Two bouts of surgery and four days in intensive care later, you think I’d be cured of my faddish tendencies but no! (In fairness I can’t prove the surgery was directly related to the herbs but the two are forever linked in my mind).

My latest ‘dabble’ has been in the world of macrobiotics. A macrobiotic diet consists of organically grown whole foods as well as naturally processed foods – like brown rice, millet, chickpeas, miso, tofu, soy foods and lots more stuff you find in organic and health food shops.

When I say I’m ‘dabbling’ I mean I pop into Wholefoods round the corner for my lunch from time to time and chew my way through a lot of serious looking salads. If you want to find out more about following a macrobiotic diet, get recipes and buy food online have a look at the Macrobiotic Shop website - www.macrobioticshop.co.uk.

Hippocrates said ‘Let food by thy medicine and thy medicine be food’. Bet he never ended up in A&E with severe stomach pains