What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus was a minor epiphany compared to the life-style change that this Paul has undergone of late. For five weeks now I've been living without cigarettes. To those of you who don't smoke or who never have, that may seem like a minor event in a life of peripheral inconsequence, but from where I stand it's pretty major. I was a confirmed smoker, an inveterate smoker, a self-satisfied and contented smoker. Nicotine defined much of what I did, for example I used to measure the complexities of my articles by the number of cigarettes I consumed while writing them, as in 'phew, that was a fifteen-cigarette article', or 'that was an easy one, a mere six-cigarette job'. I could stop writing, gaze philosophically out of the window and inhale deeply of my lady nicotine. Now that particular avenue of pleasure is closed off. Now I look out of the window and twiddle my thumbs instead.

Personally, I think stopping smoking is a huge step towards a healthier life, but for many of those close to me it's not enough. They want a further commitment. They want me to start the day with smoothies made from beetroot and carrots, they want me to eat brown rice and lentils, they want me to drink Kombucha. They even want me to take exercise for God's sake - where will this health fascism end? What's wrong with moderation? I tell you this, moderation will be my watchword from now on - moderation in all things, and that includes moderation.

So there I was, moderately walking the streets of Dun Laoghaire doing some gentle pre-Christmas shopping, when the pangs of hunger began to overcome me. Did I go looking for a batter burger? A cheese burger? Some chips with mayonnaise? A tub of lard and a long spoon? No, I did not. The new reformed me turned me towards something a little healthier than that. I headed off towards the Pavilion centre and Itsa Bagel. Although there were tables outside, and a few hardy souls prepared to brave the cool of mid-December by sitting there, I decided to sit inside in the warmth.

When you walk in you queue up and a pleasant young man asks you what you'd like. What that actually means is 'what filling would like in your bagel?', and if like me you've never been in the shop before, you can hold up the queue behind you for ages while you read a long menu and make a decision. I toyed briefly with cracking that old Buddhist gag 'make me one with everything', but figured the humour of it might have got lost in the pressure of a long queue. I settled on the appropriately named 'all-day cure' and sat down. That's the system here, you order and then wait until your number is called out, when your bagel is handed over to you neatly wrapped up and served on a wooden platter.

Now before I tell about all the tasty bagels that you can order, here's a little history. The bagel began its life in Poland around 1600, but began to get noticed when a Viennese baker made his bread in the shape of a stirrup to honour King John II of Poland, a skilled rider. What makes a bagel different from other buns, baps and rolls is mainly that it's boiled briefly before it's baked - a double cooking that gives the bagel its idiosyncratic characteristics. If you're wondering how a Viennese bread with Polish origins made its way to Dublin the answer lies in the mass migration of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the nineteenth century, who brought their love of bagels with them. At first bagels were baked only in Chicago and New York, two cities with large Jewish populations, but by the 1980s their popularity was such that the bagel had entered mainstream American life. Its popularity continues to grow there, and here in Ireland, where all American trends eventually arrive, the bagel has landed.

You can think of the bagel as a roll, bap or bun, and the fillings are just the sort that you could put into a roll or bun, but somehow, because it's a bagel, it's different. The New York classic is bagel and cream cheese, but in Itsa Bagel you can have a choice of ten 'signature' bagels with various combinations of ham, sausage, bacon, cheese, avocado, chicken, pastrami, onions, peppers, egg, roast beef and mozzarella to name a few. If none of these combinations please, you can order a mix of your own choice. I wasn't hungry enough to try them, but there's a good choice of different soups as well, and the ones that were eaten at my table looked pretty good to me. The soups are priced around €3.50 and the 'signature' bagels are either €4.60 or €4.80.

Although I'd picked the bacon, egg and sausage filling for my bagel, the fact that I could have chosen really healthful fillings made me feel virtuous for having come in the door. When you look at the beverages they offer, you know it's all healthful - freshly squeezed juices and smoothies, Kombucha (of course), Aqua Libra, organic cranberry juice, organic guava and organic cola. I tried the organic cola, a drink that caused me to reflect that this was never going to rule the world the way Pepsi and Coke have. Still, it's organic nature made me feel even more virtuous.

If you picked carefully, you could come here for lunch, have a warming soup, a well-filled bagel and a fresh juice all for under a tenner. It's quick and clean, and certainly left me with the impression that it's a whole lot better for you than a burger and chips. Who knows, maybe I'm reforming quicker than I thought.