Random question...

[telophase]

So, when you were a kid and in school, if your school taught the Four Basic Food Groups (Meat, Dairy, Veg, Grains, or something like that), into which group did eggs fall?

I was taught eggs went into the Meat category (which was basically Protein, and they sort-of handwaved beans). I have more than once run into people who were taught eggs were Dairy. For no reason I can figure. I once, in seventh grade, got into an argument with a girl who lived near my grandparents' house over this very subject: she did not respond well to my clearly correct argument that Dairy came from cows, so eggs weren't Dairy.

Nowadays, I point out that if it didn't start out with lactose, it's not dairy, but I did have a husband who shall remain unidentified once offer me Lactaid with eggs, as he was reverting back to his primary-school programming that eggs went into the dairy category.





Hey, he made me the eggs! I am not complaining!

Comments

[inkstone]

Sorry to say, I was taught eggs fell into dairy. This led me to being a really confused kid because I never understood why they were dairy instead of meat! Oh, school systems... LOL

[telophase]

Maybe someone will come by who knows why it's taught that way! I was vaguely under the impression that the Dairy group had to do with calcium as a kid, which is why eggs made no sense to me in that group.

[softestbullet]

Huh! I was taught that they were Meat (or, well, Protein), but I get it mixed up with Dairy a lot anyway. I didn't know that was a thing outside my brain.

[telophase]

I've had two people (one here and one on LJ) tell me they were taught eggs were dairy, so I am happy to see that I am not alone in being taught they were meat, as I was beginning to doubt myself! XD

[weirdquark]

I was taught eggs go in the meat category.

We even put on a play about the four food groups where the food argued about which was the most important. I was an orange. (The Big Cheese was the leader of the dairy group. (Third grade. What can you do?)) I think the food concluded that we were all important and needed to work together but that's based more on how these things tend to work than actual memory of anything that went on.

[telophase]

I don't think we ever got that creative. I may have contributed to a poster illustrating the concept that graced the walls of the classroom.

[the_rck]

I was taught eggs as a protein. I seem to recall cheese as being in the gray area as it was a protein but was also dairy. I went to elementary school in the 1970s in Michigan, just for reference.

[ginny_t]

In Ontario in the 1970s, I learned eggs as dairy. I don't remember why, but I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that they're animal-derived without killing the animal. (This could be my veggievore bias retconning my education. La!)

[jinian]

I'm sure they were on the food pyramid somewhere, but I sure have no idea where. They are clearly not dairy to me, though this proves nothing as far as what I was taught as I've been arguing with teachers since literally the first one I met. (Screw you, preschool admissions, Q by itself doesn't occur in English so logically it cannot make a sound.)

My partner, who himself cannot eat milk or derived products, claims eggs are dairy, though. There is some wacky teaching going on someplace!

[onthehill]

hmmm - I must have been taught that eggs were dairy, because I still have some vague idea that they are. (UK, 1970s)
I can't see why though... maybe it's the animal derivative thing. Or something to do with cholesterol..? 0.o

[yhlee]

Total speculation but were the dairy and egg lobbies allied or something when they were generating the pyramid? Marion Nestle's engrossing (but hair-raising) book Food Politics discusses how the sugar industry tried to get added to the food pyramid. (The focus is USAn.)

[telophase]

Hmmmm, that might be a possibility. I wonder if we have any nuttition/health elementary textbooks in the collection from various years? I should check if I get the chance.

[his-spiffyness.livejournal.com]

I've always heard eggs falling into dairy. I'm guessing mostly due to them always getting cased in the refrigerated section with milk.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

So kids are getting taught marketing categories! Awesome! :)

I was wondering if it had something to do with eggs and milk often being considered primarily breakfast foods. My school gave me (I think) the impression that the dairy group had more to do with calcium content than anything else.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I can't say that I was ever /taught/ that eggs fell into dairy, but I tend to think of them offhand as such, because they're kept in the dairy section. It's reinforced by iconography, which often groups milk and eggs together.

What's funny, though, is if you're talking about *protein* as opposed to *meat*, eggs automatically fall into the correct mental category.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I've heard that too. The Four Food Groups really didn't make much sense in retrospect, did they?

[cschells.livejournal.com]

I would guess that I learned that they were proteins at school (though I don't really recall), but I definitely immediately associate them with dairy since that's where you find them in the store... (Even though I am allergic to eggs, but not dairy products, so I'm very clear on the difference!)

[longshot14.livejournal.com]

It was taught to me as being in the meat group as well.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Same here. The Meat Group was meat, eggs, nuts and seeds, and beans, though beans (and maybe nuts and seeds, but not peanut butter) were also put in the Fruit and Vegetable Group (or maybe the Grains, I don't recall). Dairy was milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream.

[bettinamarie.livejournal.com]

Yea...I go waaaaaay back...or at least I FEEL like it sometimes being almost 40! O_O;;; but I was taught and totally agree that eggs are in the meat group!...I mean, they grow into CHICKENS, which is most definitely a meat!

Also, having a niece that is deathly allergic to dairy and yet she can eat eggs...yea...eggs are so not a dairy product...again...hello! they grow into chickens which is all MEEEEEEEEAAAAAT...and pretty damned tasty all BBQ'd and all >:D

The only reason I can think of them putting them in the 'dairy' section of the grocery stores is because of how they're refrigerated and nothing else T_O;

[lrodell.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was taught that eggs were in the Meat group; I don't know where that 'dairy' thing came from, except I half-recall a commercial about being sure to get your eggs and dairy, and maybe that got horribly chopped and mixed into that? I bet there's a Schoolhouse Rock episode that deals with it!^^

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Schoolhouse Rock and nutrition, does anyone remember Timer?

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

"While I'm waiting, can you make me a banana?" "Okay, you're a banana!"

[golden-bastet.livejournal.com]

Oh, very much taught eggs are diary. I think more because how they're used.

Hey - cheese has protein, and it's dairy... isn't it?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Silly humans, trying to fit foods into arbitrary categories! XD

[emtigereyes.livejournal.com]

^ What Golden_Bastet said.

I remember eggs being grouped with dairy, but I also remember that the pyramid had meat and dairy on the same ROW... so perhaps they were all considered protein sources? I remember the breakdown of the pyramid into four rows: bottom row for breads/grains, next row for fruits and veggies, third row for meat and dairy, and the tip top of the pyramid for fats and sweets.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I was taught this (and the girl I got into an argument with) before the pyramid came into use, so that wouldn't have been the case for us. Our chart was a box divided into four smaller boxes with two crossed lines, and one food category put into each box, in no particular order. We were supposed to eat some from each food group each day; I don't remember if we got into the details of servings, but I don't think so. Fats/sweets were just collected into a random category that we were supposed to eat sparingly, I think.

[cajunbaby86.livejournal.com]

That's the first I've ever heard of eggs being classified with dairy. I grew up with the eggs being placed with the meat and beans group. I'm looking at my nutrition textbook right now; this is what the new 'MyPyramid' looks like:

The meat group (purple) has been renamed "Meat and Beans" in the book, but online it's also labeled as the "Protein Group". They still stick the eggs with the "proteins". What's interesting is that the diagrams of other countries' food guidance charts also list eggs with the meats. In every one of them, the dairy and meat sections are next to each other too.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I was taught they were meat because they came from chickens, which I maintain still are made of meat.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that eggs, along with beans, went into the meat group. I don't know why dairy got its own group; possibly, as you suggest, it was for the calcium.

These days, "eggs and dairy" are associated for me for various reasons. I guess they show up together in the grocery store, since in this country eggs are refrigerated. They are both easy to cook (or need little/no cooking), are easy to digest, and are often found in sweet things (yum, creme brulee and egg custard and ice cream!). When asking a vegetarian/vegan friend what they can eat, they are important categories to ask about.

[cicer.livejournal.com]

...Huh. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure we were taught that eggs go into the dairy group. Which, no, makes no sense whatsoever. Except that maybe eggs are usually located in the dairy department in the supermarket, and eggs are usually lumped with milk/cheese/etc. as "breakfast foods". Weird.

[tingirl.livejournal.com]

We WERE taught that eggs were dairy, and I argued with the teachers about it, but I was overruled.

I challenge your dairy-is-cowstuff theory, too, because then what's goat cheese? Meat?
I now follow Alton Brown's rules of food category, and so eggs are liquid fish. I mean, that's how they cook. And that's all I have to care about.:P

Even with the Great Egg Confusion, the 4 groups still made more sense than the food pyramid, which started being taught to us sometime in the 5th/6th grade phase.