IF you happen to bump into Carol Vorderman before May, don't offer her any chocolate, because she's on a detox. The slimline Loose Women presenter has been indulging in her love of all things edible thanks to her new job hosting cooking competition Food Glorious Food.

"Yeah, I did eat vast amounts," admits the 52-year-old, a little sheepishly. "I'm on a detox for three months because I've eaten so much. I'm terrible, once I start eating certain kinds of food, I go on eating them, so I've got to re-train myself."

The show, made by Simon Cowell's production company Syco and styled as a cross between The X Factor and The Great British Bake Off, sees contestants from around the country compete to wow judges with their best home-cooked dish.

Former MasterChef presenter Loyd Grossman is on the judging panel, along with the Duchess of Cornwall's son and food writer Tom Parker Bowles, MasterChef finalist Stacie Stewart, who owns a bakery, and vice chairwoman of the Women's Institute Anne Harrison. The winner will receive a £20,000 prize, plus their dish will be available in Marks & Spencer the day after the final is shown on ITV1.

A series of heats are held around the country, and each judge is responsible for awarding rosettes to budding cooks in their area of expertise. Grossman is the international cuisine expert, Parker Bowles judges historical recipes, while Stewart does sweet dishes and Harrison the savouries.

"This is not X Factor - it has a very different, very British feel, it's kind of eccentric. I know it's a competition, but it's very gentle and even those people that don't get through or even don't get rosettes, tend to be very happy. There's no tears at bedtime!"

Every dish tells a story and the contestants are a colourful bunch of characters covering a wide age range - the oldest being 92-year-old Eunice from Cornwall.

"She had been making Cornish pasties every day since she was a child with her grandmother," says Vorderman. "She had her particular little knife and an old Tupperware rolling pin filled with water. And she never stops talking”.

The show also represents the UK's cultural diversity, as people arrived to cook Kenyan and Indian dishes, as well as regional favourites, including baked fresh crab from a family of fishermen.

And then there was the naked chef, who was nicknamed 'the naked gardener', presumably due to his green fingers. "That was a bit dangerous," says Vorderman, smiling. "He was wearing an apron and was filmed from the back quite a bit, but I refused to go and stand next to him!"

Although she enjoyed trying most of the dishes, there was one recipe Vorderman steered well clear of. "When we were doing the heat for Yorkshire and the North East, this guy turned up and said, 'I've got the world's hottest curry'. He started cooking and told me the story about how he'd cooked it for his friend two months before. He'd had a plateful and half an hour later, had to call an ambulance!”

When she's not travelling round the country, Vorderman lives in Bristol with her mum and children Katie and Cameron. She admits she's "not a great cook", saying she cooked often during her 30s but didn't have as much time after splitting from her second husband Patrick King in 2000.

The young Carol excelled at school and won a place to study engineering at Cambridge, which was "unheard of in the Seventies".

Aged 21, she landed her now-famous role on a new show called Countdown. Nowadays, Vorderman is a regular co-presenter on Loose Women and has just become the face of clothing brand Isme.

Food Glorious Food starts on Wednesday.