Egg recall has some changing buying, eating habits

From a breakfast cafe in Denver to the Little Italy that is Boston's North End, one ingredient is a staple in every major city and the thousands of diners, bakeries and home kitchens in between: the egg.

The omnipresent oval comes over easy and poached; baked inside pastry crusts and rolled into yellow noodles; mixed into mayonnaise and creamy salad dressings; used in other goods like shampoos and vaccines.

Eating - or using - one is nearly unavoidable in a country that produced more than 90 billion eggs in 2009. That's exactly why thousands of consumers, chefs, store owners and home cooks are scrambling after two Iowa farms recalled more than a half-billion eggs linked to as many as 1,300 cases of salmonella poisoning.

"Eggs are a thickener in cream pies, a binder if you're making meatloaf, an emulsifier in salad dressing," said Joe Berry, a professor at Oklahoma State University. "They just do lots of things that people probably don't even think about."