"Designer eggs touting benefits lay claim to greater market share"
 

Posted on Wed, Mar. 24, 2004


Gold Circle Farms lab technician Tanis Klecker inspects eggs at a Boulder, Colo., facility. The egg producer sells a cage-free, omega-3, all-vegetarian-feed egg.

Yolk medicine

Designer eggs touting benefits lay claim to greater market share

By Katy Mclaughlin, The Wall Street Journal

link to article

There are designer shoes, designer sheets and even designer teapots. And now for breakfast, cooks can scramble up some designer eggs.

In an effort to capitalize on the latest fashions in healthy-sounding foods, companies are rolling out new types of eggs that make a range of health claims not usually associated with omelets.

The new products, often referred to as designer eggs, include "omega-3" varieties that come from chickens raised on special feed that sharply boost their eggs' content of heart-healthy fatty acids. There are lower-cholesterol eggs and organic eggs. There are even "vegetarian" eggs, which come from chickens that aren't fed any animal products, and "cage-free" eggs. The latter are produced by birds that live within the walls of a barn but not in individual cages.

Some brands layer multiple weighty attributes onto their eggs. Gold Circle Farms, for example, sells a cage-free, omega-3, all-vegetarian-feed egg that has six times as much vitamin E as the average egg.

Despite the fact that specialty eggs usually cost $1 to $3 more per dozen than regular eggs, they are selling briskly. Eggland's Best, based in King of Prussia, Pa. -- which sells a patented lower-cholesterol egg -- says sales rose 26 percent last year to about $120 million. Egg Innovations, a Port Washington, Wis., company that sells a variety of designer eggs, from organic to vegetarian to omega-3, says sales are up by half from last year. Designer eggs now account for roughly 5 percent of the total egg market, up from about 3 percent five years ago, according to the Egg Nutrition Center, a division of the National Egg Board, a trade group for producers.

It's happening at a time when conventional-egg prices are already as high as they've been for two decades -- averaging $1.57 a dozen in January, the most recent month for which data are available, up from $1.18 a year earlier. The price increase stems in part from increased demand driven by the popularity of high-protein diets like Atkins.

With their high-tech-looking plastic containers stamped with lots of health information, the new designer eggs may make shoppers accustomed to simply grabbing a foam package of generic Grade A's think they've wandered into the pharmacy section of the supermarket. Gold Circle Farms, for example, says three to four of its DHA Omega-3 eggs contain as much heart-healthy fatty acid as 3 ounces of salmon. Eggland's Best eggs are marketed as being 16 percent lower in cholesterol and 25 percent lower in saturated fat than conventional eggs and packed with vitamin E, iodine and lutein.

Still, some health groups, including the American Dietetic Association and the American Heart Association, say the newfangled eggs aren't all they're cracked up to be. One concern is that consumers on a budget will waste their money on the eggs, thinking they provide a bigger nutritional punch than they actually do. A more serious worry is that consumers might think that the eggs can replace foods such as fish and vegetables in the diet. For example, the Web site of Gold Circle Farms, a unit of Hidden Villa Ranch in Fullerton, Calif., includes a press release that advises consumers to, "Skip the Fish. Get Your DHA Omega-3 in an Egg."

"It's a nice marketing strategy," says Roberta Anding, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. However, "I would probably say you're not going to get enough payback" nutritionally for the extra cost of the eggs, she says. Although designer eggs are being marketed as a breakthrough source of omega-3 fatty acids, a nutrient that has gotten a lot of attention because research has shown it can protect against heart attacks and strokes, the American Heart Association hasn't changed its stance on eggs at all since designer eggs' invention.

"If I were recommending someone increase omega-3 fatty acids, I would recommend they consume fish," says Alice Lichtenstein, vice chairwoman of the nutrition committee at the American Heart Association. That's because to get the same amount of long-chain omega-3s as in a 6-ounce serving of salmon, you would have to eat an omelet made with 11 omega-3 eggs -- which would mean consuming nearly eight times as much cholesterol as the American Heart Association recommends per day.

The current popularity of eggs reflects a dramatic change from previous decades when many Americans stopped eating them out of fear of high cholesterol. Part of the reason for the shift is that after decades of recommending that people eat no more than three egg yolks a week, the American Heart Association published guidelines in 2000 saying that a person could eat an egg a day without affecting blood cholesterol levels.

Designer-egg skeptics say that a diet that includes fish and a variety of vegetables provides plenty of omega-3s, lutein and vitamin E and makes the newfangled eggs unnecessary.

I like the egg innovation omega 3 eggs. I just got some more yesterday. They taste better, and I try and balance my omega 3s to omega 6s as much as I can. These eggs certainly dont hurt more. I also eat salmon, use flax seeds on food and take cod liver oil.

They really need to back off this cholesterol thing. I am sure if they somehow made omega 3 eggbeaters then the aha would be all for it.

I think they'd have to add in mecury to make the eggs comparable to fish. :p

I believe that Consumers Report magazine did a taste test of eggs a while ago and the high Omega 3 eggs were the hands down winner. I also find them much more flavorful than the typical egg factory egg.

Chickens are not vegetarians. They love to catch and eat bugs. Why the heck do these egg producers brag about feeding their birds a vegetarian diet?

That's true. I remember our chickens when I was young would love for us to take the screens out of the windows and the earwigs would drop out (ugh!) and the chickens thought it was like popping a pinata.

Maybe there are omega-3's in earwigs? :p

The egg innovation brand makes a special type of vegetarian egg seperate from the omega 3 eggs that I buy. This is from their FAQs



The omega 3 eggs are not fed a total vegetarian diet as far as I understand, but they have flax seed added to their meal.

They are 'pasture fed' which means they are fed grains and are also able to forage outside for wild plants and insects.

Sigh.

No one eats their natural diets anymore.

Not even chickens, who are fed all sorts of factory-made chemical formulas for marketing purposes.

Dogs and cats are fed cornmeal and wheat gluten.

Cows are fed soybeans and god knows what.

Even the wild racoons in my neighborhood are eating chinese take-out from my neighbor's overturned garbage cans. And FYI, they are grossly fat. The raccoons, that is. (And so are my neighbors, come to think of it.)

Talking about carrying it too far, I went on a blind date once with a vegan. At, the cinema, he told me he didn't want any popcorn. When asked why he told me that some of the dye used on popcorn are sometimes made with crushed insects and he didn't want to take a chance.




Good one Walt !! :lol:

He was probably afraid of "Cochineal":

\Coch"i*neal\ ...

A dyestuff consisting of the dried bodies of females of the
{Coccus cacti}, an insect native in Mexico, Central America,
etc., and found on several species of cactus, esp. {Opuntia
cochinellifera}.

Note: These insects are gathered from the plant, killed by
the application of heat, and exposed to the sun to dry.
When dried they resemble small, rough berries or seeds,
of a brown or purple color, and form the cochineal of
the shops, which is used for making carmine, and also
as a red dye.

Note: Cochineal contains as its essential coloring matter
carminic acid, a purple red amorphous substance which
yields carmine red.
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/cochineal

You should see the crap in Fish and Bird Food. I remember when I was a kid that we would NEVER feed our fish those colored flakes, because just a little too much and you'd find them the next day bloated, and floating upside down [DEAD] on the the top of the water. I got a look at the label recently and it was mostly Grains, with some Sugar/Sugar Alcohols, and lots of Added Vitamins. I'm still trying to figure out where a fish would get Enriched Rice in Nature...

I was visiting my parents last week, and my dad was putting food in the Bird Cage, and apparently my Mom had bought some "Premium" Bird "Food." A quick review of the label revealed it contained Ground Up Corn, Oats, Wheat, and Numerous other Grains. He usually feeds the Bird [we had 2 of them since I was a little kid, but one of them died a few years ago] Sunflower Seeds...which I think are reasonably close to what a Bird would get in Nature. Again, I'm at a loss to figure out where a Bird would find Enriched Coarsely-Ground Cornmeal in Nature.

The worst is the Dog and Cat Food Commercials that innundate the Airwaves. I keep seeing these commercials bragging about how their Dog/Cat Food contains "Nutritious" Peas, Corn, Wheat. etc...The only thing going through my mind is why would you feed a Dog/Cat that CRAP ??? They sure as hell wouldn't be eating that kind of food in nature. For heaven's sakes, Cats and Dogs are CARNIVORES. That means they are meant to eat MEAT not ENRICHED GRAINS.

That was enough to make me nervous. I have a huge aquarium with about 250 cichlids and all they would eat are these special colored flakes (for cichlids). I tried changing their food a couple of times and they wouldnt eat it.

Anyway here are the ingredients

whole salmon, halibut, black cod, whole herring, seafood mix (including krill, rockfish, shrim, squid, clams, salmon eggs and octopus) wheat gluten, fresh kelp, spirulina, soy flour, lecithin, astaxanthin, vit. C, natural and artificial colors, Vit. A, D, E, K3, B1, B2, B6, B12, Niacin, Panothenic Acid, Folic Acid, Biotin, Inositol, Ethoxyquin and naturox (natural mixed tocopherols and rosemary extract) as antioxidants.

I dont know what the need to add more color to it would be, I imagine all that fish has colors of its own and the salmon prolly makes the pink flakes. It seems that even my fishies are eating low carb lol. Thank goodness there are no SAs in it! I suppose the could live without some of the stuff like soy flour and wheat gluten. I doubt there is another food without that stuff. I will look, but this doesnt seem too bad, and I dont think any of my fish have died from the food, though they sometimes die from one fish biting another ones head off. Very entertaining to watch.

1 dozen I purchased says cage free "Enriched with
vitamin E and omega-3". Country Creek farm. I know
you can have enriched bread; how can you have enriched
eggs?

They feed the chickens ometa-3 vitamin E enriched stuff that goes into their eggs. For instance, one egg farmer is using flax seed meal.

That's why I feed my two raw. I started reading labels after getting myself on LC and when I saw the amount of grains in there it made me sick! At the same time I'd been talking to several people who's dogs were diabetic and read an article about diabetes being on the rise in dogs! Of course they blamed it on the fact that most dogs were overweight, not the food. I even read on woman's post on a message board that she was giving her dog less than 1c dry/day and it was still gaining weight. No treats, just 1c/day.....this for a male pure shepherd! And she was feeding the poor critter "the best onthe market"!

I started out looking for meat only foods, but quickly decided since I'm not related to the Rockerfellers, I couldn't afford it. Raw feeding is great. Just open the fridge, pull out a chicken leg, some ribs, pork necks, whatever and plop it in a bowl. Put on floor and listen to the crunch crunch of happy pups enjoying their dinner! :lol: