There's a new book out about diet, and it apparently says what I've known all my life -- protein is good for you, carbohydrates are bad, and fat is highly overrated as a dangerous substance. Well, it's about time. As my mother used to say, you can never have too much butter. This is how we cook steak in our house: first you cook the steak. Then you throw a huge pat of butter on top of it. That's it. And by the way, I'm not talking about sweet butter, I'm talking about salted butter.
Here's another thing it says in this book: dietary cholesterol has nothing whatsoever to do with your cholesterol count. This is another thing I've known all my life, which is why you will not find me lying on my deathbed regretting not having eaten enough chopped liver. Let me explain this: you can eat all sorts of things that are high in dietary cholesterol (like lobster and cheese and eggs) and they have NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on your cholesterol count. NONE. WHATSOEVER. DID YOU HEAR ME? I'm sorry to have to resort to capital letters, but what is wrong with you people?
Which brings me to the point of this piece: the egg-white omelette. I have friends who eat egg-white omelettes. Every time I'm forced to watch them eat egg-white omelettes, I feel bad for them. In the first place, egg-white omelettes are tasteless. In the second place, the people who eat them think they are doing something virtuous when they are instead merely misinformed. Sometimes I try to explain that what they're doing makes no sense, but they pay no attention to me because they have all been told to avoid dietary cholesterol by their doctors. According to yesterday's New York Times, the doctors are not deliberately misinforming their patients; instead, they're participants in something known as an informational cascade, which turns out to be a fabulous expression for something that everyone thinks must be true because so many reputable people say it is. In this case, of course, it's not an informational cascade but a misinformational cascade, and as a result, way too many people I know have been brainwashed into thinking that whole-egg omelettes are bad for you.
So this is my moment to say what's been in my heart for years: it's time to put a halt to the egg-white omelette. I don't want to confuse this with something actually important, like the war in Iraq, which it's also time to put a halt to, but I don't seem be able to do anything about Iraq, whereas I have a shot at cutting down consumption of the egg-white omelette, especially with the wind of this new book in my sails. (The book is called Good Calories, Bad Calories, and it's written by Gary Taubes.)
You don't make an omelette by taking out the yolks. You make one by putting in additional yolks. A really great omelette has two whole eggs and and one extra yolk, and by the way, the same thing goes for scrambled eggs. As for egg salad, here's our recipe: boil 18 eggs, peel them, send six of the egg whites to friends in California who persist in thinking that egg whites matter in any way. Chop the remaining 12 eggs and six yolks coarsely with a knife, and add Hellman's mayonnaise and salt and pepper to taste.
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Nora... you really must post more often then you have been doing... my only saving grace in the middle of my work day is to read the brillant words which jump off your page. Please try and write more. Thank you.
The biggest killer isn't cholesterol, fat, or carbohydrates, it's STRESS.
If you feed the hens the right stuff--let it scratch for some worms and insects in the open air, and fee it flax or hemp seeds in addition to a cereal-based diet, the yolks emerge with a better fatty acid profile.
If you lock the poor chicken up in a high-stress environment and stuff it full of hormones, antibiotics, and industrial corn, you will get yokes that will choke your heart arteries. The yoke's on you.
According to legend, the famous bandleader and bon vivant, Phil Harris once held court at a swanky nightclub, where he met every guest with a big howdy and a proffered libation.
One guest demurred, explaining that he did not drink.
"Don't drink you say?" said the startled host. "'magine that."
He then offered his guest a cigarette, which was similarly declined.
"Don't drink or smoke?" said Harris. "Well I do declare you must be one of them folks who's gonna die from nuthin!"
Just switch bacon and butter for the booze and smokes, and you've got the contemporary version of the same cultural hypochondria.
To be sure, tobacco has likely consequences that are not worth the trouble, and too much booze'll probably do you wrong as well.
But, as Dr. Franklin said a gazillion years ago: "Drink not to elevation, and eat not to satiety"
All things in moderation, kids.
Yes Nora yes! In a word, Atkins. Atkins whose name and books seem to have been thoroughly and silently censored from the mass media. Following his diet would collapse the packaged-food industries and the fresh fruit, immigrant dependent farming conglomerates. The economic fallout could be worse than what happened to tobacco!
I only hope your speaking out about the eggs doesn't lead them to target and disappear you also....
Nora? Nora?
I have the traditional two word answer for the cholesterol crowd and that is Julia Child.
So just how old was she when she died?
Not to mention, all the elderly relatives of my childhood whose idea of a Sunday lunch would give any cardiologist just witnessing the antipasto course a heart attack.
But the reality of occasionally eating like that is the rest of the time you are sensible in your judgement.
The fattest people I know are invariably not those who eat well or wisely or pay any attention to their food. And are way too addicted to sugar, especailly fructose, cheap fast-food fats and alcohol.
Egg salad with 18 eggs?
How many people are you feeding? Can't you just say use the same two egg and one yolk ratio for egg salad? And be sure to add some chopped chives, lots of coarse pepper and just the tiniest trace of mustard to make it all scrumptious.
What is it with writers and egg salad anyway?
No one else ever seems to eat it unless they are under 7 or over 75.
My observation is that you can tell how any project is going by checking the level in the Hellman's jar.
gala
The truth is that only 30% of the population is affected by dietary cholesterol. The rest can eat all the cholestereol they want and their bodies will process them just fine. Eggs ARE high in cholesterol but they are also high in other nutrients (lecithin) that can help breakup the cholesterol.
So if your cholesterol levels are high, and being on a low cholesterol diet does not seem to lower them, you are in that 70%. Just get off your couches and exercise.
Enjoy your eggs people..........
Funny that this comes up at this time...I am an old hillbilly dude living out what is left of my "golden years" on a bare-bones social security pension, living-(such as it is)-with a half dozen "incurable" diseases all of which are considered "terminal", and have been doing so since January, 2000.
All my health care comes via the VA Hospital in Boise, Idaho, paid for in part by medicare, parts A and B, supplemented by co-payments for my "meds", all of which has kept me alive AGAINST ALL ODDS for the last six-plus years, and for which I am as grateful as I can possibly be.
To the point>
My "primary care giver" is a totally committed M.D. who has never failed to explain my various conditions to me, including the options that he sees in each case, leaving the ultimate call to me without pressuring me one way or the other, which in my two page book makes me believe that he is a man to be implicitly trusted to give me the most accurate information that he has available at any one point in time......and HE SAYS that is not so much a matter of WHAT YOU EAT as it is a matter of HOW MUCH YOU EAT AND WHEN.
By following this man's GOOD ADVICE, taking my meds AS DIRECTED, and eating like a "rational human being" instead of as a dingbat "glutton", my weight has dropped from 265 lardy pounds to 212/215, mostly stable over the last six months, and all my lab checks including blood sugar are now "within the window", and I get to eat pretty much WHAT I want as long as it is within "reasonable limits"!
By the way, I eat egg white omelets because I DO NOT LIKE EGG YOKE AND NEVER HAVE....to each his/her own....
To dawlishgal, if you can get them, try "clemintines". They're small, peel easily and are delicious.
Some of us are more prone to producing high levels of cholesterol than others. Keeping track of ratios is just as important as that "total cholesterol" number.
In addition, we've all veered away from our evolutionary dietary paths over the past 100 years or so. Local produce, foods in season and no superprocessed, high fructose corn syrup. salt and chemically laiden junk should be allowed into your home.
Who's Gary Taubes, a doctor or a scientist or someone like one of those buffed guys you see in excercize machine commercials and tells you, "You too can look like you take steroids", but who was buffed at birth?
I don't believe everything I read anyway. Besides, doctors get plently of samples and sometimes paid to push certain drugs from drug comapanies. My doctor has never said, "Steam, sit ... wait .... I'll make you an omelet you should excuse the expression that's--to die for--a white egg omelet, so I know white omelets are good for me. After all, if my doctor isn't offering me a sample of the companies product, it's got to be good for me.
As for butter, no no, Nora has to bring out the big enchilada. my mother used this all the time when I was growing up and it's really the Big Bertha of food weapons if you want your heart to attack you--chicken fat!
Eat right, exercise, die anyway.
My research (true story here) revealed that patients with a family history of heart disease had healthier arterial systems (less calcification, read via cardiac scoring) than those WITH heart disease.
Heart attack is one possible response to a highly stressful situation, by the body of a person who doesn't handle stress all that well.
Yes, 50% of heart attack victims have elevated cholesterol, and 50% DON'T HAVE ELEVATED CHOLESTEROL.
We are to the gods as flies to wanton boys,
They kill us for their sport.
I don't think it's the food that finally
kills you, I think it's the sitting on your ass
and drinking gallons of 'diet' soda...
Are egg white omlets or anything made with egg whites only cooked or vulacanized?
dawlishgal & GReece
I really liked the horehound candy! The first time I finally got to try some was when I was 10 or 11 years old, at Knotts Berry Farm, down in southern CA. It was in the form of candy drops, not the wonderful candy stick described in Little House on the Prairie. It was strange tasting, but I liked it. I'd like to try some again. I haven't seen any since then. And that was 43 years ago.
Horehound was an herb used medicinally in those days, for sore throats and other similar ailments. From what I've read, horehound candy was very popular back when. My grandmother remembered eating horehound candy when she was a little girl. And she was born in 1888.
She knew this all her life. I guess by osmosis(look it up). Taking nutritional advice from Nora (sorry babe love your writings) is like taking pharmaceutical advice from Dr. Suess. My grandmother put butter on everything. Guess what everything tasted like butter. A little variety please.
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!...
About dietary cholesterol. (Sorry, Nora.) I dropped my "bad" cholesterol level 80 points, from the 270's to under 200 in a couple of years mainly by cutting out dairy products more or less completely (save for the occasional lapse) -- cheese and, especially, eggs (whites AND yolks -- no eggs period). I miss both but I'd rather live longer and miss cheese and eggs than the reverse....
So did my husband Wmbear....dropped red meats, cheese and ate less eggs too, and yes, his cholesterol dropped significantly. I think I have to agree with you...the proof is in the diet and the result thereof.
Wmbear, you're absolutely right, of course, about the dietary cholesterol (I think Nora's just being facetious), but lowering your cholesterol doesn't necessarily mean you'll live longer. You could get killed in an accident tomorrow, who knows? For the most part, those who say if you do this and/or that and you'll live longer are just passing themselves off as self-proclaimed "experts," and are just saying that stuff because they make big bucks off people who listen to and follow their "advice." They don't care about people, all they care about is the money they rake in.
Yes, yes, yes!!! And while we're throwing out the egg white omelettes, let's also trash the fat-free salad dressing (mmmm, slimy chemicals anyone?) and fat-free cakes, cookies, pies, and ice cream (crack is less addictive). Taubes is absolutely correct... but I haven't seen a peep about his book in the MSM apart from a critical review in the NYT by Gina Kolata, who flicked away Taubes' damning indictment of the low-fat diet with the tired excuse that if low-carb really worked, we'd all be thin by now. Personally the only real challenge of low-carb for me is dealing with the sneering naysayers who insist that I'm killing myself for a fad. Sheesh.
Unfortunately, what "fatfree" usually turns out to mean is extra sugar is added so people won't miss the fat. Think those hideous, gooey, gluey chocolate fat-free cookies that everybody was eating a few years ago. YUK....
OK, all together children;) DIP THAT TOAST INTO
THAT DRIPPING CREAMY JUICY EGG YOKE SO MELT IN YOUR MOUTH YUMMY YUM YUMMY DRIPPING DOWN
YOUR...You get the idea.
I agree that eggs with yolks with taste better, but are you sure of the science behind that idea that egg yolks are OK for people watching their cholesterol?
Yes. Here is a study that shows that the lecithin in an egg not only reduces the absorption of the cholesterol in eggs but other cholesterol you eat in the same meal. It works even better when the fats are saturated.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/seta/2001/11/08/stories/2001110800170400.htm
Well done..
I would like to add the FOIE GRAS is
1) Delicious
2) Healthful (its monosaturated fat)
3) NOT CRUEL, at least not anymore cruel than any other animal product in which the animal dies and you get something.
Oh, I love foie gras. Can you believe so many restaurants took it off the menu? Too bad... i used to love my foie gras appetizers at Cafe Matisse.... most excellent food.
I hate egg-white omelets, but the problem I have with the 'new-age foodies' is they have ruined canned tuna. When I was a kid no one I knew ever ate tuna steaks, restaurants didn't serve them, tuna was for casseroles and sandwiches. Now, there are tuna steaks all over the place.... and the result is that the tuna left for canning is not the good parts anymore. The good part in the middle, that now goes for steaks, and the parts near the tail and the drier parts is what goes in cans. The result is tuna sandwiches now taste blah. I loved a good tuna sandwich for lunch, it was a goto lunch choice, now I don't even consider them for lunch. In this mad dash for healthy eating, not only have we increased in the number of diseases people are getting, and the ridiculous idea that 3 baby carrots and a piece of tofu is a meal has flourished, they have ruined tuna sandwiches.
THANKS! I was wondering what had happened to good tuna. What can you tell me about the sweet tangerines that peeled easily and were dimpled and bright orange in color? Those wonderful flavorful fruits that made even November in Minnesota worth waiting for? I haven't seen one in YEARS...are they another casualty of the picking machines?
We get them here in Washington State about Christmas time. They call them Satsuma oranges now. And I always buy a case when them come out.
OK. OK.
So how do you explain my bacon lovin' cake eating mother whose cholesterol was some insanely high number, then she came to stay with me for 2 months. Naturally, she ate only the foods I cook and have in the house. I eat eggs, bacon (home smoked - no nitrites), drink beer (and sometimes many and they're dark and heavy) and breads... although no commmercial bread has ever seen my house. True, I cook all fresh organic foods, use a pat of butter or two, rather than a stick, and I cook with Olive or grapeseed oil. But my foods are rich in flavor and color and consistency.
So, after 45 days, her cholesterol level dropped 41 points. I don't know much about cholesterol... but supposedly that is A LOT.
How can "eat all the bacon you want" justify this? She for once, did not eat all the bacon she wants. I also reduced her sugar intake.
Dr. Rick... are you out there?
You could have lowered her cholesterol by lowering her bread and sugar uptake. If you thought bread, cake, pasta etc. raised cholesterol, would that have changed your observations about her diet (instead of focusing on bacon)?
Here is only one study, you can find many more:
http://www.dukemednews.org/news/article.php?id=9412
I'm not sure Newfycrat.... she definitely eats waaaay too much sugar and carbs in general... but also fried foods like breaded pork chops, and such "unhealthies."
I just think the 180 she did with my food menu shocked her body into health or something... it was just strange how quickly her cholestorol dropped and total proof that it's not hereditary in our family... but rather her very bad diet... that she denies she has.
LOL, LOL, LOL...I LOVE YOU NORA EPHRON....
I do not understand Egg White Omelettes, at all....and your recipe for egg salad is perfect....! Thanks for this and for everything else you write!
Love all these posts!!! Thank God someone at last has exposed the hoax the medical, food and DIET cabal has been perpetuating on the American public for the last 40 years.
I love good food, and am a great cook. I can also tell you if you're on a very limited income, as I currently am, you can get by on 5 food staples: real butter, nonfat milk, eggs, homemade breads and potatoes, LOL! I haven't gained one pound eating these foods. And I eat them every single day. When payday comes, I add fresh broccoli and carrots. Then I make tempura!!
My point here is, this hand wringing over "good" food and "bad" food is nothing more than American purtianism at work. The present day Puritans have to find something to feel guilty about, so they've settled on food. Don't fall for it! I'm sure the rest of the world must think we are the biggest bunch of fools to have such a guilt trip over food.
Allons, Citoyens! Forget the processed, packaged products with all the weird additives and fructose, and cook your own food from scratch. Enjoy real, old-fashioned food again.
For a brush up on what food used to be and how it was enjoyed, read Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Salivate over those wonderful descriptions of huge meals, and get out in the kitchen and start cooking! Enjoy the sensual, satisfying pleasures of real food, and get off the Puritanical Virtuous Food bandwagon!
THANKS! I'll give Farmer Boy another try. I have been disillusioned about the Little House books since I was 9 years old, and discovered that (YUK) horehound is not delicious. WHY did they get it in their Christmas stockings?
Lord, how funny to find I'm not the only one who tried that candy after reading Wilder's books!
About egg whites: my boring little medical history was enlivened by two angina attacks, and now I've got every major artery in my heart held open by metal stents (and a fortune every month in drugs). Doctors in Toronto, a year later at the UCLA hospital, and now in Genoa, Italy, have made a big issue of not eating egg yolks. What to do, what to do? Listen to the doctors, or Ms Ephron, whose extensive background in medicine urges us to say the hell with all their advice, just eat the eggs. Decisions, decisions.
Kentf - Read REAL FOOD by Nina Planck...she explains the chemical differences between grass-fed cattle (for beef, milk,butter and cheese) and free-range, non-corn fed chickens vs. the corn fed(and worse).Also, The Scwartzbein Principle is a good book, written by an endocrinologist, basically saying the same thing.
I´d like to know what those who eat and advocate egg-white omelettes do with all the yolks. Throw them away? I hope not.
Refreshing advice, Nora. For me, I simply avoid processed food whenever possible. When I can't, I look carefully at the ingredients to make sure there are no trans-fats and minimal additives. A little extra time in the kitchen preparing your own food from actual ingredients instead of opening a can, box or pouch can go a long way toward a healthy diet. As in everything else in life...it takes a little effort to eat well.
Degobah from So Cal
Posted October 10, 2007 | 02:38 PM (EST)