With more centenarians than anywhere else on the planet, five times less heart disease and half the cancer rates of the West, the inhabitants of the Japanese Island of Okinawa are clearly getting something right. Their secret? A healthy diet with seven servings of fruit and vegetables, lots of whole grains, oily fish and soya and few animal, milk and dairy products as well as practising traditional dance and karate and regular walking and gardening. People pray each day, have a strong sense of community and shake off stress easily.

Drinking more than one can a day of fizzy drink can not only rot your teeth but give you gout according to researchers at Canada’s university of British Columbia. Gout is a condition which causes joint pain and affects over 600,000 people in the UK. It’s thought that large amounts of fructose causes gout by increasing uric acid levels in the blood.

Dieters in a study by Pennsylvania State University used two bowls of soup per day – either as a snack or base for veggie soup – for a year and lost 50 per cent more weight than those who consumed the same number of calories from low fat snacks. Don’t just eat soup at restaurants, home made soups made from vegetables, such as carrots, peas, leeks and butter nut squash make nourishing snacks and lunches.  Interestingly there are many cultures, e.g. Japan, where they have soup for breakfast.