As a child, I always ate what was put in front of me, without argument – then I got to go out to play, and have desert, etc – I knew how to play the game. But my sister did not, especially when it came to meal times. She never wanted to eat the meal the way we were supposed to eat it – main first, then desert, or sometimes she would want to combine foods – so, raw vegetables with baked beans or pizza dipped in soup but then not eat the soup.

I never understood it, and still don’t. My parents never really let her get away with it, but I wonder what she would be like now if she had been allowed to eat as and when she wished? She ate a range of foods without complaint, she just didn’t want to eat them in the order she was told. Is this perhaps the way to get kids eating things that are good for them? Or is the social custom of eating certain foods in certain ways and orders so ingrained into our society, that we simply cannot get away from it?