Omelets Eggs-onerated?

Today’s New York Times brings good news for breakfast lovers: A Harvard study has found that eating one egg a day did not increase the risk of heart disease. Old-timey myths that eggs were just “cholesterol bombs” aimed squarely at our arteries aren’t borne out by facts.

While egg yolks do contain dietary cholesterol, they don’t seem to increase the risk of heart disease when eaten in moderation. As a Harvard Heart Letter from 2006 notes, “For most people, only a small amount of the cholesterol in food passes into the blood” and “eggs are a good source of nutrients.”

These continued de-bunkings of egg scares will likely not please the food Puritans at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who as recently as last year attacked Wal-Mart for letting eggs pass the company’s “Great For You” labeling test. That’s to say nothing of animal rights groups like Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (now 10 percent genuine doctors) that are more interested in liberating hens than providing unbiased guidance.

And those animal rights groups are trying harder than ever to make nutritious eggs more expensive. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a vegan animal liberation group, is trying to force adoption of a federal law that would regulate hen housing. A similar European Union law provides an instructive example; the result will be more imported eggs and higher prices, while American family farms close down.

Shuttering farms would satisfy HSUS. A then-Vice President of the group vowed in 2006 that the group’s goal is “to get rid of the entire [animal agriculture] industry,” and HSUS’s Food Policy Director is the brains behind PETA’s despicable campaign comparing farmers to murderous Nazis. What more should we expect?