1035: “Cadbury Eggs”

[Angua]

Sodium chloride is probably cheaper.

Also, if you start messing with the potassium content of foods, a lot of the heart and renal patients out there are going to be on even more restricted diets.

[AvatarIII]

Sodium chloride is probably cheaper.

Also, if you start messing with the potassium content of foods, a lot of the heart and renal patients out there are going to be on even more restricted diets.

should those people be eating salty foods anyway? I was only really thinking about reducing sodium in high sodium foods.
say if a food normally has 0.2g of sodium, wouldn't 0.1g of sodium and 0.1g of potassium be preferable?

[Angua]

Potassium concentrations in the blood have to be controlled a lot more than sodium concentrations - you only need to have a couple of millimolars off with potassium to lead to noticeable heart problems, whereas with sodium you have a lot more leeway. I don't know how tightly controlled sodium restriction is in those patients, but it's probably a lot less restricted than potassium, as a lot of the drugs treating that sort of thing are interfering with potassium already, so they have even less leeway with stuff.

[AvatarIII]

Potassium concentrations in the blood have to be controlled a lot more than sodium concentrations - you only need to have a couple of millimolars off with potassium to lead to noticeable heart problems, whereas with sodium you have a lot more leeway. I don't know how tightly controlled sodium restriction is in those patients, but it's probably a lot less restricted than potassium, as a lot of the drugs treating that sort of thing are interfering with potassium already, so they have even less leeway with stuff.

Fair enough, I'm no pharmacologist or dietician, but I knew there had to be some reason why use of potassium salts as a replacement for sodium salts in food is unheard of, but you can easily buy potassium salt in the supermarket.

The fact that sodium is seen as a "bad for you in excess" substance, grouped with calories and fat on food labels, when potassium, which like you say needs more control than sodium, is often put alongside vitamin content on food labels, seems crazy to me.

[The Moomin]

Title: When they moved production from New Zealand to the UK and switched from the runny white centers to the thick, frosting-like filling, it got way harder to cook them scrambled.

Try them deep fried in batter.

( Apparently available in chipshops across the UK. It was on the menu on one I saw in N. Wales, but that was twenty years ago, maybe things have got healthier ).

I've only ever encountered deep fried creme eggs in one chip shop, and for every one sold money was donated to charity. I think deep fried mars bars are more commonplace. It was exceedingly gooey.

Personally, I prefer the creme egg bars as they have a better chocolate to goo ratio.

Kindly point me in the general direction of this chip shop, my good comrade, so that I may pay obeisance to the jiggly hedonistic god of saturated fats.

All this talk of Cadbury and healthfulness is making me want chocolate for breakfast. Good work, guys.

Unfortunately, the only place I know of that did/does the Creme Eggs is in Bakewell, Derbyshire. This was three years ago now though.

There were chip shops in Leeds and Sheffield that did the mars bars, but that was around ten years ago.

Nigella Lawson has a recipe here.

I'm tempted to get a box of Heroes or Roses and go mental with the deep fat fryer.

[zano]

Girl look at that body.

Finally someone picked up the ball.

[SpitValve]

Holy crap, I had been wondering why Canadian Cadbury Eggs weren't as nice as New Zealand ones! I guess I just figured that the centres went hard if you left them for too long. This does not make me a clever man.

[RyanfaeScotland]

...You won't ever overeat on water...

These people would disagree, well if they weren't dead. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_poisoning#Notable_cases (InB4 you don't eat water).

...I guess I just figured that the centres went hard if you left them for too long...

I thought the same thing here in the UK! Can't believe they actually changed it intentionally. I thought I was just having a run of bad luck getting, oh god sorry about this, bad eggs, don't think I'll eat them any more now that I know they're all like that.

[xaire]

What's really blowing my mind here is that the centers are no longer supposed to be runny. For the last however long, I have assumed that every egg I've bought has been old and the center just congealed on its own.

[squonk]

Is anybody else disappointed that the woman didn't get to finish with "Girl look at that body"?

[eculc]

I might have to try scrambled cadbury eggs now.

[BobTheElder]

Just to clarify something- Cadbury do not make 'nice' chocolate. Nor do they make 'good' chocolate. They make cheap, crappy, synthetic chocolate.

[sorceror]

Apparently, spring is when the Internet's fancy turns to Creme Eggs... http://www.fark.com/comments/7017127

[AvatarIII]

Just to clarify something- Cadbury do not make 'nice' chocolate. Nor do they make 'good' chocolate. They make cheap, crappy, synthetic chocolate.

Tastes better (sweeter and creamier) than Nestlé chocolate though, and it's less sickly than Galaxy/Mars, which are the other 2 big Easter egg producers in the UK.

I thought the same thing here in the UK! Can't believe they actually changed it intentionally. I thought I was just having a run of bad luck getting, oh god sorry about this, bad eggs, don't think I'll eat them any more now that I know they're all like that.

How runny were they before? I can't remember them being any different from the kind of consistency they have now.

[J Thomas]

talking of salt, why don't more foods use potassium salt instead of sodium salt? sodium is important but many people have too much, but potassium is important too and is something many people don't get enough of. and the max RDA of potassium (3500mg - 5600mg) is over twice as high as sodium (1600mg - 2400mg)

I expect the most important reason is it tastes different, and not what people expect or want.

Sodium/potassium is a fascinating topic. I want to say a little about it and maybe if I get something wrong an expert will correct me.

Mostly, plants don't need sodium at all, but animals do. Eat plants and you get lots of potassium but not much sodium. This is a restriction on herbivores, if they can't get enough sodium they can't eat.

Given enough water, a healthy human can eat a wide range of sodium to potassium ratios. To some extent, whichever is in shortest supply will be absorbed better. Then the liver adjusts the balance in blood by absorbing or releasing potassium. Red blood cells do the same, they absorb or release potassium. When there's still too much sodium, skeletal muscles release potassium.

Meanwhile you preferentially excrete whichever is in highest supply in urine, sweat, and tears. I read that the inventor of Gatorade measured the concentration of salts in the sweat of his football players and then made a drink designed to replace those salts. (Of course, the commercial product later ignored all that.) He assumed that they had the "right" concentration of salts to begin with....

If you get too much sodium for a long time, you deplete the potassium stores in your liver. Then you deplete the potassium stores in your red blood cells. Then you deplete the potassium stores in your skeletal muscles. At that point you are paralyzed but your heart and lungs work. The EMTs have to be very careful giving you extra potassium because the level will stay low while your various buffers fill, but once they are full it shoots up fast.

If you get too much potassium, the result depends. There can be a variety of nonspecific symptoms before your heart stops.

When you're healthy, it isn't an issue. Get enough of both salts and plenty of water, and your body will remove whatever it doesn't need. No problem unless you can't get enough of one, or else enough water. (Of course, there's the argument that the harder your kidneys have to work the sooner they will wear out.) When things start breaking down then it gets harder.

Traditionally inland animals have had problems getting enough sodium, and that might be part of why we aren't well tuned for deciding how much is enough. Salt has probably always been a valuable trade good. The paleolithic record shows something about trade routes for flint but the trade in salt back then is harder to document.

[lesmith11]

You're doing it wrong if you eat Cadbury made anywhere other then Australia.

Considering Cadbury was founded in the UK why would I be doing it wrong?

[jozwa]

Meh, I prefer Kinder Surprise eggs.

[JetstreamGW]

I'm unimpressed. There are 170 calories in a cadbury egg and 150 calories in a 12 oz can of Dr. pepper. Singling out soda as particularly unhealthy has been going on for a while, and doesn't really have much science behind it. Drinking a Dr. Pepper with dinner and not having dessert is roughly the equivalent of eating one cadbury egg for dessert (which in my experience is smaller than most desserts). If you'd rather eat candy than drink soda, more power to you, but there's really no difference in the amount of empty calories you would get from either activity.

The problem, mate, is that people quaff soda like it's WATER. They don't treat it as a treat, they act like it's a staple beverage.

[RyanfaeScotland]

How runny were they before? I can't remember them being any different from the kind of consistency they have now.

They used to more of a gooey liquid, the ones I have had recently seem to have more of a thicker 'fluffier' consistency to them. It's hard to describe but I think the difference in these images gets across what I'm saying. I'm not sure what the images are actually describing in context on their sites, I'm just using them because I think they show the difference I think there is between the eggs I remember and the eggs I have been buying.

Old, runny eggs -



Newer, 'fluffier' eggs -



Of course it looks like the top image is an idealised version and the bottom is a 'real life' picture but hopefully it gets across what I'm trying to say.

EDIT - This photo on flicker shows the fluffy egg even better http://www.flickr.com/photos/princess_of_llyr/3308434970/sizes/m/in/photostream/ and the article http://www.thecandyenthusiast.com/index.php/Spring_Summer_Theme/cadbury_creme_egg/ where the image is from says that she/he bought more eggs in search of the creamy flowing center and got them. Interesting....

[Sofie]

The fact that sodium is seen as a "bad for you in excess" substance, grouped with calories and fat on food labels, when potassium, which like you say needs more control than sodium, is often put alongside vitamin content on food labels, seems crazy to me.

Yeah, sodium isn't bad for people without those conditions (nice post, J Thomas). Saturated fat isn't bad either, Big Fat Fiasco is a great explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exi7O1li_wA As for calories, if you stick to real food it takes care of itself.

These people would disagree, well if they weren't dead. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pois ... able_cases

Note my following "if you eat as much as you want". You can indeed be forced to take too much, my point is you don't want to do that. Wheras people do want to eat too much soda, chips, Cadbury Eggs etc.

[RyanfaeScotland]

...Note my following "if you eat as much as you want". You can indeed be forced to take too much, my point is you don't want to do that...

I guess we could get into a debate as to the use of the term 'want' and argue whether these people wanted to drink as much as they did as they definitely weren't forced, they chose to do it for one reason or another, (I guess the counter argument would be they chose to do it but it doesn't mean they wanted to do it, like I chose to come to work but I wanted to stay in bed) but let's please not go there! I guess I'm a moderation kinda guy, eat what you want to eat in moderation and you'll be fine, even cyanide, knives and the others you listed above. (Of course given the small amounts that it takes to kill you of these things then moderation is going to be such a tiny amount it's really a wonder why you'd bother but that's not the point, the point is anything in moderation is fine.)

[Vael]

Girl look at that body.

Finally someone picked up the ball.

And then they worked out.

[AvatarIII]

How runny were they before? I can't remember them being any different from the kind of consistency they have now.

They used to more of a gooey liquid, the ones I have had recently seem to have more of a thicker 'fluffier' consistency to them. It's hard to describe but I think the difference in these images gets across what I'm saying. I'm not sure what the images are actually describing in context on their sites, I'm just using them because I think they show the difference I think there is between the eggs I remember and the eggs I have been buying.

Old, runny eggs -



Newer, 'fluffier' eggs -



Of course it looks like the top image is an idealised version and the bottom is a 'real life' picture but hopefully it gets across what I'm trying to say.

EDIT - This photo on flicker shows the fluffy egg even better http://www.flickr.com/photos/princess_of_llyr/3308434970/sizes/m/in/photostream/ and the article http://www.thecandyenthusiast.com/index.php/Spring_Summer_Theme/cadbury_creme_egg/ where the image is from says that she/he bought more eggs in search of the creamy flowing centre and got them. Interesting....

I've had some recently and they were definitely closer to the first image than the second, runny enough to suck out through a hole. The second image, I couldn't imagine being able to suck that. so maybe it it just luck of the draw.

[pkcommando]

The biggest revelation of this comic is that they have Cadbury's (Creme) Eggs outside the UK... I kinda thought that Cadbury's was unheard of in the rest of the world!

Britain had that Empire; Cadbury still ship to it!

(Although, I didn't think the US had European-style chocolate much so I was surprised too.)

Many grocery stores in the US have World Food sections that sometimes include UK things. More so if you live near major cities, though, as many smaller areas limit their World offerings to Hispanic & Asian. And if you live near the RIGHT major cities - w/ a large British or Irish populace - you'll find specialty stores. Greater Boston has 7 that I can name off the top of my head that all bill themselves as 'Irish Groceries' along with Irish bakeries that also carry a moderate selection of the candies as well as a gourmet foods store in Harvard Square that carries a great variety of European sweets.

[jqavins]

The thing is that when you stick to what humans are used to eating, the concept of "eating in moderation" becomes as stupid as "breathing in moderation". Aside from polar bear, it's practically impossible to overload on vitamin A from eating liver, but if you take vitamin A pills it's easy. You won't ever overeat on water, meat, veggies if you eat as much as you want. If you need to moderate your eating of something, that's a good indicator that you shouldn't be eating it in the first place. http://www.gnolls.org/2074/why-snack-fo ... ck-appeal/

Nonsense. "What humans are used to eating" is whatever they can get with enough calories to keep them going. Throughout most of history (and all of pre-history) and in most of the world it was mostly impossible to overeat; the challange is to get enough calories, not to avoid excess. Foods rich in calories due to high sugar and/or fat content are either scarce or take a lot of calories to obtain. So, since eating too much is not a concern, we are evolved to want as much of these foods as we can get and we are "used to" eating as much of them as we can get since we simply can't get too much. That's why these foods taste good; in the evolutionary state, they're good for you in all available quantities (for all intents and purposes) and the sensory, even sensual pleasure of eating them is the evolutionary way of assuring you will do so at every oportunity. But evolution does not keep up with technology. The technology of agriculture* makes these foods available in quantities that are unprecedented in the evolutionary state; even though consumption of such quantities is bad for you, you are evolved to want to. So you need to moderare consumption conciously. You certainly can overeat on lusious, red, deliciously fatty meat, you can easily overeat on sweet, juicey, yummy fruits. It's hard (but possible) to overeat on veggies; how many people have you met who have difficulty resisting just one more radish? (I assume you haven't met any Fraggles.) It's hard to resist hamburgers, strawberries, and chocolate because, in the evolutionary state, in the context of "what humans are used to eating," they are unequivocally good for you. No one without some rare psychopathology has trouble resisting the urge to drink gasoline, because gasoline is bad for you.

* I'm not talking about the modern high-tech agri-business, but the foundational technology of civilization. When someone observed that new plants grew where seeds had fallen or been trown, that was science. When someone put that observation to use by planting seeds where the resulting plants would be easy to gather up, that was technology. And that's when it became possible to overeat (though it was still difficult for a long time to come.)

[Sprocket]

No, the image is really pretty dead on.



I LIKED the runny centers...it was an EGG FHQWHGADS sake! Now they really just suck.
That shit WAS messy. No treat for parents I'm sure, and as an adult who hit a point where sickeningly sweet was exactly that, they're really only for kids anyway, so I understand the change, really. Kids can't eat something like that without getting it all over the place. I remember actively trying to be neat when I was little, cuz my dad would get really angry when we weren't, but it just wasn't possible to eat them without that goo SOMEwhere it wasn't welcome.

[Dr. Gamera]

The sugar in soda and Cadbury Eggs isn't wonderful, but it's the 3.5g of saturated fat in a Cadbury Egg that scares me. At least soda doesn't have that.

[philsov]

You won't ever overeat on... veggies if you eat as much as you want.

That's just a matter of caloric density. The human stomach only has so much capacity. 3000 calories worth of brocolli (finely chopped but not fully liquified) is about the same volume as a standard bathtub.

1 bathtub of brocolli = 17.5 cadburry eggs = 30 slices of bacon

[WizardFusion]

The best way to eat them is to put them in the freezer for a few hours or longer.
Much nicer

[TheEngineer]

I'm unimpressed. There are 170 calories in a cadbury egg and 150 calories in a 12 oz can of Dr. pepper. Singling out soda as particularly unhealthy has been going on for a while, and doesn't really have much science behind it. Drinking a Dr. Pepper with dinner and not having dessert is roughly the equivalent of eating one cadbury egg for dessert (which in my experience is smaller than most desserts). If you'd rather eat candy than drink soda, more power to you, but there's really no difference in the amount of empty calories you would get from either activity.

170Cal = 712kJ = 7TErgs

So 1 Cadbury Egg == 7 trillion Cadbury Ergs

Now I feel sick.

[ProfessorGuy]

Love your work, big fan for years, I've read all 1035, genius.

The more abstract the subject, the funnier and more timeless the work. When you start talking about health issues and diets, I may as well be calling my parents in Florida.

[reminiscence-tbp]

I read this comic and it suddenly occurred to me...

In this comic we are essentially complaining about how we can potentially feed ourselves to the point that it is unhealthy for us. Now think about another point in history when this was the case.

First. World. Problems.

[Samik]

Cadbury cream eggs are possibly my favorite food in the whole entire world. I have a decades long love affair with these things, like in some dramatic movie where two people are meant for each other, and they keep running across each other throughout the years in different places all over the world, but circumstances never allow them to stay together. And somewhere, in the back of their minds, they know that maybe the reality of having the rest of their lives to spend together might not ever be able to live up to the fantasy of finally getting past all their real-world obligations and getting that opportunity.


Suffice to say, I am continuously grateful that they are a seasonal thing.

[Sofie]

I guess I'm a moderation kinda guy, eat what you want to eat in moderation and you'll be fine, even cyanide, knives and the others you listed above. (Of course given the small amounts that it takes to kill you of these things then moderation is going to be such a tiny amount it's really a wonder why you'd bother but that's not the point, the point is anything in moderation is fine.)

Okay, let me draw you a picture. It's not about anything specific, just the general idea. For optimal health, how much should you consume of this item:

Nonsense. "What humans are used to eating" is whatever they can get with enough calories to keep them going.

What humans could get didn't include grains, vegetable oils, soy and other new foods. And that matters because plants make pesticides to defend themselves. And we're pests, who haven't adapted to deal with them beyond not immediately dying.

Throughout most of history (and all of pre-history) and in most of the world it was mostly impossible to overeat; the challange is to get enough calories, not to avoid excess.

Again wrong. Hunter-gatherers spend only 4-5 hours a day on food. Of course, avoiding excess wasn't a challenge either, because when you eat nutritious food, you get sated.

You certainly can overeat on lusious, red, deliciously fatty meat, you can easily overeat on sweet, juicey, yummy fruits. It's hard (but possible) to overeat on veggies; how many people have you met who have difficulty resisting just one more radish?

I'm not talking about "just one more"; I'm talking about eating so much your health suffers because of it.

As for the rest of your post, read the link I posted.

The sugar in soda and Cadbury Eggs isn't wonderful, but it's the 3.5g of saturated fat in a Cadbury Egg that scares me. At least soda doesn't have that.

Go watch this, or read this. Saturated fat is nothing to be scared of.

[Puppyclaws]

What humans could get didn't include grains, vegetable oils, soy and other new foods. And that matters because plants make pesticides to defend themselves. And we're pests, who haven't adapted to deal with them beyond not immediately dying.

I will take Harvard's school of public health over some blogger when it comes to questions like whether grains are good for people to eat in general.

[Sofie]

Because authorities are never wrong.

[Jabberwocky]

Why is there the metric system (grams) in the first panel and the imperial system (ounces? ozzies?) in the second panel?
It's a bit confusing

Most food in the US lists ounces and then (grams) on the front of the package for general volume. The can of almonds on my desk says 10 oz (238g)

However, all nutritional information is listed in grams and milligrams, plus % daily value. I actually never noticed this until you pointed it out. Why the mix of systems? I think it's because imperial measurements don't have anything smaller than ounces to measure with that makes any sense. I looked on wikipedia to see if there was anything and this is what I found:

1 grain (gr) 1⁄7000 lb 64.79891 mg
1 dram (dr) 27 11⁄32 gr 1.7718451953 g
1 ounce (oz) 16 dr 28.349523125 g

Who wants to measure in 1/7000ths of a pound? No one. So they go with grams and milligrams instead. Also, I'd never even heard of 'grains' and 'drams' until I went looking, and I'm pretty sure they're not taught in schools, so they may be simply obsolete and no one wants to list fractions of ounces.

[BrianB]

...but you can easily buy potassium salt in the supermarket...

That "Lite Salt" as they call it is actually an excellent fluxing agent when melting aluminum (yes, it is spelled correctly) in your garage at home. 2 Teaspoons per 4 pounds of scrap aluminum brings all the impurities right to the top of the crucible.

Now you know.....

[toadpipe]

You're doing it wrong if you eat Cadbury made anywhere other then Australia.

Considering Cadbury was founded in the UK why would I be doing it wrong?

Nigel! Bruce! Does someone need to separate you two?

[toadpipe]

...but you can easily buy potassium salt in the supermarket...

That "Lite Salt" as they call it is actually an excellent fluxing agent when melting aluminum (yes, it is spelled correctly) in your garage at home. 2 Teaspoons per 4 pounds of scrap aluminum brings all the impurities right to the top of the crucible.

Now you know.....

Now that I Will have to try! Flux can be expensive.