Forget supplements, we can get all we need from good old fruit and veg '“ Verity Lush Â

The vast majority, whatever their specialist field, took a vitamin D supplement.

Given the weak sunshine at this time of year and the body's inability to store it, this makes sense in the UK.

But each professional, depending on their field, also took supplements supposed to protect against the diseases they were specialists in.

We could all end up rattling with a multitude of tablets inside us when, surely, we could get all of this from a varied, balanced, fruit and veg-filled diet? Which might taste nicer, cost less, and be a bit more filling to boot.

There's a reason for that old cliché about moderation

I watched a documentary last week about veganism. I don't much care what people eat (so long as it's not me) but I do appreciate the ethical and planetary implications of adopting a vegan lifestyle.

In the documentary, there was a focus on extremist vegans.

Extremism in any form or other is usually the way in which to give something a bad name.

There's a reason for all of our age-old clichés such as '˜everything in moderation', and our consistent waffling about how '˜balanced' diets and '˜balanced' lifestyles are best.

In the same vein, '˜balanced' opinions are also best. Opinions that (barring a few moral absolutes) are relative.

For example, stealing is wrong. Or, are certain acts less wrong depending on the circumstances?

For example, to break someone's car window on a hot summer's day because there's a dog suffering or even dying in the heat inside, as opposed to smashing it to nick cash inside to spend on booze because you fancy a drink but haven't got the money.

You can push this to further extremes also. 

Is the latter example worse if the person is rich but steals the money for the drink, as opposed to skint and homeless and hasn't socialized in a pub for years? But that's not a harmful extreme.

The extremist vegan on the documentary stated quite clearly that eating a piece of lamb was the exact same for her as eating a human baby, and morally just as wrong in her opinion.

I'd love for the interviewer to have then posed the question therefore, that if a building were on fire and a lamb was trapped inside '“ but so was a human baby '“ and you could save only one, which would you save?

If she said the lamb over the baby, I'd be both amazed and disturbed.

And if she said the baby over the lamb, then she isn't as vehement after all.

Part of what makes us human '“ and distinct from animals '“ is our ability to philosophise and think.

To consider the what-ifs and to dwell on right versus wrong.

Hands up if the first day back at work left you frazzled?  

It was back to work this week for many of us after Christmas. Hands up who was nodding off on the sofa by 7.30pm on Monday.

Or was that just me? 

It amazes me when I return to work.

I lead an active lifestyle and can spend a day charging about doing things, including a few miles of dog-walking and perhaps an eight-mile run, and yet still feel fully energized in the evening.

Put me back in work where my brain really has to kick in, and then it's my body that ends up utterly shattered.

When I left the house on Monday morning and it was still pitch dark, and I then returned in the pitch dark 10 hours later, I couldn't help but long for spring!