I like eggs — boiled, poached or fried.
I recall a commercial that included a jingle about the “incredible, edible egg.” It was produced by the American Egg Board to undo years of bad press that all but villainized the egg.
Sure, an egg — or, more specifically, a yolk — contains about 186 milligrams of cholesterol, according to the Mayo Clinic’s website. Eggs also contain lots of protein, vitamin B12 and other good stuff. Even the Mayo Clinic admits eating up to four eggs a week hasn’t been shown to increase the risk of heart attacks.
A picnic wouldn’t be the same without deviled eggs. A simple egg-salad sandwich still is a treat for me. I usually eat an egg with grits for breakfast twice a week — sometimes three times a week. I prefer mine over-easy with several slices of bacon, country ham or smoked sausage.
Nutritionists and health nuts are, at this point, screaming for government intervention. My message to them is to please leave me alone. If I die a year or two earlier than those who eat bark and drink slimy, green smoothies, that’s OK. At least I won’t die hungry.
I like to chop up my over-easy egg in my grits. That way, all that delicious yellow ooze is absorbed by the grits. I’ll clean the eggy residue from my plate with a slice of whole-wheat toast. There, see, I do eat at least one so-called healthy food.
Those who suggest I settle for egg whites have no taste buds. Egg whites don’t have the intense eggy flavor of the yolk. Egg whites by themselves are best used for whipping up a meringue topping for coconut-cream pie.
Some mornings, I’m too busy to fry bacon and eggs, so I’ll settle for a boiled egg chopped up in a bowl of instant grits, usually bacon or red-eye-gravy flavored. I figure it’s better for me than doughnuts.
One of my favorite ways to enjoy eggs is as an omelet. I love the buffet breakfast at Golden Corral, where I can get my omelet cooked with a little bit of everything in it — ham, bacon, sausage, onion, green pepper, jalapeños, tomatoes and tons of cheese. Along with my omelet, I like hash browns, additional bacon and a side of cantaloupe or honeydew melon.
Yeah, it’s a big breakfast, but when I eat this, I usually don’t eat again. I’m good until the following morning, when I enjoy a bowl of oatmeal or multigrain cereal with a banana. I’ll probably have the same thing the following morning. As I said, I only eat eggs a couple times a week. All things in moderation, you know.
A lot of folks think egg color is important. That’s only true if you’re talking about the price. White eggs tend to be cheaper, if only because brown eggs are marketed as healthier. They’re not. According to fitday.com, brown eggs and white eggs have nearly identical nutritional value. The website said the color of the eggshell is determined by the color of the chicken that lays the egg. As with people, color doesn’t matter.
My wife says Eggland’s Best eggs are better. This more-expensive egg’s website says the chickens that produced their eggs are fed an all-natural, all-vegetarian diet with no antibiotics, animal byproducts or added hormones. I like that.
Its website says their chickens are fed healthy stuff like soybean meal, grains and flaxseed. I wonder though how they keep their chickens from eating the bugs that tend to inhabit every chicken coup and large-scale chicken farm I’ve ever seen.
The fact that a chicken eats a bug doesn’t bother me. I like the idea that they’re not feeding the chickens bone meal and other animal byproducts. My grandmama fed her chickens corn and laying mash, but since they roamed the yard during the day, they were free to eat all the bugs they wanted. Both the eggs and the chickens were delicious, and, I think, nutritious.