Clemson/ USDA Egg Safety Fact Sheet

I never thought much about how pen-raising and artificial feeds changed the eggs chickens produced until I spent a summer feeding ground-running chickens a cracked-grain feed and eating the eggs they laid in return. They have a different color, texture, and flavor than the typical "store-bought" type. Fresh fertile eggs from organic vegetable feeds, sold in some healthfood stores and neighborhood farms, are pretty widely available now, and the taste alone is worth the extra cost. Of course they also have nutritional benefits, not the least of which is it a lack of antibiotics and pesticides.

Many people have severely cut back their egg-eating with an idea that eggs increase cholesterol problems. Eggs, like many dairy products, also contain a substantial amount of the compounds your body needs to break down cholesterol. The most recent studies indicate that except for certain genetically sensitive families, arterial problems and heart disease are much more closely associated with lack of exercise, decreased fiber in the diet, and high intake of refined carbohydrates such as white sugar, rather than with fat intake alone. In fact, some primitive tribes that consume highly saturated-fat diets show little or no heart disease until they are introduced to carbohydrate foods. So, unless your doctor specifically deletes eggs from your diet, you can use this high quality, high protein inexpensive food frequently, as long as you live and eat healthy, including plenty of fruits and vegetables in your diet.