Fiona McCade: Madness wins in battle for five-a-day FOR seven years I have trained my little boy to eat fruit and vegetables. It's been a carefully fought mini-crusade and it's paid off: he loves his greens, tomatoes, oranges, apples and bananas. At least, he did. On Tuesday morning, I presented him with his breakfast banana and, for the first time ever, he turned up his nose. "There's no Nutella on it," sniffed Junior. I bristled. Since when, in the name of nutrition, has Nutella ever been an ingredient of bananas? Since Daddy started stuffing them with Nutella, and that's how I like them now. Plain bananas are boring. Ah, of course. "Daddy" - the word all health-conscious mothers have come to fear. While we're struggling to get five-a-day into our small charges, chances are that behind our backs Daddy is telling them that one pint of cider counts as ten apples. When I confronted Daddy with his crime against nourishment, I had plenty of ammunition on my side. A survey had just claimed that the average British male eats far less fresh produce than his children, forcing 48 per cent of females to admit that they have tried to hide fruit and vegetables in the family meals - not to improve the children's diet, but to help their men eat better. On the same day, Cancer Research UK published the depressing news that 30 per cent more Scottish males suffer from bowel cancer than they did 35 years ago, compared with a rise of just 5 per cent for women. I reckon this is because, in general, women eat more healthily than men. Perhaps it's due to our obsessions with weight, shape, complexion and various cosmetic whimsies - I don't know. But if I'm right, those pre-occupations may be saving our lives. Equally importantly, it looks like many of us are passing on our knowledge about good food and its benefits to our children, and setting them up for a healthier future. I just wish we could do the same for our men. Lord knows, I try. I put as many veggies into our meals as I can, but Daddy doesn't like it. "It's too green," he'll complain, as I race to cover up Junior's ears. Like the hapless 48 per cent, I even went through a stage of mincing up the courgettes - his bête noire of greens - so small that they couldn't be detected, but detect them he did. And complain he did too. I don't want to treat my man like a child. I don't want to be his mummy and spoon-feed him puréed spinach while cooing: "One for the elephant..." What I want is for him to willingly eat good food so he'll live longer and spend more years with us. But even this loving logic makes no difference the moment he's faced with a sprout. Those bowel cancer statistics are seriously scary, but when I told him that the best way to avoid the disease was by eating more fruit and vegetable fibre, he seemed genuinely surprised. "How is it you know about this stuff and I don't?" asked Daddy, innocently. Um... perhaps because I read about health issues? Because I'm interested in what I put in my body and into the body of my precious child? Because it's been officially proven that chips are not the only vegetable? "Nah," he sneered, "It's "cos you're a girl." As long as good health and sensible nutrition are seen by the man-in-the-street as a girly subject, the man-in-the-street is doomed. When I made a salad the other night, I introduced it as "a lovely salad." Daddy winced. Tell it like it is: it's a salad. There's nothing lovely about it. It's too green. My boy, meanwhile, tucked in, oblivious to the gender war raging around him. He is the future, and his loving mother's gift to him is a healthy intestine. His loving father, however, still hasn't got the plot. Yesterday he presented me with four small colourful cubes. "Starburst fruit chews," he announced, proudly. Welcome to your five-a-day. I took a very deep breath and replied: "There are only four flavours," hoping mathematics might just triumph where madness reigned. "Wrong," he crowed. There's strawberry, blackcurrant, orange - but this one is lemon and lime. Suddenly, Nutella is looking very good indeed. At least there are real hazelnuts in it.