A plate of soft scrambled eggs is one of my hands-down favorite easy dinners, and can also be transformed into an easy appetizer by topping crostini (and if you’re feeling decadent, drizzling with truffle oil). Watch my video down below to see how easy it is to make these luscious scrambled eggs.
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Eggs are one of those foods that got a very bad rap during the low-fat era, poor things. The yolk, especially, was banished from virtuous plates and in its stead appeared cartons of clear goo; essentially eggless eggs. Such a pity. As with many of the dietary mandates from that period, much of what we shunned eggs for–they’ll make us fat, they’ll clog our arteries–turned out to be a bunch of hooey.
Here’s what is true. Eggs are an excellent source of protein and essential nutrients. And guess where all that good stuff is found? That’s right, the yolk. The part we’ve been leaving out. Eggs won’t make you fat either; one large egg has just 75 calories, about the same as a small apple.
But perhaps the biggest shame of having relegated eggs to the no-no list is that we’ve deprived ourselves of so much pleasure. I cite a freshly-laid egg fried in extra virgin olive oil as my first major food epiphany–yes, it was THAT good. Egg pasta made with super-fresh eggs is an absolute revelation; golden-hued with the texture of silk. And a yolk added to a dressing (think Caesar) or a pasta sauce (like carbonara) adds unparalleled lusciousness.
So when you’re dyeing your eggs this week leave a few for the plate as well . . . all the better if you can talk a friend or a farmer into sharing a few fresh ones with you!
What annoys me about the coverage of the current egg recall is that it almost always says, “traced to an Iowa farm.” But, proud as I am of my home state, it’s not misguided regionalism that makes me take offense at this statement. It’s the use of the word “farm.” Eggs from chickens raised on true farms are not the issue.
Wright County Egg and the rest of serial offender Austin “Jack” DeCoster’s operations linked to this recall are not farms, but factories. They’re the textbook example of everything that’s unhealthy and unsustainable about the industrial model that has hijacked American agriculture.
The conditions in which these chickens “live” are, to put it mildly, inhumane and unsanitary. The variety of salmonella involved in this recall, s. enteritidis, is present in these chickens and infects the eggs even before they form shells. It results from what they are fed and how they live. Just as disease breaks out when thousands of humans are crammed into a very confined space, so it is for these birds. Feed them contaminated food, which likely occurred here, and you only exacerbate the problem.
Add to this poor sanitation and handling of the eggs in transit all over the country, and you have the recipe for the thousands who were affected by this outbreak. It takes a large concentration of the bacteria to sicken all but the most seriously compromised immune systems. But if you allow raw fresh eggs to sit for extended periods of time at temperatures above 45 degrees F, a colony of bacteria can double its population roughly every 20 minutes. A single cell can become millions in just 24 hours.
So the Food and Drug Administration is once again scrambling to shut enormous barn doors after the proverbial horses have run off to a couple dozen other states prompting (again) the outcry for stricter government regulations over our food. But industry regulations don’t help much after the fact–just look to the Gulf, where “drill, baby, drill!” turned into “spill, baby, spill!”
The solution, however, is not simply stricter federal oversight, though clearly that’s needed. It’s also a stronger reliance on a smaller, more localized food system – one that doesn’t produce food the same way it produces microchips. This also has the bonus of being easier to regulate as the need arises. Shorter supply chains inside confined geographical regions are easier to oversee and investigate than national or international ones regulated (if at all) by bureaucrats thousands of miles away. They’re also harder for large agro-industrial conglomerates to dominate.
That’s not to say food-borne illnesses can’t occur with eggs from the small, sustainably minded family farmer down the road. They sometimes do, though when an outbreak does occur, it’s isolated and sickens dozens countywide, not thousands nationwide. But outbreaks are far less common because the birds are healthier and the farmers simply care more. They know that it’s not just their own livelihood that depends on the food they produce, but also the health and well-being of their family, friends and neighbors.
Until we achieve that idyllic world, there are a few things you can do to reduce your risk from eggs:
Meanwhile look for a local source of eggs from a farmer you’ve met and can trust, rather than a factory foreman like Jack DeCoster.
Kurt Michael Friese is the founding leader of Slow Food Iowa, serves on the Slow Food USA National Board of Directors, and is editor and publisher of the local food magazine Edible Iowa River Valley. He’s also Chef and co-owner of the Iowa City restaurant Devotay, a freelance food writer and photographer, and author of A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland.
Buying eggs used to be so simple: Grab a carton off the shelf, open it to check for any cracked shells and go on your merry way. These days, however, you need to interpret a myriad of claims on the label before deciding which carton goes into your cart. What do they all mean? Read on . . . we’ve got answers with this guide to eggs.
General Terms: There are a few terms that are found on the label of every carton:
Dietary Claims: When it comes to labels, sorting out a hen’s diet is almost as complex as defining our own:
Treatment: There are also a handful of labels that speak to how a hen—and her eggs—were treated both before laying and after:
By far our favorite choice for eggs though, and the least confusing of them all, is to find eggs from a local farmer (or, in Lia’s case, your own chicken coop). The taste and richness are unsurpassed.
A longtime editor, writer, and recipe developer, Alison Ashton is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. She has worked as a features editor for a national wire service and as senior food editor for a top food magazine. Her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Vegetarian Times, and Natural Health as well as on her blog, Eat Cheap, Eat Well, Eat Up.
