As relationships become ever more complex, friends have admitted that in their homes, even the human/pet status quo is being threatened by New Age thinking. Pets are being treated more and more like little people. First it was doggy coats and shoes, and now a French fashion house has launched doggy perfume retailing at 40 quid a bottle.

Luciana, a wealthy divorcee and Kensingtonite, has kept her dog "pure-bred" vegetarian throughout his pampered 18-year life. That didn't stop the scraggy-looking chap stumbling straight into my kitchen last night and scoffing the meaty contents of my dog's bowl without pausing for breath. My friend seemed amazed by his appetite. "I was worried he was ill this afternoon when he refused the tuna steak I had cooked for him."

Pointing out that canines have been carnivores since time began is a waste of breath. The big casualties in the dietary war the middle class is currently fighting are our pets and our babies. As we gorge guiltily on Parma ham (meat and salt), chocolate eclairs (fat, fat, fat) and wine (deadly toxins), these innocents are force-fed the 21st-century equivalent of gruel. Low-fat, low-sodium vegetarian food.

This year, a young girl died of malnutrition after her well-educated, well-off parents refused to take her off their very strict vegan regime. Teachers, social workers and doctors had tried to tell the couple that because of the rate of growth that children undergo, and the calories they burn up running around, their daughter couldn't survive on vegetable puree shakes and organic soups. She was small for her age and exceptionally weak. They refused to listen.

I, too, have become an amateur dietitian for whom the phrase "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" could have been invented.

Since seeing a nutritionist last month, I have banned my baby daughter from ever, ever having cow's milk. Luckily the health food shops cluttering our high street stock goat's milk specially powdered into baby formula. Gosh, they think of everything, don't they?

Herbalists and trendy food advisers spend their lives terrifying new mums and pet-owners. "Ooh," one said to me reproachfully, "you give your daughter dried apricots." The week before, I had been told by another amateur food expert that these were "perfect substitutes for sweets". But no. Many of them are preserved in - oh my God - sulphur dioxide.

Shopping takes a good hour longer now that I read the labels on everything before I buy it. Have you ever tried buying an entire week's groceries avoiding all products containing toxins, chemicals, colourings and preservatives? Well, let's just say that I have - and this week, I was forced to tell my family that "We shall mostly be eating pumpkin soup."

Things become more extreme the higher up the social ladder you go. Here, some pet-owners are still content with the old ways and treat their animals as little more than slaves. Two lurchers in Sussex, for example, sleep outdoors in all weathers, must earn their keep by protecting the family and hunting, and will be summarily put down when they get too old or too slow to serve their master efficiently. At least these types know where they stand in relation to their world. First there's God, then landowners, then dogs, and then wives. All is well. Alas for my middle-class compatriots whose every dawn ushers in a new confusion. In the last century milk was good, now milk is bad. Once upon time, dogs were pets; now they rule the roost.

As Luciana flipped her old dog on to her lap and stroked his belly, she sighed sadly. Looking into his watery eyes she said, "Johnson has never fancied me."

I sipped my wine silently and looked at my feet. I couldn't figure out whether she was kidding or not. After a while I ventured: "But why would he? He's just a dog. He's not a man."

With a look that would curdle goat's cream, she replied: "How dare you insult Johnson like that?"

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