A Few Words About Breakfast, That Thing Before Lunch

Eggs may be just fine unless they’re really not, authorities report

By Ed Goldman

Breakfast, as we have learned, is the most important meal of the day. Or at least, the most self-important.

Everyone—from pasty-complected nutritionists to sugar-hating grade-school teachers, from Tang-fueled astronauts to couldn’t-find-another-job life coaches and, of course, zero-nutritive-value cereal manufacturers—have told us for years that the best way to brace for a busy day or accomplishment-heavy life is to start our mornings with a hearty breakfast.

In Search of Eggsellence

I think this might have been better advice back when more of us did heavy lifting, whether it was in factories, on farms, as lumberjacks or members of World Wrestling Entertainment. Presumably, we really needed the fuel to, respectively, hoist those boulders, run that forklift, till that soil, chop down that tree or toss the 800-pound wrestler Yokozuna (allegedly the all-time heaviest WWE Champion ever) into the adoring soon-to-be-pancaked crowd.

But just what constitutes that hearty breakfast has become a source of debate, especially among the segments cited above.

Take eggs as an example.

One of the most economical, protein-rich meals with which to begin, center or end one’s day, for decades they were blamed for rising bad-cholesterol scores among American consumers and bad-test scores among promotion-eyeing school administrators. (“Omelets are destroying our kids’ grip on trigonometry,” I believe a keynote speaker said at a school officials retreat, How to Make Each Day a Whine/Whine.)

Egg growers have understandably cast a jaundiced eye on various negative findings—and sure enough, they managed to get the product out of the Underbelly of Evil, up the food ladder’s Cellar of Dubiousness and to where it now rests, if uneasily, on the First Floor of Somewhat Acceptable.

According to a recent article by Anthony Komaroff, a medical doctor, writing in Harvard Health, “From what we know today, here’s the bottom line: for most people, an egg a day does not increase your risk of a heart attack, a stroke, or any other type of cardiovascular disease. No more than three eggs per week is wise if you have diabetes, are at high risk for heart disease from other causes (such as smoking), or already have heart disease.”

For an egg eater like me, this is reassuring—except for the first five words, “From what we know today.” Does this mean we should check back with Dr. Komaroff tomorrow? Does anyone know his cell/text number? If so, is it toll-free? And if I visit him at Harvard, will the school validate my parking?

These are the types of real-world questions many of us have— especially if, like me, you skipped breakfast today because you thought your friend was treating you to a big lunch to thank you for a stock tip that turned out to be correct, which was to buy bonds instead.

Note: Since I am not a licensed financial adviser, tax preparer or even reliable checkbook balancer, my suggestions should not be construed as professional advice—unless they pay off. At which time you should treat me to a big lunch.

I’ll even skip breakfast that day

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Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).