Eggs, steak and butter on everything – it’s not like most health food diets. But the high-fat “ketogenic” diet can be an effective last resort method of reducing seizures in people with epilepsy that doesn’t respond to drugs, and may even help a range of other brain conditions. Now researchers may have figured out how it works — and how to make the method more palatable.

“All the time, you’re looking at getting the fat in,” says Emma Williams, whose son Matthew used to eat like this. Breakfast might be scrambled eggs with lashings of butter, followed by a lunch of steak and salad, covered in oily dressing. “If we ate out, I’d take …