Viva l'Uovo!
Once upon a time,
we lived in a world where people simply ate. They ate what was
available; they ate what was fresh; they ate what was local; they ate
what nature provided. Nobody counted calories or milligrams of this,
that, or the other. They ate things they liked just because they
liked them. And, by and large, they were a happy people who lived
long and healthy lives. And then food science was invented and it all
went to hell in a hand basket.
Okay, that's not
entirely fair. Food science came about because we started treating
our food like a science project. We “enhanced” it, we “fortified”
it, we “processed” and “preserved” it and filled it full of
“additives.” And in so doing, we created a society of the most
obese, disease-ridden people ever to populate the planet. In an
effort to safeguard our waning health, food scientists came along to
help guide us down the righteous paths of good nutrition.
Unfortunately, as so often happens with trailblazers and pathmakers,
they didn't know where they were going themselves. They were just
winging it based on the information they had and hoping for the best.
And this has led to a lot of dead ends on the ol' nutrition trail.
Like Daniel Boone and Kit Carson of old, food scientists have had to
do a lot of backtracking and reevaluating. “Damn! Where did that
mountain come from?” “That river's not supposed to be here!”
“Ooops! Bigger stretch of desert than I thought.” Such is the
case with cholesterol.
I'm of an age where
cholesterol has been a part of my consciousness for about as long as
I can remember. Maybe less so when I was a little kid, but certainly
a major factor in my adult diet. Cholesterol has been the big, bad,
bugaboo for about fifty years now. HDL (high density lipoproteins)
were the good guys that would save you from coronary disease while
LDL (low density lipoproteins) and their companion triglycerides
would send you down the slippery slope of fat-clogged arteries to a
certain early demise. Dietary science from the '60s, '70s, and '80s
said it, and we all believed it.
Well.....not all.
I was one of those who always wondered how Grandma cooked
everything in lard and Grandpa chowed down on a half-dozen eggs and
bacon every day and they both made it well into their 80s. My
great-grandmother lived to just a few months shy of 100 and she never
counted a calorie or monitored a milligram in her life. What did they
do right that everybody else seems to be doing wrong?
In the first place,
they ate what was available; they ate what was fresh; they ate what
was local; they ate what nature provided. They ate things they liked
just because they liked them. And, by and large, they were happy
people who lived long and healthy lives. Nobody tried to embalm them
with preservatives before they were dead. The fact that they knew
what arms and legs were intended for also helped. Can you imagine?
They actually had to get up and walk across the room to
change the channel on the TV!
Anyway,
back to cholesterol. The fat world shook the other day when the
nation's top health cops at the FDA decided that maybe cholesterol
has gotten a bum rap. Old research has been reexamined and rethought
and new findings find that eating foods like eggs, butter,
steak, shrimp, and lobster may not significantly impact the level of
cholesterol in the blood or increase the risk of heart disease.
Hence, they are recommending the removal of cholesterol from the list
of “nutrients of concern.”
After analyzing studies and data from
the '70s and '80s, nutritionists now realize that all the health
warnings about cholesterol shoved down our throats over the years
actually caused people to shift to foods high in carbohydrates and
sugar, which, conversely, created more inflammatory and cardiac
disease processes – and obesity – than the original culprit.
Turns out it wasn't naturally occurring fats that were causing all
the problems, but our wonderful new chemically created trans fats and
refined oils that were killing us off in droves.
In fact, your body needs cholesterol in
order to function. That's why the liver produces it naturally and in
greater quantities than dietary intake provides. And that's why the
new studies are saying, “don't sweat the cholesterol. It's not that
big a factor.”
Wha-a-a-a-a-t! Do
you mean all those disgusting egg white omelets I've been eating for
forty years were all for nothing? That
I've been choking down “I Can't Believe It's Not Butter” for
decades when I could have been basking in the real thing? In the
interest of full disclosure, I wouldn't actually touch either of
those things if you paid me to, but yeah, that's about the size of
it.
I'm
happy as a frog in a pond full of lily pads about butter. As a native
son of America's Dairyland, I wouldn't put margarine, that disgusting
chemical concoction foisted off by the French on an unsuspecting
world, on my table to save my life. Ironic, because margarine has
recently been shown to be a substance that will kill you more quickly
than bad ol' butter ever would. See? Food science at work. “Butter
is bad and margarine is good. Oh......wait.......margarine is bad and
butter is good. Or is it butter can be good if it's got olive oil in
it and.....and....margarine is bad.....unless it's made with healthy
fat like.......oh, never mind!” And let me tell you a little
secret; skim milk has never passed my lips, either. I live by the
rule “If my grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, I won't eat
it.” And in her day, skim milk was something they fed to cattle and
pigs. (You younger folks may have to amend that rule and extend it
back to your great-grandmother.)
But
I'm happiest of all about the revived reputation of eggs. I've always
liked eggs. Not six at a time like Grandpa, but I can do justice to
one or two at a sitting. And even at the height of the hysteria when
egg-phobic ninny-whiners were out there trying to suck the life out
of every egg dish by insisting that the yolks were gonna kill us all
deader than hammers and that we should all be eating “whites only,”
I refused to succumb. There's a cardinal rule in the kitchen;
“there's flavor in fat.” And when it comes to eggs, fat's where
it's at. All the “killer” cholesterol is in the yolk, but so is
all the flavor. Try as I might, I could never stomach the idea of
eating a pile of bland egg whites. Not that I tried very hard, mind
you. No, indeed. I chose to brave a premature death by eating two or
three whole eggs a
week, usually with a deadly glass of whole milk
and perhaps a couple of lethal slices of buttered toast. Buttered,
not slathered with faux-healthy
“spread.” And I'm on the cusp of my seventh decade with blood
cholesterol that falls within normal limits.
Eggs
have long been called “nature's perfect food.” And there's a
reason for that that transcends all the junk science we've been
forced to endure. Granted, egg whites have some extra proteins in
them. Beyond that, they are nutritionally worthless. All the good
stuff is in the heretofore forbidden yolk. The beautiful golden
center of an egg contains loads of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E,
and K. All the carotenoids, lutein, and choline in an egg are in the
yolk, as well as most of the calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc,
thiamin, folate,and vitamins B6 and B12. So go ahead and listen to
the idiots who tell you to throw out the yolk. Better yet, throw out
the whole egg and just eat the carton. It's fat-free and you'll get
lots of fiber that way.
So now
that eggs are officially okay again, let's celebrate with a recipe
for the grandaddy of all Italian egg dishes, the frittata. This is
one of my favorites.
FRITTATA AL FORNO CON MOZZARELLA
(Baked Frittata with Mozzarella)
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1/4 cup whole milk
salt and pepper, to taste
1 sprig fresh Italian parsley
6 fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
8 oz mozzarella, thinly sliced
1 plum tomato, cut into thin rounds
Method:
Preheat oven to
350°.
Combine the eggs and the milk and beat
until frothy; add the salt and pepper.
Chop together the parsley and the basil
and add to the egg mixture.
Heat the oil in a medium ovenproof
skillet over medium heat. Pour in the beaten egg mixture and cook
until the bottom sets, 4 or 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add a
layer of cheese, then dot with slices of tomato.
Place the skillet in the oven and bake
until the eggs are set and the cheese has melted, 15 to 20 minutes.
Serve immediately.
Makes 6 servings
Buon appetito!
No comments:
Post a Comment