Healthy eating has become far too complicated – it's time we went back to basics
Good health strikes me as quite a useful facet to have in life, indeed to cling to the old mortal coil. So when it's not front, it's certainly back of mind.
I'm keen to add to my own regime, of course, always remembering what the late great Peter Cook once told Clive Anderson when asked: 'Are you health conscious?' 'I'm conscious,' the great man replied.
I eat out professionally and like to drink along to jolly the experience and try to balance this when back home. My wife cooks up spicy broths, I endeavour to intermittent fast – no breakfast three mornings a week. And I try extremely hard to have one, if not two days without alcohol.
And, taking advice from a reflexologist, I start the day with hot water and lemon and, having heard an old broadcast by the late Michael Moseley, begin breakfast with a dessert teaspoon of olive oil.
And this week, I've had my interest piqued by the food choices of Kendall Jenner. She's a supermodel, you know, and paid squillions a year on the basis of her physique. On her Instagram on Wednesday, she showed off her breakfast of choice: a pretty array of fruits, nuts and yogurt and a warm frothy drink of some sort. Easy to emulate, surely.
Experts have, helpfully, pored over the image so we now have a shopping list for a breakfast that can be the pathway to something called a size two and flab-free limbs.
You need raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, a bunch of nuts, Greek yogurt, honey and a sprinkle of matcha green tea. And the drink was a golden milk latte, a turmeric coffee beverage, nutritionist Monica Partier explained, that 'is rich in phytonutrients that may protect the body by neutralising free radicals.'
Note the word 'may', suggesting that it actually 'may' not. May not also being an expression linked to one's issues with time, energy and capability. Matcha tea, wonderful though it might be, is a little thin on the ground down in west Somerset.
Blackberries are something I grab from the hedgerows in autumn, and I definitely may not have the time to create such a delicate meal on a week morning with a school run and commuter train beckoning.
I looked closer at the Jenner breakfast image and realised there was a certain Meghan, Duchess of Sussex aesthetic to it. It has 'food stylist' written all over it, if not 'private chef'. And the studied approach is not surprising as Ms Jenner has 287 million followers (and there you were, not having even heard of her!).
She is a woman of power, which makes her posited breakfast all the more disappointing. Because her 200-calorie breakfast could be just as well achieved with some sliced up banana in yogurt with a drizzle of honey. Or indeed a piece of hot-buttered toast. Or a bowl of porridge. Which has sustained millions of humans for centuries.
In a week when scientific advice has become a Woody Allen-style futuristic black comedy (ex-government drug advisor Prof David Nutt recommended one glass of wine a year), my advice re Ms Jenner's breakfast would be: 'Do not try this at home'.
If you're looking for a life-enhancing breakfast, one that's achievable and, if you must, will get you loads of likes on Instagram, I'd suggest an Edwardian breakfast to set you up properly for the day: porridge, fried potatoes, an omelette, kippers, cold tongue, lamb's kidneys and all washed down with a large glass of claret.
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