On test: super-smart scales

What is it?
The Salter Nutri-Weigh Slim is a new nutritional kitchen scale from home electronics firm, Salter, which gives accurate readings for calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, salt, cholesterol, fibre and of course the weight of the food itself. It comes with a quick reference guide to look up the nutritional content of individual foods.

How does it work?
Place the food on the scales, where it's a raw ingredinet like a banana, or a dish such as porridge. Tap in the reference number from the supplied guide, and the display gives the nutritional breakdown. As we all know, understanding the nutritional content of our food and getting portion sizes right is vital to achieving a well-balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. It sounds easy, but keeping tabs on the nutritional content of the food we eat can be harder than you might think. Food labelling is not standardised, making it hard to compare foods, and if you are following a low-fat diet plan such as Alli (www.dietdiaries.co.uk), it is essential to keep within the recommended fat limits.

What are the best things about it?
The new updated national Food Database has been incorporated to reflect the eating trends of the UK public. The scale comes complete with a memory function which lets you total the nutritional values for all the components of a meal, along with daily and weekly food intakes to help keep within the parameters of the government’s recommended daily allowances.

What are the worst things about it?
There's no alpha-numeric keyboard, so what happens if you lose the reference guide? Without that, there's seems to be no way of typing in a food type.

The instructions for using the scales are a little vague. I spent a few minutes wondering how liquids would be measured, before realising that it would be possible if the container was weighed, and the scales returned to zero before adding the liquid, and subtracting the weight of the container.

Using the keyboard, which is located on the actual scale, can affect the measurement of the weight. You have to remember to reset it to zero before weighing.

Anything else?
It's small and easy to clean, and fits easily into a kitchen drawer for easy access.

How much does it cost?
The new Salter Nutri-Weigh Slim Electronic Scale has a 5kg/11lb capacity and comes with a 15-year guarantee. It costs £44.99 and is available from department stores, supermarkets and independent cooking shops and online at www.salterhousewares.com