The Public Interest

Egg in your bier?

James W. Vaupel & John D. Graham

Winter 1980

A determined assault by a remarkable alliance of physicians, journalists, government officials, and processed-food marketers has recast the once valued egg in the role of cardiovascular villain. By now advice such as that in the booklet Four Keys to a Healthy Heart is quite familiar: “Limit yourself to up to two eggs a week, if that, for egg yolk is particularly high in cholesterol. When baking, try to use only the egg white or an egg substitute.” Written by Jeremiah Stamler, M.D., the distinguished chairman of the Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Medical School, and Alton Blakeslee, the award-winning science editor of the Associated Press, the booklet “was brought to you” by Best Foods, a division of CPC International Inc., “makers of Mazola corn oil and Mazola margarine.” The booklets cover quotes H.E.W.’s then Assistant Secretary for Health Theodore Coopers description of Four Keys as “health education at its best.”

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