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Daryl
Wed, Oct-10-07, 20:12
Okay! Gotta love it........ :thup:

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.

Daryl
Wed, Oct-10-07, 20:24
For more than a quarter-century, one set of principles has dominated the otherwise fractious, bewildering field of human nutrition and health. The official word on the diet most likely to keep you thin and prevent chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes is that it be low in fat, include lots of fruits and vegetables and be moderate in total calories. Scientists know this. Your doctor and your government tell you the same. It makes sense. There's just one problem.

It doesn't work.


Americans are getting fatter and sicker. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and a third of them are clinically obese. Ten percent of Americans suffer from Type II diabetes. Past age 60, that soars to 20 percent. So what's wrong with our concept of a healthful diet?

Just about everything, says Gary Taubes in a watershed new book, "Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease." Deeply researched and profoundly unsettling, the book proposes a seismic paradigm shift that could well undo our perceptions about the relationship between food and health. It could also literally change the way you eat, the way you look and how long you live.

This is not another diet book -- there are no recipes, no menus, no lists of foods to embrace or shun. It's a sober, meticulous review of the vast universe of nutritional science, much of which turns out to be flawed or inconclusive, yet also lucid and lively, the easiest nearly 500 pages of science you'll ever digest. It's an unwavering challenge to conventional thinking; Taubes leaves no sacred cow unbutchered.
Read the rest HERE >>> http://www.startribune.com/books/story/1473663.html

kwikdriver
Wed, Oct-10-07, 20:29
She's dead wrong: cutting out the egg yolk is beneficial, if you're trying to cut calories. :lol:

I'm beginning to see a new paradigm, which might be nearly as harmful as the old "Carbs are good for you, fat is the devil" one, and that is "protein is good for you." In fact, I've never seen any research that shows protein is good for you, while I have seen research that shows it can be harmful, and reduces lifespan in some species. Our society seems to keep lurching about, today tilting against this dietary windmill, tomorrow that one.

Kary
Wed, Oct-10-07, 20:49
Nora Ephron, as usual, rocks.

mike_d
Wed, Oct-10-07, 21:37
Liver is actually high in cholesterol, I eat quite a lot of it fried in butter along with whole Omega-3 eggs. The yolk of the egg contains needed nutrition, and the yolk actually helps with the digestion of the egg white. The no red meats, egg yolks or saturated fats is very bad nutritional advice-- I am glad the truth is finally coming out. I also drink "artery clogging tropical oils" like coconut and my lipid profile is perfect. So there.

Nancy LC
Wed, Oct-10-07, 21:58
I'm interested in seeing what Nina Planck says, she's usually on the right side of the debate.

Daryl
Thu, Oct-11-07, 05:50
She's dead wrong: cutting out the egg yolk is beneficial, if you're trying to cut calories. :lol:

I'm beginning to see a new paradigm, which might be nearly as harmful as the old "Carbs are good for you, fat is the devil" one, and that is "protein is good for you." In fact, I've never seen any research that shows protein is good for you, while I have seen research that shows it can be harmful, and reduces lifespan in some species. Our society seems to keep lurching about, today tilting against this dietary windmill, tomorrow that one.

Well, surely you consider a substance that our bodies have to have as "good".....

dane
Thu, Oct-11-07, 05:53
LOL at Nora Ephron! In defense of egg-white only omelettes, I know a lot of people who eat 'em that way, but it's because they're also controlling cals (as Kwik pointed out) and would rather skip an egg yolk in order to have more tasty fats like cheese or avocado or peanut butter. :)

mrfreddy
Thu, Oct-11-07, 06:53
way to go Nora.... suddenly I like your movies much more than I used to!

Daryl
Thu, Oct-11-07, 07:11
lol Freddy

Dodger
Thu, Oct-11-07, 08:45
When I feed my dogs hardboiled eggs, they eat every bit of the yolk and leave quit a bit of the egg white on the ground.

deb34
Thu, Oct-11-07, 10:42
When I feed my dogs hardboiled eggs, they eat every bit of the yolk and leave quit a bit of the egg white on the ground.


You go dogs!!!! that's how it eat my HB eggs too, only i am a little more civilized and put the whites in the garbage :)

mrfreddy
Thu, Oct-11-07, 11:52
you should feed your dogs raw eggs, save the hard boiled ones for yourself!

confession
Thu, Oct-11-07, 12:13
Great clips! The only thing I would have to disagree with is the one that says the the Taubes book" is the easiest 500 pages of science you'll ever read."
I wouldn't say the book has been easy to read, at all. Very informative and interesting, but not easy. It is definitely worth the challenge, though.

Mrs. Skip
Thu, Oct-11-07, 12:28
Nora E., you da bomb! :lol:

I have to agree with Confession, though...this book is NOT an easy read. I tried to share it with MIL...she flipped through it and said, "No way am I going to read something that long and difficult!"

I wish there were a short, easy version just to share the highlights with people who have little interest in it because they have no knowledge of it...

Wifezilla
Thu, Oct-11-07, 13:22
I wish there were a short, easy version just to share the highlights with people who have little interest in it because they have no knowledge of it...

Give this to MIL.....

CARBS KILL

Short enough for her?

LC FP
Thu, Oct-11-07, 13:32
I wish there were a short, easy version
There is. It's called, "What if it's all been a big fat lie?" :)

PlaneCrazy
Fri, Oct-12-07, 05:13
For the two-page shorter version, check out this post (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost.php?p=7035372&postcount=1) which kicked off my awareness of the book. It contains the conclusions. If you want the whole story, built patiently brick by brick, then read the book. If you just want to know what it says, then read the conclusion.

Now, if you give the conclusion to someone and they want to argue that it's not true, without reading the book, then you've witnessed the inherent bias Gary describes in the book. :rolleyes:

Plane

waywardsis
Fri, Oct-12-07, 07:42
Go NOra!

I'm waiting for Nina Planck's review as well, though I can pretty much imagine what it'll be. She rocks too.

Kwik...protein not good for us???? Wha?? Zog confused.

Demi
Fri, Oct-12-07, 07:49
YAY Nora! :thup: