2) Food may be love, but it's also life and death: there are fish to be gutted, rabbits to be skinned (sorry, vegetarians), and plants to cross-pollinate. This is elemental stuff, and it keeps us alive.

3) Pigging out every now and again is good for the soul.

4) Try new things. Be open to new experiences. Think back to how it felt to taste a strawberry for the very first time. (Or perhaps not, if you're allergic to them.)

5) Feel the fear and cook it anyway. Some people are terrified of making pastry, some of baking bread or making mayonnaise because these are the things which always go wrong for them. It doesn't have to be that way. And the feeling of getting it right, not to mention the taste when you eat it, is well worth the effort.

6) Brussels sprouts are a force for good. Sliced and sauteed with some pancetta and chestnuts. Anyone?

7) We all know what makes up a balanced diet . it's not that hard to realise that, just because you like crisps, they're not perhaps the best thing for breakfast. So the Greedy Girl isn't going to give you a lecture about all that. There are plenty of other people to do that for her, and besides, you're a grown-up: take some responsibility for what you put in your mouth.

8) Tolstoy said: "Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change themselves." Certainly, as an individual, it often seems na?ve to think that one can change anything. But supermarkets will change if you make them: they want to sell you what you want. There's been an overall market increase of 44% in the ethnic food business in the last five years. It's now worth ?180 million. That's why Tesco's now has a whole aisle of great ethnic products: they want your money. How you spend it can change the world.

9) There is no excuse for a minging sausage.

10) Waste is wrong. That chicken carcase the foxes attacked in the bins last night would've made a great stock. And, simmering on the back of your stove, it would've made the house smell a hell of a lot more homely than a plug-in scent dispenser. Stock pots rock!

11) Food doesn't have to come in fads. So what if prawn cocktail's out of fashion ? it still tastes good. Crikey, my husband wooed me with coq au vin and martinis, and you can't get much more retro than that!

12) A four-hour lunch is not morally wrong.