Go To Work on an Egg!

This was an advertising slogan used by the U K's Egg Marketing Board in the 1950s.  The $25 million campaign, featuring Tony Hancock, was designed to convince people that having an egg for breakfast was the best way to start the working day.  (The slogan has been widely attributed to Fay Weldon, the now - famous novelist, but she has since maintained that she was just the manager of the person in the ad. agency who came up with the idea).

It's now fifty years since this campaign.  UK television did some re-runs of the ads this year, but they have now been banned by the British Advertising Clearance Centre, on the grounds that the adverts did not emphasise a varied diet!  (Like everything else, though, they can be viewed on-line).

Having just returned from the UK, I would argue that it will take more than clever advertising to get the Brits to eat a varied diet, but that's another story.  While I was there, Charles Saatchi, famous in his own right for being an art collector and gallery owner, and a member of the famous Saatchi Advertising family, was in the news.  He is perhaps  even more famous for being the  husband of TV chef Nigella Lawson.  Charles had grown rather fat  (no surprises there), and admitted that "the discomfort and humiliation of being obese finally won".    He had spent the previous ten months eating nothing but eggs, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and had lost four stone (25.5 kgs).  He was very pleased with himself:  "I am still not much to look at, but I have become cringingly vain..."

One can't but help feeling sorry for Nigella.  As we all know, high protein diets lead to bad breath, constipation and crankiness, but add to that the sulfur gas produced by digesting eggs...  But  it seems she never held out high culinary standards for Charles anyway, admitting that "Charles doesn't like proper food; he prefers a bowl of cereal'. Oh, the lives of the rich and famous.

One tabloid journalist decided to emulate Charles's diet, and published a day- by- day account.  He lasted just five days.  Of course, any single-food diet is bizarre, badly balanced and bound to fail; one can only assume Charles is an even odder man than he appears.  However, this publicity did serve to put the humble egg in the spotlight, and about time too, methinks.

Eggs have been out of the Naughty Cupboard for several years now, from the health point of view, but it's taking a long time for the general public to catch on.  I frequently encounter the notion than one should eat no more than four eggs per week, and only two if one's cholesterol if high.  In fact the American Heart Association used to recommend no more than three per week.

However, this assumption was based on the belief that, because eggs contain cholesterol, eating any/too many will increase a person's serum cholesterol.  Eggs are  indeed higher in pre-formed cholesterol than any other common food.  However, eggs are not high in saturated fat.  This is the key point.  Humans make cholesterol out of saturated fat; too much saturated fat in the diet  (red meat, fried foods etc) can result in our body making too much cholesterol.  But it is now known if we eat pre-formed cholesterol, such as in eggs, and we already have enough cholesterol to serve our bodily needs (making cell walls, some hormones, etc), we excrete the excess as bile acids (and therefore through the faeces).  If you haven't already manufactured enough of our own cholesterol, you can utilise the ready made stuff from eggs.

Eggs have a lot going for them.  Their protein is of the highest quality of any food, and has  therefore  long been used  in nutrition circles as the yardstick against which other dietary protein sources are measured. Protein contains amino acids, twenty types in all.  Of these, humans cannot make eight, so these are called the 'essential amino acids'.  Eggs contain all eight.  With these eight, the body can make all the other types of proteins it needs to function.

Eggs also contain at least 13 different vitamins and minerals, including Vitamins A, D, E, B12, riboflavin, folic acid, zinc, iron, phosphorous  and selenium.  I am always rattling on about selenium, as it is one of the few trace elements that have been shown to be worth making sure we have enough of, as its deficiency seems to be linked to cancer, especially prostate cancer.  (Dr Norman Swan, of Radio National's Health programme, has reported extensively on this) .  Australian soil is low in selenium, apparently.  Also, more Australians are being noted to be deficient in vitamin D (essential for bone health), perhaps due to our over-zealous 'slip, slap' slopping.  For vegetarians, eggs are a great source of B12, which is not found in any other non-meat food.  Eggs also are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids and several antioxidants  that sound like Star War characters (lutin and zeaxanthin).  These have been associated with a lower incidence of macular degeneration, the biggest cause of blindness in Australians over 50.

Will eggs make you fat?  Obviously not, Charles Saatchi would say.  Two large eggs provide 138 calories (581 kJs), which is about 6-7% of most peoples daily energy intake, but contribute well over 7% of our daily recommended requirement for many nutrients. If you eat enough of anything, you will gain weight, but as Charles has shown, it's not possible to eat that many eggs.

There are lots of studies concluding that eggs don't contribute to serum cholesterol levels, and therefore atherosclerosis.  The Ireland-Boston Heart Study followed 600 Irishmen between the ages of 30 and 60 who had lived in Boston for 10 or more years and their brothers who had never left Ireland.  The Irish brothers ate about twice as many eggs as their American brothers, averaging well over 14 per week, and yet the Irish boys had lower levels of cholesterol in their bloodstream. Their hearts were assessed by cardiologists as being from two to six times more healthy as those of their Boston brothers.  It was assumed that less stress and more exercise in the Irish also helped.   In a Californian hospital study, presumably done before hospital ethics committees came into being,   13 patients were fed the equivalent in egg yolks of 15 eggs per day. No-one's serum cholesterol increased after 6 weeks, apart from four bedridden, obese patients.  In some of the active ones, cholesterol actually dropped.

I must admit, I have always been partial to the egg - free range, of course; more about that later..  Having been a vegetarian for many years, I have often been faced with a restaurant menu which offers nothing I could choose to eat.  I read long ago that the first dish a trainee chef must master is the omelette.  On one memorable occasion, I was dining in a rather posh traditional restaurant in Paris.  The menu seemed to specialise in meat, especially offal.  To the horror of my companions I asked the waiter if I may order an omelette.  He was delighted, and suggested one made with a selection of fresh wild mushrooms.  It remains one of the best meals I have ever had. One of Elizabeth David's books is called “An Omelette and a Glass of Wine”, which is about as good as it gets.  Eggs are the most versatile of foods, with their perfect single-serve packaging.  They mix well with vegetables or cheese for a main meal or snack, and a poached or scrambled egg on toast is a great simple meal from toddlers to the elderly.  Eggs for breakfast are great; it's the bacon, sausages and fried bread that comes with them which get people into trouble.