Eggszactly

-30-

Blog Post for Wednesday 3/9/11 – 25 degrees at 6:08 am ET – Dark, cold and unrelentingly gloomy.

What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?

Wikipedia says…

“What’s that got to do with the — ?” is an expression which is used to denote something which is unrelated to the current topic of discussion.

In this case that is the topic.

I did the shopping the other day and noticed a wide variation in egg pricing.

$1.19

$2.99

$3.69

Eggs are among nature’s most perfect foods. They have lots going for them including being high in protein, iron, minerals and B vitamins.

But wait. What about cue dramatic music The Cholesterol Connection?????????????

The jury is still out on whether there is a direct link between dietary cholesterol, which is found in the foods we eat, and blood cholesterol, which is manufactured by the body. Many factors affect our blood cholesterol levels, including family history, diet, age, whether we smoke, and exercise. In terms of diet, there is evidence to suggest that our intake of saturated fats and trans fats have a greater impact on blood cholesterol levels than our intake of dietary cholesterol.

In a totally unscientific study your author ate almost nothing but eggs for a couple of YEARS. Eggs for breakfast (with cheese), eggs for lunch (Hard boiled in a baggie) and omelets for dinner. Probably six to eight eggs daily. Every day. Every week. Every month. For two years.

The result? My blood work at the time:

TRIGLYCERIDES 216 (Normal range) 60 – 290 mg/dL
CHOLESTEROL 156 (Normal range) <200 – mg/dL
HDL 44 (Normal range) 40 – 59 mg/dL
LDL (CALCULATED 69 (Normal range) 0 – 100 mg/dL

Now-to be completely candid I was also on a health regimen that was rather out there. I ate no meat, in fact ate almost nothing but eggs, cheese and beans. A little cottage cheese and yogurt , nuts fruits and vegetables.

I also took an alphabet’s worth of vitamin’s, supplements, drank raw chlorophyll and ran up and down the Empire State Building five times a week (on a stepper machine in the gym)

There is more involved in the program I was on. I drank an ocean of water and ate a mountain of salt. It’s complicated. It’s not what I want to talk about here.

I want to talk about the price of eggs.

Stick to the damn topic will you?

Lets look at those eggs again.

$1.19

$2.99

$3.69

The big price difference bothers me. A lot.

I understand the differences. I know that organic brown cage free eggs are probably a good thing. I get that Egg lands cage free cackle fruit is probably a tick lower in cholesterol.

I don’t think the difference is worth a few dollars.

Sorry.

I don’t.

Now I am all for saving the environment. I hug trees all the time. And I have read Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser. Saw the film too. In fact I have seen Super Size Me, Million Calorie March and all the films about how bad the way food is grown, raised and the evils of big time corporate farming. Hell, I even reread The Jungle by Upton Sinclair which makes what we do now look like kiddie land.

But, and I apologize in advance for my uncaring stance here, they are just chickens.

Chickens for those of you who have never gotten up close and personal with them, are loathsome creatures. If they were not good to eat and did not produce eggs, we would hunt them down and exterminate all of them.

As environmentally enlightened as I am, and I do think fracking is bad, go away drillers, I cannot extend my sympathy to chickens enough to care two dollars a dozen more that they don’t live in cages when they push out my breakfast.

I also don’t care what color my eggs are. They are all yellow and white in the pan.