Fact or fiction: do you really have to eat your veggies to stay healthy?

Do we need to be engaged in ongoing battles with our children about eating plenty of vegetables? Relax, because many think not.

The belief that vegetables are the cornerstone of health is a fairly recent one actually. The "five a day" mantra has no real medical basis. In fact, it's the result of a marketing campaign by fruit and vegetable companies in Canada in the 1990s.

Before industrial food production and the false sense of abundance this has brought, the traditional view was that vegetables were only what you ate when fish, meat, eggs, milk, nuts, or other more nutritionally dense stuff wasn't available.

We forget, for example, that societies such as the Inuit (and many others) have lived almost entirely without vegetables and with only a handful of summer berries here and there. And surprise - they don't have scurvy. When researchers from other gene pools try this diet, they too are in blossoming health.

Though a varied diet is best, if you absolutely had to choose only two or three items to get you through an extended time in good shape, you'd want it to contain as much of the following as possible: complete protein (containing all essential amino acids), essential fats and, coming along for the ride, as many as possible of the vitamins and minerals we require.

On this basis, the optimum diet would be a combination of free-range chicken livers, free-range eggs and sunflower seeds. Sorry, the Lindt 75% slab didn't make the cut (although in truth it may be more nutritious than many vegetables).

What is the very best reason to eat your vegetables? Because they are delicious. And not actually bad for you.

HOW TO MAKE BLUE CHEESE SPROUTS

This is one of my favourite indulgent vegetable dishes. It is a slight adaption of a Nigel Slater recipe, and is the bomb for winter supper

Serves: 2-3

Ingredients:

750g Brussels sprouts, cut in half if large

1 dessert spoon butter 

180g mild creamy blue cheese 

1 tsp smooth mild mustard (such as sweet American; not whole grain mustard)

400ml cream

100ml milk

Handful of finely grated Parmesan cheese

White pepper and salt, to taste

Method:

1. Bring a medium pot of water to the boil. Salt boiling water as per pasta, add sprouts and cook for about 3 minutes.

2. Drain and place in a shallow oven-proof dish which has first been lined lavishly with the butter.

3. Mix the blue cheese, mustard, cream, milk and pepper in a bowl, add a grinding of salt and pour over the sprouts. Scatter the Parmesan cheese over the lot.

4. Bake at 180ºC until there's a light gold crust on top, probably around 20 minutes, depending on your oven. Eat with some really good bread alongside.

• This article was originally published in The Times.