Eggs and Country Breakfasts

I am trying to lose weight, again. I am also trying to cut massive amounts of salt out of my diet. I don't salt anything I eat, not even when cooking it, so you would think "how much salt can he be eating?" Lots of it apparently. If you eat anything that comes prepackaged, it pretty much contains gobs and gobs of salt. Canned vegetables, canned meats, boxed items, all are supposed to have long shelf lives so lots of salt. Even the stuff that says low sodium has some salt. Even frozen vegetables have salt added. They have a lot less salt, but they have some. Now I knew sodas had salt in them, even the diet ones. Diet coke seems to have the least while the rest seem to run pretty even. But fruit juice has it. Now I am not sure about the kind you have to buy in milk section. Maybe the stuff that has to be kept cold like orange juice doesn't but the apple, cranberry, grape, ect stuff you can buy straight off the shelf has as much or more salt than soda. The frozen concentrate seems to have none though, so I guess that is what I have to turn to.

Anyway, my new doctor isn't much for low-carb dieting. Basically she is wanting to send me to a dietician. I am resisting so far because I really don't want to get into calorie counting and the like, I know me and too much restriction is not going to work. I have been trying to slowly alter my eating patterns. Trying to eat more whole grain stuff, lots more fruits and veggies, less red meat and meat in general. I also am trying to pull a bit of the low carb in by avoiding starches. I do occasionally indulge in a baked potato, or pasta. My rice is brown, whole grain. My bread is whole wheat. I try to eat frozen or fresh veggies and try to snack only on a bit of fruit. The hardest part to deal with is portion control. Eat less of what you eat. I have had some success, but the weight loss is yet to be seen. Of course I have to implement the second and third part of the plan. Part 2 started last week. I went into a regular eating plan. I have a planned breakfast, with variations on weekends and a planned lunch. Dinner is a bit more wing it. Basically my breakfast consists of a whole wheat bagel and a piece of fruit. I am not a big breakfast eater. I have trouble eating when I first wake, but tend to get really hungry when I have been awake 2 or 3 hours. My doctor says eating breakfast is better as it gets your metabolism going faster and you will burn up more calories. The bagel is portable so I bring it to work and eat it when I first get here followed by an orange or apple. I bring a second fruit in case I want a snack. My office is right across the hall from the break room with it's table of high sugar, high carb snack offerings. On the weekends I will indulge myself a little with boiled eggs or omlets and whole wheat toast. But I tend to either skip lunch or eat a much lighter one. Lunch through the week is either a salad or a can of tuna or chicken with one or two pieces of whole wheat bread. No condiments because they make the bread really soggy if I prepare them before hand and they tend to be high in sodium and carbs. Supper tends to be a serving of meat, heavy on chicken, and some type of vegetables, frozen and either warmed on the stove top or microwaved with a bit of water. Recently it's been really cold so this mix is good for small batches of soup, just cut up the meat and boil then toss in a mix of frozen veggies and let it simmer. Fresh garlic and onions add a little flavor and there is always pepper.

But this got me to thinking about breakfast when I was young. My father was raised on a farm and our early breakfasts were what he was used to. Usually 2 fried eggs, although occasionally scrambled, either 3 or 4 small slices of bacon or 2 sausage patties or a small piece of ham, either buttered toast or 2 biscuits. On Sundays there was always white gravy on the biscuits, it was rarely served through the week, only if Mom had extra time. Mostly the meat was cooked first and the drippings used to cook the eggs, later Mom would start cooking the eggs in margarine to lower the fat. Dad liked his eggs runny so he would soak up the yoke with the bread or biscuits. The white gravy, also called sawmill gravy is a southern tradition. Basically you take the hot grease from the meat, add sifted flour, stir like crazy until it is well mixed then add a little bit or milk stirring until smooth, salt and pepper to taste. You can use water instead of milk, I've been told. Some people wonder how anyone could survive on this diet, but you have to remember that the people who devised this diet, 1. had to survive on what they raised or could afford. Flour is cheap, pigs are cheaper to raise and easier to slaughter than cattle. Chickens are cheap on the whole to raise. So eggs and pork products were ready-to-hand. 2. These people would then go out and do intense physical labor for 10 or 12 hours straight, either sweating in the heat or shivering in the cold. Even the women did not only household chores but also worked in gardens, tended the chickens and gathered eggs. They sweated out the salt, burned up the fat and carbs and survived the cholesteral.

By the way, my father hates brown eggs. Around here they are often called country eggs and believe it or not some people will pay extra for brown eggs. My father grew up on them and thinks they taste too strong. He prefers white eggs. Let me let you in on a big secret.

What determines the color of the egg is the breed of the chicken. Some chicken breed lay white eggs, some brown. Some, like the morans, lay really dark brown eggs. Others like the silky lay eggs that are faintly blue in color. And they all taste the same. What determines the taste of eggs is the diet of the chickens and maybe how active they are. If you let chickens free range and they eat pretty much what ever they find, as my grandmother did, there eggs might have a stronger, gamy flavor. If the hens are fed mostly grain and chicken food, the eggs will taste the same as if you bought them in the grocery store.