Energy cannot be created or destroyed, merely converted to a different form. And matter, as we all know, is a form of highly concentrated energy.
Looking up Wikipedia I discovered that one gram of matter contains 9.0×1013 joules. (Theoretical total mass-energy of 1 gram of matter). This is approximately the same energy yield as the fat man atomic bomb used in World War Two.
However according to Flora and the British Heart Foundation (who have joined forces to inform the world of the terrors of saturated fat, and cholesterol, and the benefits of Flora), ten grams of matter can easily be gained or lost on the average kitchen stove.
How so, you may wonder. Surely, losing ten grams of matter would create a serious risk of releasing enough energy to wipe out a major city, and all residents contained within. Not so, it seems that if you fry an egg, it weighs 60grams. However, if you boil an egg, it weighs 50grams. See the Flora BHF poster for further detail on this remarkable fact: http://www.flora.com/PDFAuth.aspx?redirectURL=/Resources/others/pdf/HCPPdf/Fat%20Swaps.pdf
Ten grams of matter can simply disappear when you boil an egg? Quite remarkable. I think we should ask CERN to close down the large hadron collider straight away. Their search for the Higgs Boson, the reason why mass exists, and naïve reliance the Unified Field Theory itself, are clearly misguided.
All you need do, to disprove the existence of the mass/energy equation is boil an egg, and ten grams of matter simply disappear. 900,000,000,000,000 joules of energy……just gone. How remarkable is that.
But the wonders of Flora and the BHF do not stop with disproving the existence of the Higgs Boson, and the uselessness of all theoretical physicists. They can also do maths which prove that you can alter the amount of matter contained within the egg as well.
According to this self-same remarkable British Heart Foundation/Flora poster, a fried egg contains 2.4 grams of ‘bad’ fat, and 4.5 grams of good fat. On the other hand a boiled egg contains a mere 1.6 grams of ‘bad’ fat and 3.0 grams of good fat. So, eating a boiled egg means that you reduce intake of ‘bad’ fat by 0.8 grams. (Bad fat is saturated fat, by the way).
For those of you with a mathematical bent, you may have noticed that if a fried egg weighs 60g, and boiled egg weighs 50g, it is 20% heavier. Yet it manages to contain 50% more bad fat (2.4g/1.6g = 1.5). Aha, you might be thinking, when you fry an egg good fat (polyunsaturated), is converted to saturated fat – or something of the sort.
Well, clearly not so (and biologically impossible). Because a fried egg also contains 4.5 grams of good fat, whilst a boiled egg contains 3.0 grams of good fat. So, the ratio of good fat in a fried egg and a boiled egg is also 1.5 (3.0/1.5 = 1.5). In other words, exactly the same ratio as in a fried egg.
So, not only do fried eggs weigh more – 20% more. They also contain significantly more good and bad fat – 50%, at the same time. Bringing all this information together we find that, according to the scientists at Flora and the BHF, a fried egg ends up 1.2 times as massive as boiled eggs and contains 1.5 times as much bad and good fat at the same time. Yes, of course.
My solution to all this is simple, sneak up on the eggs from behind, and damn well fry the ones that thought they were going to be boiled. In this way you can reduce bad fat in a fried egg from 2.4 grams to 1.6 grams. Hah! I bet the scientists in Flora never thought of that – did they.
I am so glad that the British Heart Foundation have brought keen scientific rigor to their partnership with Flora. If I wasn’t laughing, I’d be crying.
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
initialy very funny when looking at the flawed science of flora and BHF in more ways than one. Bit more scary when my new client was told by her doctor to eat a maximimn of three eggs a week (even if they are boiled Hahah) and more wholemeal pasta and bread and switch to margarine! I’m fighting a losing battle with her health when upagainst these cowboys.
We are not up against science. We are fighting belief, and that is much harder to shift.
Saw your piece promoted on Twitter and it caught my eye.
I’m as much for scientific rigor as the next physical scientist, and wouldn’t pretend to have much detailed knowledge of the health consequences of various fats in our diets – but surely the additional total mass, as well as the increased amount of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fats is down to the addition of the cooking oil ?
Serving of boiled egg = just egg
Serving of fried egg = egg + cooking oil
Am I missing something ?
-NEXTSTARFISH-
http://www.nextstarfish.com
Yes, I thought about different explanations, but the addition of cooking oil into the equation would be utterly non-scientific. What if you fry your eggs in butter – as I do? What if you fry them in vegetable oil? What if you first fry bacon, then use the fat from the bacon to fry your egg. Would this not make an enormous difference to the proportions of fats (if you were measuring the egg and any surrounding stuff stuck to it? Of course it would. Yet, this is not mentioned. Either they are not measuring additional fats used for frying – in which case the entire thing is nonsense. Or they are – in which case the entire thing is nonsense. Just different nonsense. Science requires some sort of precision, else it is meaningless guff.
Do these ‘scientists’ actually know what they are talking about? Or do they just hope that no-one understands what they say and thereby they can ‘blind’ us with their science? Unfortunately they are probably right unless someone manages to point us in the right direction. This is definitely a belief system.
Quantum Mechanics Malcolm, a new elective for all Dietitians. The shell acts a free particle, weighs 10g. Seems clear to me. QM even have a name to describe this – Eigenstate.
I reckon those Flora boffins saw this and thought, that’s close enough.
Very good John. I think you may be right. The shell of an egg contains dark energy which, as we all know, leads to the acceleration in the expansion of the Universe….hmmmm. I think it would be bad for you to accidentally eat egg shells
Dark matter is a totally unproven theory to explain the apparent acceleration of the universe. Which is itself a false observation based on highly red shifted quasars. Dark matter is needed to keep the Big Bang theory going. A much better explanation is The Electric Universe, this theory much better accounts for current astrophycial observations. But I digress; eggs are much nicer with plenty of butter and a nice big pinch of salt.
Boiled eggs & lashings off butter… my fave… and healthy too.
Remember to remove the egg-shell first using an anti-matter neutron beam. Or else, there goes the neighborhood.
Flora may not be moved to tears of joy by this.
http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e8707
(Hat Tip: cardiobrief)
Yes indeed. I was going to blog about this study, but I don’t think I need to now. How on earth anyone thought that creating an unnatural substance (margarine) could be healthy for humans…… ye gods. It is almost a bad joke that Flora managed to convince us that something completely alien to nature is healthy. George Orwell, eat your heart out.
I’ve not the least objection to something unnatural as long as it does me no harm. The stunning thing about the paper to my eye wasn’t so much what they learned from the Sydney study, but their early remarks:
“Advice to substitute vegetable oils rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for animal fats rich in saturated fatty acids (SFAs) has been a cornerstone of worldwide dietary guidelines for the past half century.
…
However, there is currently no clinical trial evidence indicating that replacing SFAs with n-6 LA [linoleic acid], without a concurrent increase in n-3 PUFAs, lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease or death.”
So the dietary guidelines (i.e. government propaganda) were based on no clinical trial evidence. If you permit strong language here, may I just say “the reckless bastards!”?
I think reckless language is more than appropriate at this point. Pure dogma without even the slightest evidence. Too much of medicine is like this nowadays.
Hi Dr. Kendrick and other searchers of the truth. Check this out ‘The case of the missing data’ well worth your valuable time.
So how important is this missing data? In this case, the BMJ press office reported the relevance this way:
“The researchers conclude that recovery of these missing data ‘has filled a critical gap in the published literature archive’ and that these findings ‘could have important implications for worldwide dietary advice to substitute omega-6 linoleic acid (or polyunsaturated fatty acids in general) for saturated fatty acids.'”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013/02/11/f-crowe-omega-6.html
Regards Eddie
Yep, plenty of butter with my eggies… good choice I think.
And here’s another tale of Research Not Done. Apparently the assumption that wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beasties are the very thing to test medicines on is baseless. “Systematic studies evaluating how well murine models mimic human inflammatory diseases are nonexistent.”
Stone the crows!
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/testing-of-some-deadly-diseases-on-mice-mislead-report-says.html?_r=1&
H/T WUWT
I always try to explain to people that if we put tainted engine oil in our cars we expect it to splutter and die. Why would the same reasoning not apply to our bodies? I fear that our bodies are far too tolerant of and accommodating to our stupidity.