The Celebrity Shopping Trolley - Andi Peters

What we have here is a 38 year old wimp turned fitness freak who does not understand the most basic and simple facts about food and nutrition.

He may have a great six-pack and look fabulous, but sadly, this guy lives alone and takes too much notice of his life coach, personal trainer, exercise jock, hair dresser, manicurist or seriously under qualified alternative health practitioner.

As we’ll see, poor old Andi does not really know his carbs from his elbows when it comes to planning his diet. Read more….

Breakfast is 100g pineapple and a protein shake made with 30g protein, 8 fluid ounces of water, half banana and 30g oats all blended together.

Why on earth anyone would want to use protein powder rather than real food is beyond me. There is no evidence that these protein supplements have any advantage over real food sources, in fact, they are never going to supply all the micronutrients and full spectrum of protective substances – we don’t even know all the chemicals that nature puts into our natural foods.

He says a real treat would be a bowl of frosted Shreddies with semi-skimmed milk, but skip the frosting and he would be better off. Essential calcium, protein, fibre and extra vitamins; keep the pineapple, add some baked beans or a boiled egg and Andi would also have more protein and a much healthier start to his day.

Lunch is a Marks and Spencer’s cottage pie, he says it has a great protein/carbohydrate balance; or Nando’s grilled chicken with salad and rice.

These are not bad choices but why not buy a great organic chicken, roast it at home, eat hot one day with veg; cold with salad, sliced in a wholemeal sandwich or with a jacket potato the next; then make a thick soup with root vegetables, barley, beans or lentils for the third day? That’s a healthy eating plan!

Andi thinks that he has “absolutely no carbohydrates for his evening meal.” His two choices are fish fingers, baked beans and sweet potato mash or steak, broccoli and sweet potato mash.

Here is the carbs and elbows bit. Baked beans are around 15% carbohydrate and sweet potato 20% - little different from potatoes or pasta. And what does he think the fish fingers are coated in? Bread crumbs or a synthetic equivalent of course. Any way, what is a grown man doing with fish fingers? Herring, salmon or even tined sardines would be a thousand times better and he would get the added bonus of lots of heart, brain and joint protective omega three fats.

Favourite snacks are nuts and cottage cheese and that’s fine as long as the nuts are not salted. But the self righteous 'I do not drink alcohol’ is no big deal. In fact the daily can of coke – 5 teaspoons of pure carbohydrate, i.e. the sugar – plus lots of caffeine, is bad news whereas a glass of red wine protects the heart and has less than a quarter of a spoon of sugar!

Yes, he thinks he tries his hardest to eat healthily. 'I go to gym most days so it is important that my diet supports the amount of exercise I can do’ says Andi, but sadly he has got it all wrong.

Fresh pineapple, semi-skimmed milk, broccoli and bananas are always in his trolley and those are excellent choices, but there is no bread, only cottage cheese, not much in the way of fruit and veg. I am concerned that he may be getting too few good calories and missing out on the essential fats.

He says that a real treat would be rhubarb crumble from Marks and Spencer once a week, but Andi also thinks this is a vice. The M&S one may be, but he will find the world’s healthiest crumble in the recipe section, here on the web site – low fat, lots of fruit and fibre as well as protein from oats and almonds.

Click here for Michaels Fruit And Nut Crumble

The other vices are Steak and Kidney pudding – once every two weeks and Haagen-Dazs cookie and cream ice-cream – once a week.

Looking at the rest of his diet I think these would be virtues not vices and would help boost his rather limited nutrient consumption. I wish he would learn to cook a bit!