Counting calories is not a healthy long term strategy but it does help you to learn about what you’re eating. — With the possible exception of elite athletes, I would never endorse the obsessive counting of calories for long periods. However, I did use a diet app for several months and it taught me a huge amount about what I was eating. Take the humble Dorito. In calorie terms, there’s not…

And why I don’t waste a gallon of water rinsing it first. — Clean water is a scarce commodity and not to be wasted, so it always bothered me that recipes for cooking basmati rice involved rinsing it multiple times until the water ran clear. Imagine how much water would be wasted if every time someone in the world cooked rice they rinsed…

It may have raised awareness in the importance of a varied diet but 5-a-day is dangerously over-simplified nutritional advice and wouldn’t be necessary if there was proper food education in schools. — It started in California as a public-private partnership between the National Cancer Institute and The Produce for Better Health Foundation. It was called the “National five-a-day for better health” program. …

The breakfast debate rumbles on but no one can argue that eating when you are not hungry makes any sense. — I have found that most mornings when I stop to think about it, I am not actually very hungry — dehydration and habit seem to be the main reasons I used to consume breakfast every morning. …

If nothing else it’s a good start providing you can resist the temptation of turning it into a cake. — Every interview I’ve seen or heard with centenarians seems to include details of their oat-based breakfasting habits. It is hard to imagine similar interviews in seventy or eighty years where the interviewee puts their longevity down to Cheerios or Pop-Tarts, so my only conclusion is that porridge probably holds the…

Our food culture enshrines a level of variety which is a wholly unnecessary burden on the home cook and the planet. Imagine how much simpler life would be if we just ate the same meals every day. It may sound like a ridiculous idea but only because we have fostered…

We think of foods as comforting just because they provide us with a quick dopamine fix but the long term effects are anything but. — The other night I watched, in vague horror, as a TV chef added Wotsits to a Mac ’n’ Cheese proclaiming that she was “taking comfort food to a new level”. While Wotsit-laden Mac ’n’ Cheese may deliver some short term pleasure, that initial dopamine high will quite likely give rise…

Food must be given the same status as Maths and English in order to reverse the drastic decline in public health. — Our food culture is really just the food which our mothers cooked for us. But then came the time when our mothers had to go out to work. …

Getting properly hungry heightens the senses and makes even the simplest of foods intensely satisfying. — Just imagine how much easier life would be if we were all satisfied by the simplest of foods. Cereals, grains and vegetables which only require the addition of water and heat have formed the bedrock of diets around the world for centuries. …