A SUCCESS story of the controversial Atkins Diet believes she has answered the prayers of other slimmers struggling to resist pigging out on stodgy snacks.

Jill Angell, who says she lost two stone in two months on the low-carbohydrate programme after battling with her weight on "yo-yo" diets for 30 years, has transformed the traditional pub image of pork scratchings with her "ladylike" Low Carb Crunch.

The 47-year-old leapt aboard the bandwagon when, after taking up the Atkins Diet in January, she tucked into a packet of Green Top Snacks' Pork Scratchings.

Discovering the snack contained very little carbohydrate, the marketing consultant for the seafood industry, from Mill Lane, Hadley, near Droitwich, was inspired to tell the firm's managing director he had the product of a lifetime at his fingertips.

"I was constantly on the lookout for low carbohydrate foods and thought "great"," she said.

"But they weren't very ladylike, so I wrote to the managing director, who called me back and said, "Do it for me then."

While Green Top snacks came up with a smaller, lighter version of the original product, Mrs Angell got stuck into designing the new packet and sending out samples of the alternative "dartboards and Guinness" snack.

She also set up a website with information and recipes on how to use Low Carb Crunch, which contains 0.1 per cent of carbohydrate, a usual no-no with Atkins dieters.

And with four internet mail order companies already on the books, Mrs Angell believes the product will be one of the first in what is becoming a major industry, with around 10 million dieters opting for the Atkins way.

"I've approached a number of major supermarket chains, such as Tesco, which plans to have an aisle devoted to these low carb products in the future, and hopefully, many more will take it up."

For more information visit www.lowcarbcrunch.info or email enquiries@lowcarbcrunch.info