HOW basic is Basic? How smart is Smart Price? Is Finest really all that fine? Can you really Taste the Difference? And how much will we pay for water when we think we're buying bacon?

For years supermarkets battled it out on price, the cheaper the better. Then they realised that sometimes we wanted food that actually tasted of something, so they introduced premium ranges so they could get both ends of the market.

It's worked. We spend more than £75bn a year in supermarkets - and over a third of that is on own label. In some ways, the supermarkets have been amazingly cunning. We clamoured for cheap food, so they gave it to us. The price was low, but there was a cost.

The cost was often flavour. Grannies who complained that food didn't taste as it used to when they were young were telling the truth.

FRUIT

Most standard supermarket tomatoes, for instance, taste of nothing. They are cold, cotton woolly, watery fruits that add nothing to the palate and just a bit of colour to the plate.

And having fobbed us off with this impostor, supermarkets introduce proper tomatoes and charge us a premium for them.

Same with strawberries. Nearly all the strawberries on sale this summer were Elsanta - chosen by growers and supermarkets because they are reliable, look good and can stand being transported. They have reasonable flavour, especially when covered in sugar or cream.

But strawberries should be more than reasonable, and shouldn't need sugar or cream to make them a treat. So Sainsbury's, for instance, have a Taste the Difference strawberry, the Ava - smaller, sweeter, firmer and with much more flavour - and costing a lot more.

MEAT

Much of our cheap meat comes from abroad. Cheap ham and bacon have large proportions of water. The ham is reformed and often has a high proportion of salt.

Pies have little meat and horrible pastry. Cheap potato salad is raw. Cheap ready made salads taste of vinegar and little else.

READY MEALS

So much more room to manoeuvre here. Most of the value meals were pretty disgusting. There are far better ways of eating on a budget than eating a value line lasagne.

But the difference between the standard line and the posh version wasn't always clear cut. The price wasn't always worth the difference.

The best answer, of course, is to not to do so much shopping at supermarkets.

ASDA

Smart Price Red Leicester cheese, £1.86 for 480g, had the consistency of soap.

Extra Special Red Leicester, £2.20 for 260g, wasn't actually all that special - but at least it felt and tasted like cheese.

Smart Price sponge pud, 51p

Asda sponge pud, 78p

Extra Special sponge pud, £1.44

Most expensive tasted nicer, more home made. Also had shortest list of ingredients. Cheapest ran to a great long list, most of which were unrecognisable.

MORRISONS

Creamy rhubarb yoghurt at 32p for 150g was perfectly acceptable, but their The Best Timperley Rhubarb Yoghurt at 49p for 150g was delicious.

Morrisons custard, 99p for 500g, was made with skimmed milk, 15 per cent sugar. OK in a ready made custard sort of fashion but The Best Crme Anglais at £1.39 for 500g was 80 per cent cream, egg yolks, natural vanilla seeds. Very creamy, very vanilla-y, very moreish.

SAINSBURY'S

Basic Lasagne at 88p for 300g had nasty pasta, nasty sauce and a strange burnt taste. Even at 88p this was a rip off because we didn't want to eat it.

The standard lasagne, £2.45 for 700g, was OK if unexciting; Taste the Difference was £3.99 for 900g, meatier and with wine. Nicer pasta too.

Basics Shepherds Pie, 88p for 300g - 11 per cent meat.

Shepherd's Pie, £1.85 for 450g - 29 per cent lamb.

Taste the Difference Shepherd's Pie, £3.99 for 720g - 26 per cent beef including Aberdeen Angus beef.

TESCO

Value cooked ham costs only £1.28 for 400g. But nearly a quarter of it is water. It has a slimy texture and almost no flavour.

Tesco Finest Wiltshire Cured Ham costs £2.69 for 140g and is actually made from 110 per cent ham - the extra allows for shrinkage in curing. Looks and tastes like ham should. Apart from the pale pink colour, these two so-called hams have nothing in common.

Tesco Value Back Bacon was only 91p for 309g, but when we opened the pack it was full of gloopy water. Under the grill the bacon curled up and died and the pan, too, was full of water. Their Finest bacon cost £3.89 for 250g, had a better flavour - and at least it was the same size when we finished cooking it.

Tesco Value Chipolatas, 43p for 340g - 32 per cent pork and tasted like rubber.

Tesco Finest Chipolatas, £1.94 for 375g - 85 per cent British pork with very good flavour.

CONCLUSION

Some value lines are excellent value - 8p baked beans might have more sauce and squishier beans than 32p versions, but they're still a good source of protein. When it came to tinned peaches, we could find absolutely no difference between Asda's 14p version and the 38p tins - same weight, same country of origin, same taste.

Cheap cookies at 20p a packet were fine - especially for children - though we had to play hunt the chocolate chip. The thick, expensive, gooey ones at £1.09 were actually excessive.

With most things, it's clear from the list of ingredients that you get what you pay for. But on the ready meals, the small cost of the extra ingredients doesn't justify the often huge mark up.

With meat and meat products, such as bacon and sausages, we would rather eat small amounts of something nice than large amounts of so-called meat that had large amounts of water and salt and tasted of not very much.

And if you're feeding a family on a budget, there are far better ways of doing it than giving them value line ready meals.

The nicest tomatoes of all came not from a supermarket but from a stall at the bottom of someone's garden