Well, the good news is, it has been.

Supermarket shopping is often done in a rush - we know we should scrutinise the labels, but who has the time? Marks & Spencer is one of the big food retailers who are making this important information easier to digest.

M&S company nutritionist Claire Hughes, a 34-year-old Glaswegian now based in London, points out that the new front-of-pack labelling is designed to give us details about our food that's easier to take in at a glance.

There's the traffic light colour coding, with red, amber and green, for instance. "Red doesn't mean 'stop'," says Claire, " A good diet is all about balance. We should be trying to eat more greens and ambers and fewer reds."

Then there's the 'percentage gda'. 'What's that when it's at home?' you might well ask. It stands for 'percentage of guideline daily amount.' Eh?

Well, the '% gda' marked on a pack tells you what a serving of that particular food provides as a percentage of the 'guideline daily amount' of calories, fats, protein etc. And remember that it's a guideline, not a target.

But it's still an awful lot to digest on a trolly dash.

So M&S has gone one step further in demystifying food labelling. They've stuck a sunflower symbol on the front-of-pack of foods that they deem healthy choices.

That's more than 1,300 different products, across the range (about 30% of sales). And not just the obvious stuff like packs of fruit and veg and wholemeal bread, but also the ready meals that make the grade.

Look out for the ready meals for children, especially designed for kids, tested on kids and created to be nutritionally balanced. "For instance, our children's ready meals have much less than 1g of salt," Claire says.

And since January 2007, each M&S food store will have at least one staff member specially trained in healthy eating issues, the better to answer casual queries from customers. It might be a question about salt levels, allergies or which foods are gluten free.

At home with husband Darren, Claire, who has an MSc in Human Nutrition and has worked in research, marketing and retail, likes to cook ahead and menu-plan for the week.

She practices what she preaches on healthy eating - but admits to a wee weakness for crisps. Ah, well, we're only human.