I’ve been called cynical more than once. In fact, I’d go so far as to call myself cynical, and being cynical is a healthy thing if you ask me. Another thing that’s healthy, all of a sudden, and once again, according to the media, is eggs. They used to be good for you, you should have one every day. Then they were bad, you should only have your allotted quota of standard egg units per week. Now you can, and indeed should, have as many as you like again.
Of course, all reasonable people are used to this backwards and forwards nonsense with every kind of food and drink under the sun and routinely laugh it off with a good dose of “all things in moderation” common sense. Only the media seem to suck it up like a sponge, with this latest egg story apparently being headline news everywhere.
I was blissfully unaware until it was given a prime slot on the BBC evening news, the highlight being the way they managed to wheel out the amusingly named Lucy Egerton from the British Egg Information Service without cracking so much as a childish grin.
The cynical side of me though, as always, responded with a weary “who paid for this ‘research’ then?” No surprises in the answer, or the fact that you have to dig a bit deeper than the news stories (a.k.a. press releases) to find out. It was of course the egg industry, which also seems to double up as the acronym industry, what with the BEIS (British Egg Information Service), the BEIC (British Egg Industry Council), BEPA (British Egg Products Association), the BEA (British Egg Association) and many more.
None of this though, should detract from the fact that you should eat eggs. Because they’re nice. Poached, boiled, scrambled, fried or omeletted – you can’t go wrong with an egg. Ok, you could – there is eggnog, for example. But in general, my advice, which I say is just as valuable as some ’scientific’ research paid for by a vested interest, is to eat plenty of eggs. I wouldn’t advise eating eggs produced by an industry though – instead, eat eggs produced by a free* and happy chicken, preferably your own.
*As with free software, the “free” is as in freedom, although of course if they’re your own chickens you don’t pay for the eggs)
