Foods: The Well-Balanced Egg

Shoppers in supermarkets in Utah recently encountered a new kind of egg. It looked like any other egg and tasted like any other egg, but there was a difference. The new egg was, as the ads proclaimed, a “one-to-one balanced egg.” And what in Henny Penny’s name is that? Well, it is an egg that contains equal parts of saturated and polyunsaturated fats. To millions of diet-conscious, supersaturated Americans, that means plenty.

Ordinary eggs contain two to four times as much saturated fats as polyunsaturated fats—and saturated fats are the suspected villains that raise the cholesterol level in blood. For that reason, they have disappeared from the tables of dieters, and U.S. egg consumption fell 18% last year. But dieters have little to fear from the new egg because its saturated fats are offset by the polyunsaturated fats and thus float through the bloodstream without causing an increase in cholesterol.

What made the chickens change their egg formula after all these centuries? A new feed developed by Manhattan’s Drew Chemical Corp. and tested for two years by a team of Dallas doctors did the trick. Since a patent is pending, Drew is understandably closemouthed about the feed’s contents. The com pany admits only that it is a vegetable, not chemical, substance. If the Utah tests prove successful, Drew hopes to sell its eggs throughout the U.S., has lined up such major suppliers as Nulaid and Olson Bros, for production and Safeway and other foodstore chains for distribution. Drew hopes to make the venture pay off by pricing its new eggs about 1¢ apiece above their unbalanced brothers—or sisters.