Food and drink FOOD & DRINK

Ayds

Ayds were slimming toffee cubes around in the 70s and early-80s. They were also hugely expensive! They came in chocolate, chocolate mint, caramel and butterscotch flavours. The toffee was supposed to help satisfy your cravings for something sweet long enough to keep you from raiding the fridge and eating higher-calorie items. It was all down to the active ingredient benzocaine, which later changed to phenylpropanolamine, presumably to reduce the sense of taste to reduce eating. not only did the ingredient change, but the slogan on the packaging was originally: 'Ayds Reducing Plan vitamin and mineral Candy' but this changed to the catchier 'appetite suppressant candy'.

Unfortunately for the company's marketing department, AIDS was starting to become a name known to the public and, well, that meant the end of Ayds. Even a name change to Aydslim didn't help.


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Do You Remember Ayds?

Do You Remember Ayds?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    They stopped making them when AIDS hit the headlinesthe names were to similar
  • Anonymous user
    on
    OMG! I'd forgotten these! My older sister used to get them when she was on one of her diets. I used to eat them when I was desperate for sweets and there was nothing else available. You mention how expensive they were - my sister always knew exactly how many she had in the pack at any time and they were treated like gold nuggets so you can imagine the reaction when she found I'd been 'at them' again. They tasted absolutely vile, as far as I remember, but that didn't stop me :-D
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I remember thinking when AIDS started to become known that those things were doomed.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    These were fantastic they really worked I lost 6 stone wih them. My young daughter used them .We thought she was anorexic as she didn't eat.Bring them back'I need to lose weight again.
  • jambo
    on
    i remember my mam trying those & getting them cheap in the chemists because of the aids thing.....there is a early 1980s youtube video featuring the exact same chemists as i remember it .....it looks like its the bloody 1950s..