On average, whole milk is 3.5% fat, semi-skimmed is about 1.7% and skimmed is just 1%. Despite this, millions of people continue to drink whole and semi-skimmed milk, instead of skimmed milk – which contains all “the important nutritional benefits of milk, including calcium, protein, minerals and vitamins, but with half the fat of semi”. Why? We’re not sure…

The Food Standards Agency’s saturated fat campaign has recently released research into this subject. The study revealed that, although 56% of people could taste a difference between semi-skimmed milk and skimmed milk, 75% of consumers liked the taste just as much and 94% found it an acceptable alternative to semi-skimmed across a range of uses. The study conclude that many people in the UK would be happy to change to drinking 1% fat milk instead of semi-skimmed, greatly improving our nation’s health, food safety and awareness.

FSA’s Head of Nutrition Dr. Clair Baynton, said ‘Our research shows that people are prepared to consider switching to 1% fat milk and those who regularly use semi-skimmed like the taste as much. We tend to use milk on a daily basis so this small step will make a big contribution to reducing our saturated fat”.

Today the Food Standards Agency will launch a phone application, designed to help people take a 21-day long challenge to cut thier saturated fat intake. The idea is to help people come to better understand the different levels of saturated fat in various food products, hence helping them make better choices about what they consume. All you need to use the application is a web-enabled phone, an iPhone or an iPod Touch; simply donwload the application from the Apple App Store or http://www.food.gov.uk/satfatapp to get started!

The 21-day challenge involves making a small daily change to your diet, to cut down on consumption of saturated fat. These changes can also be shared with friends via Twitter, should you desire to do so. You pick you own challenge for each of the 21-days, which can be something as simple as having skimmed milk on your breakfast on monday, instead of semi-skimmed. Once complete, you can Twitter your success to your friends.

To find out how people are getting on, check out http://www.food.gov.uk/satfatchallenge.