Happy World Egg Day

Happy World Egg Day! It was established at the International Egg Commission, Vienna, 1996 conference, which decided to celebrate World Egg Day on the second Friday in October each year.

Eggs are one of nature’s highest quality sources of protein, and indeed contain many of the key ingredients for life. The proteins contained within eggs are highly important in the development of the brain and muscles, have a key role to play in disease prevention, and contribute to general well being.

More Egg Facts

Eggs contain very little saturated fat (1.5 grams per large egg) and no trans fat. A medium egg contains about 63 calories and a large about 74 calories.

The nutrients in eggs can play a role in weight management, muscle strength, healthy pregnancy, brain function, eye health, and more.

Egg yolks are a great source of choline, an essential nutrient. Two eggs provide about 250 milligrams of choline. Choline also aids the brain function by maintaining the structure of brain cell membranes, and is a key component of the neuro-transmitter that helps relay messages from the brain through nerves to the muscles.

Lutein and zeaxanthin, two antioxidants found in egg yolks, help prevent macular degeneration, a leading cause of age-related blindness and may even reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Eggs have the highest nutritional quality protein of all food sources. Protein is a source of energy, but its main role in the body is growth and repair. It helps in the formation of muscles, hair, nails, skin and organs, such as the heart, kidneys and liver.

Vitamins and minerals in eggs include:
Biotin - helps cell metabolism and the utilization of fats, proteins and carbohydrates
Calcium - for building and maintain bones and teeth
Cephalin - a phosphorus-containing lipid found in tissues
Folate - for growth
Iodine - to ensure proper function of the thyroid gland
Iron - to produce hemoglobin, which carries oxygen around our bodies maintenance of healthy cells
Lecithin - contains acetylcholine which has been proven to help brain function
Pantothenic acid (Vitamin B5 ) - releases energy from our food for our body to use
Phosphorous - helps build strong bones and teeth
Selenium - antioxidant that protects our body and immune system
Thiamine - to turn carbohydrates into energy our body can use
Vitamin A (retinal) - for growth and eye health
Vitamin B12 (riboflavin) - for brain and nervous system functions and blood formation
Vitamin D - important in bone health.
Vitamin E - antioxidant to protect our bodies against disease
Zinc - helps in growth, wound healing, blood formation and maintenance of tissues.

Eliminating eggs from your diet because you are concerned about cholesterol is of no value and you lose the dietary benefits. Harvard Medical School and Mayo clinic agree that even though yolks contain cholesterol, very little of it actually makes it into your bloodstream, where it matters.

More Egg Facts

Since it is the day before International Bacon Day, thought it would be appropriate to discuss eggs. Hens lay eggs whether they have mated with a rooster or not. Eggs produced without help from a rooster will never become a chicken. These become our breakfast eggs.

A hen must mate with a rooster in order for her egg to contain both the male and female genetic material necessary to create an embryo inside the egg. An egg laid after mating may or may not become a chicken.

Chickens develop only from eggs that have been incubated (heated). When a fertile egg is incubated under precise, steady temperatures and humidity levels for 21 days, a chick may be developed.

A fertile egg that is never incubated will never contain an embryo and will never look like anything other than common breakfast food. In fact, we all likely have eaten fertilized eggs. There is no harm and we cannot tell the difference between fertilized and unfertilized eggs, unless the fertilized eggs have been properly incubated. There is no difference in look, taste, or nutritional value between fertilized and unfertilized eggs. All foods, including eggs go well with bacon.

More Egg Facts

In modern hen houses, computers control the lighting, which triggers egg laying. Most eggs are laid between 7 and 11 a.m. A hen requires about 24 to 26 hours to produce an egg.

Egg size and grade are not related. Size is determined by weight per dozen. Younger hens tend to lay smaller eggs. The size increases as the hen grows older and bigger. Grade refers to the quality of the shell, white and yolk.

Dates on egg cartons reflect food quality, not food safety. An ‘expiration’ or ‘sell-by’ date on an egg carton tells the grocer to pull the eggs if they haven’t sold by that time. A ‘best-by’ or ‘use-by’ date tells you that your eggs will still be of high quality if you use them by that date.

You can keep fresh, uncooked eggs in the shell, refrigerated in their cartons for at least three weeks after you bring them home, with insignificant quality loss. Properly handled and stored, eggs rarely spoil. If you keep them long enough, eggs are more likely to dry up. Eggs age more in one day at room temperature than they will in one week in the refrigerator.

The chef’s hat, called a toque, is said to have a pleat for each of the many ways you can cook eggs.

Eight More Egg Facts

We all know dinosaurs laid eggs. Ostriches and turkeys also lay eggs, but the ones we eat most often are chicken eggs.
Eggs take about 24 to 26 hours to form inside a hen.
An average hen can lay 250 to 270 eggs per year.
In China, approximately 390 billion eggs are produced a year, while the US produces about 75 billion eggs a year.
An egg shell is made of calcium carbonate and makes up 9-12 percent of an egg's total weight. It contains pores that allow oxygen in and carbon dioxide and moisture out.
The blood sometimes seen in an egg comes from the rupture of small blood vessels in the yolk. It does not indicate the egg is unsafe to eat.
An average person on Earth consumes 173 eggs a year (less than one chicken lays).
The world record for eating hard-boiled eggs is 65 in 6min 40sec, by Sonya Thomas in 2003. She would have eaten more but they ran out of eggs.
Here is the big answer to the big question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. The egg came first, because dinosaurs laid eggs before chickens evolved.

Double Meaning Animals

We do not often think of the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, and we ignore how many times we egg someone on by calling them chicken. Here are a few more ways we use animals in discussions.

Someone tried to buffalo me into this.
She double dog dared me
And hounded me for no good reason.
I knew it was a bunch of bull
And was not sheepish in telling her,
But still, I tried to ferret out some information,
Because I could not weasel out of it.
I also could not worm my way out of it.

I was fishing for how to begin this
Without being a leech or trying to sponge off of anyone.

Too often we wolf down food or just plain pig out.
We feel playful and horse around or monkey around.
When we get caught, it is time to pony up.
Children often ape their parents and may parrot what they say.
When someone gooses you, it is time to duck out, but most often they just do it as a lark.

You probably think it is time for me to clam up, but I am not done yet.
I have a few more squirreled away, just to badger you a bit more.
Luckily there were no moles in the crowd to give away my secrets.

Did you ever notice how some people cat around,
Even the coyote ugly ones.
Of course, I am not a social butterfly.

Quit carping, you know I out foxed you.
I led you down the rabbit hole
And snaked my way through another post.
I did not rat anyone out and am still crowing that I managed to finished this
Even if many think the whole thing is for the birds. (OK, so the egg part was a stretch, but it seemed to work.)

The truth About Egg Yolk Color

Americans eggs tend to have bright yellow yolks, because of what they feed feed the hens. Egg yolk color is almost entirely influenced by its diet. If you feed yellow corn it shows and if you feed birds white corn, the egg yolks are more white. In South America, hens that peck at red annatto seeds lay eggs with yolks ranging from pink to orange to deep reddish.

The yellow color in egg yolks, as well yellowish chicken skin and fat, comes from pigments found in plants.

In most parts of the world, diners prefer their yolks with a bit more color so commercial feeds often contain lutein as an additive, although yellow maize, soybeans, carrots, and alfafa powder will also add the color.

Many egg eaters assume that darker yolks are a sign of higher nutritional value. That is not true. Although chicken feed does influence the nutritional value of birds and their eggs, researchers say yolk color does not tell you anything about nutritional value. When it comes to taste, slap a few eggs next to a huge hunk of bacon and the taste becomes awesome, regardless of yolk color.

Another Egg Face

 I know at least one person has been wondering about which end of the egg comes out first. Not exactly breaking news, but the egg initially moves through the chicken's oviduct small end first. When it reaches the uterus, the shell calcifies, rotates 180 degrees, and moves on big end first. When the muscles of the chicken's uterine and vaginal walls finally contract to squeeze the small end, it helps to expel the egg forward.

New From KFC

It's "Double Down" bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of fried chicken. Even KFC is getting in on the bacon phenomenon. Even calorie conscious Subway has a double bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich.

Egg Fun Facts

The word egg tracks it name back to a prehistoric Indo-European source related to words for bird. The Old English term was oeg, which survived in Middle English as ey, but in the fourteenth century the related egg was borrowed from Old Norse. For a time the two forms competed with each other until the late sixteenth century, when egg won.

Eggs are a good source of protein, vitamin D, vitamin A, riboflavin, folic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, choline, iron, calcium, phosphorus and potassium.

Current studies show most of the cholesterol formed in the human body results from saturated and trans-fats, and not the cholesterol in the egg. Eggs have no trans-fat and only 8% of the daily value for saturated fat.

The color of the egg shell is not related to quality, nutrients, flavor, or cooking characteristics. White shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and white ear lobes. Brown shelled eggs are produced by hens with red feathers and red ear lobes. Brown egg layers usually are slightly larger and require more food, so brown eggs usually cost more than white eggs.

China produces the most eggs, at about 160 billion per year. In the US, about 65 billion eggs per year.

A hen can lay about 250 eggs per year.

There are 150 species of chicken. A rooster is a male, a hen is a female, and they are both chickens.

When a hen lays an egg it will only hatch into a chick if a rooster has fertilized the egg by mating with the hen. The hen and the rooster must mate before the egg is laid in order for the egg to be fertilized. Hens will lay eggs even if a rooster is not present. If you crack a raw egg and there is a red dot inside the egg, that means the egg was fertilized.

A fried egg is golf slang for a ball half-buried in a sand bunker.

Adam and Eve on a raft, and wreck ‘em is diner speak for scrambled eggs on toast.

Eggs Benedict origins can be traced to many sources, but two are most popular.
The most popular legend of the dish's origin says that it originated at Manhattan's famous Delmonico's Restaurant when regular patrons, Mr. and Mrs. LeGrand Benedict, complained that there was nothing new on the lunch menu. Delmonico's maitre d' and Mrs. Benedict began discussing possibilities and eggs Benedict was the result. The second The dish was inspired by Harry Benedict, a customer at the Waldorf Astoria in New York who wanted a meal to help him overcome a hangover.

Eggs Pope Benedict substitutes German pumpernickel bread for the muffin and German bratwurst sausage for the ham. It was created when Benedict the XVI became Pope in 2005.

Omelet come from the French, and Deviled comes from the Ancient Romans.

Souffles do not fall if there is a loud noise. The folklore is not supported by science. The rise and and fall of every souffle is a direct result of temperature. Heat expands the air in the egg whites and coolness deflates it.

Eggs usually can last six to 8 weeks if refrigerated. To find out if eggs are bad, you can always use the "float" test. If they float in salt water, they are bad, or crack one open and the smell will tell.

Human Egg

Here is a picture of a human egg and of sperm trying to invade it. This is an actual photograph of the sperm trying to neutralize the outer yellow protective layer so they can get in. Amazing picture.