My one and only dietary rule

.... is this: One good food eaten immediately before or after a bad food will completely eradicate the bad.

Oh don't pretend that you don't understand my logic; we all do it: inhale a king-sized KitKat chunky and follow it with an orange. Ta Da, you've eaten nothing! The vitamins, minerals and overall goodness of the fruit has effectively cancelled out the evil fats, sugars and carbs of the chocolate.

If those poor, award-wage, fifteen year old whopper wallahs at Hungry Fats and Maccas got a cent for every person who ordered a diet coke with their Whopper/Double Quarter Pounder/Large Fries/Triple Fudge/Finger Lickin'/Deep Dish/ Fully- Fried Meal Deal deluxes, they'd be kicking James Packer out for not being wealthy enough.

I know that I'm not the only Foolish Foodie Hypocrite in this world - that diet coke tap isn't on constant drip for my purposes only you know. Last week I was joining my workmates at our uni cafe for morning tea, and Helen ever-so-helpfully pointed out to the others my pick-me-up of choice: a skinny latte accompanied by two melting moments. Yes, those pesky three grams of milk fat were to be avoided like a department store bra fitting if I was to fully appreciate my 50% butter biscuits.

Another method of using this food combining, self-delusional dietary system to your advantage - especially when time is of the essence and your cravings are not to be ignored - is to incorporate both the good and the bad in the same food item.

The berry flan is one such notable item. It is ridiculously easy to order a hefty slice of this delightful dessert, saying something out loud to your friend like, "Ooooh, fresh berries, my favourite! I'll definitely have this one!". Never mind that said fruits are only a stingy layer covering up a brick-thick wedge of creme-laden, full-fat cheesecake which again rests on top of the butter'n'biscuit base. That's just what we all need - the calorific content of the biscuits to be doubled by crushing them up and resticking them together with butter.

But hey, you had at least three mouthfuls of berries, didn't you?

Another personal favourite is the Sunday roast. It all looks and sounds so good in theory: delicately roasted meats (with the fats dripped off onto the rack underneath) and an array of delicately steamed and oven-cooked vegetables. All of which is immediately cancelled out by the salty, oily and delicious gravy that is poured over your plate until no colour is visible except brown. Made entirely from the fats swimming in the bottom of the roasting dish of course. However, you need to remind yourself - you did eat three brussels sprouts and half a parsnip, didn't you?

As I write this, I am using this theory in relation to beverages, alcoholic ones in particular. My gin and (of course) diet tonic is strictly medicinal because the fresh lemon juice in it is helping my current bout of the sniffles. I'm not the only one in our household who likes to cling precariously to this threadbare theory. My darling Love Chunks has frequently argued that the 'a glass of red wine per day' is good for the heart; plus it's chock-full of grape juice. What more could a hard workin' family man ask for. (Apart from a Jennifer Aniston and Angeline Jolie menage-a-trois inside his million dollar marlin fishing yacht of course, but that's another story I'm not about to examine any further.....).

Naturally, as I endure another episode of 'Dancing on Ice', a two-hour tack-fest featuring the cream of channel nine's loosely labelled 'celebrities' live on TV tonight with seven year old Sapphire, I will again be applying my theory to well-intentioned martyrdom - ie, the fat content of the four rows of Cadbury Caramello I will undoubtedly inhale will be nullified by the sheer good will and unselfish parental act of seeing Dermot Brereton in tight orange pants and hair that a transsexual pornstar would envy.

In closing, I address the final, most important issue - does my daring dietary theory actually work? I'd like to think so, at least in my very own MillyMoo Land. In hard, cold reality however, I still seem to have an arse big enough for midgets to shelter under during rainstorms.