Meeting up at the bar or pub? Sharing a drink with friends? These are the times when you notice salty snacks everywhere – potato crisps, corn chips, beer nuts, cashews, pretzels and rice cracker snacks. Salty snacks fly under the radar – no one remembers eating them. Yet they’re a big problem for health and may explain why you can’t lose weight. Here’s my take on them.

Peanut butter enthusiasts – buckle up. There’s a new healthier alternative in town. I love peanut butter. I remember when I was younger, I’d go for spoonful after spoonful of this sinfully-wonderful-peanut-y-creamy paste after school. Yes, “glutton” I hear you say. But as I grew older, I soon realised that this spread isn’t too innocent afterall.

With their bright colours and pack shots of root vegetables, they scream "healthier snack". But are vegetable chips really better? We did a taste test side by side of two brands of vegetable chips and line them up against your standard salted potato crisp to see how they fare.

Just when you think it’s safe to venture into the snack food aisle, out comes Cheese CC’s with “energy”. I feel sorry for parents trying to be vigilant about those rotten energy drinks. Now there’s caffeine being added to less-than-healthy cheese-flavoured snack foods to watch out for too.

We taste tested the Energy Cheese side by side with CC’s other two cheese flavours: Nacho cheese and Tasty cheese and rated them for taste, nutrition, caffeine content and convenience.

Do you look for the red-and-white “Tick” of approval when you shop?  Is it really giving you the healthiest choice on the shelf? Or is it something that companies just buy to make their product look better for you?  I’ve long been a supporter of the Tick program and think it’s proved that it’s got the clout to make the Australian food supply healthier without alienating shoppers.

Nutritionists suggest we cut back on salt but it's sodium you'll see listed on food labels and on any recommended daily intakes. So what's the difference and how can you convert sodium into salt? And vice versa?

There are so many milks in the dairy case these days, it can be hard to work out which one suits you. And when you notice that they cost more than regular low-fat or home-brand milk, you start to think twice.

Here I review three of the more ‘unusual' added-value low-fat milks so you can see if one is worth paying the extra for your health problems.

Since October 2009, most bread in Australia is now being baked with iodised salt as part of a move to lift overall iodine intakes across the nation. At present just under half the population - some 43 per cent of Australians - don't take in enough iodine. Following iodine fortification, this is estimated to drop to a low 5 per cent.