtimes had helped, with 54% saying they were confident their children got all the vitamins and nutrients they needed.
Siobhan Freegard, founder of Netmums, said: "It's surprising to see that mums have concerns about the eating habits of their partners.
"It isn't uncommon for mums to admit to bribing their children with treats or hide vegetables in meals, to encourage eating a healthy meal. Perhaps we'll see the tables turn on dads in the near future."
Nazli Dag, nutritionist for Morrisons NuMe, said the findings painted a picture of modern mothers as a "MumTritionists", responsible for keeping the entire family healthy 24/7.
She said: "It's a concern that quite so many mums have had to resort to secretive measures to introduce healthy eating to family mealtimes.
"We know being a mum can be a tough and time consuming job, so hearing how they make time to prepare healthy meals that suit everyone's tastes in their daily lives has been an eye opener!"
Morrisons Executive Chef and Head of Innovation, Neil Nugent, offers mums these tips when it comes to preparing healthier food:
If your child is craving something sweet, then try fruit or yoghurt instead of a high calorie, high sugar snack.
You can even try steaming or poaching foods as this can improve the nutritional value and still deliver great flavours.
Thicken sauces or soups using vegetable purees like carrots and sweet potatoes to give creamy textures without the cream.
A free booklet, called 101 Small Steps to a Healthier You, has been created to help people make small simple switches to their meals.
It can be downloaded from www.morrisons.co.uk
Founded in 2000 Netmums is the UK's largest women's website hosting over 150 local websites, 2,300 bloggers and 500 national meet-up groups for mothers.
Netmums is also the only parenting site to provide professional round-the-clock care to its users. Each year over three and a half million parents are supported by Netmums specially trained teams of parenting experts, including staff from Relate, Women's Aid and the Family Rights Group. The site also provides free one-to-one support for more than 30,000 of the UK's most vulnerable mums each year.
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