A COUPLE of years ago, a survey came out which listed Britain's most disliked foods.

Top of the pile, and rightly so, came tripe, the single most evil-looking food in the universe.

Let's face it, if somebody dropped a lorryload of tripe on our local beaches, they'd have to evacuate the area, bring in the marine experts and someone will make a film out of it.

Beneath tripe came an array of foods, some of which I can understand, some which my middle-aged palate rather favours.

Snails may feel like you're chewing a pencil rubber, but smothered in garlic, the taste is fairly acceptable (although you could smother a Wellington boot in garlic and the effect would be the same).

I've never had a problem with oysters, black pudding and crab sticks, although I have no argument against three of the top 20, the bane of every primary school pupil in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Dinner ladies at my school were experts in the creation of sago, tapioca and semolina.

Usually the consistency of wallpaper paste and twice as bonding, the lovely ladies would try to make it appear - and taste - more palatable by flopping a spoonful of jam in the middle.

The trick was then to mix it all into a pink mush and, if you were brave or foolhardy enough, eat it.

It is quite possible that the reason why my generation is living much longer is that the ingestion of sago and tapioca has made us immune to many life-threatening diseases.

But where on earth, I asked, was broccoli?

The single most uninteresting vegetable in the world has been around for more than 2000 years and is even less tasty than the Brussels sprout, the Robin Cook of the vegetable world.

Yet broccoli is being touted as the single most important vegetable in the world and - you may not believe this - is predicted to add eight years on your life if you eat the stuff every day.

Surely life is long enough without having to eat a portion of broccoli every day, but when it comes to nutritional value, broccoli tops the list.

It is rich in vitamins, high in fibre and low in calories.

Broccoli is said to contain as much calcium, gram for gram, as milk.

By including broccoli regularly in your diet you can reduce and prevent ailments like cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.

But EIGHT years on your life?

Research has also shown that there are a number of factors we can introduce into our lives to help us live longer.

Drinking two cups of tea a day will add four years to your life and the same goes for being born into a wealthy family.

Being happily married can add five years and, rather importantly I feel, making love regularly can add six years to your life.

It means that being married AND having an active sex life will give you 11 extra years on this planet.

The sound you can hear is the collective scratching of heads as millions of men work out how the two can be considered in the same survey, let alone the same sentence.