Eggs are a staple in almost every person’s diet. We eat them almost daily and for good reason as well, as they provide our bodies with plenty of nutrients that we wouldn’t otherwise receive. Not to mention the amount of protein these supply our body with.

However, recently individuals have started asking: Are poultry eggs healthy? The term poultry eggs, or broiler eggs both refer to the eggs laid by chickens.

Poultry eggs have come under fire recently for not being as nutrient rich as some of the other sources of protein available in the markets.

For us though, broiler eggs are still as healthy as they’ve always been and we’ve come up with a full article to convince you of that fact as well.

What is Broiler Egg?

A broiler egg is a type of poultry egg that comes from chickens who have been specifically raised to lay eggs in farms.

These chickens are known as broilers, so it would follow that the eggs they lay are known as broiler eggs. Broiler eggs are going to be the focal point of discussion in the rest of this article.

Are Broiler Eggs Safe to Eat?

The eggs you’ll find in most grocery stores around the world will have been laid by broiler chickens. Taking that into consideration, most broiler eggs around the world are absolutely safe to eat.

However, there are some regions where the demand for these eggs become too much to handle for the local farms which causes them to inject their chickens with hormones and antibiotics. Thus, making these eggs slightly dangerous to your health.

So, just make sure that you check where your eggs are coming from the next time you take a trip to your nearest grocery store.

Disadvantages of Broiler Eggs

Having confirmed that broiler eggs can indeed be dangerous to your health, let’s now take this time to tell you exactly how they can negatively affect your health, so that you know what to look out for.

Broiler Eggs Contains Drug Resistant Antibiotics

Broiler chickens are fed antibiotics to save them from any bacterial illnesses and death. As a consequence, this practice ends up speeding up the development of drug resistant microorganisms in both the broiler chickens and their eggs.

These microorganisms include bad bacteria like E.Coli and Enterobacteriaceae that are resistant to antibiotics. Humans feeding on these eggs can then lead to these drug resistant bacteria transferring into humans.

Once they’re in your body, they can be a true menace as they themselves can cause numerous diseases and still be resistant to any drugs you use to counter them.

In fact, diseases caused by drug resistant bacteria are one of biggest problems in society right now, so if you can, we’d advise avoiding eggs that come from broiler chickens

Broiler Eggs Interfere with Hormones

Some broiler eggs are also injected with hormones to increase their meat yield and the amount of eggs they can lay. However, as a side effect of this supplementation, consuming these eggs or broiler meat directly can cause a hormone disruption in humans.

That’s because these hormones are naturally passed to the eggs from the broiler chickens, which we then end up consuming.

These new hormones interfere with the hormones already working in your body which can result in issues in fertility, especially among women.

Broiler Egg Nutrition Facts – Are Poultry Eggs Healthy?

To provide you with a value for the exact amount of nutrition a broiler egg provides, we’ll be specifically discussing a large broiler egg that hasn’t been tampered with. Meaning it hasn’t been injected with antibiotics or hormones.

Here’s the amount of calories in one large broiler egg: 72 Calories. Here’s the breakdown:

Fat: 5 grams

Protein: 6 grams

Carbs: Less than 1 gram

Choline: 31% of the daily value

Selenium: 28% of the daily value

Vitamin B12: 21% of the daily value

Vitamin B2: 16% of the daily value

Vitamin D: 6% of the daily value

Iron: 5% of the daily value

Broiler eggs supply us with high quality protein alongside many important minerals and vitamins. In fact, eggs are one of the only foods that supply our body with vitamin D, the rest of it we get from bathing in the sunlight during the day.

Another important trace mineral found in broiler eggs in selenium. This mineral is important for maintaining our reproductive health and increasing production of the thyroid hormone.

Something we haven’t mentioned in the above nutritional breakdown is that eggs also contain two important carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin. These carotenoids act as antioxidants preventing your cells from being attacked by free radicals.

Additionally, they also protect your eyes from damage and from dangerous conditions like cataracts and macular degeneration.

Is Broiler Egg Good for Hair?

Ordinary broiler eggs that have not come from broiler chickens that have been injected with antibiotics or hormones can be quite beneficial for your hair.

That’s because eggs themselves are great sources of protein and can act as conditioners for your hair. Strengthening and increasing their growth rate to give you long, flowing hair.

Additionally, eggs also contain vitamins like niacin and riboflavin that help out in this regard as well. Egg whites are also considered as the perfect treatment for oily hair, moisturizing and removing all the oil from your hair.

Also, egg yolks specifically also contain sulfur, a critical component when it comes to hair growth. Despite all of these benefits it’s still important for you to know that eggs don’t necessarily stop or prevent hair loss.

There is some research being conducted on if eggs are capable of this. But until those results come in, we’re going to stick with what the current research says, that it can’t.

Final Thoughts

That’s all we have for you folks when it comes to our answer to the question: Are poultry eggs healthy? All in all, poultry eggs provide plenty of health benefits due to their rich protein, mineral and vitamin content.

However, some poultry farms do partake in the practice of injecting antibiotics and hormones in the broiler chickens that lay these eggs to increase their egg laying capacity. Which can be quite harmful for your health if you end up eating those eggs.

Thus, we’d advise you to carefully pick and choose where you buy your eggs from to protect your health from these substances.

For more information on exactly how to do that and on how to incorporate eggs into your diet, we’d suggest booking an appointment with Ayesha Nasir, one of the leading nutritionists and dieticians in Pakistan.