Low-Cholesterol Egg and Dairy Products

Abstract

Today's health conscious consumer is avoiding egg and dairy products. Traditionally, though, these foods were believed to be particularly wholesome and nutritious. Fifty years ago, Britain actively encouraged milk consumption, particularly by school children, with a National Milk Scheme (1940). At much the same time (1949), Romanoff and Romanoff's classic, ‘The Avian Egg’, enthusiastically supported eggs: ‘Compared with hens’ egg, no other single food of animal origin is eaten and relished by so many people the world over; none is served in such a variety of ways. Its popularity is justified not only because it is so easily procured and has so many uses in cookery, but also because it is almost unsurpassed in nutritive excellence’. But recently, cholesterol has emerged as a topic of polite conversation at dinner parties and most of us are aware, even if only vaguely and often inaccurately, of the connections between cholesterol and heart disease and eggs and dairy products. Fifty years ago the average Australian consumed 250 eggs per annum; today this consumption has declined to less than 135 eggs per annum (Castle, 1989). Similar declines in egg consumption have occurred in other developed countries over the same period of time. Hence there is interest worldwide in developing technologies to extract the cholesterol from foods, particularly eggs and dairy products, and a flurry of research activity has resulted.