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ARE HENS' EGGS WORTH
EATING?
By RENE B ACHE
EGGS SHOULD DE SOLD DY WEICI1T
This representative half dozen, culled from three crates in one grocery store, shows how widely ordinary eggs vary in
size. Seven eggs, of the size of the one on the extreme left, make a pound, while nineteen to a pound was the count of
the "marble" on the right end of this array.
I N order to answer this question in a
way that will be useful to the
American housewife, the Government
Office of Home Economics has
devoted to it an exhaustive study.
It has reached the conclusion that the
most important usefulness of eggs in the
diet is as a substitute for meat. Beef
and eggs are much alike in composition.
But eggs, even at a rather high price per
dozen, are cheaper than meat and equally
satisfying.
They require less time, less fuel, and
less labor for cooking than most other
foods, and for this reason their use as a
hot dish at a meal may often be an
economy. Without question a reason for
the popularity of eggs in most households
is that they can be so easily and
quickly prepared in appetizing ways.
A dietary study of one hundred fifteen
women college students showed that,
when one principal dish was served at a
meal, the quantity required to satisfy all
appetites was, of beefsteak, thirty-six
pounds; of mutton chops, forty-five
pounds; of hamburg steak, twenty-four
pounds; of sausage, thirty pounds; and
of eggs, only fifteen pounds.
Nearly three-fourths of an egg is
222
water. It contains 13^> per cent of
protein (the stuff that makes blood and
muscle), 10,^2 per cent of fat, and 1 per
cent of mineral matter. The fat is concentrated
fuel for running the body machine
; the mineral matter goes to make
bones and other tissue.
Sirloin steak is 54 per cent water, 16}/S
per cent protein, 16 per cent fat, and 1
per cent mineral matter. The refuse is
a trifle more than in the case of eggs.
Thus one sees that there is no truth
in the commonly-accepted notion that an
egg contains as much nutriment as a
pound of meat. Indeed, a pound of beef
contains more nutriment than a pound
of eggs; and it takes eight average eggs
to weigh a pound. But the percentage
composition of the two is approximately
the same.
The white of an egg is practically pure
albumen; but the yolk is composed of a
great variety of substances, including
fatty matters, phosphorus, iron, calcium,
magnesium, and half of 1 per cent of a
pigment that gives it its yellow color. No
wonder, then, that eggs are so valuable
as food for man.
One constituent of the egg albumen,
by the way, is sulphur. It is this min-