Published Letters and Op-Eds from COK’s Writers Group

Eggs and Health

Greenwich Time 
February 23, 2009

To the editor:

My already waning enthusiasm for "Vegetarian meals to sink your teeth into" feature article Feb. 18 disappeared entirely when the piece began to read like an "Incredible, Edible Egg" ad from the American Egg Board.

I like that the writer is encouraging people to eschew meat, and I recognize that omnivores need to take incremental steps on the road to vegetarianism.

I love the paragraph about how eating less meat will reduce saturated fat intake. I was jarred, though, by the (literal) cheesiness of the entrees suggested. Ingesting "loads of cheese" is no way to limit fat!

The article was silent, too, on the egg's nasty little secrets: high cholesterol content, for example, and the miserable lives of the battery hens that produce what the writer and the American Egg Board alike praise as the paragon of foods.

My advice? Go meatless, for sure, but try to cut back on the other animal products too.

Katharine Merow

Washington, D.C.