Everyone reckons they have a cure for jet lag. I’ve got one. You’ve got one. It seemed to work once and the fact that it’s never worked again doesn’t dissuade you from telling anyone about to embark on a flight somewhere about it. It worked once, damn it.
Maybe I’ll tell you about my surefire way to combat crippling fatigue when travelling between time zones one day. It worked perfectly the first time I tried it and has only once (possibly twice) subsequently left me entirely unable to function for a week after flying.
I won’t tell you about it today though, because today we’re here to talk about Calvin Harris's ironclad theory on the matter. Does it work? I don’t know, but he’s convinced. All I know is that I never want to sit next to him on a plane.
“I was on a British Airways flight only a couple of weeks ago, and the air hostess told me she’d never seen anybody crack eggs and pour them into their mouth in their seat before”, he told Zoe Ball in an interview on her BBC Radio 2 show this week - a clip of which was posted to social media.
That was a weird thing for the air hostess to say, you might think. I mean, I’ve never seen anyone stick their shoe on their hand and salute a swan before, but I don’t go around telling random celebrities about that fact.
But what if the air hostess was saying that to Harris because that’s exactly what he was doing at the time? You would comment on that. I would definitely comment on that. Or at least make some sort of noise. Maybe something along the lines of, “Wuuueeeergh WHAT?”
Watching Ball’s face in real time as the penny drops as to why an air hostess would say such a thing to Harris is quite something, she finishes up with an expression somewhere between amused and horrified. “You took an egg and cracked…” she begins, slowly.
“No, six”, says Harris, cutting her off.
Ball’s next half spluttered question is something along the lines of asking why he didn’t crack them and put them into a container before going to the airport. Because that would obviously be better. Would it? I’m not sure it would.
Although, I suppose, if the eggs were in a coffee cup and no one knew what he was actually gulping down, that would probably be a nicer situation for all around him.
Doing that would spoil it though, he reckons.
“I like to get rid of the white, so I just do the raw yolk”, he says, miming the process of separating an egg using two halves of its shell. “I find it gets rid of jet lag”.
Right, we can return to the claim about jet lag in a moment. Let’s first just imagine a little longer the image of Calvin Harris separating and swallowing six individual egg yolks while sat on a plane. I know you don’t want to, but I have been for some time now and I want all of you to feel as unpleasant as I do.
Also, he could still separate them at home before he travelled, right? There is no rule that says you have to separate eggs fully in the moment. Which means Harris’s explanation there didn’t really answer Ball’s question.
But anyway, here’s the situation. You’re on a plane and you spot noted dance-pop crossover producer Calvin Harris sitting nearby. You think to yourself, “Oh, I liked that one he did with Rihanna. “We fow lur in a homeless pace, we fown lurg een a hoooomelesssss pnaaace”. That was good. Maybe I should tell him. Would he like that?”
“No, he’d probably like to be left alone. Would he? Maybe just a quick comment and walk away. People like to be appreciated. I know I do. I wish someone would appreciate me once in a while. Is that too much to ask for? I just want someone to notice me. Maybe he wants someone to notice him. Maybe if I notice him, he’ll notice me and we’ll become friends”.
“Don’t be silly. What do we have in common? Nothing probably. Except that we both like that one he did with Rihanna. Assuming he does like it. Maybe he doesn’t. I should look that up before I talk to him. Not that I’m going to talk to him, I’m sure he just wants to be left alone…”
Honestly, your internal monologue is insufferable. But the point is, you’re having this conversation with yourself and looking over at Calvin Harris. Suddenly, he whips out a box of six eggs from his bag, cracks them one by one, separates the yolks into an empty champagne glass, then downs them in one gulp.
I mean, seeing him do that is one thing. But what about the aftermath? Once he’d swallowed those yolks, you’d then have to contend with the fact that there was a man sitting near you with the whites of six eggs spilling out of the cracked shells in front of him.
You’d better hope there’s no turbulence or that cabin is going to be dripping with cold goo like in those pictures you saw that time you made a catastrophic Googling error.
Anyway, back to the actual interview. Next, wonders Ball, how do you carry these eggs onto the plane without breaking them?
“You just stick them in your bag”, says Harris. That’s it, just plop six eggs into your carry on luggage and you’re away. He has bigger concerns than that though, saying, “I’m surprised they get through security because for me, that’s liquid. But it’s never, ever been flagged”.
No, just mentioned by the repulsed cabin crew after the fact.
Is there anything in this theory though? Can eating raw egg yolks mid-flight really help with your jet lag? Well… possibly. So that you don’t have to, I just read a whole load of articles making recommendations about how to combat post-flight fatigue. Including one that helpfully informed me that “plane travel” is one of the worst causes.
The most common tip was to stay hydrated. Flying already causes dehydration, and all the alcohol and caffeine you’re no doubt guzzling for the whole journey will only add to that. If you’re not consuming things that are going to keep your hydration levels high, it’s only going to add to your tiredness later.
An egg, as Harris said, could be viewed as a liquid. So maybe that’s what’s helping. Eggs, my friends, are 75% water. Although most of that is in the white, which Harris likes to leave dripping over the edge of the table in front of him.
The three articles I found that did recommend eggs as a cure for jet lag cited their high concentration of energy-giving vitamin B12 - thanks to its role in the production of melatonin, which regulates your circadian rhythms.
And good news for all you frequent flyers, the best part of an egg to eat to maximise the amount of B12 your body absorbs from it is the yolk. Yes, raw. Six of them would give you more than 100% of the amount you need in a day.
Small meals are also recommended. And they don’t come much smaller than six raw egg yolks. So it’s looking like Harris might be onto something.
Of course, there are other sources of vitamin B12. Eating a slab of beef will give you more of the stuff, although that’s not exactly a small meal. Seafood is also recommended, but maybe that won’t win you many friends on board either.
You could down a bottle of milk, which would deliver more B12 than six eggs and give you a greater hydration boost. But do you really want that much milk sloshing around inside you as you fly?
Having initially thought that Harris’s big plan to end jet lag was stupid, I’m now starting to think this could be a real solution.
Sure, it might seem horrifying now, but what if we put in the work to normalise chugging raw egg yolks on long distance flights. Maybe when the cabin crew bring round the hot towels, they could also just plop a cup of eggs in front of you. This is the future, people. The future is eggs.
Now that we’ve all agreed on that, here are some more of this week’s most amusing music news stories…
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