You might not think it to look at me, but behind closed doors I get up to some pretty subversive acts.

Perhaps a peep inside my kitchen cupboards might give you a clue. There, behind the boutique bottles of extra virgin olive oil and the organic apple cider vinegar are some dangerous, deeply suspect ingredients.

If you have a sensitive stomach, you should look away now, because there's ordinary white flour in there. And white rice. And (whisper it), sugar. Before you pass out with shock and call the diet police, you should take a look at what's behind the shoebox of medicines on the top shelf. Yes, it's true – there's a bumper pack of marshmallows up there, and a stash of chocolate, none of which is single-origin, 99 per cent cacao.

In other words, I am an ordinary eater. I eat what used to be called bread, potatoes, pasta and rice but are now spoken of only as "carbs". I anoint chickens with olive oil to better crisp up their skin. My five-year-old daughter asks for "butter and peanut butter, with the butter peeking out" on her toast, because that's how I've always made it (and it tastes better that way).

I bake with sugar and flour. One of my favourite meals involves sausages. I don't own a juicer or a high-tech blender that cost the same as a secondhand car. Lest you think I have a collection of takeaway menus stuck to my fridge, I'd like to assure you that most of the time I try to eat the best-quality fruit, vegetables, meat and eggs I can afford.

Some of the timemy garden cooperates and I even grow some of it. I've realised that I run my kitchen in a very similar way to how my mother ran hers. So far, so ordinary – or so I used to think.

Take a step out of my kitchen, though, and it quickly becomes apparent that I'm becoming the odd one out. Ordinary eaters like me – people who refuse to be swayed by the latest dietary fads – seem to be thin on the ground.

Not since the days of Marie Antoinette has it seemed so dangerous, so reckless, to eat brioche. Spend any time on social media and you start to feel slightly sickened by the armies of self-proclaimed "wellness" gurus who post endlessly about "eating clean" and the benefits of green smoothies.

Rather than being life-limiting, financially worrisome and physically inconvenient, having some kind of food intolerance is a badge of honour among this crew. If you're not dairy-wary, gluten-free or triumphantly proclaiming that "I quit sugar", there's something seriously wrong with you.

Frankly, it's enough to make an ordinary eater run for the hills, or at least the nearest supermarket. Rather than a source of sustenance and joy, it seems food is becoming something to be either fetishised or feared. I'm certainly not inferring that food allergies and intolerances are made up, or that those who suffer desperately from them are all fussy malingerers.

I have got nothing against kale and cashew nuts, either. But this absolute mania and fear mongering about food has got to stop, or there'll be blood in the streets. Ordinary eaters like me are being squeezed between the superfood maniacs and their quasi-religious devotion to the Next Big Thing and the people for whom food presents a really serious set of problems.

Whenever I see an earnest diet warrior proclaiming kale chips have changed their life, I want to shake them until coconut yoghurt comes out their ears. I'd much rather they focused on meatier problems, like how we tackle food insecurity (that's not knowing where your next meal is coming from, not worrying if your buns look big enough) in Kiwi families.

I want us to figure out ways to return ordinary, everyday, nutritionally sound cooking to our lives, not bleat on about detoxification and juice-based retreats. Yes, "wellness" is important, but it's important for everyone, not just the people with nutrition coaches and personal trainers.

The only thing that keeps me from going insane is the thought that I can't be the only person who feels like this. And so I'm putting my hope and trust in you, dear readers. Because our time is now. Let us rise up, my friends.

Let us toast the rising sun with a hunk of crusty baguette spread with lashings of butter and jam. Let us turn on our ovens and light our barbecues. Let us open those bottles of wine we've been saving for a special occasion. Let us go freely into that good night, our bellies full and our hearts open. Because when the revolution comes, chia seeds aren't going to save us.

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