The Informational Cascade and the Egg-White Omelette
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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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
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...
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...ar
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 cholestero
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
I'm not sure Newfycrat.
I just think the 180 she did with my food menu shocked her body into health or something.
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...
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!
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...s
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!
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
Nora, you're priceless as usual. Your writing style reminds me of the late Marjorie Keenan Rawlings. If you haven't read her cook book, "Cross Creek Cookery," you're in for a treat. Her recipe for Crab Newburgh is fantastic as well as a pleasure to read. If you have read, "Cross Creek," first, the recipes are even more special. Marjorie would no doubt agree with your egg white omelet assessment. My father would agree too.
At 75 his cholesterol still hovers at 180, despite years of southern fried eating. Grits, bacon, and eggs fried in bacon grease for many of those 75 years.
I have tried the aforementioned omelets and it tastes like it's missing something.
A man after my own heart!! I'm a yolk-and-grits mixer from way back!
For the first 30 years of my life, I ate red meat since I had teeth to chew it. Twice a day. That was the typical diet of most everybody in Argentina, wheere I was born. Pasta twice a week , the sauce made with meat.
Then I came to the US, and my diet changed somewhat, but not much.
Nothing beats a steak "a caballo", with a fried egg on top, and a side of fries.
The cattle ate grass, as they also do in Australia.
Try it, you'll like it. Add some red wine and you have the perfect meal. A lettuce and onions salad is acceptable
I am now 75, 5' 3", weigh 135 lbs.
I also smoke, a pack a day, since I was 15.
I don't want to be the healthiest looking corpse at the funeral home.
Well, maybe Eubie Blake said, while smoking, If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. He was then 100.
We always focus on just half of the equation, out of squeamishness, I suppose.
Cholesterol is a product of the human body as well as a consituent of many of our foods. Such products as our body makes, it also eliminates. We eliminate cholesterol daily.
The cholesterol in our blood is the result of a balance between intake and output. Regularity is important to elimination of cholesterol. Diets high in fiber help.
Ask your doctor.
Hilarious and true. I still cook your bread pudding with the lemon sauce....p
Ah Yes! How did we ever survive? Always someone out there telling you that you don't know what's good for you.
Told a little nutritionist once that I ate steak or other red meat on a regular basis. She looked at me as if I'd just told her I eat babies.
How horrid she seemed to be thinking as she ran screaming into the night. (Figuratively of course)
Morderation should be the key, i don`t follow anything about in "in" food, at that time period, which also changes. I do not have egg every day, but have 3 times a day with 2 slices of toast with the yolk of course. Use also butter, a slice of it in food sometimes makes a big difference
With war in front of us with no end it site, food is not such a bad guilty pleasure before reality strikes back in.
Waiting for your next book, Nora.
According to current conventional wisdom egg yolks are bad for you. Wait six months to a year; another bunch or publish-or-perish know-it-alls will declare that egg yolk are not only good for you, but essential to your health.
Same thing happened, over the last few years, to sugar, butter, margarine, milk, bread,meat, fat, peanuts and just about everything else that we enjoy eating.
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