"eggs" news and stories

For brunch, a breakfast casserole just seems more special than simple bacon and eggs. This recipe is called a BLT but there isn't any lettuce involved. It's really more a BET -- bacon, eggs and tomatoes cooked up with bread and milk to make baked layers (strata) of custardy goodness.

Pop quiz. Which food contains more cholesterol: one egg yolk or a Hardee's Monster Thickburger (which is two thirds of a pound of beef, three slices of cheese and four strips of bacon)? Sadly, folks, it's the egg yolk at 215-275 mg of cholesterol compared with the Monster's 210 mg, a fact reported in a paper in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. The recommended daily intake for cholesterol is 220 mg or less. But even knowing this, would you cease with the scrambled eggs and start inhaling KFC Double Downs (with all the fat and calories) instead? The point that these docs are trying to make is simply that, despite all the stories about how eggs are back, eggs are good for you, and please eat more eggs, if you're very concerned about cholesterol, and if you're at risk for cardiovascular disease, a high-cholesterol diet is ill advised. So maybe you should rethink the daily frittata. Visit AOL Health for the whole story.

Egg producers are having a tough month. Not only has the latest salmonella outbreak led to bad press and recalls for dozens of different egg brands, but there's also been increasingly strong opposition to battery cages, which are the standard across the industry. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) decries them; California has moved to ban them. Even the Dalai Lama has spoken out against the 67-square-inch cages in which many hens are destined to spend their lives.

Paul Shapiro, a senior director at HSUS's End Factory Farming campaign, told the Washington Post, "The cage-free movement is not only about providing a humane environment for animals. There is also a strong food-safety component as well." In fact, the HSUS makes the case that battery cages lead to unsanitary conditions, which in turn lead to a tainted food supply. The fact that 550 million tainted eggs involved in the last outbreak appear to have originated in battery cages adds fuel to that fire.

Egg producers are now pushing back a bit, though. United Egg Producers, the industry's top lobbying group, is speaking up about what it calls the myths and facts about battery cages, asserting that free-range hens are no healthier than caged, and that other industry practices, such as beak-trimming, are not as cruel as they sound.

In May, salmonella cases related to contaminated eggs began to mount across the country and continue to grow today. At the center of this outbreak, the United States Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) and the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), two overlapping yet disparately tasked entities, were responsible for the overseeing of this food system.

As of July 9, the U.S.D.A. and the F.D.A. began to jointly oversee egg manufacturers including food safety inspections, but prior to the outbreak, the two institutions monitored entirely different sectors of egg production. Before the new standards, the U.S.D.A. took responsibility for the inspection of chickens and their living conditions, whereas the F.D.A. surveyed chicken feed and the eggs produced. Somewhere between the two, something slipped through the cracks.

Aimed to prevent such large scale outbreaks, the F.D.A. and U.S.D.A. will now both oversee egg production, which will "prevent each year approximately 79,000 cases of foodborne illness and 30 deaths caused by consumption of eggs contaminated with the bacterium Salmonella Enteritidis," according to the U.S.D.A. If successful, this would be a nearly 60 percent reduction in egg-related salmonella illnesses.

Along with the jump-start of joe in the morning, throw some chiles in your scrambled eggs. A Mexican breakfast burrito is guaranteed to wipe the sleep from your eyes. Add to the eggs some sauteed green onions, olives, fresh tomatoes and maybe some Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese. Wrap it all up in a warm tortilla, and serve the burrito, as blogger jeffreyw does, with a side of ancho chile sauce. (Ancho chiles are dried poblanos, and have a mild, sweet flavor with a bit of heat.)

Breakfast burritos can include ham, bacon, vegetables such as spinach and tomatoes -- anything you think marries well with eggs will take the wrap. (Get a recipe here.)

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