So, we should all be eating seven portions of fruit and veg a day.

Five (as recommended by the Government) just is not enough, according to some researchers from University College London, who have worked out more of the fresh stuff will lengthen our lives.

I believe them. It makes sense, after all. Still, it is not easy making that daily health quota, is it? Especially when potatoes do not count.

It is even harder trying to convince a toddler to choose broccoli over biscuits and cauliflower over, well, just about anything to ensure they eat their five (or seven) a day.

Now, I am not going to pretend I know how to make toddlers eat more healthy food. Instead, I thought it would be more fun to list the stuff they do like to put in their mouths. More specifically, this is a list of seven things my son would rather eat than fruits or vegetables.

1. Make-up brushes: The fluffy end, not the hard plastic/wooden end. He likes to give the brush a chew, then wipe it on his face and the full-length mirror in the bedroom, making uncommonly pretty swirly saliva patterns.

2. The plastic dog and cat from his Duplo set: He likes to chew on these around meal times, especially when I am trying to convince him to eat salmon pasta or squash risotto. The dog's little black tail seems to be a particular favourite.

3. Crayons: I think this is a universal one, isn't it? Don't all kids eat crayons? My son does anyway. Last weekend he scraped a bit off one and then hastily swallowed it before we could remove it from his mouth. It was a green crayon though, which means it was probably healthy, right?

4. Artificial coal: A relatively new addition to his diet and one that prompted a pre-8am call to NHS 24 last week. Apparently the blackened burnt stuff is right up his street. I have no idea what the appeal is, but I can tell you the nurse at the other end of the emergency line described it as "low toxicity".

5. Toilet paper: Previously unused, obviously. I caught him once, hiding in a corner, silently stuffing handfuls of loo roll into his mouth. He says it is "yum, yum, yum".

6. Nails: An early addition to his diet at eight months. He once picked a nail out of the wall and popped it in his mouth, before I screamed in horror and then removed it.

7. Wooden jigsaws: He likes to chew them until some not-at-all-dangerous splinters appear, which he then eats. Obviously.