Midlife guide to... Lupin flakes

This sounds suspiciously like the scientific name for dog dandruff … it isn’t, is it?

It certainly isn’t. Nor is it some kind of novelty frosted cereal. No, this is your brand new wellness fix, the wonder ingredient you need to be sprinkling on your smoothies and salads and baking into your cakes.

Oh no, not another nonsense health-food powder. I’d only just about got on board with matcha …

Fair enough, but you might want to pay attention – lupin flakes really do seem to be somewhat of a superfood. They look and taste like couscous but contain 90 per cent less carbohydrate and are gluten free. They contain a quarter of the carbs and three times the protein of quinoa, as well as three times more potassium than bananas, three times more iron than kale, and three times more antioxidants than berries.

So I can stop mainlining brassica? Sign me up

Yes, just a small handful of lupin flakes could see you eschewing the mounds of kale in your veg box for good. They are also perfect for anyone on a vegan diet as they’re plant-based (they’re not actually flakes at all – they’re the seeds of a lupin plant which, incidentally, has been the runaway star at Chelsea this year), and adding even a small amount to your meals will up the protein and bulk out the meal without adding a load of calories or carbs.

So can I harvest the seeds from the lupins I’ve just planted in the back garden?

Unfortunately not. You can’t just go and pick a lupin plant from the ground because in their raw form, they contain toxic alkaloids and isoflavones, which can be very harmful to humans. These are removed during the process of making them into flakes.

Where can I get them, then?

As with all superfoods, they don’t come cheap. A bag of lupin flakes will set you back £12.99 and if you’re adhering to the recommended daily allowance of 40g, that bag will only last you eight days. You can visit lupinfood.com to order yourself a supply. Or alternatively, visit your nearest sheep farmer. Sheep are often fed lupins but it’s only in relatively recent times that farmers have resumed marketing them for human consumption.

Here’s hoping the farmer up the road isn’t selling them for £13 a pop, too.