Hi,
I'm New to this and have a probably daft question. Would it be possible to use the arduino to take a reading from a load cell and display the maximum force it was subjected to in newtons before reseting to zero again to repeat the process.
Please state the nature of the emergency?
I hit the button a little early oooops
Yes, it is possible. You will need to calibrate the load cell properly.
The Arduino analogRead() is relatively slow. If you are looking for very short pulses (under 1/1000 sec) then you can miss the 'highest' reading. I would look for a load cell that does most of this processing on board.
If you are looking at dropping things onto your load cell then Arduino may not be the best solution. If the rate of change of load is slower then the Arduino will be perfect for that.
Thank you 
I think that will be fast enough, how difficult is it to output readings onto a lcd screen?