Meet cute.

There's nothing romantic about 'My Day On A Plate'.

Every couple has their meet-cute — that enchanting first encounter between two people, filled with the possibility of forever.

Perhaps it’s an accidental collision on a blustery Parisian street…

Or the surprised touch of hands as they both reach for the last dust-covered copy of Beowulf in a used bookstore.

For my husband and I, it was a bowl of cereal.

We first met one cold August night, at a friend’s Bondi Beach apartment. He casually asked about the funniest movie I’d ever seen and, in an awkward fluster, I found myself acting out a scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Charming, apparently.

But it wasn’t until we discovered our shared love of eating cereal after dinner that we realised we were bound to meet again.

Strong relationships are built on common values — and, as it turns out, a mutual love of multigrain Cheerios.

It’s been 15 years, two kids and thousands of litres of milk since that first fateful evening but I was recently reminded of the conversation after settling down with the Sunday Papers.

As I flipped through the “Life” insert, I was surprised to find that the nutritional column — What I Eat In A Day — was still running.

This type of content is common on social media, where #WIEIAD has 11.2 billion views on TikTok alone.

But there’s a difference between actively searching for hashtags and being confronted with diet culture over your morning coffee.

I remember reading these articles as a teenager, on the cusp of a decade-long eating disorder, feeling admonished as I compared it to my own “gluttonous” behaviour.

My nutritional failures were further emphasised by the on-staff RDN critiquing an already perfect plate — “Try using dates instead of raisins in your quinoa porridge to increase fibre and reduce your overall sugar intake.”

(Is it any wonder that girls grow up with dysmorphic tendencies?)

I’m a big advocate for healthy eating, but posts and articles like this are a damaging relic from the early 2000s.

I also have to wonder if they’re a little bit false…

Not once have I seen the influencer eating the chocolate freckle that comes with a takeaway latte, or the mini bags of pretzels you get to nibble on the plane.

Grilled salmon and homemade matcha cookies? Yes.

After dinner Corn Flakes? Not so much.

As a health coach, I couldn’t fault the Day On A Plate that I read this past weekend, but the dietitian had feedback:“Try skipping that square of dark chocolate after dinner as cacao is a stimulant.”

The subtext was a national reminder — “Women, you can always do better.”

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to getting good food on the plate each day I already feel squeezed like a lime in a margarita and I don’t need my best effort marked RFI.

Eating well doesn’t have to be complicated. With simple, small shifts and a mindfulness practice, you can nourish your body, feel well, and still enjoy the extras.

(Psst: Overwhelmed at lunchtime? Try the Sanity Sandwich.)

Nutritional rigidity is neither necessary nor effective, and it never ends well to compare your plate to someone else’s.

Seeing that excerpt could have made me a little bit mad.

But fortunately, it just sent me down memory lane and I started reminiscing about some of the great meals my husband and I have had.

From degustation at Rockpool to snails at Chez Monsieur, and Leccino olives under the Tuscan sun, our gastronomic adventures have all had two things in common:

1. We were together.

2. We ended the night with cereal.

That feels like a good meal plan to me.

Until next time,
Jenn xx