By Joan McDaniel August 27, 2014
In my research into what is mostly called superfoods, I have found a wealth of wonderful healthy eating directly from the Earth. Now there can’t be anything more natural than the Egg.
Nature’s female animals have laid eggs since the start of creation. Which brings to mind the question, “What came first, The Chicken or the Egg?” A question illustrating the dilemma of how life began on this planet.
Natures Complete Portable Meal the Egg.
And eggs have been used as food by humans and other animals for thousands of years.
Today, besides being a multi-billion dollar industry, the Egg is used as a symbol of worship. The tradition of the Easter egg was started in Russia’s Ukraine.
Ukrainian Orthodox Easter Traditional Decorated Egg and Baskets. Started a tradition when Carl Fabergé in 1884 was commissioned by Tsar Alexander III of Russia as an unusual a gift for his wife. The Egg became a symbol of the celebration of Easter (“born again”) since that time. Many of Fabergé elaborate designed eggs are one of a kind and are preserved in museums around the world. His collections are now priceless for he began to use precious minerals like gold, silver and gems.
The War Against Cholesterol
Today’s Egg market is filled with propaganda. There has been a pernicious (harmful, destructive yet legal), systematic propaganda campaign against eggs as a source of the C Word. The big C stands for CHOLESTEROL not Cancer.
Cholesterol medication called “statins” have created a gold mine for wealth for Big Pharma beyond imagination. The income from this patented guaranteed invention dwarfs anything the egg industry could hope to generate. Besides who wants all the money going to the local Farmer?
In fact, many doctor’s today wage a war on you. According to Dr. Carolyn Dean MD ND and many others, “Now doctors jump on the statin bandwagon and terrorize you into taking a statin drug if your cholesterol inches above the 200 mark.”
The Egg Carton Slogan War
The AMA and American Heart Association’s campaign against the egg has died down a bit but now another war over the egg has developed. The Egg carton advertising slogan War.
I went grocery shopping to do a survey of the printing on egg cartons. I even saw an egg carton that said it contains “HAPPY EGGS”. I saw another one printed in gold saying “Golden Grain Eggs”. The following is the majority of what slogans I saw.
No Antibiotics, Cage Free Hens, Gentle Care, 5th Generation Family Farm, Local Family Farms, Naturally Fed, No Hormone or Pesticide, Certified Human, Vegetarian Fed Hens, Pure Grain, Golden Grain, No GMO, Free Range, Free Roaming, Natural Vegetarian just to list a few.
Cholesterol and Eggs
Now back to Cholesterol, I have written several articles on the subject. I have been so impressed by what I have found I subtitled my blog “Cholesterol is Good For You.”
I have previously covered the pros and cons of cholesterol in the following articles:
And my Cholesterol Myth What Really Causes Heart Disease covering the book The Great Cholesterol Myth – a book that is well worth reading.
You Need Cholesterol
To summarize – Cholesterol is an antioxidant. It helps your heart it does not cause heart disease. You need cholesterol without it your cells cannot live and you develop brain fog, lose energy and strength. In other words YOU AGE and YOUR CELLS DIE.
This loss of energy cannot be corrected by drugs only by Mother Nature’s healing foods. Cholesterol is vital to all cells of mammals. In fact a low cholesterol blood reading is worse on the body than a high reading. Modern drug medicine use drugs called “Statins” like Crestor, Lescol, Lipitor, or other drugs ending in the word statin.
The effects of these prescription drugs are questionable and there are many dangerous side effect one being eliminating something your body needs – Cholesterol. The question left unanswered is – IS THIS JUST ANOTHER WAY for Big pharma to create a disease class that makes a huge profit?
EGGS – Eggs are good for you and good for cholesterol. Yes let me repeat that EGGS ARE GOOD FOR CHOLESTEROL. Instead of eggs being bad for cholesterol, according to Dr. Mercola, “the evidence clearly shows that eggs are one of the healthiest foods you can eat, and can actually help prevent disease, including heart disease.”
“The Incredible, Edible, Egg.”
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/guide-perfect-eggs/#axzz33mMfR3RX
The saying goes “The Incredible, Edible, Egg.” An advertising slogan created in 1977 by the American Egg Board.
http://youtu.be/pCjFR9DvQ5w?list=PL7A1D7061AF7F0470
Benefits of Eggs
Did You Know A Chicken is a Bird?
A Little Forgotten Fact is – A Chicken is a Bird it has wings and flies and eats bugs and worms. Now I bet you won’t find that printed on an egg carton. “Chickens Eat Worms”
Many of the benefits of eggs depend what the chicken is allowed to eat. In other words chickens like most of the animal kingdom are omnivores they need meat.
In fact a chicken farmer told me “Chickens will eat just about anything except dead animals, metal, plastic, onions and wood.” Chickens are not vegetarians. If they only have a vegetarian diet they are like most vegetarians deficient in protein.
Life Force – Let’s face it an egg is the source of a new life. I spoke about this same life force in my article on sprouting. Eggs and sprouts contain everything we need to nourish our own animal cells. I don’t know about the egg but; enzymes from seeds contain 100 times more enzymes than raw fruits and vegetables.
Amino Acids – High in Amino Acids
Antioxidants – Eggs are loaded with antioxidants like lutein and zeaxanthin that help reduce the risk of blindness in older adults. They also contain choline, which helps with brain development and memory enhancement. Eggs are also high in beta-carotene.
Enzymes – Your body and its immune system need enzymes to stay alive and healthy. Live enzymes come from nature’s food not from a food lab and added sugar enzymes. The sugar enzyme are no longer alive giving the product a nice long shelf life for there is nothing left to go bad.
Fat – The egg is loaded with both Polyunsaturated, Saturated and the DHA Omega 3 fats. You need both Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats in your diet but Omega 3’s are used to balance out the bad Omega 6’s. Also the more the hen eats the more Omega 3 fats are in the egg. Eggs contain mostly polyunsaturated fats (3 grams) to (2 grams) of saturated. The egg yolk contains about 100 – 200 mg of Omega -3 the good fat.
Low in glycemia (amount of sugar in the blood) – help prevent diabetes, insulin toxicity or insulin resistance and weight gain
Vitamins – A, High in the B vitamins, and Vitamin E. Minerals Iodine, Selenium
Good For Heart Health
Protein – Egg whites are loaded with proteins. Proteins in cooked eggs are converted into gastrointestinal enzymes producing peptides that act as ACE inhibitors (or Blood Pressure Medicine) that help lower blood pressure. Each egg has about 6 grams of protein. Protein – The egg yolk contains 6.3 grams of Protein and the egg white contains 3.6 grams.
Egg Colors
Color of Eggs – The color of the egg determines the bread of chicken that laid it. Eggs can be in many colors like blue, brown, pink, red, speckled, white, and yellow.
“A white-feathered chicken lay white colored eggs. Brown feather chickens lay brown colored eggs it is that simple.” Caspero says. The only superior benefit of the brown egg is its price tag. A white egg has the exact same nutritional value as a brown egg. Brown eggs and white eggs are, nutritionally at least, exactly same: about 70 calories, 6 grams of protein, and a generous helping of B vitamins.
Brown Chickens cost more to raise.
Chances are that brown eggs owe their superior health reputation to their inflated price tag. But as Caspero explains, brown eggs cost more than white eggs simply because they cost more to produce. Brown chickens are larger than their white cousins, so they eat more food, which in turn costs farmers more. And guess who pays for that? You.
Type of Eggs and Labels Found on an Egg Cartons
If you’re looking at the egg carton to determine the nutritional level of the egg, be prepared to some confusion. Labels can be very deceptive and regulations are not well defined.
The regulations covering terms like “free-range” or “pasture-raised” are very broad and lax. In fact terms about the chicken’s diet are also very vague. A chicken raised on a factory farm can still qualify for many of these great sounding terms. The label say nothing about the conditions is which the chickens are raised and stories have it the conditions are deplorable.
The best way to know what kind of chicken laid the eggs you are buying is to ask the local farmer you getting the eggs from.
USDA Guidelines – The USDA grades eggs. They have three classes AA, A, and B. According to the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association website, “Eggs are graded based on their quality and appearance. The class is printed on the egg carton. The class does not include the current controversy of how the chickens are raised or what they eat.
Egg Beaters – Was first introduced in 1972 for the American market by Fleishmann. Originally sold frozen and as an answer to cholesterol war being waged by the AMA. It is part of The American Egg Board campaign to counter the Cholesterol War battle. In 1977 the “egg beater” marketing advertising slogan by the advertising agency Campbell Mithun started. Egg beaters is primarily egg whites with added artificial flavors, thickeners, xanthan gum and guar gum and synthetic vitamins. The product contains no egg yolks. Egg beaters are still being sold to this day.
Egg sizes, Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large and Jumbo.
Vegetarian Fed – Terms like Grain Fed, Organic, and Vegetarian Fed means the chickens were fed grain that does not include byproducts. The term organic also means no antibiotic or hormones which is good but chickens as I said earlier, are omnivores and need and eat meat in the form of bugs and worms.
All Natural and other Terms – like Cage Free, Farm Fresh, Free range, free roaming, Humane certified mean nothing. Chickens can still live in inhuman conditions be fed animal byproducts, GMO’s, and hormones. Beaks trimming, forced molting is allowed. They may never see the light of day or leave their tiny cages.
Pasteurized – is the use of heat to destroy bacteria and viruses. The methods used in pasteurization are safe and provides an egg free from bacteria. Pasteurization is not common but eggs that are pasteurized are stamped with a “P” in a circle on the actual egg shell. This is the type of egg you can safely eat raw.
Pastured or Pasture Raised – Again this is just a label. It is another way of saying Free Range.
Types of Farms
There is the Factory Farm and the Local Farm. Terms on the egg carton like 5th Generation, Family Farm, Local Family Farms, are nice sounding but what I have found the best egg is the one you get from your local farmer or neighbor.
Factory Farm – Large Factories that go on for miles and miles and raise tens of thousands of chickens. The story goes that chickens raised in these farms never see the light of day or leave their small cramped cages. These chickens obviously cannot be allowed to forage freely. They may not be confined to an individual cage. The label says nothing about the living conditions.
Local Farm – That is your neighbor or local small farmer who raises chickens as a hobby or on the side for the benefits of fresh chickens. America is losing its local farm and the ability to raise chickens in their own back yards. Factory farming is on the increase and the knowledge of how your food is grown or raised is being lost. I have found the best source for my eggs is my local farmer. I can ask him how the chickens are raised.
Keep in mind to raise chickens is an investment and chickens don’t come when called nor can you put them on a leash. Chickens wander around and build their nests all over the place. Unless you have a pet chicken, their nest can be just about anywhere. Chickens can nest on top of the roof or under the house.
An investment needs to be protected and where the chicken lives is important for your investment. You have to be able to find the product your selling. You can house your chickens at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel but the price of its eggs will be in gold.
Dark Orange Yolks – In my research I have heard that the darker the yolk the better the egg until I found that you can feed chickens yellow magnolia flowers to darken the egg yolk. Again the only way to know how nutritious you eggs are is to ask the farmer you’re buying them from.
Types of Chickens
Some Types of Chickens
From what I have found there are 23 heritage breeds of chicken and I am sure there are others.
There are hundreds of different type of chicken breeds in America and across the world. This is just a few American breeds.
Ways to cook an egg
I do not provide recipes and am on my own learning curve on how to cook. So as I go along I’ll refer you to others about ways to cook eggs. Dr. Mecola has an excellent article and here he also supports not cooking them at all.
Whfoods has suggestions on how to poach an egg. And Marks Daily Apple guide.
The only point I do want to make is you have to be very careful of the egg yolk.
From what I have put together you should consume the egg yolk as raw as you can. The antioxidant properties are reduced by 50 percent when the egg yolk is fried or boiled and reduced even more if microwaved. When the egg yolk is cooked or subjected to high heat, cholesterol can be oxidized and become harmful.
There are 41 different ways to cook an egg; eggs Benedict, hard or soft-boiled, deviled, fried over (easy, medium, hard) or sunny side up, microwaved, omelet, puffy omelet, poached, egg salad, or scrambled to name a few.
The cooking that causes the most damage is when the yolk of the egg is broken and scrambled like in scrambled eggs or in an omelet. This causes the most free-radical damage the safest way to eat an egg is either raw or sunny side without cooking the yoke. Heat will damage many of the highly perishable nutrients in the yolk.
How Daniel Vitalis cooks an egg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koOsudOrup8
Uses for Eggshells
Just about everything is useful with the egg including its Shell.
There are many uses for an eggshell don’t just throw them away.
- You can put them in a compost to add calcium and minerals to the soil,
- You can scatter them around your flowers and plants as a pesticide and animal and insect repellant including cutworms, deer, slugs, and snails.
- Mix them with your coffee grounds in the filter to remove coffee’s bitterness then throw them in the compost bin.
- Use them to start seedlings for the garden.
- Use them for tough cleaning like. They can act as a nontoxic abrasive for pots and pans and other hard-to-clean items. They can be used to clean drains as they slowly break up and scour your pipes.
The Egg Shell used for decoration and For Easter.
Blow out the inside of a raw egg and decorate the hollow shell so you can display a DIY piece of art. Pieces of egg shell are also great for mosaic art projects.
Sources
https://www.yahoo.com/food/are-brown-eggs-really-healthier-than-white-eggs-83734625026.html
https://shine.yahoo.com/green/11-ingenious-uses-eggshells-172900681.html
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/guide-perfect-eggs/#ixzz33mN7QUUE
http://www.ranker.com/list/41-different-ways-to-cook-an-egg/samantha-dillinger
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12837794/8/the-10-cheapest-health-foods-money-can-buy.html
http://www.therisingspoon.com/2013/05/why-you-should-only-eat-pastured-eggs.html
http://curbstonevalley.com/blog/?p=3354
http://www.frugal-living-freedom.com/what-do-chickens-eat.html
http://www.blessthismessplease.com/2012/09/eggs-shells-for-chickens-oyster-shell.html
