Eggs Are Not Dairy
Feb 11th, 2006 by Brian A. Thomas
I remember learning in school that Eggs were part of the dairy group, before the food pyramid. I often wondered why, and some Internet searches this morning reveal that eggs are not dairy as one would logically assume. It was sometimes put in the dairy group because fresh eggs were sometimes delivered by milkmen. That tradition continues today with eggs being sold in or near the dairy section of grocery stores. However, to be dairy it has to be milk based. The things that are wrong that we learned in school…
Could you tell me specifically how you were taught eggs were dairy? Did the teacher state that? Do you remember there being pictures? I cannot find any historical curriculum or food guides that put eggs in the dairy group. Before the food pyramid, there were ‘food groups’ and the classification of such goes back to before 1900. The earliest image I have found was a Basic 7 food groups from 1946, published by the USDA, and eggs are in the meat group. I would love to find the book that stated that eggs are in the dairy group…
I seem to recall teachers putting it in the dairy group, back before there was a food pyramid. However, my memory is heavily flawed, and I can’t recall exactly when/where the thought was, but I do remember learning the Basic Four food groups (which came after the Basic Seven in an effort to simplify things):
Milk (dairy)
Meat
Fruit & Vegetables
Grains
I don’t remember learning the Basic Five, when they added “Fats, Sweets and Alcoholic Beverages” as a group, though I would have been in school when it came out.
To the point anyhow, I can’t recall any specifics to show it was thought taught that way outside of the fact if you Google “eggs dairy” it comes up with results where people ask if eggs are dairy…
I was long out of school when the Food Pyramid came out so I never really learned it. All I really know of it now is that the form it came out in was heavily influenced by people from the meat, dairy and egg industries who didn’t like the way the FDA was originally going with it. It also doesn’t take into account so called good and bad fats.
Of course the Food Pyramid itself has since been replaced with the new MyPyramid, so another one to learn.
It would be interesting to see where the thought that eggs were dairy came from, who taught it and why. In further review, I am not even sure why I said “eggs are not dairy as one would logically assume.” It makes no sense at all for eggs to be in the dairy group. It is entirely possible that the reason I thought they were in the dairy group is that they are sold in the dairy section of the grocery store and confused that thought with what I thought I learned in school, which was likely that eggs were in with meats, nuts, beans and the like.