Gluten-Free Eggs

[Ehag]

On 8/3/2014 at 1:27 PM, QuirkyVeganGirl said:

I was a vegan before I gave up gluten, and it is proving to be very difficult to be both gluten free and vegan. I'm considering reintroducing eggs, but I've read that people who are super-sensitive like me can sometimes react to eggs if the hens were fed gluten. Have any of you found that there some truth to this? If so, do any of you know of any brands that feed their egg-layng hens a gluten-free vegetarian diet?

My daughter is extremely sensitive to certain eggs. She can only eat eggs from chickens that don’t eat feed with gluten. “Nellies” eggs do not bother her at all!! Look them up. Good luck

[GFSteveGF]

Suffered with this for years. Personally found a strict diet that worked for me and was relieved of most symptoms. Really loved eggs and was bummed that I couldn't tolerate them. A year or two ago I read this forum and didn't know what to think after reading most (not all) of the chain because as you can see, I like typing, not reading ;). 

But after not getting enough calories (I do physical labor) I thought I'd try eggs again and still the same result, but then I tried another brand of eggs and bam.. no symptoms. 

I thought, ok, well that's weird, here I thought I had an egg allergy, but clearly I do not if brand xyz isn't affecting me (and I've been eating them everyday for the past year now with no ill effects, have tried other brands since, some affect me, some don't affect me). 

Then one day while looking over crazy offgrid youtube videos because that is entertainment to me (rocket stoves, solar stuff, etc) I saw an offgrid family throwing feed out to their chickens and I thought, hmmm. Wonder if that feed gets on the outside of the eggs? Then I searched modern day chicken/egg farms, and saw videos of chickens stacked vertically in cages with 3 conveyor belts (feed, egg, and feather/poop belts), and I noticed that the feed belt was literally directly over the egg belt! and thought, hmmm. (attached just a random video so you can get a visual of what I'm talking about for modern day vertical egg farm thingie). 

Then I found out that in the USA eggs need to be refrigerated because we wash our eggs and that egg shells are actually porous to bacteria, etc. (in the olden days you could grab a fresh chicken egg from the ground, and if it were clean you could put it in "defraged or dethatched? or something? lyme or lye"??? or something like that and 100% of them would stay good for about 8 months, no refrigeration needed. But once washed they need refrigerated apparently. Again, no expert here, just parroting an 1800s youtube guy on that one and figured he'd know better than me on egg historical storage :P. I digress.. 

So, my uneducated conclusion is that it probably isn't the gluten going through the chicken into the egg, but it may not just be an egg allergy either. But rather the dust going onto the outside of the egg shell during feeding? OR (and this is where I need help from those smarter than me, ie most people) or the washed wheat particles are dissolving and going through the eggshell and into the egg since the egg shell is porous? is that possible? or would the dissolved particles be too big? Well, if too big, then possibly still a ton of wheat on the outside of the shell if the hens are being fed any gluten/wheat/whatever products, right? wrong? I dunno. 

Anyway, again, no clue what I'm talking about here. BUT I personally am able to eat SOME eggs again without issue and wanted to share my own personal experience (again, not a doctor, not recommending, just sharing my personal experience so that others MAY be helped as well).

I've also noticed that not all "gluten free" labeling appears to be good for me personally. Don't want to call out manufacturers or anything. But just be cautious. My best advice from my experience, strip it all out. Eat really strict on gluten-free items you are very sure are not affecting you. Once you feel better, add in ONE thing, wait a week. If it didn't affect you, on to the next (only gluten-free items of course). Soon you will build up a menu of personal items that you can eat everyday. But as manufacturing changes, companies are bought out, etc you may need to adjust if you are not feeling well again as nothing ever stays the same in this world.

Anyway, that's what I did and went from years of diarrhea and side pains to actually feeling quite normal a very high percentage of the time now. And I used to think "no pizza or real bread for the rest of my life!!" and now it's just like "meh, whatever, I'm alive, I'm eating, and I'm not in pain". I had to learn to count my blessings. 

UPDATE: Shoot, need to edit, forgot to answer her main question even though old post. The main one I eat is Costco brown cage free 24 pack eggs. They do not give "me personally" any issues at all, for over a year now, again others results may vary... 

Sorry for the long post. I do not have the ability to concisely communicate, always been a problem of mine. Sincere apologies. 

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by GFSteveGF
forgot to answer type of egg that I found works for me personally

[cyclinglady]

Eggs do not contain gluten.  You can have allergies or intolerances to eggs.  I did.  But with healing, I was able to introduce eggs back into my diet.  I consume an average of at least a egg a day.  Every single day.  That does not count baking either.  There is a possibility of a gluten exposure of you are raising chickens and if the feed contains gluten containing grains.  

I healed, but what does that mean?  I had a repeat endoscopy and biopsies which revealed complete healing while consuming eggs and eliminating gluten from my diet.  

@GFSteveGF interesting information about eggs.  The UK and the US have very different stances.  While the US washed eggs can be more be porous, gluten is just too large to enter based on my research.  

Glad you are doing well on the gluten-free diet!  

[GFinDC]

Hi GFSteveGF,

I wonder if you've tried eggs from free-range chickens?  I am curious if they work better for you.  The chicken video you posted didn't show any washing process for the eggs.  I doubt they are not washing them tho.  I have chickens and they lay clean eggs but also dirty eggs.  Silly chickens!   So I wash them before using them.  I think you'd find that most people wash them who are going to sell eggs commercially.  Some people on small farms don't wash them while storing them.  The reason they don't is there is a film on the egg shell that protects it from dying out.  So if you wash them they don't keep as long.  They get dehydrated faster.

One thing I noticed in the video is that many of the chickens seem to have wilted, floppy combs.  That isn't normal for my chickens at least.  I only have one rooster who has a floppy comb (Frenchie).  The others combs stand up straight.  But my chickens are free range so they eat better food than those factory chickens.  They also get a wider variety of food.  From my reading it seems leghorns do tend to have floppy combs tho.  Those look like leghorn chickens.  Their combs look pale to me.  That could be lack of sunshine causing that.  I have some red neck roosters that start out with pale neck skin when young but it turns red after they are in the sun for a few weeks.  Their combs are darker red than the leghorns in the video.

If you try free range eggs I think you'll like them.  They often have much darker yellow yolks than factory eggs.  They also don't eat as much soy as factory chickens, which is good IMHO.

Here's an article on egg nutrition.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/pastured-vs-omega-3-vs-conventional-eggs