The latest Observer Food Monthly collaboration (link here) with Dara Mohammadi included some CardioKit recipes and as per usual it’s impossible not to read the online commentary, both positive and negative. What is clear is that writing about food and health is always an emotive subject. In fact the latest article was motivated by taking on board comments from a previous OFM article, where a number of people had questioned whether a healthy diet was compatible with a restricted budget. For this reason our article focused on how healthy eating had become a ‘rip-off’, associated with ‘special’ and expensive ingredients.

The article was titled “Eat well for less” but again some commented that our ingredients weren’t really budget enough. Now our intention was never to emulate Jack Monroe style recipes but to look at this from an angle where health has become associated with premium and special ‘superfoods’. One comment even suggested that our recipes were too elaborate and complicated — ’too many ingredients, all you need are a few eggs’.

This brings us to the Omelette Ludo Lefebvre. Ludo is what I would describe as a charismatic, eccentric ‘rock and roll’ chef. He is French and classically trained on the Michelin circuit in France but based in Los Angeles these days, where he cooks modern popular culture food including the famous ‘Ludo Bird’ fried chicken sandwich. This is his omelette.

And now to the subject of health. I don’t think we can claim that the combination of eggs, butter and cheese, on their own, makes a specifically protective meal. However, we shouldn’t fear these ingredients either, especially not when you consider what they would usually be replaced with. The foundation of healthy food is cooking and eating real food.

The ability to cook eggs is probably the fundamental culinary skill and a beautiful illustration of the relationship between simple ingredients and quality meals. This was the misunderstanding of the historical ‘French Paradox”’—  the French as a population understand this better than most. They would eat real, local food that contained full fat diary and eggs but had some of the lowest rates of heart disease as compared to populations that would focus on egg white omelettes cooked in margarine or other strange pseudo-healthy (and often premium) food industry substitutions.

Here is the point — have a 3 egg omelette as a weekend brunch with a side salad of dressed green leaves and you will feel full and satisfied. Much better than a processed breakfast cereal or toast with margarine.