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Science At Breakfast Time

Even a task like cooking an egg can be tricky. Shells crack for two basic reasons. Either they’re dropped into the pan roughly, or the air in the sack at the broad end expands too rapidly.

Normally the air inside the egg escapes slowly through many tiny pores in the shell. The best way to prevent cracking is to pierce the shell at the broad end, thus allowing the expanding air to escape quickly. Using a spoon to gently lower the egg is also recommended.

Adding salt and vinegar to the water doesn’t prevent the egg from cracking, as is sometimes claimed. However, it does help any leakage to coagulate quickly, so less egg escapes into the water.

Since egg protein solidifies between sixty five and seventy degrees Celsius, it’s best to bring the water to the boil and then turn the heat off. If an egg remains at boiling temperature too long, the protein molecules will tangle, giving a rubbery texture.

When it comes to frying an egg, the trick is to use a gentle heat. Egg whites are mostly water and protein. Since egg protein solidifies by seventy degrees, dropping an egg into a sizzling hot frying pan overheats the protein, causing it to cross link. Again this gives a rubbery product. The burnt brown membrane at the bottom will be full of small craters caused by forcing the water rapidly out of the egg white.

So next time you cook an egg, keep cool.

Cooking eggs is a good example of a principle which keeps showing up in life over and over. It is simply that “It takes time to do things right.” There are a couple of unpleasant results from cooking eggs which remind us of this. One, is that we excessively heat the cooking surface to speed up the process, only to end up with a rubbery end product. The other, is that we don’t allow enough time for the protein to solidify, giving us a “watery” or “slimy” egg. Neither of these options is very pleasant to eat and the latter could introduce the danger of salmonella poisoning.

Many of us run into the same situation when we look at our own inner development. We often find ourselves exposed to excess pressure and stress. This produces a couple of negative results. First, we might suffer from “burnout” and become psychologically incapacitated. Second, we may toughen emotionally – becoming incapable of responding deeply because our consciences and emotional response mechanisms have become scarred over.

The other common situation is connected to not giving ourselves enough time to become psychologically and spiritually mature. We are in a hurry to get on with life and so short-circuit the processes which lead to maturity. We break up relationships, quit jobs, turn to chemical stimulants or depressants, abandon responsibilities and the like rather than working through the character-developing process that the circumstances of life present to us. The outcome of this is to age without maturing; to grow older without growing wiser.

Either of these scenarios leaves us less than we could be: too tough to respond appropriately or too immature to have anything to offer.

While maturing to people is an important goal, it isn’t the whole story if we limit ourselves to looking at it only from a selfish perspective. One of the really valuable things that mature people have to offer is themselves. They’ve figured out that life is not all about them and they are able to reach out to others in really significant ways.

God designed us to relate to others. We all need others in our lives to survive and thrive. As we mature, we then have the privilege of passing on the legacy and giving ourselves to others. God Himself is the great pattern for self-giving. He shows us that, amazingly, we are not diminished when we give ourselves to others.

David Humphreys and Ron Hughes
© August 2004