Raw eggs!!

JohnMaile

Just to give you a heads up, I seem to be able to get pretty excited about healthy foods and I might tend to ramble.... but this will show you where you can get the best and healthiest eggs in your area, and the benefits of eating them RAW, if that's what you're looking for (probably not, ha!).

So.... I'm a big fan of eggs, particularly raw eggs! A lot of people get uneasy about them, being worried about Salmonella. I just want to say that there's nothing to worry about.... when you follow this one simple rule: healthy eggs come from healthy chickens. I'm sure you already know that the eggs most people eat come from chickens pumped full of all sorts of things, living in terrible conditions, suffering from all sorts of complications. The cramped living quarters, with usually absolutely no room to move amongst thousands of chickens or just an extremely small cage, are generally to blame for outbreaks of such things like salmonella.

Now, with these eggs, there is about a 1 / 30,000 change of getting salmonella. These are just the regular eggs that you get at the grocery store without even thinking about it. You'll often see that there are other types of eggs too, but they're usually pretty expensive. The ones you definitely don't want to get are the ones with "more" omega 3's. By the time those eggs have reached the shelves, the omega 3 fatty acids have already become RANCID!! The other ones, usually claiming to be organic or free rannge are, of course, a better choice, but not really by much... especially considering the price.

Anyways, what I did is went to the Cornucopia Institute's website. What they did is went around the entire country and evaluated every company/farm that sells eggs (or at least a bunch of them). There's about 20 different criteria that they checked out, from living conditions to what they eat to who certified the eggs as being organic. So, what they did is rate all the companies and they posted them on their website. If you go to this link.....

http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/

..... you can find what egg companies near you have some pretty AWESOME eggs. Unfortunately, you might have to do a little research in finding where you can actually buy them, but it'll be worth it. Living in Wisconsin, I was pretty happy to find the highest rated company to be in Mondovi, WI. That is about a three hour drive though, so I buy Dream Farm eggs from Cross Plains. They are a little more expensive than your regular eggs you might buy at the grocery store, but I think its worth it.

Anyways, I'm taking a break here, but I'll get around to why raw eggs from these companies, and not your grocery store eggs, are great for staying healthy!!

laurenpence

I love eggs but I cook them...usually scrambled. What is so great about eating them raw. BTW I love healthy foods too so anything I dont know I would like to know.

ChancyW

Thanks for posting on this topic! Very informative.

I almost always buy the organic ones unless they are out. Maybe someday I will work up the courage to have a raw egg. :-)

mzenzer

Big fan of eggs as well. Thanks for posting!

AwwenT

I am a fan, but have to watch cholesterol, so its all about the egg whites forme... the easiest solution I've found is using a generic brand of Egg Beaters (which is just 99.9% egg whites; no yolk = no cholesterol). I drink a cup at a time four times a day 6am, 930am, 12 noon, 230pm. This delivers lots of protein with no fat. 1 cup of Egg Beaters every 2.5 hours provides exactly the maximum amount of protein that the body can metabolize for use in lean body tissues. Any more than that within 2.5 hours, and excess protein gets stored as fat.

JohnMaile

I first heard about eating raw eggs from Dr. Mercola. He is a doctor who practices out of Chicago and focuses mainly on alternative medicine. He has a newsletter and a website, that I would both highly recommend you check out, at mercola.com. Anyways, he's also a big proponent of raw eggs and in one of these newsletters he mentioned the Cornucpoia Institute. Much of what I know has come from his website and I'm sure that he outlines it better than I can, but here are some of the main benefits of eating your eggs raw......

The main issue is the heat that is used to actually cook the eggs. The heat will change the structure of the proteins and fats in the eggs along with killing enzymes and other important things. When the proteins are changed a few things happen. First, allergies can develop from eating the eggs, you might feel bloated or have some other unpleasant GI problems.

Another, probably more important, thing to realize is that the fat in an egg is healthy. When it is heated, however, it will become a trans fat!! The temperature and the time of cooking the eggs would, of course, determine how much trans fat your getting, but either way, its not good!

One other thing to understand is that an egg is considered to be perfectly balanced in terms of nutrition. This is when is it raw, however. A raw egg is very easy to digest, provides you with countless vitamins and minerals, and also contains compounds that lower blood pressure! Many of these things are destroyed, though, when it is heated.

The cholesterol in eggs, no matter what kind, is something that also worries people. Just remember that most of the cholesterol in your body is produced by the liver... so eat a few eggs!!

One last thing to note is that eggs, in a raw state, are complete and undamaged proteins!!

Anyways, thats about all I have on eggs.... like I said though, Dr. Mercola has countless articles about eggs and all sorts of things related to health, so you should definitely check it out! Have fun eating your eggs!

TaraMaria

That is fascinating. I don't know if I'm going to start eating raw eggs but I am going to look at which eggs I purchase! I've always been curious about "trying" a raw egg...but I don't know if I'm brave enough!

I LOVE Dr. Mercola. I get his newsletter and follow many of his practices and suggestions. I highly suggest his newsletter too! ) My husband would marry him if he could... :laugh:

Thanks John!

SailorBoyFoster

I have never ever once thought I would try a raw egg. Tomorrow I need to head to the grocery store... Yeah you got me, i will no longer be a raw egg virgin tomorrow lol! Thx for the informative post.

funnygirl0940

we live in Mexico...not normal to have eggs refrigerated here and they are boughten out of the fridge even at Sam's club etc. We eat raw eggs all of the time, as I make fresh mayo and garlic sauce with them, and haven't gotten sick from it in over 16 months. After watching Food Inc...which is on youtube, I'm now raising 5 hopeful laying hens as well as growing my own garden ;0) Not many sources of vit D out there and we need to eat the yolks.

JohnMaile

Yeah, at first, eating raw eggs can be a little weird! What I do is get one egg in a glass at a time and just toss it back. After you break the yoke with your tongue, its pretty easy to just get it down there! I always have my chocolate flavored protein shake as a "chaser" which helps too! GOOD LUCK EVERYONE.... and eat those eggs!!

mzenzer

I have put a raw egg mixed in my chocolate protein smoothie, and also there are a couple Asian owned independent smoothie shops around here and they will offer to put a raw egg in. When I do cook, it's over-easy. It's on very low heat for 1 minute, then turn the fire off, flip, wait about 2 seconds then straight to the plate they go. I don't like my yolk cooked at all but I've always been told if you get botulism it's from uncooked whites, but before I posted this I looked up botulism and read the wiki and the only mention of egg in the entire article was how botulism looked when growing it in a lab using egg yolk, not that you can get it from raw eggs. Learn something new every day. Funny how something my mother probably told me in the 70's has stuck with me this long. Seems to be the most common way to get it is from improperly produced canned goods and already cooked food not stored properly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism

Eggology, a company that among other things produces raw egg whites, that initially were intended to be sold to restaurants, bakeries, etc., have found that their biggest customer is body builders that drink them raw! It's nothing new and a very common practice among bodybuilders but I thought this was interesting. Note that Eggology scores only 1 egg on the Cornucopia website, however.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME8-tU3APGs

http://www.eggology.com/Public/Products/Athletes/index.cfm

SkierElle

Gosh, I am so obsessed with eggs that my roommates make fun of me. I get them from my friends farm and also from the milkman! I love eggs so much that one time for my speech class I did an informative speech on them!!

I like them cooked and raw. If they are raw I usually put them in a protien shake or mix them with veg juice. However, Mercola says you should only have the yolk raw and cook the white (because it can cause allergies raw). So that's what I do sometimes. But other times, I just love some nice scrambled eggs, or hard boiled eggs for a good snack to take to classes and work. But for those two things, I cook them as little as possible. Love that runny yolk! Also quiche and frittata = amazing. There are so many things to do with eggs!

Also, the yolk may have more fat than the white, but it also has so much other good stuff, that I cannot understand why people would just eat the white! Crazy! Each to his/her own, i suppose.

aproc

I'm definitely going to have to give raw eggs a shot now. I was always curious why people would eat raw eggs even if they hated it rather than cooking them.

LuckyLeprechaun

I had a herd of chickens and I ate their eggs all the time...but never raw! Ew LOL