Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I love omelets and eggs in all their variations and forms.
Thanks for the recipe and reminder that a simple omelet can be a perfect dish-- all about the egg.

Everyone likes all egg dishes their own way. I like firm and fluffy omelets, smothered with cheese and fillings. I like creamy, barely-cooked scrambled eggs on toast, I like hard-cooked scrambled eggs with fried potatoes, I like fried eggs, fried till lacy and crisp, on a sandwich made with buttered white toast and a slice of cheese. It's just such a personal thing.

And consider the egg. It can do so much. It can help your baking, it makes a fine salad, it can be hard-boiled, soft-boiled, poached, even deep-fried (everyone should have a Scotch Egg at least once...a hard boiled egg wrapped in ground sausage and bread crumbs, then fried). Is there a single type of food that doesn't benefit from the egg? What a culinary miracle it really is. Thanks, chickens. Keep up the good work.

Slight typo on my previous post. Should read "Water blends and keeps the omelet high." Sigh...

@GoodEaterKenji - please be kind, I'm such a fan of yours. You totally rock! I can actually answer why Jeff Smith advised adding water! His Frugal Gourmet cookbook was one of my first, I still have it. On page 91, he's giving hints for a good omelet. His 4th hint is to "never use milk in the egg mixture. Use only water. Milk makes your eggs watery since it will not blend with the eggs. Water blends and helps keep the water high." Whether or not this is truly fact or mere perception, I can't say. But I have followed his rule ever since then. Anyhow, that's why he said it.

Howard Helmers techniques works

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNB_KW9rHTA

Gordon? Is that Alton's brother? :-)

Thank god...I thoughtI was crazy. I often wondered why friends would have an apple to tide them over until a meal. I feel like I haven't eaten for days right after I eat an apple. I always thought the pectin was supposed to make you feel full, though. Makes me want to eat a cow.

These comments were enlightening. Haven't thought about apples, but the Russian Tea, popular in the 70s, made with orange juice, tea bags, lemon juice and spices always made me so hungry. Very interesting comments.

@Aynsl156 - agreed for hepatocytes. However, fructose is not burned for energy by other cells unless it is first converted to glucose (since fructose can't leave the liver). That distinction is important.

Biochemistry aside, a number of studies have shown that feeding diets high in fructose raise triglyceride and VLDL levels compared to high glucose diets. These results indicate fructose primarily winds up as fat, rather than glucose. For all intents and purposes, fructose should be considered a fat rather than a carbohydrate. (If you disagree, I'll have to direct you to my nutritional biochemistry professor; that was his statement in the lecture.)

I so

I totally agree about eating the apple with something else. If I eat an apple with my english muffin for breakfast, I stay full way longer than an english muffin alone. But I long ago learned I can't eat just an apple for breakfast or I feel just awful all day long.

@Mares - could you clarify this statement: "... you wouldn't get fat eating apples, because the natural sugars in the fruit are pretty much used up breaking down the fiber."

That's not making sense to me -- "fiber" is basically non-digestible carbihydrates including cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin (there are other forms, but these are predominant in apples). These fibers form the structure of the plant cells and basically keep the intracellular contents from leaking out. The sugars are stored in the vacuoles of the plant cells. If the sugars can break down the fiber, the apple would literally digest its self - the sugars would break down the cell walls, and eventually you would be left with a pile of mush even before it left the grocery store shelf.

Apples are about 14% carbohydrates of which is fiber (2.4%), fructose (5.9%), sucrose (2.1%), and glucose (2.4%) (Source: USDA National Nutrient Database).

The digestion of sugars and fiber from the wee apple are completely different processes:

The sucrose is cleaved by sucrase (secreted by the small intestinal cells) to form glucose and fructose. The glucose enters the blood stream to be used immediately for energy, refill glycogen stores, and the rest of stored as fat (the amount in an apple will likely all be used for energy).

The fructose goes to the liver where it is metabolized to glyceraldehyde (GA), dihydroxyacetone (DHAP) and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (G3P). The GA and DHAP create glycerol-3-phosphate which makes the backbone of a triglyceride (fat). The G3P is converted to pyruvate, then acetyl-CoA, and then enters the Krebs Cycle where it eventually is turned into palmitate (free fatty acids). Three palmitates attach to the glycerol molecule to form a tri-glyceride -- the body's storage form of fat.

Thus, the metabolic fate of fructose is fat, whereas glucose is (typically) energy.

Humans can't digest fiber (if they could it would be called carbohydrate). Some of the fiber is partially broken down by the bacteria in your gut to form short chain fatty acids which are absorbed and used for energy. The rest passes to the feces giving it bulk and absorbing bile on its way (this is good - it helps protect against colon cancer and can help reduce your body's net cholesterol burden).

As for constipation... that's due to the fiber adding bulk to the feces. But apples are special because they contain more pectin than many other fruits/veggies -- pectin is a soluble fiber, so it absorbs water giving stool greater bulk and making it easier to pass.

Apples with cheese or dipped in yogurt is the only way I can do them. I've powered down two big honeycrisps and been starving 10 minutes later. The fat in cheese or yogurt keeps you satisfied longer.