Egg-Land's Best Eggs Are Probably Like Any Other, UW Experts Say

Some heavily advertised eggs - Egg-Land's Best brand - are being promoted as cholesterol-safe, but two University of Washington experts say they're probably about the same as any other eggs in health impact.

A recent newspaper ad for the expensive Egg-Land's Best eggs boasted: "Real eggs you can eat without increasing your serum cholesterol."

And a TV commercial says participants in a study ate 12 Egg-Land's Best eggs a week while on a low-fat diet without raising their serum (blood) cholesterol.

What the ads don't mention is that the study didn't include any other eggs, so there's no way of knowing whether Egg-Land's Best were better than regular eggs.

In fact, an Egg-Land's Best egg contains exactly the same amount of cholesterol (215 milligrams) and fat (5 grams) as all other eggs, although there are other nutritional differences the company claims may be significant.

The study was funded by Pennsylvania-based Egg-Land's Best, whose vice president for medical issues was the lead researcher. The project was conducted at the Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Nutrition experts say consumers should not base their eating choices on a single study, but on prevailing evidence from many studies.

Consumers pay more for Egg-Land's Best eggs. At a Seattle supermarket last week, the brand's large eggs were selling for $1.95 a dozen, compared with $1.09 for a dozen regular large eggs.

A nearby store's Egg-Land's Best supply was sold out that day, and a Safeway spokeswoman said there had been a "very positive" response to the new brand.

In the Egg-Land's Best study, the low-fat diet probably accounted for the patients' good cholesterol showing, said Bonnie Worthington-Roberts, professor of nutrition sciences at the University of Washington.

Most experts believe a person's serum cholesterol is much more greatly affected by fat - especially saturated fat - than by the cholesterol in food such as eggs or meat.

"Some people are sensitive to cholesterol (in food) and others are not. There are a lot of us in the world who can eat three to six to 12 eggs a day and not show any response," Worthington-Roberts said. But in a minority of people, blood cholesterol will rise after eating lots of eggs or other high cholesterol foods, she said.

Since most people have no idea whether they are cholesterol-responders or not, she recommends sticking with the standard advice for healthy people: Eat no more than four egg yolks a week, as part of a low-fat diet.

Agreeing was Barbara Retzlaff, head research dietitian at the UW's Northwest Lipid Research Center. She said people with high serum cholesterol should eat even fewer eggs - or all they want of yolkless liquid egg substitutes.

The egg study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, involved 98 patients with cholesterol levels between 200 and 300. About half of them ate a low-fat diet and no eggs, the other half an equally low-fat diet including 12 Egg-Land's Best eggs per week.

The egg eaters consumed about 350 milligrams more cholesterol each day than the no-egg group.

By the study's end, the two groups had lowered their serum cholesterol almost equally: an average of 8 percent for the egg group, 10 percent for the no-egg group. There were individuals in both groups whose cholesterol went up.

Worthington-Roberts had not read the study but she guessed that if ordinary eggs had been included, they would have performed just as well, cholesterol-wise, as the Egg-Land's Best eggs.

Egg-Land's Best eggs have less saturated fat than other eggs - possibly because the hens get different feed - but probably not enough less to make a difference in a person's cholesterol level, said Dr. Jeffrey Garwin, the Egg-Land executive who led the study.

They also contain more vitamin E and iodine - both added to the hens' feed. Garwin speculated that these, particularly vitamin E, may have helped keep the egg group's drop in serum cholesterol on a par with the no-egg group's, but Worthington-Roberts said evidence for this is flimsy.