Keeping Children Fed and Happy

If like me you’ve got your kids at home for the foreseeable future, you might be wondering how on earth you’re going to managing their eating habits. It can seem like a constant stream of requests for food and ‘Muuuuuummmmmmmmmm, I’m hungry!’. I’m sure this doesn’t happen at school - the kids just know when it’s time to eat and when it’s not. At home, the lines are much more blurred, everything is a bit more flexible and there’s the potential for them to get their hands on food whenever they like. So, how do we manage this? And what’s more, how can we keep them as healthy as possible and support their little immune systems without them whinging at you for not giving them what they really want - crisps, biscuits and junk!

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but here are some tips I’m implementing at home which will help give us all some clarity.

• Firstly, talk to your kids about their expectations and yours. Find out what they want from you, explain what’s important to you and find some common ground or compromise. You may want to limit any ‘treat’ foods to one a day, or have regular ‘sugar-free’ days or whatever it is that feels comfortable for you. Involving your kids in the discussion helps to limit any arguments later on.

• You may be tempted to impose a strict routine around food, including meal and snack times. Personally, I find this a bit too inflexible, but it works for some families. In particular, some kids find it helpful to know what they can expect - they like routine. Again, talk to your kids and find out what they would prefer. Make it clear that if there isn’t a routine, that doesn’t mean they can just help themselves all day and eat you out of house and home!

• Meal planning is hard enough when you only have the evening meals to worry about, but now it’s 3 meals a day. You want them to be healthy and nutritious, but you can’t face all the whinging and complaining when you place food in front of them that they don’t want or like. This is a big problem for me! Again, the solution is to talk to your kids. Make a list of all the meals that they definitely do like and ask them to be a bit more flexible and include on their list some things that are perhaps not their favourites, but that they will eat. Explain that you’ll do your best to mostly provide them with the meals you know they’ll enjoy. Also explain that the usual things they like might not be available in the shops at the moment, so you’re going to need them to be a little bit flexible anyway.

• When it comes to snacking, it’s important to only have in the house things you’re happy for them to eat. I appreciate that isn’t always that easy at the moment with panic buying and shortages in the supermarkets. But if you have a house full of crisps, biscuits, sweets and chocolates that they know is there, it’s going to be playing on their minds and they’re going to keep asking for them… a lot! Eventually you’ll get fed up of them asking and you’ll give in. You may like to set them a daily allowance for snack/treat type foods and give them the opportunity to ration themselves. If they’ve used up their daily quota, there’s nothing else. Alternatively, and my preferred option, is just not to have things in the house you don’t want them eating. So that brings me onto the main point of this blog… what snacks can I offer my children that are healthy, filling and will keep them satisfied?

Healthy snacks for children and families

This is by no means an exhaustive list. It’s a list of some of the things I keep at home for my kids that I know are nutritious and that they’ll eat.

• Boiled eggs - on their own, cold, or just cooked with a soft yolk and a few dippy soldiers

• Chunks of cheese

• Raw nuts - any kind will do, but my kids prefer cashews and peanuts

• Fruit - have a big bowl of fruit in the house and whenever the usual ‘I’m hungry’ arises, direct them to the fruit bowl. They can’t be that hungry if they don’t want a fruit! You might be able to make it more tempting by offering apple slices with peanut butter spread on them. This also gives it a boost of protein which will help keep them fuller until the next meal time.

• Crackers - we tend to stick to Nairn’s oatcakes. They can be spread with butter, nut butter, hummus or served with cheese, pate, sliced meat… whatever you like.

• Vegetable sticks - you’d be surprised but if your kids are in the middle of something - a game, watching tv, or building lego - and you plonk a plate of chopped veggies next to them, the chances are they’ll dig in without even noticing that they’re eating vegetables. Do this BEFORE they get to the stage of asking for food! If they’re not keen, try dipping them in hummus or spreading with peanut butter (I find kids will eat just about anything as long as peanut butter is involved!). Try carrot and cucumber sticks, celery, small tomatoes, radish, courgette sticks (sounds weird but it’s actually nice raw) and anything else you can think of.

• Homemade popcorn, drizzled with a little honey or lightly salted.

• Homemade flapjacks or muffins. There are TONS of recipes online for healthier versions of typical kids snack foods. Often with low sugar content, or at least natural sugars, and using nutritious ingredients like oats, nuts, seeds and fruit. Even better - make these with your children and you’re spending quality time doing something together whilst also providing some healthy snacks! If you’re stuck for ideas, check out Little Cooks Co - a healthy cooking kit delivery service aimed at kids.

• Smoothies. I’m giving my kids a smoothie a day at the moment with some added powdered vitamin C to really support their immune system. It’s a sure fire way to get them to eat some fruit and veg and fill them up. Here’s our go-to recipe (feeds 2):

  • 1 banana

  • 1/2 avocado

  • Handful spinach

  • Chunk of cucumber

  • 1-2 dates (pitted)

  • Vitamin C powder (optional) - follow instructions on bottle for correct amount for children

  • 300ml milk - oat, almond or any you fancy

  • Optional - 1 tablespoon raw cacao to make it like a chocolate milkshake

  • Optional - a handful of frozen berries

  Chuck everything in a blender and add some ice if they like it cold. You can add an extra date or a drizzle of honey if it’s not quite sweet enough for them.

Don’t get me wrong, we have also baked some conventional ‘treats’ and occasionally have crisps or yo-yo bears. We’re by no means doing this all perfectly. The main thing is to be prepared, have a plan for how to handle snacking and what to have in the house. Most importantly talk to your kids about what they can expect and ask them what they want. Find some compromise and also… have fun!

Got some ideas or great tips for keeping kids happy and fed during lockdown? Leave a comment or drop me a message. I’d love to hear from you!

Lucy x

Immune Supporting Ideas

These are strange times we're going through at the moment. I've been watching the situation with Covid-19 unfold and seeing things from many different angles. How concerned should we be? How do we protect ourselves? Is the Government doing enough? These are all difficult questions to answer. However, one thing I can definitely help with, is how do we take care of ourselves and support our immune system? 

HOW TO SUPPORT YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

Here are some ideas that you can start to implement at home. They're all super simple tips that won't break the bank either.

• Get more fresh fruit and veg into your diet. There's been a lot in the news recently about panic buying. It's understandable when people are so uncertain of what's going to happen next. But one thing that's still fairly abundant in the shops is fresh fruit and vegetables. It's these foods that will really support your immune system and help you cope with any potential assaults against it. You can find many studies that link particular compounds such as flavonoids, polyphenols, anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals to a strong, healthy immune system. 

• In particular, you can also increase your vitamin C intake. This paper details the many functions vitamin C plays in regulating the immune system and highlights the fact that a deficiency in vitamin C can lead to impaired immunity and a higher susceptibility to infections. Which foods are high in vitamin C? Citrus fruits, red and yellow peppers, broccoli, spinach, papaya, kiwi, blackcurrants, thyme, parsley, kale, Brussels sprouts, lychees and strawberries (although not quite in season yet - maybe go for frozen strawberries). You can also add a vitamin C supplement to your diet if you feel you could do with an extra boost. 

• Pay attention to your gut health. Anyone who has been to one of our gut health workshops will know that roughly 70-80% of your immune system lives in your digestive tract. The immune cells that live in the gut are heavily supported and modulated by our gut microbes, who also reside there. It therefore makes perfect sense that to support our immune system, we should also look to supporting our gut microbes. You can do this by following the first point - eat more fruit and veg - as this provides vital fibre for our microbes. They also love the fibre from whole grains, nuts, seeds, beans and pulses. You can also support your microbiome by eating probiotic rich foods. The simplest way to do this is by eating sauerkraut or fermented vegetables. Here's a great video by Sandor Katz, fermentation revivalist and expert on how to make a really simple sauerkraut. If you'd rather not wait for your veg to ferment, pop down to The Fig or Vedi Cafe in Derby, Vegan Revelation in Belper or The Natural Food Company in Nottingham to get stocked up on some delicious varieties of Praxis Probiotics fermented veg. Kefir, kombucha and live natural yoghurt are also delicious probiotic foods and drinks you can take to keep your gut bugs happy. 

• Add lots of wonderful herbs and spices to your diet. The nutrients in herbs and spices are highly concentrated, so small amounts give a huge injection of beneficial nutrients. Here's a great article that lists some herbs that contain anti-viral properties.

• Get enough sleep! In his brilliant book Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker eloquently explains that 'sleep restocks the armoury of our immune system, helping fight malignancy, preventing infection, and warding off all manner of sickness.' (pg. 7). He later goes on to describe an experiment in which participants were exposed to rhinovirus and then monitored in laboratory conditions. There was a clear relationship between how much sleep the participants had received in the week prior to the exposure and the rate of infection. In those sleeping around 5 hours, the infection rate was 50%, those getting 7 or more hours sleep experienced an infection rate of just 18%. (pg. 182). So, get more zzzzzzs! 

• Stress is another immune disruptor. When the body is under stress, it prioritises its fight or flight response whereas other bodily functions such as digestion and the immune system are put on the back burner. This is a difficult one because the current climate is probably causing you quite a bit of stress! While you may not be able to control the situation, you may be able to reduce your body's stress response by limiting your time on social media, getting plenty of sleep, staying hydrated and employing whatever stress relieving techniques work for you - yoga (at home if you're isolating - Yoga with Adriene is my favourite home practice), meditation (Calm, Headspace), keeping up with a hobby such as drawing, knitting, crochet - whatever helps you to relax. Also, if you're worried about being isolated and need some help, reach out to the people around you. It's at times like this that being part of a community becomes essential for our physical and mental wellbeing. If you're local to Derby, there's a great Facebook group that's just cropped up where you can offer to help or request help from those in your local area.

If you're at all worried and would like some reassurance or advice on how you can support yourself nutritionally, please do get in touch. I'm happy to reply to any emails or messages you send my way. 

Stay safe, look after yourselves and each other and thanks for reading :) 

Lucy x 

HAPPY FOOD

On Monday, I hosted a THRIVE nutrition workshop entitled ‘Happy Food’. Last week was mental health awareness week, so it’s a topic on people’s minds at the moment. As a therapist, I’m keen to talk to my clients about all the elements in their lifestyle and environment that could be contributing to their symptoms - sleep, exercise (or lack of) and stress in particular. However, as a nutritionist, what I’m most passionate about is food! How can we use food to make us happy, boost our mood, give us mental clarity and make us feel the best we can?

When compiling a list of happy foods, first it’s important to understand what food does when it’s in our body, what processes it influences, what information it provides. At the workshop, we considered three key ways that food can influence our mood:

• Via our microbiome - this is the collection of microbes that live inside us, helping us to process nutrients and working with our immune cells to keep us safe. In recent years, research has begun to uncover the vast network of communication lines between our gut and brain - via nerves, our hormones, the immune system and little chemical messages these microbes give out. It’s therefore essential for our mental and emotional wellbeing that our gut is healthy and our microbiome is diverse and well balanced.

• Via inflammation. The foods we eat can either be inflammatory or anti-inflammatory by influencing different pathways in the body. In 2013, a large scale study, The Nurses Health Study, found a strong link between chronic inflammation and depression. They concluded that the following foods were driving inflammation and increasing the risk for depression:

  • Sugar

  • White flour

  • Refined fats (vegetables oils, margarine)

  • Processed red meat

• Via blood sugar regulation. A normal amount of sugar (glucose) to have in the blood at any one time is around 1 sugar lumps worth. If you were to drink a 330ml can of soft drink – it contains the equivalent of around 10 lumps of sugar! To cope with such high levels, the body produces insulin to allow the excess glucose into cells, causing a sudden drop in blood sugar levels (and if persistent may eventually lead to insulin resistance and type II diabetes). This blood sugar rollercoaster situation can have a big influence on our mood, leading to drastic ups and downs.

These are just some of the many ways that our food can influence our biology, and ultimately how we feel. With that in mind, let’s turn to some of the key ways that we can use food to make us feel good.

• Look after your gut microbes! How?

  • Fibre, fibre and more fibre! There are 300,000 edible plant species in the world. In the west, we eat around 200. A survey in 2016 found that three quarters of all foods consumed on earth comes from around 12 plant and 5 animal species. 

    As a result, we have around 800-1000 different species of bacteria in our microbiome. Sounds like a lot, however, a hunter-gather (e.g. Hadza tribe member) may have around 1600, potentially twice as many as us. Many of the bacteria found in indigenous populations are completely absent in the western population. Increasing the amount of fibre we eat can boost the diversity of bacteria in our gut. Where do we get fibre from? Vegetables, fruits, beans, pulses, nut and seeds. The key is to get as much variety as possible, so try to mix up your intake of plant based foods.

  • Probiotic foods. These are food sources of bacteria that help to create a diverse and healthy microbiome. Some examples of probiotic foods include fermented vegetables (for example sauerkraut or kimchi), kefir, live yoghurt and kombucha.

• Avoid inflammatory foods and increase your intake of anti-inflammatory foods. One of the main reasons for the growing interest in the Mediterranean diet, is that it’s thought to be highly anti-inflammatory. There are differences of opinion as to what constitutes a Mediterranean diet, but some of the key principles include:

  • Proper cold-pressed virgin olive oil. It has anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

  • Nuts and seeds. A large public health study (the Global Burden of Disease) found that consuming too few nuts and seeds was the third cause of premature death and invalidity – in other words, millions of people on the planet die each year from eating too few nuts!

  • Plenty of vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, wild herbs and spices. 

  • Dairy in the form of yoghurt and cheese.

  • Fish and meat, often from chicken, sheep, goats or pigs, a few times a week.

  • Oily fish, for example salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring.

  It’s important to note, that when examining the Mediterranean diet, in traditional places like the blue-zone Greek Island, Icaria, the foods they eat are mostly locally and organically grown and produced. So any effort we can make to do the same, such as through supporting local producers (like Soundbites, Derby, and Trinity Farm, Awsworth), or even by growing our own vegetables, is likely to significantly increase the benefits of eating this way.

• Keep your blood sugar levels balanced. How?

  • Eat a source of protein with each meal, and even with snacks. This could be in the form of meat, fish, eggs, dairy, beans, pulses, nuts and seeds. Protein slows down the release of glucose into the blood stream, helping to keep your blood sugar levels on an even keel.

  • Stick to lower glycemic load (GL) carbohydrates over higher ones. What does that mean? Low GL carbohydrates tend to have more fibre so they take longer to break down, and the sugars are released more slowly into the blood stream. Swap white potatoes for sweet potatoes, white rice for brown and white pasta and bread for wholemeal.

  • Avoid sugary drinks, highly refined processed foods, fast food and confectionary.

You’ll notice that a lot of the key elements involved in looking after our microbes, reducing inflammation and balancing blood sugars are the same - lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans and pulses, whilst ensuring adequate, well sourced protein. The fats you use in your diet are important too. Our brain is made up of 60% fat, so we need to feed ourselves an adequate amount to supply the brain with the fat it needs to repair and protect itself. Think olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, nuts and seeds (again!) and oily fish. Oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines and herring, contain the all important omega-3 fat,: EPA and DHA. These are essential for brain health and cognitive function.

To delve further into this subject, I really recommend (and have taken inspiration for this post and the THRIVE workshop from) the book ‘Happy Food’ by Niklas Ekstedt and Henrik Ennart. There’s a lovely summary in the book of what they have devised to be ‘The anti-depression diet’ based on all of the above factors, and more. Here is their 10-step anti-depression diet:

1. Eat vegetables at every meal - ideally leafy green vegetables and tomatoes every day

2. Maximum one potato per day. Eat whole grains every day - the amount depends on how physically active you are

3. Eat legumes 3-4 times a week, including in the form of hummus, for example.

4. Choose fruit, vegetables and nuts as snacks. Eat three fruit a day and 50g of unsalted nuts or seeds. 200g of olives are another option.

5. Eat oily fish at least twice a week. Eat eggs almost every day.

6. Eat lean red meat 3-4 times a week - limit the amount to 65-100g per time.

7. Eat diary products 2-3 times per day - for example feta cheese and natural yoghurt.

8. Use olive oil as your standard dat - roughly 60ml of cold-pressed olive oil every day.

9. Only eat sweet things in special cases.

10. Water is the best drink.

Resources

Ekstedt, N. and Ennart, H. (2018). Happy food.

Nurseshealthstudy.org. (2019). Nurses' Health Study |. [online] Available at: https://www.nurseshealthstudy.org [Accessed 24 May 2019].

Butter vs Margarine: the debate rages on

I was asked the other day to appear on my local BBC breakfast show to give my ‘expert’ opinion on the butter vs. margarine debate. The context was that the final of bake off had just been aired, and an article had been published in the guardian titled ‘butter nonsense: the rise of the cholesterol deniers’. 

So I went along on Wednesday (31stOct) morning at the crack of dawn to give my view on the whole matter and hopefully put to bed this ongoing debate. I have to admit, it was my first ever live radio appearance, and I was quite shell-shocked by the experience. I left the building only 20 minutes after I had arrived with an overall sense of disappointment at all the important things I hadn’t said. Still, I hope my overall message came through – that real food is always the better option. 

I thought I’d take the opportunity to write this article based on all the notes and research I had done prior to the interview, so I can really get across some of the key points. 

First of all, when considering the matter of butter vs. margarine, we have to ask ourselves why we ever stopped eating butter in the first place. Back in 1977 in the US and 1983 in the UK, new dietary recommendations were introduced, telling us to reduce our overall intake of fat and especially saturated fat, based on the theory that it was dietary fat that was clogging up our arteries and making us sick. This was the accepted dogma, based on a handful of studies that seemed to draw that conclusion. I recently read a thorough piece of research by Dr Zoe Harcombe et al. which unpicks all the research that was available at that time, going through it with a fine tooth comb, and concluding that there was actually never really any solid evidence to support this theory or the dietary fat guidelines (Harcombe et al., 2015). Another review and meta-analysis from 2015 finds ‘no association between saturated fat intake and all cause mortality’. (de Souza, et al., 2015). 

In the last few years there has been a rise in this alternative view – that it’s not as simple as dietary fat, saturated fat, or cholesterol being the single cause of heart disease, but more a complex web of factors that include many diet and lifestyle factors. However, any scientist, researcher or medical doctor who dares to question the status quo in the public domain, such as consultant cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, risks being labeled a ‘dissident’ as in this guardian article. (Bosely, 2018). There is a debate raging, and there’s no simple answer to the question ‘is saturated fat bad for us?’ 

However, there are some key points that we can be sure of, based on the evidence available, along with a sprinkling of common sense.  

1.    Fat is absolutely essential for life. We shouldn’t demonise it entirely, particularly when it comes to naturally occurring fats. They are needed for: 

·     Healthy cell membranes

·     Making hormones

·     Regulating inflammation (some are inflammatory, some are anti-inflammatory)

·     Boosting our metabolism 

·     Optimal brain health – our brain is made up of 60% fat!  

2.    Yes, fat is higher in calories than the other macronutrients - proteins and carbohydrates - but no one is advocating eating whole slabs of butter daily (except maybe some hardcore ‘high fat-low carb’ advocates, but that’s another story!). 

3.    Fat is found in foods that contain a whole load of other important nutrients – such as meat, dairy, eggs, coconuts, avocados, nuts and seeds. It doesn’t make sense that these foods would contain loads of beneficial nutrients but be ‘bad’ for us because of the fat content. We are biologically programmed to consume the fats from these naturally occurring foods (for more on this, see a recent podcast between functional medicine doctor Chris Kresser and Dr Zoe Harcombe here). Afterall, we don’t eat nutrients, we eat food. 

4.    Dietary cholesterol doesn’t really impact overall blood levels of cholesterol. Most cholesterol is made by the body, so we can adjust our own levels according to need. Here is a great article from Healthline which talks more about this. (Healthline, 2018).

Let’s take a closer look at the butter vs. margarine argument then, as this was the main talking point of the interview I did. 

Butter

Butter is made from churned milk or cream. Ever whipped your cream a bit too far and it’s curdled? Well you’re on you’re way to making butter. It contains one ingredient and can be made quite simply at home. 

Butter contains about 80% fat – made up of a mixture of saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats and short chain fatty acids. All these different fats have different functions in the body. Short chain fatty acids, for example, are thought to promote a healthy gut flora (Deanna Minich, 2018). Butter also contains vitamins A, D, E, B12 and K2. These nutrients are vital for our immunity, skin, neurological functioning and our bone, eye and heart health. 

Butter does contain whey, a milk protein, which some people may be allergic to, so if you have a true milk allergy it’s best avoided. For people who are lactose intolerant, it only contains trace amounts so should be OK. 

Butter from grass-fed animals is far better than from grain-fed animals. Butter from grass-fed or pasture-raised animals has more of the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats, and is higher in the fat-soluble vitamins and anti-oxidants.  

Margarine

There are many different types of margarine and butter-like spreads out there, all with varying ingredients that have undergone slightly different processes. One that I looked up prior to my interview was Bertoli original olive oil spread, which I thought people might consider one of the better ones as it’s made from heart-healthy olive oil. It listed these ingredients:

Vegetable oils (rapeseed, palm, sunflower), water, olive oil (21%), sweet whey powder, buttermilk, salt, emulsifier (mono and diglycerides of fatty acids), preservative (potassium sorbate), thickener (sodium alginate), citric acid, natural flavoring, vitamins A and D, colour (carotenes). (Bertoli.co.uk, 2018)

Ask yourself, could you make this at home? Even if you could get your hands on all of the ingredients, could you figure out how to put them all together and come out with a decent spread? 

The process of making these spreads is highly industrialised. It’s made via a process called ‘hydrogenation’, which means adding hydrogen atoms at high speed and temperature to a liquid fat (such as vegetable oil), which turns it into a solid. These solid fats are known as ‘hydrogenated’ or ‘trans-fats’. (Madehow.com, 2018).

Trans-fats are highly implicated in chronic disease risk. The FDA announced in 2015 that it was taking tans-fats out of the ‘generally recognized as safe’ category and encouraged the food industry to phase them out of use in their products. (FDA.gov, 2018)

So to answer the question, what’s better – butter or margarine, my answer will always be butter, especially from grass-fed animals. However, some people want to avoid butter for ethical reasons, may be allergic to milk or just don’t feel comfortable with the high fat content of butter. My answer to those people is to do what they do in the Mediterranean – just use olive oil! No need to put through a lot of chemical and heat processes to make it solid, just do what they do in Italy, Spain and Greece and use it for pouring and drizzling over your food. Let’s get away from this idea that we ‘need’ something to spread on our bread. 

When I was a kid, my grandmother took me to Greece. Before being served our meal in restaurants, they would always bring us bread, baked fresh in a local bakery, along side some olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. I’d pour the oil and vinegar onto my plate, sprinkle in some salt and pepper and dip the bread in. Delicious. Years later, I would go to Greece with friends in my late teens and early twenties, to some of the more touristy areas, and we’d be served butter or spread with our bread. I remember asking the waiter for oil and vinegar, and asking why we were given butter instead and the reply was that they thought that’s what us Brits wanted! 

Olive oil is one of the reasons why the Mediterranean is held up as an optimal, healthful diet. So if you’d rather avoid butter, and don’t want to replace it with margarine, then go for straight up, good quality, virgin olive oil.

The bottom line? Eat real food! There’s no need for anyone to be eating large quantities of butter, but added to steamed vegetables makes them taste great and helps us to absorb the fat-soluble nutrients found in the veg. Whilst I don’t advocate eating lots of processed bread products, if you want to enjoy some good quality wholegrain or sourdough bread from time to time, don’t be afraid to spread it with butter. And lastly, it’s great for low-heat cooking, as it’s a solid, so it’s more stable when heated than most vegetable oils. Use it to lightly sauté some greens or for making your scrambled eggs. 

Let me know your thoughts and comments. Happy buttering!

Oh and here’s a link to my radio interview if you want to have a listen. Listen from 1 hour 15 minutes in. Enjoy.

References

Bertolli.co.uk. (2018). Check out Bertolli Original from Bertolli UK. [online]. Available at: https://www.bertolli.co.uk/product/bertolli-original1[Accessed 31 Oct 2018]. 

Boseley, S. (2018). Butter nonsense: the rise of the cholesterol deniers. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/30/butter-nonsense-the-rise-of-the-cholesterol-deniers [Accessed 2 Nov 2018].

Deanna Minich. (2018). The Benefits of Butter: A Rich Source of Butyrate, Deanna Minich. [online]. Available at: http://deannaminich.com/the-benefits-of-butter-a-rich-source-of-butyrate/[Accessed 7 Nov 2018].

de Souza, R., Mente, A., Maroleanu, A., et al. (2015). Intake of saturated and trans unsaturated fatty acids and risk of all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. [online]. Available at: https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3978?ijkey=b637896898df032521f5911a509e1f0bd6b920db&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha[Accessed 7 Nov 2018]. 

Fda.gov. (2018).Final Determination Regarding Partially Hydrogenated Oils (Removing Trans Fats). [Online]. Available at: https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodadditivesingredients/ucm449162.htm [Accessed 2 Nov. 2018].

Harcombe, Z., Baker, J. S., Cooper, S. M. et al.Evidence from randomised controlled trials did not support the introduction of dietary fat guidelines in 1977 and 1983: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Open Heart,2 (1)[Online]. Available at: https://openheart.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000196[Accessed 31 Oct 2018]. 

Healthline. (2018). Why Dietary Cholesterol Does Not Matter (for most people). [online] Available at: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/dietary-cholesterol-does-not-matter [Accessed 7 Nov. 2018].

Madehow.com. (2018). How butter and margarine is made – manufacturing, making, history, used, processing, components, product, industry.[online]. Available at:http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Butter-and-Margarine.html[Accessed 7 Nov 2018].