Life is already far too complicated with all the choices we can have when we go shopping: Branded or not? Organic or "normal"? Free range or battery? Fresh or frozen? High fat, medium far or low fat?

Well, Sainsburys have complicated matters further in the milk department. We'll ignore the whole branded/unbranded and organic/normal choices and look at the Sainsburys' own milk:

Sainsburys Milk Choice

Yes - you now have a choice of 4. You used to only be able to select skimmed (red), semi-skimmed (green) and whole (blue), but now they've introduced a 4th (orange) and relabeled all the others too.

The red label now advises it's 0.1% fat "skimmed". There's now a new orange label that advises it's 1% fat "milk", the green now advises it's 2% fat "semi-skimmed" (if I recall correctly SA call it 2%) and the blue says it's 4% fat "whole".

I can understand the change in labeling with the ever growing obesity levels, but do we actually need a 1% fat milk?

Do people actually approach the shelves and say to themselves "I really need to start watching my weight. I've been drinking semi-skimmed for years and can't stand skimmed. Oh I so do wish there was something between the two" ?

Another thing: can you actually taste the difference between skimmed, 1% and 2%? Maybe it's time for another double blind test.