Are Eggs Really as Bad for Your Arteries as Cigarettes?
This past weekend, amidst all the Ancestral Health Symposium madness, I caught the headline while flicking through my phone for a few brief seconds. Didn’t open it up, though. Just cruised on past. I’d hoped to just forget about it, to ignore it, to banish it to the back of my mind where half truths and junk studies go to die. And truth be told, I pretty much had forgotten about it until I checked my email to find a ton of frantic emails from readers wondering if their beloved and dependable egg yolk breakfasts were killing them faster than the cigarettes they don’t smoke. What? You didn’t hear?
STUDY: EGG YOLKS ALMOST AS BAD AS SMOKING
Followed by (with less hysterical capitalization) “May increase carotid plaque build-up.”
So what are we looking at here?
We’re looking at a study in which a trio of researchers (two of whom with extensive ties to the statin industry) quizzed a group of middle-aged and elderly stroke patients about their lifelong egg intake and smoking history, making sure to stress the importance of accuracy and honesty in their answers. Yes, you heard me right: they expected people to remember every last egg they ever ate. Still, everyone in the study was assumed to have supernatural memory, so I guess it evens out.
Those who ate the most eggs were the oldest – almost 70 years old on average, compared to the relatively sprightly 55 year-old egg avoiders. It’s pretty well accepted that with age comes the progression of atherosclerosis, a process that takes, well, time to occur. Plaque doesn’t just snap into existence; it develops. All else being equal, the older you get, the more plaque you’ll have.
Those who ate the most eggs also smoked the most and were the most diabetic. To their credit, the authors tried to control for those factors, plus several others. Although they tried to control for sex, blood lipids, blood pressure, smoking, body weight index, and presence of diabetes, the study’s authors didn’t – couldn’t – account for all potentially confounding variables. In their own words, “more research should be done to take in possible confounders such as exercise and waist circumference.” Hmm. “Possible” confounders, eh?
Exercise reduces inflammatory markers of atherosclerosis.
Exercise even reduces markers of atherosclerosis in pre-pubertal obese children!
Exercise reduces thickness of the carotid arterial wall. It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Exercise is a massively confounding variable that the authors failed to take into account.
What about waist circumference?
A high waist circumference predicts atherosclerosis of the carotid artery.
Or how about stress, which also wasn’t considered?
Yeah, it’s not like the size of a person’s waist, whether or not they move of their own volition or sit in an easy chair all day, and how much stress they endure have any impact on their risk of developing atherosclerosis. Those things may be linked, and I’m sure the authors would have loved to include them in their analysis, but there just wasn’t enough space on the questionnaire. Besides, it’s not like a little physical activity and mediation could even undo the damage wrought by 4.68 sinful egg yolks per week. Why, that’s nearly a half dozen!
Seriously, though, the subjects were all stroke patients who’d lived to tell the tale. They’d been in contact with the medical community (you generally don’t just shake off a stroke without medical attention), who no doubt gave them the standard required advice to prevent another event, which includes “a reduction in saturated fat and cholesterol intake…and a boost in physical activity.” Since the egg-eaters obviously didn’t listen to their doctors’ recommendations to cut back on cholesterol intake, I’d wager they treated the exercise recommendations with similar levels of disdain. What do you think?
Here’s what I think: this is an observational study whose already limited worth depends entirely on the memory of an inherently fallible creature being infallible. As such, it cannot assign causality, contrary to what the media (“Egg Yolks Can Quicken Hardening of the Arteries“) and authors (“It has been known for a long time that a high cholesterol intake increases the risk of cardiovascular events”) say. Furthermore, why single out egg yolks? I mean, I get it – the authors sort of have a vendetta against eggs – but what about other foods? Were those even analyzed or asked about? What about the stuff that people generally eat with eggs, like pancakes and vegetable oils, or the foods that contain egg yolks, like baked goods and mayonnaise? For all we know, egg yolk intake could have been a marker for eating garbage; most people aren’t tossing raw yolks into post-workout shakes, gently poaching eggs with coconut vinegar, or horrifying co-workers with a bag full of hard-boiled eggs like we Primals are wont to do. They’re getting Grand Slams at Denny’s, eating bologna sandwiches with mayo on white bread, and overcooking scrambled eggs in canola oil until they’re rubber.
For fun, though, let’s look at what some other studies have found with regards to the artery-clogging capabilities of whole eggs:
Egg consumption and endothelial function: a randomized controlled crossover trial. Two eggs daily did not impair endothelial function (the flow of blood through the arteries), nor did it increase total or LDL cholesterol. Overall, eating two eggs a day elicited no change in cardiovascular health when compared to eating oatmeal (a cardiologist’s pride and joy).
Daily egg consumption in hyperlipidemic adults – effects on endothelial function and cardiovascular risk. In patients with high cholesterol, eating several hard-boiled eggs a day had no effect on endothelial function.
Effect of a high-saturated fat and no-starch diet on serum lipid subfractions in patients with documented atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Obese patients with heart disease ate lots of saturated fat, zero starch (including zero grains – sound familiar?), and tons of vegetables, and saw massive weight loss without any negative effects on their blood lipids. Once upon a time, I had access to the full study (it was freely available at the website for the Mayo Clinic, who’s since taken it down…wonder why), and I remember seeing that they ate three or four eggs a day. If egg yolks were bad for all heart disease patients, these guys would have felt the effects.
Okay, despite all those confounders and other egg studies that support yolks as harmless and the fact that this was merely an observational study without the power to assign causation and whose authors failed to even propose a potential mechanism of action, let’s entertain the notion that something was going on with this population of egg eaters. What if the egg yolks did have something to do with the atherosclerosis?
In a previous post on “Human Interference Factor,” I highlighted a study showing hens given an unnatural industry-standard diet high in omega-6 containing grains (soy and corn) produce less healthful eggs than hens on a more natural diet of grains lower in omega-6 with supplementary antioxidants. When subjects ate two of the soy/corn-fed eggs a day, which were high in omega-6 fats, their oxidized LDL levels were increased by 40%. Subjects who ate two of the other eggs each day, which were low in omega-6 fats, had normal levels of oxidized LDL (comparable to subjects in the control group, who consumed between two and four eggs a week). Since the oxidation of LDL particles is strongly hypothesized to be a crucial causative factor in atherosclerosis, it’s conceivable that eating normal, industrial eggs could have a negative effect on carotid plaque.
Anyway, what are the takeaways here?
Exercise, practice stress reduction, and get your waist circumference checked.
Don’t smoke.
Don’t age.
Don’t pay too much attention to ridiculous observational studies (this is part of stress reduction).
Oh, yeah – eat egg yolks, and lots of them. Doubly so if you’re low-carb (remember the starch/grain-free high-egg diet referenced above). Make ‘em pastured, if possible, or at least from hens that ate something besides soy and corn. They’re more nutritious and probably “safer” than industrial eggs.
(In retrospect, that mention of the authors’ ties to the pharmaceutical industry was a low blow. After all, I myself am a direct benefactor of my local pastured egg industry; they pay me in delicious golden yolks.)
I hope you found this post helpful. Have at it in the comments.
Get the Primal Blueprint Fitness eBook, Free Health Tips and Primal Recipes Delivered to Your Inbox
Posted By: Mark Sisson
I saw this headline too yesterday and the reading on my bullsh*t-o-meter went sky high.
If our education system was geared more towards critical thinking we wouldn’t have this kind of mass hysteria when it comes to the latest ‘research’ on demonised foods.
Exactly. I always emphasize the lack of critical thinking as a key enabler of the tabloid style “health press”.
Exactly.
+1 to critical thinking!!!
Husband is eating 1 egg with no-nitrate sausage patty every day plus no more bread or pasta and lost 15lbs in five weeks. I can`t eat eggs but went no carb and lost 8 in weeks. He at 72 weighs l64 and I at 70, weigh 135 and we feel great! Thanks Mark!
When I hear statements like that I always think, “Follow the money”. Someone has an interest.
While this article is not directly about health it is about critical thinking. I love it — very well written. I make all my students in my health and strength & conditioning course read this early in the semester.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/field_guide_to_critical_thinking/
I checked out your link- fabulous! Thanks!
Thanks Tony. This is a great article.
The article on critical thinking is good. However he has not applied the technique to intelligent design. This is not a comment from me to raise a hot subject, but just to say one has to be consistent..
I don’t care what they say, I will continue to love my bacon and eggs.
I had a great-uncle who ate 3 eggs and 5 strips for breakfast every day of his adult life. He lived well into his 90′s and the only thing wrong with him, to my knowledge, was that he was slightly hard of hearing. He didn’t believe in doctors or drugs, which probably helped considerably.
BTW, didn’t we go through this egg nonsense about 15 years ago? The “Egg Police” just won’t give up.
Well there you go, next week you’ll probably see another study about how eggs cause deafness, and how statins cure it.
I agree! My grandfather lived to be 96. He ate eggs almost every day of his life. He did not smoke and he did not drink alcohol. He loved strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, and tomatoes, which all grew well in his back yard in Oregon. He went for a short walk every morning, and that’s all he did for exercise.
My grandmother, on the other hand, was a health nut and ate granola, whole wheat bread, bran muffins, etc. and ended up dying at 73.
methinks that the mere mention of the honorable field of epidemiology will send my BS meter a flickin forevermore…
Epidemiology isn’t all bad. It really started for infectious diseases, but that is much less of a problem in the developed world these days, so you know, they need something to do.
Thank you! Don’t discredit the whole field of epidemiology because these long-term retrospective studies are drowning in confounders. And there certainly ARE infectious disease epis in the developed world with plenty to do, thankyouverymuch
(Rabies, EEE, WNV, Lyme, e. coli/sal/shigella, HIV, TB, STIs, hepatitis A/B/C, MMR, meningitis, flu, varicella, pertussis, to name a couple!)
Meth inks? Is that like bath salts? Where can I find it?
I agree. I get tired of the daily demonized list of foods with dubious at best testing.
Yeah exactly. I’d like Mark to do an article on his ideas regarding public and private schooling versus homeschooling. Does the Primal lifestyle have anything to say regarding this debate?
Do you know Peter Gray at his blog Freedom to learn?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn
+1 Can I get some bullshit alert up in here? I hate that this is a headline in big news
It’s complete irresponsible nonsense and why the fat dude in the car next to me yesterday thinks the way I eat is crazy. He’ll by anything that CNN and Chik-fil-awful sell him. Replace that egg yolk with a whole grain muffin!
I agree. Although people still tend to only critically think within the realms of their current belief system. Your “bullshit” meter naturally went sky high because this study did not fit to your, i am guessing, stubbornly unmoving belief.
I am not a scientist although i am studying to become a doctor and i really feel unqualified to make judgements on a lot of the information that is out there.
By the way, I ate eggs for breakfast this morning, like i do every morning.
That’s part of why paleo is so good imo. It lets you make reasonable assumptions about food.
If our education system were geared more toward critical thinking, we wouldn’t have schools in their current form anymore.
The entire K-12 system, public and private, is predicated upon the teacher dispensing knowledge and the kids shutting up, sitting down, and taking it.
They couldn’t run a K-12 system in the present style that encouraged critical thinking. That would require *talking* and *interaction,* much like the old Greek philosopher schools.
The nation’s economy would fall apart, too. Most of it’s predicated on people buying crap they don’t need. They have to be divested of their critical thinking skills (if they have any) before they will do that.
So, until enough people realize this, I guess we’re stuck.
had some this morning – loved it
Had my two hard boiled eggs from pasture raised chickens!
They were YUMMY and way better for me than the cereal I used to eat for breakfast!
haha yea i have two, sometimes three every morning
If anything, this “study” convinced me that I should eat 4 eggs every day instead of the usual 1-2.
Of course that will get boring, so I’ll be sure to add tons of bacon some days, sausages, other days etc.
Oh boy… my eleven-year-old son heard this on TV (lesson: get rid of said TV) and now I’m fighting with him to eat his eggs every morning.
Too bad kids don’t hear the headlines about how bad sugar is!
Or “see” the harmful way sugar is harvested (here on Maui anyway!) It is a horror to wake with the smell of burning cane and see the sun obstructed by smoke (day after day, year in and year out).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fatniu/4633965061/
Just show him a picture of Mark Sisson and tell him this is what “old men” who eat a lot of eggs look like.
Ha ha! I love that!
+1!
i am 53yo mail, i consume an average of 5 eggs a day for the last 2 years. 3 raw eggs in the morning ang 2 fried eggs with dinner.
My bp is 120/80, i have high hdl count and low ldl count. And i am 5’6″ 146 lbs.
Now, i can’t understand how eggs can be bad for me.
Use this as a teachable moment on junk science and critical thinking. That’s what I do when my boys and I are watching the news and studies make the news. We break down what they are saying in the report and talk about why it’s right or wrong.
I am constantly arguing with my parents about this. They are convinced 150% that eggs are BAD for them because of the cholesterol in the yolks. That they add the english muffin, the jelly, margarine, and “bad” bacon (you know, the pre-cooked microwave-ready sh^&) doesn’t help!
I love eggs on my bison-burgers with nutbutter. WOAH, awesome.
Thanks for the information. There have been so many egg scares in the UK i just ignored it and continued to have my 2 eggs for breakfast. However it is always good to see the rational arguement for when some well meaning person comments on my eating habits.
Annoys me that as usual they are slagging off and probably putting off a lot of people from eating a natural product rather than all the processed, man made food with chemical additives .
I used to have sugar for breakfast daily in the form of various cold breakfast cereals — you know “a delicious part of a healthy breakfast.” Since I gave up the garbage I have been eating delicious eggs cooked in coconut oil and butter for breakfast. I have never felt better or more energized in my life. I have also lost 8 pounds and completely gotten off the ADD medication I had been on for years. Don’t anybody try to take away my eggs!
I love reading about people no longer needing their medication! Good for you!
Out of curiosity, have you had your total cholesterol checked since you made this change to your diet? I made a similar change and my cholesterol went from the 180′s to 417. Just curious if other people have experienced this increase, too. (And congrats on getting off of your ADD medication…that’s huge!)
I don’t have my actual numbers in front of me, but all of my blood markers have improved from eating primally, including cholesterol. I’m in my 4th month of pregnancy and when my blood results came back a month ago, my midwife said she’d never seen numbers so good. I eat eggs most mornings, include them in many recipes, and definitely get more cholesterol and saturated fat than I did when I ate SAD.
Everyone’s body is different, but I’d try and give it a bit of time to see if you even out a bit.
180 to 417 sounds like a steep increase. Would you care sharing specific numbers including HDL LDL Tryglcyerides and Cholesterol Ratio (Total Cholesterol Divided by HDL). Also were you cholesterol tests close enough to show that the eggs had a direct causation.
My husband and I have been seriously primal for about three months now and, as he is type 2 diabetic, he went for his diabetic assessment a couple of weeks ago. His doctor and diabetic nurse were delighted with the fact that he had lost weight and his cholesterol and blood sugar levels were within normal levels. They said that whatever he was doing he was doing it right and to keep on doing it. Of course he told them about MDA. Here’s hoping that they log on and learn something. My Husband is 70 years old and says that he feels better than he has done for years.
I forgot to say that we have at least 2 eggs per day.
Have your thyroid level checked: TSH, free t4 and t3 (this is the one that can mess up the LDL).
Oh, yeah. My cholesterol numbers were “bad” before I started on thyroid medicine (high total and LDL and low HDL) but it took me awhile to realize the improvements were due to the thyroid medicine, not any diet changes (this was early in my health improvement seeking). I am now just under 200 for total and my LDL looks high but I had the test to look at how fluffy or dense my LDL was and it was very fluffy (after serious Paleo for 6 months) so I have no worries.
My numbers also went up, but I asked my Dr. for copies of my last 4 years of blood test results. What’s interesting is that even though my Total Cholesterol is up (from about 220 to 280) my ratios of HDL:Total is up from 0.19 to 0.21 (over 0.24 is ideal) and my Triglicerides:HDL is down from 3.4 to 1.74 (less than 2 is ideal). I have 2 eggs for breakfast every day, I only have full fat dairy (mostly yogurt). My weight is down about 10 lbs and my body fat is less than 16%. Here’s a good link to ideal ratios.
http://www.yourmedicaldetective.com/public/523.cfm
The simple and easiest way to lower cholesterol is with tincture of Cayenne.
Take a wide mouth fruit jar fill it a quarter full with 300,000 Scoville units of cayenne pepper. Fill it with 100 proof Vodka and seal it. Start this on a new moon and end it on a new moon. A Scoville unit is one glass of water. To cool your mouth from the cayenne pepper I am recommending would take 300,000 glasses of water. But a glass of milk can do the same thing. Or you can take a drink of Vodka, Tequila, Whiskey, or Bourbon will work also.
Shake it every day to get the cayenne pepper soaking into the Vodka.
At the end of the process strain it through a good small mesh cloth so none of the pepper comes through and only the tincture.
Fill 1 ounce bottles with a stopper in them and filter the tincture into the bottles.
You are done with that part.
Now once a day take a half of a stopper of the tincture and put it under your tongue. It will burn like hell for about 5 minutes your eyes will cross but soon all will be ok.
Your cholesterol will drop out of site. I scared my doc and kind of pissed him off when I told him what I did to lower my cholesterol. Screw him it works.
Now this tincture will help heal your heart and if you are having a heart attack, not a total terminal one but a mild heart attack with a minimal amount of pain have your wife give you a dose of the tincture. Your pain will stop in about 10 seconds and then go to the ER to get checked out. Take the tincture with you as well. You might need another dose on the way.
Also I use it to stop bleeding from wounds it takes about 5 minutes but will stop the bleeding. Most wounds this will work on except those that require a hundred stitches or your wife hits you with an ax.
Warning this stuff is hot and it is not comfortable to take and you need lots of nerve to do it, but it is good for ya.
Leave it in your upper mouth for at least 5 minutes before you try to wash it away. This stuff goes straight to your blood stream and you get kind of a neat feeling from it once is stops burning. You can buy it at health food stores.
Cheritino
@Cheritino who didn’t have a reply button on their post – that sounds quite “woo” to me. Why start it on a new moon? Does the phase of the moon affect some quality of cayenne we don’t know about? I’m all for booze and hot pepper, but this sounds like BS to me.
My husband had the exact same thing happen to him (180 to 350). He’s a doctor, by the way, and still isn’t sure what to make of it. He says he’s in uncharted territory. He says he feels better than ever and is very thin at 6’0 and 160 lbs. He has chosen to focus on his trig’s (50) and his HDL (around 75). This gives an extremely low trig/hdl ratio – which many believe is the best predictor of cardiovascular disease. Also he did a detailed work-up to to check the size of his LDL particles (small very bad/ large good) and checked his cardio C-reactive protein which was also extremely low. He had decided to stay paleo (and VERY low carb) and remain a little bit of a guinea pig. If you feel completely freaked out, you can always get on a statin. By the way his cholesterol did drop by 50 when he eliminated cream from his diet (he was eating/drinking a lot of it). He is now very strict paleo and doesn’t consume dairy – he also doesn’t consume fruit (fructose can increase trig’s). Good luck with it!!
I would never get on a statin. I don’t have familial hypercholesterolemia and even if I did, it’s funny but all I ever hear about those people is that they are “at greater risk” for heart attack, not that they demonstrably have more of them.
And really, there’s no other reason to get on a statin. Every cell in my body makes cholesterol. If it were going to kill me it’d have done it by now.
I think Nina Plack in her book “Real Food” mentions that cholesterol numbers is not a sign of plaque build up, necessarily. Blood cholesterol is necessary to repair veins and keep them healthy, and so a high number on a healthy diet might mean that the veins are being repaired, whereas a high number on an unhealthy diet means that your body isn’t able to repair itself fast enough, or that the cholesterol your body is producing isn’t effective. I don’t have the book anymore, so I can’t look it up again, sorry. But that’s what I seem to remember. Might be worth investigating.
That’s what I thought too.
You and my son are proof that ADD and ADHD are probably due to grain/food sensativities. He was really sick with severe diarhea and blood in his stools and one of the things the doctor mentioned was Celiac. We had a wait before we could see the specialist and decided to “treat” him for Celiac and removed all grains from his diet. Voila! In days he was feeling better and in 1 1/2 weeks he told me he could sit in class and focus. I am glad that we didn’t put him on the ADHD meds as was suggested. For myself, I follow the same diet – he and I share most of the same allergies – and I cannot express how much better I feel. I eat three eggs every morning and sometimes have bacon or sausage – nothing with sugar. Haven’t had my cholesterol checked, but my blood pressure went from 158/98 down to 130/85 just by eliminating grains.
The pressure to publish and make money seems to be outweighing the pressure to do honest research. Besides, there are all kinds of ways to statistically “control” for variables. I took stats, and the whole process seemed a little fishy and could seemingly be used to show results when in fact none exist.
I’d like to simply blame the media for such sensationalized reporting, but sadly, it’s the “scientists” who should know how science actually works and write their study results with more accountability and less guesswork on causality.
Why don’t we call it a tie and give them both the award? Wait… make that a three-way-tie and give it to the people who believe everything they hear or read.
Looks like the “High Saturated Fat, low Starch” study is still available in full: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62710-9/fulltext
2 to 4 eggs per day! I like it.
I’m a doctor and this stuff pisses me off. (Although not too much because I’m trying to reduce stress levels). The authors never address the fact that the non-egg eaters actually got strokes several years earlier than the egg eaters.
Loved the line about horrifying co-workers with a bag of hard boiled eggs…such a bag is sitting on my desk at the moment!
… i’m calling the AMA as i write this – Dr., please type in your full name and address…..
Great point. The headline could have read “Eggs yolks prevent strokes,” with the same amount of data to back it up.
I guess the two worst words in the medical profession are “prevent” and “cure.” No money in either.
Data can be skewed to basically show anything we want it to.
This is why critical thinking is so important. It’s not about what the study finds as much as it is about “does this make sense given the way the study was conducted?”
Same with the myth that Asian people are always healthy because they eat less animal than we do.
First off, they’re not always healthy.
Second off, when given a choice, they will always eat animal (unless deliberately following a vegetarian diet), even if it’s from the sea.
Third off, they may not have the heart attack rates Americans do (and I’m talking Asians in Asia here), but their stroke rate, particularly in China, puts us to… shame? Probably not a good term for it.
I’ve lost three grandparents to strokes. I’d rather have the heart attack. At least if I survive it I will still have my mental function.
I’ve been trying to eat more pastured eggs from local sources (usually bought at farmers markets), but they are fairly pricey. Just curious as to what others are paying for pastured eggs around the country. $6-7/dozen is not uncommon here (Denver).
Brutal! We are really lucky here…I get them delivered to my front porch every Tuesday for $3. Some kids in the next town over (we are fairly rural) started a little business. Their poor mom drives them all over for deliveries, but talk about instilling a good work ethic early on!!
I can get them in Madison, WI area from farms for about $2-$3/dozen (and of course way more at a grocery store). But I usually have my dad deliver me 12 dozen from farms near him in north-central WI and then they are only $1.25/dozen. (I know, I am spoiled!)
I’m from Milwuakee, WI and I get them at farmers markets for $2-3/dozen or a woman at work who’s husband is a farmer brings me a dozen for $1.50
@Marie – I am in the Milwaukee area as well. Went primal about 2 months ago and I am loving it! Hardest part is finding quality food at a decent price. Would love some tips!
$8 a dozen! But man oh man, are they delicious. I didn’t much like eggs before, but now I crave them. These eggs have beautiful, dark-orange yolks and taste wonderfully rich.
Sorry, $3/doz
I pay $6-7 too in Ohio, but the eggs I get are certified humane and pastured and I am willing to pay for that. I used to be sensitive to eggs…they would upset my stomach. Now that I eat pastured eggs I’m fine with them. I really think it has a lot to do with what the hens eat and also how they are treated (low stress for them is good too!).
“Certified humane.” I don’t take someone else’s word – I met the hens instead!
$6 for a dozen – ouch! I’m near Cleveland, (Strongsville) and buy $3/doz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2LBICPEK6w
Just a little humor from Fred Armison for those who don’t mind a little poke in the ribs.
If you’re near Cleveland, I know of a couple small farms (houses with a fence and chickens running around the yard) on the west side that sell them for $2-2.50 a dozen.
Hi Josh,
I travel up to the near west side of Cleveland every so often (near W. 25th by the West Side Market). Could you share some of the locations of the small farms that have eggs for sale? (Price is less a concern than the real McCoy eggs from free range chickens). Thanks in advance for any info you may have on this.
Sincerely,
Tom
I had the same problem with egg sensitivity in the past but ever since I have switched to a grain reduced diet (I cheat every now and then) and pastured eggs the problem no longer exists!
If you pay more than $2.00 a dozen for any type of egg you really are getting ripped off. There is no difference between a brown egg and a white egg. It costs the farmer less to range feed hens than it does to have them eat from a hanging feeder.
But the Sheeple will pay any price the Butcher wants to charge.
Eggs and Bacon is good for you but you have to watch where you buy those things. The stores right now are really ripping people off, by putting Gluten in hamburger and other chemicals we don’t know about so they can make a bigger profit. Years ago they put glycerin in hamburger to make it a more red color. Big brother stopped that and rightly so.
Monsanto has ruined our food supply and garden planting activities. You can not find an orginal seed today that has not be biogenetically engineered and Monsanto owns the seeds that come from the vegeatable you planted so it is illegal if you use those seeds the following year.
Those white liners in some of the soup cans are loaded with chemicals.
Have fun kids, watch what you buy and where you buy it. Some of that stuff can kill ya.
Cheritino
Hmmmm, in Denver and I have 60 hens fed on soy-free corn-free organic feed. They also pasture but my hens eat .25 lbs of grain/day. .54/pound, I sell the eggs for $4/dozen. I barely break even and supply my kiddos with healthy eggs weekly. Plus I deliver, agggghhhh the gas, the time. But my customers LOVE them and know we love our chickens and watch what they eat. Remember when you do the math, chickens lay six eggs a week (they sabbath) and we raised them from day-olds, they didn’t start laying until 6 months old, then another 2 months before the eggs were full-sized. No money in eggs, just love.
Add organic free range eggs for a healthy diet, and don’t listen to the MEDIA!!
Hmmm I think there may be something to what you said! I, too, am egg sensitive so much that I consider myself to have an egg intolerance (I can eat MAYBE 1 egg a week). Perhaps we need to invest in pasture raised. I love eggs so much!
I get my eggs from Grant Family Farms’ CSA. Ebert Farms also has eggs you can get weekly. Both are about $4.50/dozen. For Grant Farms you have to sign up for a season. Ebert you can do by week. You can do both through Farmigo.com.
Thanks Julie! I just talked to the folks at Grant Family Farms this weekend at the Denver County Fair. I’m very impressed with their operation and their meats and produce (several area restaurants use them as a source), but the whole CSA thing has always been a little daunting. If they have a service for just eggs, that would be great. I’ll also check out farmigo.com
I just signed up for eggs through the Grant Farms CSA (live in Longmont), but I really don’t understand why the yolks have so little color to them if these chickens are outside eating grass and bugs. i have to say I am a bit disappointed. Maybe I was just spoiled by the eggs I used to get (from a friend who just moved away, boo)
I get mine for $3/doz from some backyard hobbyists. The chickens have a nice pen and roam around the yard eating grass and bugs during the day. Their scratchings are supplemented with organic feed. I probably use a gallon of gas driving to their house to get them, but I buy 3 or 4 dozen at a time.
Oops, forgot to mention that I’m in suburbs outside of Boston.
Here in North Texas, the going rate is $5 / doz at the farmer’s markets. At Whole Foods, I can buy Jeremiah Cunningham’s pastured soy free eggs for $6.50 / doz and Vital Farms pastured eggs for $6 / doz.
i’m from the DFW area and I get mine from Goose Lake Ranch in Farmersville, TX. Price is $4.00 for 18 so 1 dozen would be $2.66. They welcome visitors and you get to see the operation first hand. They are truly pasture raised chickens and have tons of space to roam. They also have a several tyoes of chickens and some of them lay green eggs! (Just the shell not the yolk) Definately worth checking out and the taste and price make the drive worth while.
I’m in North Texas and I get my pastured eggs from Circle N Dairy in Gainsville for $3.50/dozen. I buy 3 dz at a time when I get my raw milk and cream.
$4 in Ohio for pastured eggs.
I get my eggs from the local Amish woman and pay $1.90 a dozen. Her chickens free range and the yolks are a nice deep yellow. very tasty.
$7/dozen for pastured eggs in Santa Cruz, CA. Worth every penny.
Oh my…here in NY in the country we pay like $2-$3 a doz for farm eggs. I in
fact have 4 duks and eat the eggs every
single day – cept in Fall & winter they stop. Get you a couple of female duks who will lay 2 eggs a day. EASY to have.
Duks are very hardy and even stay outside in the worst weather. They won’t go in their coop in winter. They seem to love the snow and cold. Let em
graze in spring,summer & fall. Make sure you give em layers mash with the cracked corn. Two duks will be cheap to raise. Get em a kiddy pool too. Watch out tho for possums stealing the eggs.
They lay in early morning hrs.
Forgot to say that duks and chickens need grit/tiny gravel to digest their food and oyster shell for calcium or the shells will be weak and soft. Cheap.
Oh, and in the hot summer duks will shed their feathers and you will get beautiful feathers to give away. I like the big white Pekin duks – they “talk” a
lot and are SO funny. Don’t overcook the whites or they get rubbery. Best way is to poach em…yummy!
I go to sleep early and so i don’t collect the eggs in the real early morning hrs -sometimes a possum eats them…so i’ve been leaving scraps of food and a STORE egg on the porch for the possum – he eats there every nite,but he STILL eats the duk eggs! He must be very fat! I just hope it’s not a
female cuz if i get more i will have to
catch and release FAR away. I sometimes
see him eating with the cats outa the dry food bowl too….AND now he learned how to go in the cellar, climb the cellar stairs and eat the dry cat food
too. So i don’t leave food there anymore. I don’t wanna be locking him in the cellar for the winter! He’s so cute tho – has 5 little fingers and
VERY needle sharp teeth!! I even took pics.
Here in the Twin Cities, they run $3-5, depending on size, at both the market and the grocery store.
Houston Texas 3-5 $/dz depending on the size.
I have my own chickens and they are low maintenance and the eggs are yummy. I have had them for two years now, bought them for $5 each and now pay $15 a bag for food that lasts about a month. I think it is a good investment
I have my own chooks as well. We are rural, and they free range with alpacas to protect them from foxes. We have one that gets into the garden each day and taps on the front door for the scoop of scratch mix I give them a day in addition to their pellets, and whatever bugs and grass they eat. In Australia it is ok to have chooks in the ‘burbs, but some councils don’t allow roosters for their antisocial crowing, so why not consider raising a few chooks. They are easy, rewarding and they reward you with delicious eggs. Occasionally we have a glut and the eggs make a meaningful gift. We never cull chooks they retire gracefully, scratching around keeping the newbies in line. We just lost a bantum that was over 8 years old! Have a go!
Cheers
I now have my own flock to but they are only 20 weeks old. Should start producing in the next few weeks. My grandparents ate eggs, pork, real butter and cream every morning for breakfast and lived into their 90s. I eat 2 eggs every morning.
I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan and pay $6.00 for pasture raised eggs. The farmer supplements the hens diet with organic feed containing soy and corn. I pay $7.00 for all organic, pastured eggs that also get supplemental feed that only contains organic greens and fish meal. Also, I occasionally buy “ethical eggs” at Whole Foods that are from pastured hens and they run $6.00. Sounds like that is the going rate, and I don’t mind paying it. I am now raising chickens for eggs in my backyard and expect that after factoring in all the costs of building the coop, feed, and general upkeep, a dozen eggs from my own hens will run me about $50/dozen for the first couple of years!
But, I know what they ate and that they are happy!
I have a farmer friend who sells me her free range chicken eggs for $1 a dozen. She also has duck eggs that she gives me for free. I can tell that they are healthy chickens; the eggs are a nice rich orange color, much darker then the Meijer organic eggs that I buy occasionally for back up. I eat four whole eggs a day fried in ghee and I am a lean 23 year old female. OMG the fat is making me so fat! lol
I’m in TX, and a friend of mine sells pastured eggs for $3.50 a doz.
I pay about $3.50/dz at a Mennonite farm store, that is actually on the farm where the chickens are kept.
Each Wednesday I pickup 3 dozen eggs with my raw goat milk from my local health food store (their role is purely as facilitator). I pay $3 per dozen for the eggs and $35 a month for a gallon of milk per week (after my initial share purchase on the herd of goats).
count yourselves lucky at paying $6 for a dozen eggs! I have seen organic, free-range eggs here in Melbourne, Australia for $20/dozen! I, luckily, have found some for around $9.50/doz. Still worth it for me, even though we eat around 3 dozen eggs a week (family of 3).
People pay $3 to $4 a dozen here in rural California.
We can get local eggs that get some feed (probably GM corn and soy) for about 3-$4 and I can get eggs that get no corn or soy and if so its organic for 5-$7 a dozen depending on the place. I live in MD. It is steep but you gotta do what you gotta do. I just watched a video on Dr. Mercolas website of an interview with Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm and Dr. Mercola said that people used to spend about 35% of their income on food and now they only spend 10%. I honestly think we spend even more than 35% but you really get what you pay for.
i live in MD too and pay 350-4 for pastured eggs
$3.25 to $4
Thanks for addressing this Mark!!
We pay $6-7 here in the bay area
I get soy/corn free pastured chicken eggs for 3.50 a dozen in Vegas.
Ever crack a store bought egg and comapare the yolks with that of a pastured TRUE free range chicken—amazing the color difference in the yolks!
I pay about $4.50 – $5.00 depending on the vendor selling the eggs. One of the vendors told me he just got a bunch of young hens to replace the old ones. He said they produce smaller eggs, so until they get bigger, he will be reducing his price from $5,00 a dozen to $4.00. I’ll take it!
In Homer, Alaska, I was paying ~$9 for an 18 pack of pastured chicken eggs, and ~$6 for a dozen pastured duck eggs. Here in Cordova, Alaska, I can only get store-bought ones, so I went for the Omega-3 enriched 18 pack and it was ~$7.50 (if I remember correctly).
In Baltimore I can get them at farmers markets for $4-$4.50 but more like $6 at stores. One problem I’ve noticed at farmers markers is I occasionally get fertilized eggs… one or two in a dozen may be bloody and this can be a huge buzz kill as the fourth egg in a pan at 7 am on a Monday. Anyone know how to avoid this? Pretty sure properly handled eggs from “coed” farms shouldn’t have this problem .
The red spots in occasional eggs are called “meat spots” or “inclusions” and there’s no connection between meat spots and whether or not the egg is fertilized. Some individual hens are more prone to them, and they crop up when a hen has been stressed (even something like a barking dog or a hawk flying over can stress them out), but it has nothing to do with whether there’s a rooster about. The way to avoid it – and many other ways that eggs can be gross – is to always crack your eggs into a small bowl one at a time before adding them to whatever you’re cooking. It takes a second to get into the habit, but it used to be the hands-down standard when most people cooked at home.
They don’t show up as often in industrial eggs because large production houses usually subject the eggs to very bright infrared light (called “candling”)and cull the eggs with visible meat spots. I repeat, not a feature of fertilized eggs, just a thing that happens with eggs. Crack them into a small bowl and use a piece of the shell to cut any meat spots out of the white and compost them.
I get them for $5 a dozen, here in Atlanta.
…in other news, the interweb is now available in other countries outside whatever country Denver is in.
$3-$4 mostly here in northern california (sonoma county), but on occasion you can find them as low as $2.50.
Its amazing the conclusions people come to, and how most just assume its all sound information! This goes right along with the lecture by Denise Minger I watched the other day (not sure if it was from last years AHS or this years) titled How To Win an Argument with a Vegetarian. Heaven forbid it be all the junk food people eat, it MUST be the fat, red meat, and now apparently egg yolks. Oh well, more for me.
i’ve learned my lesson – like the end of the movie “War Games” – the way to win an argument with a vegetarian is not to start one (with all due respect and admiration for Denise..)
I totally agree…I’m starting to learn to keep my mouth shut. The latest thing that cracked me up was someone telling me how she’d been reading stuff from McDougall and the starch solution, and how it ‘just makes sense’. I just nodded and ate my chicken grape curry salad, and watched her eat pepperoni pizza. She’s obviously REALLY into the starch solution.
Along with this, the book, “The Great Cholesterol Con” by Malcolm Kendrick (UK), is a great read. He methodically goes through ALL of the studies, at least those that are available and not kept hidden by the big pharma statin companies and debunks ALL of their arguments, methodically, one by one. The biggest cause of plaque build-up? (according to his conclusions) STRESS! One of the cofounders IGNORED in this so called study…
Oh sh!t! I eat four eggs/day for breakfast, not just per week. I guess according to them I will be dead in……..
1989.
I like me my Sunday morning cigar with coffee.
and eggs?
eggs and bacon first.
Duck bacon is amazing!
The full article you reference is still on the Mayo Clinic site. http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62710-9/fulltext
They may have changed the URL from what you had bookmarked.
Thanks very much for tackling this subject, today. I saw the headline this morning (while eating my eggs) and hoped you’d have something to say. The fear-mongering aspect of the article is really disheartening.
Thanks for addressing this Mark!!
Wow… this study has so many flaws. What a debacle.
Enjoyed reading this while enjoying my breakfast: coffee with heavy cream, hard boiled egg, whole milk yogurt. (read: Not phased but bad research)
That’s my breakfast, too! But I usually soft-boil or easyover the egg and put blueberries and coconut oil in my yogurt, which I make from grass-fed whole milk.
I started paleo/primal in April and within a month had healed the soft tissue damage that had persisted for almost four years from being hit by a truck while on my bike (he went through a stop sign). At last I am free of chronic pain, can exercise vigorously, and even ride my bike again! Alleluia! And my doctor literally jumped up and down with excitement when she heard about it. And she approved my taking myself off statins. Now she wants my help to put together a packet of info for all her patients.
Wow…Let’s try and clone your Doc! Or at least try to get her involved with the low-carb/Paleo/Primal universe…
Nutritional “science,” in brief.
1. Begin with conclusion. “Eggs are bad.”
2. Rationalizae with flimsy correlational study.
3. Publish.
4. Chuckle as media froth over conclusions like rats on crack.
“…Like rats on crack.” What an image!
“…like rats on crack.”
+1
Rats prefer sugar to cocaine, so “rats on sugar!”
You know, I like a good exposé of sinister moneyed interests concealing inconvenient truths as well as anybody…but I found the full text of that Mayo Clinic study (“Effect of a high-saturated fat and no-starch diet on serum lipid subfractions…”) in about 30 seconds of Googling:
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196%2811%2962710-9/fulltext
PDF format also available.
The full study you were looking for
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62710-9/fulltext
More for me!
What a crock o’ crap. I’m very fortunate to have a doc who says “Heard of Paleo? Eat that way” LOL. I was already on the wagon but it nudged hubby to hop aboard. We eat lots of pastured eggs and our blood lipids are fabulous. Gotta love these so called “scientific studies”. It’s just like presenting numbers, you can adjust them to tell just about any story you want to tell at the time.
Kat – where are you!!!!! I am jealous
And another smart M.D. Wish I had one up here in Alaska (hint, hint!)
I saw this on the news a couple days ago. It’s crazy how now-a-days they try to make something like eggs unhealthy but they are still saying eat this is has 50% less salt. There is Salt still in it isn’t their? Eggs are still going to be healthy, get over it. Sheesh
Ok…excellent breakdown on how the egg eaters and smokers were also the same sort of people who ignore all health recommendations like regular exercise and also eating a ton of junk food. Correlation is not causation and all that. It’s the same way “they” demonize red meat and saturated fat.
Now what about folks that eat healthy, exercise regularly and who also smoke?
I’d sure like to see an honest study done on that.
You describe me (65 yo) to a “T” – and all of my health markers (HDL, BP, Blood Sugar, etc.) are excellent. I’ve smoked a pack a day for 45 years and I can run circles around men half my age – I regularly play an hour’s worth of basketball with the 30-40 something crownd and never fall behind. Smoking is nothing for your health compared to diet – primal, low-carb, or some variation thereof is the only way (and that includes lots of egg yolks, raw and lightly cooked).
Cheers,
Don
Ole man next door to me is 76, eats eggs, bacon or sausage every single morning for breakfast. Eats hamburger or other meat for supper with soup – AND
smokes a pack a day or more of ciggs -he’s healthier than me – works outside all the time., and in 12 yrs i’ve been here i’ve never seen him sick with a cold! He eats very little carbs/starch.
He just eats simply. He inhales too! I give him my goose eggs cuz he loves em.,
and they are big and beautiful that i feel guilty eating them so i give em away.
I’m high-fivin’ you right now! Though I would never recommend that someone start smoking, I am so tired of the righteous non-smokers that drink soda, eat crap, take their meds and tell me that it’s the smoking that kills.
I don’t recommend eating crap, AND I don’t recommend smoking, either – some people get away with it, and most don’t. Smoking and healthycrapfood killed my parents, smoking killed my older brother, and is presently killing my younger brother, and will kill my sister. Me? I am damaged from 7 years of puffing, and I’m sure I shortened my life, before I got smart enough to quit.
Smoking remains the stupidist thing I ever chose to do.
Doesn’t make sense how 1 yolk extra a week would do that much damage. sounds like Bro science than any real testing.
Sigh. I wish I wasn’t allergic to eggs so I could indulge in their delicious, creamy gold goodness. All the rest of you are SO lucky!
Great info! I shall continue eating a dozen eggs a day, coddled eggs that is. The health benefits seem to be nothing less than astonishing!
What are coddled eggs? How do you make them?
I remember my mother having a set of egg coddlers when I was a kid, but I pulled the wiki explanation for ya.
There are two methods of coddling eggs. The first is to cook the egg in its shell, by immersing it in near-boiling water. This can be done either in a pan where the water is kept below boiling point, or by pouring boiling water over the egg and letting it stand for 10 minutes.
The second method is to use an egg coddler, porcelain cup or ramekin with a lid used similarly to a bain-marie. The inside of the egg coddler is first buttered in order to flavour the egg and allow it to be removed more easily. A raw egg (sometimes with additional flavourings) is then broken into the coddler, which is then placed in a pan of near-boiling water for 7-8 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coddled_egg
I collect egg coddlers! Particularly those made by Royal Worcester (check on eBay). They are beautiful!!! You butter the coddler, line it with thin strips of ham (I use Canadian bacon), crack open one or two eggs into the coddler (depending on what size coddler you have, add some grated cheddar cheese if you’d like, screw on the top and place the coddler in a pan of water so that the water level comes up about 2/3 of the way, and then boil for 8 to 10 minutes depending on how you like your eggs. Remove from the pan of water and serve them right in the coddler with a piece of toast. Eggs cooked this way are very tender when they are coddled and the word implies. You will want more than one coddler. I cook at least 3 at a time, 1 for me and 2 for Mr. Husband. Hope this answers your question.Cheers! DJ
“serve them right in the coddler with a piece of toast”
Or forgo the toast for more bacon
A dozen per day? Is that a typo?
Nope. A lot of people I know in real life that are seriously body builders can eat 12-16 eggs in a single day. If only my stomach could hold that much!
I saw the original article this morning and was not to happy about it. At least they did report the number of participants (TOO FEW TO MATTER) and the methodology (A JOKE). I get really tired of media reporting on studies that have no credibility. I really get upset when they don’t let you know what the source of the information is or they give you a source that does not appear to actually exist.
If you’re interested in owning chickens, check with your city/county/HOA to see if they’re permitted. We just got four adult laying hens (Bovan Browns) from an organic-certified farm at $12 each. They free range in the back yard, have a coop for roosting & laying, and we have total control over what goodness goes into the egg-making.
I hear ya on buying & housing them hens… Will do this once asap I resettle back in Calif. Thanks Cindy!
I hear ya on buying & housing them hens… Will do this asap I resettle back in Calif. Thanks Cindy!
I hear ya on buying & housing them hens… Will do this asap when I resettle back in Calif in Oct/Nov. Thanks Cindy!
OK, OK, we got it.
Lol.
SO fun to keep a few hens around. They will eat your healthy leftovers, provide you with golden yolked goodness, and yes, relax and entertain you too. It’s pretty easy to keep a few and many cities and suburbs do allow it.
They are also excellent control for grasshoppers, fireants, and scorpions!
And mice! Ever seen a chicken kill a mouse? Chickens like their protein too! Very sad death for the mouse, though. Death from a thousand pecks. It’s hillarious to watch a flock of hens chase the hen with the mouse in her beak. They all want a share.