Something To Cluck About

By Mimi Sheraton

Start scrambling for your omelet pan. Eggs unadulterated with guilt may soon be back on your menu. Once considered a valuable, low-cost source of high- quality protein, eggs became dietary villains because of their high cholesterol. Now that hard-boiled approach to one of nature's most delectable foods may soften.

Good news comes from California egg producer Paul May of Rosemary Farm in Santa Maria. May has announced that 100,000 of his hens are now laying eggs with 55% less cholesterol than standard specimens. Instead of the 274 mg long considered to be standard for large eggs by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, May reports that his eggs contain a mere 125 mg of cholesterol. They also contain about 25% less sodium, according to May, whose figures are corroborated by the California state department of food and agriculture.

"The secret is in the feed," says May, though he declines to name the magical ingredients. "It has nothing to do with chemicals or drugs," he insists. Nor is it dietary fiber. "It's a natural substance added to the hens' diet." Even though at as much as $2.89 a dozen they can be double or triple the price of their conventional counterparts, the Rosemary Farm eggs are hot sellers at the California stores where they are available. The farm's production is too small to serve a national market, but other low-cholesterol eggs have already been developed by Full Spectrum Farms in Lancaster, Pa. Undoubtedly, producers in other areas will follow.

To anyone dreaming of going back to fluffy omelets and supple floating islands, the most important question about these eggs is: How do they taste? To find out, TIME obtained two dozen large, grade AA Rosemary Farm eggs from a Hughes market in Los Angeles, and I compared them with large, grade AA eggs purchased in Manhattan. On inspection, the California specimens looked a bit larger and had rougher shells with uneven calcium deposits, while the New York shells were perfectly smooth. New York yolks were also a brighter shade of yellow.

On to the taste test. East and West Coast eggs cooked identically and tasted the same in such preparations as scrambled eggs and omelets, in which whites and yolks were blended. The yolks made equally good mayonnaise when - whipped with salad oil. However, there was a mild difference in flavor in boiled, poached and fried preparations in which cooked yolks and whites remained separate. The East Coast yolks had an airier, dairy taste -- perhaps because they were a bit fresher and had not traveled as far.

There is another curious reason why the California eggs may not taste very different from the ordinary variety. According to the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md., the high cholesterol counts that have given ordinary eggs their bad reputation may have been wrong to begin with. Using newer methods of testing, researchers at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven have found that conventional eggs contain between 172 and 232 mg of cholesterol, instead of the 274 previously measured. That would place them somewhat closer to the count of Rosemary Farm eggs. So even if the brave new eggs have yet to reach the neighborhood market, Americans may feel just a litle less devilish the next time they reach for a deviled egg.