35 False 'Facts' That You Wrongly Believe (And 1 That You Should)

17. Food Cooked With Alcohol Doesn't Retain Any Alcoholic Content

No, wrong again. It's open to a lot of variables, but chiefly the type, strength and volume of alcohol used, the size of the pot/pan and the severity of the heat applied are the main determining factors in the alcohol content of the finished product, as well as what's being cooked and the how it's being cooked. But as a general rule, you'd need to cook something for at least three hours to have every trace of alcohol evaporate, dissipate or otherwise 'cook off'. A study conducted in the US in the early-2000s compared the residual alcohol content of four totally different dishes - a casserole/pot roast that had simmered for 2½ hours after the addition of wine, a chicken dish that had simmered for 10 minutes after wine was added, oysters baked with sherry for 25 minutes and a dessert doused with brandy and set alight. Once each dish was ready to be served, the study found that between 4% and 78% of the original alcohol content was still present. Clearly the two key elements to removing the most alcohol content from cooking is temperature and time. Alcohol evaporates at 78°C, so anything left to simmer for 2½ hours is almost certain to have little or no residual alcohol content.

16. Cholesterol In Eggs Is Bad For The Heart

No, actually it isn't. Maybe. As with anything health-related - particularly heart health - it's a bit of a balancing act that's dependent on many variables. But at its most basic, two elements are critical to this argument. First is that there are two kinds of cholesterol, both of which are necessary: dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol. Eggs are rich in dietary cholesterol. Blood cholesterol is actually split into two categories - High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL) and Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL). LDL is the bad one because it sticks to artery walls and has the potential to lead to heart nastiness. Secondly, studies have found that a dietary cholesterol-rich diet doesn't increase blood cholesterol levels. Saturated fats are the main culprit in increasing blood cholesterol and, crucially, LDL levels. Eggs, on the other hand, contain predominantly polyunsaturated fats and, in theory, could actually decrease blood cholesterol levels if we removed anything containing saturated fats from our diet and replaced it all with eggs. It's a big "if". Who's going to do it? How do we know we've definitely gotten rid of all saturated fats and, in the end, how many eggs can we stomach anyway? But more broadly, the jury's still out and the experts continue to disagree with each other over the cholesterol pros and cons of eggs. The bottom line is that ideal diet is an incredibly individual thing and making informed decisions is essential. But there's certainly a lot of research out there that appears to be fighting eggs' corner, at least where cholesterol and heart health are concerned.