Ask Dave: A Better Egg

Dear Dave,

I have been diagnosed with an allergy to eggs, wheat, and corn which makes it tricky to find foods without those ingredients.  My neighbor offered me some duck eggs which my doctor is not sure about.  Do you know if duck eggs cause the same reaction as chicken eggs?

 Ann, WI

Dear Ann,

While I am not a doctor nor can I offer diagnoses I do know a thing or two about chicken eggs and why they are causing more issues for people.

 Remember that you are what you eat – and chickens are what they eat.  The vast majority of commercial chicken feed relies heavily on corn and soy; both major inflammatory (ALLERGEN!) ingredients.  There is a good reason for this, chickens require a lot of energy to produce an egg a day.  Even ‘pastured’ chickens are fed supplemental feed to make the operation viable.

The alternative:  I am thrilled to be seeing a rapidly growing number of soy, wheat, and corn free eggs.  These DO cost more – and they should!  The producers are either using very expensive grain-free feed or the chickens are not yielding as many eggs.  When we’re looking at food prices, we need to consider what we are paying for.  Having personally grown food – including chickens – I am conscious of the level of hard work involved and I am willing to pay for it.  (side note: I think that much of what is wrong in our faux food industry culture is the high demand for cheap food.  This is not realistic for REAL food.  It is highly realistic for faux food.)

When buying local eggs I always ask what is in the feed, if I don’t like the answer I go egg-free.

Duck eggs can work for most people because of the way ducks eat, in other words they more closely resemble a wild animal with a stronger foraging instinct.  Their yolks tend to be a deeper  orange-yellow color which is from an insect (PROTEIN!) rich diet.  Ducks may still be fed the same commercial feed as chickens so it still is important to ask about their feed.

The image below, although an approximate guide, is accurate.  Beware the pale yolk!

Time to cook my corn, soy, GMO, and wheat free, pastured, well loved and sang-to chicken eggs for breakfast,

Dave