Eggs?

[Lou]

I'm an ethical vegan. and one of the first things I stopped eating was eggs. Not because they are bad for you but because I felt bad for chickens (and I don't even like chickens).
So I never really cared about how healthy eggs are. I know the standard vegan lines. Cholesterol bombs, more sat fat than a burger, linked to cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Salmonella. But that is about all I know.
So last week I was challenged by a very nice senior citizen who believed eggs were great and had a lot more facts than I. So today I went online to look stuff up. And it looks like Pro Egg articles outnumber Anti Egg stories by like 50 to 1. Like this one.
I know that the Egg Board is super well funded and powerful, but is it possible that eggs are actually good for you?
Now don't worry, I'm not going to start eating eggs no matter what. I'm just wondering if I'm naive concerning eggs.

 

[Forest Nymph]

From what I understand it's not healthy to eat more than two eggs a week. If someone is starving or malnourished eggs do have a concentration of fat and nutrients so that if you combined it with rice or toast and maybe a nice glass of orange juice, the bioavailability of those nutrients would be more convenient than serving a variety of foods and it's more digestible and has more nutrients than meat.

But back to two eggs a week...it can't be THAT good for you if the cholesterol is so high that you can pretty much have them one meal per week.

I think in places where variety is scarce the health angle is more applicable. Where people literally fear malnutrition or for logistical reasons can't be vegan.

I don't think eggs or milk are "more cruel" than systemically murdering animals trapped in small cages for their short lives. Part of what makes dairy cruel is meat, specifically veal, not the milk itself. I know people who have backyard chickens for eggs who are literally pets, no male chicks are ground up, and the chickens roam freely and are fed produce scraps as well as feed. You can even feed their shells back to them.

Vegetarianism is always better than eating meat. It's not ideal but there is a way to eat eggs with minimal cruelty. The problem is many vegetarians still buy factory farmed products.

 

[Lou]

I googled how many eggs can you eat in a week and got 7 to 21. The only report that said to limit it to 2 a week was for people who were "high risk". One report said for optimum health you should have six a week.

I feel like something is very wrong.

 

[hopeful]

I had a conversation with my dad a few weeks ago about veganism being healthy and how "you don't hear much about how healthy eggs are" (for example). He said he has been hearing that eggs are healthy. I am not sure, as I didn't look it up.

I'm an ethical vegan too, so it doesn't matter too much to me personally, but it's an interesting topic to discuss!

 

[TofuRobot]

I'm pretty sure Dr. Greger and Dr. Barnard have plenty to say about how "healthy" they are...

 

[Nekodaiden]

I'm pretty sure Dr. Greger and Dr. Barnard have plenty to say about how "healthy" they are...

Pfft. Science.

Iamright.com always holds the truth as consensus opinion is always truth. Just look at the number of vegans worldwide

 

[Forest Nymph]

I doubt very seriously that the 21 eggs report is correct. To me that suggests keto, paleo or some other low carb con job. Or a push from the factory farmed egg industry.

Our government also recommends three servings of dairy per day and that only came about during a milk surplus after WWII. Before then it was only two. So it was economic not medical.

If there's any source that's credible I'd guess it's in Asian cultures where people live long lives and eat a majority plant based diet. If you go get fresh ramen in LA from an authentic place and you're not vegan they only give you half a boiled egg, so that to me suggests a standard much lower than 21 eggs per week.

The health angle only interests me because I know eggs can be less cruel and less damaging to the environment than dairy so I'm curious about ovi-vegetarian diets in developing countries or off grid living scenarios.

 

[Emma JC]

This I copied and pasted from bitesize vegan's website - if you wish to see the whole article, click here:

....But let’s say your friend knows their chicken stuff and has the finances and land. Is it okay to take the eggs then?

What not everyone knows is that chickens will cannibalize their own eggs. This is an important practice that returns vital nutrients to their system lost with egg production. Making an egg is a serious endeavor involving an extreme loss of calcium and pressure on the hen’s body.

This is part of why hens in the egg industry die so early. In addition, taking a hens egg away sense the signal to her body to make a replacement. So the more eggs we take away the more she’ll produce, thus continually depleting her body.

If your friend’s hens don’t seem interested in eating the egg, they can always crack it a little, which usually let’s the hen know it’s not going to turn in to a baby and is available for eating. This is something I did when I volunteered at SASHA Farm Animal Sanctuary. And trust me, there was nothing left.

But what if your friend has cracked the egg and the hens still won’t eat it. Can they then, finally, serve it up over easy, despite, of course, the health consequences? Isn’t an omelets ethical at this point?

Here’s what it comes done to. Hens do not make eggs for us. They are not ours.....

------

Not making a judgment, just providing information. No eggs for me, though.

Emma JC

 

[Lou]

@Emma JC
Right. I know eggs aren't ethical. I'm just looking for some understanding about their health consequences. It seems like everyone from CNN to Time to Newsweek to AHA think they are god's gift to humankind. I kind of doubt that but I'm looking for some evidence that they are as bad as I think they are.

It might be beside the point. As vegans, we don't eat eggs even if they are "healthy". they certainly aren't essential or necessary. I'm just looking for something to say to that nice old lady who is convinced that eating eggs is good for her.

Or maybe I should just be satisfied with, "but what about the chickens?"

 

[ap1989]

Eggs (particulally egg whites) are good for you and can be part of a healthy diet if you aren’t vegan. We avoid them for ethical reasons not health reasons.
Vegans who try and tell you they are bad for you are just trying to convince the world (and themselves) that every single thing that isn’t vegan has to be bad for your health as well.

 

[Forest Nymph]

This I copied and pasted from bitesize vegan's website - if you wish to see the whole article, click here:

....But let’s say your friend knows their chicken stuff and has the finances and land. Is it okay to take the eggs then?

What not everyone knows is that chickens will cannibalize their own eggs. This is an important practice that returns vital nutrients to their system lost with egg production. Making an egg is a serious endeavor involving an extreme loss of calcium and pressure on the hen’s body.

This is part of why hens in the egg industry die so early. In addition, taking a hens egg away sense the signal to her body to make a replacement. So the more eggs we take away the more she’ll produce, thus continually depleting her body.

If your friend’s hens don’t seem interested in eating the egg, they can always crack it a little, which usually let’s the hen know it’s not going to turn in to a baby and is available for eating. This is something I did when I volunteered at SASHA Farm Animal Sanctuary. And trust me, there was nothing left.

But what if your friend has cracked the egg and the hens still won’t eat it. Can they then, finally, serve it up over easy, despite, of course, the health consequences? Isn’t an omelets ethical at this point?

Here’s what it comes done to. Hens do not make eggs for us. They are not ours.....

------

Not making a judgment, just providing information. No eggs for me, though.

Emma JC

None of what you said matters in the slightest in a developing village in Ghana or in an off grid self sustainable community. Some people literally cannot be vegan and we will see world vegetarianism before we see world veganism.

What I take issue with is the preposterous argument some people make (not you) that eggs and dairy are inherently crueller than meat. While this is debatable on factory farms, on small subsistence farms the opposite is obviously true, chickens and goats can be loved and well taken care for. It is the capitalist industrial system that makes it debatable, not meat versus eggs itself.

Chickens who are well fed and get apple cores and ground up shells in their feed don't need to cannibalize their own eggs. Just like well fed humans don't need animal products.

I am vegan but my background is in science and I'm interested in global solutions that actually work in reality with the least harm.

 

[Lou]

What I take issue with is the preposterous argument some people make (not you) that eggs and dairy are inherently crueller than meat. While this is debatable on factory farms, on small subsistence farms the opposite is obviously true, chickens and goats can be loved and well taken care for. It is the capitalist industrial system that makes it debatable, not meat versus eggs itself.

Yes. I absolutely agree.
However, in defense of myself, I started becoming vegan after learning about the dairy industry. I stopped drinking milk even before I stopped eating meat. My reasoning back then (and granted it was naive and poorly informed) was that dairy was crueler than meat because beef cattle got to live a few years unmolested, eating grass outside, while dairy cattle spent most of their lives eating grains, indoors and strapped to milking machines.
And yes, I was only considering modern factory farming practices.

But I do understand what you are talking about when it comes to sustainable communities. I have very fond memories of the Little House on The Prarie. And my first impression of farming was the image of Mary Ingles going out each morning to milk the cow while Laura went to collect eggs. The cow (was her name Bessie?) spent the day grazing in the back 40, and the chickens spend their days eating bugs in the garden. Except for when they got in the kitchen and caused problems for Caroline.

 

[Nekodaiden]

People tend to either romanticize or laud the unhealthy things they put into their bodies. I just heard it recently at Christmas – where a giant prawn/lobster or whatever sea bug it was was called “the food of the gods”. How much can I roll my eyes.

If asked, I’m sure those partaking could go do an internet search, find all the minerals and vitamins it contains, add impressive adjectives to those and out of hand dismiss the negatives as if they were mere things that vegans say and hold no truth.

Same thing done here. There is nothing special about eggs in terms of nutrients that cannot be obtained from plant sources, eating them will foster the animal flesh munching bacteria in the gut that will crave animal products and you’ll get all the negative health consequences tied to the amount you consume.

This is an interesting exploration of the reason they can’t be marketed as healthy or nutritious by people wanting to use government money to do so:

 

[Lou]

@Nekodaiden

Thanks. I actually knew most of that. And I guess all I have to do is tell my senior citizen egg eater that they are not safe, they are not nutritious, and they are not healthy, According to the USDA. Basically its all the slogans I already knew: Cholesterol bombs, more sat fat than a burger, linked to cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Salmonella.

But then why does CNN, Time, Newsweek, the AHA, and like 100 other source all say you should eat eggs? Oh, I guess its because the egg industry advertises or donates to these corporations and Organizations. Just like they said in What the Health.
So what if I found someone who ate 21 eggs a week and almost died of a heart attack. Could I sue these guys? Class action suit? Like how about everyone who ever had a heart attack and ate eggs every week?

I guess this just shows how powerful these guys are. When I googled "are eggs healthy" all I got were articles about how good eggs are. That they got a bad rap. etc. Even me, already biased against eggs, intelligent, and skeptical was starting to think that maybe eggs aren't so bad.
Gosh, Trump was right. These guys are fake news.

 

[Emma JC]

And just to pile on... not sure if you have seen this 3 minute video comparing eating eggs to smoking cigarettes...?

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/eggs-vs-cigarettes-in-atherosclerosis/

Emma JC

 

[Lou]

Yeah. I remember when the original study came out. And everyone was against eggs. but then the articles started coming out that eggs got a bad rap. And now that study is buried under tons of newer studies showing eggs are "good".

 

[Emma JC]

"Good" but not healthy or nutritional and, worst of all, not even 'safe' and should never be cooked with a runny yolk or white. ugh - I always severely disliked runny eggs and am so happy not to eat them anymore.

Emma JC

 

[Lou]

Man! I wish I could say I was swearing off eggs forever. but I already have.

 

[mavrick45]

had some Just Egg this weekend. phenomenal!

now only if it weren't so expen$ive

 

[TofuRobot]

But then why does CNN, Time, Newsweek, the AHA, and like 100 other source all say you should eat eggs? Oh, I guess its because the egg industry advertises or donates to these corporations and Organizations. Just like they said in What the Health.

Exactly.