BREAD and butter used to be so simple. Now it presents a minefield of choices. White or wholemeal? Butter or olive oil spread? We're constantly being told to cut our fat intakes and eat more carbohydrates such as wholemeal bread, granary bread and brown bread. But what do you spread on your bread if you're also trying to cut down on fats? And what are the health consequences when your children, like 90 per cent of the Irish population, prefer white sliced pan?

Keep a mixture of breads a the press and enjoy them, advises Dr Mary Flynn. If you like a sandwich made with a trench stick, add salad for fibre. Don't feel guilty; especially if you have a high fibre cereal for breakfast. "If you're meant to do this for life, you should enjoy it," she says.

As for what to spread on the bread, jam or honey are ideal because they have no fat at all. Otherwise, you should use what you enjoy, whether it's butter, or a mono unsaturated or a polyunsaturated spread, whether it's high or low in fat. Keep in mind that it's all about balance.

THERE's good and bad in everything, says Dr Mary Flynn. Try and have a mixture of fats in your cupboard, but keep in mind that one bottle of oil should last a long time.

Keep extra virgin olive oil, a good source of vitamin E and monounsaturates for salad dressing and light sauteeing for casseroles, etc; for those rare occasions when you need to fry, use polyunsaturated oil. If you like butter, but also fry and cook in butter, you are guaranteed a high intake of saturated fats. So keep a balance, if you relish butter on your bread and you don't have a cholesterol problem, then use the butter for this purpose only.