If you are following the ketogenic diet, then eggs are a big part of your diet, or at least should be. When I started this diet, I just bought the cheapest eggs that I could find. Since that time, I have learned quite a bit about the egg industry and some of the things you should look for when buying eggs. I am hoping that this blog will help clear up some misconceptions and help you to make better choices for you and your family.
Whether you are eating a keto diet or not, the information contained here can be beneficial. The chicken/egg industry has become very commercialized. Because of the commercialization, it has become more difficult to know when you are getting a good deal. Is it worth paying for organic eggs? Why do I care if a chicken was pasture raised or if it was in a pen? Isn’t an egg just an egg? Well the answer is yes and no. The nutrition in the egg doesn’t change much, but the extras you get will. The GMO’s found in their grains, antibiotics, growth hormones the chickens are given to make them grow faster and how they are raised will affect the quality of the egg you are eating.
Does the color of the egg make a difference?
The color of the egg is dependent on the type of chicken that lays it. There are the common white eggs, brown eggs, blue eggs and a whole range of different colors of eggs. The only difference between them is the chicken that lays it, that is it. Nutritionally speaking, they are the same egg (assuming that the chickens were raised the same way). So when shopping for eggs, color should not be a factor to worry about.
Why do some eggs have a thicker shell?
The shell thickness can be affected by two main factors. The first is the nutrition that the chicken receives. If the chicken is not eating a nutritionally balanced food, the eggs will be affected by the lack of nutrition. Calcium is the main component that affects the egg shell thickness. So, if the chicken is not getting enough calcium in their diet, they can’t produce eggs with thick egg shells. The second main factor is the age of the chicken that is laying the egg. Younger chickens tend to lay eggs with thicker shells then their older counterparts. Just like our bodies don’t work as well as they did in our younger days, chickens are affected the same way. The older chickens will use more of the nutrition to repair and maintain their bodies instead of putting that calcium into their eggs. That is just nature taking its course.
Obviously if you are buying your eggs from a grocery store or even from a farmers market, you will not know the age of the chicken that laid the egg. So that can’t be a factor when we are shopping for eggs. We can however choose to buy eggs from chickens that were given better nutrition. I will explain below some of the things that we can look for to determine which eggs are best.
Why are some egg yolks different shades of yellow?
If you have bought a variety of different eggs, you may have noticed that the yolks of the eggs do have different colors. Some are a dull yellow color, some a bright yellow and others will be almost an orange-yellow. Nutrition is the main factor that affects the color of the yolk. The better nutrition the chicken has, the brighter or more orange the yolk will be. Specifically it is the amount of carotenoid that the chicken consumes.
Notice the difference between the two egg yolks in the picture. The top yolk was your typical “cheapest you can buy” egg, and the bottom egg was an organic pasture raised egg. You really can see the difference. The top one is a dull yellow, whereas the bottom is almost an orange. I can taste the difference as well.
Most eggs are produced in huge chicken barns where the chickens are packed in. They are given grains (many times genetically modified (GMO) grains) because it is cheap. They are also given antibiotics and protein so that they grow faster and can produce more eggs faster. It does not mean that they are good quality eggs. Think of these large farms as a factory. They are trying to produce a product as quickly as possible. So these large corporations will create shortcuts to produce more eggs. How many eggs they produce affects their pocket books, and they will do everything they can to keep those chickens laying eggs. They are not worried about a quality of egg produced because they don’t have any issues selling their eggs (because they are the cheapest in the grocery store). The majority of restaurants will buy these eggs as they are cheap and can be bought in bulk. These eggs will produce the dull yellow yolks.
Chickens that are raised outside of these large barns tend to be much healthier. If they are allowed to be able to roam a pasture, they will get a completely different type of nutrition. Chickens love to eat bugs. By being raised in a pasture, they will be able to produce a better egg because of a more naturally balanced nutrition. These chickens will produce the brighter yellow or orange-yellow yolks.
Will eggs raise my cholesterol?
The short answer, yes. But, you may be interested to know that they do not raise your bad cholesterol. They instead raise the good cholesterol (HDL) that you want to increase. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the average egg has 185mg of cholesterol. Our liver produces over 1000mg of cholesterol every day. So that 185mg of cholesterol that you got from the egg, just reduces how much cholesterol our liver has to produce. According to this report from Harvard, 20% of the cholesterol in our bodies is from the food we eat. 80% is made by our liver and intestines. That means that we only get 20% of our cholesterol from our food, so eatings eggs won’t affect your overall cholesterol.
What nutrition do you get from eggs?
You need to understand before I explain the nutrition you get from eggs that this information will vary, especially based upon the chickens diet.
You will get about 6 grams of high quality protein, about 70 calories, 41 IU of vitamin D, 13 vitamins and minerals, they have all 9 essential amino acids, 0 carbs and 0 sugar. They contain Choline (which promotes normal cell activity, helps the liver function and assists in the transportation of nutrients through out the body, and has been shown to be a key to the development of infant’s memory function), Lutein (which promotes eye health and has been shown to affect brain cognition), zeaxanthin (a antioxidant which reduces the risk of cataracts and can slow the affects of age-related muscular degeneration)
The egg yolks are really good for you and they contain most of the nutrition. The egg whites have been shown to have a mild inflammatory response. So as you are cooking your eggs, you want to make sure your whites are cooked. If you like a yolk that isn’t cooked all the way through, you will get some additional vitamins that may be destroyed by cooking the yolk. I understand a runny yolk is not for everyone though.
What is the difference between cage free, free range, and pasture raised.
Cage Free
Cage free simple means just that. The chicken is not raised in a cage. Most are still raised in the large barns by large corporations. Some of these large barns have their chickens in cages, and some do not, it is just dependent upon the company. These are still mass produced eggs. When you see cage free on an egg carton, don’t get fooled into thinking that they are better quality eggs. This is just marketing at its best trying to get you to buy their eggs. While there may be some farmers or companies that do actually produce a better quality chicken/egg, most are not. As part of the marketing, they raise the price of the egg so that you will think you are paying for more.
Free Range
Free range is a term that can be really confusing. When I read free range on a package, I think of the chickens roaming around a farm yard. Unfortunately that is far from the truth. There are no regulations that are required for a company to put free range onto their packages. So it can can be loosely interpreted, and is. It can mean that the chickens are allowed free range inside of the barn. The same thing as cage free. Some companies will even attach a small outside pen that the chickens can go into. They are set up so that technically the bird does have the ability to go outside. But, because there are so many birds inside of one barn, most of the birds will never know that they can go outside. The corporations really don’t want the chickens to go outside. There would be a larger possibility of something happening to the bird, like a natural predator or unfavorable weather which could cause the bird to become sick. Normally, chickens are very tolerant to weather, but you have to keep in mind that these chickens have spent their entire life in a temperature controlled environment. Suddenly going outside can send their systems into shock. This is just another marketing ploy to make consumers think that they are getting a better product, but are just falling victim to another marketing ploy. Don’t feel bad, I have done the same thing. Again, the companies will raise the price of the egg to make the consumer feel that they are getting a better quality egg, when you aren’t always.
Both the cage free and the free range eggs are basically the same. Their egg shells are typically thinner and their yolks are not the bright almost orange/yellow you want.
Pasture raised
Pasture raised means that the chicken was actually raised in a pasture. Granted, the chicken still has shelter of some sort, but they spend most of their time roaming around outside. This allows the chicken to eat what it wants to eat. This is great if you have a garden, because they will eat all of the bugs that are trying to eat your vegetables. These birds typically are not given any antibiotics, GMO feed, improper protein (to make them grow abnormally fast) or any of the other things that will hurt the quality of the chicken or the eggs (Organic Pasture raised). I am sure that not all “Pasture Raised” eggs/chickens are raised with the same methodology, but the majority are. Some pasture raised farms will keep their chickens on a small 1 acre plot, while others will allow their chickens to roam 5+ acres. The more room the chicken has to roam, usually the better.
Because the chickens aren’t crammed inside a large barn, the farmer can’t have as many chickens. There are other challenges that the farmer has to face like natural predators which will eat their chickens. Long story short, pasture raised eggs are priced higher than any of the others because it costs the farmer more to produce the eggs. You can see that they are a better quality egg when you see the bright yellow yolks.
*Another marketing ploy I have seen is when the company says that the chicken was fed a vegetarian diet. Chickens aren’t vegetarians. Don’t get sucked into this marketing scheme. Chickens love to eat bugs and spiders.
Here is a study from Poultry Science that shows that there is a difference in how the chicken is raised and how that affects the nutritional of the eggs. According to their study, the eggs raised via pasture had a higher fat content as posed to the ones raised in cages. These chickens were fed the same foods, were raised in different environments, and tested throughout their life cycle to see how their environment and age would affect the eggs. They believe that the higher fat content was partly due to the chickens eating bugs and foraging for seeds. There was also a sight increase in the beta-carotene levels in the pasture raised eggs. That can potentially increase the lycopene, lutein, or zeaxanthin, but were not tested in this study. While the study could not conclusively say that there was a large difference in the nutrition of eggs based upon the environment, they did show that there is a difference. One of the big differences is the lack of food additives that are not added to the pasture raised chickens. Those additives you don’t want to be adding to your diet. So even if the nutrition is very similar, the things you don’t want are very different.
In conclusion, don’t worry about the color of the egg shell. In my opinion look for “Organic” and “Pasture raised” to get the best eggs for you and your family. While any of the eggs will have the same nutrients in them, with the commercially produced eggs, you don’t know what else you are getting (GMO, antibiotics, etc.). Go with the food that has the least unknowns.
