Whenever I find myself dismissing a conspiracy theory out-of-hand, I try to remember that the President of the United States of America once tried to fight high domestic inflation by scaring the general public about the dangers of cholesterol in eggs.

From page 96 of Robert Samuelson’s The Great Inflation and its Aftermath:

Shoe prices went up, so [President Lyndon B Johnson] slapped export controls on hides to increase the supply of leather. Reports that color television sets would sell at high prices came across the wire. Johnson told me to ask RCA’s David Sarnoff [RCA was then a major TV manufacturer] to hold them down. Domestic lamb prices rose. LBJ directed [Defense Secretary Robert] McNamara to buy cheaper lamb from New Zealand for the troops in Vietnam. The President told CEA [Council of Economic Advisers] and me to move on household appliances, paper cartons, news­ print, men’s underwear, women’s hosiery, glass containers, cel- lulose, [and] air conditioners … When egg prices rose in the spring of 1966 and Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman told him that not much could be done, Johnson had the Surgeon General issue alerts as to the hazards of cholesterol in eggs.

(Inflation is far from currently being a problem in the US, but for those wondering if LBJ’s inflation-fighting eggcerise (I’ll get my coat) worked – the answer is no. Per Samuelson: “The slight effects on individual prices and wages were overwhelmed by the emerging economic boom, which put upward pressure on all wages and prices.” Plus, nowadays, everyone loves eggs.)

Cholesteral, eggs, oil and other inflation-fighting ingredients