LET’S TRY TO KEEP IT REAL WHEN IT COMES TO FOOD

REMEMBER that old ad with the guy who goes into a milk bar? “Bottle of milk, thanks,” he says to the lady behind the counter. She looks less than impressed.

“Low fat, no fat, full cream, high calcium, high protein, soy, light, skim, Omega 3, high calcium with vitamin D and folate or extra dollop?” she reels off automatically.

“Ahhh, I just want milk that tastes like real milk,” the guy says.

I know how he feels. My man went to the supermarket the other day to get ice cream for the kids after dinner. I was expecting him to return with a four-litre Neapolitan for the five of them to fight over.

But he came back with five tiny tubs and little change from a $50.

The ice cream he placed on the table looked good. They all had lovely labels and pretty pictures. But one bite told us something was seriously wrong.

The high-end boutique fancy ice cream that cost as much as a day’s rent tasted like frozen sawdust laced with sand.

A closer look at the packs revealed they weren’t ice cream at all, but allergy-free, plant-based dairy alternatives. Uh-oh. He’d accidentally wandered into the health food aisle.

One was a chocolate cherry fudge brownie ice cream made from avocado, another was a “probiotic” offering flavoured with turmeric chai and cinnamon (eww…!) and another was “packed full of veggie goodness” including cauliflower and zucchini. Can you imagine? “Oh yum, can I have some more brussels sprout ice cream?” said no child ever.

Now, I understand that some people with allergies need modified non-dairy or gluten-free ice cream treats. But many of these products are marketed to the mainstream as healthier options than the basic Pauls vanilla.

I don’t get it. Why eat ice cream full of weirdo ingredients like locust bean gum, xylitol or erythritol — not to mention zucchini? Surely, you’d be better off having a small serving of the real thing containing cream, milk, sugar and egg?

Take, for instance, Peekaboo mint chip ice cream with “hidden spinach” which has 16g of fat, including 10g of saturated fat per serve. This compares with Peter’s vanilla ice cream – which is gluten free anyway – which has only 2.2g of saturated fat per serve.

These days many of our fave indulgence foods have been given trendy makeovers. You can get vegan Magnums made from vanilla-flavoured

pea protein and dairy-free chocolate made from coconut oil and butter. There are also frozen breakfast waffles made from butternut squash and carrots and brownies made from beetroot, black beans and eggplant. Why bother?

“Cabbage is so hot right now,” one article tells me, extolling the virtues of mac and cheese with “pasta” made from cauliflower and vegan “cheese” made from cashews.

Yeah, well head lice is hot at my kids’ school too, but it doesn’t make me a fan.

It’s all part of a trend to sneak vegetables into every food. Parents, it seems, have so little control over what their kids eat that they have to boost their veggie intake at dessert time as well.

The hidden veggie craze was started back in 2007 by

Jerry Seinfeld’s missus Jessica in a book called Deceptively Delicious.

Jessica clearly doesn’t have the same sense of humour as her husband. She wanted us to spend Sunday nights pureeing carrots and avocadoes to hide in ordinary foods like spaghetti pie and chocolate fondue. She called it “date night”. I call it torture. I tried her avocado/chocolate fondue recipe once and it tasted like snot and my four-year-old threw it up all over the dog.

Another avid vegetable hider is radio host and author Jane Kennedy who wants us to make pizza using grated zucchini as a base. She also invented the “piemakin” which is a pretend pie with a “crust” made from cauliflower puree. Who can be bothered?

Why can’t kids just eat plain, basic steamed veg with each meal like we had to?

Back in the 1970s, my mum was too busy consciousnessraising and growing out her armpit hair to smuggle beetroot into brownies or repurpose root vegetables as spaghetti. And she certainly didn’t try to pass off avocado as ice cream.

They need to redo that ad. Guy goes into milk bar. “Tub of ice cream, thanks,” he says.

“Do you want gluten-free, lo-cal, no-cal, dairy-free, probiotic, organic, paleo, vegan, nut-free or low carb?” the woman says.

“Ahh, I just want some ice cream that tastes like real ice cream,” he replies.

I rest my case.

WHY CAN’T KIDS JUST EAT PLAIN, BASIC STEAMED VEG WITH EACH MEAL LIKE WE HAD TO?