Every time I read ‘My Day on a Plate’ in Sunday Life it makes me wonder what Joanna McMillan would make of my daily diet. Try as I might, I cannot, amid the chaotic existence of life with three smallish boys, maintain any sort of regular, reliable food intake. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to cooking or nutrition. And the boys have always been adventurous eaters on the whole (now they often go back for a second, third even fourth mouthful). We eat fish, I hide vegetables, limit (or at least try) sweeties and treats. I even bake.

So my problem is not the variety of food in our house. It is time. I spend so much time making sure that their little bodies are nourished – and a fair bit of time lecturing them about rickets, scurvy, starving children elsewhere around the world – that by the time they are skeltering from the table, I am exhausted and can only face a cup of restorative peppermint tea amid the crusty bits of porridge, mash, kale pesto and the like (not strictly true – kale has apparently been put on the boys’ ‘dangerous foods that are likely to kill you’ list).

So in essence, my day on a plate looks something like this:

7.30am – Green juice – an entire blender-full or a measly cup depending on how generous I’ve been with the proportions of fruit/veg that morning – see above re kale. Its inclusion ensures a healthy serving for me.

8.00am – Two chunks of pineapple as I prepared morning tea – otherwise the numbers of chunks per child would have been uneven – they check, believe me.

8.05am – The middle of a roll with a generous knifeful of butter – making more room for the filling. I made myself chuck the other two pieces in the bin.

8.15am – Two spoonfuls of cold porridge with chopped apple and vanilla yoghurt – I would have had more but my tastebuds couldn’t handle the amount of maple syrup with which it had been liberally doused.

8.20 – A couple of toast crusts with peanut butter.

 

10.00 – Two skimmed mochas from the Source (best coffee in Mosman in my opinion).

12.45 – A few teaspoons of pie filling – to test seasoning.

12.50 – One piece of chewing gum (in order to make sure my family didn’t end up with plain pastry for supper).

1.15 – Scrambled egg (made with leftover eggwash).

1.30 – Some crumbs* of chocolate while making biscuits.

2.30 – A bowl of Carmen’s maple, almond and apple toasted muesli with blueberries and full cream milk (I am diligent when it comes to bone health).

4.00 – Cup of peppermint tea and one or two choc chip biscuits (too late in the day to count).

5.25 – Secret binge of Haribo tangfastics while waiting for the boys in the car – but not the cola bottles, I hate cola bottles.

7.00pm – A few floppy grey beans, pastry crumbs and a handful of dried out raw carrots – all that is left of supper when I get back from yoga.

9.00 – A bowl of muesli – I could be a student really, only then it would be cornflakes.

9.30 – Cup of peppermint tea and a raid on the choccie tin as we call it. The rule here is that it comes out if we have a family supper – I believe I always have a case to make here.

So Joanna McMillan, over to you. At a guess I’d say my bones are safe but the rest of me might be buggered. But note, no alcohol! No wine required, must be all those hairibos…

*ok yes, a few chunks