Eighty percent of our adult brain is formed by the age of three. So just at the time when our toddlers have learnt that saying “NO” causes the big people around them to act in all sorts of funny ways, we need to make sure they somehow get enough brain nutrients into them, particularly iron, zinc and omega-3 fats.

Iron carries oxygen around the body. If a muscle is deprived of oxygen, it dies. If a toddler doesn’t get enough iron the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen. It can’t develop so well – and the damage is irreversible.

A large handful of dates and a big glass of ice cold milk. Yum! This simple snack was my daily childhood after school energy replenishment. Without realising it I was making great deposits in my bone bank account when my body most needed it – the teenage years. About 45% of our total skeleton is laid down in adolescence. How strong our bones get during this mega-growth period determines our bone strength for the rest of our lives.

It’s sort of like an n shape. We build up calcium in our bones until our early 20’s, it tapers off for the next 20 or so years and then we hit the calcium down-hill slide. As adults we can slow down this calcium loss but what counts most is how much calcium we had in our bones to start with. This is why it’s so important for teenagers to eat plenty of calcium. Compared with children or young adults, teenagers actually absorb more calcium from their food. It’s a great design feature that helps them meet their huge calcium needs – around 4-5 serves of dairy foods each day.

“Don’t give me any dinner this week,” my husband said to me. “I’ll just have your fruit drink.” What delightful words for any busy mum to hear: No cooking real meals for a week! Well actually I did still cook a little something extra for myself and my son. But fruit drink every night was a great way to start off November – the month set aside in New Zealand to promote eating ‘Five-a-day’. Five-a-day means eating five serves of fruit and vegetables each day. It’s not that much. A serve is one average sized piece of fruit, half a cup of vegetables or a cup of salad. For children, a serve is the amount they can hold in one cupped hand.

I’ve worked out that my fruit drink has about 11 or 12 serves and 22-24 grams of fibre. Split between three of us, we just about hit our daily 5-a-day with one large glass! And no wonder my husband doesn’t feel like dinner:

Relax, relax. Isn’t that what we are meant to be trying to do in this hectic world we live in? I was doing exactly that a few weekends ago at the NZ Food Writers conference. After a hard morning of visiting food and wine producers, and having to choose between blue cheese wontons with pear and rocket salad or grilled mackerel on toast with harissa at Clearview Estate Winery, we were now at Millar Road – seriously stylish accommodation – tasting yet more wine and food. Oh well, someone has to do it!

Relaxing by the pool in the afternoon sun, lapping up the Hawkes Bay countryside and Pacific Ocean spread out below us, I summoned up just enough energy to ask antioxidant expert, Dr Carolyn Lister, “Do organic vegetables have any more antioxidants than others?” She replied, “It depends how stressed they are. The more stress, the more antioxidants.”