So dieting is difficult is it? Well, can you remember the 'good old days', ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, were you a fellow dieter then?

Did you have to mix pasteurised milk with water to make skimmed milk? Or perhaps you boiled pasteurised milk and waited for it to cool down and then skimmed the fat off! Did your milk-man even deliver skimmed or semi-skimmed milk? Years ago there only seemed to be two sorts available - pasteurised or sterilised, certainly not the variety available now. Today we have skimmed, semi-skimmed, long life etc. all coming in bottles or cartons.

Did you ever see products giving you the calorie value/energy values. Manufacturers fought against showing these contents until the mid to late '80s. Nowadays the fat, energy and sodium contents should be printed on most packets. Can you remember seeing low sugar/low fat/low calorie products in the shops? Nowadays the list of foods supplied in these alternatives is endless. What a choice of polyunsaturated spreads we have, years ago it was either butter, lard or the hard block margarine, and nothing else was available.

We didn't even have sweeteners years ago. You either had sugar in your tea or coffee, or went without. Can you remember trying to get used to drinking without the sugar? When sweeteners did first appear on supermarket shelves, the taste left in your mouth was awful, it was worth getting used to a drink with no sugar, rather than using sweeteners. Can you remember how your face used to pucker? The improvement in sweeteners in the last few years has been amazing.

Can you remember the first calorie booklet? They only contained a very basic list, nowadays the items they contain seem endless, and they give well over 20,000 items.

You are now getting the help you need from food manufacturers and supermarkets. Although dieting has been made easier (by that we mean shopping) always beware of items that tell you one thing, but actually mean another.

I.e. low fat could be high in sugar, low sugar could be high in fat

Even 'no sugar added', means the sugar could be already included as NATURAL SUGAR

 So use the products that will help you to diet, but be aware of what is printed on the label. If in doubt, keep the labels and speak to your personal consultant, preferably before you've eaten the contents!