May Is National Egg Month
Grace Phillips
Ashland Beacon
It is the age-old question…which came first the chicken or the egg? Well of course, it was the chicken…right? Without the chicken, you couldn’t have an egg. Oh, WAIT! Since chickens are hatched from an egg it had to be the egg…pure and simple. While we can debate this question for hours, and I am sure I know the real answer, I would rather just talk about the egg.
May is National Egg Month, which has been observed since the 1960s with different months sharing the honor. In the 1990s, the National Egg Board established May as the month to bring attention to all the benefits found in eggs.
The average person in the United States consumes approximately 279 eggs per year. That’s a whopping 95 million eggs nationwide per year! Whether fried, sunny side up, well done, scrambled, hardboiled, poached, or in omelets, eggs are full of protein and health benefits. Here are a few surprising facts about eggs.
Eggs contain all the nutrients our body needs except for vitamin C, and they are one of the few foods that naturally contain vitamin D. We all have been told that carrots are good for your eyes, but so are eggs. They contain lutein that prevents cataracts and muscle degeneration.
Eggs are high in cholesterol. Trans fats and saturated fats are bad for people with high cholesterol; however, it is now known that cholesterol from your food does not affect cholesterol levels in your blood. The American Heart Association has revised its guidelines on eggs because there are NO trans fats in them.
I conducted a totally unscientific survey for this article with some surprising results. When asked the question: How do you prefer your egg and given the choices of scrambled, fried over easy, fried hard yolk, hardboiled, or in an omelet, scrambled was overwhelming the egg of choice coming in at 48%. Fried over easy was next with 22% while hard-boiled and fried-hard yolk came in at 11%. Only 8% of those answering preferred them in an omelet.
At the first of the year, egg prices had soared to $7 or more per dozen. Many people decided they would get their own chickens, so they didn’t have to depend on the fluctuating market prices. Sounds like a great idea, but is it really that simple?
Sherry Risner has been raising chickens for a few years now, so I asked her some basic questions. She told me that a chicken begins laying eggs at about 5-6 months old. Each chicken will lay an egg each day. So, a person is not going to buy baby chicks and have eggs in just a short time. You also have to have quite a few chickens to provide the eggs you will need each week since they only lay one a day. Risner has enough chickens to supply her family’s needs and is also able to sell eggs to family and friends.
I asked if her chickens all laid the same color eggs. “I have chickens that lay brown eggs and ones that lay white eggs. It depends on the chicken breed as to what color the shell is.” Risner continued “I’ve heard people say that brown eggs are healthier, but the truth is they have the same nutritional value whether the shell is brown or white.”
When asked if it was really worth all the trouble to raise your own chickens she said, “That is a difficult question to answer. It depends on a person’s definition of “worth.” Feed has increased in price and to lay well and have good shells you need to occasionally give them oyster shells...you can sell the eggs for about $3 per dozen. Overall, raising chickens for eggs is beneficial because they are richer and just taste better than store bought. By the time you buy feed and care for them, you really don’t make a profit, but it is definitely worth it for me to have country eggs!”
Have you ever wondered if you can still safely eat an egg after the expiration date on the carton? Eggs are porous. As they age, they take in more air, and an air pocket forms. Simply get a cup of water. Place the egg in the water, and if it floats, it has a large air pocket and is old. You should pass on eating it. If it sinks to the bottom and stays, generally it is safe to eat.
A few more fun facts about eggs—
The older a chicken is, the larger eggs she lays, but also the thinner the shells are. Younger chickens lay eggs with thick shells.
If you drop an egg and break it on the floor, pour a heavy amount of salt on it and cleanup is easy.
Speaking of dropping an egg that is raw…exactly how can you determine if you have a raw egg or a boiled egg? Simply give the egg a spin. A hardboiled egg will spin quite easily, but a raw egg will just wobble.
“The incredible edible egg” was a marketing slogan from the American Egg Board in 1974. Who knew that such a simple food as an egg could benefit our health in so many ways and still taste so good? Enjoy the rest of National Egg Month, and cook up some “egg-citing” dishes for your family.
For more information on eggs, their nutritional value, recipes, and incredible egg trends, visit the American Egg Board website at incredibleegg.org.