These days you can’t move a parsec without encountering a constellation of dietary advice designed to get you ‘beach-bod ready’ for the first time you set foot on the automatic sand of Space Florida.
I picked up the latest copy of Cybermen’s Health and found it recommended that the best way to get ‘steel-hard abs’ was by having your brain and lymphatic system sliced away and placed in a robotic exoskeleton.
Sure, that’s good for striding along the beaches of Penhaxico Two (‘Where the ladies, so I’m told, are very fond of…metal’) on a Bank Holiday, but once you’re home it makes putting on your pyjamas very tricky.
Meanwhile, Dalekosmopolitan promised to ‘exterminate the flab with a combination of lethal fire’ (it also had an article titled ‘Eight Tips That’ll Make His Eyestalk Swivel In The Bedroom’ that I’ve bookmarked).
Sontar-Harper’s Bazaar recommended a probic-vent kale cleanse, while Ood Housekeeping didn’t have any eating advice, although it did have a piece on how people hate too many magazine puns.
But the only diet you need is the one that’s been keeping an old man alive for two thousand years, aka ‘The Doctor Diet’.
It’s an utterly random series of meals that will leave you feeling fuller on the inside, and smaller on the outside. You’ll be able to run down corridors faster, be more attractive to strangers, and able to outwit even the smartest of villains. Or, more likely, you won’t. If anything you’ll put on weight and have to start using Adipose Industries’ weight-loss capsules.
Maybe you’d like to give it a try?
Time to start eating like a Time Lord…
Breakfast
When you fall out of bed and feel like you’ve just regenerated, the best way to start your day is with fish fingers and custard, which provides you with 100% of the daily breadcrumb allowance that Earth doctors recommend. Forget Weetabix. Fish, eggs, sugar and vanilla is everything a body needs for a taxing day ahead. If it’s good enough for the Eleventh Doctor, it’s good enough for your stomach.
Of course, not everyone has time to fire up the grill on a morning. If you’re on the go, take the Ninth Doctor’s advice and make sure to have a banana. Bananas are good.
Try to source them from the groves in the heart of Villengard if you can (I bet Waitrose does them), but really any banana will do. Just make sure not to confuse it with a Squareness Gun or you’ll blow a hole in your head before you’ve had chance to enjoy reading the news headlines over your morning toilet-time.
Elevenses
No one has time for elevenses anymore. Not even a Time Lord with his TARDIS set to eleven.
But do take this time to whip out a stalk of celery and wave it around your immediate vicinity to check for toxic gases in the Praxis range. You’re not allergic to them, but it’s a better use for celery than eating it.
Lunch
In the middle of a busy day the last thing you want is a meal deal consisting of an underwhelming sandwich, a bag of crisps, and a soft drink that you’ll probably leave somewhere too warm for too long.
And since it’ll be at least 200,000 years before you can get a Kronkburger, you need something tasty and filling. So class up your chow-hour by having one of the Fourth Doctor’s favourites – bouillabaisse. It’s the French soup that’s full of delicious fishes, and far better than a Cup-a-Soup.
If you’re not in the mood for a classy fish stew, have a hot dog instead. The Tenth Doctor concedes that it’s the Cybermen of food, but also that it ain’t half tasty. For dessert, cram a fistful Jelly Babies into your hungry maw, remembering to offer one to the nearest bewildered stranger.
Afternoon snack
Treat yourself to a quick sugar hit to keep your energy up. The Eleventh Doctor liked Jammie Dodgers. The Tenth skipped the biscuity bit altogether and enjoyed jam straight out of the jar – Eoin McLove style – in ‘Fear Her’.
If you want something healthier, have a tangerine found in a dressing gown pocket. To drink, have a cup of tea. All the Doctors love tea, and a super-heated infusion of free-radicals and tannins is just the thing for healing the synapses. Apparently.
Dinner
You’ve had a hard day. You need something substantial. Start off by treating yourself to one of the Tenth Doctor’s favourite treats: nibbles! He loves nibbles. Defrost that pack of canapes you’ve had in the back of the freezer since Christmas.
To drink, enjoy a glass of wine. Eleven and Nine weren’t keen on it, but Three and Twelve won’t say no to a drop.
Then it’s soup to start because Season 9’s finale showed that the Twelfth Doctor is partial to a bowl of the orangey stuff. As you eat it, have an existential chat with yourself about the nature of Heaven and Hell. A nice slice of granary cob is optional.
For mains? Doctors Nine and Ten love chips, so they’re on the menu. Nine orders steak in ‘Boom Town’, but given that Eleven claims he invented the Yorkshire pudding (in ‘The Power of Three’), and Twelve likes sausages (see ‘Deep Breath’) have the best of both worlds by cooking toad in the hole. Nothing captures the excitement of intergalactic time travel like toad in the hole and chips.
Or, if you’ve really got time to cook and you’re feeling a bit Heston Blumenthal, smash a chicken breast into a steak to make the chicken-beef hybrid meat that The Doctor tries in ‘Midnight’.
Not everyone can get the Seventh Doctor’s ‘UNLIMITED RICE PUDDING!’, so for dessert have a soufflé.
However, if you can’t be bothered with the faff of making a pudding (where do you get the milk?!), then travel back in time to the decade that Doctor Who began and pick yourself up this iced treat for sixpence…
Apparently it’s so good that even the Daleks want a bite.
Avoid
If you’re on The Doctor Diet then there are some foods you shouldn’t touch. Do as both Ten and Twelve advise and never eat a pear, and if you’re smart then you’ll take a note from the Sixth Doctor and stay well clear of carrot juice.
Beans on toast, bacon, apples, yoghurt, and bread and butter are also off the menu. If you go out for a bite, be sure to avoid the Broth of Oblivion, the drugged soup that Magnus Greel uses in ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’. It’s terrifyingly high in sodium.
Other than that, the universe is your pantry. Tuck in!
Which other suggestions do you have? Let us know below…