So, today is Pancake Day and the internet is abuzz with healthy alternatives to traditional pancakes, featuring everything from baobab powder to beetroot. I’m sure these are great recipes and maybe I’ll get round to trying them out some day.

But not today. Why? Because Shrove Tuesday comes around once a year and my kids are looking forward to their pancakes with their choice of Nutella/banana/blueberries/maple syrup. A suspicious looking pancake with a suspicious taste would go down like the proverbial lead balloon.

Having a holistic health coach for a mum, my kids are plied with a lot of fresh, whole foods. And, as my middle son indignantly complained at the weekend, our treats cupboard has been quietly overhauled. Where it once groaned with the weight of chocolate assortments, it now houses a comprehensive collection of wholegrains (some of which are unlikely to see the light of day, if the truth be told).

If someone in my family had coeliac disease, then it would be gluten-free all the way. But they don’t. Plus, given the huge amount of gluten my kids eat anyway, both at school dinners and at home, a few pancakes are a drop in the ocean.

My ethos – and the one I encourage my clients to follow – is very much to aim for 90% real, whole foods and then whatever the hell you fancy for the remaining 10%. It isn’t, after all, what we eat occasionally that has any bearing on our health but rather our daily habits.

For me, some things are just not to be messed around with. For instance, our weekly Friday night Sabbath dinner – homemade challah (traditional plaited bread), chicken soup with matzah balls, roast chicken with roasties, followed by a little something sweet – is absolutely sacrosanct. And that’s the way I want to keep it.

So too Pancake Day.

What will I be eating this evening? Well, I’m something of a traditionalist… so I’ll be taking mine with lemon and a sprinkling of sugar.