Eggs could be nature’s perfect food, but concerns about cholesterol and
salmonella have hurt consumption rates.
Jeong Sim, of the University of Alberta’s animal science department,
told a national egg producers conference in Saskatoon July 7-10 of the
many alternatives in egg use.
“The egg is no longer just a food in the frying pan,” Sim said. “Eggs
contain every chemical nutrient to support your life.”
Armed with that information, Sim has made a career of eggs, working to
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enhance the nutritional quality of poultry products and finding new
uses for eggs.
As he winds down to retirement in a few years, he continues to explore
their application for Alzheimer’s, AIDS and brain development.
In his research on reducing the salmonella risks in eggs, he found that
injecting antigens into chickens produced antibodies that neutralize
the bacteria causing food poisoning.
That work “handcuffing” salmonella could be applied to treating many
other diseases, he said.
There is also promise in extracting an enzyme called lysozym from eggs,
encapsulating it and delivering it to consumers in a more convenient
way than cracking an egg, he said.
Known for his work in creating “designer eggs,” he added omega 3 fatty
acids to eggs by feeding flaxseed oil to chickens.
A shortage of these acids in the diet led Health Canada in 1990 to
recommend people consume daily 1.2 grams of linolenic acid or omega 3
fatty acid.
In addition to lowering blood fat levels, including cholesterol, omega
3 fatty acids also boost immune systems, help prevent cancer and reduce
cholesterol.
Sim said people also eat fewer eggs because of allergies, less time to
cook the traditional egg breakfast and the lack of marketing for eggs’
scientific benefits.
“Eggs is one of the products mistreated even worse than beef,” he said.
“We’re always paying attention to the negative and at the same time
forgetting the positive.”
Sim is gearing up for a symposium on eggs in 2004 in Banff, Alta., that
will target consumers by bringing together producers and scientists to
focus on eggs as nature’s perfect functional food.
He is confident once the message is heard, producers will recapture
lost markets and increase annual per capita egg consumption rates in
Canada to 300 by the end of the decade. Canadians now eat 185 eggs per
year, on average, compared to 275 in 1950.
