The quick take home from this can
be quite radical. I can now make an
excellent argument for the elimination of industrial eggs from direct human
consumption. The positive health value
of eating a fully organic egg is to valuable to society to not make it unavoidable.
Indirect use can go on quite reasonably
as those foods are been continuously tested and normally are not meant to be a
mainstay of the individual diet.
The other huge benefit is that we
redistribute chicken husbandry once again to satisfy this new market demand and
produce small farm revenue again. Of
course that may well be several thousand birds in a free range situation.
This may sound radical, but
society does care about the health of its citizens as that leads to
productivity.
Beyond that, the medical pseudo
science against egg consumption happens to a deliberate misinterpretation of
the data to push other agendas. It is a
case of allowing salesmen to make your choices.
This item hugely strengthens the argument
for organic foods generally, and some of that is quite suspect, in that it
discovers the huge direct value of an important natural nutrient concentrator. If the only natural food that you consume
happens to be eggs, then I suspect you will hit it out of the park.
Organic eggs
She burst into my office today with a stack of papers and folders.
I was on the phone, but I could see my friend A.N. just couldn’t wait
to talk to me.
So I put the person on hold, and it all started pouring out of her.
“Dr. Sears, Dr. Sears, we got the results!”
I helped A.N. convert her farm in Loxahatchee ,
Florida
Pretty soon, the hens she and her husband tend started producing the
most delicious eggs I had ever tasted. Then she started bringing them to my
staff by the dozen.
The containers disappear in about two minutes flat. She makes me and my
staff organic yogurt, too.
Not long after her eggs became such a big hit, I decided to have a
study done on them. We had a lab in Chicago
Turns out there’s more to eggs than protein and the right kind of fat.
They’re antioxidant powerhouses, too.
Protein from eggs is important, don’t get me wrong. Modern advice on
eggs is not to eat them at all, or at least to throw the yolk away because it
will kill you.
It’s a shame because eggs used to be the standard by which all other
proteins were measured.
The protein value of a food is measured on the BV (biological value)
scale. It tells you what percentage of a given nutrient source your body uses.
Since eggs were considered the best source of protein because your body
completely digests and uses them, they have a value of 100. A perfect score.
Soy, considered so “healthy” and full of protein by nutritionists and
conventional doctors, scores only a 47 on the BV scale. Whole wheat has a
protein score of only 49.
But there’s more going on with eggs than just protein.
But there’s more going on with eggs than just protein.
A new study from Canada shows that egg yolks, the part of the egg
you’re warned not to eat at any cost, doesn’t just have protein and minerals
like calcium and selenium, but it also has antioxidants.
The researchers discovered that two egg yolks have almost twice as much
antioxidant power as an apple, and about the same power as 25 grams of
cranberries.1
And the results from the lab tests A.N. brought me on her eggs show
they have even more antioxidants than the eggs from the Canadian study.
Her eggs are off the charts with omega-3s, antioxidant nutrients and
protein.
The organic eggs my staff and I eat have:
65% fewer carbs than a regular egg
10% more protein
20% more iron
72% more vitamin A
211% more of the vision-sharpening carotenoid called lutein and
zeaxanthin
319% more healthy omega-3s
1,664% more calcium2
You can tell right away organic eggs have more carotenoids because the
yolks are more yellow. It has a lot to do with the fact that A.N.’s hens are
allowed to run around in the warm sunshine instead of being caged up like
commercial chickens are.
When I go there I see them fly over the fences and roam all over her
farm, getting into everything. They scratch the dirt with their feet, flapping
their wings and clucking softly, just like nature intended them to. You get the
feeling they’re content.
You may not know this but modern hen farmers will tell you that their
hens are prone to ovary problems. I think it’s because they’re fed too much
soy. A.N. tells me hers have very few ovary problems since she stopped feeding
them soy.
And the chickens produce more eggs and the eggs are bigger, too.
So while I always recommend eating eggs for strong, healthy bones,
heart, muscles and a sharper mind, free-range organic eggs give you even more
benefit. We now know they’re antioxidant powerhouses that can improve your
vision, and fight inflammation.
Many grocery stores will have eggs marked as organic for sale. But it
makes me feel good to know where my food is coming from, and I don’t feel
comfortable buying eggs at the grocery store. I read one report where a few
“organic” egg sellers in California
I recommend getting to know a local organic egg producer yourself. If
you don’t have a local egg farmer or can’t find one, here are four resources
you can use to find free-range organic eggs:
www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard – the Cornucopia
Institute has an excellent list of the best organic egg producers in the
country
www.lionsgrip.com/farms.html – a list of how-to’s when
approaching a local farm to inquire about eggs and produce
www.localharvest.org/index.jsp – A complete index of
farms near you.
www.facebook.com – Lots of farmers want you to come
and buy their eggs, and many are on social media sites like Facebook waiting
for you to find them.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1 Nimalaratnea C., Lopes-Lutza D., Schiebera A and Wu J. "Free
aromatic amino acids in egg yolk show antioxidant properties." Food
Chemistry, November 2011, Volume 129, Issue 1, Pages 155-161.
2 Siliker Labs, Dec 23, 2010; Certificate of Analysis no. CHG-34190924-0.
3Butler
2 Siliker Labs, Dec 23, 2010; Certificate of Analysis no. CHG-34190924-0.
3
1 comment:
I've read that a good deal of modern soy is now genetically modified. Perhaps that's why chickens fed with soy have problems.
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