Renaldo’s mother was obsessed with tips about health that she gleaned from the internet. The things that poor Renaldo had to eat and do! The simplest piece of dietary advice was the old adage, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Anyway, Renaldo choked on a bit of apple and there wasn’t time to call the doctor.
Vanessa decided the time had come for her to lose weight. Slowly, imperceptibly, her body had been adding a kilogram here, a couple of ounces there. Besides, in a month or two she had been invited to host the pre-dinner cocktails for the city’s Shih Tzu Society’s 50th reunion. Diet time!
For a mere $5.90 she purchased a monthly edition of the Healthy Food Guide magazine. It was full of recipes. It even had a planner: every day of the month gave a detailed menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as a healthy snack suggestion for morning and afternoon tea. It was perfect.
Vanessa planned the first Monday’s Menu:
Breakfast: 2 eggs (scrambled) with half a cup of tofu and red capsicum on 2 slices of grainy bread with sliced tomato and avocado.
Snack: Trim latte and 3 walnuts.
Lunch: Chickpea and cauliflower curry, followed by a trim milk smoothie with banana and passion fruit and ice.
Dinner: Satay wild rice risotto with Sesame Asian greens followed by…
Really! Vanessa had had enough. She picked up the phone and dialled.
“Yes,” she said. “Is that the Employment Agency? I’m going on a diet and I need a butler, a chef, a nurse, and a personal trainer.”
“To put it mildly,” said the doctor to Vaughan, “you’re carrying too much weight.”
The doctor gave Vaughan a pamphlet, called A Fit and Healthy You, that outlined healthy eating. Vaughan promised to follow it.
Three servings of vegetables, and two servings of fruit: potatoes, carrots, Swiss chard, bananas and pineapple.
Six servings of bread and cereal: toast, cornflakes, pasta, rice, oats…
Two servings of dairy products: cheese and yoghurt.
Two servings of lean meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and nuts.
Eight glasses of water.
“Right,” thought Vaughan, “this diet caper is not as bad as I thought. That’s breakfast over. Now what’s for lunch?”
Weave a Web 