Fruit 'n' veg talk could drive a man to the bottle

After years of being told we need to eat five helpings of fruit and vegetables every day, we can now relax.

It was a myth, a hoax, a figure with no foundation. Turns out we don't need five a day after all. We need 10 a day.

I'm really trying to look on the bright side about this one. I suppose it's good news for greengrocers, and it does mean our cash-strapped councils can get rid of all the five-a-day co-ordinators. But they'll probably replace them with 10-a-day co-ordinators, double the money to reflect their extra responsibilities.

I write this as somebody who has for years been struggling to come to terms with the fact that I probably need to change my lifestyle. Having reached the stage when I probably have more years behind me than ahead of me, I'm genuinely trying to change my habits. But why do those virtuous individuals who tell me what to eat seem to take such great pleasure in making it all so miserable?

First of all, there's the terminology. NHS Choices tells us we need to eat five portions of fruit and veg every day. Notwithstanding the fact that the figure has now doubled, just what is a portion?

If I go in Teddy Gray's I ask for a quarter of wine gums. In the butchers, I'll pick up a bag of pork scratchings. The only place I ever ask for a portion of anything is in the chippy, and I suspect that's not what they have in mind.

Then there is the time factor. Who, outside the rarefied confines of the public sector, has time to eat fruit and veg five times a day?

According to same website, 'getting your five a day is EASY'. Not just easy, but EASY. Wouldn't want us to struggle with the joined-up writing, would they?

For breakfast, it suggests, "Add fruit to cereal, porridge or lower-fat yoghurt. Try a handful of berries or a chopped banana. Add mushrooms or tomatoes to scrambled eggs."

What time do these people get up in the morning? It's as much as I can manage to grab a couple of biscuits on the way out of the door.

For lunch, it suggests: "Try adding chopped carrots to bolognese sauce, add tomatoes to your omelette or mushrooms to your next stir-fry."

Omelette? Stir-fry? Listen, for those of us who have to go out to work, lunch means a sarnie. If we're lucky.

But what I hate most about the healthy living industry is the authoritarian tone with which the message is always delivered.

And now the Government has issued guidelines for the takeaway industry.

Incredibly, they are encouraging pizza joints to boost their margins by skimping on the dough.

They are even recommending chips should be a minimum of 14mm thick. I'm always suspicious of people who talk millimetres. Even the Department for Education has conceded that nobody outside the government sector uses metric measurements, and schools are now starting to teach feet and inches again.

And how did they come up with such a precise figure? Are the food police going to start raiding chippies with tape measures?

Portions, millimetres, units. It's enough to drive you to drink.